Would that it might never awaken, and that all might remain as now—no more happiness than that of peace, but neither any misery nor irking unrest! Would that the present might close as a bud closes around itself, and that no spring would follow!
Fennimore called. She had been lying awake for some time, too happy in being free from pain to think of speaking. Now she wanted to get up and light the lamp, but Niels continued to act as physician, and compelled her to lie still. It was not good for her to get up yet; he had matches and could easily find the lamp.
When he had lit it, he put it on the flower stand in the corner, where its milky white globe shone softly veiled by the delicate, slumbering leaves of an acacia. The room was just light enough so that they could see each other’s face.
He sat down in front of her, and they spoke about the rain and said how lucky it was that Erik had taken his rain-coat, and how wet poor Trine would be. Then their conversation came to a standstill.
Fennimore’s thoughts were not quite awake yet, and in her weakness it seemed pleasant to lie thus musing without speaking. Nor was Niels inclined to talk, for he was still under the spell of the afternoon’s long silence.
“Do you like this house?” Fennimore asked at last.
“Why yes, fairly well.”
“Really? Do you remember the furniture at home?”
“At Fjordby? Yes indeed, perfectly.”
“You don’t know how I love it, and how I long for it sometimes. The things we have here don’t belong to us—they are only rented—and have no association with anything, and we are not going to live with them any longer than we stay in this place. You may think it queer, but I assure you, I often feel lonely here among all these strange pieces of furniture that stand around here so indifferent and stupid and take me for what I am without caring the least bit about me. And as I know they are not going with me—that they will just stay here and be rented by other people—I can’t get fond of them or interested in them as I should if I knew that my home would always be theirs, and that whatever came to me of good or ill would come in the midst of them. Do you think it childish? Perhaps it is, but I can’t help it.”