“I, who am old, have seen it before, countess. I know it. I know that the storm of the thundering God is coming. Sometimes it rushes over great kingdoms, sometimes over small out-of-the-way communities. God’s storm forgets no one. It comes over the great as well as the small. It is grand to see God’s storm coming. “Anguish shall spread itself over the land. The small birds’ nests shall fall from the branches. The hawk’s nest in the pine-tree’s top shall be shaken down to the earth with a great noise, and even the eagle’s nest in the mountain cleft shall the wind drag out with its dragon tongue. “We thought that all was well with us; but it was not so. God’s storm is needed. I understand that, and I do not complain. I only wish that I might go to my mother.” She suddenly sinks back. “Go now, young woman,” she says. “I have no more time. I must go. Go now, and look out for them who ride on the storm-cloud!” Thereupon she renews her wandering. Her features relax, her glance turns inward. The countess and Madame Scharling have to leave her. As soon as they are back again among the dancers the young countess goes straight to Gösta Berling. “I can greet you from the major’s wife,” she says. “She is waiting for you to get her out of prison.” “Then she must go on waiting, countess.” “Oh, help her, Herr Berling!” Gösta stares gloomily before him. “No,” he says, “why should I help her? What thanks do I owe her? Everything she has done for me has been to my ruin.” “But Herr Berling—” “If she had not existed,” he says angrily, “I would now be sleeping up there in the forest. Is it my duty to risk my life for her, because she has made me a pensioner at Ekeby? Do you think much credit goes with that profession?” The young countess turns away from him without answering. She is angry. She goes back to her place thinking bitter thoughts of the pensioners. They have come to-night with horns and fiddles, and mean to let the bows scrape the strings until the horse-hair is worn through, without thinking that the merry tunes ring in the prisoner’s miserable room. They come here to dance until their shoes fall to pieces, and do not remember that their old benefactress can see their shadows whirling by the misty window-panes. Alas, how gray and ugly the world was! Alas, what a shadow trouble and hardness had cast over the young countess’s soul! After a while Gösta comes to ask her to dance. She refuses shortly. “Will you not dance with me, countess?” he asks, and grows very red. “Neither with you nor with any other of the Ekeby pensioners,” she says. “We are not worthy of such an honor.” “It is no honor, Herr Berling. But it gives me no pleasure to dance with those who forget the precepts of gratitude.” Gösta has already turned on his heel. This scene is heard and seen by many. All think the countess is right. The pensioners’ ingratitude and heartlessness had waked general indignation.