Perhaps no carriage comes. But then the sick boy is shut up in his room and no one may go to him for a long time, because he is infectious. And anyone can understand that this must be terribly sad.
The children in the courtyard talk of nothing else.
They talk with soft voices and faces full of mystery, because they know nothing for certain. They hear that one of them, who rode away in the carriage, is dead; but that makes no more impression on them than when one of them falls ill and disappears.
Day by day, the little band is being thinned out and not one of them has yet come back.
I stand at my open window and look at my little boy, who is sitting on the steps below with his friend. They have their arms around each other's necks and see no one except each other; that is to say, Einar sees himself and my little boy sees Einar.
"If you fall ill, I will come and see you," says my little boy.
"No, you won't!"
"I will come and see you."
His eyes beam at this important promise. Einar cries as though he were already ill.
And the next day he is ill.