this time of day. I wended my way instinctively up town, killed a good
deal of time between the marketplace and the Graendsen, read the
_Aftenpost,_ which was newly posted up on the board outside the
office, took a turn down Carl Johann, wheeled round and went straight on
to Our Saviour's Cemetery, where I found a quiet seat on the slope near
the Mortuary Chapel.

I sat there in complete quietness, dozed in the damp air, mused,
half-slept and shivered.

And time passed. Now, was it certain that the story really was a little
masterpiece of inspired art? God knows if it might not have its faults
here and there. All things well weighed, it was not certain that it would
be accepted; no, simply not even accepted. It was perhaps mediocre enough
in its way, perhaps downright worthless. What security had I that it was
not already at this moment lying in the waste-paper basket?... My
confidence was shaken. I sprang up and stormed out of the graveyard.

Down in Akersgaden I peeped into a shop window, and saw that it was only a
little past noon. There was no use in looking up the editor before four.
The fate of my story filled me with gloomy forebodings; the more I thought
about it the more absurd it seemed to me that I could have written
anything useable with such suddenness, half-asleep, with my brain full of
fever and dreams. Of course I had deceived myself and been happy all
through the long morning for nothing!... Of course!... I rushed with
hurried strides up Ullavold-sveien, past St. Han's Hill, until I came to
the open fields; on through the narrow quaint lanes in Sagene, past waste
plots and small tilled fields, and found myself at last on a country road,
the end of which I could not see.