much the better, perhaps!… Their house became another home to me: no, I ought not to call it 'Home,' something much better, but that you know.… And after what I have told you, you can realise better what these excellent people have been to me.…"
She said this slowly, and as if she was distrait, perhaps tired of talking, and maybe regretting that she had been so confiding.
Our landlord now interrupted us with a request that we should go back to our former safe seats, as everything was ready for the fresh blasting.
I had almost forgotten where we were, and why. Some of her words, with their melancholy and often bitter tone, kept sounding in my ear, as they do even now. Regarding the account, it has, of course, formed itself in my memory into a more continuous whole than at the time when it came from her lips, and it is very likely that, in reality, some of the incidents were only told during the following days; but such small inaccuracies cannot affect the main impression. What especially struck me was the clear reflective way in which she spoke of and judged her life; it was evident that she had frequently thought over all the details and their connection with one another, examining both cause and effect. I saw in this the proof that she was of a more melancholy nature than I had thought. For I had lately been misled by the youthful gaiety that so often broke forth.
The fresh blasting passed off just like the first; the stone mass still stood, though now it was almost entirely undermined, and hung free like a shelf. The red-bearded workman approached carefully, and scraped out with his axe the loose bits which the explosion had not removed. At the corners in the background some half-split blocks
