Sören fell back, and lay with her hand in his, gazing silently at her with worship in his faded eyes. "Maren, would you let down your hair for me?" he whispered bashfully at last. The words came with some difficulty.
"Nay, but what nonsense!" said Maren, hiding her face against his chest; "we're old now, you know, dear."
"Let down your hair for me!" whispered he, persisting, and tried with shaking fingers to loosen it himself. Maren remembered an evening long ago, an evening behind a drawn-up boat on the beach, and with sobs she loosened her gray hair and let it fall down over Sören's head, so that it hid their faces. "It's long and thick," he whispered softly, "enough to hide us both." The words came as an echo from their bygone youth.
"Nay, nay," said Maren, crying, "it's gray and thin and rough. But how fond you were of it once."
With closed eyes Sören lay holding Maren's hand. There was much to do in the kitchen, and she tried again and again to draw her hand away, but he opened his eyes each time, so she sat down, letting the things look after themselves, and there she was with the tears running down her furrowed face, while her thoughts ran on. She and Sören had [lived] happily together; they had had their quarrels, but if anything serious happened, they always faced it together; neither of them had lived and worked for themselves only. It was so strange that they were now to be separated, Maren could not understand it. Why could they not be taken together? Where Sören went, Maren felt she too should be. Perhaps in the place where he was going he needed no one to mend his clothes and to see that he kept his feet dry, but at least they might have walked hand in hand in the Garden of Eden. They had often talked about going into the country to see what was hidden behind the big forest. But it never came to anything, as one thing or another always kept Maren at home. How beautiful it would have been to go with Sören now; Maren would willingly have made the journey with him, to see what was on the other side—had it not been for Ditte. A child had always kept her back, and thus it was now. Maren's own time was not yet; she must wait, letting Sören go alone.
Sören now slept more quietly, and she drew her hand gently out of his. But as soon as she rose, he opened his eyes, gazing at Maren's loosened hair and tear-stained face.
"Don't cry, Maren," said he, "you and Ditte'll get on all right. But do this for me, put up your hair as you did at our wedding, will you, Maren?"
"But I can't do it myself, Sören," answered the old woman, overwhelmed and beginning to cry again. But Sören held to his point.
Then Maren gave in, and as she could not leave Sören alone for long, she ran as fast as she could to the hamlet, where one of the women dressed her thin gray hair in bridal fashion. On her return she found Sören restless, but he soon calmed down; he looked at her a long time, as she sat crying by the bed with his hand in hers. He was breathing with much difficulty.
Then suddenly he spoke in a stronger voice than he had done for many days.