Their dawning affection became passionate first love out here. Ellen was always standing at the gate waiting for him. As soon as Pelle had had his supper, the children dragged him round the garden to show him what had taken place during the day. They held his hands and Ellen had to walk by herself. Pelle and she had an intense desire to be close together, but the little ones would not submit to be set aside. “He’s our father!” they said; and Pelle and Ellen were like two young people that are kept cruelly apart by a remorseless fate, and they looked at one another with eyes that were heavy with expression.
When the little ones had gone to bed they stole away from it all, leaving Lasse Frederik in charge of the house. He had seen an artist sitting outside the hedge and painting the smoky city in the spring light, and had procured himself a paintbox. He sat out there every evening now, daubing away busily. He did not mean to be a sailor now!
They went up past the farm and on toward the evening sun, walked hand- in-hand in the dewy grass, gazing silently in front of them. The ruddy evening light colored their faces and made their eyes glow. There was a little grove of trees not far off, to which they often went so as to be quite away from the world. With their arms round one another they passed into the deep twilight, whispering together. Now and then she bent her head back for him to kiss her, when an invisible ray would strike her eye and be refracted into a rainbow-colored star, in the darkness.
A high dike of turfs ran along the edge of the wood, and low over it hung hazel and young beech trees. In under the branches there were little bowers where they hid themselves; the dead leaves had drifted together in under the dike and made a soft couch. The birds above their heads gave little sleepy chirps, turned on the branch and twittered softly as though they dreamed the day’s melodies over again. Sometimes the moon peeped in at them with a broad smile. The heavy night- exhalations of the leaves lulled them to sleep, and sometimes they were only wakened by the tremor that passes through everything when the sun rises. Pelle would be cold then, but Ellen’s body was always warm although she had removed some of her clothing to make a pillow for their heads.