after a
sleepless night, watching the window grow lighter with the dawn, he
would think: Yet another new day--and nothing that I can do in it.

And yet he had to get up, and dress, and go down and eat. His bread had
a slightly bitter taste to him--it tasted of charity and dependence, of
the rich widow at Bruseth and the agent for English tweeds. And he must
remember to eat slowly, to masticate each mouthful carefully, to rest
after meals, and above all not to think--not to think of anything in the
wide world. Afterwards, he could go out and in like other people, only
that all his movements and actions were useless and meaningless in
themselves; they were done only for the sake of health, or to keep
thoughts away, or to make the time go by.

How had this come to pass? He found it still impossible to grasp how
such senseless things can happen and no Providence interfere to set them
right. Why should he have been so suddenly doomed to destruction?
Days, weeks and months of his best manhood oozing away into empty
nothingness--why? Sleeplessness and tortured nerves drove him to do
things that his will disowned; he would storm at his wife and children
if a heel so much as scraped on the floor, and the remorse that
followed, sometimes ending in childish tears, did no good, for the next
time the same thing, or worse, would happen again. This was the burden
of his days. This was the life he was doomed to live.

But up here on the little forest track he harms no one; and no racking
noises come thrusting sharp knives into his spine. Here is a great
peace; a peace that does a man good. Down on the grassy slope below
stands a tumble-down grey barn; it reminds him of an old worn-out horse,
lifting its head from grazing to gaze at you--a lonely forsaken creature
it seems--to-morrow it will sink to the ground and rise no more--yet IT
takes its lot calmly and patiently.

Ugh! how far he has got from Raastad. A cold sweat breaks out over his
body for fear he may not have strength to walk back again uphill. Well,
pull yourself together. Rest a little. And he lies down on his back in a
field of clover, and stares up at the sky.

A stream of clean air, fresh from the snow, flows all day long down the
valley; as if Jotunheim itself, where it lies in there beneath the sky,
were breathing in easy well-being. Peer fills his lungs again and again
with long deep draughts, drinking in the air like a saving potion. "Help
me then, oh air, ligh