ed me to
go--not expressly, not in plain words. Just no putting on side on my
part--no untimely pride! Brave it out!... That was really most singular
green hair on that Christ in the oleograph. It was not too unlike green
grass, or expressed with exquisite exactitude thick meadow grass. Ha! a
perfectly correct remark--unusually thick meadow grass.... A train of
fleeting ideas darts at this moment through my head. From green grass
to the text, Each life is like unto grass that is kindled; from that to
the Day of Judgment, when all will be consumed; then a little detour
down to the earthquake in Lisbon, about which something floated before
me in reference to a brass Spanish spittoon and an ebony pen handle
that I had seen down at Ylajali's. Ah, yes, all was transitory, just
like grass that was kindled. It all ended in four planks and a
winding-sheet. "Winding-sheets to be had from Miss Andersen's, on the
right of the door...." And all this was tossed about in my head during
the despairing moment when my landlady was about to thrust me from her
door.

"He doesn't hear," she yelled. "I tell you, you'll quit this house. Now
you know it. I believe God blast me, that the man is mad, I do! Now,
out you go, on the blessed spot, and so no more chat about it."

I looked towards the door, not in order to leave--no, certainly not in
order to leave. An audacious notion seized me--if there had been a key
in the door, I would have turned it and locked myself in along with the
rest to escape going. I had a perfectly hysterical dread of going out
into the streets again.

But there was no key in the door.

Then, suddenly my landlord's voice mingled with that of his wife, and I
stood still with amazement. The same man who had threatened me a while
ago took my part, strangely enough now. He said:

"No, it won't do to turn folk out at night; do you know one can be
punished for doing that?"

"I didn't know if there was a punishment for that; I couldn't say, but
perhaps it was so," and the wife bethought herself quickly, grew quiet,
and spoke no more.

She placed two pieces of bread and butter before me for supper, but I
did not touch them, just out of gratitude to the man; so I pretended
that I had had a little food in town.

When at length I took myself off to the anteroom to go to bed, she came
out after me, stopped on the threshold, and said loudly, whilst her
unsightly figure seemed to strut out towards me:

"But this is the l