"You've been down
twice buying things."
"'Tis more than could be thought, you'd remember that," says
Leopoldine, and had no more strength after that, but stood holding by
a chair.
But Andresen had strength enough, he went on, and said: "Remember you?
Well, of course I should." And he said more:
"You wouldn't like to walk up to the mine with me?" said he.
And a little after something went wrong with Leopoldine's eyes;
everything turned red and strange about her, and the floor was
slipping away from under, and Chief Clerk Andresen was talking from
somewhere ever so far off. Saying: "Couldn't you spare the time?"
"No," says she.
And Heaven knows how she managed to get out of the kitchen again. Her
mother looked at her and asked what was the matter. "Nothing," said
Leopoldine.
Nothing, no, of course. But now, look you, 'twas Leopoldine's turn to
be affected, to begin the same eternal round. She was well fitted
for the same, overgrown and pretty and newly confirmed; an excellent
sacrifice she would make. A bird is fluttering in her young breast,
her long hands are like her mother's, full of tenderness, full of sex.
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