There was already a great crowd of people assembled when Amrei arrived
at the dancing-floor. At first she stood timidly on the threshold. In
the empty courtyard, across which somebody hurried every now and then, a
solitary gendarme was pacing up and down. When he saw Amrei coming along
with a radiant face, he approached her and said:

"Good morning, Amrei! Art thou here too?"

Amrei started and turned quite pale. Had she done anything punishable?
Had she gone into the stable with a naked light? She thought of her past
life and could remember nothing; and yet he had addressed her as
familiarly as if he had already arrested her once. With these thoughts
flitting through her mind, she stood there trembling as if she were a
criminal, and at last answered:

"Thank you. But I don't know why we should call each other 'thou.' Do
you want anything of me?"

"Oh, how proud you are. You can answer me properly. I am not going to
eat you up. Why are you so angry? Eh?"

"I am not angry, and I don't want to harm any one. I am only a foolish
girl."

"Don't pretend to be so submissive--"

"How do you know what I am?"

"Because you flourish about so with that light."

"What? Where? Where have I flourished about with a light? I always take
a lantern when I go out to the stable, but--"

The gendarme laughed and said: "I mean your brown eyes--that's where
the light is. Your eyes are like two balls of fire."

"Then get out of my way, lest you get burnt. You might get blown up with
all that powder in your cartridge-box."

"There's nothing in it," said the gendarme, embarrassed, but wishing to
make some kind of retort. "But you have scorched me already."

"I don't see where--you seem to be all right. But enough! Let me go."

"I'm not keeping you, you little crib-biter. You could lead a man a hard
life, who was fond of you."

"Nobody need be fond of me," said Amrei; and she rushed away as if she
had got loose from a chain.

She stood in the doorway where many spectators were crowded together. A
new dance was just beginning, and she swayed back and forth with the
music. The feeling that she had got the better of some one made her more
cheerful than ever, and she would have taken up arms against the whole
world, as well as against a single gendarme. But her tormentor soon
appeared again; he posted himself behind Amrei and said all kinds of
things to her. She made no answer and pretended not to hear him, every
now and then no