exhausted. Although I caught a glimpse of a new section (usually so
strong an incentive to increased effort), I could not help getting
entangled in one of those artful propositions that one reads over and
over again in illusory profundity.

I groped about for a way of escape, but there was none. Incoherent
thoughts began to whirl through my brain. 'Where is the monkey?--a spot
of coffee--one cannot be genial on both sides--everything in life has a
right and a wrong side--for example, the university clock--but if I
cannot swim, let me come out--I am going to the circus--I know very well
that you are standing there grinning at me, Cucumis--but I can leap
through the hoop, I can--and if that professor who is standing smoking
at my paraffin lamp had only conscientiously referred to _corpus juris_,
I should not now be lying here--in my night-shirt in the middle of Karl
Johan's Gade [Footnote: A principal street of Christiania.]--but--' Then
I sank into that deep, dreamless slumber which only falls to the lot of
an evil conscience when one is very young.

I was in the saddle early next morning.

I don't know if the devil ever had shoes on, but I must suppose he had,
for his inspectors were in their boots, and they creaked past me, where
I sat in my misery with my face to the wall.

A professor walked round the rooms and looked at the victims.
Occasionally he nodded and smiled encouragingly, as his eye fell on one
of those miserable lick-spittles who frequent the lectures; but when he
discovered me, the smile vanished, and his ice-cold stare seemed to
write upon the wall over my head: 'Mene, mene! [Footnote: Dan. v. 25.]
Wretch, I know thee not!'