y disappeared above her, then sought
others, and followed them too. With a little sigh she pulled down the
blind. She went to the dressing table, rested her elbows against her
clasped hands and regarded her own picture in the mirror without really
seeing it.

She was thinking of a tall young man, who carried a very delicate,
tiny, blackdressed lady in his arms; she was thinking of a tall man,
who steered his small ship in between cliffs and rocks in a devastating
gale. She heard a whole conversation over again. She blushed: Eugene
Carlson might have thought that you were paying court to him! With a
little jealous association of ideas she continued: No one would ever run
after Clara in a wood in the rainstorm, she would never have invited
a stranger--literally asked him--to sail with her. "Lady to her
fingertips," Carlson had said of Clara; that really was a reprimand
for you, you peasant-girl Camilla! Then she undressed with affected
slowness, went to bed, took a small elegantly bound book from the
bookshelf near by and opened the first page. She read through a short
hand-written poem with a tired, bitter expression on her face, then let
the book drop to the floor and burst into tears; afterwards she tenderly
picked it up again, put it back in its place and blew out the candle;
lay there for a little while gazing disconsolately at the moonlit blind,
and finally went to sleep.

A few days later the "rainman" started on his way to Cape Trafalgar. He
met a peasant driving a load of rye straw, and received permission to
ride with him. Then he lay down on his back in the straw and gazed at
the cloudless sky. The first couple of miles he let his thoughts come
and go as they listed, besides there wasn't much variety in them. Most
of them would come and ask him how a human being possibly could be so
wonderfully beautiful, and they marveled that it really could be an
entertaining occupation for several days to recall the features of a
face, its changes of expression and coloring, the small movements of a
head and a pair of hands, and the varying inflections in a voice. But
then the peasant pointed with his whip towards the slate-roof about a
mile away and said that the councilor lived over there, and the good
Mogens rose from the straw and stared anxiously towards the roof. He had
a strange feeling of oppression and tried to make himself believe that
nobody was at home, but tenaciously came back to the conception that
there wa