Down Broby hill Don Juan speeds towards the Löfven’s ice-covered surface. The proud courser flies on. Strong, ice-cold breezes whistle by their cheeks. The bells jingle. The stars and the moon are shining. The snow lies blue-white and glitters from its own brightness.
Gösta feels poetical thoughts wake in him.
“Beerencreutz,” he says, “this is life. Just as Don Juan hurries away with this young woman, so time hurries away with man. You are necessity, who steers the journey. I am desire, who fetters the will, and she is dragged helpless, always deeper and deeper down.”
“Don’t talk!” cries Beerencreutz. “They are coming after us.”
And with a whistling cut of the whip he urges Don Juan to still wilder speed.
“Once it was wolves, now it is spoils,” cries Gösta. “Don Juan, my boy, fancy that you are a young elk. Rush through the brushwood, wade through the swamps, leap from the mountain top down into the clear lake, swim across it with bravely lifted head, and vanish, vanish in the thick pine-woods’ rescuing darkness! Spring, Don Juan! Spring like a young elk!”
Joy fills his wild heart at the mad race. The cries of the pursuers are to him a song of victory. Joy fills his wild heart when he feels the countess’s body shake with fright, when he hears her teeth chatter.
Suddenly he loosens the grip of iron with which he has held her. He stands up in the sledge and waves his cap.
“I am Gösta Berling,” he cries, “lord of ten thousand kisses and thirteen thousand love-letters! Hurra for Gösta Berling! Take him who can!”
And in the next minute he whispers in the countess’s ear:—
“Is not the pace good? Is not the course kingly? Beyond Löfven lies Lake Väner. Beyond Väner lies the sea, everywhere endless stretches of clear blue-black ice, and beyond all a glowing world. Rolling thunders in the freezing ice, shrill cries behind us, shooting stars above us, and jingling bells before us! Forward! Always forward! Have you a mind to try the journey, young, beautiful lady?”
He had let her go. She pushes him roughly away. The next instant finds him on his knees at her feet.
“I am a wretch, a wretch. You ought not to have angered me, countess. You stood there so proud and fair, and never thought that a pensioner’s hand could reach you. Heaven and earth love you. You ought not to add to the burden of those whom heaven and earth scorn.”