"My dear fellow," I answered, "I am more than ready to listen to you. Any one can see that sometime or another something has happened to you which has thrown a shadow over your existence; but, as you can understand, one does not ask one's friends about that sort of thing. One generally waits until one is approached."
"You are right, and I ought to have told you all about it long ago; especially as, for my part, I have nothing whatever to conceal. Yes, a man is wrong to shut himself up in himself more than is necessary; and in my case I am afraid I have been foolish, and doubly stupid, not to have called to my aid a clever friend's assistance. I have stared myself blind with trying to find a way out of the dark. It is, however, wrong of me to call the affair my affair, since I no longer play any part in it; but, in any case, it concerns some one who was as dear to me as my own life. Are you prepared to listen to me? If so, you shall get to know as much of my history as I know of it myself."
"Go on, Monk; go on! If an honest man and an intelligent woman can help you in any way, you have them at your disposal in Clara and myself."
I stretched out my hand to him; Monk seized it and shook it heartily. All doubt and restlessness on his side had vanished. In giving the account of his story, I only wish that I could have given it in his own clear language and striking words. To detail it in full is of course impossible; but I will do the best I can, and if the narrative should become tedious, or wanting in clearness, it is my fault, and not Monk's.
CHAPTER II
OLD FRICK
When we separated, about fifteen years ago (began Monk), that time you went to Zurich to complete your studies as engineer, I went in seriously for law, and was fortunate enough in four years' time to take my degree with honours.
My friends and teachers tried to persuade me to follow a scientific career. An endowment could have been had from the university; and with this, together with a small inheritance from my father, I could have followed without trouble the beaten path to a professorship at the university,—so I was told, at any rate.
But this was not to my mind; to have got free from the student's bench only to climb immediately to the dusty chair of a professor, seemed to me anything but attractive.
I first got a situation in the office of a government official, far up in the country, where there was little to do, but plenty of game and fishing; and I returned to Christiania the year after, a bearded, red-cheeked, young Nimrod.