When he had recovered from this failure, he wanted to make what no one has made hitherto, and no one can make—a machine to exhibit "perpetual motion." His father had told him that for a long time past a reward had been offered to anyone who should invent this impossibility. This tempted him. He constructed a waterfall with a "Hero's fountain,"[3] which worked a pump; the waterfall was to set the pump in motion, and the pump was to draw up the water again out of the "Hero's fountain." He had again to make a raid on the attic. After he had broken everything possible in order to collect material, he began his work. A coffee-making machine had to serve as a pipe; a soda-water machine as a reservoir; a chest of drawers furnished planks and wood; a bird-cage, iron wire; and so on. The day of testing it came. Then the housekeeper asked him if he would go with his brothers and sisters to their mother's grave. "No," he said, "he had no time." Whether his conscience now smote him, and spoiled his work, or whether he was nervous—anyhow, it was a failure. Then he took the whole apparatus, without trying to put right what was wrong in it, and hurled it against the tiled stove. There lay the work, on which so many useful things had been wasted, and a good while later on the ruin was discovered in the attic. He received a reproof, but that had no longer an effect on him.

In order to have his revenge at home, where he was despised on account of his unfortunate experiments, he made some explosions with detonating gas, and contrived a Leyden jar. For this he took the skin of a dead black cat which he had found on the Observatory Hill and brought home in his pocket-handkerchief. One night, when his eldest brother and he came home from a concert, they could find no matches, and did not wish to wake anyone. John hunted up some sulphuric acid and zinc, produced hydrogen, procured a flame by means of the electricity conductor, and lighted the lamp. This established his reputation as a scientific chemist. He also manufactured matches like those made at Jönkoping. Then he laid chemistry aside for a time.

His father's bookshelves contained a small collection of books which were now at his disposal. Here, besides the above-mentioned works on chemistry and physics, he found books on gardening, an illustrated natural history, Meyer's Universum, a German anatomical treatise with plates, an illustrated German history of Napoleon, Wallin's, Franzen's, and Tegner's poems, Don Quixote, Frederika Bremer's romances, etc.

Besides books about Indians and the Thousand and One Nights, John had hitherto no acquaintance with pure literature. He had looked into some romances and found them tedious, especially as they had no illustrations. But after he had floundered about chemistry and natural science, he one day paid a visit to the bookcase. He looked into the poets; here he felt as though he were floating in the air and did not know where he was. He did not understand it. Then he took Frederika Bremer's Pictures from Daily Life. Here he found domesticity and didacticism, and put them back. Then he seized hold of a collection of tales and fairy stories called Der Jungfrauenturm. These dealt with unhappy love, and moved him. But most important of all was the circumstance that he felt himself an adult with these adult characters. He understood what they said, and observed that he was no longer a child. He, too, had been unhappy in love, had suffered and fought, but he was kept back in the prison of childhood. And now he first became aware that his soul was in prison. It had long been fledged, but they had clipped its wings and put it in a cage. Now he sought his father and wished to talk with him as a comrade, but his father was reserved and brooded over his sorrow.