VI + 

Ingrid and Anna Stina were walking through the dark forest. They had been walking for four days, and had slept three nights in the Säter huts. Ingrid was weak and weary; her face was transparently pale; her eyes were sunken, and shone feverishly. Old Anna Stina now and then secretly cast an anxious look at her, and prayed to God that He would sustain her so that she might not die by the wayside. Now and then the old woman could not help looking behind her with uneasiness. She had an uncomfortable feeling that the old man with his scythe came stealthily after them through the forest to reclaim the young girl who, both by the word of God and the casting of earth upon her, had been consecrated to him. + 

Old Anna Stina was little and broad, with a large, square face, which was so intelligent that it was almost good-looking. She was not superstitious⁠—she lived quite alone in the midst of the forest without being afraid either of witches or evil spirits⁠—but as she walked there by the side of Ingrid she felt as distinctly as if someone had told her that she was walking beside a being who did not belong to this world. She had had that sensation ever since she had found Ingrid lying in her house that Monday morning. + 

Anna Stina had not returned home on the Sunday evening, for down at the Parsonage the Pastor’s wife had been taken very ill, and Anna Stina, who was accustomed to nurse sick people, had stayed to sit up with her. The whole night she had heard the Pastor’s wife raving about Ingrid’s having appeared to her; but that the old woman had not believed. And when she returned home the next day and found Ingrid, the old woman would at once have gone down to the Parsonage again to tell them that it was not a ghost they had seen; but when she had suggested this to Ingrid, it had affected her so much that she dared not do it. It was as if the little life which burnt in her would be extinguished, just as the flame of a candle is put out by too strong a draught. She could have died as easily as a little bird in its cage. Death was prowling around her. There was nothing to be done but to nurse her very tenderly and deal very gently with her if her life was to be preserved. + 

The old woman hardly knew what to think of Ingrid. Perhaps she was a ghost; there seemed to be so little life in her. She quite gave up trying to talk her to reason. There was nothing else for it but giving in to her wishes that no one should hear anything about her being alive. And then the old woman tried to arrange everything as wisely as possible. She had a sister who was housekeeper on a large estate in Dalarne, and she made up her mind to take Ingrid to her, and persuade her sister, Stafva, to give the girl a situation at the Manor House. Ingrid would have to be content with being simply a servant. There was nothing else for it. + 

They were now on their way to the Manor House. Anna Stina knew the country so well that they were not obliged to go by the high road, but could follow the lonely forest paths. But they had also undergone much hardship. Their shoes were worn and in pieces, their skirts soiled and frayed at the bottom, and a branch had torn a long rent in Ingrid’s sleeve. + 

On the evening of the fourth day they came to a hill from which they could look down into a deep valley. In the valley was a lake, and near the edge of the lake was a high, rocky island, upon which stood a large white building. When Anna Stina saw the house, she said it was called Munkhyttan, and that it was there her sister lived. + 

They made themselves as tidy as they could on the hillside. They arranged the handkerchiefs which they wore on their heads, dried their shoes with moss, and washed themselves in a forest stream, and Anna Stina tried to make a fold in Ingrid’s sleeve so that the rent could not be seen. + 

The old woman sighed when she looked at Ingrid, and quite lost courage. It was not only that she looked so strange in the clothes she had borrowed from Anna Stina, and which did not at all fit her, but her sister Stafva would never take her into her service, she looked so wretched and pitiful. It was like engaging a breath of wind. The girl could be of no more use than a sick butterfly. + 

As soon as they were ready, they went down the hill to the lake. It was only a short distance. Then they came to the land belonging to the Manor House. + 

Was that a country house? + 

There were large neglected fields, upon which the forest encroached more and more. There was a bridge leading on to the island, so shaky that they hardly thought it would keep together until they were safely over. There was an avenue leading from the bridge to the main building, covered with grass, like a meadow, and a tree which had been blown down had been left lying across the road. + 

The island was pretty enough, so pretty that a castle might very well have been built there. But nothing but weeds grew in the garden, and in the large park the trees were choking each other, and black snakes glided over the green, wet walks. + 

Anna Stina felt uneasy when she saw how neglected everything was, and went along mumbling to herself: “What does all this mean? Is Stafva dead? How can she stand everything looking like this? Things were very different thirty years ago, when I was last here. What in the world can be the matter with Stafva?” She could not imagine that there could be such neglect in any place where Stafva lived. + 

Ingrid walked behind her, slowly and reluctantly. The moment she put her foot on the bridge she felt that there were not two walking there, but three. Someone had come to meet her there, and had turned back to accompany her. Ingrid heard no footsteps, but he who accompanied them appeared indistinctly by her side. She could see there was someone. + 

She became terribly afraid. She was just going to beg Anna Stina to turn back and tell her that everything seemed so strange here that she dare not go any further. But before she had time to say anything, the stranger came quite close to her, and she recognised him. Before, she only saw him indistinctly; now she saw him so clearly that she could see it was the student. + 

It no longer seemed weird and ghostlike that he walked there. It was only strangely delightful that he came to receive her. It was as if it were he who had brought her there, and would, by coming to welcome her, show that it was. + 

He walked with her over the bridge, through the avenue, quite up to the main building. + 

She could not help turning her head every moment to the left. It was there she saw his face, quite close to her cheek. It was really not a face that she saw, only an unspeakably beautiful smile that drew tenderly near her. But if she turned her head quite round to see it properly, it was no longer there. No, there was nothing one could see distinctly. But as soon as she looked straight before her, it was there again, quite close to her. + 

Her invisible companion did not speak to her, he only smiled. But that was enough for her. It was more than enough to show her that there was one in the world who kept near her with tender love. + 

She felt his presence as something so real, that she firmly believed he protected her and watched over her. And before this happy consciousness vanished all the despair which her adopted mother’s hard words had called forth. + 

Ingrid felt herself again given back to life. She had the right to live, as there was one who loved her. + 

And this was why she entered the kitchen at Munkhyttan with a faint blush on her cheeks, and with radiant eyes, fragile, weak, and transparent, but sweet as a newly-opened rose. + 

She still went about as if in a dream, and did not know much about where she was; but what surprised her so much that it nearly awakened her was to see a new Anna Stina standing by the fireplace. She stood there, little and broad, with a large, square face, exactly like the other. But why was she so fine, with a white cap with strings tied in a large bow under her chin, and with a black bombazine dress? Ingrid’s head was so confused, that it was some time before it occurred to her that this must be Miss Stafva. + 

She felt that Anna Stina looked uneasily at her, and she tried to pull herself together and say “Good day.” But the only thing her mind could grasp was the thought that he had come to her. + 

Inside the kitchen there was a small room, with blue-checked covering on the furniture. They were taken into that room, and Miss Stafva gave them coffee and something to eat. + 

Anna Stina at once began to talk about their errand. She spoke for a long time; said that she knew her sister stood so high in her ladyship’s favour that she left it to her to engage the servants. Miss Stafva said nothing, but she gave a look at Ingrid as much as to say that it would hardly have been left with her if she had chosen servants like her. + 

Anna Stina praised Ingrid, and said she was a good girl. She had hitherto served in a parsonage, but now that she was grown up she wanted really to learn something, and that was why Anna Stina had brought her to one who could teach her more than any other person she knew. + 

Miss Stafva did not reply to this remark either. But her glance plainly showed that she was surprised that anyone who had had a situation in a parsonage had no clothes of her own, but was obliged to borrow old Anna Stina’s. + 

Then old Anna Stina began to tell how she lived quite alone in the forest, deserted by all her relatives. And this young girl had come running up the hill many an evening and many an early morning to see her. She had therefore thought and hoped that she could now help her to get a good situation. + 

Miss Stafva said it was a pity that they had gone such a long way to find a place. If she were a clever girl, she could surely get a situation in some good family in their own neighbourhood. + 

Anna Stina could now clearly see that Ingrid’s prospects were not good, and therefore she began in a more solemn vein: + 

“Here you have lived, Stafva, and had a good, comfortable home all your life, and I have had to fight my way in great poverty. But I have never asked you for anything before today. And now you will send me away like a beggar, to whom one gives a meal and nothing more.” + 

Miss Stafva smiled a little; then she said: + 

“Sister Anna Stina, you are not telling me the truth. I, too, come from Raglanda, and I should like to know at what peasant’s house in that parish grow such eyes and such a face.” + 

And she pointed at Ingrid, and continued: + 

“I can quite understand, Anna Stina, that you would like to help one who looks like that. But I do not understand how you can think that your sister Stafva has not more sense than to believe the stories you choose to tell her.” + 

Anna Stina was so frightened that she could not say a word, but Ingrid made up her mind to confide in Miss Stafva, and began at once to tell her whole story in her soft, beautiful voice. + 

And Ingrid had hardly told of how she had been lying in the grave, and that a Dalar man had come and saved her, before old Miss Stafva grew red and quickly bent down to hide it. It was only a second, but there must have been some cause for it, for from that moment she looked so kind. + 

She soon began to ask full particulars about it; more especially she wanted to know about the crazy man, whether Ingrid had not been afraid of him. Oh no, he did no harm. He was not mad, Ingrid said; he could both buy and sell. He was only frightened of some things. + 

Ingrid thought the hardest of all was to tell what she had heard her adopted mother say. But she told everything, although there were tears in her voice. + 

Then Miss Stafva went up to her, drew back the handkerchief from her head, and looked into her eyes. Then she patted her lightly on the cheek. + 

“Never mind that, little miss,” she said. “There is no need for me to know about that. Now sister and Miss Ingrid must excuse me,” she said soon after, “but I must take up her ladyship’s coffee. I shall soon be down again, and you can tell me more.” + 

When she returned, she said she had told her ladyship about the young girl who had lain in the grave, and now her mistress wanted to see her. + 

They were taken upstairs, and shown into her ladyship’s boudoir. + 

Anna Stina remained standing at the door of the fine room. But Ingrid was not shy; she went straight up to the old lady and put out her hand. She had often been shy with others who looked much less aristocratic; but here, in this house, she did not feel embarrassed. She only felt so wonderfully happy that she had come there. + 

“So it is you, my child, who have been buried,” said her ladyship, nodding friendlily to her. “Do you mind telling me your story, my child? I sit here quite alone, and never hear anything, you know.” + 

Then Ingrid began again to tell her story. But she had not got very far before she was interrupted. Her ladyship did exactly the same as Miss Stafva had done. She rose, pushed the handkerchief back from Ingrid’s forehead and looked into her eyes. + 

“Yes,” her ladyship said to herself, “that I can understand. I can understand that he must obey those eyes.” + 

For the first time in her life Ingrid was praised for her courage. Her ladyship thought she had been very brave to place herself in the hands of a crazy fellow. + 

She was afraid, she said, but she was still more afraid of people seeing her in that state. And he did no harm; he was almost quite right, and then he was so good. + 

Her ladyship wanted to know his name, but Ingrid did not know it. She had never heard of any other name but the Goat. Her ladyship asked several times how he managed when he came to do business. Had she not laughed at him, and did she not think that he looked terrible⁠—the Goat? It sounded so strange when her ladyship said “the Goat.” There was so much bitterness in her voice when she said it, and yet she said it over and over again. + 

No; Ingrid did not think so, and she never laughed at unfortunate people. The old lady looked more gentle than her words sounded. + 

“It appears you know how to manage mad people, my child,” she said. “That is a great gift. Most people are afraid of such poor creatures.” She listened to all Ingrid had to say, and sat meditating. “As you have not any home, my child,” she said, “will you not stay here with me? You see, I am an old woman living here by myself, and you can keep me company, and I shall take care that you have everything you want. What do you say to it, my child? There will come a time, I suppose,” continued her ladyship, “when we shall have to inform your parents that you are still living; but for the present everything shall remain as it is, so that you can have time to rest both body and mind. And you shall call me ‘Aunt’; but what shall I call you?” + 

“Ingrid⁠—Ingrid Berg.” + 

“Ingrid,” said her ladyship thoughtfully. “I would rather have called you something else. As soon as you entered the room with those starlike eyes, I thought you ought to be called Mignon.” + 

When it dawned upon the young girl that here she would really find a home, she felt more sure than ever that she had been brought here in some supernatural manner, and she whispered her thanks to her invisible protector before she thanked her ladyship, Miss Stafva, and Anna Stina. + 

Ingrid slept in a four-poster, on luxurious featherbeds three feet high, and had hemstitched sheets, and silken quilts embroidered with Swedish crowns and French lilies. The bed was so broad that she could lie as she liked either way, and so high that she must mount two steps to get into it. At the top sat a Cupid holding the brightly-coloured hangings, and on the posts sat other Cupids, which held them up in festoons. + 

In the same room where the bed stood was an old curved chest of drawers inlaid with olive-wood, and from it Ingrid might take as much sweetly-scented linen as she liked. There was also a wardrobe containing many gay and pretty silk and muslin gowns that only hung there and waited until it pleased her to put them on. + 

When she awoke in the morning there stood by her bedside a tray with a silver coffee-set and old Indian china. And every morning she set her small white teeth in fine white bread and delicious almond-cakes; every day she was dressed in a fine muslin gown with a lace fichu. Her hair was dressed high at the back, but round her forehead there was a row of little light curls. + 

On the wall between the windows hung a mirror, with a narrow glass in a broad frame, where she could see herself, and nod to her picture, and ask: + 

“Is it you? Is it really you? How have you come here?” + 

In the daytime, when Ingrid had left the chamber with the four-poster, she sat in the drawing-room and embroidered or painted on silk, and when she was tired of that, she played a little on the guitar and sang, or talked with the old lady, who taught her French, and amused herself by training her to be a fine lady. + 

But she had come to an enchanted castle⁠—she could not get away from that idea. She had had that feeling the first moment, and it was always coming back again. No one arrived at the house, no one left it. In this big house only two or three rooms were kept in order; in the others no one ever went. No one walked in the garden, no one looked after it. There was only one manservant, and an old man who cut the firewood. And Miss Stafva had only two servants, who helped her in the kitchen and in the dairy. + 

But there was always dainty food on the table, and her ladyship and Ingrid were always waited upon and dressed like fine ladies of rank. + 

If nothing thrived on the old estate, there was, at any rate, fertile soil for dreams, and even if they did not nurse and cultivate flowers there, Ingrid was not the one to neglect her dream-roses. They grew up around her whenever she was alone. It seemed to her then as if red dream-roses formed a canopy over her. + 

Round the island where the trees bent low over the water, and sent long branches in between the reeds, and where shrubs and lofty trees grew luxuriantly, was a pathway where Ingrid often walked. It looked so strange to see so many letters carved on the trees, to see the old seats and summerhouses; to see the old tumbledown pavilions, which were so worm-eaten that she dared not go into them; to think that real people had walked here, that here they had lived, and longed, and loved, and that this had not always been an enchanted castle. + 

Down here she felt even more the witchery of the place. Here the face with the smile came to her. Here she could thank him, the student, because he had brought her to a home where she was so happy, where they loved her, and made her forget how hardly others had treated her. If it had not been he who had arranged all this for her, she could not possibly have been allowed to remain here; it was quite impossible. + 

She knew that it must be he. She had never before had such wild fancies. She had always been thinking of him, but she had never felt that he was so near her that he took care of her. The only thing she longed for was that he himself should come, for of course he would come some day. It was impossible that he should not come. In these avenues he had left behind part of his soul. + 

Summer went, and autumn; Christmas was drawing near. + 

“Miss Ingrid,” said the old housekeeper one day, in a rather mysterious manner, “I think I ought to tell you that the young master who owns Munkhyttan is coming home for Christmas. In any case, he generally comes,” she added, with a sigh. + 

“And her ladyship, who has never even mentioned that she has a son,” said Ingrid. + 

But she was not really surprised. She might just as well have answered that she had known it all along. + 

“No one has spoken to you about him, Miss Ingrid,” said the housekeeper, “for her ladyship has forbidden us to speak about him.” + 

And then Miss Stafva would not say any more. + 

Neither did Ingrid want to ask any more. Now she was afraid of hearing something definite. She had raised her expectations so high that she was herself afraid they would fail. The truth might be well worth hearing, but it might also be bitter, and destroy all her beautiful dreams. But from that day he was with her night and day. She had hardly time to speak to others. She must always be with him. + 

One day she saw that they had cleared the snow away from the avenue. She grew almost frightened. Was he coming now? + 

The next day her ladyship sat from early morning in the window looking down the avenue. Ingrid had gone further into the room. She was so restless that she could not remain at the window. + 

“Do you know whom I am expecting today, Ingrid?” + 

The young girl nodded; she dared not depend upon her voice to answer. + 

“Has Miss Stafva told you that my son is peculiar?” + 

Ingrid shook her head. + 

“He is very peculiar⁠—he⁠—I cannot speak about it. I cannot⁠—you must see for yourself.” + 

It sounded heartrending. Ingrid grew very uneasy. What was there with this house that made everything so strange? Was it something terrible that she did not know about? Was her ladyship not on good terms with her son? What was it, what was it? + 

The one moment in an ecstasy of joy, the next in a fever of uncertainty, she was obliged to call forth the long row of visions in order again to feel that it must be he who came. She could not at all say why she so firmly believed that he must be the son just of this house. He might, for the matter of that, be quite another person. Oh, how hard it was that she had never heard his name! + 

It was a long day. They sat waiting in silence until evening came. + 

The man came driving a cartload of Christmas logs, and the horse remained in the yard whilst the wood was unloaded. + 

“Ingrid,” said her ladyship in a commanding and hasty tone, “run down to Anders and tell him that he must be quick and get the horse into the stable. Quick⁠—quick!” + 

Ingrid ran down the stairs and on to the veranda; but when she came out she forgot to call to the man. Just behind the cart she saw a tall man in a sheepskin coat, and with a large pack on his back. It was not necessary for her to see him standing curtsying and curtsying to recognise him. But, but⁠—She put her hand to her head and drew a deep breath. How would all these things ever become clear to her? Was it for that fellow’s sake her ladyship had sent her down? And the man, why did he pull the horse away in such great haste? And why did he take off his cap and salute? What had that crazy man to do with the people of this house? + 

All at once the truth flashed upon Ingrid so crushingly and overwhelmingly that she could have screamed. It was not her beloved who had watched over her; it was this crazy man. She had been allowed to remain here because she had spoken kindly of him, because his mother wanted to carry on the good work which he had commenced. + 

The Goat⁠—that was the young master. + 

But to her no one came. No one had brought her here; no one had expected her. It was all dreams, fancies, illusions! Oh, how hard it was! If she had only never expected him! + 

But at night, when Ingrid lay in the big bed with the brightly-coloured hangings, she dreamt over and over again that she saw the student come home. “It was not you who came,” she said. “Yes, of course it was I,” he replied. And in her dreams she believed him. + 

One day, the week after Christmas, Ingrid sat at the window in the boudoir embroidering. Her ladyship sat on the sofa knitting, as she always did now. There was silence in the room. + 

Young Hede had been at home for a week. During all that time Ingrid had never seen him. In his home, too, he lived like a peasant, slept in the menservants’ quarters, and had his meals in the kitchen. He never went to see his mother. + 

Ingrid knew that both her ladyship and Miss Stafva expected that she should do something for Hede, that at the least she would try and persuade him to remain at home. And it grieved her that it was impossible for her to do what they wished. She was in despair about herself and about the utter weakness that had come over her since her expectations had been so shattered. + 

Today Miss Stafva had just come in to say that Hede was getting his pack ready to start. He was not even staying as long as he generally did at Christmas, she said with a reproachful look at Ingrid. + 

Ingrid understood all they had expected from her, but she could do nothing. She sewed and sewed without saying anything. + 

Miss Stafva went away, and there was again silence in the room. Ingrid quite forgot that she was not alone; a feeling of drowsiness suddenly came over her, whilst all her sad thoughts wove themselves into a strange fancy. + 

She thought she was walking up and down the whole of the large house. She went through a number of rooms and salons; she saw them before her with gray covers over the furniture. The paintings and the chandeliers were covered with gauze, and on the floors was a layer of thick dust, which whirled about when she went through the rooms. But at last she came to a room where she had never been before; it was quite a small chamber, where both walls and ceiling were black. But when she came to look more closely at them, she saw that the chamber was neither painted black, nor covered with black material, but it was so dark on account of the walls and the ceiling being completely covered with bats. The whole room was nothing but a huge nest for bats. In one of the windows a pane was broken, so one could understand how the bats had got in in such incredible numbers that they covered the whole room. They hung there in their undisturbed winter sleep; not one moved when she entered. But she was seized by such terror at this sight that she began to shiver and shake all over. It was dreadful to see the quantity of bats she so distinctly saw hanging there. They all had black wings wrapped around them like cloaks; they all hung from the walls by a single long claw in undisturbable sleep. She saw it all so distinctly that she wondered if Miss Stafva knew that the bats had taken possession of a whole room. In her thoughts she then went to Miss Stafva and asked her whether she had been into that room and seen all the bats. + 

“Of course I have seen them,” said Miss Stafva. “It is their own room. I suppose you know, Miss Ingrid, that there is not a single old country house in all Sweden where they have not to give up a room to the bats?” + 

“I have never heard that before,” Ingrid said. + 

“When you have lived as long in the world as I have, Miss Ingrid, you will find out that I am speaking the truth,” said Miss Stafva. + 

“I cannot understand that people will put up with such a thing,” Ingrid said. + 

“We are obliged to,” said Miss Stafva. “Those bats are Mistress Sorrow’s birds, and she has commanded us to receive them.” + 

Ingrid saw that Miss Stafva did not wish to say anything more about that matter, and she began to sew again; but she could not help speculating over who that Mistress Sorrow could be who had so much power here that she could compel Miss Stafva to give up a whole room to the bats. + 

Just as she was thinking about all this, she saw a black sledge, drawn by black horses, pull up outside the veranda. She saw Miss Stafva come out and make a low curtsy. An old lady in a long black velvet cloak, with many small capes on the shoulders, alighted from the sledge. She was bent, and had difficulty in walking. She could hardly lift her feet sufficiently to walk up the steps. + 

“Ingrid,” said her ladyship, looking up from her knitting, “I think I heard Mistress Sorrow arrive. It must have been her jingle I heard. Have you noticed that she never has sledge-bells on her horses, but only quite a small jingle? But one can hear it⁠—one can hear it! Go down into the hall, Ingrid, and bid Mistress Sorrow welcome.” + 

When Ingrid came down into the front hall, Mistress Sorrow stood talking with Miss Stafva on the veranda. They did not notice her. + 

Ingrid saw with surprise that the round-backed old lady had something hidden under all her capes which looked like crape; it was put well up and carefully hidden. Ingrid had to look very closely before she discovered that they were two large bat’s wings which she tried to hide. The young girl grew still more curious and tried to see her face, but she stood and looked into the yard, so it was impossible. So much, however, Ingrid did see when she put out her hand to the housekeeper⁠—that one of her fingers was much longer than the others, and at the end of it was a large, crooked claw. + 

“I suppose everything is as usual here?” she said. + 

“Yes, honoured Mistress Sorrow,” said Miss Stafva. + 

“You have not planted any flowers, nor pruned any trees? You have not mended the bridge, nor weeded the avenue?” + 

“No, honoured mistress.” + 

“This is quite as it should be,” said the honoured mistress. “I suppose you have not had the audacity to search for the vein of ore, or to cut down the forest which is encroaching on the fields?” + 

“No, honoured mistress.” + 

“Or to clean the wells?” + 

“No, nor to clean the wells.” + 

“This is a nice place,” said Mistress Sorrow; “I always like being here. In a few years things will be in such a state that my birds can live all over the house. You are really very good to my birds, Miss Stafva.” + 

At this praise the housekeeper made a deep curtsy. + 

“How are things otherwise at the house?” said Mistress Sorrow. “What sort of a Christmas have you had?” + 

“We have kept Christmas as we always do,” said Miss Stafva. “Her ladyship sits knitting in her room day after day, thinks of nothing but her son, and does not even know that it is a festival. Christmas Eve we allowed to pass like any other day⁠—no presents and no candles.” + 

“No Christmas tree, no Christmas fare?” + 

“Nor any going to church; not so much as a candle in the windows on Christmas morning.” + 

“Why should her ladyship honour God’s Son when God will not heal her son?” said Mistress Sorrow. + 

“No, why should she?” + 

“He is at home at present, I suppose? Perhaps he is better now?” + 

“No, he is no better. He is as much afraid of things as ever.” + 

“Does he still behave like a peasant? Does he never go into the rooms?” + 

“We cannot get him to go into the rooms; he is afraid of her ladyship, as the honoured mistress knows.” + 

“He has his meals in the kitchen, and sleeps in the menservants’ room?” + 

“Yes, he does.” + 

“And you have no idea how to cure him?” + 

“We know nothing, we understand nothing.” + 

Mistress Sorrow was silent for a moment; when she spoke again there was a hard, sharp ring in her voice: + 

“This is all right as far as it goes, Miss Stafva; but I am not quite satisfied with you, all the same.” + 

The same moment she turned round and looked sharply at Ingrid. + 

Ingrid shuddered. Mistress Sorrow had a little, wrinkled face, the under part of which was so doubled up that one could hardly see the lower jaw. She had teeth like a saw, and thick hair on the upper lip. Her eyebrows were one single tuft of hair, and her skin was quite brown. + 

Ingrid thought Miss Stafva could not see what she saw: Mistress Sorrow was not a human being; she was only an animal. + 

Mistress Sorrow opened her mouth and showed her glittering teeth when she looked at Ingrid. + 

“When this girl came here,” she said to Miss Stafva, “you thought she had been sent by God. You thought you could see from her eyes that she had been sent by Our Lord to save him. She knew how to manage mad people. Well, how has it worked?” + 

“It has not worked at all. She has not done anything.” + 

“No, I have seen to that,” said Mistress Sorrow. “It was my doing that you did not tell her why she was allowed to stay here. Had she known that, she would not have indulged in such rosy dreams about seeing her beloved. If she had not had such expectations, she would not have had such a bitter disappointment. Had disappointment not paralyzed her, she could perhaps have done something for this mad fellow. But now she has not even been to see him. She hates him because he is not the one she expected him to be. That is my doing, Miss Stafva, my doing.” + 

“Yes; the honoured mistress knows her business,” said Miss Stafva. + 

Mistress Sorrow took her lace handkerchief and dried her red-rimmed eyes. It looked as if it were meant for an expression of joy. + 

“You need not make yourself out to be any better than you are, Miss Stafva,” she said. “I know you do not like my having taken that room for my birds. You do not like the thought of my having the whole house soon. I know that. You and your mistress had intended to cheat me. But it is all over now.” + 

“Yes,” said Miss Stafva, “the honoured mistress can be quite easy. It is all over. The young master is leaving today. He has packed up his pack, and then we always know he is about to leave. Everything her ladyship and I have been dreaming about the whole autumn is over. Nothing has been done. We thought she might at least have persuaded him to remain at home, but in spite of all we have done for her, she has not done anything for us.” + 

“No, she has only been a poor help, I know that,” said Mistress Sorrow. “But, all the same, she must be sent away now. That was really what I wanted to see her ladyship about.” + 

Mistress Sorrow began to drag herself up the steps on her tottering legs. At every step she raised her wings a little, as if they should help her. She would, no doubt, much rather have flown. + 

Ingrid went behind her. She felt strangely attracted and fascinated. If Mistress Sorrow had been the most beautiful woman in the world, she could not have felt a greater inclination to follow her. + 

When she went into the boudoir she saw Mistress Sorrow sitting on the sofa by the side of her ladyship, whispering confidentially with her, as if they were old friends. + 

“You must be able to see that you cannot keep her with you,” said Mistress Sorrow impressively. “You, who cannot bear to see a flower growing in your garden, can surely not stand having a young girl about in the house. It always brings a certain amount of brightness and life, and that would not suit you.” + 

“No; that is just what I have been sitting and thinking about.” + 

“Get her a situation as lady’s companion somewhere or other, but don’t keep her here.” + 

She rose to say goodbye. + 

“That was all I wanted to see you about,” she said. “But how are you yourself?” + 

“Knives and scissors cut my heart all day long,” said her ladyship. “I only live in him as long as he is at home. It is worse than usual, much worse this time. I cannot bear it much longer.”⁠ ⁠… + 

Ingrid started; it was her ladyship’s bell that rang. She had been dreaming so vividly that she was quite surprised to see that her ladyship was alone, and that the black sledge was not waiting before the door. + 

Her ladyship had rung for Miss Stafva, but she did not come. She asked Ingrid to go down to her room and call her. + 

Ingrid went, but the little blue-checked room was empty. The young girl was going into the kitchen to ask for the housekeeper, but before she had time to open the door she heard Hede talking. She stopped outside; she could not persuade herself to go in and see him. + 

She tried, however, to argue with herself. It was not his fault that he was not the one she had been expecting. She must try to do something for him; she must persuade him to remain at home. Before, she had not had such a feeling against him. He was not so very bad. + 

She bent down and peeped through the keyhole. It was the same here as at other places. The servants tried to lead him on in order to amuse themselves by his strange talk. They asked him whom he was going to marry. Hede smiled; he liked to be asked about that kind of thing. + 

“She is called Grave-Lily⁠—don’t you know that?” he said. + 

The servant said she did not know that she had such a fine name. + 

“But where does she live?” + 

“Neither has she home nor has she farm,” Hede said. “She lives in my pack.” + 

The servant said that was a queer home, and asked about her parents. + 

“Neither has she father nor has she mother,” Hede said. “She is as fine as a flower; she has grown up in a garden.” + 

He said all this with a certain amount of clearness, but when he wanted to describe how beautiful his sweetheart was he could not get on at all. He said a number of words, but they were strangely mixed together. One could not follow his thoughts, but evidently he himself derived much pleasure from what he said. He sat smiling and happy. + 

Ingrid hurried away. She could not bear it any longer. She could not do anything for him. She was afraid of him. She disliked him. But she had not got further than the stairs before her conscience pricked her. Here she had received so much kindness, and she would not make any return. + 

In order to master her dislike she tried in her own mind to think of Hede as a gentleman. She wondered how he had looked when he wore good clothes, and had his hair brushed back. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought. No, it was impossible, she could not imagine him as being any different from what he was. The same moment she saw the outlines of a beloved face by her side. It appeared at her left side wonderfully distinct. This time the face did not smile. The lips trembled as if in pain, and unspeakable suffering was written in sharp lines round the mouth. + 

Ingrid stopped halfway up the stairs and looked at it. There it was, light and fleeting, as impossible to grasp and hold fast as a sunspot reflected by the prism of a chandelier, but just as visible, just as real. She thought of her recent dream, but this was different⁠—this was reality. + 

When she had looked a little at the face, the lips began to move; they spoke, but she could not hear a sound. Then she tried to see what they said, tried to read the words from the lips, as deaf people do, and she succeeded. + 

“Do not let me go,” the lips said; “do not let me go.” + 

And the anguish with which it was said! If a fellow-creature had been lying at her feet begging for life, it could not have affected her more. She was so overcome that she shook. It was more heartrending than anything she had ever heard in her whole life. Never had she thought that anyone could beg in such fearful anguish. Again and again the lips begged, “Do not let me go!” And for every time the anguish was greater. + 

Ingrid did not understand it, but remained standing, filled with unspeakable pity. It seemed to her that more than life itself must be at stake for one who begged like this, that his very soul must be at stake. + 

The lips did not move any more; they stood half open in dull despair. When they assumed this expression she uttered a cry and stumbled. She recognised the face of the crazy fellow as she had just seen it. + 

“No, no, no!” she said. “It cannot be so! It must not! it cannot! It is not possible that it is he!” + 

The same moment the face vanished. She must have sat for a whole hour on the cold staircase, crying in helpless despair. But at last hope sprang up in her, strong and fair. She again took courage to raise her head. All that had happened seemed to show that she should save him. It was for that she had come here. She should have the great, great happiness of saving him. + 

In the little boudoir her ladyship was talking to Miss Stafva. It sounded so pitiful to hear her asking the housekeeper to persuade her son to remain a few days longer. Miss Stafva tried to appear hard and severe. + 

“Of course, I can ask him,” she said; “but your ladyship knows that no one can make him stay longer than he wants.” + 

“We have money enough, you know. There is not the slightest necessity for him to go. Can you not tell him that?” said her ladyship. + 

At the same moment Ingrid came in. The door opened noiselessly. She glided through the room with light, airy steps; her eyes were radiant, as if she beheld something beautiful afar off. + 

When her ladyship saw her she frowned a little. She also felt an inclination to be cruel, to give pain. + 

“Ingrid,” she said, “come here; I must speak with you about your future.” + 

The young girl had fetched her guitar and was about to leave the room. She turned round to her ladyship. + 

“My future?” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. “My future is already decided, you know,” she continued, with the smile of a martyr; and without saying any more she left the room. + 

Her ladyship and Stafva looked in surprise at each other. They began to discuss where they should send the young girl. But when Miss Stafva came down to her room she found Ingrid sitting there, singing some little songs and playing on the guitar, and Hede sat opposite her, listening, his face all sunshine. + 

Ever since Ingrid had recognised the student in the poor crazy fellow, she had no other thought but that of trying to cure him; but this was a difficult task, and she had no idea whatever as to how she should set about it. To begin with, she only thought of how she could persuade him to remain at Munkhyttan; and this was easy enough. Only for the sake of hearing her play the violin or the guitar a little every day he would now sit patiently from morning till evening in Miss Stafva’s room waiting for her. + 

She thought it would be a great thing if she could get him to go into the other rooms, but that she could not. She tried keeping in her room, and said she would not play any more for him if he did not come to her. But after she had remained there two days, he began to pack up his pack to go away, and then she was obliged to give in. + 

He showed great preference for her, and distinctly showed that he liked her better than others; but she did not make him less frightened. She begged him to leave off his sheepskin coat, and wear an ordinary coat. He consented at once, but the next day he had it on again. Then she hid it from him; but he then appeared in the manservant’s skin coat. So then they would rather let him keep his own. He was still as frightened as ever, and took great care no one came too near him. Even Ingrid was not allowed to sit quite close to him. + 

One day she said to him that now he must promise her something: he must give over curtsying to the cat. She would not ask him to do anything so difficult as give up curtsying to horses and dogs, but surely he could not be afraid of a little cat. + 

Yes, he said; the cat was a goat. + 

“It can’t be a goat,” she said; “it has no horns, you know.” + 

He was pleased to hear that. It seemed as if at last he had found something by which he could distinguish a goat from other animals. + 

The next day he met Miss Stafva’s cat. + 

“That goat has no horns,” he said; and laughed quite proudly. + 

He went past it, and sat down on the sofa to listen to Ingrid playing. But after he had sat a little while he grew restless, and he rose, went up to the cat, and curtsied. + 

Ingrid was in despair. She took him by his arm and shook him. He ran straight out of the room, and did not appear until the next day. + 

“Child, child,” said her ladyship, “you do exactly as I did; you try the same as I did. It will end by your frightening him so that he dare not see you any more. It is better to leave him in peace. We are satisfied with things as they are if he will only remain at home.” + 

There was nothing else for Ingrid to do but wring her hands in sorrow that such a fine, lovable fellow should be concealed in this crazy man. + 

Ingrid thought again and again, had she really only come here to play her grandfather’s tunes to him? Should they go on like that all through life? Would it never be otherwise? + 

She also told him many stories, and in the midst of a story his face would lighten up, and he would say something wonderfully subtle and beautiful. A sane person would never have thought of anything like it. And no more was needed to make her courage rise, and then she began again with these endless experiments. + 

It was late one afternoon, and the moon was just about to rise. White snow lay on the ground, and bright gray ice covered the lake. The trees were blackish-brown, and the sky was a flaming red after the sunset. + 

Ingrid was on her way to the lake to skate. She went along a narrow path where the snow was quite trodden down. Gunnar Hede went behind her. There was something cowed in his bearing that made one think of a dog following its master. + 

Ingrid looked tired; there was no brightness in her eyes, and her complexion was gray. + 

As she walked along she wondered whether the day, which was now so nearly over, was content with itself⁠—if it were from joy it had lighted the great flaming red sunset far away in the west. + 

She knew she could light no bonfire over this day, nor over any other day. In the whole month that had passed since she recognised Gunnar Hede she had gained nothing. + 

And today a great fear had come upon her. It seemed to her as if she might perhaps lose her love over all this. She was nearly forgetting the student, only for thinking of the poor fellow. All that was bright and beautiful and youthful vanished from her love. Nothing was left but dull, heavy earnest. + 

She was quite in despair as she walked towards the lake. She felt she did not know what ought to be done⁠—felt that she must give it all up. Oh, God, to have him walking behind her apparently strong and hale, and yet so helplessly, incurably sick! + 

They had reached the lake, and she was putting on her skates. She also wanted him to skate, and helped him to put on his skates; but he fell as soon as he got on to the ice. He scrambled to the bank and sat down on a stone, and she skated away from him. + 

Just opposite the stone upon which Gunnar Hede was sitting was an islet overgrown with birches and poplars, and behind it the radiant evening sky, which was still flaming red. And the fine, light, leafless tops of the trees stood against the glorious sky with such beauty that it was impossible not to notice it. + 

Is it not a fact that one always recognises a place by a single feature? One does not exactly know how even the most familiar spot looks from all sides. And Munkhyttan one always knew by the little islet. If one had not seen the place for many years, one would know it again by this islet, where the dark treetops were lifted towards the sunset. + 

Hede sat quite still, and looked at the islet and at the branches of the trees and at the gray ice which surrounded it. + 

This was the view he knew best of all; there was nothing on the whole estate he knew so well, for it was always this islet that attracted the eye. And soon he was sitting looking at the islet without thinking about it, just as one does with things one knows so well. He sat for a long time gazing. Nothing disturbed him, not a human being, not a gust of wind, no strange object. He could not see Ingrid; she had skated far away on the ice. + 

A rest and peace fell upon Gunnar Hede such as one only feels in home surroundings. Security and peace came to him from the little islet; it quieted the everlasting unrest that tormented him. + 

Hede always imagined he was amongst enemies, and always thought of defending himself. For many years he had not felt that peace which made it possible for him to forget himself. But now it came upon him. + 

Whilst Gunnar Hede was sitting thus and not thinking of anything, he happened mechanically to make a movement as one may do when one finds one’s self in accustomed circumstances. As he sat there with the shining ice before him and with skates on his feet, he got up and skated on to the lake, and he thought as little of what he was doing as one thinks of how one is holding fork or spoon when eating. + 

He glided over the ice; it was glorious skating. He was a long way off the shore before he realized what he was doing. + 

“Splendid ice!” he thought. “I wonder why I did not come down earlier in the day. It is a good thing I was more here yesterday,” he said. “I will really not waste a single day during the rest of my vacation.” + 

No doubt it was because Gunnar Hede happened to do something he was in the habit of doing before he was ill that his old self awakened within him. + 

Thoughts and associations connected with his former life began to force themselves upon his consciousness, and at the same time all the thoughts connected with his illness sank into oblivion. + 

It had been his habit when skating to take a wide turn on the lake in order to see beyond a certain point. He did so now without thinking, but when he had turned the point he knew he had skated there to see if there was a light in his mother’s window. + 

“She thinks it is time I was coming home, but she must wait a little; the ice is too good.” + 

But it was mostly vague sensations of pleasure over the exercise and the beautiful evening that were awakened within him. A moonlight evening like this was just the time for skating; he was so fond of this peaceful transition from day to night. It was still light, but the stillness of night was already there, the best both of day and of night. + 

There was another skater on the ice; it was a young girl. He was not sure if he knew her, but he skated towards her to find out. No; it was no one he knew, but he could not help making a remark when he passed her about the splendid ice. + 

The stranger was probably a young girl from the town. She was evidently not accustomed to be addressed in this unceremonious manner; she looked quite frightened when he spoke to her. He certainly was queerly dressed; he was dressed quite like a peasant. + 

Well, he did not want to frighten her away. He turned off and skated further up the lake; the ice was big enough for them both. + 

But Ingrid had nearly screamed with astonishment. He had come towards her skating elegantly, with his arms crossed, the brim of his hat turned up, and his hair thrown back, so that it did not fall over his ears. + 

He had spoken with the voice of a gentleman, almost without the slightest Dalar accent. She did not stop to think about it. She skated quickly towards the shore. She came breathless into the kitchen. She did not know how to say it shortly and quickly enough. + 

“Miss Stafva, the young master has come home!” + 

The kitchen was empty; neither the housekeeper nor the servants were there. Nor was there anybody in the housekeeper’s room. Ingrid rushed through the whole house, went into rooms where no one ever went. The whole time she cried out, “Miss Stafva, Miss Stafva! the young master has come home!” + 

She was quite beside herself, and went on calling out, even when she stood on the landing upstairs, surrounded by the servants, Miss Stafva, and her ladyship herself. She said it over and over again. She was too much excited to stop. They all understood what she meant. They stood there quite as much overcome as she was. + 

Ingrid turned restlessly from the one to the other. She ought to give explanations and orders, but about what? That she could so lose her presence of mind! She looked wildly questioning at her ladyship. + 

“What was it I wanted?” + 

The old lady gave some orders in a low, trembling voice. She almost whispered. + 

“Light the candles and make a fire in the young master’s room. Lay out the young master’s clothes.” + 

It was neither the place nor the time for Miss Stafva to be important. But there was all the same a certain superior ring in her voice as she answered: + 

“There is always a fire in the young master’s room. The young master’s clothes are always in readiness for him.” + 

“Ingrid had better go up to her room,” said her ladyship. + 

The young girl did just the opposite. She went into the drawing-room, placed herself at the window, sobbed and shook, but did not herself know that she was not still. She impatiently dried the tears from her eyes, so that she could see over the snowfield in front of the house. If only she did not cry, there was nothing she could miss seeing in the clear moonlight. At last he came. + 

“There he is! there he is!” she cried to her ladyship. “He walks quickly! he runs! Do come and see!” + 

Her ladyship sat quite still before the fire. She did not move. She strained her ears to hear, just as much as the other strained her eyes to see. She asked Ingrid to be quiet, so that she could hear how he walked. Ah, yes, she would be quiet. Her ladyship should hear how he walked. She grasped the windowsill, as if that could help her. + 

“You shall be quiet,” she whispered, “so that her ladyship can hear how he walks.” + 

Her ladyship sat bending forward, listening with all her soul. Did she already hear his steps in the courtyard? She probably thought he would go towards the kitchen. Did she hear that it was the front steps that creaked? Did she hear that it was the door to the front hall that opened? Did she hear how quickly he came up the stairs, two or three steps at a time? Had his mother heard that? It was not the dragging step of a peasant, as it had been when he left the house. + 

It was almost more than they could bear, to hear him coming towards the door of the drawing-room. Had he come in then, they would no doubt both have screamed. But he turned down the corridor to his own rooms. + 

Her ladyship fell back in her chair, and her eyes closed. Ingrid thought her ladyship would have liked to die at that moment. Without opening her eyes, she put out her hand. Ingrid went softly up and took it; the old lady drew her towards her. + 

“Mignon, Mignon,” she said; “that was the right name after all. But,” she continued, “we must not cry. We must not speak about it. Take a stool and come and sit down by the fire. We must be calm, my little friend. Let us speak about something else. We must be perfectly calm when he comes in.” + 

Half an hour afterwards Hede came in; the tea was on the table, and the chandelier was lighted. He had dressed; every trace of the peasant had disappeared. Ingrid and her ladyship pressed each other’s hands. + 

They had been sitting trying to imagine how he would look when he came in. It was impossible to say what he might say or do, said her ladyship. One never had known what he might do. But in any case they would both be quite calm. A feeling of great happiness had come over her, and that had quieted her. She was resting, free from all sorrow, in the arms of angels carrying her upwards, upwards. + 

But when Hede came in, there was no sign of confusion about him. + 

“I have only come to tell you,” he said, “that I have got such a headache, that I shall have to go to bed at once. I felt it already when I was on the ice.” + 

Her ladyship made no reply. Everything was so simple; she had never thought it would be like that. It took her a few moments to realize that he did not know anything about his illness, that he was living somewhere in the past. + 

“But perhaps I can first drink a cup of tea,” he said, looking a little surprised at their silence. + 

Her ladyship went to the tea-tray. He looked at her. + 

“Have you been crying, mother? You are so quiet.” + 

“We have been sitting talking about a sad story, I and my young friend here,” said her ladyship, pointing to Ingrid. + 

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I did not see you had visitors.” + 

The young girl came forward towards the light, beautiful as one would be who knew that the gates of heaven the next moment would open before her. + 

He bowed a little stiffly. He evidently did not know who she was. Her ladyship introduced them to each other. He looked curiously at Ingrid. + 

“I think I saw Miss Berg on the ice,” he said. + 

He knew nothing about her⁠—had never spoken to her before. + 

A short, happy time followed. Gunnar Hede was certainly not quite himself; but those around him were happy in the belief that he soon would be. His memory was partly gone. He knew nothing about certain periods of his life; he could not play the violin; he had almost forgotten all he knew; and his power of thinking was weak; and he preferred neither to read nor to write. But still he was very much better. He was not frightened; he was fond of his mother; he had again assumed the manners and habits of a gentleman. One can easily understand that her ladyship and all her household were delighted. + 

Hede was in the best of spirits⁠—bright and joyous all day long. He never speculated over anything, put to one side everything he could not understand, never spoke about anything that necessitated mental exertion, but talked merrily and cheerfully. He was most happy when he was engaged in bodily exercise. He took Ingrid out with him sledging and skating. He did not talk much to her, but she was happy to be with him. He was kind to Ingrid, as he was to everyone else, but not in the least in love with her. He often wondered about his fiancée⁠—wondered why she never wrote. But after a short time that trouble, too, left him. He always put away from him anything that worried him. + 

Ingrid thought that he would never get really well by doing like this. He must some time be made to think⁠—to face his own thoughts, which he was afraid of doing now. But she dared not compel him to do this, and there was no one else who dared. If he began to care for her a little, perhaps she might dare. She thought all they now wanted, every one of them, was a little happiness. + 

It was just at that time that a little child died at the Parsonage at Raglanda where Ingrid had been brought up; and the gravedigger was about to dig the grave. + 

The man dug the grave quite close to the spot where the previous summer he had dug the grave for Ingrid. And when he had got a few feet into the ground he happened to lay bare a corner of her coffin. The gravedigger could not help smiling a little to himself. Of course he had heard that the dead girl lying in this coffin had appeared. She was supposed to have unscrewed her coffin-lid on the very day of her funeral, risen from the grave, and appeared at the Parsonage. The Pastor’s wife was not so much liked but that people in the parish rather enjoyed telling this story about her. The gravedigger thought that people should only know how securely the dead were lying in the ground, and how fast the coffin-lids.⁠ ⁠… + 

He interrupted himself in the midst of this thought. On the corner of the coffin which was exposed the lid was not quite straight, and one of the screws was not quite fast. He did not say anything, he did not think anything, but stopped digging and whistled the whole reveille of the Värmland Regiment⁠—for he was an old soldier. Then he thought he had better examine the thing properly. It would never do for a gravedigger to have thoughts about the dead which might come and trouble him during the dark autumn nights. He hastily removed some more earth. Then he began to hammer on the coffin with his shovel. The coffin answered quite distinctly that it was empty⁠—empty. + 

Half an hour after the gravedigger was at the Parsonage. There was no end to the questionings and surmises. So much they were all agreed upon⁠—that the young girl had been in the Dalar man’s pack. But what had become of her afterwards? + 

Anna Stina stood at the oven in the Parsonage and looked after the baking, for of course there was baking to be done for the new funeral. She stood for a long time listening to all this talk without saying a word. All she took care of was that the cakes were not burnt. She put sheet-tins in and took sheet-tins out, and it was dangerous to approach her as she stood there with the long baker’s shovel. But suddenly she took off her kitchen-apron, wiped the worst of the sweat and the soot from her face, and was talking with the Pastor in his study almost before she knew how it had come about. + 

After this it was not so very wonderful that one day in March the Pastor’s little red-painted sledge, ornamented with green tulips, and drawn by the Pastor’s little red horse, pulled up at Munkhyttan. Ingrid was of course obliged to go back with the Pastor home to her mother. The Pastor had come to fetch her. He did not say much about their being glad that she was alive, but one could see how happy he was. He had never been able to forgive himself that they had not been more kind to their adopted daughter. And now he was radiant at the thought that he was allowed to make a new beginning and make everything good for her this time. + 

They did not speak a word about the reason why she had run away. It was of no use bringing that up again so long after. But Ingrid understood that the Pastor’s wife had had a hard time, and had suffered many pangs of conscience, and that they wanted to have her back again in order to be good to her. She felt that she was almost obliged to go back to the Parsonage to show that she had no ill-feeling against her adopted parents. + 

They all thought it was the most natural thing that she should go to the Parsonage for a week or two. And why should she not? She could not make the excuse that they needed her at Munkhyttan. She could surely be away for some weeks without it doing Gunnar Hede any harm. She felt it was hard, but it was best she should go away, as they all thought it was the right thing. + 

Perhaps she had hoped they would ask her not to go away. She took her seat in the sledge with the feeling that her ladyship or Miss Stafva would surely come and lift her out of it, and carry her into the house again. It was impossible to realize that she was actually driving down the avenue, that she was turning into the forest, and that Munkhyttan was disappearing behind her. + 

But supposing it was from pure goodness that they let her go? They thought, perhaps, that youth, with its craving for pleasure, wanted to get away from the loneliness of Munkhyttan. They thought, perhaps, she was tired of being the keeper of a crazy man. She raised her hand, and was on the point of seizing the reins and turning the horse. Now that she was several miles from the house it struck her that that was why they had let her go. She would have liked so much to have gone back and asked them. + 

In her utter loneliness she felt as if she were groping about in the wild forest. There was not a single human being who answered her or advised her. She received just as much answer from fir and pine, and squirrel and owl, as she did from any human being. + 

It was really a matter of utter indifference to her how they treated her at the Parsonage. They were very kind to her, as far as she knew, but it really did not matter. If she had come to a palace full of everything one could most desire, that would likewise have been the same to her. No bed is soft enough to give rest unto one whose heart is full of longing. + 

In the beginning she had asked them every day, as modestly as she could, if they would not let her go home, now that she had had the great happiness of seeing her mother and her brothers and sisters. But the roads were really too bad. She must stay with them until the frost had disappeared. It was not a matter of life and death, they supposed, to go back to that place. + 

Ingrid could not understand why it annoyed people when she said she wanted to go back to Munkhyttan. But this seemed to be the case with her father and her mother and everybody else in the parish. One had no right, it appeared, to long for any other place in the world, when one was at Raglanda. + 

She soon saw it was best not to speak about her going away. There were so many difficulties in the way whenever she spoke about it. It was not enough that the roads were still in the same bad condition; they surrounded her with walls and ramparts and moats. She would knit and weave, and plant out in the forcing-frames. And surely she would not go away until after the large birthday party at the Dean’s? And she could not think of leaving till after Karin Landberg’s wedding. + 

There was nothing for her to do but to lift her hands in supplication to the spring, and beg it to make haste with its work, beg for sunshine and warmth, beg the gentle sun to do its very best for the great border forest, send small piercing rays between the fir-trees, and melt the snow beneath them. Dear, dear sun! It did not matter if the snow were not melted in the valley, if only the snow would vanish from the mountains, if only the forest paths became passable, if only the Säter girls were able to go to their huts, if only the bogs became dry, if only it became possible to go by the forest road, which was half the distance of the high road. + 

Ingrid knew one who would not wait for carriage, or ask for money to drive, if only the road through the forest became passable. She knew one who would leave the Parsonage some moonlight night, and who would do it without asking a single person’s permission. + 

She thought she had waited for the spring before. That everybody does. But now Ingrid knew that she had never before longed for it. Oh no, no! She had never before known what it was to long. Before she had waited for green leaves and anemones, and the song of the thrush and the cuckoo. But that was childishness⁠—nothing more. They did not long for the spring who only thought of what was beautiful. One should take the first bit of earth that peeped through the snow, and kiss it. One should pluck the first coarse leaf of the nettle simply to burn into one that now the spring had come. + 

Everybody was very good to her. But although they did not say anything, they seemed to think that she was always thinking of leaving them. + 

“I can’t understand why you want to go back to that place and look after that crazy fellow,” said Karin Landberg one day. It seemed as if she could read Ingrid’s thoughts. + 

“Oh, she has given up thinking of that now,” said the Pastor’s wife, before the young girl had time to answer. + 

When Karin was gone the Pastor’s wife said: + 

“People wonder that you want to leave us.” + 

Ingrid was silent. + 

“They say that when Hede began to improve perhaps you fell in love with him.” + 

“Oh no! Not after he had begun to improve,” Ingrid said, feeling almost inclined to laugh. + 

“In any case, he is not the sort of person one could marry,” said her adopted mother. “Father and I have been speaking about it, and we think it is best that you should remain with us.” + 

“It is very good of you that you want to keep me,” Ingrid said. And she was touched that now they wanted to be so kind to her. + 

They did not believe her, however obedient she was. She could not understand what little bird it was that told them about her longing. Now her adopted mother had told her that she must not go back to Munkhyttan. But even then she could not leave the matter alone. + 

“If they really wanted you,” she said, “they would write for you.” + 

Ingrid again felt inclined to laugh. That would be the strangest thing of all, should there be a letter from the enchanted castle. She would like to know if her adopted mother thought that the King of the Mountain wrote for the maiden who had been swallowed by the mountain to come back when she had gone to see her mother? + 

But if her adopted mother had known how many messages she had received she would probably have been even more uneasy. There came messages to her in her dreams by nights, and there came messages to her in her visions by day. He let Ingrid know that he was in need of her. He was so ill⁠—so ill! + 

She knew that he was nearly going out of his mind again, and that she must go to him. If anyone had told her this, she would simply have answered that she knew it. + 

The large starlike eyes looked further and further away. Those who saw that look would never believe that she meant to stay quietly and patiently at home. + 

It is not very difficult either to see whether a person is content or full of longing. One only needs to see a little gleam of happiness in the eyes when he or she comes in from work and sits down by the fire. But in Ingrid’s eyes there was no gleam of happiness, except when she saw the mountain stream come down through the forest, broad and strong. It was that that should prepare the way for her. + 

It happened one day that Ingrid was sitting alone with Karin Landberg, and she began to tell her about her life at Munkhyttan. Karin was quite shocked. How could Ingrid stand such a life? + 

Karin Landberg was to be married very soon. And she was now at that stage when she could speak of nothing but her lover. She knew nothing but what he had taught her, and she could do nothing without first consulting him. + 

It occurred to her that Oluf had said something about Gunnar Hede which would help to frighten Ingrid if she had begun to like that crazy fellow. And then she began to tell her how mad he had really been. For Oluf had told her that when he was at the fair last autumn some gentlemen had said that they did not think the Goat was mad at all. He only pretended to be in order to attract customers. But Oluf had maintained that he was mad, and in order to prove it went to the market and bought a wretched little goat. And then it was plain enough to see that he was mad. Oluf had only put the goat in front of him on the counter where his knives and things lay, and he had run away and left both his pack and his wares, and they had all laughed so awfully when they saw how frightened he was. And it was impossible that Ingrid could care for anyone who had been so crazy. + 

It was, no doubt, unwise of Karin Landberg that she did not look at Ingrid whilst she told this story. If she had seen how she frowned, she would perhaps have taken warning. + 

“And you will marry anyone who could do such a thing!” Ingrid said. “I think it would be better to marry the Goat himself.” + 

This Ingrid said in downright earnest, and it seemed so strange to Karin that she, who was always so gentle, should have said anything so unkind, that it quite worried her. For several days she was quite unhappy, because she feared Oluf was not what she would like him to be. It simply embittered Karin’s life until she made up her mind to tell Oluf everything; but he was so nice and good, that he quite reassured her. + 

It is not an easy task to wait for the spring in Värmland. One can have sun and warmth in the evening, and the next morning find the ground white with snow. Gooseberry-bushes and lawns may be green, but the trees of the birch-forest are bare, and seem as if they will never spring out. + 

At Whitsuntide there was spring in the air, but Ingrid’s prayers had been of no avail. Not a single Säter girl had taken up her abode in the forest, not a fen was dry; it was impossible to go through the forest. + 

On Whit-Sunday Ingrid and her adopted mother went to church. As it was such a great festival, they had driven to church. In olden days Ingrid had very much enjoyed driving up to the church in full gallop, whilst people along the roadside politely took off their hats, and those who were standing on the road rushed to the side as if they were quite frightened. But at the present moment she could not enjoy anything. “Longing takes the fragrance from the rose, and the light from the full moon,” says an old proverb. + 

But Ingrid was glad for what she heard in church. It did her good to hear how the disciples were comforted in their longing. She was glad that Jesus thought of comforting those who longed so greatly for Him. + 

Whilst Ingrid and the rest of the congregation were in church a tall Dalar man came walking down the road. He wore a sheepskin coat, and had a large pack on his back, like one who cannot tell winter from summer, or Sunday from any other day. He did not go into the church, but stole timidly past the horses that were tied to the railings, and went into the churchyard. + 

He sat down on a grave and thought of all the dead who were still sleeping, and of one of the dead who had awakened to life again. He was still sitting there when the people left the church. Karin Landberg’s Oluf was one of the first to leave the church, and when he happened to look across the churchyard he discovered the Dalar man. It is hard to say whether it was curiosity or some other motive that prompted him, but he went up to talk to him. He wanted to see if it were possible that he who was supposed to have been cured had become mad again. + 

And it was possible. He told him at once that he sat there waiting for her who was called Grave-Lily. She was to come and play to him. She played so beautifully that the sun and the stars danced. + 

Then Karin Landberg’s Oluf told him that she for whom he was waiting was standing outside the church. If he stood up, he could see her. She would, no doubt, be glad to see him. + 

The Pastor’s wife and Ingrid were just getting into the carriage, when a tall Dalar man came running up to them. He came at a great pace in spite of all the horses he must curtsy to, and he beckoned eagerly to the young girl. + 

As soon as Ingrid saw him she stood quite still. She could not have told whether she was most glad to see him again or most grieved that he had again gone out of his mind; she only forgot everything else in the world. + 

Her eyes began to sparkle. In that moment she saw nothing of the poor wretched man. She only felt that she was once again near the beautiful soul of the man for whom she had longed so terribly. + 

There were a great many people about, and they could not help looking at her. They could not take their eyes from her face. She did not move; she stood waiting for him. But those who saw how radiant she was with happiness must have thought that she was waiting for some great and noble man, instead of a poor, half-witted fellow. + 

They said afterwards that it almost seemed as if there were some affinity between his soul and hers⁠—some secret affinity which lay so deeply hidden beneath their consciousness that no human being could understand it. + 

But when Hede was only a step or two from Ingrid her adopted mother took her resolutely round the waist and lifted her into the carriage. She would not have a scene between the two just outside the church, with so many people present. And as soon as they were in the carriage the man sent his horses off at full gallop. + 

A wild, terrified cry was heard as they drove away. The Pastor’s wife thanked God that she had got the young girl into the carriage. + 

It was still early in the afternoon when a peasant came to the Parsonage to speak with the Pastor. He came to speak about the crazy Dalar man. He had now gone quite raving mad, and they had been obliged to bind him. What did the Pastor advise them to do? What should they do with him? + 

The Pastor could give them no other advice but to take him home. He told the peasant who he was, and where he lived. + 

Later on in the evening he told Ingrid everything. It was best to tell her the truth, and trust to her own common sense. + 

But when night came it became clear to her that she had not time to wait for the spring. The poor girl set out for Munkhyttan by the high road. She would no doubt be able to get there by that road, although she knew that it was twice as long as the way through the forest. + 

It was Whit-Monday, late in the afternoon. Ingrid walked along the high road. There was a wide expanse of country, with low mountains and small patches of birch forest between the fields. The mountain-ash and the bird-cherry were in bloom; the light, sticky leaves of the aspen were just out. The ditches were full of clear, rippling water which made the stones at the bottom glisten and sparkle. + 

Ingrid walked sorrowfully along, thinking of him whose mind had again given way, wondering whether she could do anything for him, whether it was of any use that she had left her home in this manner. + 

She was tired and hungry; her shoes had begun to go to pieces. Perhaps it would be better for her to turn back. She could never get to Munkhyttan. + 

The further she walked, the more sorrowful she became. She could not help thinking that it could be of no use her coming now that he had gone quite out of his mind. There was no doubt it was too late now; it was quite hopeless to do anything for him. + 

But as soon as she thought of turning back she saw Gunnar Hede’s face close to her cheek, as she had so often seen it before. It gave her new courage; she felt as if he were calling for her. She again felt hopeful and confident of being able to help him. + 

Just as Ingrid raised her head, looking a little less downcast, a queer little procession came towards her. + 

There was a little horse, drawing a little cart; a fat woman sat in the cart, and a tall, thin man, with long, thin moustaches walked by the side of it. + 

In the country, where no one understood anything about art, Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren always went in for looking like ordinary people. The little cart in which they travelled about was well covered over, and no one could suspect that it only contained fireworks and conjuring apparatus and marionettes. + 

No one could suspect that the fat woman who sat on the top of the load, looking like a well-to-do shopkeeper’s wife, was formerly Miss Viola, who once sprang through the air, or that the man who walked by her side, and looked like a pensioned soldier, was the same Mr. Blomgren who occasionally, to break the monotony of the journey, took it into his head to turn a somersault over the horse, and play the ventriloquist with thrushes and siskins that sang in the trees by the roadside, so that he made them quite mad. + 

The horse was very small, and had formerly drawn a roundabout, and therefore it would never go unless it heard music. On that account Mrs. Blomgren generally sat playing the Jews’-harp, but as soon as they met anyone, she put it in her pocket, so that no one should discover they were artists, for whom country people have no respect whatever. Owing to this they did not travel very fast, but they were not in any hurry either. + 

The blind man, who played the violin, had to walk some little distance behind the others in order not to betray the fact of his belonging to the company. The blind man was led by a little dog; he was not allowed to have a child to lead him, for that would always have reminded Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren of a little girl who was called Ingrid. That would have been too sad. + 

And now they were all in the country on account of the spring. For however much money Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren were making in the towns, they felt they must be in the country at that time of the year, for Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren were artists. + 

They did not recognise Ingrid, and she went past them without taking any notice of them, for she was in a hurry; she was afraid of their detaining her. But directly afterwards she felt that it was heartless and unkind of her, and turned back. + 

If Ingrid could have felt glad about anything, she would have been glad by seeing the old people’s joy at meeting her. You may be sure they had plenty to talk about. The little horse turned its head time after time to see what was wrong with the roundabout. + 

Strangely enough, it was Ingrid who talked the most. The two old people saw at once that she had been crying, and they were so concerned that she was obliged to tell them everything that had happened to her. + 

But it was a relief to Ingrid to speak. The old people had their own way of taking things; they clapped their hands when she told them how she had got out of the grave and how she had frightened the Pastor’s wife. They caressed her and praised her because she had run away from the Parsonage. For them nothing was dull or sad, but everything was bright and hopeful. They simply had no standard by which to measure reality, and therefore its hardness could not affect them. They compared everything they heard with the pieces from marionette theatres and pantomimes. Of course, one also put a little sorrow and misery into the pantomime, but that was only done to heighten the effect. And, of course, everything would end well. In the pantomimes it always ended well. + 

There was something infectious in all this hopefulness. Ingrid knew they did not at all understand how great her trouble was, but it was cheering all the same to listen to them. + 

But they were also of real help to Ingrid. They told her that they had had dinner a short time since at the inn at Torsäker, and just as they were getting up from the table some peasants came driving up with a man who was mad. Mrs. Blomgren could not bear to see mad people, and wanted to go away at once, and Mr. Blomgren had consented. But supposing it was Ingrid’s madman! And they had hardly said the words before Ingrid said that it was very likely, and wanted to set off at once. + 

Mr. Blomgren then asked his wife in his own ceremonious manner if they were not in the country solely on account of the spring, and if it were not just the same where they went. And old Mrs. Blomgren asked him equally ceremoniously in her turn if he thought she would leave her beloved Ingrid before she had reached the harbour of her happiness. + 

Then the old roundabout horse was turned, and conversation grew more difficult, because they again had to play on the Jews’-harp. As soon as Mrs. Blomgren wished to say anything, she was obliged to hand the instrument to Mr. Blomgren, and when Mr. Blomgren wanted to speak, he gave it back again to his wife. And the little horse stood still every time the instrument passed from mouth to mouth. + 

The whole time they did their best to comfort Ingrid. They related all the fairy tales they had seen represented at the dolls’ theatre. They comforted her with the “Enchanted Princess,” they comforted her with “Cinderella,” they comforted her with all the fairy tales under the sun. + 

Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren watched Ingrid when they saw that her eyes grew brighter. “Artist’s eyes,” they said, nodding contentedly to each other. “What did we say? Artist’s eyes!” + 

In some incomprehensible manner they had got the idea that Ingrid had become one of them, an artist. They thought she was playing a part in a drama. It was a triumph for them in their old age. + 

On they went as fast as they could. The old couple were only afraid that the madman would not be at the inn any longer. But he was there, and the worst of it was, no one knew how to get him away. + 

The two peasants from Raglanda who had brought him had taken him to one of the rooms and locked him in whilst they were waiting for fresh horses. When they left him his arms had been tied behind him, but he had somehow managed to free his hands from the cord, and when they came to fetch him he was free, and, beside himself with rage, had seized a chair, with which he threatened to strike anyone who approached him. They could do nothing but beat a hasty retreat and lock the door. The peasants now only waited for the landlord and his men to return and help them to bind him again. + 

All the hope which Ingrid’s old friends had reawakened within her was, however, not quenched. She quite saw that Gunnar Hede was worse than he had ever been before, but that was what she had expected. She still hoped. It was not their fairy tales, it was their great love that had given her new hope. + 

She asked the men to let her go to the madman. She said she knew him, and he would not do her any harm; but the peasants said they were not mad. The man in the room would kill anybody who went in. + 

Ingrid sat down to think. She thought how strange it was that she should meet Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren just today. Surely that meant something. She would never have met them if it had not been for some purpose. And Ingrid thought of how Hede had regained his senses the last time. Could she not again make him do something which would remind him of olden days, and drive away his mad thoughts? She thought and thought. + 

Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren sat on a seat outside the inn, looking more unhappy than one would have thought was possible. They were not far from crying. + 

Ingrid, their “child,” came up to them with a smile⁠—such a smile as only she could have⁠—and stroked their old, wrinkled cheeks, and said it would please her so much if they would let her see a performance like those she used to see every day in the olden time. It would be such a comfort to her. + 

At first they said no, for they were not at all in proper artist humour, but when she had expended a few smiles upon them they could not resist her. They went to their cart and unpacked their costumes. + 

When they were ready they called for the blind man, and Ingrid selected the place where the performance was to be held. She would not let them perform in the yard, but took them into the garden belonging to the inn, for there was a garden belonging to this inn. It was mostly full of beds for vegetables which had not yet come up, but here and there was an apple-tree in bloom. And Ingrid said she would like them to perform under one of the apple-trees in bloom. + 

Some lads and servant-girls came running when they heard the violin, so there was a small audience. But it was hard work for Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren to perform. Ingrid had asked too much of them; they were really much too sad. + 

And it was very unfortunate that Ingrid had taken them out into the garden. She had evidently not remembered that the rooms in the inn faced this way. Mrs. Blomgren was very nearly running away when she heard a window in one of the rooms quickly opened. Supposing the madman had heard the music, and supposing he jumped out of the window and came to them? + 

But Mrs. Blomgren was somewhat reassured when she saw who had opened the window. It was a young gentleman with a pleasant face. He was in shirtsleeves, but otherwise very decently dressed. His eye was quiet, his lips smiled, and he stroked his hair back from his forehead with his hand. + 

Mr. Blomgren was working, and was so taken up with the performance that he did not notice anything. Mrs. Blomgren, who had nothing else to do but kiss her hands in all directions, had time to observe everything. + 

It was astonishing how radiant Ingrid suddenly looked. Her eyes shone as never before, and her face was so white that light seemed to come from it. And all this radiancy was directed towards the man in the window. + 

He did not hesitate long. He stood up on the windowsill and jumped down to them, and he went up to the blind man and asked him to lend him his violin. Ingrid at once took the violin from the blind man and gave it to him. + 

“Play the waltz from Freischütz,” she said. + 

Then the man began to play, and Ingrid smiled, but she looked so unearthly that Mrs. Blomgren almost thought that she would dissolve into a sunbeam, and fly away from them. But as soon as Mrs. Blomgren heard the man play she knew him again. + 

“Is that how it is?” she said to herself. “Is it he? That was why she wanted to see two old people perform.” + 

Gunnar Hede, who had been walking up and down his room in such a rage that he felt inclined to kill someone, had suddenly heard a blind man playing outside his window, and that had taken him back to an incident in his former life. + 

He could not at first understand where his own violin was, but then he remembered that Alin had taken it away with him, and now the only thing left for him to do was to try and borrow the blind man’s violin to play himself quiet again; he was so excited. And as soon as he had got the violin in his hand he began to play. It never occurred to him that he could not play. He had no idea that for several years he had only been able to play some poor little tunes. + 

He thought all the time he was in Upsala, outside the house with the Virginia-creepers, and he expected the acrobats would begin to dance as they had done last time. He endeavoured to play with more life to make them do so, but his fingers were stiff and awkward; the bow would not properly obey them. He exerted himself so much that the perspiration stood on his forehead. + 

At last, however, he got hold of the right tune⁠—the same they had danced to the last time. He played it so enticingly, so temptingly, that it ought to have melted their hearts. But the old acrobats did not begin to dance. It was a long time since they had met the student at Upsala; they did not remember how enthusiastic they were then. They had no idea what he expected them to do. + 

Gunnar Hede looked at Ingrid for an explanation why they did not dance. When he looked at her there was such an unearthly radiance in her eyes that in his astonishment he gave up playing. He stood a moment looking round the small crowd. They all looked at him with such strange, uneasy glances. It was impossible to play with people staring at him so. He simply went away from them. There were some apple-pears in bloom at the other end of the garden, so he went there. + 

He saw now that nothing fitted in with the ideas he had just had that Alin had locked him in, and that he was at Upsala. The garden was too large, and the house was not covered with red creepers. No, it could not be Upsala. But he did not mind very much where he was. It seemed to him as if he had not played for centuries, and now he had got hold of a violin. Now he would play. He placed the violin against his cheek, and began. But again he was stopped by the stiffness in his fingers. He could only play the very simplest things. + 

“I shall have to begin at the beginning,” he said. + 

And he smiled and played a little minuet. It was the first thing he had learnt. His father had played it to him, and he had afterwards played it from ear. He saw all at once the whole scene before him, and he heard the words: + 

“The little Prince should learn to dance, but he broke his little leg.” + 

Then he tried to play several other small dances. They were some he had played as a school boy. They had asked him to play at the dancing-lessons at the young ladies’ boarding-school. He could see the girls dance and swing about, and could hear the dancing-mistress beat the time with her foot. + 

Then he grew bolder. He played first violin in one of Mozart’s quartettes. When he learnt that, he was in the Sixth Form at the Latin school at Falun. Some old gentlemen had practised this quartette for a concert, but the first violin had been taken ill, and he was asked to take his part, young as he was. He remembered how proud he had been. + 

Gunnar Hede only thought of getting his fingers into practice when he played these childish exercises. But he soon noticed that something strange was happening to him. He had a distinct sensation that in his brain there was some great darkness that hid his past. As soon as he tried to remember anything, it was as if he were trying to find something in a dark room; but when he played, some of the darkness vanished. Without his having thought of it, the darkness had vanished so much that he could now remember his childhood and school life. + 

Then he made up his mind to let himself be led by the violin; perhaps it could drive away all the darkness. And so it did, for every piece he played the darkness vanished a little. The violin led him through the one year after the other, awoke in him memories of studies, friends and pleasures. The darkness stood like a wall before him, but when he advanced against it, armed with the violin, it vanished step by step. Now and then he looked round to see whether it closed again behind him. But behind him was bright day. + 

The violin came to a series of duets for piano and violin. He only played a bar or two of each. But a large portion of the darkness vanished; he remembered his fiancée and his engagement. He would like to have dwelt a little over this, but there was still much darkness left to be played away. He had no time. + 

He glided into a hymn. He had heard it once when he was unhappy. He remembered he was sitting in a village church when he heard it. But why had he been unhappy? Because he went about the country selling goods like a poor pedlar. It was a hard life. It was sad to think about it. + 

The bow went over the strings like a whirlwind, and again cut through a large portion of the darkness. Now he saw the Fifty-Mile Forest, the snow-covered animals, the weird shapes, the drifts made of them. He remembered the journey to see his fiancée, remembered that she had broken the engagement. All this became clear to him at one time. + 

He really felt neither sorrow nor joy over anything he remembered. The most important thing was that he did remember. This of itself was an unspeakable pleasure. But all at once the bow stopped, as if of its own accord. It would not lead him any further. And yet there was more⁠—much more⁠—that he must remember. The darkness still stood like a solid wall before him. + 

He compelled the bow to go on. And it played two quite common tunes, the poorest he had ever heard. How could his bow have learned such tunes? The darkness did not vanish in the least for these tunes. They really taught him nothing; but from them came a terror which he could not remember having ever felt before⁠—an inconceivable, awful fear, the mad terror of a doomed soul. + 

He stopped playing; he could not bear it. What was there in these tunes⁠—what was there? The darkness did not vanish for them, and the awful thing was, that it seemed to him that when he did not advance against the darkness with the violin and drive it before him, it came gliding towards him to overwhelm him. + 

He had been standing playing, with his eyes half closed; now he opened them and looked into the world of reality. He saw Ingrid, who had been standing listening to him the whole time. He asked her, not expecting an answer, but simply to keep back the darkness for a moment: + 

“When did I last play this tune?” + 

But Ingrid stood trembling. She had made up her mind, whatever happened, now he should hear the truth. Afraid she was, but at the same time full of courage, and quite decided as to what she meant to do. He should not again escape her, not be allowed to slip away from her. But in spite of her courage she did not dare to tell him straight out that these were the tunes he had played whilst he was out of his mind; she evaded the question. + 

“That was what you used to play at Munkhyttan last winter,” she said. + 

Hede felt as if he were surrounded by nothing but mysteries. Why did this young girl say “du” to him? She was not a peasant girl. Her hair was dressed like other young ladies’, on the top of the head and in small curls. Her dress was home-woven, but she wore a lace collar. She had small hands and a refined face. This face, with the large, dreamy eyes, could not belong to a peasant girl. Hede’s memory could not tell him anything about her. Why did she, then, say “du” to him? How did she know that he had played these tunes at home? + 

“What is your name?” he said. “Who are you?” + 

“I am Ingrid, whom you saw at Upsala many years ago, and whom you comforted because she could not learn to dance on the tightrope.” + 

This went back to the time he could partly remember. Now he did remember her. + 

“How tall and pretty you have grown, Ingrid!” he said. “And how fine you have become! What a beautiful brooch you have!” + 

He had been looking at her brooch for some time. He thought he knew it; it was like a brooch of enamel and pearls his mother used to wear. The young girl answered at once. + 

“Your mother gave it to me. You must have seen it before.” + 

Gunnar Hede put down the violin and went up to Ingrid. He asked her almost violently: + 

“How is it possible⁠—how can you wear her brooch? How is it that I don’t know anything about your knowing my mother?” + 

Ingrid was frightened. She grew almost gray with terror. She knew already what the next question would be. + 

“I know nothing, Ingrid. I don’t know why I am here. I don’t know why you are here. Why don’t I know all this?” + 

“Oh, don’t ask me!” + 

She went back a step or two, and stretched out her hands as if to protect herself. + 

“Won’t you tell me?” + 

“Don’t ask! don’t ask!” + 

He seized her roughly by the wrist to compel her to tell the truth. + 

“Tell me! I am in my full senses! Why is there so much I can’t remember?” + 

She saw something wild and threatening in his eyes. She knew now that she would be obliged to tell him. But she felt as if it were impossible to tell a man that he had been mad. It was much more difficult than she had thought. It was impossible⁠—impossible! + 

“Tell me!” he repeated. + 

But she could hear from his voice that he would not hear it. He was almost ready to kill her if she told him. Then she summoned up all her love, and looked straight into Gunnar Hede’s eyes, and said: + 

“You have not been quite right.” + 

“Not for a long time?” + 

“I don’t quite know⁠—not for three or four years.” + 

“Have I been out of my mind?” + 

“No, no! You have bought and sold and gone to the fairs.” + 

“In what way have I been mad?” + 

“You were frightened.” + 

“Of whom was I frightened?” + 

“Of animals.” + 

“Of goats, perhaps?” + 

“Yes, mostly of goats.” + 

He had stood clutching her by the wrist the whole time. He now flung her hand away from him⁠—simply flung it. He turned away from Ingrid in a rage, as if she had maliciously told him an infamous lie. + 

But this feeling gave way for something else which excited him still more. He saw before his eyes, as distinctly as if it had been a picture, a tall Dalar man, weighed down by a huge pack. He was going into a peasant’s house, but a wretched little dog came rushing at him. He stopped and curtsied and curtsied, and did not dare to go in until a man came out of the house, laughing, and drove the dog away. + 

When he saw this he again felt that terrible fear. In this anguish the vision disappeared, but then he heard voices. They shouted and shrieked around him. They laughed. Derision was showered upon him. Worst and loudest were the shrill voices of children. One word, one name came over and over again: it was shouted, shrieked, whispered, wheezed into his ear⁠—“The Goat! the Goat!” And that all meant him, Gunnar Hede. All that he had lived in. He felt in full consciousness the same unspeakable fear he had suffered whilst out of his mind. But now it was not fear for anything outside himself⁠—now he was afraid of himself. + 

“It was I! it was I!” he said, wringing his hands. The next moment he was kneeling against a low seat. He laid his head down and cried, cried: “It was I!” He moaned and sobbed. “It was I!” How could he have courage to bear this thought⁠—a madman, scorned and laughed at by all? “Ah! let me go mad again!” he said, hitting the seat with his fist. “This is more than a human being can bear.” + 

He held his breath a moment. The darkness came towards him as the saviour he invoked. It came gliding towards him like a mist. A smile passed over his lips. He could feel the muscles of his face relax, feel that he again had the look of a madman. But that was better. The other he could not bear. To be pointed at, jeered at, scorned, mad! No, it was better to be so again and not to know it. Why should he come back to life? Everyone must loathe him. The first light, fleeting clouds of the great darkness began to enwrap him. + 

Ingrid stood there, seeing and hearing all his anguish, not knowing but that all would soon be lost again. She saw clearly that madness was again about to seize him. She was so frightened, so frightened, all her courage had gone. But before he again lost his senses, and became so scared that he allowed no one to come near him, she would at least take leave of him and of all her happiness. + 

Gunnar Hede felt that Ingrid came and knelt down beside him, laid her arm round his neck, put her cheek to his, and kissed him. She did not think herself too good to come near him, the madman, did not think herself too good to kiss him. + 

There was a faint hissing in the darkness. The mist lifted, and it was as if serpents had raised their heads against him, and now wheezed with anger that they could not reach to sting him. + 

“Do not be so unhappy,” Ingrid said. “Do not be so unhappy. No one thinks of the past, if you will only get well.” + 

“I want to be mad again,” he said. “I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to think how I have been.” + 

“Yes, you can,” said Ingrid. + 

“No; that no one can forget,” he moaned. “I was so dreadful! No one can love me.” + 

“I love you,” she said. + 

He looked up doubtfully. + 

“You kissed me in order that I should not go out of my mind again. You pity me.” + 

“I will kiss you again,” she said. + 

“You say that now because you think I am in need of hearing it.” + 

“Are you in need of hearing that someone loves you?” + 

“If I am⁠—if I am? Ah, child,” he said, and tore himself away from her, “how can I possibly bear it, when I know that everyone who sees me thinks: ‘That fellow has been mad; he has gone about curtsying for dogs and cats.’ ” + 

Then he began again. He lay crying with his face in his hands. + 

“It is better to go out of one’s mind again. I can hear them shouting after me, and I see myself, and the anguish, the anguish, the anguish⁠—” + 

But then Ingrid’s patience came to an end. + 

“Yes, that is right,” she cried; “go out of your mind again. I call that manly to go mad in order to escape a little anguish.” + 

She sat biting her lips, struggling with her tears, and as she could not get the words out quickly enough, she seized him by the shoulder and shook him. She was enraged and quite beside herself with anger because he would again escape her, because he did not struggle and fight. + 

“What do you care about me? What do you care about your mother? You go mad, and then you will have peace.” She shook him again by the arm. “To be saved from anguish, you say, but you don’t care about one who has been waiting for you all her life. If you had any thought for anyone but yourself, you would fight against this and get well; but you have no thought for others. You can come so touchingly in visions and dreams and beg for help, but in reality you will not have any help. You imagine that your sufferings are greater than anyone else’s, but there are others who have suffered more than you.” + 

At last Gunnar Hede raised his eyes, and looked her straight in the face. She was anything but beautiful at this moment. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her lips trembled, whilst she tried to get out the words between her sobs. But in his eyes her emotion only made her more beautiful. A wonderful peace came over him, and a great and humble thankfulness. Something great and wonderful had come to him in his deepest humiliation. It must be a great love⁠—a great love. + 

He had sat bemoaning his wretchedness, and Love came and knocked at his door. He would not merely be tolerated when he came back to life; people would not only with difficulty refrain from laughing at him. + 

There was one who loved him and longed for him. She spoke hardly to him, but he heard love trembling in every single word. He felt as if she were offering him thrones and kingdoms. She told him that whilst he had been out of his mind he had saved her life. He had awakened her from the dead, had helped her, protected her. But this was not enough for her; she would possess him altogether. + 

When she kissed him he had felt a life-giving balm enter his sick soul, but he had hardly dared to think that it was love that made her. But he could not doubt her anger and her tears. He was beloved⁠—he, poor wretched creature! he who had been held in derision by everybody! and before the great and humble bliss which now filled Gunnar Hede vanished the last darkness. It was drawn aside like a heavy curtain, and he saw plainly before him the region of terror through which he had wandered. But there, too, he had met Ingrid; there he had lifted her from the grave; there he had played for her at the hut in the forest; there she had striven to heal him. + 

But only the memory of her came back: the feelings with which she had formerly inspired him now awoke. Love filled his whole being; he felt the same burning longing that he had felt in the churchyard at Raglanda when she was taken from him. + 

In that region of terror, in that great desert, there had at any rate grown one flower that had comforted him with fragrance and beauty, and now he felt that love would dwell with him forever. The wild flower of the desert had been transplanted into the garden of life, and had taken root and grown and thriven, and when he felt this he knew he was saved; he knew that the darkness had found its master. + 

Ingrid was silent. She was tired, as one is tired after hard work; but she was also content, for she felt she had carried out her work in the best possible manner. She knew she had conquered. + 

At last Gunnar Hede broke the silence. + 

“I promise you that I will not give in,” he said. + 

“Thank you,” Ingrid answered. + 

Nothing more was said. + 

Gunnar Hede thought he would never be able to tell her how much he loved her. It could never be told in words, only shown every day and every hour of his life. + 