But _his own work?_ When the long restless rush about the world after appliances and methods was over, after the plans for the school, conceived years ago, and since then endlessly arranged and drafted, were at last set going; especially after the rude resistance from without was overcome, what was it that gradually came over him? Could he not? Would he not? Was it no longer enough for him? Everyone round him rejoiced in the school, his mother's delight in especial was touching. "This is the school that I have dreamed of, my son, my dear Tomas!" He heard it nearly every day, he thanked her and kissed her for it, he needed it; but all the same.... As for teaching, his principal talent, he could interest himself in making a thing absolutely clear, and in having the main points properly remembered, the most difficult ones understood; it could delight him to give a new view of something to the elder pupils, or to direct their attention to a question of the day. Whenever a problem presented itself, he would take it up with patient ingenuity; beyond that there was nothing--no, nothing! He realised his failings thoroughly, self-occupied though he was; they harassed him more and more. There were times when he could not endure the school. Then he felt himself without spirit, without aspiration, without--he could almost have said without affection--if his mother had not been there, and Karl as well; he was deeply attached to Karl. This was no longing for a wife and family, at all events in no special degree; indeed, he felt no particular attraction to anything. Was this the cause of his unhappiness--that he could not attach himself firmly to any conditions? He had been able to do so as a child. A man who has deliberated in this way from one day to another, and at last, one evening, receives his mother's tears and lamentations because the teachers can no longer endure him as principal, does not start up as at something unexpected. Tomas remained at the piano, where he had been seated when she came in; he touched it with one finger now and then during her long and interrupted narration; he saw her despair and concealed his own. He felt as though now he had nothing more to do here. He observed quietly that perhaps she had better resume the direction of the school for a time; he went on strumming as he said this, as though it had no further significance. She answered that she had already promised them to-do so. He grew as white as a sheet. She hastened to add, that of course only he could superintend his own plan; she begged him to speak to the teachers at once; he never would speak to any one, they entirely misunderstood him; he offended them by showing no confidence in them, and he was not always considerate. Did he not like them?