“It is strange to think that you, too, countess, you whom every one loves, are an adulteress.” The young woman started. “Yes, if not in deed, yet in thoughts and desire, and that makes no difference. I who lie here feel that it makes no difference.” “I know it!” “And yet you are happy now. You may possess him you loved without sin. That black spectre does not stand between you when you meet. You may belong to one another before the world, love one another, go side by side through life.” “Oh, madame, madame!” “How can you dare to stay with him?” cried the old woman, with increasing violence. “Repent, repent in time! Go home to your father and mother, before they come and curse you. Do you dare to consider Gösta Berling your husband? Leave him! I shall give him Ekeby. I shall give him power and glory. Do you dare to share that with him? Do you dare to accept happiness and honor? I did not dare to. Do you remember what happened to me? Do you remember the Christmas dinner at Ekeby? Do you remember the cell in the bailiff’s house?” “Oh, madame, we sinners go here side by side without happiness. I am here to see that no joy shall find a home by our hearth. Do you think I do not long for my home? Oh, bitterly do I long for the protection and support of home; but I shall never again enjoy them. Here I shall live in fear and trembling, knowing that everything I do leads to sin and sorrow, knowing that if I help one, I ruin another. Too weak and foolish for the life here, and yet forced to live it, bound by an everlasting penance.” “With such thoughts we deceive our hearts,” cried the major’s wife; “but it is weakness. You will not leave him, that is the only reason.” Before the countess could answer, Gösta Berling came into the room. “Come here, Gösta,” said the major’s wife instantly, and her voice grew still sharper and harder. “Come here, you whom everybody praises. You shall now hear what has happened to your old friend whom you allowed to wander about the country, despised and forsaken. “I will first tell you what happened last spring, when I came home to my mother, for you ought to know the end of that story. “In March I reached the iron-works in the Älfdal forest, Gösta. Little better than a beggar I looked. They told me that my mother was in the dairy. So I went there, and stood for a long while silent at the door. There were long shelves round about the room, and on them stood shining copper pans filled with milk. And my mother, who was over ninety years old, took down pan after pan and skimmed off the cream. She was active enough, the old woman; but I saw well enough how hard it was for her to straighten up her back to reach the pans. I did not know if she had seen me; but after a while she spoke to me in a curious, shrill voice.