Kallem knew that she had devoted herself to the study of music since she was a child, and just to find something to talk about he took up the subject. "She has studied at the conservatoire in Berlin?"
"Yes."
There was a noise of chairs being pushed about in the room to the right, the one adjoining the corner room. Kallem then took that up as a subject for conversation. "I hear I am to have a neighbor in the corner room?"
"Yes."
"A relation of yours, I believe?"
"Yes, an aunt."
Again Sören Kule looked to the left, and called out in an indifferent sort of way: "Ragni!" Nobody answered and nobody came. "I fancied I heard a door open outside," he said, as though apologizing for having called. Kallem got up then and said good-by.
A few days afterward he gave Rendalen an amusing description of his visit. Rendalen laughed; he had not often been there himself; but had heard much about Sören Kule. He declared the fellow might go to the devil for him, he would rather not talk about him at all; he sat down to the piano and began to play.
A few days later, who should Kallem meet in the entrance but his brother-in-law in spe, Mr. Ole Tuft, now candidate in theology, come to town to pass his so-called practical examination.
Grand meeting and recognition! The one had no idea of the change of lodgings that had taken place, nor the other that Ole Tuft had come to town. Kallem begged him to go in with him, and heard then that Tuft was there for the first time; the landlord's aunt had moved in yesterday, and it was her Ole had been visiting. Edward Kallem understood at once what community she belonged to, and he changed the subject. He asked further whether he knew Sören Kule? No, only through hearing of him from his aunt; all the family were from the Norland. Then who was Sören Kule? He was a well-to-do fish-dealer who became blind and partially paralysed; was obliged to sell his business and had bought this house in Christiania to make a living by it and by other things as well. They had several relations in town, and had only been there since October. Did Ole Tuft know what had caused his paralysis and blindness? No. Kallem told him there could hardly be a doubt on the matter. Ole Tuft was quite shocked.