Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Ball at Ekeby
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with Gösta Berling and kissed him? Ought he not
to turn her out and bar his doors upon her, when
she had dishonored her grandeur by loving such a
man? If she stayed at Ekeby, or if she crept away to
some of the neighbors to get a lodging for the night,
if she slept in the snowdrift, it was all the same, she
was already trampled in the dirt, his lovely Marienne.
Her glory was gone; the glory of his life was
gone too.
He lay in his bed and heard her knocking at the
door. What did it matter to him? Some one stood
there who was ready to marry an unfrocked
parson—he had no home for such a woman. If he
had loved her less, if he had been less proud of
her, he might have let her in. He could not refuse
them his blessing—he had lost that in gambling to
Gösta; but to open his door to her—that he would
not do.
And the young girl still stood outside the door
of her home. Now she shook the latch in a fit of
fury; now she fell on her knees, and, clasping her
frozen hands together, begged forgiveness.
But no one heard her, no one answered, no one
opened.
Was it not awful? I am frightened in speaking of
it. She came from a ball where she had been queen;
she had been proud, rich, and happy, and in a
moment she was cast down into bottomless misery.
Shut out of her home, given a prey to the snow;
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