“Fair one, I give you farewell.”
And I started off.
She gave a cry:
“Oh, you are tearing my heart out. I came to you to-day; I waited for you here, and I smiled when you came. I was nearly out of my mind yesterday, because of something I had been thinking of all the time; my head was in a whirl, and I thought of you all the time. To-day I was sitting at home, and someone came in; I did not look up, but I knew who it was. 'I rowed half a mile to-day,' he said. 'Weren't you tired?' I asked. 'Oh yes, very tired, and it blistered my hands,' he said, and was very concerned about it. And I thought: Fancy being concerned about that! A little after he said: 'I heard someone whispering outside my window last night; it was your maid and one of the store men talking very intimately indeed.' 'Yes, they are to be married,' I said. 'But this was at two o'clock in the morning!' 'Well, what of it?' said I, and, after a little: 'The night is their own.' Then he shifted his gold spectacles a little up his nose, and observed: 'But don't you think, at that hour of night, it doesn't look well?' Still I didn't look up, and we sat like that for ten minutes. 'Shall I bring you a shawl to put over your shoulders?' he asked. 'No, thank you,' I answered. 'If only I dared take your little hand,' he said. I did not answer—I was thinking of something else. He laid a little box in my lap. I opened the box, and found a brooch in it. There was a coronet on the brooch, and I counted ten stones in it... Glahn, I have that brooch with me now; will you look at it? It is trampled to bits—come, come and see how it is trampled to bits... 'Well, and what am I to do with this brooch?' I asked. 'Wear it,' he answered. But I gave him back the brooch, and said, 'Let me alone—it is another I care for.' 'What other?' he asked. 'A hunter in the woods,' I said. 'He gave me two lovely feathers once, for a keepsake. Take back your brooch.' But he would not. Then I looked at him for the first time; his eyes were piercing. 'I will not take back the brooch. You may do with it as you please; tread on it,' he said. I stood up and put the brooch under my heel and trod on it. That was this morning... For four hours I waited and waited; after dinner I went out. He came to meet me on the road. 'Where are you going?' he asked. 'To Glahn,' I answered, 'to ask him not to forget me...' Since one o'clock I have been waiting here. I stood by a tree and saw you coming—you were like a god. I loved your figure, your beard, and your shoulders, loved everything about you... Now you are impatient; you want to go, only to go; I am nothing to you, you will not look at me ...” I had stopped. When she had finished speaking I began walking on again. I was worn out with despair, and I smiled; my heart was hard.
“Yes?” I said, and stopped again. “You had something to say to me?”
But at this scorn of mine she wearied of me.
“Something to say to you? But I have told you—did you not hear? No, nothing—I have nothing to tell you any more...”
Her voice trembled strangely, but that did not move me.
Next morning Edwarda was standing outside the hut when I went out.
I had thought it all over during the night, and taken my resolve. Why should I let myself be dazzled any longer by this creature of moods, a fisher-girl, a thing of no culture? Had not her name fastened for long enough on my heart, sucking it dry? Enough of that!—though it struck me that, perhaps, I had come nearer to her by treating her with indifference and scorn. Oh, how grandly I had scorned her—after she had made a long speech of several minutes, to say calmly: “Yes? You had something to say to me...?”