Up in the old churchyard, every tree stood like a temple of perfume in the quiet, soft night. And all the time, she was marvelling that it really was moonlight. She had not noticed it at home—doubtless because the lamp was burning.
The tears came into her eyes—just such a moonlight night it had been the time they....
And here she was walking with him, just as then.
Surely, it was enough to turn one’s head.
Here was Egholm actually taking her arm. Taking her arm!...
Great moths and small glided silently past; one of them vanished into the hedge as if by magic.
Bats showed up here and there against the pale sky, flung about like leaves in the wind. From the meadow came a quivering chorus of a thousand frogs.
“It must be like this in Paradise,” she said faintly.
“Ah, wait till you can see the boat,” said her husband.
The dew on the thick grass down by the beach soaked through her boots and stockings. Moonlight and stockings wet with dew.... Oh, it was not just like that time now; it was that time ... that night at Aalborg, after the dance at the assembly rooms, where she had met the interesting young photographer—the pale one, as they called him—and let herself be tempted to go out for a walk in the woods after. And Thea, her sister, who was with them, had almost pinched her arm black and blue in her excitement. But it had to be; he was irresistible, with his foreign-looking appearance, his silver-mounted stick, and his smartly creaking calfskin boots.