"Or to Voeblungsnaess?"

"What was I going to say? I should think to Holmestrand..."

"Oh, never mind; I have just remembered it," I interrupted him again.
"You wouldn't perhaps be so kind as to give me a small bit of
tobacco--only just a tiny scrap?"

I received the tobacco, thanked the man heartily, and went on. I made
no use of the tobacco; I put it into my pocket. He still kept his eye
on me--perhaps I had aroused his suspicions in some other way or
another. Whether I stood still or walked on, I felt his suspicious look
following me. I had no mind to be persecuted by this creature. I turn
round, and, dragging myself back to him, say:

"Binder"--only this one word, "Binder!" no more. I looked fixedly at
him as I say it, indeed I was conscious of staring fearfully at him. It
was as if I saw him with my entire body instead of only with my eyes. I
stare for a while after I give utterance to this word, and then I jog
along again to the railway square. The man does not utter a syllable,
he only keeps his gaze fixed upon me.

"Binder!" I stood suddenly still. Yes, wasn't that just what I had a
feeling of the moment I met the old chap; a feeling that I had met him
before! One bright morning up in Graendsen, when I pawned my waistcoat.
It seemed to me an eternity since that day.

Whilst I stand and ponder over this, I lean and support myself against
a house wall at the corner of the railway square and Harbour Street.
Suddenly, I start quickly and make an effort to crawl away. As I do not
succeed in it, I stare case-hardened ahead of me and fling all shame to
the winds. There is no help for it. I am standing face to face with the
"Commandor." I get devil-may-care--brazen. I take yet a step farther
from the wall in order to make him notice me. I do not do it to awake
his compassion, but to mortify myself, place myself, as it were, on the
pillory. I could have flung myself down in the street and begged him to
walk over me, tread on my face. I don't even bid him good-evening.

Perhaps the "Commandor" guesses that something is amiss with me. He
slackens his pace a little, and I say, in order to stop him, "I would
have called upon you long ago with something, but nothing has come yet!"

"Indeed?" he replies in an interrogative tone. "You haven't got it
finished, then?"

"No, it didn't get finished."

My eyes by this time are filled with tears at his friendliness, and I
cough with a bitter effort to regain my composure