"I wish you heartily welcome," she returned. "How lucky I've just got through the cleaning!"
A slight pause. We looked at each other; two years had passed since our last meeting. To break the silence, we all began to admire the mare, Nikolai swelling with pride. Then we heard a child calling from within the house, and the young mother ran off.
"Come in, won't you!" she called back over her shoulder.
As soon as I entered, I saw that the room had been changed. There was too much middle-class frippery: white curtains at the windows, numerous pictures on the walls, a lamp pendent from the ceiling, underneath it in the center of the room a round table and chairs, knickknacks in a china cupboard, a pink-painted spinning wheel, flowers in pots--in short, the room was crowded. This, no doubt, was the sort of thing Fru Ingeborg had been used to and considered in good taste. But in Petra's day, this had been a light and spacious room.
"How's your mother?" I asked Nikolai.
As usual he was slow to reply. His wife answered for him:
"She's very well."
I wanted to ask, "Where is she?" but I refrained.
"Look, I want to show you something," said Fru Ingeborg.
It was the child in his bed--a boy, big and handsome, about a year old. He frowned at me at first, but only for a moment. As soon as he was on his mother's arm, he looked at me without fear.