Midsummer Night in Espergjaerde 
By Margaret Sperry 
The night was dying. The waiters had passed along the balcony 
an hour before, turning out lights: promise that soon we should have 
day. So we had sat there quietly for an hour, colorless forms grouped 
around dead-white tables. Some had chatted softly. I, with others, 
had remained silent, for I was tired. But X had determined to keep 
awake until sunrise, for this was Midsummer night, and on that night 
tradition lets no one sleep. I leaned my face against the cool glass 
of a window that looked down over the hotel garden. In vain my eyes 
tried to follow the line of the road which I knew met the bottom of the 
garden and wandered on for miles along the coast. It was dark, except 
when a tendon of light from a passing ship swung arcwise across the 
water. Then blackness again, with the continuous swish ol water 
creeping lazily up and down along the sand. 
The day before had set in glory: a blood-red sunset, a fresh wind 
tilting the gleaming triangles of boats, and on the shore bonfires send¬ 
ing blue smoke across the water to where large steamers glided In , theii 
passage leaving echoes of the music from their orchestras. Crowds of 
people in white, sun-browned, blue-eyed, blond-haired people, had 
moved along the road between the sea and the white shining villas. 
And there had been small groups seated talking together in tiny rose- 
choked gardens. 
Then night had come. The hotel had jumped into life as brazenly 
as a circus-rider leaps into the ring. Lights everywhere: along the 
verandas, in the gardens, along the road, out along the pier.^ The 
orchestra had crashed into the heart of mad folk music. We had 
danced until limbs and heads reeled. During intermissions the bal¬ 
conies and the little tables set throughout the garden were crowded. 
Women laughed, white scarfs gleamed under the lights. Officers 
clinked glasses and clicked spurs. 
Midnight passed. Clouds from cigarettes were beginning to 
choke. The waiters like black-robed priests of some weird cult sidled 
between the white tables, leaned over the shoulders of women, over the 
sleek broad-clothed shoulders of men, poured golden and blood-red 
streams into glasses as fragile and curved as the cups of flowers. 
Now morning had come. 
“Will Madamoiselle go down upon the pier and see the sun rise?” 
I rose at once, glad to leave the fagged faces grouped about the 
littered tables. In a few moments we were at the end of the long quay, 
and we knew that night was lifting from the water. A wave which a 
moment before had been black now revealed a gleam of deep green. 
Out in the Sound an island pressed itself out from between the sky and 
