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rejoice in honest truth, not in play like mummeries or
shrovetide sports. I would feel life grasping me with such
hard hands that I was lifted up or cast down until there
was no room in my mind for aught else but that which
lifted me up or cast me down. I would melt in my grief
or burn together with my joy! Ah, you can never
understand it! If I were like one of the generals of the Roman
empire who were carried through the streets in triumphal
chariots, I myself would be the victory and the triumph.
I would be the pride and jubilant shouts of the people and
the blasts of the trumpets and the honor and the glory—all,
all in one shrill note. That is what I would be. Never
would I be like one who merely sits there in his miserable
ambition and cold vanity and thinks, as the chariot rolls
on, how he shines in the eyes of the crowd and how
helplessly the waves of envy lick his feet, while he feels with
pleasure the purple wrapping his shoulders softly and the
laurel wreath cooling his brow. Do you understand me,
Sti Högh? That is what I mean by life, that is what I have
thirsted after, but I have felt in my own heart that such
life could never be mine, and it was borne in on me that,
in some strange manner, I was myself at fault, that I had
.sinned against myself and led myself astray. I know not
how it is, but it has seemed to me that this was whence
my bitter sorrow welled, that I had touched a string which
must not sound,and its tone had sundered something within
me that could never be healed. Therefore I could never
force open the portals of life, but had to stand without,
unbidden and unsought, like a poor maimed bondwoman.”
“You!” exclaimed Sti Högh in astonishment; then, his
face changing quickly, he went on in another voice: “Ah,
now I see it all!” He shook his head at her. “By my troth,
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