This, however, was as yet only known to Marianne and her nurse. The pensioners themselves did not know it. The sick-room where small-pox raged was not open to any one. But when is the introspective power greater than during the long hours of convalescence? Then the fiend sits and stares and stares with his icy eyes, and picks and picks with his bony, hard fingers. And if one looks carefully, behind him sits a still paler creature, who stares and sneers, and behind him another and still another, sneering at one another and at the whole world. And while Marianne lay and looked at herself with all these staring icy eyes, all natural feelings died within her. She lay there and played she was ill; she lay there and played she was unhappy, in love, longing for revenge. She was it all, and still it was only a play. Everything became a play and unreality under those icy eyes, which watched her while they were watched by a pair behind them, which were watched by other pairs in infinite perspective. All the energy of life had died within her. She had found strength for glowing hate and tender love for one single night, not more. She did not even know if she loved Gösta Berling. She longed to see him to know if he could take her out of herself. While under the dominion of her illness, she had had only one clear thought: she had worried lest her illness should be known. She did not wish to see her parents; she wished no reconciliation with her father, and she knew that he would repent if he should know how ill she was. Therefore she ordered that her parents and every one else should only know that the troublesome irritation of the eyes, which she always had when she visited her native country, forced her to sit in a darkened room. She forbade her nurse to say how ill she was; she forbade the pensioners to go after the doctor at Karlstad. She had of course small-pox, but only very lightly; in the medicine-chest at Ekeby there were remedies enough to save her life. She never thought of death; she only lay and waited for health, to be able to go to the clergyman with Gösta and have the banns published. But now the sickness and the fever were gone. She was once more cold and sensible. It seemed to her as if she alone was sensible in this world of fools. She neither hated nor loved. She understood her father; she understood them all. He who understands does not hate. She had heard that Melchior Sinclair meant to have an auction at Björne and make way with all his wealth, that she might inherit nothing after him. People said that he would make the devastation as thorough as possible; first he would sell the furniture and utensils, then the cattle and implements, and then the house itself with all its lands, and would put the money in a bag and sink it to the bottom of the Löfven. Dissipation, confusion, and devastation should be her inheritance. Marianne smiled approvingly when she heard it: such was his character, and so he must act.