"If I could only understand what it is you are vexed with me for. It is not only what you rebuked me for---- Yes, Tomas, you cannot bear to hear that word; but I have had to endure more than words. It is not that alone; there is something more under all this. What is it? Why do you never talk, now, Tomas, either to me or Karl? You are unhappy; do you think we have not noticed it? I would so joyfully do anything for you. Even if I am inferior to you----" "I cannot endure to hear that word," he cried. "No, no, but you never will condescend to speak to me, so I am compelled to think--no, I will not say that, but you see yourself what you are; one must not so much as make use of a word before you, and you---- But I will be silent, I see that you are suffering, my son; if only you would remember that I suffer as well. Great heavens! must I ask permission before I remind you that this has been going on for a year? I have not the slightest idea what is the matter--not the slightest, Tomas, beyond what results from my want of ability. If there is anything that I can set right, only tell me--tell me, whatever it is. Can you not trust me?" "Cannot you trust me?" he burst out, and threw himself down on the sofa, with his face in his hands. And then it transpired that he thirsted for sympathy. His was a warm, impulsive nature, which must have trust and affection if he were not to waste his whole life. The independence to which he had accustomed himself, and which had increased during his violent studies, his continual journeys, and by his different plans, had changed into a sense of deprivation--had been succeeded by the most terrible hunger when he was here in the midst of a daily recurring life, full of heartiness and devotion--devotion to one another, while he was always outside it. All his being yearned for what he saw. "Not the cursed littlenesses," as he expressed himself; "no, only to have trust as the groundwork of everything--trust, and nothing but trust." They must just bear with him and take him as he was, _because they believed in him_. Otherwise, he should go to destruction. Fru Rendalen sat there, she had taken his head on her lap; she listened and listened, her heart swelled, and she laid her spectacles aside, for they were no longer any use to her. "He is right," she thought; "oh, how right he is!" One image rose up in her mind after another; above all, the incident with the teachers. She had believed them at once, and to humour them had taken the school away from him, and from that time forward had in a manner controlled it. Till this moment she had lived in the blessed delusion that he was indifferent to this--nay, that it was a relief to him. And thus things began to dawn upon her which she might otherwise never have discovered. She did not understand this delicate, sensitive nature. If his repressed powers did not recover their strength, the fault would be hers.