God knows, I thought to myself, God knows why the sky is dressed in gold
and mauve to-night, if there is not some festival going on up there in
the world, some great feast with music from the stars, and boats gliding
along river ways. It looks so!--And I closed my eyes, and followed the
boats, and thoughts and thoughts floated through my mind...

So more than one day passed.

I wandered about, noting how the snow turned to water, how the ice
loosed its hold. Many a day I did not even fire a shot, when I had food
enough in the hut--only wandered about in my freedom, and let the time
pass. Whichever way I turned, there was always just as much to see
and hear--all things changing a little every day. Even the osier
thickets and the juniper stood waiting for the spring. One day I went
out to the mill; it was still icebound, but the earth around it had been
trampled through many and many a year, showing how men and more men had
come that way with sacks of corn on their shoulders, to be ground. It
was like walking among human beings to go there; and there were many
dates and letters cut in the walls.

Well, well...



V


Shall I write more? No, no. Only a little for my own amusement's sake,
and because it passes the time for me to tell of how the spring came two
years back, and how everything looked then. Earth and sea began to smell