"Your hands are so gentle. So gentle and good. Silky hands. My little girl."

"You haven't called your wife girl by mistake, have von? She might even like it ...

"She might. But I can't."

My dear faithful married man, Inger thought. You don't know women all that well. How on earth could you know them? Neither do I know men. We're both learning. This is our school of love.

"As long as I hold you nothing else means a thing ...

Inger wanted to make her rejoinder: hold me so that I'd feel your arms even when you're away.

"Don't go, stay with me. You won't leave me, will you?"

"No. Never."

"Even if you do leave?"

"Even then I'll stay here."

Desire to possess rose like a tidal wave washed over their heads, buried their gratified bodies, enlivening everything: blood skin, nerve-ends. Bodies locked blending melting into one. Those who are ashamed of their body are ashamed of their love. Those ...

I must always feel his arms around me, always.

Inger stroked the man's hair.

May von feel good may von feel good my darling. But why are you so self-conscious, are you afraid to snuggle me close, be with me'? It is as though you weren't quite sure yet that your caresses please me.

Maybe she shouldn't have let her heart ache for Arne, should rather have drawn a line between the man and herself, a chalked circle: you're there, I'm here. Those are your thoughts, these are mine. Like resources are not pooled in some families. Maybe Inger ought to have made this kind of distinction in love, too. So that it wasn't so painful. So as not to be tormented by despair.

Suddenly she felt she was a beggar, huddling somewhere on the church steps hand held out, eyes humble, on the verge of rears. Bells booming behind her. The church of her love and hope. A beggar who loves a man already in double harness.

She couldn't stick her home and went to the pictures. Wedding on Condition. Just what she needed. A girl has been appointed to a post in the country her boy-friend, an artist doesn't want to marry her. She accepts a marriage of convenience to a young worker, the latter loses his heart to her ...

The picture had Inger completely thrown. She came home flung herself on the couch and moaned. She wanted to crawl into her den, pull the covers over her head and have a little cry.

The wind blew in at the window, the attic was bleak and chilly. She had to build a fire in the range, but her wood supply was depleted. She went down the stairs and in a swirling blizzard crossed the yard to enter her woodshed. Once upon a time the sailor had split the logs for her and the home-brew wine was fermenting in the window of the downstairs flat. How very far off it was, in the previous century. She had stood right here, outside the door to the woodshed when Jaak had come round the corner of the house. It was like a fragment of a film seen long ago, everything except this still erased from her mind.

The sailor and she had always been aloof, there had been that line Inger had thought of with despair in connection with Arne. But did she for all that feel easier? What anger and shame had scorched her, having been driven to chuck out Jaak and his friend. Anger and shame in place of love, even to go back over it made her feel sick and disgusted. She had offered trust and been paid back in unprincipled inebriation, perpetual uncertainty. Almost the same category as striking the hand offering bread.

No, nothing can be held apart, split, separated. Maybe others could, but Inger couldn't, she felt it. For her love as a whole was a great integral allness.

Bear your cross and rejoice, for a good many are unhappy just because they haven't got such a cross. The lack of cross makes them spiteful, morose, jealous and drives them to abuse love in petty words. To justify themselves they say it doesn't exist, it's only a fiction, an illusion.

Therefore, Inger Uunvald, bear your cross today and tomorrow but now take an armload of mouldy aspen logs and build a fire for it is not good that man should be alone and his den so cold that it makes the teeth in his mouth chatter.

In some ways you are still a child, Inger.

Am I really a child? What if Arne thinks I am a child, a childish girl who can soon bore a serious adult male to death? Have I got anything to offer him? Am I intriguing enough? What kind of person am I actually? Who am I?

A teacher.

What did he find in me?

There's neither fire nor sparkle in me, I'm awfully dull and grey like my room this evening. And no one can change it except myself. If I'm like that, he'll soon jilt me, and I've got only myself to blame.

So there! Serves me right!

The mouldy aspen logs burned badly, just hissing for their own amusement. Inger sat on a stool in front of the fire-box and addressing herself kept tip a whispered diatribe.

Now then, you resemble that log to a T. Forever whimpering and whining and turning on the waterworks. Where's the light and warmth you should be radiating? Who's seen it? Pupils, you say. But it's just between them and you that the line exists, aloofness. However keen you arc, you can't and mustn't pull it down, erase it. Then you'd be simply a pal, a crony, some rather vague sort of bird. No, pupils must be kept within certain bounds.

And Arne? What have you given Arne? Nothing. Then why do you expect him to give something to you, a weepy aspen log? You must take yourself in hand, girl! Of course, Arne will never put it like that, or rather, he hasn't said such words yet. But he's an observant man and even he wouldn't overlook your dullness and lackadaisical attitude for ever. Above all if Inger was his wife, if they ate their supper at the same table, if she learned to keep house, to make conversation about Arne's work, if she taught him to listen to her chatter about hers, if she ... If she were his wife, she certainly would be capable, would manage, would strive and organize. Hasn't she got strength, vigour, will, is she armless, legless, ill?

Inger was so engrossed in her love that the end of the half-term caught her unawares. The third half-term, the longest, the one that never wanted to come to an end! And without fail it was Soova who brought the end of the half-term to Inger's notice. How strange, thought Inger nothing has been neglected–all kinds of meetings sat through, lessons given, a lot of form teacher's tasks done, educational work carried out, even the number of twos wasn't greater than usual. When had she managed all this? As far as she knew these had been the last things on her mind.

Soova was speaking about Toomas.

What had that Toomas done again then? Inger looked at the Head with frightened eyes.

That sufficed to make the Head smirk.

"Ha! You're in the dark aren't you? He didn't ask your permission to go and play at the social club!" Soova let the silence hold and then explained the whole thing all over again so that Teacher Uunvald could grasp it for certain. "Our male quartet gave a recital at the club last night." The way he stressed it made Inger yonder for a moment if she shouldn't have attended it, too. "I was at the point of leaving but decided to stay on a bit and have a look at the goings-on. Your Toomas comes down from the upstairs cloak-room, his guitar round his neck, and walks onto the stage! We did ban his playing in the band until the time he ceased lagging behind in his studies. What about his maths?"

"As always, he'll pass but only just."

"That's the time of day! And I thought you'd given him your personal go-ahead as a reward or something. Didn't even begin to interfere. But now the issue of his behaviour must be brought up for sure."

The staff meeting passed Soova's motion to punish the boy by a written reprimand.

Inger felt indignant and tired after the staff meeting. Hadn't she tried this and that with Toomas–scolding and begging, talking heart to heart and still the boy let her down. Good grief how can I watch them every minute of the day and drag them by the hand to their finals!

Inger went home, sat down on the couch and regretted that she had never learned to smoke. Ready to hit the roof as Riina would have said, even a cup of good strong coffee couldn't pep her up. Let them go and take a running jump, she isn't up to par any more, she doesn't have anybody to run wailing to. Big boys and girls but don't know enough to come in out of the rain just now they'd be better off if they scraped through school after that they could stand on their heads for all she cared.

Inger remembered she ought to have a shampoo, but even this thought made her feel fed up. She was so bone tired that in all likelihood she wouldn't have been able to bend her lips into a smile even if Arne had happened to come. No, she won't do anything, she'll let sleep carry her right through until morning just as she is, not even bothering to peel off her outdoor things.

In the end, nevertheless, she did dislodge herself from the couch and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She deliberated whether she should put the kettle on the gas ring or build a fire in the range. Making use of gas, she'd get hot water more quickly. If she lit the oven, too, and kept its door open the kitchen would warm up as well. But one can't heat the other room this way. Besides, gas uses up oxygen in the air, gives off a sickening smell and makes one's head ache. Inger sighed, lifted a big kettle on the gas ring, filled it with water and lit the gas. Her movements were sluggish and tired. She tore sonic white birchbark off a log and sought out a copy of the local newspaper to start the fire with. There was enough firewood in the kitchen but there was no getting away from fetching water. She put on her old winter coat, that faded red one she used to cover her quilt with when going to bed in cold weather, tied a head-square round her head and took the pails. Outside, it was March weather, after the day's thaw ice was crunching underfoot. She went to the well at the other end of the street, put her pail on the ringing, bluish-green ice beneath the spout and began pumping. The water level had sunk and before water started spouting from the pump barrel, winter-wrapped in straw, reed and bast matting, she felt with the nape of her neck that someone was watching her. She turned round and saw a reeling man at the street junction who was very hard put to it to maintain his equilibrium. At first Inger didn't recognize him, he had on a green quilted waterproof windcheater and a grey ski cap. But when the man staightened up, Inger knew Jaak again. For a moment the sailor's angry glassy eyes locked with Inger's blue-grey ones and seemed to give a jerk.

"Sailor's at rock-bottom," Jaak rumbled, began to reel dangerously and took two or three quick steps as if about to run to regain his equilibrium, then turned into a side street swaying and reeling, arms outstretched as if walking on the deck of a pitching and rolling ship.

When the sailor had disappeared out of sight, Inger gave a start and thought, what luck he didn't take it into his head to come and carry the pails. He would certainly have tumbled down on the slippery not sanded March night ice, pails and all. And even if he had found his feet by some miracle, he would have splashed water all over the stairs and come into the kitchen, speech slurred, gaze angry, glassy and fixed, would have fallen asleep. And provided he hadn't, Inger would have been forced to turn him out again. And what if on top of it Arne would have chanced to come!

Inger looked behind her. But luckily the street was empty the sailor had followed his own way, having appeared for a moment like some apparition to let her know the truth about his part in life. For crying out loud! Jaak's appearance was like some sign or mark to signify the end of a certain stage in her life. Would she, Inger, have been able to fish the sailor up from the bottom? No. a meaningless thought not worth to be tortured with. But she was sorry for Jaak–how tragicomically he had reeled and run!

In that time the water in the kettle had begun boiling, the top of the range was glowing red, it was cosy and warm in the kitchen. She put the pails away, hung her coat in the tiny entrance hall and locked the door. She still couldn't get rid of the feeling that Jaak might come.

She took a bottle of shampoo from the cupboard and began to wash her hair. The shampoo began foaming and her hair became fluffy. Then she placed her mirror on the kitchen table and took her rollers out of the drawer. Doing her long hair up in rollers, her arms got tired and she had to rest them several times. The cosy warmth induced drowsiness. Having finished, she tied a head-square tightly round her head, poked the coals in the fire box, closed the damper and turned in for the night. She was out like a light the moment her head touched the pillow. Vaguely, distantly, dream-like flashed faces: Jaak, Toomas ...

The end-of-half-term intercom transmission took ten minutes and Inger had time to lay eyes on her class. Soova was summing up, marshalling classes according to their proficiency, separately in all the subjects. She had been familiarized with it at the staff meeting yesterday.

There they were, her school-leavers, faces tired and bored, spring-weary to their bones. Urve was sitting hunched over her desk, thick, straight hair tousled. Meeli next to her, looked a bit better, but she, too, hadn't put on her white school uniform blouse. Inger cast a look around. Only Juta was dolled up for the end of the half-term, her skirt freshly ironed. All the rest had sweaters, pullovers, wrinkled clothes and mundane faces. Boys, too, weren't much better. Inger gave a cursory glance at their feet: their shoes weren't polished, only Toomas' brown shoe shone brightly in the aisle, but even that couldn't sweeten Inger's mood notably. Inger didn't even look Toomas' way, she stood up and walked up and down in front of the class in a reflective way. She felt the glances of her pupils following her apprehensively.

Quite right, look and see! It wasn't incidentally that I put my hair up on the back of my head and donned a festive black suit.

The badge too was on her lapel as always. It was conspicuous with its absence on the breast of most of the school-leavers. That lighthouse whose bright beam was to cast inextinguishable light on to their path of life, as Soova had said delivering them.

With a click the loudspeaker on the wall fell silent. Inger stopped in front of her class, looked them in the eye, one by one, caught Toomas' glance and began,

"I've always worn this badge with real pride. You're well aware of it. But last night I was shamefaced. I had to stand before the staff meeting like a schoolgirl having nothing to say for me when the Head asked me what my boys or, to be more precise, one of them had been up to. Again the form teacher was the one in the dark, again the last to learn that something was amiss." She made a telling, a bit dramatic pause, picked up the copy of the written reprimand from her table and, holding it between her finger and thumb as if it could scorch her, went, her heels clicking on the floor, to the desk in the rear, put it on Toomas' desk and said in low, emphatic tones,

"Please bring it back signed by your parent."

A dark flush crept over Toomas' cheekbones. Inger felt him downright radiating heat. She returned to the blackboard.

"I don't know what's the matter with you. But something definitely is, one could see it with half an eye. Are you all crossed in love or is it simply spring weariness? By the way, I'm not asking, I've got no time to unsnarl your affairs of the heart. You're adults, you must try and manage on your own. I've told you more than once that one must have much strength to live and to love. And, incidentally, to study, of course. Our girls are so exhausted and drained that they've even lacked the strength to cast a look in the mirror ... "

Colour dyed Meeli's cheeks and the rest, too, began to fidget uneasily.

"And the boys, likewise, have mislaid their flat-irons, not to mention their shoe-brushes."

Ashamed, the boys cast their eyes down and tried, belatedly, to hide their long legs beneath their desks.

"When people themselves can no more tell weekdays from Sundays and don't bother to exert themselves, life itself will soon be nothing but a grey vale of tears."

"What's the use of exerting oneself," someone muttered huffily in the row near the windows. "Nobody, regardless, takes heed of us ... "

"My!" the form teacher opened her eyes wide. "Whatever next? Girls have some complaints? The case seems to need some privacy." Her eyes went over the class and she thought a little. "Our young men are excused. Drop in at the chemist's buy some vitamins pills and take long walks in the fresh air. Maybe then you'll be able to hold your own during the last half-term or you'll be sunk."

Inger waited until the boys had left and then turned to the girls,

"What's up?"

"Nothing," Juta, their spokeswoman, replied ruefully and reluctantly. "The boys of our class have no eye for us at all ... " And as if the dikes had burst it all came surging out. "At the ball they all danced only with strange girls!"

"We had to sit in the corner like proverbial wall flowers ... "

"Of course, they're all such an up-and-doing lot ... On the stage and at all, and so witty! We, however, are duffers ... "

"We're such plain Janes, Cinderellas ... "

Continued in Part XXV...