perhaps downright worthless. What security had I that it was not already at this moment lying in the waste-paper basket? . . . My confidence was shaken. I sprang up and stormed out of the graveyard.
Down in Akersgaden I peeped into a shop window, and saw that it was only a little past noon. There was no use in looking up the editor before four. The fate of my story filled me with gloomy forebodings; the more I thought about it the more absurd it seemed to me that I could have written anything useable with such suddenness, half-asleep, with my brain full of fever and dreams. Of course I had deceived myself and been happy all through the long morning for nothing! . . . Of course! . . . I rushed with hurried strides up Ullavoldsveien, past St Han's Hill, until I came to the open fields; on through the narrow quaint lanes in Sagene, past waste plots and small tilled fields, and found myself at last on a country road, the end of which I could not see.
Here I halted and decided to turn.
I was warm from the walk, and returned slowly and very downcast. I met two hay-carts. The drivers were lying flat upon the top of their loads, and sang. Both were bare-
