festival of joy and merry moods in the midst of the time of
fasting, which is called life. Therefore shame and dishonor shall
befall you, until you change your ways."

He had changed his ways, and the Spirit of Fasting had protected
him. He had never needed to go farther than to the big town, for he
was never followed. And in its working quarter the Spirit of
Fasting had her dwelling. Petter Nord found work in a machine shop.
He grew strong and energetic. He became serious and thrifty. He had
fine Sunday clothes; he acquired new knowledge, borrowed books and
went to lectures. There was nothing really left of little Petter
Nord but his white hair and his brown eyes.

That night had broken something in him, and the heavy work at the
machine-shop made the break ever bigger, so that the wild Värmland
boy had crept quite out through it. He no longer talked nonsense,
for no one was allowed to speak in the shop, and he soon learned
silent ways. He no longer invented anything new, for since he had
to look after springs and wheels in earnest, he no longer found
them amusing. He never fell in love, for he could not be interested
in the women of the working quarter, after he had learned to know
the beauties of his native town. He had no mice, no squirrels,
nothing to play with. He had no time; he understood that such
things were useless, and he thought with horror of the time when he
used to fight with street boys.

Petter Nord did not believe that life could be anything but gray,
gray, gray. Petter Nord always had a dull time, but he was so used
to it that he did not notice it. Petter Nord was proud of himself
because he had become so virtuous. He dated his good behavior from