He was quite pale with emotion.
“Yes,” she whispered, and let go the ends of her apron so that the apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But she did not run away from Mogens.
“Three,” said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless.
The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the district-judge’s son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and civilization for the councilor to raise objections.
It was late winter; the large heavy cover of snow, the result of a whole week’s uninterrupted blowing, was in the process of rapidly melting away. The air was full of sunlight and reflection from the white snow, which in large, shining drops dripped down past the windows. Within the room all forms and colors had awakened, all lines and contours had come to life. Whatever was flat extended, whatever was bent curved, whatever was inclined slid, and whatever was broken refracted the more. All kinds of green tones mingled on the flower-table, from the softest dark-green to the sharpest yellow-green. Reddish brown tones flooded in flames across the surface of the mahogany table, and gold gleamed and sparkled from the knick-knacks, from the frames and moldings, but on the carpet all the colors broke and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion.
Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and passed every moment in and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust.
He was in talkative mood.
“Yes,” he said, “they are a curious kind of people, these with whom you associate. There isn’t a thing between heaven and earth which they cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that is noble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had some sort of a table or something like that by which they figured things out, for they always get the same result, no matter what it may be. How alike they are to each other, these people! Every one of them knows the same things and talks about the same things, and all of them have the same words and the same opinions.”
“You don’t mean to say,” Camilla protested, “that Carlsen and Ronholt have the same opinions.”