Johannes got up and walked up and down his room. His neighbour in the next room woke up, his snoring ceased and a sigh was heard, a tortured groan. Johannes went on tiptoe to the table and sat down again. The wind howling in the poplars outside his window made him feel cold. The old poplars were stripped of leaves and looked like sad monstrosities; a few knotted branches scraped against the wall of the house with a creaking sound, like a piece of wooden machinery, a cracked stamp-mill which worked on and on. He dropped his eyes on his papers and read them over. Well well, his fancy had run away with him again. He had nothing to do with death and a passing cart. He was writing about a garden, a green luxuriant garden by his home, the Castle garden. That was what he was writing about. It was lying dead and snowed under now, but he was writing about it all the same, and not of winter and snow at all, but spring and fragrance and mild breezes. And it was evening. The water below lay deep and still, like a leaden lake; the lilacs shed their perfume, hedge after hedge was in bud and green leaves, and the air was so still that the blackcock could be heard calling on the other side of the bay. On one of the paths of the garden stood Victoria, she was alone, dressed in white, twenty years old. There she stood. Taller than the tallest rose-bushes, she looked out over the water, out to the forests, to the sleeping mountains in the distance; she seemed like a white soul in the midst of the green garden. Footsteps sounded on the road below, she took a few steps forward to the lonely summer-house, leaned her elbows on the wall and looked down. The man in the road took his hat off almost to the ground and bowed. She nodded back. The man looked about him, there was nobody on the road watching him and he advanced towards the wall. Then she retreated, crying, "No, no!" and she waved him off with her hand. "Victoria," he said, "what you said once was the real truth, I can't have imagined it, that is impossible." "Yes," she answered, "but what do you want?" He was now quite close to her, only the wall separated them, and he answered: "What do I want? Oh, you know, I only want to stay here a minute. It's the last time. I want to come as near to you as I can; now I'm not far away!" She said nothing. So that minute passed. "Good-night," he said, taking off his hat again and sweeping the ground with it. "Good-night," she answered. And he went away without looking back....