"I wonder if you remember what Sieglinde says about her life with Hunding—
"'Foreign seemed all until now,
Friendless I was and forsaken;
I counted strange and unknown,
Each and all that came near.'
"Still it was not because of my being 'a foreigner' in a national sense, though I suppose that has also done something. Besides, you know well that there is a good deal in the German nature and also in our art—apart from the great classics—with which I have never sympathised.
"In the beginning I really found everything lovely: liberty, broadness of mind, education, and all that sort of thing.
"But soon I felt how hollow the kernel was. I had indeed had a quintessence of the whole in Stephensen to observe too closely. After all it was no wonder that I did not blend with this circle, as it consisted of my husband's friends, anyhow by name. Some few, of course, appealed more to me. But none of them resembled you. When I now and again met a person sympathetic to me, it was as a rule one who belonged to another set, and by some chance came in touch with ours, but soon retired. That our circle, however, was the most spiritual in Denmark and represented the highest intellect of the country, I heard almost every time we met. Indeed, it was also the most honourable; for the others were not only more or less idiots, but also sworn enemies of truth and righteousness. Ah, I could write much about these things, for I have a good memory, and I have heard many brilliant speeches!
"There was a time when I tried to settle down and give in to it; it was my duty, Stephensen said. I thought that perhaps they were right and I was wrong, possibly I
