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Did not your mother tell you of him? Nay, doubtless she was too good a Christian. Yet he lives on, Nephew. I say that Odin lives in the blood of every fighting man, as Freya lives in the heart of every lad and girl who loves. The gods change their names, but hush! hush! talk not of Odin and of Freya, for I say that it is heresy, or pagan, which is worse. What would you do now?
For the first time he realized the great change in his life since Freya had come to the steamer in search of him. He saw himself in his room in the hotel opposite her, dressed like a man, and looking out over the gulf while smoking. "I am a German woman, and ..." Her mysterious life, even its most incomprehensible details, was soon to be explained.
If nightfall surprised them, they would hastily betake themselves to a café in the interior of the city, a beer-garden whose proprietor always spoke to Freya in German in a low voice. Whenever the doctor was in Naples she would seat herself at their table, with the air of a good mother who is receiving her daughter and son-in-law.
"They know me!" exclaimed Freya joyously. "I'm sure that they know me!..." And she enumerated the clever traits of these monsters to whom she attributed great intelligence. They were the ones that, like astute builders, had dappled the stones piled up on the bottom, forming bulwarks in whose shelter they had disguised themselves in order to pounce upon their victims.
While he was bidding the doctor good-by, thanking her with extreme courtesy for having introduced him to the captain, Ferragut felt that Freya was clasping his hand in a meaning way. "Until to-night," she murmured lightly, hardly moving her lips. "I shall see you later.... Expect me." Oh, what happiness!... The eyes, the smile, the pressure of her hand were telling him much more than that.
In the background a small orchestra was accompanying a tenor voice or was playing alone, enlarging upon the melodies and amplifying the measures with Neapolitan exaggeration. Freya felt a childish hilarity upon seating herself at the table, seeing over the cloth the luminous summit.
My sister was acquainted with all the tales and superstitions afloat and believed in them. So she determined upon the wake, the night- watch of Freya, as the child calls it. But with all her curiosity she was a timid creature, and was afraid to perform the ceremony alone. So she told me of her plan, and begged me to stand by her.
His thick black eyebrows were knitted by a frown, while he looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. And their sideways glance in conjunction with the hooked nose, the whole bulky, ungainly, sprawling person, struck Freya as so comically moody that, inwardly discomposed as she was, she could not help smiling. She did her best to give that smile a conciliatory character.
It was Freya and it was not, just as twins exactly alike physically, nevertheless have an indefinable something which differentiates them. The vague thoughts which for some time past had been slowly undermining his subconsciousness with dull, subterranean labor, now cleared the air with explosive force.
He sucked the blood from the deep scratch, and then forgot the wound in order to gaze again at the body outstretched at his feet. Little by little he was becoming accustomed to the diffused light of the room. He was already beginning to see objects clearly. His glance rested upon Freya with a look of mingled hatred and remorse. Her head, sunk in the cushions, presented a pitiful profile.
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