“She never gets anything,” said the child. “When she gets there it’s always all over.”
“That’s not true,” said Madam Johnsen severely. “There’s food enough in the soup kitchens for all; it’s just a matter of understanding how to go about it. The poor must get shame out of their heads. She’ll bring something to-day!”
The child stood up and breathed a hole in the ice on the window-pane.
“Look now, whether it isn’t going to snow a little so that the poor man can get yet another day’s employment,” said the old woman.
No, the wind was still blowing from the north, although it commonly shuffled along the canal; but now, week after week, it blew from the Nicolai tower, and played the flute on the hollow bones of poverty. The canals were covered with ice, and the ground looked horribly hard. The naked frost chased the people across it like withered leaves. With a thin rustling sound they were swept across the bridges and disappeared.
A great yellow van came driving by. The huge gates of the prison opened slowly and swallowed it. It was the van containing the meat for the prisoners. The child followed it with a desolate expression.
“Mother isn’t coming,” she said. “I am so hungry.”
“She will soon come—you just wait! And don’t stand in the light there; come here in the corner! The light strikes the cold right through one.”
“But I feel colder in the dark.”
“That’s just because you don’t understand. I only long now for the pitch darkness.”