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in the next instant it is whirled, thin and light and blue, up
through the flue, with the flames calling after it, leaping and
darting, and sending sputtering sparks by the handful right
in its heels. Then the fire began to burn in good earnest.
With grunts of pleasure it spread over glowing coals and
embers, boiled and seethed with delight in the innermost
marrow of the white birch wood, buzzed and purred like a
tawny cat, and licked caressingly the noses of blackening
knots and smouldering chunks of wood.
Warm and pleasant and luminous the breath of the fire
streamed through the little room. Like a fluttering fan of
light it played over the parquet floor and chased the
peaceful dusk which hid in tremulous shadows to the right and
the left behind twisted chair-legs, or shrank into corners,
lay thin and long in the shelter of mouldings, or flattened
itself under the large clothes-press.
Suddenly the chimney seemed to suck up the light and
heat with a roar. Darkness spread boldly across the floor
on every board and square, to the very fire, but the next
moment the light leaped back again and sent the dusk
flying to all sides, with the light pursuing it, up the walls and
doors, above the brass latch. Safety nowhere! The dusk
sat crouching against the wall, up under the ceiling, like
a cat in a high branch, with the light scampering below,
back and forth like a dog, leaping, running at the foot of
the tree. Not even among the flagons and tumblers on the
top of the press could the darkness be undisturbed, for red
ruby-glasses, blue goblets, and green Rhenish wineglasses
lit iridescent fires to help the light search them out.
The wind blew and the darkness fell outside, but within
the fire glowed, the light played, and Marie Grubbe was
singing. Now and again, she would murmur snatches of the
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