And
out of the mist the dark pines stretched their
warning hands against the sky, and the moon
was swimming, large and placid, between silvery
islands of cloud. Truls began to beat his arms
against his sides, and felt the warm blood
spreading from his heart and thawing the numbness
of his limbs. Not caring whither he went,
he struck the path leading upward to the
mountains. He took to humming an old air
which happened to come into his head, only to
try if there was life enough left in him to sing.
It was the ballad of Young Kirsten and the
Merman:
"The billows fall and the billows swell,
In the night so lone,
In the billows blue doth the merman dwell,
And strangely that harp was sounding."
He walked on briskly for a while, and, looking
back upon the pain he had endured but a
moment ago, he found it quite foolish and
irrational. An absurd merriment took possession
of him; but all the while he did not know where
his foot stepped; his head swam, and his pulse
beat feverishly. About midway between the
forest and the mansion, where the field sloped
more steeply, grew a clump of birch-trees,
whose slender stems glimmered ghostly white in
the moonlight. Something drove Truls to leave
the beaten road, and, obeying the impulse, he
steered toward the birches. A strange sound
fell upon his ear, like the moan of one in
distress. It did not startle him; indeed, he was in
a mood when nothing could have caused him
wonder. If the sky had suddenly tumbled
down upon him, with moon and all, he would
have taken it as a matter of course.
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