"I shall have a deal of time for myself here, and I know how I shall employ it. I will go out a great deal. I will wander through wood and field, in storm, snow, and every kind of weather, till I am, at least, bodily weary. Perhaps then it may be calmer in the soul! I desire no longer to be happy. What does it matter if one is not happy, if one is only pure and good? Were the probation-day of life only not so long! Leonore, my good angel, pray for me!
"P. S.--My nose makes its compliments to Gabriele, and goes in the accompanying picture to pay her a visit. She must not imagine that I am cast down. I send also a little ballad or romance; the wood sung it to me last evening, and every harmonious sound, which life in my soul sings, must--go home! Oh, how I love you all!"
And now, whilst our Petrea appears in rural solitude to prepare herself for a new life, whilst the snow fell upon the earth in order to prepare it for now springs, we turn back to our well-known home in the town, and describe the occurrences there.
[16] Poor Petrea makes a little pun here. The Swedish word örongodt (pillow) meaning literally good for the ear.--M. H.
Jacobi had left. October was come, with its storms and its long twilight, which is so dark and heavy for all such as have it not cheered by kindly glances and bright thoughts.
One evening, as Henrik came down to tea, he was observed to look uncommonly pale, and in answer to the inquiry of his sisters as to the cause, he replied that he had headache, and added, half in jest, half in earnest, that it would be very beautiful to be only once freed from this heavy body--it was so sadly in one's way!
"How you talk!" said Louise; "at all events, it is right to treat it well and rationally; not to go sitting up all night and studying so that one has headache all day!"
"Thank your majesty most submissively for the moral!" said Henrik; "but if my body will not serve my soul, but will subject it, I have a very great desire to contend with it, and to quarrel with it!"
"The butterfly becomes matured in the chrysalis," said Gabriele, smiling sweetly, whilst she strewed rose-leaves upon some chrysalises which were to sleep through the winter on her flower-stand.