The lady sparkled with wit, sprightliness, beauty. But every now and then she would seize Magnhild's hand, and press it with remorseless energy. She strengthened herself in the reality of the moment. The bodily pain this caused Magnhild corresponded with the spiritual pain she experienced. She heard the adjutant at her side and Magda cry out in wonder. She, too, now saw several balls glittering in the air, and she saw a large one weighed by a spectator, and then cast into the air by the old athlete, as though it were a play ball, and caught again on his arm, shoulder, or breast; but at the same time she heard the lady tell the general that she would leave the next morning under his escort; she had been waiting for him since her husband could not come. Magnhild well knew that all was now over: but would the end come as soon as the next morning? A loud outcry, coming chiefly from the voices of boys, cut through her pain. The old man had thrown the large ball into the air with both hands, and then quite a small ball, and continued to keep them in rapid motion for some time. To Magnhild the small ball represented herself; and the large one--? It was not in order to search for an adequate symbol, nor did she apply it, but everything became symbolic. The perpetual glitter of the balls in the air represented to her the icy glance which had just made her tremble. "The old man is extraordinarily strong," said the adjutant. "I once saw a man in Venice with another man standing on his shoulders, who stooped and raised a third, and he worked his way up and stood on the second man's shoulders, and then, only think, they drew up a fourth, who managed to stand on the shoulders of the third. The first man walked about on the ground, carrying with him the other three, while the upper man played with balls." "Were I to die at this moment," the lady was saying on the other side, "and the soul could forget everything here and have imparted to it a new series of wonderful problems, infinite vistas, so that enraptured discovery after discovery might be made--what could there be more glorious?" "My imagination does not carry me so far," came in the general's firm voice. "I am ready to stake my life that to live and die in the fulfillment of one's duty is the greatest happiness a healthily organized human being can feel. The rest is, after all, of little consequence." Here Magnhild received a feverish pressure of the hand. "Applaud, ladies and gentlemen, applaud," said the clown, hoarsely and good-naturedly. This raised a laugh, but no one stirred. "Why do not the dogs come out?" asked Magda, who heard the animals impatiently barking in the tent. About the mountain peaks clouds crisped and curled; a gust of wind betokened a change in the weather; the fjord darkened under the influence of a swiftly rising squall. There was something infinitely sublime in the landscape; something awe-inspiring.