"Is it here?"
"No, here!"
John felt for a door; the door gave way and fell upon him. At the same moment he saw a pool of blood on the ground. He turned round, let go of the door, and was at the bottom of the stairs before the door fell on the ground. This scene shook him terribly and woke his memory. Some days previously John had gone into the Carolina Park to work at his play in solitude. W. came up, greeted him, and asked whether he might bear him company or whether he disturbed him. John answered sincerely that he did disturb him, and W. went away with a melancholy air. Was it a case of a lonely drowning man who sought a companion and was repulsed? John felt almost guilty of his death. But he was not intended for a comforter. Now the dead man seemed to haunt him; he dared not go to his room, but slept with his friend. One night he slept with Rejd. The latter had to keep a light burning and was woken several times in the night by John, who could not sleep.
One day Rejd found John with a bottle of prussic acid. He apparently approved the idea of suicide, but first asked him to take a farewell drink with him. They went to the restaurant and ordered eight glasses of whisky, which were brought in on a tray. Each of them drank four glasses in four pulls, with the desired result that John became dead drunk. He was carried home, but since the house door was locked, he was carried over an empty piece of ground and thrown over a fence. There he remained lying in a snow-drift, till he recovered his senses, and crept up into his room.
The last night which he spent in Upsala some days later he slept on a sofa in Thurs' rooms; his friends kept watch over him, and the room was lighted up. They watched good-naturedly till morning, then they accompanied him to the station, and put him in the coupé. When the train had passed Bergsbrunna, John breathed again. He felt as though he had left something dreadful and weird, like a northern winter night with thirty degrees of cold, behind him, and registered a vow never again to settle in this town, where men's souls, banished from life and society, grew rotten from over-production of thought, were corroded by stagnant waters which had no outlet, and took fire like millstones which revolved without having anything to grind.
[1] Danish theologian.