Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/238

 In the living room the table was spread with a clean white cloth and gay flowered earthenware dishes. The place at the head of the table was reserved for Emanuel. At first he tried to get Hansine to sit by him, but he soon discovered that it would be against all peasant etiquette for the daughter of the house to sit down while the guest dined. So he had to content himself with nodding to her as she carried the dishes in and out from the kitchen.

He was completely happy. The chill fogs of doubt which had closed around his spirit in the long sleepless night were long since dispersed. He was sure that his love would conquer fear and old prejudices, and it seemed to him that everything smiled and wished him joy.

The dinner was rather frugal to one of Emanuel's habits, and he did not know that rice-milk porridge followed by fried bacon, and scrambled eggs were looked upon as gala food in a peasant's house. All the same, no meal had ever seemed more festive to him than this. The sun threw its golden rays over the cloth, and he felt for the first time that he was indeed in the country. A fresh scent of hay came in through the open door, and first a white butterfly fluttered in on the warm breeze—like a little ship with sails set—then a busy humble bee, filling the room for a moment with its angry buzzing before it flew out again.

Last of all, the chickens flocked in, attracted by