All that afternoon he wandered restlessly about, either keeping to himself or going from group to group, exchanging brief remarks occasionally with some, answering others with a word or so, often without being properly aware of what had been said. All saw that he was troubled and distrait.
He saw that Bagga was among the guests, but she was not alone, and he made no attempt to speak to her. And yet, time and again when he lost sight of her for a moment, he could not rest till he had found her again. It was a consolation to look at her, to see that she was there.
When the widow and her daughter rode away, Ørlygur took care to be at hand when the horses were saddled. He hoped Bagga would come up and speak to him. But she pretended not to notice him, though he was sure she must have seen him.
At that, his misery overcame him, and he went to bed without saying good-night to any one. But he could not sleep. He heard the others come up to bed, and could hear their regular breathing through the thin partition between the rooms. The idea of sleep irritated him. What was sleep?—a giving up of the mind to nothingness. A thing unworthy of human beings. Surely it was the outcome of indifference, idleness, an evil habit that had grown through generations—a kind of hereditary vice.
He lay long restless, letting his thoughts come and go.
Then he became aware of a strange sound somewhere in the house. Music—somewhere a melody seemed filtering through the air, calling his thoughts back from their wanderings.
It must be Ormarr playing. Ørlygur dressed softly and stole out of the room. As he neared the door of the room where he had watched the night before with the dead, the sound grew clearer—it was there Ormarr had chosen to play.
He stood still and listened.
He did not know the melody, but its indescribable softness and melancholy soothed his mind. If Ormarr were playing for his own consolation, he was also comforting another and bringing peace to a troubled heart. Ørlygur listened, letting the music work upon his mind. And gradually he forgot himself entirely; that which had been himself disappeared, and there was something else—there was life, a precious thing. It was worth living for, only to feel this enthralment of the moment; to realize this harmonious blending of joy and sorrow, of life and death blending, as it were, into a golden mist, and melting into eternity.
The last notes died away. Ørlygur crept back to his room, and slept.