"It is so glorious today!" cries the blue-clad mother exulting, and claps her hands. "The warmth goes to my head, love has gone to my head, I am full of happiness. I could strip myself naked here on the road and stretch out my arms to the sun and send it kisses." But the black-clad mother is silent and neither smiles nor makes reply. "Are you still sorrowing for your little girl?" asks the Blue one in the innocence of her heart. "Is it not ten years since she died?" The Black one answers: "Yes. She would have been fifteen now." Then the Blue one says to console her: "But you have other daughters alive, you have two left." The Black one sobs: "Yes. But neither of them is fair. She who died was so fair and bright." And the two mothers part and go their several ways, each with her love.... But the same two dark daughters had also, each her love, and they loved the same man. He came to the elder and said: "I wish to ask your advice, for I love your sister. Yesterday I was untrue to her, she surprised me kissing your servant girl in the passage; she gave a little scream, it was like a whimper, and passed by. What am I to do now? I love your sister; for Heaven's sake speak to her and help me!" And the elder sister paled and put her hand to her heart; but she smiled as though she would bless him and answered: "I will help you." The next day he went to the younger and threw himself on his knees before her and confessed his love. She looked him up and down and answered: "Unfortunately I can't spare more than ten shillings, if that is what you mean. But go to my sister, she has more." With that she left him, holding her head proudly. But when she had reached her room she threw herself upon the floor and wrung her hands with love. * * * * * It was winter and the streets were cold, with fog, dust and wind. Johannes was back in town, in his old room where he heard the creaking of the poplars against the wooden wall and from whose window he had more than once greeted the dawning day. Now the sun was gone. His work had occupied him the whole time, the big sheets he had filled, growing and growing as the winter wore on. It was a series of fairy tales from the land of his fancy, an endless night in a crimson sunset glow. But the days were not all alike, he had both good and bad, and sometimes when his work was going best, a thought, a pair of eyes, a word from the past might strike him and quench his inspiration at once. Then he got up and began to pace his room from wall to wall; he had done that so often that he had worn a white path across the floor and it grew whiter every day....