“I—what do I want? Oh, I am satisfied with little. I only want that old woman there in your sledge, Miss Anna.”
“Satan, tempter,” cries Anna, “leave me! Shall I betray an old friend who relies on me? Shall I leave her to you, that you may torture her to madness?”
“There, there, there; quietly, Miss Anna! Think what you are doing! Here is a fine young man, and there an old, worn-out woman. One of them I must have. Which of them will you let me keep?”
“Do you think that we can stand here and exchange souls as they exchange horses at the market at Broby?”
“Just so, yes. But if you will, we shall put it on another basis. We shall think of the honor of the Stjärnhöks.”
Thereupon he begins to call in a loud voice to his wife, who is sitting in Anna’s sledge; and, to the girl’s unspeakable horror, she obeys the summons instantly, gets out of the sledge, and comes, trembling and shaking, to them.
“See, see, see!—such an obedient wife,” says Sintram. “You cannot prevent her coming when her husband calls. Now, I shall lift Gösta out of my sledge and leave him here,—leave him for good, Miss Anna. Whoever may want to can pick him up.”
He bends down to lift Gösta up; but Anna leans forward, fixes him with her eyes, and hisses like an angry animal:—
“In God’s name, go home! Do you not know who is sitting in the rocking-chair in the drawing-room and waiting for you? Do you dare to let him wait?”
It was for Anna almost the climax of the horrors of the day to see how these words affect him. He drags on the reins, turns, and drives homewards, urging the horse to a gallop with blows and wild cries down the dreadful hill, while a long line of sparks crackle under the runners and hoofs in the thin March snow.
Anna Stjärnhök and Ulrika Dillner stand alone in the road, but they do not say a word. Ulrika trembles before Anna’s wild eyes, and Anna has nothing to say to the poor old thing, for whose sake she has sacrificed her beloved.
She would have liked to weep, to rave, to roll on the ground and strew snow and sand on her head.
Before, she had known the sweetness of renunciation, now she knew its bitterness. What was it to sacrifice her love compared to sacrificing her beloved’s soul? They drove on to Berga in the same silence; but when they arrived, and the hall-door was opened, Anna Stjärnhök fainted for the first and only time in her life. There sat both Sintram and Gösta Berling, and chatted quietly. The tray with toddy had been brought in; they had been there at least an hour.