addressed each other as "count" and "sir." Then John remembered how he and the young count had once played as boys in a tobacco store on the Sabbatsberg, and how something had made him prophesy, "In a few years, old fellow, we shall not know each other any more." The young count had protested strongly against this and felt hurt. Why did John remember this just then particularly, since it is quite natural that comrades should become strangers to each other when intercourse has been so long broken off? Because at the sight of the noble, he felt the slave blood seethe in his veins. This kind of feeling has been ascribed to the difference of races. But that is not so, for then the stronger plebeian race would feel superior to the weaker aristocratic. It is simply class-hatred.

The count in question was a pale, tall, slender youth of no striking appearance. He was very poor and looked half-starved. He was intelligent, industrious, and not at all proud. Later on in life John came across him again and found him to be a sociable, pleasant man, leading an inconspicuous life as an official, amid difficulties resembling John's own. Why should he hate him? And then they both laughed at their youthful stupidity. That was possible then, for John seemed to have "got ahead" as the saying is; otherwise he would not have laughed at all. "Stand up that I may sit down," this was the more malicious than luminous way of expressing the aspiration of the lower orders in those days. But it was a misunderstanding. Formerly one strove to elbow one's way up to the other; now one would rather pull the other down to save oneself the trouble of clambering up where nothing is to be found. "Move a little so that we can both sit" would now be the proper formula.

It has been said that those who are "above" are there by a law of necessity and would be there under all circumstances; competition is free and each can ascend if he likes, and if the conditions were changed, the same race would begin again. "Good!" say the lower classes, "let us race again, but come down here and stand where I do. You have got a start with privileges and capital, but now let us be weighed with carriage harness and racing saddle after the modern fashion. You have got ahead by cheating. The race is therefore declared null and void and we will run it again, unless we come to an agreement to do away with all racing, as an antiquated sport of ancient times."

Fritz saw things from another point of view. He did not wish to pull those above down, but to become an aristocrat himself, climb up to them and be like them. He began to lisp and made elegant gestures with his hands, greeted people as though he were a cabinet minister, and threw his head back as though he had a private income. But he respected himself too much to become ridiculous and satirised himself and his ambition. The fact was that the aristocrats whom he wished to resemble had simple, easy, unaffected manners,—some of them indeed quite like the middle class, while Fritz was fashioning himself after an ancient theatrical pattern which no longer existed. He did not therefore become what he expected in life though he had dozed away many a summer in the castles of his friends, and ended in a very modest official post. He was received as a student in their guest-rooms but came no further; as a district judge he was not introduced in the salons which as a student he had entered without introduction.

The effects of the different circles in which John and Fritz moved began now to be apparent, first in mutual coldness, then in hostility. One evening it broke out at the card-table.

Fritz one day towards the end of the term said to John, "You should not go about with such bounders as you do."

"What is the matter with them?"

"Nothing, but it would be better if you went with me to my friends."

"They don't suit me."

"Well, they suit me, but they think you are proud."

"I?"

"Yes; and to show you are not, come with me this evening and drink punch."

John went though unwillingly. They were a solid-looking set of law-students who played cards. They discussed the stakes for which they should play, and John succeeded in reducing them to a minimum, though they made sour faces. Then a game of "knack" was proposed. John said that he never played it.

"On principle?" he was asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"How long ago did you make that resolve," asked Fritz sarcastically.

"Just this minute."

"Just now, here?"

"Yes, just now, here!" answered John.

They exchanged hostile looks and that was the end. They went home silent; went to bed silent; and got up silent. For five weeks they ate their dinner at the same table and never spoke to each other. A gulf had opened between them and their friendship was ended; they had no more intercourse with each other and there was nothing to bring them together again. How had that come about?

These two characters so opposed to each other had held together for five years through habit, through comradeship in the class-room, and common interests; they had felt drawn to each other by common recollections, defeats and victories. It was a compromise between fire and water which must cease sooner or later and might cease at any moment. Now they flew asunder as if by an explosion; the masks fell; they did not become enemies, but simply discovered that they were born enemies, i.e. two oppositely-disposed natures which must go, each its own way. They did not close accounts with a quarrel or useless accusations, but simply made an end without more ado. An unnatural silence prevailed at their midday meal; sometimes in lifting dishes their hands crossed but their looks avoided each other; now and then Fritz's lips moved, as though he wished to say something, but his larynx remained closed. What should he say after all. There was nothing to say but what the silence expressed: "We have nothing more in common."

And yet there was something left after all. Sometimes Fritz came home in the evening, cheerful, and obviously prepared to say, "Come! cheer up old fellow!" But then he stood still in the middle of the room, petrified by John's icy manner, and went out again. Sometimes also it occurred to John, who suffered under the breach of friendship to say to his friend, "How stupid we are!" But then he felt frozen again by Fritz's indifferent manner. They had worn out their friendship by living together. They knew each other by heart, all one another's secrets and weaknesses, and precisely what answer either would give. That was the end. Nothing more remained.

A miserable torpid time followed. Tom away from the common life of school where he had worked like part of a machine in unison with others, and abandoned to himself, he ceased to live in the proper sense of the word. Without books, papers or social intercourse, he remained empty; for the brain produces of itself very little, perhaps nothing; in order to make combinations it must be supplied with material from without. Now nothing came; the channels were stopped, the ways blocked, and his soul pined away. Sometimes he took Fritz's books and looked into them; among them he came across Geijer's History for the first time. Geijer was a great name and known through his "Kolargossen," "Sista Kampen," "Vikingen" and other poems. John now read his history of Gustav Vasa. He was astonished to find no illuminating point of view nor any fresh information. The style, which he had heard praised, was pedestrian. It was like a mere memorial sketch, this history of a long-lived king's reign, and cursory also like a text-book. Printed in small type, and without notes, the history of this important king would not have been longer than a small pamphlet. One day John asked some of his friends what they thought of Geijer.

"He is devilish dull," they answered.

That was the common opinion before jubilee-commemorations and the erection of statues prevented people saying plainly what they thought.

John then looked for a little into