Alas, that such misery can reach one, who but lately stood so high! It is so easy to be plunged into the deepest suffering! Should we not fear life? Who sails in a safe craft? Round about us swell sorrows like a heaving ocean; see how the hungry waves lick the ship’s sides, see how they rage up over her. Ah, no safe anchorage, no solid ground, no steady ship, as far as the eye can see; only an unknown sky over an ocean of sorrow!
But hush! At last, at last! A light step comes through the hall.
“Is it mother?” asked Marianne.
“Yes, my child.”
“May I come in now?”
“Father will not let you come in.”
“I have run in the snow-drifts in my thin shoes all the way from Ekeby. I have stood here an hour and knocked and called. I am freezing to death out here. Why did you drive away and leave me?”
“My child, my child, why did you kiss Gösta Berling?”
“But father must have seen that I do not like him for that. It was in fun. Does he think that I will marry Gösta?”
“Go to the gardener’s house, Marianne, and beg that you pass the night there. Your father is drunk. He will not listen to reason. He has kept me a prisoner up there. I crept out when I thought he was asleep. He will kill me, if you come in.”