She took off her glasses, wiped her eyes first, and them afterwards, and began, after a pause, with the next question.
"Dear Berg," she said, and put on her glasses, "could you not, quite quietly, so that no one would notice, have all these portraits destroyed--indeed, all the pictures, for I cannot always distinguish them? Have them all burnt, or disposed of in some way, so that they do not remain here and as soon as you can manage it. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Frue, but ..."
"What do you mean?"
"It would be rather difficult if no one is to see."
She considered for a while.
"Even if it is noticed, it may be done all the same, Berg."
"Very good. Then of course it shall be done."
And done it was, with an infernal smell of burnt canvas and burnt leather, and a general smell of burning. A soft breeze drove it one afternoon all over the town, the smoke drifting almost to the works, out by the river-banks. She then invited her father, with all his family, to come up to her. That was done at once. She handed over all the housekeeping to old Mariane, and let her have what help she wanted. The rest of the family lived in the rooms behind her own.
Soon afterwards an advertisement appeared in the local paper: