Jens Peter Jacobsen

Mogens and Other Stories Jens Peter Jacobsen

Book Excerpt: ...mirror, with jagged tongues of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth and streaks that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smooth places and quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew it across its surface, carried it along the shores, past slowly rounded curves, past abruptly broken lines, and made it swing around the green tongues of land; then it let go of one's glance and disappeared in large bays, but it carried along the thought--Oh, to sail! Would it be possible to hire boats here?No, there were none, said a little fellow, who lived in the white country-house near by, and stood at the shore skipping stones over the surface of the water. Were there really no boats at all?Yes, of course, there were some; there was the miller's, but it could not be had; the miller would not permit it. Niels, the miller's son, had nearly gotten a spanking when he had let it out the other day. It was useless to think about it; but then there was the gentleman, who lived with Nic...