of the veil designates the bride or the brides, Marie and Lina. Whatever is shocking or immoral in this situation is relieved by the girls giving up the veil; it then takes an innocent turn. The narrator follows the same mechanism in the cloaking of the equivocal scene at Andermatt; there is nothing but nice food, coffee, potatoes, honey, butter; a turning back to the infantile life according to the well-known method. The conclusion is apparently very abrupt: the teacher becomes a godfather.
Witness II.—M. dreamt she had gone bathing with L. P. and the teacher. Far out in the lake M. said to the teacher that her leg was hurting her very much. Then the teacher said she could get up on him. I don’t know now whether the last sentence was really so told, but I think so. As there was just then a ship on the lake the teacher said she should swim as far as the ship and then get in. I don’t remember exactly how it went on. Then the teacher or M., I don’t really remember which, said they would get out at Z. and run home. Then the teacher called out to two gentlemen who had just been bathing there, that they might carry the children to land. Then L. P. sat up on one man, and M. on the other fat man, and the teacher held on to the fat man’s leg and swam after them. Arrived on land they ran home. On the way the teacher met his friend who had a wedding. M. said: “It was then the fashion to go on foot, not in a carriage.” Then the bride said she must now go along also. Then the teacher said it would be nice if the two girls gave the bride their black veils, which they had got on the way. I can’t now remember how. The children gave it her, and the bride said they were really dear generous children. Then they went on further and put up at the Sun Hotel. There they got something to eat, I don’t know exactly what. Then they went to a barn and danced. All the men had taken off their coats except the teacher. Then the bride said he ought to take off his coat also. Then the teacher hesitated but finally did so. Then the teacher was . . . Then the teacher said he was cold. I must not tell any more; it is improper. That’s all I heard of the dream.
