His mother was proud of his learning, and boasted of it to her friends. In the family the word "student" was often heard. At the students' congress in the fifties, Stockholm was swarming with white caps.

"Think if you should wear a white cap some day," said his mother.

When the students' concerts took place, they talked about it for days at a time. Acquaintances from Upsala sometimes came to Stockholm and talked of the gay students' life there. A girl who had been in service in Upsala called John "the student."

In the midst of his terribly mysterious school life, in which the boy could discover no essential connection between Latin grammar and real life, a new mysterious factor appeared for a short time and then disappeared again. The nine-year-old daughter of the headmaster came to the French lessons. She was purposely put on the last bench, in order not to be seen, and to look round was held to be a great misdemeanour. Her presence, however, was felt in the class-room. The boy, and probably the whole class, fell in love. The lessons always went well when she was present; their ambition was spurred, and none of them wanted to be humiliated or flogged before her. She was, it is true, ugly, but well dressed. Her gentle voice vibrated among the breaking voices of the boys, and even the teacher had a smile on his severe face when he spoke to her. How beautifully her name sounded when he called it out—one Christian name among all the surnames.

John's love found expression in a silent melancholy. He never spoke to her, and would never have dared to do it. He feared and longed for her. But if anyone had asked him what he wanted from her, he could not have told them. He wanted nothing from her. A kiss? No; in his family there was no kissing. To hold her? No! Still less to possess her. Possess? What should he do with her? He felt that he had a secret. This plagued him so that he suffered under it, and his whole life was overclouded. One day at home he seized a knife and said, "I will cut my throat." His mother thought he was ill. He could not tell her. He was then about nine years old.

Perhaps if there had been as many girls as boys in the school present in all the classes, probably innocent friendships would have been formed, the electricity would have been carried off, the Madonna-worship brought within its proper limits, and wrong ideas of woman would not have followed him and his companions through life.

*

His father's contemplative turn of mind, his dislike of meeting people after his bankruptcy, the unfriendly verdict of public opinion regarding his originally illegal union with his wife, had induced him to retire to the Norrtullsgata. Here he had rented a house with a large garden, wide-stretching fields, with a pasture, stables, farmyard, and conservatory. He had always liked the occupations of a country life and agriculture. Before this he had possessed a piece of land outside the town, but could not look after it. Now he rented a garden for his own sake and the children's, whose education a little resembled that described in Rousseau's Emile. The house was separated from its neighbours by a long fence. The Norrtullsgata was an avenue lined with trees which as yet had no pavement, and had been but little built upon. The principal traffic consisted of peasants and milk-carts on their way to the hay market. Besides these there were also funerals moving slowly along to the "New Churchyard," sledging parties to Brunnsvik, and young people on their way to Norrbucka or Stallmastergarden.