“Oh, are you not gone? I thought you were.”
Heaven alone knows, but it struck me that her surprise was too great; that she was not careful, that she overdid it. And it came into my head that perhaps she had known all the time that I was standing behind her.
“I should like to have something to remember you by when you go,” she said. “I thought of asking you for something, but perhaps it is too much. Will you give me Æsop?”
“Then, perhaps, you would come and bring him to-morrow,” she said.
The last night in the hut. I sat in thought, I counted the hours; when the morning came I made ready my last meal. It was a cold day.
Why had she asked me to come myself and bring the dog? Would she tell me something, speak to me, for the last time? I had nothing more to hope for. And how would she treat Æsop? Æsop, Æsop, she will torture you! For my sake she will whip you, caress you too, perhaps, but certainly whip you, with and without reason; ruin you altogether...
I called Æsop to me, patted him, put our two heads together, and picked up my gun. He was already whining with pleasure, thinking we were going out after game. I put our heads together once more; I laid the muzzle of the gun against Æsop's neck and fired...
I hired a man to carry Æsop's body to Edwarda.
The mail-packet was to sail in the afternoon.
I went down to the quay. My things were already on board. Herr Mack pressed my hand, and said encouragingly that it would be nice weather, pleasant weather; he would not mind making the trip himself in such weather. The Doctor came walking down. Edwarda was with him; I felt my knees beginning to tremble.
“Came to see you safely off,” said the Doctor.
Edwarda looked me straight in the face and said:
“I must thank you for your dog.” She pressed her lips together; they were quite white. Again she had called me “_Eder_.” [Footnote: The most formal mode of address.]
“When does the boat go?” the Doctor asked a man.
Edwarda was turning restlessly this way and that.
“Doctor, don't you think we may as well go home again?” she said. “I have done what I came for to do.”
“You have done what you came _to do_,” said the Doctor.
She laughed, humiliated by his everlasting correction, and answered:
I looked at him. The little man stood there cold and firm; he had made a plan, and he carried it out to the last. And if he lost after all? In any case, he would never show it; his face never betrayed him.
