Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/78

 Ildis looked anxiously about her at the empty street. Through the half-open door she made out the handsome, curly-haired Muchail, a fellow of scarce twenty, who in the faintly lighted room was talking in a low voice with a friend. He cast two copper coins on the table and cried to his comrade:

"One coin shall be thine. I am but a poor swineherd, seest thou, but the little that I earn I always divide with my friends on condition that they immediately spend it. Do thou buy a little tobacco and wine, and I'll knock at the house of the dancing-girls. A piastre is only a fish-hook with which one catches a little much-sought-after goldfish that is called Happiness. While the others of the city quite absurdly hoard up fish-hooks, let us to-night catch the fish themselves!"

The maiden felt that she was red with blushes. She stepped back a couple of steps into the bright, glad southern moonlight which outlined her shadow on the door. She hesitated, cautiously thrust off her slippers, and finally, barefoot, stepped stealthily up on the stone threshold, hung the great garland on the key and kissed it. Then she took the slippers in her hand and sprang quickly away in the shadow of the houses as if she had done something wicked.