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A Doll’s House
by
When he arrived at the bridge and shouted: “boat ahoy!” she hid herself behind the window curtains as if she were ashamed to be seen. He blew kisses to her until the sailors came with the gig. Then a last: “Sleep well and dream of me” and the gig put off. He watched her through his glasses, and for a long time he could distinguish a little figure with black hair. The sunbeams fell on her nightdress and bare throat and made her look like a mermaid.
The reveille went. The longdrawn bugle notes rolled out between the green islands over the shining water and returned from behind the pine woods. The whole crew assembled on deck and the Lord’s Prayer and “Jesus, at the day’s beginning” were read. The little church tower of Dalaro answered with a faint ringing of bells, for it was Sunday. Cutters came up in the morning breeze: flags were flying, shots resounded, light summer dresses gleamed on the bridge, the steamer, leaving a crimson track behind her, steamed up, the fishers hauled in their nets, and the sun shone on the blue, billowy water and the green islands.
At ten o’clock six pairs rowed the gig ashore from the gunboat. They were together again. And as they sat at breakfast in the large dining-room, the hotel guests watched and whispered: “Is she his wife?” He talked to her in an undertone like a lover, and she cast down her eyes and smiled; or hit his fingers with her dinner napkin.
The boat lay alongside the bridge; she sat at the helm, he looked after the foresail. But he could not take his eyes off her finely shaped figure in the light summer dress, her determined little face and proud eyes, as she sat looking to windward, while her little hand in its strong leather glove held the mainsheet. He wanted to talk to her and was purposely clumsy in tacking; then she scolded him as if he were a cabin boy, which amused him immensely.
“Why didn’t you bring the baby with you?” he asked her teasingly.
“Where should I have put it to sleep?”
“In the long boat, of course?”
She smiled at him in a way which filled his heart with happiness.
“Well, and what did the proprietress say this morning?”
“What should she say?”
“Did she sleep well last night?”
“Why shouldn’t she sleep well?”
“I don’t know; she might have been kept awake by rats, or perhaps by the rattling of a window; who can tell what might not disturb the gentle sleep of an old maid!”
“If you don’t stop talking nonsense, I shall make the sheet fast and sail you to the bottom of the sea.”
They landed at a small island and ate their luncheon which they had brought with them in a little basket. After lunch they shot at a target with a revolver. Then they pretended to fish with rods, but they caught nothing and sailed out again into the open sea where the eidergeese were, through a strait where they watched the carp playing about the rushes. He never tired of looking at her, talking to her, kissing her.
In this manner they met for six summers, and always they were just as young, just as mad and just as happy as before. They spent the winter in Stockholm in their little cabins. He amused himself by rigging boats for his little boys or telling them stories of his adventures in China and the South Sea Islands, while his wife sat by him, listening and laughing at his funny tales. It was a charming room, that could not be equalled in the whole world. It was crammed full of Japanese sunshades and armour, miniature pagodas from India, bows and lances from Australia, nigger drums and dried flying fish, sugar cane and opium pipes. Papa, whose hair was growing thin at the top, did not feel very happy outside his own four walls. Occasionally he played at draughts with his friend, the auditor, and sometimes they had a game at Boston and drank a glass of grog. At first his wife had joined in the game, but now that she had four children, she was too busy; nevertheless, she liked to sit with the players for a little and look at their cards, and whenever she passed Papa’s chair he caught her round the waist and asked her whether she thought he ought to be pleased with his hand.