looks much more terrifying to a young person than to one who anyhow can only have a short time to survive and to miss. You are now thinking to yourself, 'If I had the danger of losing Minna, how different and heartbroken should I be—after all she must have a cold heart.'"
I looked down, and the whole room seemed to swim. How did she get this idea? Why did just these words come to her lips, that in quite a different way than she could suspect were exactly upon the track of my most secret thoughts? Wasn't it an inspiration, a voice of warning? Perhaps it meant that I ought to give her my confidence. I could not make up my mind, and all the while I mumbled thoughtlessly—
"Surely not. How can you believe it? I could never entertain such a thought!"
"See, now you already have tears in your eyes!" she exclaimed, and patted me in a motherly way. "You are very sensitive—unusually so, but don't be ashamed of that, at least not towards a woman; you will be a good husband. How can I believe it? Because it is natural for you to think that. But if you had lived a married life with Minna, and you both had grown old in love—for one can do that without love degenerating, believe me—then you would look on death quite differently. You would only see in it a short separation, yes, hardly even that … for I don't suppose you are a materialist, Fenger?"
"Materialist? No, I don't think I can be called that, but"
"But perhaps you have your doubts as to the life to come. Or perhaps you have not thought much about death, and in that you have done right. Life still for
