It was Sunday, the Sunday bells were sounding and the white, long roads lay dull and deserted in the quiet sunshine. Hedwig was afraid of Sunday and did her best to escape from it. About an hour's walk from the house was a great river that streamed towards the sea. Hedwig went early in the morning while the dew still lay thick on the grass. She was lured on by the thought of the steep sides of the basaltbuilt dyke, where flowers grew in the chinks of the black banks, of the reedy pools, and the bushes between the dyke and the river, which in winter were under water, and even in summer were strewn here and there with gray ooze. The red Epilobium grew there and the birds wandered through the shrubs. She thought of all this and it made her want to be there, for there would be no Sunday there.
But to get there one had to take the high dyke road which led near the town. Below, in the shadow of the fruit trees, the farmhouses lay on either side, and Hedwig wondered how it was that one could see by the look of earth and air that it was Sunday. And why was Sunday so dreary that it spoiled all the lovely outdoor feeling? It was right and good that men should have one day to rest and think of God. But it seemed as if God did not greatly like their way of rest and enjoyment. As if earth and air, plants and animals, could not share their holy day. Birds and flowers had a better consecration of their own to which man was least inimical when most mechanically active. His Sabbaths and celebrations were an insult and an offense to it.