"I come to find out Student Pettersen's address!"
"Bernt Akers Street, No. 10, in the attic." Was I going out there? Well, would I perhaps be kind enough to take out a couple of letters that had come for him?
I trudge up town again, along the same road, pass by the joiners--who are sitting with their cans between their knees, eating their good warm dinner from the Dampkökken--pass the bakers, where the loaf is still in its place, and at length reach Bernt Akers Street, half dead with fatigue. The door is open, and I mount all the weary stairs to the attic. I take the letters out of my pocket in order to put Hans Pauli into a good humour on the moment of my entrance.
He would be certain not to refuse to give me a helping hand when I explained how things were with me; no, certainly not; Hans Pauli had such a big heart--I had always said that of him.... I discovered his card fastened to the door--"H. P. Pettersen, Theological Student, 'gone home.'"
I sat down without more ado--sat down on the bare floor, dulled with fatigue, fairly beaten with exhaustion. I mechanically mutter, a couple of times, "Gone home--gone home!" then I keep perfectly quiet. There was not a tear in my eyes; I had not a thought, not a feeling of any kind. I sat and stared, with wide-open eyes, at the letters, without coming to any conclusion. Ten minutes went over--perhaps twenty or more. I sat stolidly on the one spot, and did not move a finger. This numb feeling of drowsiness was almost like a brief slumber. I hear some one come up the stairs.
"It was Student Pettersen, I ... I have two letters for him."
"He has gone home," replies the woman; "but he will return after the holidays. I could take the letters if you like!"
"Yes, thanks! that was all right," said I. "He could get them then when he came back; they might contain matters of importance. Good-morning."
When I got outside, I came to a standstill and said loudly in the open street, as I clenched my hands: "I will tell you one thing, my good Lord God, you are a bungler!" and I nod furiously, with set teeth, up to the clouds; "I will be hanged if you are not a bungler."
Then I took a few strides, and stopped again. Suddenly, changing my attitude, I fold my hands, hold my head to one side, and ask, with an unctuous, sanctimonious tone of voice: "Hast thou appealed also to him, my child?" It did not sound right!