Benedictsson's novel chronicles the marriage and coming-of-age of its protagonist, Selma Berg. An orphan, under the guardianship of her uncle the Rector, she is virtually married off to the wealthy, much older, local Squire. As an adored young wife, she is seemingly given everything she could possibly desire -- an envied position in the community, jewels, a spirited horse that she rides when and where she will, the ability to purchase whatever she wants, freedom enough to visit her family, and an indulgent husband.

But she is disgusted by the physical aspect of her marriage, and her husband is jealous of any attention she attracts from young, unmarried men, including her cousin, Richard, who had been her intellectual sparring partner as they grew up.

As the years pass and Selma moves from late adolescence into young womanhood, she comes more and more to recognize the emptiness of her life. During a visit to the National Art Museum in Stockholm, she happens upon a young artist couple, sketching and painting in the gallery. Immersed in their work, Selma is struck by the futility of her own position. " But she? To vegetate and die -- that was to be her life. Nothing to show for it, be it long or short. To vegetate and die -- calmly and acquiescently."

She realizes that she had not agreed to her marriage as a consenting adult, but had been lured into it as a child, and she decides to make a change. As with Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, we don't know the trajectory of the change. As is the play, this novel is a reflection of the restlessness and dis-ease that women felt with their expected roles in late 19th c. Scandinavia (and Europe and America). ( )