to go forward or to acknowledge himself baffled and beaten.  This he was not willing to do, and so he had gone on and on, until one day, some six months ago, he had asked himself what it all led to? why he had laboured so hard for years over such things? whether the old free life and ready enjoyment were not better than this midnight prowling among other people’s thoughts, which, whatever they might have been when spoken, never seemed quite clear on paper?  Or would it not be better to leave the whole thing and go back to his Northern home?  He might find plenty of adventure there, and breathe in fresh youth and vitality in the cold bright life of the Norwegian fisheries or of some outlying Swedish farm.  And yet he could not make up his mind to move, or to acknowledge that he had laboured in vain.  It was in vain, though, he said, as he looked out at the flowing river.  Had he gained a single advantage either for his thoughts or his deeds by all his study of philosophy?  In his weariness he said to himself that he had not; that he had been far better able to deal with questions of life, so long as he had only handled the exact sciences, than he was now, through all this uncertain saturation of foggy visions and contradictory speculations.  Questions of life—­but did questions of life ever arise for him?  He had reduced it all to its simplest expression.  His little store of money was safely invested, and he drew the income four times a year.  He possessed no goods or chattels not stowed away in his garret chamber.  He owed no man anything; he was not even a regular professor, tied to his University by a fixed engagement.  In a word, he was perfectly free and untrammelled.  To what end?  He worked on from force of habit; but work had long ceased to amuse him.  When had he laughed last?  Probably not since his trip on foot to the Bavarian Highlands, where he had met a witty journalist from Berlin, with whom he had walked for a couple of days.

This evening he was more weary than usual.  He almost thought he would go away if he could think of any place to go to where life might be more interesting.  He had no relations excepting an uncle, who had emigrated to America when Claudius was a baby, and who wrote twice a year, with that regular determination to keep up his family ties which characterises the true Northman.  To this uncle he also wrote regularly at stated intervals, telling of his quiet student-life.  He knew that this solitary relation was in business in New York, and he inferred from the regular offers of assistance which came in every letter that he was in good circumstances,—­but that was all.  This evening he fell to thinking about him.  The firm was “Barker and Lindstrand,” he remembered.  He wondered what Mr. Barker was like.  By the by it would soon be midsummer, and he might expect the half-yearly letter at any time.  Not that it would interest him in the least when it came, but yet he liked to feel that he was not utterly alone in the world.  There was the postman coming down the street in his leisurely, old-fashioned way, chatting with the host at the corner and with the tinman two doors off, and then—­yes, he was stopping at Dr. Claudius’s door.