The bridal pair and Bengt and Berit left at the same time but in different directions. The newlyweds took a fancy car, and Bengt and Berit rode the streetcar to Berit’s. She woke up in the middle of the night because Bengt was awake.
Are you asleep? she whispered.
He did not answer. Then she asked:
What are you thinking about?
He lay in endless silence. He was drenched in sweat. Suddenly, he shouted:
Do you know what they looked like?
Who? she whispered. She was afraid, partly because he had yelled and partly because someone might have heard it.
Of course, she knew whom he meant, and he knew that she knew.
Like dogs, he whispered. Like two satisfied little dogs.
Then something compelled her to say:
Why do you love her, Bengt?
As soon as she said it, but not before, she knew it was true. But she didn’t know how she knew it. When Bengt told her that what she had said was a lie, she realized that he was lying, although he was unaware of it then.
I hate her, he whispered.
Then he became fervent and aroused. Fearful of the banjo player and the sleeping card players, she let him take her. When he had fallen asleep, she started to cry in silence. And even though the blankets were thick, she was cold. She knew that the one she loved had spent someone else’s wedding night with her.
But in a sense it is true that he hated. Bengt hasn’t been home for two weeks, nor has he called. One evening the father called him and he wasn’t sober. It’s our honeymoon, you understand, he said. The father sounded happy to be have been left alone. He sounded happy about everything, happy, too, to be drunk. Take Berit and come to the island early tomorrow morning, he said. There’s ice now.
After the picture is taken, Bengt places Berit into the sled, fastens his spike, and pushes her gently into the inlet. He goes around the island three times with her—very slowly at first. The first time, they stop and look back at the island. Smoke is rising from the chimney; it is faint and delicate. The windowpanes are glinting in the dull sun. Heavy and tinged with blue, the snow covers the roof. The father comes out to the porch holding a pail, a shiny pail that he carries very carefully. He empties it over the snow beneath the railing. Now there is a large, ugly patch in the snow. He goes back inside without seeing them.
Nothing like that happens the second time they go around. Nothing happens at all, except that the smoke stops. They also hear a door slam, softly yet distinctly. Then Bengt turns the sled toward the sea. They stand up for a moment and look at the frozen-in ship. There is a granular trench behind it, filled with tall blocks of ice. The ship is deeply submerged and leaning slightly aport. They are too far away to be able to read its name. Ice encrusts the gunwale and the smokestack is frozen in ice, too. The flagpole is holding up a stiff pennant of ice. Next to the ship, there is a dark cloud of men gathered around a black horse and a sled. Its hooves aloft, the horse starts to gallop to shore. A man in a white fur is sitting in the sled, and its ringing bells slide across the ice. The hooves clatter, sometimes hollowly, as if over a bridge.
The third time, the shutter to the cabin is closed. Then he turns very sharply but proceeds very slowly to the island. They sit on the steps for ages before the father unlocks the door and steps outside. He laughs as soon as he sees them. In that moment he looks like a dog. He is more affectionate than ever on his honeymoon, so he takes Berit by the arm, and she goes sledding one more time. Bengt goes inside.
When he enters, Gun hasn’t finished getting dressed. So she quickly wraps a fur around her when she hears him coming. Without touching, they move two chairs in front of the fireplace and feel totally lonesome as they sit there.
Thank you for the letter, Gun says after a while.
The fire is blazing again. In its light, Bengt suddenly sees the dog leash hanging on the damper. He takes it down and hides it in his pocket. The leash shouldn’t hang there, since the dog had been run over on the way to Gun’s brother’s farm.
It wasn’t for you, he answers. The letter was for Papa.
She doesn’t respond but rips off the corner of a newspaper and throws it into the fire. Then she rips off an even bigger piece. Finally, she throws in the entire newspaper. The corners of the house creak in the coldness, and the sun is starting to set. It’s fifteen below. Bengt moves his chair closer to the fire and closer to her, but he knows he can’t get too close. They had promised this to each other after she got married. At the very most, they can get close but never too close. But when they aren’t near each other, Bengt hates her because his tiger roars incessantly into his ear all the things she does when they’re apart. And if it is lying—well, who would dare accuse a tiger of lying?
But once his chair is extremely close to hers, he realizes how short the distance between love and hate is; they are merely two sides of the same coin. We can only hate the one we truly love, and he does love her because he is close to her. She notices and becomes afraid, afraid of the severity of the law but also afraid of the longing of the flesh. Whenever she was alone in the new, unfamiliar home, she sometimes opened the bookcase and read about this crime as well as all the other crimes. But now she is mostly quivering because she wants him, because she has been longing for him, too.
They both want to, and though they try, they can’t resist. And they can’t resist because they no longer know each other so well. They are once again beautiful strangers to each other.
Your cheeks are so red, she whispers as she looks at him.
She is also red. But it’s foolish of her to have said it, because once you mention something like that, you crave touching it. And to touch him, she had to move closer to him, but she is still a little afraid. Bengt strokes her fur.
Thank you for the bracelet, she whispers.
She isn’t wearing it. He asks why. She says she is too afraid of Knut. Then she reaches for her purse. The bracelet is lying at the bottom of it, and the cigarette case is gone. For a split second, he is grazed by his own hatred. A hot wind strikes his cheek and vanishes in an instant, as wind usually does.
I threw it away, she whispers, for you. Now I have nothing left.
His reason tells him it’s a lie, but he still accepts it as the truth. For we will gladly accept lies as long as they are presented as the truth.
He fastens the bracelet around her wrist. It is heavy and beautiful. And because he doesn’t recognize her wrist, he strokes it. And when they kiss, they do not recognize their lips. Then, when she takes off the fur, they hear Knut’s voice from outside and they go up to the window. Knut and Berit are climbing up the snow. The thermometer reads twenty below zero. They manage to kiss each other one more time before the other two arrive.