"Yes, indeed, to be sure, Minna has written that dear child, oh dear me!… Well, I am glad.… So you have come up to town, Mr. Tenger"
"Fenger."
"Ah! certainly, Fenger, of course, you really must be kind enough to excuse me. It was in a letter, and the capitals are so much alike, my eyes also are not very good, and Minna writes rather indistinctly … don't you think so? My good husband wrote such a clear hand, he also gave writing lessons, you know, and Latin as well. Oh dear me, yes, he really was very learned.… Minna, too, was well educated, it was quite different in my time, but the young people nowadays.… Won't you take a seat? You really must sit down."
I placed a chair close to the table, and when I saw that she thought of offering me some refreshment, I hastened to anticipate her.
"You really are too kind. Indeed I don't know, perhaps for company's sake, but only a small glass, please. I suppose you drink many glasses. Young people! Dear Jagemann was also a heavy beer drinker … from the student days, you know. Do you drink much beer in Denmark?"
I tried in vain to start a sensible conversation while we drank our beer. Sometimes she became limp and stared stupidly at me, not answering anything but "Oh dear me, yes." Then, directly afterwards, she would start, as the Germans say, "to talk the blue off the sky"; evidently not for the pleasure of talking, but from nervousness, and especially from a fear of being obliged to speak of the relationship between Minna and myself. It seemed to me that she had not much belief in it, and I thought that very likely she was judging her daughter by the standard of her
