From an honest heart I offered him a loan, so that he might live in peace for two or three months and study, until he could again get places to teach; but either he was too sore and proud, or else he thought that Inger-Johanna had a hand in it.
He has certainly taken it very much to heart that the total want of means of existence has now compelled him to give up the school, which was his pride, so that he is now in a certain way an object of ridicule, and this has capped the climax.
He goes about unoccupied, so Jörgen reports, and asks for credit at eating-houses and restaurants, where he sits out the evening and night.
I understood well enough that it was not just for the sake of her old aunt or for the thing itself, but to hear about him, that Inger-Johanna sat with me so often and learned the old-fashioned stitch with pearls and gold thread. She was in such an excited condition and so abstracted, and jumped up when Jörgen came home towards evening and, more's the pity, as often as not had been looking for him in vain to read with him.
That pale, darkly brilliant face stands so before me, Gitta, with which she one evening broke out: "Aunt—Aunt—Aunt Alette!"
It was like a hidden cry.
Where he is living now, Jörgen has not succeeded in finding out; possibly for want of means he has been turned out of his lodgings.
I narrate all this so much in detail, because it is to be believed and hoped that the severest part of the crisis, so far as she is concerned, is over now.
Since that evening, when she felt that she had forgotten herself, she has at least not talked about him, nor, as I know certainly, addressed a word to Jörgen. She has evidently esteemed his character very highly, and has now suffered a disappointment.