A queer enough business, the whole concern!
Life, as they say, plays with cards up its sleeve;
but when one snatches at them, they’ve disappeared,
and one grips something else,— or else nothing at all.
[He has come near to the hut; he catches sight of it and starts.]
This hut? On the heath —! Ha!
[Rubs his eyes.]
It seems exactly
as though I had known this same building before.—
The reindeer-horns jutting above the gable!—
A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel!—
Lies! there’s no mermaid! But nails — and planks,—
bars too, to shut out hobgoblin thoughts!—