keeps her company; they talk about the servants at home whose only desire
is to stay out all night. Mrs. Molie is a thin, flat-chested lady, but
probably she has at one time been less plain; her bluish teeth look as
though they were cold, as though they were made of ice, but perhaps a few
years ago, her full lips and the dark down at the corners of her mouth
seemed to her husband the most beautiful thing he knew. Her husband--well,
he was a seafaring man, a ship's captain; he only came home on rare
occasions, just often enough to increase the family; usually he was in
Australia, China, or Mexico. It was hail and farewell with him. And here
is his wife now for the sake of her health. I wonder--is it only for her
health, or are she and the Associate Master possibly children of the same
provincial town?

When I get tired of Associate Master Hoey and the ladies, I leave them and
go out. And then I stay out all day long and nobody knows where I keep
myself. It is fitting that a settled man should be different from the
Associate Master, who is very far from being so settled. So I go out. It
is a bright day with just the right amount of warmth, and my summer woods
are filled with the fragrance of plants. I rest frequently, not because I
need to, but because the ground is full of caresses. I go so far that no
one can find me; only then am I released. No sound reaches me from farms
or men, no one is in sight; only this overgrown little goat track, which
is green at the edges and lovely. Only a bit of a goat track which looks
as though it had fallen asleep in the woods, lying there so thin and
lonely.

You who read this feel nothing, but I who sit here writing feel a kind of
sweetness at the memory of a mere track in the woods. It was like meeting
a child.