It was for Anna almost the climax of the horrors of the day to see how these words affect him. He drags on the reins, turns, and drives homewards, urging the horse to a gallop with blows and wild cries down the dreadful hill, while a long line of sparks crackle under the runners and hoofs in the thin March snow. Anna Stjärnhök and Ulrika Dillner stand alone in the road, but they do not say a word. Ulrika trembles before Anna’s wild eyes, and Anna has nothing to say to the poor old thing, for whose sake she has sacrificed her beloved. She would have liked to weep, to rave, to roll on the ground and strew snow and sand on her head. Before, she had known the sweetness of renunciation, now she knew its bitterness. What was it to sacrifice her love compared to sacrificing her beloved’s soul? They drove on to Berga in the same silence; but when they arrived, and the hall-door was opened, Anna Stjärnhök fainted for the first and only time in her life. There sat both Sintram and Gösta Berling, and chatted quietly. The tray with toddy had been brought in; they had been there at least an hour. Anna Stjärnhök fainted, but old Ulrika stood calm. She had noticed that everything was not right with him who had followed them on the road. Afterwards the captain and his wife arranged the matter so with Sintram that old Ulrika was allowed to stay at Berga. He agreed good-naturedly. “He did not want to drive her mad,” he said. * * * * * I do not ask any one to believe these old stories. They cannot be anything but lies and fiction. But the anguish which passes over the heart, until it wails as the floor boards in Sintram’s room wailed under the swaying rockers; but the questions which ring in the ears, as the sleigh-bells rang for Anna Stjärnhök in the lonely forest,—when will they be as lies and fiction? Oh, that they could be! CHAPTER XII EBBA DOHNA’S STORY The beautiful point on Löfven’s eastern shore, about which the bay glides with lapping waves, the proud point where the manor of Borg lies, beware of approaching. Löfven never looks more glorious than from its summit. No one can know how lovely it is, the lake of my dreams, until he has seen from Borg’s point the morning mist glide away from its smooth surface; until he, from the windows of the little blue cabinet, where so many memories dwell, has seen it reflect a pink sunset. But I still say, go not thither! For perhaps you will be seized with a desire to remain in that old manor’s sorrowful halls; perhaps you will make yourself the owner of those fair lands; and if you are young, rich, and happy, you will make your home there with a young wife. No, it is better never to see the beautiful point, for at Borg no one can live and be happy. No matter how rich, how happy you may be, who move in there, those old tear-drenched floors would soon drink _your_ tears as well, and those walls, which could give back so many moans, would also glean _your_ sighs.