Explore "The Emperor of Portugallia" by Selma Lagerlof on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
All day, while the party was going on at the seine-maker's, Jan of Ruffluck kept to his hut. But at evening he went out and sat down up on the flat stone in front of the house, as was his wont. He was not ill exactly, but he felt weak and tired. The hut had become so overheated during the long, hot sunny day that he thought it would be nice to get a breath of fresh air. He found, however, that it was not much cooler outside, but he sat still all the same, mostly because there was so much out here that was beautiful to the eye.
It had been an excessively hot and dry month of June and forest fires, which always rage every rainless summer, had already got going. This he could tell by the pretty bluish-white smoke banks that rose above the hills at the other side of the lake. Presently, away off to southward, a shimmery white curly cloud head appeared, while in the west, over against Great Peak, huge smoke-blended clouds rolled up and up. It seemed to him as if the whole world were afire.