I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings.  Far from it.  My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms.  Is it because everything smells so new?  Or because there are no old smells?  Here there are no whiffs of dust, smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the Old Market Place the Old Market Place.  Everything is so clean here that one hesitates to move a step.  The boards are as shiny as though they were polished silver....  This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen floor.  I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless pitchpine.

* * * * *

What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an inevitable necessity?  I have suffered more than ever the last few days, perhaps because I was so utterly alone.  Not a human being to speak to.  Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness.  In town I was wise.  But here ...

* * * * *

All the same I am proud of my self-control.  Many women do not possess as much.

The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it makes one cough merely to hear it whistle.

I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry.  I ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered from the wind.  Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the open sea.

I have not yet been outside the garden.  I have made up my mind to keep to this little spot as long as possible.  I shall get accustomed to it.  I must get accustomed to it.

Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters.  Only Malthe keeps silence.  Will he deign to answer me?

Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art from me.  What art?

Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here?

She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island.  Yet I cannot set up a footman to keep her company.  I will not have men’s eyes prying about my house, I have had enough of that.

A manservant—­that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or marriage, and a change of domestics.  No, I have a right to peace, and I will secure it.  The worst that could happen to me would be to find myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp.  Well, why not?

Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen window-sill.  Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert island.

Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings.  This rather astonishes me.  Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom.  Are they a real necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well?