"For, you see, when I search myself in meditation and prayer and find myself, even so I find my God."
A naïve confession lay in these words, but the commissioner would not translate the involuntary heresy and draw such conclusions as: God is thus my own self or in my own self, because he held a certain esteem for this man, who could be alone with a fiction, and thus to a certain degree alone.
While the commissioner regarded the preacher's face, which was overgrown with long brown whiskers except on the upper lip as sailors and colporteurs usually wear them, probably to let out the spoken word and still resemble an apostle, he seemed to perceive a face behind this face, and annoyed by this labor which his memory had unconsciously undertaken, he asked bluntly:
"Have we not met each other before?"
"Yes, certainly we have," answered the preacher; "and you, sir commissioner, have, perhaps without knowing it, had such a great influence on my life, that it might be said you determined my path."
"Oh, no! Tell me about it, for I do not remember it!" said the commissioner, and placing himself on the rock, he invited the other to sit down.
"Yes, it is certainly about twenty-five years ago that we were together in the third class at school ...
"What was your name then?" interrupted the commissioner.
"At that time I was called Olsson and nick-named Ox-Olle, because my father was a farmer and I was dressed in homespun clothes."
"Olsson? Wait a moment! You could reckon best of us all."