It was surely so; the young people’s feet had trodden too hard on old Ulrika Dillner, and the young people’s laughter had rung too arrogantly in her ears; for there came over her suddenly an irresistible longing for a married woman’s titles and dignities. At last she said “yes” to the evil Sintram’s long courtship, followed him to Fors as his wife, and was parted from the old friends at Berga, the dear old work, and the old cares for daily bread. It was a match which went quickly and gayly. Sintram offered himself at Christmas, and in February they were married. That year Anna Stjärnhök was living in Captain Uggla’s home. She was a good substitute for old Ulrika, and the latter could draw back without compunction, and take to herself married honors. Without compunction, but not without regret. It was not a pleasant place she had come to; the big, empty rooms were filled with dreadful terrors. As soon as it was dark she began to tremble and to be afraid. She almost died of homesickness. The long Sunday afternoons were the hardest of all. They never came to an end, neither they nor the long succession of torturing thoughts which travelled through her brain. So it happened one day in March, when Sintram had not come home from church to dinner, that she went into the drawing-room, on the second floor, and placed herself at the piano. It was her last consolation. The old piano, with a flute-player and shepherdess painted on the white cover, was her own, come to her from her parents’ home. To it she could tell her troubles; it understood her. But is it not both pitiful and ridiculous? Do you know what she is playing? Only a polka, and she who is so heart-broken! She does not know anything else. Before her fingers stiffened round broom and carving-knife she had learned this one polka. It sticks in her fingers; but she does not know any other piece,—no funeral march, no impassioned sonata, not even a wailing ballad,—only the polka. She plays it whenever she has anything to confide to the old piano. She plays it both when she feels like weeping and like smiling. When she was married she played it, and when for the first time she had come to her own home, and also now. The old strings understand her: she is unhappy, unhappy. A traveller passing by and hearing the polka ring could well believe that Sintram was having a ball for neighbors and friends, it sounds so gay. It is such a brave and glad melody. With it, in the old days, she has played carelessness in and hunger out at Berga; when they heard it every one must up and dance. It burst the fetters of rheumatism about the joints, and lured pensioners of eighty years on to the floor. The whole world would gladly dance to that polka, it sounds so gay—but old Ulrika weeps. Sintram has sulky, morose servants about him, and savage animals. She longs for friendly faces and smiling mouths. It is this despairing longing which the lively polka shall interpret.