And now she had only herself to fall back on if they were to keep body and soul together out there at Järnö. Soon everything was eaten up again and Tord would not go to the shops. And when she herself was going to set out in the skiff he had hidden the oars. She became so desperate that she sat down alone on the pier and howled like a wild animal. Then she remembered she had one more refuge and that was her red blanket. She had arranged once with the storekeeper that if they were in distress she was to hang out a big red rug in the window of the big house. And then he would take the motor boat and bring food to them. She had not much hope; she sat for an eternity out on the cliff only staring out over the water to see if the signal worked. On the third day a motor boat actually rounded the point and so their distress was staved off for that time. This had happened last autumn. The winter was cruel. They had no longer anybody to carry wood and water. Dagmar became ill from all the drudgery. For two months they were isolated when the ice would neither break nor bear. At last the ice froze properly everywhere except over an under current.
But then the peasants smashed up the yacht which was lying in the steamer track through the ice, and then it was impossible to get across as they were too weak to drag out another boat. People had begun to damage everything of Tord’s that they could lay hands on, nets, piers, boats; so hated was he now. And Tord no longer swore and raged. He only walked about like a dumb animal for days and weeks together. And about that time the lamp oil also ran out, so that they had to sit there in the darkness in the evenings after the logs in the fireplace had burnt out. So they sat there in the dark and dared not let each other go and still they couldn’t help nagging. She was ill, and she wanted to die merely to annoy him. And he tried to keep quiet until she should go mad.
“Yes, this has been a terribly long winter,” said Dagmar, “a terribly long winter.”
After which she was quiet for a moment and sat there rocking her head and staring straight in front of her.
Laura had risen from the table and stood warming her back at the open fireplace:
“But why, in God’s name, woman, why have you not left him long ago?” she exclaimed.
Dagmar started. It seemed as if she had been cruelly torn out of the voluptuous intoxication of at last shouting out her misery.
“Why didn’t I leave him?” she mumbled; “it must be because I am mad, because he has infected me, because I have not spoken to a woman for years. But now there must be an end. Now I must get away. Fancy, I was quite young when I came here! Quite young and pretty! And look what he has made of me now!”
She tore her frock open and showed her thin neck and shrunken chest.
“Yes, that’s how I am now. I must get away. I must come with you to town. He says he will shoot me if I run away—but that doesn’t matter. I can’t live another winter out here anyhow.”