Again the subject of our conversation came noiselessly into the room; this time with the coffee. There was upon the whole something ghost-like about this blue-green Carlo Dolci portrait flitting thus over the rugs in the large room, where she was searching for a shade for the lamp on the coffee table, as though it were not dark enough here before. The shade was, moreover, a perforated picture of St. Peter's at Rome.
Stina departed, and the lady of the house poured out the coffee.
"And so you men are going to take from us the hope in immortality, with all the rest?" she abruptly asked.
To what this "all the rest" referred, I was allowed to form my own conjectures. She handed me a cup of coffee and continued,—
"When I was driving this morning to the other side of the park to visit the dying man, it occurred to me that the snow on the barren trees is, upon the whole, the most exquisite symbol that could be imagined of the hope of immortality spread over the earth; is it not so? So purely from above, and so merciful!"
"Do you believe it falls from the skies, my dear lady?"
"It certainly falls down on the earth."
"That is true, but it comes also from the earth."
She appeared not to want to hear this, but continued,—
"You spoke a little while ago of dust. But this white, pure dust on the frozen boughs and on the gray earth is truly like the poetry of eternity; so it seems to me," and she placed a singing emphasis on the "me."