Like shy guests the gay sallies, the merry stories come to the table in the corner by the stove. There the rage of the night and its promises enter into their minds. Master Julius makes the mighty captain, Christian Bergh, believe that the roasted grouse, which are being served at the big table, will not go round for all the guests; but it amuses no one. “They won’t go round,” he says. “I know how many there are. But they’ll manage in spite of it, Captain Christian; they have some roasted crows for us here at the little table.” But Colonel Beerencreutz’s lips are curved by only a very feeble smile, under the fierce moustaches, and Gösta has looked the whole day as if he was meditating somebody’s death. “Any food is good enough for pensioners,” he says. At last the dish heaped up with magnificent grouse reaches the little table. But Captain Christian is angry. Has he not had a life-long hate of crows,—those odious, cawing, winged things? He hated them so bitterly that last autumn he had put on a woman’s trailing dress, and had fastened a cloth on his head and made himself a laughing-stock for all men, only to get in range when they ate the grain in the fields. He sought them out at their caucuses on the bare fields in the spring and killed them. He looked for their nests in the summer, and threw out the screaming, featherless young ones, or smashed the half-hatched eggs. Now he seizes the dish of grouse. “Do you think I don’t know them?” he cries to the servant. “Do I need to hear them caw to recognize them? Shame on you, to offer Christian Bergh crows! Shame on you!” Thereupon he takes the grouse, one by one, and throws them against the wall. “Shame, shame!” he reiterates, so that the whole room rings,—“to offer Christian Bergh crows! Shame!” And just as he used to hurl the helpless young crows against the cliffs, so now he sends grouse after grouse whizzing against the wall. Sauce and grease spatter about him, the crushed birds rebound to the floor. And the bachelors’ wing rejoices. Then the angry voice of the major’s wife penetrates to the pensioners’ ears. “Turn him out!” she calls to the servants. But they do not dare to touch him. He is still Christian Bergh, the mighty captain. “Turn him out!” He hears the command, and, terrible in his rage, he now turns upon the major’s wife as a bear turns from a fallen enemy to meet a new attack. He marches up to the horse-shoe table. His heavy tread resounds through the hall. He stands opposite her, with the table between them. “Turn him out!” cries the major’s wife again. But he is raging; none dare to face his frowning brow and great clenched hand. He is big as a giant, and as strong. The guests and servants tremble, and dare not approach him. Who would dare to touch him now, when rage has taken away his reason? He stands opposite the major’s wife and threatens her. “I took the crow and threw it against the wall. And I did right.” “Out with you, captain!”