ght blue, and more in keeping with his pale and
beardless face than with his more energetic features. But yet it was his
eyes that gave one the first impression of him. I learned later to read
his features differently, and to see that in them was reflected the
meeting of the currents of that twofold nature by which his life was
gradually crushed out.

A sweet smile when he talked and a reserved manner gave him a
distinguished air, which at any rate impressed me greatly. He was the
only student I knew who did not wear a student's cap; he used to wear a
flat blue sailor's cap with a short peak, which suited him very well.
When he became eager, as might happen in a dispute--for he was a great
logician, though it was only his intellect that took part in a
discussion, and never, as far as I could see, his heart or his deeper
feelings--his voice would give way; it became overstrained and harsh, as
if from a weak chest. Such encounters always told upon him, and left him
in irritable restlessness for some time after.

One of his peculiarities was that he sometimes went on walking tours of
several days out in the country, both in summer and winter.
Companionship he would never hear of. Had he wished for it, he would
have asked me I knew, and therefore I never thought of forcing myself
upon him.

On these occasions he would set off without a knapsack; I noticed this
once when I happened to be roaming in the fields two or three miles [A
Norwegian mile is about seven English miles.] from a town, where I had
gone on a visit. When he came home again, he would be in capital
spirits, but before setting out he was always so silent and melancholy
that I had to sustain nearly the whole burden of the conversation. He
used to have periods of low spirits.

One indication of these moods was his manner in playing on the violin I
had now found with broken strings, at the back of his bookshelf. As it
lay there, it recalled the incidents of twenty years ago.

This violin he once held in high esteem; it had the place of honour on
his wall, with the bow beside it. It had been left him by a friend, an
old clerk, [Norw. "klokker," almost answering to the Scotch precentor,
but a klokker, in addition to leading the singing in church, has to read
the opening prayer and to assist the priest in putting on his
vestments.] at his home up in the north, who had taught him to play,
and had evidently been one of those musical geniuses who are never fully