The other sent him a sidelong glance. Then he nodded, said, “Good-bye—hope we shall meet again,” and walked off, his boots creaking slightly as he went. His easy manners, his gait, the tone of his voice, all seemed to irritate and humiliate Peer. Never mind—just let him wait!
Days passed, and weeks. Peer soon found another object to work for than getting the better of Ferdinand Holm. Louise’s dresses hung still untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it still seemed to him that some day she must open the door and walk in. And when he lay there alone at night, the riddle was always with him: Where is she now?—why should she have died?—would he never meet her again? He saw her always as she had stood that day playing to the sick folks in the hospital ward. But now she was dressed in white. And it seemed quite natural now that she had wings. He heard her music too—it cradled and rocked him. And all this came to be a little world apart, where he could take refuge for Sunday peace and devotion. It had nothing to do with faith or religion, but it was there. And sometimes in the midst of his work in the daytime he would divine, as in a quite separate consciousness, the tones of a fiddle-bow drawn across the strings, like reddish waves coming to him from far off, filling him with harmony, till he smiled without knowing it.
Often, though, a sort of hunger would come upon him to let his being unfold in a great wide wave of organ music in the church. But to church he never went any more. He would stride by a church door with a kind of defiance. It might indeed be an Almighty Will that had taken Louise from him, but if so he did not mean to give thanks to such a Will or bow down before it. It was as though he had in view a coming reckoning—his reckoning with something far out in eternity—and he must see to it that when that time came he could feel free—free.
On Sunday mornings, when the church bells began to ring, he would turn hastily to his books, as if to find peace in them. Knowledge—knowledge—could it stay his hunger for the music of the hymn? When he had first started work at the shops, he had often and often stood wide-eyed before some miracle—now he was gathering the power to work miracles himself. And so he read and read, and drank in all that he could draw from teacher or book, and thought and thought things out for himself. Fixed lessons and set tasks were all well enough, but Peer was for ever looking farther; for him there were questions and more questions, riddles and new riddles—always new, always farther and farther on, towards the unknown. He had made as yet but one step forward in physics, mathematics, chemistry; he divined that there were worlds still before him, and he must hasten on, on, on. Would the day ever come when he should reach the end? What is knowledge? What use do men make of all that they have learned? Look at the teachers, who knew so much—were they greater, richer, brighter beings than the rest? Could much study bring a man so far that some night he could lift up a finger and make the stars themselves break into song? Best drive ahead, at any rate. But, again, could knowledge lead on to that ecstasy of the Sunday psalm, that makes all riddles clear, that bears a man upwards in nameless happiness, in which his soul expands till it can enfold the infinite spaces? Well, at any rate the best thing was to drive ahead, drive ahead both early and late.
One day that spring, when the trees in the city avenues were beginning to bud, Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm were sitting in a cafe in North Street. “There goes your friend,” said Ferdinand; and looking from the window they saw Peer Holm passing the post-office on the other side of the road. His clothes were shabby, his shoes had not been cleaned, he walked slowly, his fair head with its College cap bent forward, but seemed nevertheless to notice all that was going on in the street.
“Wonder what he’s going pondering over now,” said Klaus.
“Look there—I suppose that’s a type of carriage he’s never seen before. Why, he has got the driver to stop—”
“I wouldn’t mind betting he’ll crawl in between the wheels to find out whatever he’s after,” laughed Klaus, drawing back from the window so as not to be seen.
“He looks pale and fagged out,” said Ferdinand, shifting his glasses. “I suppose his people aren’t very well off?”
Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the other. “He’s not overburdened with cash, I fancy.”