“Nor one on your coat either,” she retorted; for there had been a great many on his old one, and each had had its history.

He was too big now to be turned to ridicule, and too happy as well.  She heard him humming to himself:  it was the Norwegian national air.  They came back to the town again as from Elysium.  All the passers-by looked at them:  people quickly detect happiness.  Besides Rafael was a head taller than most of them and fairer in complexion.  He walked quickly along beside his elegant mother, and looked across the Boulevard as though from a sunny height.

“There are days on which one feels oneself a different person,” he said.

“There are days on which one receives so much,” she answered, pressing his arm.

They went home, threw aside their wraps, and looked at one another.  Sketches of the machinery which they had just seen lay about, as well as some rough drawings.  These she collected and made into a roll.

“Rafael,” she said, and drew herself up, half laughing, half trembling, “kneel; I wish to knight you.”

It did not seem unnatural to him; he did so.

“Noblesse oblige,” she said, and let the roll of paper approach his head; but therewith she dropped it and burst into tears.

He spent a merry evening with his friends, and was enthusiastically applauded.  But as he lay in bed that night he felt utterly despondent.  The whole thing might, after all, have been a mere chance.  He had seen so much, had acquired so much information; it was no discovery that he had made.  What was it, then?  He was certainly not a genius; that must be an exaggeration.  Could one imagine a genius without a victor’s confidence, or had his peculiar life destroyed that confidence?  This anxiety which constantly intruded itself; this bad conscience; this dreadful, vile conscience; this ineradicable dread; was it a foreboding?  Did it point to the future?

It was about half a year after this that his desultory studies became concentrated on electricity, and after a time this took them to Munich.  During the course of these studies he began to write, quite spontaneously.  The students had formed a society, and Rafael was expected to contribute a paper.  But his contribution was so original that they begged him to show it to the professor, and this encouraged him greatly.  It was the professor, too, who had his first article printed.  A Norwegian technical periodical accepted a subsequent one, and this was the external influence which turned his thoughts once more towards Norway.  Norway rose before him as the promised land of electricity.  The motive power of its countless waterfalls was sufficient for the whole world!  He saw his country during the winter darkness gleaming with electric lustre.  He saw her, too, the manufactory of the world, the possessor of navies.  Now he had something to go home for!

His mother did not share his love for their country, and had no desire to live in Norway.  But the money which she had saved up for his education bad been spent long ago.  Hellebergene had had its share.  The estate did not yield an equivalent, for it was essentially a timbered estate, and the trees on it were still immature.