"In poetic feeling these stories are quite equal to the best passages in 'The Story of Gosta Berling' --New York Times (Translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach.)
o talk to him of such things on the way home from his first ball.
Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy. There sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with Petter Nord of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked. Now he heard what he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know the seventh commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes. That was what he deserved.
God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and get a new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but now it was quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing conscience and the soul's freedom for their sake! As if they were worth as much as a white mouse, if the heart could not be glad at the same time! He clapped his hands and cried out in joy--that he was free, free, free! There was not even a longing to possess the fifty crowns in his heart. How good it was to be happy!
When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson th
