Stephensen smiled a little ironically, as much as to say: "Is it for my sake you take all this trouble?"
"But you will now remain here for the evening?" Minna said, and bent her head over some music through which she was looking.
"Yes, of course Mr. Fenger will stay. We shall have a jolly time," the mother said.
I expressed my thanks, and sat down near the window.
The long box with the ferns had been put out on the window-sill. In the midst of all her troubles Minna had still been tenderly careful that they should have the benefit of the rain. The single-leaved ferns, which we had found together, stood in the middle and noddingly moved their slim stalks. Some acacia leaves and a bit of bent cherry branch glittered in the light from within. The thick, fine rain sounded like a low whispering, and with it a water-pipe mingled its babble. From the sombre background irregular dotted panes stood out, between which a few staircases mounted up like interrupted columns of light. I stared out, and was suddenly overcome by the strange depressing feeling of the sadness and monotony of human life. It was to me a very extraordinary idea that all these lights were signs of just as many existences, in which possibly there was not to be found any similarity except modest conditions, disappointments, and emptiness, a miserable and joyless fate, like the monotonous darkness, which at the same time isolated and collected the lights. "But," thought I, "could there in any of those rooms be so queer a party as was collected in this?"
"Jolly" was not exactly the correct expression for our mood. Minna, absent-mindedly, struck some chords, as if she had not much wish to play, but still would do her best to break the silence. The mother, who had
