"
"Do come! And you will see the dolls dance and the larks and the
woodpeckers sing and chirrup; you will see a home filled with
happiness up to the roof, for there is no one there waiting for
miracles which only happen in fairy tales. You will see a real doll's
house."
PHOENIX
The wild strawberries were getting ripe when he met her for the first
time at the vicarage. He had met many girls before, but when he saw
_her_ he knew; this was she! But he did not dare to tell her so, and
she only teased him for he was still at school.
He was an undergraduate when he met her for the second time. And as he
put his arms round her and kissed her, he saw showers of rockets, heard
the ringing of bells and bugle calls, and felt the earth trembling under
his feet.
She was a woman at the age of fourteen. Her young bosom seemed to be
waiting for hungry little mouths and eager baby fists. With her firm
and elastic step, her round and swelling hips, she looked fit to bear
at any moment a baby under her heart. Her hair was of a pale gold,
like clarified honey, and surrounded her face like an aureole; her
eyes were two flames and her skin was as soft as a glove.
They were engaged to be married and billed and cooed in the wood like
the birds in the garden under the lime trees; life lay before them
like a sunny meadow which the scythe had not yet touched.
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