“Madam,” said he, “have you never wished that you were sitting safe in the shelter of convent walls, such as they have them in Italy and other countries?”
“Mercy, no! How should I have such mad fancies!”
“Then, my dear kinswoman, you are perfectly happy? Your cup of life is clear and fresh, it is sweet to your tongue, warms your blood, and quickens your thoughts? Is it, in truth, never bitter as lees, flat and stale? Never fouled by adders and serpents that crawl and mumble? If so, your eyes have deceived me.”
“Ah, you would fain bring me to confession!” laughed Marie in his face.
Sti Högh smiled and led her to a little grass mound, where they sat down. He looked searchingly at her.
“Know you not,” he began slowly and seeming to hesitate whether to speak or be silent, “know you not, madam, that there is in the world a secret society which I might call ‘the melancholy company’? It is composed of people who at birth have been given a different nature and constitution from others, who yearn more and covet more, whose passions are stronger, and whose desires burn more wildly than those of the vulgar mob. They are like Sunday children, with eyes wider open and senses more subtle. They drink with the very roots of their hearts that delight and joy of life which others can only grasp between coarse hands.”
He paused a moment, took his hat in his hand, and sat idly running his fingers through the thick plumes.
“But,” he went on in a lower voice as speaking to himself, “pleasure in beauty, pleasure in pomp and all the things that can be named, pleasure in secret impulses and in thoughts that pass the understanding of man—all that which to the vulgar is but idle pastime or vile revelry—is to these chosen ones like healing and precious balsam. It is to them the one honey-filled blossom from which they suck their daily food, and therefore they seek flowers on the tree of life where others would never think to look, under dark leaves and on dry branches. But the mob—what does it know of pleasure in grief or despair?”
He smiled scornfully and was silent.