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At the last moment Emilie made a further stipulation. She would go alone to fetch the child. It was important that the relation between the boy and herself should be properly established from the beginning, and she did not trust to Jakob’s sense of propriety upon the occasion. In this way, it came about that, when all was ready for the child’s reception in the house of Bredgade, Emilie drove by herself to Adelgade to take possession of him, easy in her conscience towards the firm and her husband, but, already, beforehand, a little tired of the whole affair.

In the street, by Madam Mahler’s house, a number of unkempt childrenwere obviously waiting for the arrival of the carriage, they stared ather, but turned off their eyes when she looked at them. Her heart sankas she lifted her ample silk skirt and passed through their crowd andacross the back-yard; would her boy have the same look? Like Jakob,she had many times before visited the houses of the poor, it was a sadsight, but it could not be otherwise: "You have the poor with youalways. " But today, since a child from this place was to enter her ownhouse, for the first time she felt personally related to the need andmisery of the world. She was seized with a new deep disgust andhorror, and at the next moment with a new, deeper pity. In these twominds, she entered Madam Mahler’s room.

Madam Mahler had washed little Jens and water-combed his hair. She hadalso, a couple of days before, hurriedly enlightened him as to the situation and his own promotion in life. But being an unimaginative woman, and moreover, of the opinion that the child was but half- witted, she had not taken much trouble about it. The child had received the information in silence, he only asked her how his father and mother had found him. "Oh, by the smell," said Madam Mahler.

Jens had communicated the news to the other children of the house. HisPapa and Mamma, he told them, were coming on the morrow, in great state, to fetch him home. It gave him matter for reflection that the event should raise a great stir in that same world of the back-yard that had received his visions of it with indifference. To him, the two were the same thing.

He had got up on Mamzell Ane’s small chair to look out of the windowand witness the arrival of his mother. He was still standing on itwhen Emilie came in, and Madam Mahler in vain made a gesture to chasehim down. The first thing that Emilie noticed about the child was thathe did not turn his gaze from hers, but looked her straight in theeyes. At the sight of her, a great, ecstatic light passed over hisface. For a moment, the two looked at one another.

The child seemed to wait for her to address him, but as she stood on,silent, irresolute, he spoke: "Mamma," he said, "I am glad that youhave found me. I have waited for you so long, so long. "

Emilie gave Madam Mahler a glance—had this scene been staged to moveher heart? But the flat lack of understanding in the old woman’s faceexcluded the possibility, and she again turned to the child.

Madam Mahler was a big, broad woman, Emilie herself, in a crinoline and a sweeping mantilla, took up a good deal of space, the child was much the smallest figure in the room, yet at this moment he dominated it, as if he had taken command of it. He stood up straight, with that same radiance in his face and countenance. "Now I am coming home again, with you," he said.