No, not at all; I only just took walks like this now and again, just for exercise; it was so wholesome after dinner.... I set out on the road back--what would gossiping longer lead to? Besides, I commenced to feel dizzy. There was no mistake about it; I was about to break down in earnest. Office hours from 12 to 4. I had knocked at the door an hour too late. The time of grace was over. I sat down on one of the benches near the church in the market. Lord! how black things began to look for me now! I did not cry; I was too utterly tired, worn to the last degree. I sat there without trying to arrive at any conclusion, sad, motionless, and starving. My chest was much inflamed; it smarted most strangely and sorely--nor would chewing shavings help me much longer. My jaws were tired of that barren work, and I let them rest. I simply gave up. A brown orange-peel, too, I had found in the street, and which I had at once commenced to chew, had given me nausea. I was ill--the veins swelled up bluely on my wrists. What was it I had really sought after? Run about the whole live-long day for a shilling, that would but keep life in me for a few hours longer. Considering all, was it not a matter of indifference if the inevitable took place one day earlier or one day later? If I had conducted myself like an ordinary being I should have gone home long ago, and laid myself down to rest, and given in. My mind was clear for a moment. Now I was to die. It was in the time of the fall, and all things were hushed to sleep. I had tried every means, exhausted every resource of which I knew. I fondled this thought sentimentally, and each time I still hoped for a possible succour I whispered repudiatingly: "You fool, you have already begun to die."
I ought to write a couple of letters, make all ready--prepare myself. I would wash myself carefully and tidy my bed nicely. I would lay my head upon the sheets of white paper, the cleanest things I had left, and the green blanket. I ... The green blanket! Like a shot I was wide awake. The blood mounted to my head, and I got violent palpitation of the heart. I arise from the seat, and start to walk. Life stirs again in all my fibres, and time after time I repeat disconnectedly, "The green blanket--the green blanket." I go faster and faster, as if it is a case of fetching something, and stand after a little time in my tinker's workshop. Without pausing a moment, or wavering in my resolution, I go over to the bed, and roll up Hans Pauli's blanket. It was a strange thing if this bright idea of mine couldn't save me. I rose infinitely superior to the stupid scruples which sprang up in me--half inward cries about a certain stain on my honour. I bade good-bye to the whole of them. I was no hero--no virtuous idiot. I had my senses left.
So I took the blanket under my arm and went to No. 5 Stener's Street. I knocked, and entered the big, strange room for the first time. The bell on the door above my head gave a lot of violent jerks. A man enters from a side room, chewing, his mouth is full of food, and stands behind the counter.
"Eh, lend me sixpence on my eye-glasses?" said I. "I shall release them in a couple of days, without fail--eh?"
"No! they're steel, aren't they?"
"Yes."
"No; can't do it."
"Ah, no, I suppose you can't. Well, it was really at best only a joke. Well, I have a blanket with me for which, properly speaking, I have no longer any use, and it struck me that you might take it off my hands."
"I have--more's the pity--a whole store full of bed-clothes," he replied; and when I had opened it he just cast one glance over it and said, "No, excuse me, but I haven't any use for that either."
"I wanted to show you the worse side first," said I; "it's much better on the other side."