* *

This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on
the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly:

"It must be splendid bathing here."

Jeanne replied:

"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."

And I, still absent-minded, murmured:

"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."

Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves.

Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the
piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience
this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us.

When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine.

* * * * *

They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends.
Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with
beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One
has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved
for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has
spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the
way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to
his native land.

"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water
and the forests make it so pretty...."

Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally.

The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died
on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to
supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired
whether the coffin was finished, he replied:

"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that
did."

His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in
his choice!

The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try
the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the
boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather
wait!

* * * * *

Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They
glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense
that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent
of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here....

Joergen Malthe....

When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressin