Married | Page 8

onward, onward, on the path of light!"
Things were always called by the wrong name. And if it so happened
that a light-bearer arose from the lower classes, everybody was ready
and prepared to extinguish his torch. Oh! youthful, healthy host of
fighters! How healthy they were, all these young men, enervated by
idleness, unsatisfied desires and ambitions, who scorned every man
who had not the means to pay for a University education! What
splendid liars they were, the poets of the upper classes! Were they the
deceivers or the deceived?
What was the usual subject of the young men's conversation? Their
studies? Never! Once in a way, perhaps, they would talk of certificates.
No, their conversation was of things obscene; of appointments with
women; of billiards and drink; of certain diseases which they had heard
discussed by their elder brothers. They lounged about in the afternoon
and "held the reviews," and the best informed of them knew the name
of the officer and could tell the others where his mistress lived.

Once two members of the "Knights' Vigil of Light," had dined in the
company of two women on the terrace of a high-class restaurant in the
Zoological Gardens. For this offence they were expelled from school.
They were punished for their naïveté, not because their conduct was
considered vicious, for a year after they passed their examinations and
went to the University, gaining in this way a whole year; and when they
had completed their studies at Upsala, they were attached to the
Embassy in one of the capitals of Europe, to represent the United
Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.
In these surroundings Theodore spent the best part of his youth. He had
seen through the fraud, but was compelled to acquiesce! Again and
again he asked himself the question: What can I do? There was no
answer. And so he became an accessory and learned to hold his tongue.
His confirmation appeared to him to be very much on a level with his
school experience. A young minister, an ardent pietist, was to teach
him in four months Luther's Catechism, regardless of the fact that he
was well versed in theology, exegesis and dogmatics, besides having
read the New Testament in Greek. Nevertheless the strict pietism,
which demanded absolute truth in thought and action, could not fail to
make a great impression on him.
When the catechumens were assembled for the first time, Theodore
found himself quite unexpectedly surrounded by a totally different
class of boys to whom he had been used at school. When he entered the
assembly-room he was met by the stare of something like a hundred
inimical eyes. There were tobacco binders, chimney sweeps,
apprentices of all trades. They were on bad terms and freely abused one
another, but this enmity between the different trades was only
superficial; however much they quarrelled, they yet held together. He
seemed to breathe a strangely stifling atmosphere; the hatred with
which they greeted him was not unmixed with contempt, the reverse of
a certain respect or envy. He looked in vain for a friend, for a
companion, like-minded, dressed as he was. There was not a single one.
The parish was poor, the rich people sent their children to the German
church which was then the fashion. It was in the company of the

children of the people, the lower classes, that he was to approach the
altar, as their equal. He asked himself what it was that separated him
from these boys? Were they not, bodily, endowed with the same gifts
as he? No doubt, for every one of them earned his living, and some of
them helped to keep their parents. Were they less gifted, mentally? He
did not think so, for their remarks gave evidence of keen powers of
observation; he would have laughed at many of their witty remarks if
he had not been conscious of his superior caste. There was no definite
line of demarcation between him and the fools who were his
school-fellows. But there was a line here Was it the shabby clothes, the
plain faces, the coarse hands, which formed the barrier? Partly, he
thought. Their plainness, especially, repulsed him. But were they worse
than others because they were plain?
He was carrying a foil, as he had a fencing lesson later on. He put it in a
corner of the room, hoping that it would escape attention. But it had
been seen already. Nobody knew what kind of a thing it really was, but
everybody recognised it as a weapon of some sort. Some of the boldest
busied themselves about the corner, so as to have a look at it. They
fingered the covering of the handle, scratched the guard with their nails,
bent the blade, handled the small