"What does it matter what we think? We drift along, knowing nothing of one another, like the errant winds or the stars in the skies. We pass by hundreds, without so much as a glance, until fate as in a lightning flash brings us face to face with the one appointed. And then—in a moment we know that we belong to each other, we are drawn together by magnetic force—for good or ill."
"I have felt the same—and I feel it more keenly now than ever," answered the girl, nestling trustingly close to him. "Each minute in your arms is worth more than all the rest of my life before."
"And you are to me as the sap of the trees in spring, that thrills me with ecstasy and makes me forget all else. And I will feel it so!—drown my sad autumn and my joyless winter in the delight of spring. And I bless the fate that led you to me—there is none like you!"
"None?" the girl repeated happily, and yet in doubt. "Oh, if only I could be as you think."
"You are so! Every drop of blood in you is love and fire. The lightest touch of your shoe against my foot is more than the warmest embrace from any other—your breath is like a secret caress; you bring a scent of hawthorn with you everywhere that lifts me almost to madness."
"Do not talk like that, Olof. I am nothing—it is you that are all.
Tell me—are all lovers as happy as we?"
"No."
"Why not? Is it because they—they can't love as we do?"
"They dare not! They fear to be happy. Oh, how blind the world is! Wandering sadly with prayer, book and catechism in hand, when love and spring are waiting for all who will. And those who have grown old, when their blood is as lead in their veins, and they can but gaze with beggars' eyes on their own youth—they would have us too slaves of the prayer book and catechism like themselves."
"Is it really so…?"