“You _must_ not follow me about any more--”
Impassively I put the thing away. It had not surprised me, had made no
new impression. Thoroughly womanly, hasty words, written on impulse,
with underlining and a dash....
Then it occurred to me to go round to Frøken Elisabeth's address; there
was still a glimmer of hope. I heard the door bell ring inside the house
as I pressed, and stood listening as in a whirling desert.
Frøken Elisabeth had left an hour before.
Then wine, and then whisky. And then endless whisky. And altogether a
twenty-one days' debauch, in the course of which a curtain falls and
hides my earthly consciousness. In this state, it enters my head one day
to send something to a little cottage in the country. It is a mirror, in
a gay gilt frame. And it was for a little maid, by name Olga, a creature
touching and sweet to watch as a young calf.
Ay, for I've not got over my neurasthenia yet.
The timber saw is in my room. But I cannot put it together, for the
bulk of the wooden parts I left behind at a vicarage in the country.
It matters little now, my love for the thing is dulled. My neurasthenic
friends, believe me, folk of our sort are useless as human beings, and
we should not even do for any kind of beast.
One day I suppose I shall grow tired of this unconsciousness, and go out
and live on an island once again.