Far worse, however, than the woman who knitted were the women and the men who talked, loudly, stupidly, vulgarly, around us. It was mortifying that their talk was English, but they were not Americans. At last they drove us to another part of the deck, but not before a few phrases of their conversation had been indelibly stamped on my memory.
"Well, we were in Dresden two days: there's only the gallery there; that's time enough for that."
"Raphaels,—lots of Raphaels."
"I don't care for Raphaels, anyhow. I'll tell you who I like; I like Veronese."
"Well, I'm very fond of Tintoretto."
"I like Titians; they're so delicate, don't you know?"
"Well, who's that man that's painted such dreadful things,—all mixed up, don't you know? In some places you see a good many of them."
"You don't mean Rembrandt, do you? There are a lot of Rembrandts in Munich."
"There was one picture I liked. I think it was a Christ; but I ain't sure. There were four children on the ground, I remember."
When the real sunset came we were threading the rocky labyrinths of the Bergen Fjord. It is a field of bowlders, with an ocean let in; nothing more. Why the bowlders are not submerged, since the water is deep enough for big ships to sail on, is the perpetual marvel; but they are not. They are as firm in their places as continents, myriads of them only a few feet out of water; and when the sun as it sinks sends a flood of gold and red light athwart them, they turn all colors, and glow on the water like great smoke crystals with fire shining through. To sail up this fjord in the sunset is to wind through devious lanes walled with these jewels, and to look off, over and above them, to fields of purple and gray and green, islands on islands on islands, to the right and to the left, with the same jewel-walled lanes running east and west and north and south among them; the sky will stream with glowing colors from horizon to horizon, and the glorious silence will be broken by no harsher sound than the low lapsing of waters and the soft whirr of gray gulls' wings.