He felt that he was
perspiring, that his clothes clung to him, yet he was ice-cold.
That is the future that awaits you, he thought; it runs ice-cold
through your limbs.
Then it was that a new and, until then, unused power, which
underlay all else, broke forth and took the command.
"You shall never return home to her, that is all past now, boy; I
will not permit it any longer."
What was it? What voice was that? It really sounded as though
outside himself. Was it his father's? It was a man's voice. It
made him clear and calm. He turned round, he went straight to the
nearest hotel, without further thought, without anxiety. Something
new was about to begin.
He slept for three hours undisturbed by dreams; it was the first
night for a long time that he had done so.
The following morning he sat in the little pavilion at the station
at Eidsvold with his mother's packet of letters laid open before
him. It consisted of a quantity of papers which he had read
through.
The expanse of Lake Mjosen lay cold and grey beneath the autumn
mist, which still shrouded the hillsides. The sound of hammers
from the workshops to the right mingled with the rumble of wheels
on the bridge; the whistle of an engine, the rattle of crockery
from the restaurant; sights and sounds seethed round him like
water boiling round an egg.
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