"It is the account of your American journey, which I am sending to some papers I know in Denmark."
"But you should not cut it up into sections; you know that it forms a complete whole. Have you read it?"
"No, I have only glanced through it; but at any rate it will bring in some money."
"No, it will not; for no one will print it piecemeal. Only in a single volume would it have any value."
She paid no attention. "Come now," she said commandingly; "we will go to the post."
She meant well, but was foolish; and although experience had taught him what a dangerous adviser she was, he let her have her way, and followed.
On the stairs, he noticed that she limped, for she had bought too tight boots with high heels, such as were then only worn by cocottes.
When they reached the street, she hurried on to the post, and he followed. As he noticed how the symmetry of her little figure was impaired by the many packages which she insisted on carrying, and how she limped on the boot heel which she had trodden down, he was seized with a sort of repulsion.
It was the first time that he viewed her from behind, and he thought involuntarily of the wood-nymph of legend, who in front was a charming fairy, but behind quite hollow.
The next moment he felt a remorseful horror at himself and his thoughts. In this cruel heat the little woman was carrying the heavy load, and had already written six long letters to editors all for his sake. And she limped! But her brutal way of treating his work and cutting a manuscript to pieces without having read it; treating a literary work as a butcher does a carcass!...