Dinesen, writing in the 1950s, sets the action of "The Ring" in rural Denmark "on a summer morning one hundred and fifty years ago," which would correspond approximately to the year 1800. Sigismund and Lovisa, two newlyweds (twenty- four and nineteen years of age) whose love, after much tribulation, has prevailed over the reluctance of the bride's family, are out walking to observe the pasturage of Sigismund's farm and to inspect the Cotswold rams by which the farmer hopes to "improve his Danish stock." Dinesen's narrator divulges Lovisa's reminiscences of their struggle against her parents' wishes (she is of higher station in life than he, and her family is wealthier than his) and her present sense of having been liberated into "freedom" by her marriage. Lovisa delights in the "rustic atmosphere" of the locale and experiences joy in the notion that she has no secret from her...