“It has infinitely much to do with all that lies above or below our comprehension. It is in the highest degree a poetic sense, and I am sorry for anyone who has a weak power of smell.” Axelson turned over with a grunt so as to be burnt evenly all over. “Well, my dear Modin, now for your experience! This isn’t ordinarily a town for great experiences.” “Very good. I came here by accident on a vacation trip. The ticket was good for a longer journey, but the train stopped, it looked pretty, and I got off. I left my knapsack at the hotel of Comfort and betook myself to strolling along the select avenues of Peace.” “Hm! Traveling is nothing but trying to get away from yourself with lies.” Modin seemed not to hear. He looked down into the water, which tossed up a thousand splinters of sunlight. “It was a royal day in June: lofty blue heavens, a light breeze, transfiguration in the air. The gardens blossomed within their red palings and the daws cried merrily around the high church steeple. It was a day when one suddenly stands still in the blue shade, looks over the crosses in the churchyard grass, and finds that even death is gentle.” “Hm, hm!” “Well, so I ate a light dinner and adventured out along the road into the wide land of summer leafage. I have never in my life seen so much white bloom: hedge, sloe, apple, pear, cherry. I recall too a linden avenue--the gravel was quite yellow with the rain of blossoms--and the branches murmured solemnly.” Axelson twisted himself over on his back again. “Excuse me, my dear brother, but did you meet anything?” “Everything and nothing, old friend. Without meeting a living soul I had got out into a landscape of billowy grain fields and meadows with islets of splendid old oaks. I walked along a blossoming ditch side and sat down on a mossy stone close to a fence that ran around one of the knolls of oak. It began to draw on a bit towards evening. The light had not yet the garish colors of sunset; it was merely a thought more golden than before. And in the low, warm light the green of the fields took on a full-toned richness, a vehement intensity, which I shall never forget. One speaks more often of an intense blue, but green too can take on such a tone toward evening. “I don’t know how long I had sat absorbed in all this, when for some reason or other I turned around and on the other side of the half-dilapidated fence discovered a young lady dressed in white who was sitting on the same slope with me. She had let the book she had been reading sink down on her knees and was gazing similarly out into the wondrous living sea of color.