I have written this to pass 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 pass.

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. ?sop, 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 feather............