What worse things might still happen? I resolved to keep calm, whatever
might come; Heaven is my witness. Was it I who had forced myself on her
from the first? No, no; never! I was but standing in her way one
week-day as she passed. What a summer it was here in the north! Already
the cockchafers had ceased to fly, and people were grown more and more
difficult to understand, for all that the sun shone on them day and
night. What were their blue eyes looking for, and what were they
thinking behind their mysterious lashes? Well, after all, they were all
equally indifferent to me. I took out my lines and went fishing for two
days, four days; but at night I lay with open eyes in the hut...
“Edwarda, I have not seen you for four days.”
“Four days, yes--so it is. Oh, but I have been so busy. Come and look.”
She led me into the big room. The tables had been moved out, the chairs
set round the walls, everything shifted; the chandelier, the stove, and
the walls were fantastically decorated with heather and black stuff from
the store. The piano stood in one corner.
These were her preparations for “the ball.”
“What do you think of it?” she asked.
“Wonderful,” I said.
We went out of the room.