I went down to the quay. My things were already on board. Herr Mack pressed my hand, and said encouragingly that it would be nice weather, pleasant weather; he would not mind making the trip himself in such weather. The Doctor came walking down. Edwarda was with him; I felt my knees beginning to tremble. “Came to see you safely off,” said the Doctor. I thanked him. Edwarda looked me straight in the face and said: “I must thank you for your dog.” She pressed her lips together; they were quite white. Again she had called me “_Eder_.” [Footnote: The most formal mode of address.] “When does the boat go?” the Doctor asked a man. “In half an hour.” I said nothing. Edwarda was turning restlessly this way and that. “Doctor, don't you think we may as well go home again?” she said. “I have done what I came for to do.” “You have done what you came _to do_,” said the Doctor. She laughed, humiliated by his everlasting correction, and answered: “Wasn't that almost what I said?” “No,” he answered shortly. I looked at him. The little man stood there cold and firm; he had made a plan, and he carried it out to the last. And if he lost after all? In any case, he would never show it; his face never betrayed him. It was getting dusk. “Well, good-bye,” I said. “And thanks for--everything.” Edwarda looked at me dumbly. Then she turned her head and stood looking out at the ship. I got into the boat. Edwarda was still standing on the quay. When I got on board, the Doctor called out “Good-bye!” I looked over to the shore. Edwarda turned at the same time and walked hurriedly away from the quay, the Doctor far behind. That was the last I saw of her. A wave of sadness went through my heart... The vessel began to move; I could still see Herr Mack's sign: “Salt and Barrels.” But soon it disappeared. The moon and the stars came out; the hills towered round about, and I saw the endless woods. There is the mill; there, there stood my hut, that was burned; the big grey stone stands there all alone on the site of the fire. Iselin, Eva... The night of the northern lights spreads over valley and hill. XXXVI I have written this to pass the time. It has amused me to look back to that summer in Nordland, when I often counted the hours, but when time flew nevertheless. All is changed. The days will no longer pass. I have many a merry hour even yet. But time--it stands still, and I cannot understand how it can stand so still. I am out of the service, and free as a prince; all is well; I meet people, drive in carriages; now and again I shut one eye and write with one finger up in the sky; I tickle the moon under the chin, and fancy that it laughs--laughs broadly at being tickled under the chin. All things smile. I pop a cork and call gay people to me.