There was no one waiting for him, no one to
take him in. Still, some day things might be very different.
As the ship drew alongside the quay at Christiania, the other passengers
lined the rail, friends and relations came aboard, there were tears and
laughter and kisses and embraces. Peer lifted his hat as he passed down
the gangway, but no one had time to notice him just now. And when he
had found a hotel porter to look after his luggage, he walked up alone
through the town, as if he were a stranger.
The light nights made it difficult to sleep--he had actually forgotten
that it was light all night long. And this was a capital city--yet so
touchingly small, it seemed but a few steps wherever he went. These were
his countrymen, but he knew no one among them; there was no one to greet
him. Still, he thought again, some day all this might be very different.
At last, one day as he stood looking at the window of a bookseller's
shop, he heard a voice behind him: "Why, bless me! surely it's Peer
Holm!" It was one of his fellow-students at the Technical College,
Reidar Langberg, pale and thin now as ever. He had been a shining light
at the College, but now--now he looked shabby, worn and aged.
"I hardly knew you again," said Peer, grasping the other's hand.
"And you're a millionaire, so they say--and famous, out in the big
world?"
"Not quite so bad as that, old fellow. But what about you?"
"I? Oh, don't talk about me." And as they walked down the street
together, Langberg poured out his tale, of how times were desperately
bad, and conditions at home here simply strangled a man.
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