“I can’t understand—who can have put these wild ideas into your head?”
With an effort Peer managed to get out: “It’s always been what I wanted. And he—father—”
“Who? Father—? Do you mean your benefactor?”
“Well, he was my father, wasn’t he?” burst out Peer.
The schoolmaster tottered back and sank into a chair, staring at Peer as if he thought him a quite hopeless subject. At last he recovered so far as to say: “Look here, my lad, don’t you think you might be content to call him—now and for the future—just your benefactor? Don’t you think he deserves it?”
“Oh, yes,” whispered Peer, almost in tears.
“You are thinking, of course—you and those who have put all this nonsense into your head—of the money which he—h’m—”
“Yes—isn’t there a savings bank account—?”
“Aha! There we are! Yes, indeed. There is a savings bank account—in my care.” He rose, and hunted out from a drawer a small green-covered book. Peer could not take his eyes from it. “Here it is. The sum entered here to your account amounts to eighteen hundred crowns.”
Crash! Peer felt as if he had fallen through the floor into the cellarage. All his dreams vanished into thin air—the million crowns—priest and bishop—Christiania—and all the rest.