That was in the winter.

Were they dreary days? No, good days. My liberty was so great that I could
do and think as I pleased; I was alone, the bear of the forest. But even
in the heart of the forest no man dares speak aloud without looking round;
rather, he walks in silence. For a time you console yourself that it's
typically English to be silent, it's regal to be silent. But suddenly you
find this has gone too far, your mouth begins to wake, to stretch, and
suddenly to shout nonsense.

"Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger today!"

Perhaps if your voice is strong, the sound will carry for a quarter of a
mile--but then you feel a sting as though after a slap. If only you had
kept your regal silence! One day the postman who crosses the fjeld once a
month came on me just as I had shouted.

"What?" he called from the wood.

"Careful below!" I called back to save my face. "I've put out a trap."

But with the longer days, my courage grows; it must be the spring that
causes this mysterious revival within me, and I no longer fear a shout
more or less. I needlessly rattle my pots and pans as I cook, and I sing
at the top of my voice. It is spring.

Yesterday I stood on a hillock and looked out across the wintry woods.
They have a different expression now; they have gone gray and bedraggled,
and the midday sun has thawed down the snow and diminished it. There are
catkins everywhere, drifts of them in the underbrush, looking like letters