AUGUST: Is he still there, sitting by his desk, watching the snow fall? 

HENRIK: Yes, he is. His face shows a growing sense of depression and despair.

AUGUST: Is he typing anything at all?

HENRIK: I can’t see anything. His arms are resting and he’s just looking out of the window.

AUGUST: But the bird has not appeared there again. It will never appear again.

HENRIK: Perhaps his muse has deserted him.

AUGUST: Let this be his punishment, for having the gall to try to decipher the secrets of the Scandinavian soul. Ha! After one month here, he thinks he can know anything? 

HENRIK: If he was young, it could pass as mere naivety. But in his case…  

AUGUST: If it only stopped snowing for a while, perhaps he could go for a walk. 

HENRIK: No! Not his daily walks! Can you believe that he has been publishing a daily journal, and in it, he merely detailed his daily walks. Is it possible that he thought that this drivel could interest any reader at all?

AUGUST: In his last text, he wrote about seeing a squirrel. A squirrel!

HENRIK: Poor soul. I think he’s losing it.

AUGUST: Losing it? He’s never had it. Mediocre minds just have mediocre thoughts.

HENRIK: Should we haunt him into madness? 

AUGUST: No need, that he can do by himself. Let the snow, the cold and the loneliness do their work. Soon he will be leaving, never to return.  

HENRIK: He will not discover the secrets of the Scandinavian soul after all. 

AUGUST: Secrets of the Scandinavian soul? Jesus Christ. He wouldn’t discover them if they came in the form of a moose and trampled him to death. Look at him! Such a hopeless case. It almost brings a tear to one’s eye. 

HENRIK: He could have chosen any other subject. But he wanted to write about us! What does he know about us? 

AUGUST: To be fair, what can any man know about another man? One never really knows a man; one knows only his own, or others’ ideas of him. We are all phantoms to each other.  

HENRIK: Is the sun coming out? 

AUGUST: Yes. But just for a few moments. It is still very cloudy. Later it will snow again. 

HENRIK: He’s getting up now. Perhaps he’ll go for a walk, after all. 

AUGUST: Yes. He’s putting on his coat. 

HENRIK: Should we follow him?

AUGUST: Nah. Let’s torture him only at his desk, when he’s at his most vulnerable. 

HENRIK: That will teach him. 

AUGUST: Look! 

HENRIK: What?

AUGUST: A squirrel!

BOTH: Hahahahaha! 

[They disappear]