Part 24 (2/2)

I said nothing.

Edwarda was turning restlessly this way and that.

”Doctor, don't you think we may as well go home again?” she said. ”I have done what I came for to do.”

”You have done what you came _to do_,” said the Doctor.

She laughed, humiliated by his everlasting correction, and answered:

”Wasn't that almost what I said?”

”No,” he answered shortly.

I looked at him. The little man stood there cold and firm; he had made a plan, and he carried it out to the last. And if he lost after all? In any case, he would never show it; his face never betrayed him.

It was getting dusk.

”Well, good-bye,” I said. ”And thanks for--everything.”

Edwarda looked at me dumbly. Then she turned her head and stood looking out at the s.h.i.+p.

I got into the boat. Edwarda was still standing on the quay. When I got on board, the Doctor called out ”Good-bye!” I looked over to the sh.o.r.e.

Edwarda turned at the same time and walked hurriedly away from the quay, the Doctor far behind. That was the last I saw of her.

A wave of sadness went through my heart...

The vessel began to move; I could still see Herr Mack's sign: ”Salt and Barrels.” But soon it disappeared. The moon and the stars came out; the hills towered round about, and I saw the endless woods. There is the mill; there, there stood my hut, that was burned; the big grey stone stands there all alone on the site of the fire. Iselin, Eva...

The night of the northern lights spreads over valley and hill.

x.x.xVI

I have written this to pa.s.s the time. It has amused me to look back to that summer in Nordland, when I often counted the hours, but when time flew nevertheless. All is changed. The days will no longer pa.s.s.

I have many a merry hour even yet. But time--it stands still, and I cannot understand how it can stand so still. I am out of the service, and free as a prince; all is well; I meet people, drive in carriages; now and again I shut one eye and write with one finger up in the sky; I tickle the moon under the chin, and fancy that it laughs--laughs broadly at being tickled under the chin. All things smile. I pop a cork and call gay people to me.

As for Edwarda, I do not think of her. Why should I not have forgotten her altogether, after all this time? I have some pride. And if anyone asks whether I have any sorrows, then I answer straight out, ”No--none.”

Cora lies looking at me. aesop, it used to be, but now it is Cora that lies looking at me. The clock ticks on the mantel; outside my open window sounds the roar of the city. A knock at the door, and the postman hands me a letter. A letter with a coronet. I know who sent it; I understand it at once, or maybe I dreamed it one sleepless night. But in the envelope there is no letter at all--only two green bird's feathers.

An icy horror thrills me; I turn cold. Two green feathers! I say to myself: Well, and what of it? But why should I turn cold? Why, there is a cursed draught from those windows.

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