After an hour, my senses begin swinging in a certain rhythm. I am ringing in tune with the great stillness--ringing with it. I look at the half-moon; it stands in the sky like a white scale, and I have a feeling of love for it; I can feel myself blushing. “It is the moon!” I say softly and passionately; “it is the moon!” and my heart strikes toward it in a soft throbbing. So for some minutes. It is blowing a little; a stranger wind comes to me a mysterious current of air. What is it? I look round, but see no one. The wind calls me, and my soul bows acknowledging the call; and I feel myself lifted into the air, pressed to an invisible breast; my eyes are dewed, I tremble--God is standing near, watching me. Again several minutes pass. I turn my head round; the stranger wind is gone, and I see something like the back of a spirit wandering silently in through the woods... I struggle a short while with a heavy melancholy; I was worn out with emotions; I am deathly tired, and I sleep. * * * * * When I awoke the night was past. Alas, I had been going about for a long time in a sad state, full of fever, on the verge of falling down stricken with some sickness or other. Often things had seemed upside down. I had been looking at everything through inflamed eyes. A deep misery had possessed me. It was over now. XXV It was autumn. The summer was gone. It passed as quickly as it had come; ah, how quickly it was gone! The days were cold now. I went out shooting and fishing--sang songs in the woods. And there were days with a thick mist that came floating in from the sea, damming up everything behind a wall of murk. One such day something happened. I lost my way, blundered through into the woods of the annexe, and came to the Doctor's house. There were visitors there--the young ladies I had met before--young people dancing, just like madcap foals. A carriage came rolling up and stopped outside the gate; Edwarda was in it. She started at sight of me. “Good-bye,” I said quietly. But the Doctor held me back. Edwarda was troubled by my presence at first, and looked down when I spoke; afterwards, she bore with me, and even went so far as to ask me a question about something or other. She was strikingly pale; the mist lay grey and cold upon her face. She did not get out of the carriage. “I have come on an errand,” she said. “I come from the parish church, and none of you were there to-day; they said you were here. I have been driving for hours to find you. We are having a little party to-morrow--the Baron is going away next week--and I have been told to invite you all. There will be dancing too. To-morrow evening.” They all bowed and thanked her. To me, she went on: “Now, don't stay away, will you? Don't send a note at the last minute making some excuse.” She did not say that to any of the others. A little after she drove away.