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strength, the need of the soul to find peace ? Here
he sat, day after day, helpless, unable to save the
boy, who but for him would have gone to perdition
years ago. c No one can help me,' he had said the
other night. He could not, that was true. He
realised that he was exhausted from praying and
waiting, and that it would be better to go to bed.
And when he closed his eyes tonight, or in the
morning, he must leave the boy's fate in God's hands.
On the way to bed he noticed that the light was
still burning in the kitchen. Frans and Stien were
sitting there, in silence, with folded arms. And he
knew well what they were thinking as they sat. He
said it was getting late and went upstairs in front of
them ; he did not see how Frans and Stien, who
qame after, followed him with their eyes as he
entered his room.
Early the next morning he was in the shop again.
Those who knew him well noticed that he was
absorbed in thought. When he looked up he would
fix his eyes on someone as though amazed to see him
there*. Often he stared through the window with his
brows raised.
It seemed to him that people were changed.
When he looked at them their faces seemed larger,
pale, the eyes dark. Briemen, on the other side of
the road, stood perpetually at the window looking
in his direction, and when he turned round to do up
a parcel, he appeared to be talking about Weren-