There were several places where we could meet--at the mill, on the road, even in my hut. She came wherever I would. _"G.o.ddag!"_ she cried, always first, and I answered _"G.o.ddag!"_

"You are happy to-day," she says, and her eyes sparkle.

"Yes, I am happy," I answer. "There is a speck there on your shoulder; it is dust, perhaps, a speck of mud from the road; I must kiss that little spot. No--let me--I will. Everything about you stirs me so! I am half out of my senses. I did not sleep last night."

And that was true. Many a night I lay and could not sleep.

We walk side by side along the road.

"What do you think--am I as you like me to be?" she asks. "Perhaps I talk too much. No? Oh, but you must say what you really think.

Sometimes I think to myself this can never come to any good..."

"What can never come to any good?" I ask.

"This between us. That it cannot come to any good. You may believe it or not, but I am shivering now with cold; I feel icy cold the moment I come to you. Just out of happiness."

"It is the same with me," I answer. "I feel a shiver, too, when I see you. But it will come to some good all the same. And, anyhow, let me pat you on the back, to warm you."

And she lets me, half unwillingly, and then I hit a little harder, for a jest, and laugh, and ask if that doesn't make her feel better.

"Oh, please, don't when I ask you; _please_," says she.

Those few words! There was something so helpless about her saying it so, the wrong way round: "Please don't when I ask you."...

Then we went on along the road again. Was she displeased with me for my jest, I wondered? And thought to myself: Well, let us see. And I said:

"I just happened to think of something. Once when I was out on a sledge party, there was a young lady who took a silk kerchief from her neck and fastened it round mine. In the evening, I said to her: 'You shall have your kerchief again to-morrow; I will have it washed.' 'No,' she said, 'give it to me now; I will keep it just as it is, after you have worn it.' And I gave it to her. Three years after, I met the same young lady again. 'The kerchief,' I said. And she brought it out. It lay in a paper, just as before; I saw it myself."

Edwarda glanced up at me.

"Yes? And what then?"

"That is all," I said. "There was nothing more. But I thought it was nice of her."

Pause.

"Where is that lady now?"

"Abroad."

We spoke no more of that. But when it was time for her to go home, she said:

"Well, good-night. But you won't go thinking of that lady any more, will you? I don't think of anyone but you."

I believed her. I saw that she meant what she said, and it was more than enough for me that she thought of no one else. I walked after her.

"Thank you, Edwarda," I said. And then I added with all my heart: "You are all too good for me, but I am thankful that you will have me; G.o.d will reward you for that. I'm not so fine as many you could have, no doubt, but I am all yours--so endlessly yours, by my eternal soul.----What are you thinking of now, to bring tears to your eyes?"

"It was nothing," she answered. "It sounded so strange--that G.o.d would reward me for that. You say things that I ... Oh, I love you so!"

And all at once she threw her arms round my neck, there in the middle of the road, and kissed me.

When she had gone, I stepped aside into the woods to hide, to be alone with my happiness. And then I hurried eagerly back to the road to see if anyone had noticed that I had gone in there. But I saw no one.

XIII

Summer nights and still water, and the woods endlessly still. No cry, no footsteps from the road. My heart seemed full as with dark wine.

Moths and night-flies came flying noiselessly in through my window, lured by the glow from the hearth and the smell of the bird I had just cooked. They dashed against the roof with a dull sound, fluttered past my ears, sending a cold shiver through me, and settled on my white powder-horn on the wall. I watched them; they sat trembling and looked at me--moths and spinners and burrowing things. Some of them looked like pansies on the wing.

I stepped outside the hut and listened. Nothing, no noise; all was asleep. The air was alight with flying insects, myriads of buzzing wings. Out at the edge of the wood were ferns and aconite, the trailing arbutus was in bloom, and I loved its tiny flowers... Thanks, my G.o.d, for every heather bloom I have ever seen; they have been like small roses on my way, and I weep for love of them... Somewhere near were wild carnations; I could not see them, but I could mark their scent.

But now, in the night hours, great white flowers have opened suddenly; their chalices are spread wide; they are breathing. And furry twilight moths slip down into their petals, making the whole plant quiver. I go from one flower to another. They are drunken flowers. I mark the stages of their intoxication.

Light footsteps, a human breathing, a happy "_G.o.daften_."

And I answer, and throw myself down on the road.

"_G.o.daften_, Edwarda," I say again, worn out with joy.

"That you should care for me so!" she whispers.

And I answered her: "If you knew how grateful I can be! You are mine, and my heart lies still within me all the day, thinking of you. You are the loveliest girl on earth, and I have kissed you. Often I go red with joy, only to think that I have kissed you."

"Why are you so fond of me this evening?" she asks.

I was that for endless reasons; I needed only to think of her to feel so. That look of hers, from under the high-arched brows, and her rich, dark skin!

"Should I not be fond of you?" I say again. "I thank every tree in my path because you are well and strong. Once at a dance there was a young lady who sat out dance after dance, and they let her sit there alone. I didn't know her, but her face touched me, and I bowed to her. Well? But no, she shook her head. Would she not dance, I asked her? 'Can you imagine it?' she said. 'My father was a handsome man, and my mother a perfect beauty, and my father won her by storm. But I was born lame.'"

Edwarda looked at me.

"Let us sit down," she said.

And we sat down in the heather.

"Do you know what my friend says about you?" she began. "Your eyes are like an animal's, she says, and when you look at her, it makes her mad.

It is just as if you touched her, she says."

A strange joy thrilled me when I heard that, not for my own sake, but for Edwarda's, and I thought to myself: There is only one whom I care for: what does that one say of the look in my eyes? And I asked her:

"Who was that, your friend?"

"I will not tell you," she said. "But it was one of those that were out on the island that day."