F.T.K.
sibue never ine.
and I called out "Good morning" to her. She looked up. “ Awake
already,” she said. “Won’t you come down and join us?”
The next minute I was sitting at her table. It was a perfect
morning, uol and sunny. We chatted again on the same indifferent
topics as last time, but all was different. Remembrance glowed
one behind our commonplace words.
We took a walk in the forest. Then she began to speak of herself
and her home.
Everything with us is just as it always was,” she said, “only
the garden has improved. My husband devotes a great deal of time
and trouble to it since the boy came. Next year we shall have a
conservatory.”
She chatted on :
“We’ve had aötteatre for two years now in the town. Plays are
acted all through the winter till Palm Sunday. I go twice, some-
times three times, a week, generally with my mother. It's great
fun."
"I go to thedenitre too," cried the little boy, whom Friederika
led by the hand.
"Of course, dear, you go too. On Sunday afternoons," she
explained, turning to me, “they often give pieces for children, and
I take the boy. But I enjoy it quite as much as he does.
Then she made me tell her a great deal about myself. She ques¬
tioned me little with regard to my profession and other serious
things she was much more anxious to know how I spent my free
time, and wanted to be informed on the subject of bachelor gaieties
in the capital. The whole conversation flowed on merrily without
a hitch; not a word hinted at anyIIutual memories, and yet they
must have been lninterruptedly present with her as with me. We
walked about for hours, and I felt almost happy. Ofter the little
fællow was between us, and then our hands met in his curls. But
we both pretended not to notice the contact, and unembkrrassed we
talked on.
When I was alone again my good spirits completely deserted me.
For once more I was conscious of my ignorance with regard to
Friederika's aselings. It seemed inexplicable that this uncertainty
had not tormented me during the whole of our conversation, and it
seemed to me old that Friederika herself had not felt the necessity
of alluding to it. Even ifI accept the fact that for years that last
bour has not been mentioned between her and her husband, she
herself cannot have forgotten it. Some serious consequence there
must have been of my demb fairewell. How had she been able not
to speak of it?
Had she, maybe, expected that I would be the first to begin?
What was it that had prevented me?” The same shvness perhaps
that forbade her asking a question. Were we both afraid to touch
on the subject? Quite possibly that might be it. And yet it must
come to it, at last; till it does, something stands between us separat-