I started early in the morning with the two ladies in a closed carriage. It was more than a trifle cold at first, and my woollen rug came in very handy; I used it alternately to put over my knees and wrap round my shoulders.

We drove the way I had walked up with Falkenberg, and I recognized place after place as we passed. There and there he had tuned² the pianos; there we had heard the grey goose passing. . . . The sun came up, and it grew warmer; the hours went by; then, coming to cross-roads, the ladies knocked at the window and said it was dinner-time.

I could see by the sun it was too early for the ladies’ dinner-time, though well enough for me, seeing I took my dinner with Falkenberg at noon. So I drove on.

“Can’t you stop?” they cried.

“I thought . . . you don’t generally have dinner till three. . . . ”

“But we’re hungry.”

I turned off aside from the road, took out the horses, and fed and watered them. Had these strange beings set their dinner-time by mine? “V?rsaagod!”

But I felt I could not well sit down to eat with them, so I remained standing³ by the horses.

“Well?” said Fruen.

“Thank you kindly,” said I, and waited to be served. They helped me, both of them, as if they could never give me enough. I drew the corks⁴ of the beer bottles, and was given a liberal share here as well; it was a picnic by the roadside — a little wayfaring⁵ adventure in my life. And Fruen I dared look at least, for fear she should be hurt.

And they talked and jested with each other, and now and again with me, out of their kindliness⁶, that I might feel at ease. Said Fr?ken¹ Elisabeth:

“Oh, I think it’s just lovely to have meals out of doors. Don’t you?”

And here she said De, instead of Du, as she had said before.

“It’s not so new to him, you know,” said Fruen; “he has his dinner out in the woods every day.”

分享到：