happened when the doctor one day made his
appearance, and asked me to go up with him to my room.

The broadly-built, bald, little doctor, in his homespun coat, and
steel-rimmed spectacles on his snub-nose, was one of the hardy people of
our fjord districts who glory in going out in all kinds of weather. You
always saw him in the best of spirits when he had just been out in
stormy weather. He was a decided and clear-headed man, whose manner
involuntarily inspired confidence, and he also possessed a warmth and
open-heartedness that made him, when he chose, very winning. He was the
doctor both at our house and the parsonage, and a confidential friend of
both families.

When we came up to my room, he told me to sit down and listen to him,
while he himself, as usual, made out a route on the floor, where, with
his hands behind him, he could walk up and down while he talked.

He had, he said, considered carefully whether he should conceal from me
what he had on his mind, or speak out as he was now doing, but had
decided on the latter course, as my recovery depended upon my being
perfectly clear as to what it was I was suffering from. My last illness
had, partly at any rate, been an outbreak of a disposition to insanity,
which he knew lay in the family on my mother's side for several
generations back. That this outbreak had now taken place in me was
certainly due to the fact that I had given myself up to all kinds of
imaginary influences, in conjunction with the idle life which he knew I
had always led at home. The only certain means for stopping the
development of this disposition was work with a fixed, determined end in
view--for instance, study--which he thought I showed an ability for, and
in addition a healthy life--walks, hunting, fishing, companions and
interests; but no more idleness, no more exciting novels, no more
unhealthy dreams. He had talked to my father upon the subject, and
recommended that I should go to the training college at Trondenaes as a
fitting preparation for study, and as a measure that would also afford
the necessary interruption to my present life.

When the doctor soon after left me, I remained sitting in my room,
serious and much moved.

That I had thus become transparent to myself, and had solved my own
riddle, was an extraordinary relief to me--I may say it was an episode
in my life.

The feeling of being mentally ill, which had always, as long as I could
remember, lain a silent pressure