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Updated: May 19, 2025
I asked several of the others if we ought not to row back now; it was getting late, I said, and Asop was tied up in the hut. But none of them wanted to go back. I went over again to the Dean's daughter, for the third time; I thought she must be the one that had said I had eyes like an animal's.
"I have stayed out too long," I say aloud. A pang goes through me; I turn at once and begin walking homewards, but all the time I know I have stayed out too long. I walk faster, then run; Asop understands there is something the matter, and pulls at the leash, drags me along, sniffs at the ground, and is all haste. The dry leaves crackle about us.
It was only an accident that they were dirty once. I did not mean to say what I did." But then I went on angrily, with clenched teeth: "I sit thinking of you all the time, Eva; but it occurs to me that perhaps you have not heard what I am going to tell you now. The first time Edwarda saw Asop, she said: 'Asop that was the name of a wise man a Phrygian, he was. Now wasn't that simply silly?
And I would lie there a while, wondering how I came to be there, in a hut on the fringe of a forest, away up in Nordland. Then Asop over by the hearth would shake out his long, slender body, rattling his collar, and yawning and wagging his tail, and I would jump up, after those three or four hours of sleep, fully rested and full of joy in everything ... everything.
I tied up Asop, took my fishing tackle and my gun, and went down to the quay. I was quite unusually troubled in mind. "When will the mail-packet be in?" I asked a fisherman there. "The mail-packet? In three weeks' time," he answered. "I am expecting my uniform," I said. Then I met one of Herr Mack's assistants from the store.
Asop turned his nose to the wind at once, sniffing in surprise at the smell of burning that he could not understand. When the melting of the snow had made rifts in the hillside, a shot, or even a sharp cry, was enough to loosen a great block and send it tumbling down... An hour might pass, or perhaps more the time went so quickly.
Mack introduced me to her as well; his daughter, Edwarda. Edwarda gave me one glance through her veil, and went on whispering to the dog, and reading on its collar: "So you're called Asop, are you? Doctor, who was Asop? All I can remember is that he wrote fables. Wasn't he a Phrygian? I can't remember." A child, a schoolgirl.
I looked at her hands; the contour of her long, delicate fingers moved me violently, made me tremble. She was still turning over the stuffs. I stood wishing that Asop would run to her behind the counter then I could call him back at once and apologise. What would she say then? "Here you are," said the storekeeper. I paid for the things, took up my parcels, and took my leave of her.
At last I began to feel almost sure. Her altered behavior of late it was only her manner. She had stood looking after me when I went; stood at the window following with her eyes till I disappeared. What more could she do? My delight upset me altogether; I was hungry, and no longer felt it. Asop ran on ahead; a moment afterward he began to bark.
I looked up; a woman with a white kerchief on her head was standing by the corner of the hut. It was Eva, the blacksmith's daughter. "Goddag, Eva!" I called to her. She stood by the big grey stone, her face all red, sucking one finger. "Is it you, Eva? What is the matter?" I asked. "Asop has bitten me," she answered, with some awkwardness, and cast down her eyes. I looked at her finger.
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