* * * * *

From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden rain is falling.  There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves keep dropping, dropping.  This morning I stood on the little balcony and looked out over the forest.  I do not know why or wherefore, but such a sense of quiet came over me.  I seemed to hear the words:  “and behold it was very good.”  Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound perfume of the woods that induced this calm?

All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have acted as I have done.  But he might have answered my letter.

Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair.  She asked permission to dress it for me in the evening when my hair is “awake.”  She is quite an artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she pleased.  She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood.  She played with it and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers.

My hair is still my pride, although it is losing its gloss and colour.  Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late autumn....

I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was the child of poor, honest parents....

* * * * *

“Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the wayside.  And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to painful desire....”

One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table.  Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance.

* * * * *

I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy.  Will he come gliding in imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me?  Will he overcome me, or shall I prove the stronger?  I am prepared—­but is that sufficient?

Torp is really too romantic!  To-day it pleased her to decorate the table with Virginia creeper.  Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; Virginia creeper crept over the cloth.  Even the joint was decked out with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags on the King’s birthday.  Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart.  I, who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick.

A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest thing imaginable.