Next time I saw her there was no trace of any embarassment in her manner—she was kind and cold. So I had to let it drop altogether. And, anyhow, what did I want with her at all? No, indeed!
Some visitors came to see her one day—a neighbour's wife, with her daughter. They had heard, no doubt, that the Captain was away, and thought she might be glad of a little society; or perhaps they had come out of curiosity. They were well received; Fru Falkenberg was amiable as ever, and even played the piano for them. When they left, she went with them down to the road, talking sensibly of practical affairs, though she might well have had other things in her head than coops and killing pigs. Oh, she was full of kindly interest in it all! “Come again soon—or you, at any rate, Sofie....” “Thanks, thanks. But aren't you ever coming over to us at Nedrebø?” “Oh, I? Of course—yes. I'd walk down with you now if it weren't so late.” “Well, tomorrow, then?” “Yes, perhaps I might come over tomorrow.—Oh, is that you?” This was to Ragnhild, who had come down with a shawl. “Oh, what an idea!—did you think I should catch cold?”
Altogether things were looking brighter now at Øvrebø; we no longer felt that shadow of uneasiness over us all. Grindhusen and I worked away at our famous reservoir, and Lars was getting on farther every day with his trench. Seeing the Captain was away, I wanted to make the most of the time, and perhaps have the work nearly done by the time he came back; it would be a grand thing if we could get it finished altogether! He would be all the better for a pleasant little surprise, for—yes, there had been something of a scene the night before he left. Some new reminder, no doubt, of the trouble that had come upon his house; a book, perhaps, still unburnt, lying about in Fruen's room. He had ended up by saying: “Anyhow, I'm cutting timber now to pay it off. And the harvest we've got in means a lot of money. So I hope the Lord will forgive me—as I do Him. Good-night, Lovise.”
When we had laid the last stone of the reservoir, and cement over all, I went down with Grindhusen to help Lars with the trench—we took a section each. The work went on easily and with a will—here and there a stone had to be blasted out, or a tree felled up in the woods; but the trench moved steadily upwards, until we had a long black line from the house to the reservoir itself. Then we went back again and dug it out to the proper depth. This was no ornamental work, but a trench—an underground resting place for some pipes that were to be buried on the spot. All we were concerned with was to get down below the reach of frost, and that before the frost itself came to hinder us. Already it was coating the fields at night. Nils himself left all else now, and came to lend a hand.
But masonry and digging trenches are but work for the hands; my brain in its idleness was busy all the while with every conceivable idea. As often as I thought of that episode with the post card, it sent, as it were, a glow all through me. Why should I think any more about it? No, of course not. And I had not followed her to the door after all.
But there she stood, and you there. Her breath came towards you—a taste of flesh. Out of a darkness she was, nay, not of earth. And her eyes—did you mark her eyes?
And each time something in me turned at the thought—a nausea. A meaningless succession of names poured in upon me, places of wild and tender sound, whence she might be: Uganda, Antananarivo, Honolulu, Venezuela, Atacama. Verse? Colours? I knew not what to do with the words.