Lie still, Asop, I tell you; I will not be pestered. Eva asks:
'Do you think of me sometimes?' I answer: 'Always.' Eva asks again: 'And
is it any joy to you, to think of me?' I answer: 'Always a joy, never
anything but a joy.' Then says Eva: 'Your hair is turning grey.' I
answer: 'Yes, it is beginning to turn grey.' But Eva says: 'Is it
something you think about, that is turning it grey?' And to that I
answer: 'Maybe.' At last Eva says: 'Then you do not think only of me...'
Asop, lie still; I will tell you about something else instead..."
But Asop stands sniffing excitedly down towards the valley, pointing,
and dragging at my clothes. When at last I get up and follow, he cannot
get along fast enough. A flush of red shows in the sky above the woods.
I go on faster; and there before my eyes is a glow, a huge fire. I stop
and stare at it, go on a few steps and stare again.
My hut is ablaze.
XXIX
The fire was Herr Mack's doing. I saw through it from the first. I lost
my skins and my birds' wings, I lost my stuffed eagle; everything was
destroyed. What now? I lay out for two nights under the open sky,
without going to Sirilund to ask for shelter. At last I rented a
deserted fisher-hut by the quay. I stopped the cracks with dried moss,
and slept on a load of red horseberry ling from the hills.
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