‘I think they must be lovely. I saw them once as a child, in an encyclopaedia. That was a world of its own, too, that encyclopaedia, with its little leaves of tissue-paper. There they were, illustrated, the Northern Lights, very big and bright, they’re meant to cover half the sky. I think I’d be terribly scared if I saw them. Just imagine, big coloured lights in the sky! What if they fell! And landed on your head! But I would love to see them just once . . .’

The pale-blue sky arched over our heads; at one point on the horizon it turned a deep dark-blue, and where the sun had gone down earlier, it glowed a rosy yellow, and shone and twinkled a little.

‘Lydia’, I said, ‘shall we make our own Northern Lights?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Look,’ I said, and pointed up at the sky, “you see, you see – there – there they are!”

We both looked fixedly up – we were holding hands, our pulses and our blood flowed from one to the other. Just then, I loved her more than ever before. And then we saw our Northern Lights.

‘Yes,’ said the Princess quietly, so as not to frighten them away. ‘It’s marvellous. Light-green – and there – pink! And spirals – and that, so high . . . Look, look!’ Now she dared to speak louder, because the Northern Lights were up there like the real thing. ‘That looks like a little sun!’

I said, ‘And that, that’s curdled milk and there, baby cirrus-clouds . . . blue . . . light-blue!’

‘Look, and the horizon, I’m sure it just goes on and on – it’s all silver grey. Oh Poppa, isn’t it beautiful!’

We stood still and looked up. A wagon rattled past and made us start. The farmer, sitting on the driver’s seat, waved to us and looked up himself to see what it was. We looked first at him, and then at the meadows, which were cold and grey. A little ashamed, we smiled. We looked back up at the sky. There was nothing there. It was smooth, blue and twilit. There was nothing.

‘Peter . . .’ said the Princess, ‘Peter . . .’

4

‘Could you tell us, Frau Andersson,’ I said to the castle lady, who had just wished us good evening – I pronounced her name correctly, ‘Andershon’ – ‘who were those children we saw earlier? Back . . . back in the meadows?’

‘Ah yes, there are many children. They are farmers’ boys who gather and play there . . .’

‘No, no. They were little girls walking along in a very orderly line, like an institute or a school, something like that . . .’