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 Asop 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.
"Froken," 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.
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