Mogens and Other Stories | Page 9

and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion.
Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and passed every moment in and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust.
He was in talkative mood.
"Yes," he said, "they are a curious kind of people, these with whom you associate. There isn't a thing between heaven and earth which they cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that is noble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had some sort of a table or something like that by which they figured things out, for they always get the same result, no matter what it may be. How alike they are to each other, these people! Every one of them knows the same things and talks about the same things, and all of them have the same words and the same opinions."
"You don't mean to say," Camilla protested, "that Carlsen and Ronholt have the same opinions."
"Yes, they are the finest of all, they belong to different parties! Their fundamental principles are as different as night and day. No, they are not. They are in such agreement that it is a perfect joy. Perhaps there may he some little point about which they don't agree; perhaps, it is merely a misunderstanding. But heaven help me, if it isn't pure comedy to listen to them. It is as if they had prearranged to do everything possible not to agree. They begin by talking in a loud voice, and immediately talk themselves into a passion. Then one of them in his passion says something which he doesn't mean, and then the other one says the direct opposite which he doesn't mean either, and then the one attacks that which the other doesn't mean, and the other that which the first one didn't mean, and the game is on."
"But what have they done to you?"
"They annoy me, these fellows. If you look into their faces it is just as if you had it under seal that nothing especial is ever going to happen in the world in the future." Camilla laid down her sewing, went over and took hold of the corners of his coat collar and looked roguishly and questioningly at him.
"I cannot bear Carlsen," he said angrily, and tossed his head.
"Well, and then."
"And then you are very, very sweet," he murmured with a comic tenderness.
"And then?"
"And then," he burst out, "he looks at you and listens to you and talks to you in a way I don't like. He is to quit that, for you are mine and not his. Aren't you? You are not his, not his in any way. You are mine, you have bonded yourself to me as the doctor did to the devil; you are mine, body and soul, skin and bones, till all eternity."
She nodded a little frightened, looked trustfully at him; her eyes filled with tears, then she pressed close to him and he put his arms around her, bent over her, and kissed her on the forehead.
The same evening Mogens went to the station with the councilor who had received a sudden order in reference to an official tour which he was to make. On this account Camilla was to go to her aunt's the next morning and stay there until he returned,
When Mogens had seen his future father-in-law off, he went home, thinking of the fact that he now would not see Camilla for several days. He turned into the street where she lived. It was long and narrow and little frequented. A cart rumbled away at the furthest end; in this direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew fainter and fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of a dog within the building behind him. He looked up at the house in which Camilla lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The white-washed panes received only a little restless life from the flickering gleam of the lantern of the house next door. On the second story the windows were open and from one of them a whole heap of planks protruded beyond the window-frame. Camilla's window was dark, dark also was everything above, except that in one of the attic windows there shimmered a white-golden gleam from the moon. Above the house the clouds were driving in a wild flight. In the houses on both sides