As yet I, at least, had not said a word; indeed, I had not seen more of my friend than a brief glimpse of his face, as he turned towards the lamp and replaced the shade.  Still I recognised, in spite of the difference in age, the same thin, delicate, pale face, which, in the old days, would sometimes assume such a beautiful, melancholy expression—­it was with that he was always photographed in my memory—­but the features had now acquired a striking sharpness, and in the quick glance I caught there was an expression, both suffering and searching, which made me indescribably sad.  I have seen sick people look at me in the same way, when they were afraid they were to be operated upon; and I thought I now understood at any rate this much, that what wanted operating on here was my friend’s confidence, and this would require all my dexterity.

I was once the most confiding fellow under the sun; but since I became a doctor and saw what people really are, I have become thoroughly suspicious; for there is nothing in the whole world you may not have to presuppose, even with the best of mortals, if you do not want to be misled as to the cause of their disease.  I suspect everybody and everything, even, as the reader has seen above, those sedate men who go out in stormy weather.  An Indian does not steal more unperceived and noiselessly through a primeval forest than I, when necessary, into my patient’s confidence; and my friend David had all at once become my patient.  He would scarcely succeed in deceiving me any longer with his talk about “old days” and a glass of punch in his “unchanged student’s den.”

My first strategem was now hastily to continue the inspection of the room, which my friend had somewhat cursorily allowed me to begin.  I took the lamp and began to look about me.

Under the sloping ceiling, against the wall opposite the sofa, was the bed, with a little round table beside it.  On some bookshelves, which stood on the floor against the wall in the corner at the foot of the bed, I recognised Henrik Wergeland’s bust, even more defective about the chin and nose than in my time, and now, in addition, blind in one eye; he had fared almost as badly as the old pipe I used to smoke, which I recognised again, in spite of its being cut and hacked in every direction.  For my friend had a habit of cutting marks in it while he sat smoking, now and then throwing a word into the conversation to keep it going, just as one throws fuel on a fire—­it was the spirit of the conversation, and that something should be said, rather than the thought itself, he cared about.  When sitting thus, his face often wore a melancholy, peaceful expression, as if he were smiling at something beautiful we others did not see.

Between the bed and the shelves I discovered some bottles, ordinary spirit bottles, and the suspicion flashed like lightning through my mind—­I have, as I said, become suspicion personified, not naturally, but through disappointment—­that my friend was perhaps given to drink.