THE AMERICAN-SCANDINA VIAN REVIEW 
363 
That evening there was a little party at the girl’s house. Young 
folks were there. We drank cherry syrup on the veranda festooned 
with hop-vines. 
I sat and looked at the young girl. 
^ o, she was not like herself. Her eyes were bigger and more rest¬ 
less than usual and her mouth was redder. And she could not sit stil] 
on her chair. 
From time to time she cast a furtive glance at me, but more often 
she looked at the apothecary. And the apothecary looked that even¬ 
ing like a turkey-cock. 
When the punch was passed around, we dropped the “mister.” 
A e young people went down on the meadow to play games. We 
tossed rings and played other games, and meanwhile the sun went 
down behind the hills and it grew dark. 
We had laid the rings and the sword in a heap on the ground and 
were standing in groups, whispering and smiling, while the dusk came 
on. But the young girl came up to me through the dusk and took me 
aside behind a shed. 
\ ou must answer me a question,” said she. “Did the druggist 
really write his verses himself?” Her voice trembled, and she tried to 
look away as she spoke. 
F es,” I said. “He wrote them last night. I heard him going 
back and forth in his room all night.” 
But when I had said that, I felt a sting in my conscience, for I 
saw that she was a pretty and lovable child and that it was a great 
sin to deceive her so. 
Who knows, I said to myself, who knows? Perhaps this is the 
sin of which the Scripture says that it cannot be forgiven. 
The twilight deepened, it became night, and a star burned between 
the trees in the wood, where we were walking in pairs. 
But I was alone. 
I do not remember any more where I went that evening. I sep¬ 
arated from the others and went deeper into the wood. 
But deep within the wood among the firs I saw a birch with a shin¬ 
ing white stem. By the stem stood two young people kissing, and I 
saw that one of them was the young girl who smelled of pine woods and 
heather. But the other was the apothecary, and he was a quite ordi¬ 
nary apothecary with a white vest. He held her pressed against the 
white stem of the birch and kissed her. 
But when he had kissed her three times, I went away and wept 
bitterly. 
