The spring had opened the fountain before the house and he was happy at its rippling², which never began and never stopped. The red flowers were put out on the balcony: when the wind blew, their petals³ fluttered right over into the basin of the fountain and rocked upon the water. He followed their dance through the air and wondered if they would reach their goal.

 

His best time was in the evening, when the square shone with a thousand lights.

 

He loved the dying day.

 

He knew every light that went out, every sound as it stopped. And he liked[187] the sound best when it stopped and the light when it went out. He thought that the people who moved down below, disguised in the darkness, were of another kind or better than those whom the sun shone upon. He had no more to do with them than with the others; but he liked them better.

 

Then, when night came and the rippling of the fountain sang louder and louder through the silence and cries sounded from down below, no one knowing what they were, and solitary⁴ steps were heard, that approached and retreated again, then he lit the candles on the mantelpiece and sat down in one of the old chairs, there where the owners of the house and their wives had sat when the house slept and they had something to say to each other.

 

He looked round the room, where the things sang in every dark corner, and[188] simply could not conceive that he had not known the old room before.

 

He was more at home here than anywhere else: here, where he was outside the world, which worried him, because it demanded that of him which he had not; here, where every spot and every object told how all had been said and done and accomplished⁵ in the old days, so that he had nothing else to do but listen wonderingly and rejoice at its marvellous beauty.

 

Then he fell a-dreaming and remained sitting till the lights went out.

 

“He does not sleep enough,” said Fru Adelheid, anxiously.

 

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