[Subsection]

Today Myran came a little later than usual. He had been working so well, he said, that he did not have the heart to stop. He told Sabine that only now---after his conversation with her up on Noah's Ark---had he found the right approach.   [p. 133]   Everything had become clear within him, and he had achieved the work's final form. He also knew what his sculpture would be called. Its name would be Death. And when Sabine saw it, she would understand everything he had told her about the way a human being really should look.

Sabine pleaded and begged to be allowed to see the sculpture immediately. Why, she could sneak over to Lampinen's this evening in order to get a peek at it. Secretly, she thought that if it was as beautiful as Myran said it was, and bore the name of Death, then it must resemble Joachim, although Myran had never seen him. But she said nothing about it, because she did not want to make him feel unhappy in case it turned out that the sculpture did not resemble Joachim at all. Joachim had been so beautiful as he lay dead that there could be nothing more beautiful than he had been.

"It can't be permitted," said Myran. "What would you say if we were discovered?"

"Well, you can bring the sculpture here, can't you," Sabine insisted.

"You can't move something like that around," said Myran. "It's as delicate as a bird's nest. If we move it before it's finished, then I might have to abandon it."

Sabine understood this argument. But it only made her desire to see Death's sculpture grow all the stronger.

Uncle Ungert was already rattling his papers. He carefully wiped his glasses with his big brown handkerchief and got ready to read. He cast a glance over the lenses at his little band of listeners.

He had not had a chance to do any more than clear his throat when Assendorff came through the door quite unexpectedly, a curious and important expression on his face. He talked as though something dreadful had happened.   [p. 134]   "Trouble is brewing," he said. The Lintula boat had been found, adrift and empty, over at Ängsvik, and now some devil had got the idea that the little creature had gone and drowned herself. They had begun to drag the river, it was said, but nobody believed that they would find the corpse, for nobody knew, of course, where the awful event had taken place, and besides, the current here was so swift that it would not willingly surrender whatever it had once pulled down into the depths.

Sabine almost choked with laughter. Could you imagine such a funny thing! Now they were looking for her on the lake's bottom, and thought that she lay there gurgling with blue cockles in her hair and red coral flowers snaking between her fingers. She could see the scene quite plainly. Small voiceless fish came swimming across her face now and then, pecking at her cheeks and peering curiously at her with their round eyes. And there she sat, big as life, in Uncle Ungert's cabin, and did not have the slightest idea of casting herself into the water so that they'd be able to find something.

Myran looked shrewdly at Sabine.

"The stupid people don't realize that a mermaid can't drown herself in the water," he said.

Slapping his knee, Assendorff let loose a peal of laughter. He thought it was a witty remark. It was actually a little mermaid he had picked up that morning down below the Maiden's Cliff.

They could not take their eyes off the happy, laughing girl. The river had given them this child. The water's spirit, mocking and magic, dwelt in her laughter, and there was the glitter of moon silver in her gray eyes. She was very dear to them.

"Now we'll certainly have to say that we're alive, won't we?" Assendorff said contemplatively. "For otherwise   [p. 135]   there'll be a funeral. And that's the worst thing I can think of."

Sabine laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks.

"Let me have a funeral, I'd like so much to have a funeral," she howled, hopping around and clapping her hands as though to conjure up a completely new and quite unfamiliar sort of masquerade. She was never so cheerful as when the possibility of such mysterious confusions between fantasy and reality arose.

The strange chatter bewildered Uncle Ungert.

"Whose funeral are you talking about," he asked with a trembling voice.

Then they all felt a little foolish and did not know what they ought to say. Suddenly becoming serious, Sabine sat down all by herself in the corner under the old portrait. When Uncle asked about the funeral, it sounded so terribly different. It was nothing at all to joke about. On the contrary, it was very sad. She sat there, looking from the one to the other with a helpless and questioning gaze, as if she had the feeling that she was about to wake up from a beautiful dream. She looked at Uncle, she looked at Assendorff, she looked at Myran. She had a strange squeezing sensation in her heart. "Do you all intend to abandon me now?" she asked with a lump in her throat.

Assendorff wriggled around on his chair.

"What silly talk," he thundered. "We'll be quiet for three days and not say a thing. And then we'll see."

"Three days," Sabine thought. "Three days are better than nothing. They're a long time."

Going over to the stove, Myran pretended he had something to do there.

"You know how it is, of course," he spoke toward the stove and did not turn around. "You know what I'm making for you, and what kind of magic it contains. Then how   [p. 136]   could we abandon you? After all, we have everything in common, and that's what is so wonderful. And then you'll make the Little Mermaid for me, the way you promised."

The glimmer came back into Sabine's eyes.

"I have such beautiful paints at home, just wait and see," she said eagerly.

"Of course I'll see your paints," Myran said. "I'll see everything you have at home."

Sabine scarcely dared to breathe. It was marvelous to think that Myran would come home to Lintula, and she would have a chance to show him everything she possessed, her favorite spots and the Old Coachhouse with its saddles and the summerhouse and Lady Macbeth and, best of all, her own room and all the things she loved and had never shown to anyone. And the thought brushed against her like a breath of wind---although she did not want to think of it---that she would open the door to the Storeroom just once, ever so slightly, and show him the empty chamber.

The cat came up with a very meaningful air, too, and sat down right in front of Sabine. She looked into its yellow eyes. Tongues of flame seemed to spurt up within them, and dreams arose inside her heart like sparks from a distant fire.

It was like the beginning of a new and still more enchanting tale.

The old house with its pale rose color and its white pillars emerged in a wholly new light. Everything that was dark and heavy lay concealed beneath its foundations, and the house itself rose upward, floating in the magic gleam of unforgettable memories. With his clumsy steps, Myran came tramping up the staircase to the second floor, and in a flush of happiness she received him into her childhood's fairy castle.