When he looked up again, the place was deserted. The bell was ringing,
and a crowd was collecting in another part of the churchyard. Peer sat
where he was, quite still.
In the evening, when the gravedigger came to lock the gates, he had
to take the young man by the shoulder and shake him to his senses.
"Locking-up time," he said. "You must go now."
Peer rose and tried to walk, and by and by he was stumbling blindly out
through the gate and down the street. And after a time he found himself
climbing a flight of stairs above a stable-yard. Once in his room, he
flung himself down on the bed as he was, and lay there still.
The close heat of the day had broken in a downpour of rain, which
drummed upon the roof above his head, and poured in torrents through the
gutters. Instinctively Peer started up: Louise was out in the rain--she
would need her cloak. He was on his feet in a moment, as if to find
it--then he stopped short, and sank slowly back upon the bed.
He drew up his feet under him, and buried his head in his arms. His
brain was full of changing, hurrying visions, of storm and death, of
human beings helpless in a universe coldly and indifferently ruled by a
will that knows no pity.
Then for the first time it was as if he lifted up his head against
Heaven itself and cried: "There is no sense in all this. I will not bear
it."
Later in the night, when he found himself mechanically folding his hands
for the evening prayer he had learnt to say as a child, he suddenly
burst out laughing, and clenched his fists, and cried aloud: "No, no,
no--never--never again.
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