"That comes naturally enough, Henrik," returned she, "because you are not well. Shall we not go out a little? It is such lovely moonshine! The fresh air will perhaps do you good."
"Will you go with me, Leonore?" said he. "Yes, that is a good idea!"
Gabriele found it, however, rather poor, and called her brother and sister Samoyedes, Laplanders, Esquimaux, and such like, who would go wandering about in the middle of a winter's night. Nevertheless these two went forth jestingly and merrily arm in arm.
"Is it not too windy for you?" asked Henrik, whilst he endeavoured carefully to shield his sister from the wind.
"The wind is not cold," replied Leonore, "and it is particularly charming to me to walk by your side while it roars around us, and while the snow-flakes dance about in the moonshine like little elves."
"Nay, you feel then like me!" said Henrik; "with you, sisters, I am ever calm and happy; but I don't know how it is, but now for some time other people often plague and irritate me——"
"Ah, Henrik," remarked Leonore, "is not that someway your own fault?"
"Are you thinking of Stjernhök, Leonore?" asked he.
"Yes."
"So am I," continued he, "and perhaps you are right; yes, I will willingly concede that I have often been unjust towards him, and unreasonably violent, but he has excited me to it. Why has he made me so often oppressively feel his superiority? so often taken away from me my own joy in my own endeavours, and almost always treated me with coldness and depreciation?"