Here are you burning out your life for the sake of a worthless
schoolgirl, and your nights are full of desolate dreams. And a hot wind
stands still about your head, a close, foul wind of last year's breath.
Yet the sky is quivering with the most wonderful blue, and the hills are
calling. Come, Æsop, _Hei_...
A week passed. I hired the blacksmith's boat and fished for my meals.
Edwarda and the Baron were always together in the evening when he came
home from his sea trips. I saw them once at the mill. One evening they
both came by my hut; I drew away from the window and barred the door. It
made no impression on me whatever to see them together; I shrugged my
shoulders. Another evening I met them on the road, and exchanged
greetings; I left it to the Baron to notice me first, and merely put up
two fingers to my cap, to be discourteous. I walked slowly past them,
and looked carelessly at them as I did so.
Another day passed.
How many long days had not passed already? I was downcast, dispirited;
my heart pondered idly over things; even the kindly grey stone by the
hut seemed to wear an expression of sorrow and despair when I went by.
There was rain in the air; the heat seemed gasping before me wherever I
went, and I felt the gout in my left foot; I had seen one of Herr Mack's
horses shivering in its harness in the morning; all these things were
significant to me as signs of the weather. Best to furnish the house
well with food while the weather holds, I thought.
I tied up Æsop, took my fishing tackle and my gun, and went down to the
quay. I was quite unusually troubled in mind.
“When will the mail-packet be in?” I asked a fisherman there.
“The mail-packet? In three weeks' time,” he answered.
“I am expecting my uniform,” I said.
Then I met one of Herr Mack's assistants from the store. I shook hands
with him, and said:
“Tell me, do you never play whist now at Sirilund?”
“Yes, often,” he answered.
Pause.
“I have not been there lately,” I said.
I rowed out to my fishing grounds. The weather was mild, but oppressive.
The gnats gathered in swarms, and I had to smoke all the time to keep
them off. The haddock were biting; I fished with two hooks and made a
good haul. On the way back I shot a brace of guillemots.
When I came in to the quay the blacksmith was there at work. A thought
occurred to me; I asked him:
“Going up my way?”
“No,” said he, “Herr Mack's given me a bit of work to do here that'll
keep me till midnight.”