The street divided just in front of the church, and continued to run on
either side of it; their home lay on the road to the right. As they
came nearer the church, they could discern the park behind their own
house, and in it the gables of the large hospital. At last--they were
walking slowly, without uttering a single word--at last the large
garden appeared, and their own house! It was a large wooden building in
the Swiss style, rather too broad, with big windows all open now.
Steps led down from the veranda to an open space strewn with sand. The
flower-garden was nearest to this, then the kitchen-garden further on,
and at the side, down toward the town, lay the fruit-garden, a very
large one. The two owners looked at it simultaneously. Here it was! For
six long years had they each of them worked for this; they had dreamed
of it in various forms and ways, but never quite like this; they had
fixed it at many a place, but never just at this stop. Not one of all
their dream-pictures was in what now lay before them! They both turned
and surveyed the breadth and beauty of the landscape, smiling the while
at each other. It was strange that just at that moment there was not a
creature to be seen, not a sound or a noise that recalled anything,
either far or near. Just those two and their home! The one saw exactly
the same as the other saw, the sight and the feelings of the one were
rendered more intense by the knowledge that the other shared them too.
Ragni took her arm out of Kallem's, went over to the railing, which was
of juniper branches, she reached through and gathered some grass and
leaves; she came back with this in her hand, and fastened it in his
coat. He espied a tuft of cowslips further up, went and pushed his hand
through, and gathered them; she took them and gathered more; it looked
very pretty when there were many together.
At the side of the house and in the yard at the back, lay
packing-cases, furniture, straw, sawdust, mats. Ragni's grand piano had
just been taken out of the case and the legs screwed on; but there was
no one visible.
A large dove-cot stood out in the yard. "Fancy, if pigeons came flying
here now? We must keep pigeons!"
"But, fancy, if a dog came running to us now. We must keep a dog!"
At this side there was no gate; but on the road which divided the park
and garden. They stopped there, and turned once more to look across the
wide landscape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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