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pleasure . . . Do you know, there is a palm tree that flowers only once in its lifetime, and yet it lives till seventy, the talipot palm. But it flowers only once. I’m flowering now. Sure, I’ll get some money and come home. I’ll sell what I’ve written; you see, I’m working on a big book and now I’ll sell it, first thing in the morning, all that is finished. I’ll get quite a bit for it. So you would like me to come home, eh?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thank you, thank you! Forgive me if I hope for too much, for being too trusting; it’s so sweet to be overly trusting. This is the happiest day of my life. . . .”
    He took off his hat and placed it beside him.
    Victoria looked about her; a lady was coming down the street and, farther up, a woman with a basket. Victoria became fidgety, she felt for her watch.
    “Do you have to go now?” he asked. “Tell me something before you go, let me hear what you . . . I love you, now I’ve said it. So it will depend on your answer whether I . . . I’m completely in your power. What’s your answer?”
    Pause.
    He lowered his head.
    “No, don’t tell me!” he begged her.
    “Not here,” she answered. “I’ll let you know down there.”
    They started walking.
    “People say you’re going to marry that little girl, the girl you rescued, what’s her name?”
    “Camilla, you mean?”
    “Camilla Seier. People say you’re going to marry her.”
    “Really. Why do you ask about that? She isn’t even grown up. I’ve been to her home, it’s so rich and grand, a castle like your own; I’ve been there many times. Why, she’s still a child.”
    “She’s fifteen. I’ve met her, we’ve spent time together. I was very much taken with her. How lovely she is!”
    “I’m not going to marry her,” he said.
    “No?”
    He looked at her. His face twitched slightly.
    “But why are you saying this now? Are you trying to draw my attention to someone else?”
    She walked on with hurried steps and didn’t reply. They found themselves outside the chamberlain’s place. She took his hand and pulled him inside the gate and up the steps.
    “I mustn’t go in,” he said, somewhat surprised.
    She rang the bell and turned toward him, her breast heaving.
    “I love you,” she said. “Do you understand? You’re the one I love.”
    Suddenly she pulled him quickly back down again, three or four steps, threw her arms around him and kissed him. She trembled against him.
    “You’re the one I love,” she said.
    The front door opened. She tore herself away and raced up the steps.

IV
    It’s almost morning; the day is breaking, a bluish, quivering September morning.
    There is a faint soughing among the poplars in the garden. A window opens, a man leans out and starts humming. Coatless, he looks out on the world like a half-clothed madman who has gotten drunk on happiness during the night.
    Suddenly he turns away from the window and looks at the door; someone has knocked. He calls, “Come in!” A man enters.
    “Good morning!” he says to his visitor.
    It is an elderly man; pale and furious, he’s carrying a lamp in his hands, because it’s not quite daylight yet.
    “I must once again ask you, Mr. Møller, Mr. Johannes Møller, if you think this sort of thing is reasonable,” the man stutters forth, indignant.
    “No,” Johannes answers, “you’re right. I’ve written something, it came to me so easily; look, I’ve written all this, I’ve been lucky tonight. But now I’ve finished. So I opened the window and sang a bit.”
    “You were roaring,” the man says. “In fact, it was the loudest singing I’ve ever heard. And in the middle of the night at that.”
    Johannes reaches for his papers on the table and takes a handful of sheets, large and small.
    “Look here!” he cries. “I tell you, it has never gone so well before. It was like a long flash of lightning. I once saw a lightning flash run along a telegraph wire; I swear to God, it looked like a sheet of fire.