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“What is it, mother?”
“Oh, Marienne, you looked so strange. I was
afraid.”
Marienne gazed at her mother for a long time.
She was a little dried-up woman, grey-haired and
wrinkled at fifty years. She loved like a dog, not
counting the blows she received. She was usually
cheerful, and yet she gave a sad impression, for she
was like a storm-whipped tree on the sea-shore,
she had never had peace for growth. She had learned
to creep along by-paths if necessary; and she often
dissembled, pretending to be more stupid than she
was, to escape reproaches. She was in everything
the work of a husband’s hand.
“Would you grieve much, mother, if father
died?” she asked.
“Marienne! You are angry with your father. You
are always angry with him. Why cannot you make
it right again, now you have a new lover?”
“Oh, mother, I cannot help it. Can I help
shrinking from him? Do you not also see what kind
of a man he is? He is hasty and uncouth; he has
tried you till you are old before your time. Why
should he be our master? He behaves like a madman.
Why should I honor and obey him? He is not
good—nor merciful. I know he is strong. He can
kill us when he chooses. He can turn us out of the
house when he will. Am I therefore to love him?”
But Fru Gustafva seemed another woman when
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