Janina suddenly awoke from that half dream, for there passed near her an old man with a fishing rod in his hand. He looked at her in passing, sat down almost beside her on the very edge of the river, cast his line into the water and waited.
He had so honest a face that she felt a desire to speak to him and was thinking how to begin, when he addressed her first: "Would you like to take a trip over to the other side?"
Janina glanced at him questioningly.
"Aha! I see that we don't understand each other. I thought that you wanted to drown yourself," he said.
"I wasn't even thinking about death," she replied quietly.
"Ha! ha! It would be an unexpected honor for the river."
He adjusted his fishing tackle and became silent, centering all his attention on the fish that had begun to circle about the bait and the hook.
A deeper silence, as it were, diffused itself about and began to fill Janina's soul with a blissful calm. She felt that an immense goodness was pervading her, that the majesty of that expanse of heaven, of the waters and the verdure was uplifting her and drawing from her breast a hymn of thanksgiving and the pure joy of living, free from all earthly things.
The old man cast a sidelong glance at her and on his narrow lips there hovered an unfathomable smile.
Janina felt that look and in turn glanced at him. Their eyes met in a long and friendly gaze.