In the fields, where the first ears of wheat were beginning to sprout and still lay half concealed in their green sheaths, the two stopped and stood looking at each other in silence.  For a long time neither said a word.  But finally it was the man who broke the silence, by saying, half to himself: 

“I wonder how it is that one, on first sight, can be so—­so—­I don’t know—­so confidential with a person?  How is it one can read what is written in another’s face?” “Now we have set a poor soul free,” said Amrei; “for you know, when two people think the same thought at the same time, they are said to set a soul free.  And I was thinking the very words you just spoke.”

“Indeed?  And do you know why?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Why not?  Look you; I have been a goose-keeper—­”

At these words the stranger started again; but he pretended that something had fallen into his eye, and began to rub that organ vigorously, while Barefoot went on, undismayed: 

“Look you; when one sits or lies alone out in the fields all day, one thinks of hundreds of things, and some of them are strange thoughts indeed.  Just try it yourself, and you will certainly find it so.  Every fruit-tree, if you look at it as a whole, has the appearance of the fruit it bears.  Take the apple-tree; does it not look, spread out broad, and, as it were, in round pieces, like the apple itself?  And the same is true of the pear-tree and the cherry-tree, if only you look at them in the right way.  Look what a long trunk the cherry-tree has—­like the stem of a cherry.  And so I think—­”

“Well, what do you think?”

“You’ll laugh at me; but just as the fruit-trees look like the fruits they bear, so is it also with people; one can tell what they are at once by looking at them.  But the trees, to be sure, always have honest faces, while people can dissemble theirs.  But I am talking nonsense, am I not?”

“No, you have not kept geese for nothing,” said the lad; and there was a strange mixture of feelings in the tone of his voice.  “I like to talk with you.  I should give you a kiss, if I were not afraid of doing what is wrong.”

Barefoot trembled all over.  She stooped to break off a flower, but did not break it.  There was a long pause, and then the lad went on:  “We shall most likely never meet again, and so it is best as it is.”

Hand in hand the two went back to the dancing-room.  There they danced once more together without saying a word to each other, and when the dance was over, the young man again led her to the table, and said: 

“Now I shall say good-by.  But first you must get your breath, and then drink once more.”

He handed her the glass, and when she set it down again, he said: 

“You must drain it, for my sake, to the very bottom.”

Amrei drank and drank; and when the glass was empty in her hand, she looked around—­the stranger was gone!  She went down and stood in front of the house; and there she saw him again, not far away, riding off on his white horse; but he did not look back.