Æsop lifts his head and listens; he hears footsteps; Eva appears among the trees.
“I am very thoughtful and sad this evening,” I say.
“I love three things,” I go on. “I love a dream of love I once had; I love you; and I love this spot of ground.”
All still again. Æsop knows Eva; he lays his head on one side and looks at her. I murmur:
“I saw a girl on the road to-day; she walked arm in arm with her lover. The girl looked towards me, and could scarcely keep from laughing as I passed.”
“I don't know. At me, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
“No, she acted as if she didn't know me... But why do you sit there worming things out of me? It is not a nice thing to do. You will not get me to tell you her name.”
“What was she laughing at? She is a flirt; but what was she laughing at? What had I done to harm her?”
“No, it was not cruel of her,” I cry. “How dare you sit there speaking ill of her? She never did an unkind thing; it was only right that she should laugh at me. Be quiet, devil take you, and leave me in peace--do you hear?”
And Eva, terrified, leaves me in peace. I look at her, and repent my harsh words at once; I fall down before her; wringing my hands.
“Go home, Eva. It is you I love most; how could I love a dream? It was only a jest; it is you I love. But go home now; I will come to you to-morrow; remember, I am yours; yes, do not forget it. Good-night.”
The third iron night, a night of extremes! tension. If only there were a little frost! Instead, still heat after the sun of the day; the night is like a lukewarm marsh. I light my fire...
“Eva, it can be a delight at times to be dragged by the hair. So strangely can the mind of a man be warped. He can be dragged by the hair over hill and dale, and if asked what is happening, can answer in ecstasy: 'I am being dragged by the hair!' And if anyone asks: 'But shall I not help you, release you?' he answers: 'No.' And if they ask: 'But how can you endure it?' he answers: 'I can endure it, for I love the hand that drags me.' Eva, do you know what it is to hope?”
“Look you, Eva, hope is a strange thing, a very strange thing. You can go out one morning along the road, hoping to meet one whom you are fond of. And do you? No. Why not? Because that one is busy that morning--is somewhere else, perhaps... Once I got to know an old blind Lapp up in the hills. For fifty-eight years he had seen nothing, and now he was over seventy. It seemed to him that his sight was getting better little by little; getting on gradually, he thought. If all went well he would be able to make out the sun in a few years' time. His hair was still black, but his eyes were quite white. When we sat in his hut, smoking, he would tell of all the things he had seen before he went blind. He was hardy and strong; without feeling, indestructible; and he kept his hope. When I was going, he came out with me, and began pointing in different ways. 'There's the south,' he said, 'and there's north. Now you go that way first, and when you get a little way down, turn off that way.' 'Quite right,' I said. And at that the Lapp laughed contentedly, and said: 'There! I did not know that forty or fifty years back, so I must see better now than I used to--yes, it is improving all the time.' And then he crouched down and crept into his hut again--the same old hut, his home on earth. And he sat down by the fire as before, full of hope that in some few years he would be able to make out the sun... Eva, 'tis strange about hope. Here am I, for instance, hoping all the time that I may forget the one I did not meet on the road this morning...”