And the worst was the strange inversion of time. Here winter was, cold streets, steely snow, garbage frozen to stone.... And in Europe was sane June. Purple flower of the heather in Ulster, and white flower of the bogs, and in the little bays of Antrim, men spearing flounders from boats in the long summer evenings. And the bairns hame from school, with a' their wee games, fishing for sticky-backs wi' pins, and the cummers spinning. Eigh, Ulster! And in England, they punting on the Thames, among the water-lilies. Soft Norman days, and in Germany the young folks going to the woods.... In Buenos Aires, hell!
Within the house a cold that the little fire could only gallantly fight against. Without, cold of wolves.
"Hedda, you come from a cold country. Tell me, is it like this in Sweden, any time?"
She was sitting in the candle-light, doing the needlework she took such quietness in. Her firm white hands moving rhythmically, her body steady, her eyes a-dream. It was hard ever to think that she was—what she was. It was hard for him to think the word now, knowing her. She looked up and smiled.
"No, Shane, not like this. It's cold, very cold. But very beautiful. By day the country-side is quiet, white, ascetic, like some young nun. And at night there are lights and jollity. It is like a child's idea of fairy-land. One wishes one were further north, where the reindeer are. One is not enemy to the cold, as you are here. One accepts it. It has dignity. Here it is naked, malevolent. That's the difference."
"Naked, with awful hands.... A cold that seizes...."
"Yes, Shane." She took up her work again. "Sometimes I think long until I get back to Sweden."
"You—you are going back?"
"Of course, Shane."
"When?"