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“Ottilia! always Ottilia! Didn’t you yourself send her to me?”

“No, not her personally! But there can be no doubt that it is she who rules now.”

“You want to separate me from all I care for!”

“Is Ottilia all you care for? It almost looks like it!”

“But I can’t send her away now that I have engaged her to teach the girls pedagogics and Latin.”

“Latin! Great Scott! Are the girls to be ruined?”

“They are to know everything a man knows, so that when the time comes, their marriage will be a true marriage.”

“But, my love, all husbands don’t know Latin! I don’t know more than one single word, and that is ‘ablative.’ And we have been happy in spite of it. Moreover, there is a movement to strike off Latin from the plan of instruction for boys, as a superfluous accomplishment. Doesn’t this teach you a lot? Isn’t it enough that the men are ruined, are the women to be ruined, too? Ottilia, Ottilia, what have I done to you, that you should treat me like this!”

“Supposing we dropped that matter.–Our love, William, has not been what it should be. It has been sensual!”

“But, my darling, how could we have had children, if it hadn’t? And it has not been sensual only.”

“Can a thing be both black and white? Tell me that!”

“Of course, it can. There’s your sunshade for instance, it is black outside and white inside.”

“Sophist!”

“Listen to me, sweetheart, tell me in your own way the thoughts which are in your heart; don’t talk like Ottilia’s books. Don’t let your head run away with you; be yourself again, my sweet, darling little wife.”

“Yours, your property, bought with your labour.”

“Just as I am your property, your husband, at whom no other woman is allowed to look if she wants to keep her eyes in her head; your husband, who made a present of himself to you, or rather, gave himself to you in exchange. Are we not quits?”

“But we have trifled away our lives! Have we ever had any higher interests, William?”

“Yes, the very highest, Gurli; we have not always been playing, we have had grave hours, too. Have we not called into being generations to come? Have we not both bravely worked and striven for the little ones, who are to grow up into men and women? Have you not faced death four times for their sakes? Have you not robbed yourself of your nights’ rest in order to rock their cradle, and of your days’ pleasures, in order to attend to them? Couldn’t we now have a large six-roomed flat in the main street, and a footman to open the door, if it were not for the children? Wouldn’t you be able to wear silk dresses and pearls? And I, your old Pal, wouldn’t have crows’ nests in my knees, if it hadn’t been for the kiddies. Are we really no better than dolls? Are we as selfish as old maids say? Old maids, rejected by men as no good. Why are so many girls unmarried? They all boast of proposals and yet they pose as martyrs! Higher interests! Latin! To dress in low neck dresses for charitable purposes and leave the children at home, neglected! I believe that my interests are higher than Ottilia’s, when I want strong and healthy children, who will succeed where we have failed. But Latin won’t help them! Goodbye, Gurli! I have to go back on board. Are you coming?”

But she remained sitting on the stone and made no answer. He went with heavy footsteps, very heavy footsteps. And the blue sea grew dark and the sun ceased shining.

“Pal, Pal, where is this to lead to?” he sighed, as he stepped over the fence of the cemetery. “I wish I lay there, with a wooden cross to mark my place, among the roots of the trees. But I am sure I couldn’t rest, if I were there without her! Oh! Gurli! Gurli!