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before the windows were rather tawdry, and there was anything but an abundance of nails on the walls for hanging one’s wardrobe. That poor rocking chair over in the corner was actually only a poor excuse for a rocking chair, you could easily laugh yourself sick at it. It was much too low for a grown man, and so tight that you had to use a bootjack, so to speak, to get back out of it. In short, the room wasn’t furnished with an eye to intellectual pursuits, and I did not intend to keep it any longer. I wouldn’t keep it under any circumstances! I had been silent all too long, putting up with living in this dump.
    Puffed up with hope and self-satisfaction and constantly absorbed by my interesting sketch, which I pulled out of my pocket to read every now and then, I decided to buckle down at once and get going with my move. I took out my bundle, a red handkerchief that contained a couple of clean collars and some crumpled newspapers I had carried my bread home in, rolled up my blanket and pocketed my stack of white writing paper. Then, to be on the safe side, I inspected every corner of the room to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and when nothing turned up I went over to the window and looked out. The morning was wet and gloomy; no one had shown up at the burned-down blacksmith’s shop, and the clothesline down in the courtyard hung taut from wall to wall, shrunken by the wetness. I knew it all from before, so I stepped away from the window, took the blanket under my arm, bowed to the notice from the Director of Lighthouses, bowed to Madam Andersen’s shrouds, and opened the door.
    Suddenly I remembered about my landlady; she ought to be notified of my moving, so she would know she had been dealing with a respectable person. I also wanted to thank her, in writing, for the couple of extra days I had used the room. The certainty that I was now taken care of for a long time to come impressed itself upon me so strongly that I even promised to give my landlady five kroner when I dropped by one of these days; I would show her with a vengeance what a cultured person she had sheltered under her roof.
    I left the note on the table.
    I stopped by the door once more and turned around. This glorious feeling of having come out on top enchanted me, making me grateful to God and everyone, and I kneeled down by the bed and thanked God in a loud voice for his great goodness toward me this morning. I knew—oh yes, I knew that the exalted moment and the inspiration I had just experienced and written down was a wonderful work of heaven in my soul, an answer to my cry of distress yesterday. “It’s God! It’s God!” I cried to myself, and I wept from enthusiasm over my own words; every now and then I had to stop and listen for a moment, in case someone should be on the stairs. Finally I stood up and left. I slipped noiselessly down all those flights of stairs and reached the gate unseen.
    The streets were glistening with the rain that had fallen in the early morning, the sky hung raw and heavy over the city, and you couldn’t see a glimpse of sun anywhere. How late in the day was it? I wondered. I walked as usual in the direction of the city jail and noticed that the clock showed half-past eight. So I had a couple of hours to spare—it was useless to go to the newspaper office before ten, or perhaps eleven; meanwhile I would simply wander about and at the same time figure out some means of getting breakfast. Anyway, I had no fear that I would have to go to bed hungry that day; those times were over, thank God! That was a thing of the past, a bad dream, from now on things were looking up!
    Meanwhile the green blanket was an inconvenience to me; nor would it do to walk around with a parcel under one’s arm in plain sight of everybody. What would people think of me? So I wondered how to find a place where it could be left for safekeeping for a time. Then it occurred to me that I could go