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And morning came.
The city woke up and the hammers danced their ringing dance along the
shipyards. Through the streets the farmers' wagons rolled in a slow
procession. It is the same story. The squares are filling with people and
supplies, stores are opened, the roar increases, and up and down the
stairs skips a slip of a girl with her papers and her dog.
It is the same story.
It is twelve before people begin to group themselves on the "corner,"
young and carefree gentlemen who can afford to sleep late and do what they
feel like. There are a few from the well-known clique, Milde and Norem and
Ojen. It is cold, and they are shivering. The conversation is not very
lively. Even when Irgens appears, in high spirits and elegant attire, as
befits the best-dressed man in town, nobody grows very enthusiastic. It is
too early and too chilly; in a few hours it will be different. Ojen had
said something about his latest prose poem; he had half-finished it last
night. It was called "A Sleeping City." He had begun to write on coloured
paper; he had found this very soothing. Imagine, he says, the heavy,
ponderous quiet over a city asleep; only its breathing is heard like an
open sluice miles away.
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