d slash through my nerves. I stand
dumb with terror before this armed man, and draw involuntarily back. I
say nothing, only glide farther and farther away from him. To save
appearances I draw my hand over my forehead, as if I had forgotten
something or other, and slink away. When I reached the pavement I felt
as much saved as if I had just escaped a great peril, and I hurried
away.

Cold and famished, more and more miserable in spirit, I flew up Carl
Johann. I began to swear out aloud, troubling myself not a whit as to
whether any one heard me or not. Arrived at Parliament House, just near
the first trees, I suddenly, by some association of ideas, bethought
myself of a young artist I knew, a stripling I had once saved from an
assault in the Tivoli, and upon whom I had called later on. I snap my
fingers gleefully, and wend my way to Tordenskjiolds Street, find the
door, on which is fastened a card with C. Zacharias Bartel on it, and
knock.

He came out himself, and smelt so fearfully of ale and tobacco that it
was horrible.

"Good-evening!" I say.

"Good-evening! is that you? Now, why the deuce do you come so late? It
doesn't look at all its best by lamplight. I have added a hayrick to it
since, and have made a few other alterations. You must see it by
daylight; there is no use our trying to see it now!"

"Let me have a look at it now, all the same," said I; though, for that
matter, I did not in the least remember what picture he was talking
about.

"Absolutely impossible," he replied; "the whole thing will look yellow;
and, besides, there's another thing"--and he came towards me,
whispering: "I have a little girl inside this evening, so it's clearly
impracticable."

"Oh, in that case, of course there's no question about it."

I drew back, said good-night, and went away.

So there was no way out of it but to seek some place out in the woods.
If only the fields were not so damp. I patted my blanket, and felt more
and more at home at the thought of sleeping out. I had worried myself
so long trying to find a shelter in town that I was wearied and bored
with the whole affair. It would be a positive pleasure to get to rest,
to resign myself; so I loaf down the street without thought in my head.
At a place in Haegdehaugen I halted outside a provision shop where some
food was displayed in the window. A cat lay there and slept beside a
round French roll. There was a basin of lard and several basins of meal
in th