They push aside the chairs, make a ring about the kettle, which stands in the middle of the black floor, and whirl in a wild dance. Innermost in the circle dances the devil, with wild bounds; and at last he falls flat beside the kettle, rolls it over, and drinks. Then Beerencreutz throws himself down beside him, and also Gösta Berling; and after them all the others lay themselves in a circle round the kettle, which is rolled from mouth to mouth. At last it is tipped over by a push, and the hot, sticky drink pours over them. When they rise up, swearing, the devil is gone; but his golden promises float like shining crowns over the pensioners’ heads. CHAPTER III CHRISTMAS DAY On Christmas day the major’s wife gives a great dinner at Ekeby. She sits as hostess at a table laid for fifty guests. She sits there in splendor and magnificence; here her short sheepskin jacket, her striped woollen skirt, and clay-pipe do not follow her. She rustles in silk, gold weighs on her bare arms, pearls cool her white neck. Where are the pensioners? Where are they who on the black floor of the smithy, out of the polished copper kettle, drank a toast to the new masters of Ekeby? In the corner by the stove the pensioners are sitting at a separate table; to-day there is no room for them at the big table. To them the food comes late, the wine sparingly; to them are sent no glances from beautiful women, no one listens to Gösta’s jokes. But the pensioners are like tamed birds, like satiated wild beasts. They had had scarcely an hour’s sleep that night; then they had driven to morning worship, lighted by torches and the stars. They saw the Christmas candles, they heard the Christmas hymns, their faces were like smiling children’s. They forgot the night in the smithy as one forgets an evil dream. Great and powerful is the major’s wife at Ekeby. Who dares lift his arm to strike her; who his voice to give evidence against her? Certainly not poor gentlemen who for many years have eaten her bread and slept under her roof. She can put them where she will, she can shut her door to them when she will, and they have not the power to fly from her might. God be merciful to their souls! Far from Ekeby they cannot live. At the big table there was rejoicing: there shone Marianne Sinclair’s beautiful eyes; there rang the gay Countess Dohna’s low laugh. But the pensioners are gloomy. Was it not just as easy to have put them at the same table with the other guests? What a lowering position there in the corner by the stove. As if pensioners were not fit to associate with fine people! The major’s wife is proud to sit between the Count at Borg and the Bro clergyman. The pensioners hang their heads like shame-faced children, and by degrees awake in them thoughts of the night.