“Don’t be cross, sweetheart,” he said. “If I was drunk, I swear I’m all right now. But listen! Do let me lift you up into this tree, just for a minute! I’d so adore to hear your voice out of the leaves above my head and not see hardly a glimpse of you! Do get up into it, Gerda, and let me hear your voice from up there. You needn’t climb far. I can’t climb trees at all. I get dizzy. Or I’d climb it with you.”

The girl was still apparently enough of a child to be stirred by this unexpected appeal.

“But I’m so heavy, Wolf; and this branch is so high up.”

“Oh, no, it’s not⁠—it’s not! There⁠—shove yourself up on the palms of your hands. Jump⁠—and lift yourself⁠—you know? Like boys do on walls!”

He bent down and encircled her body with his arms, just above her knees, and lifted her up.