The two boats lay ready, and we stepped on board. Talking and singing. The place, Korholmerne, lay out beyond the islands; it took a good while to row across, and on the way we talked, one party with another, from boat to boat. The Doctor wore light things, as the ladies did; I had never seen him so pleased before; he talked with the rest, instead of listening in silence. I had an idea he had been drinking a little, and so was in good humor to-day. When we landed, he craved the attention of the party for a moment, and bade us welcome. I thought to myself: This means that Edwarda has asked him to act as host.

He fell to entertaining the ladies in the most amiable manner. To Edwarda he was polite and kind, often fatherly, and pedantically instructive, as he had been so many times before. She spoke of some date or other, saying: “I was born in ‘38,” and he asked, “Eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, I suppose you mean?” And if she had answered, “No, in nineteen hundred and thirty-eight,” he would have shown no embarrassment, but only corrected her again, and said, “I think you must be mistaken.” When I said anything myself, he listened politely and attentively, and did not ignore me.

A young girl came up to me with a greeting. I did not recognize her; I could not remember her at all, and I said a few words in surprise, and she laughed. It was one of the Dean’s daughters. I had met her the day we went to the island before, and had invited her to my hut. We talked together a little.

An hour or so passed by. I was feeling dull, and drank from the wine poured out for me, and mixed with the others, chatting with them all. Again I made a mistake here and there: I was on doubtful ground, and could not tell at the moment how to answer any little civility; now and then I talked incoherently, or even found nothing at all to say, and this troubled me. Over by the big rock which we were using as a table sat the Doctor, gesticulating.

“Soul — what is the soul?” he was saying. The Dean’s daughter had accused him of being a free-thinker — well, and should not a man think freely? People imagined hell as a sort of house down under the ground, with the devil as host — or rather as sovereign lord. Then he spoke of the altar picture in the chapel, a figure of the Christ, with a few Jews and Jewesses; water into wine — well and good. But Christ had a halo round His head. And what was a halo? Simply a yellow hoop fixed on three hairs.

Two of the ladies clasped their hands aghast, but the Doctor extricated himself, and said jestingly:

“Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I admit it. But if you repeat it and repeat it again to yourself seven or eight times, and then think it over a little, it soon sounds easier . . . Ladies, your very good health!”

And he knelt on the grass before the two ladies, and instead of taking his hat off and laying it before him he held it straight up in the air with one hand, and emptied his glass with his head bent back. I was altogether carried away by his wonderful ease of manner, and would have drunk with him myself but that his glass was empty.

Edwarda was following him with her eyes. I placed myself near her, and said:

“Shall we play ‘Enke‘ to-day?”

She started slightly, and got up.

“Be careful not to say ‘Du‘ to each other now,” she whispered.

Now I had not said “Du“ at all. I walked away.

Another hour passed. The day was getting long; I would have rowed home alone long before if there had been a third boat; ?sop lay tied up in the hut, and perhaps he was thinking of me. Edwarda’s thoughts must surely be far away from me; she talked of how lovely it would be to travel, and see strange places; her cheeks flushed at the thought, and she even stumbled in her speech:

“No one could be more happier than I the day . . . ”

“‘More happier’ . . .?” said the Doctor.

“What?” said she.

“‘More happier.’”

“I don’t understand.”

“You said ‘more happier,’ I think.”

“Did I? I’m sorry. No one could be happier than I the day I stood on board the ship. Sometimes I long for places I do not know myself.”

She longed to be away; she did not think of me. I stood there, and read in her face that she had forgotten me. Well, there was nothing to be said — but I stood there myself and saw it in her face. And the minutes dragged so miserably slowly by! I asked several of the others if we ought not to row back now; it was getting late, I said, and ?sop was tied up in the hut. But none of them wanted to go back.

I went over again to the Dean’s daughter, for the third time; I thought she must be the one that had said I had eyes like an animal’s. We drank together; she had quivering eyes, they were never still; she kept looking at me and then looking away, all the time.

“Fr?ken,” I said, “do you not think people here in these parts are like the short summer itself? In their feeling, I mean? Beautiful, but lasting only a little while?”

I spoke loudly, very loudly, and I did so on purpose. And I went on speaking loudly, and asked that young lady once more if she would not like to come up one day and see my hut. “Heaven bless you for it,” I said in my distress, and I was already thinking to myself how, perhaps, I might find something to give her as a present if she came. Perhaps I had nothing to give her but my powder-horn, I thought.

And she promised to come.

Edwarda sat with her face turned away and let me talk as much as I pleased. She listened to what the others said, putting in a word herself now and again.............