It was all so joyously familiar. The name with the foreign, snarling sound. The station-master, erect and stiff, like the old non-commissioned officer with a big German beard that he was. The flowers on the window-sills of the station-house. The faces of the station-master's wife and children against the window-panes. The smell of asphalte from the sun-baked platform. And over there--why, that was my father, _my_ dear, dear old father! He seemed to me to have aged a good deal. His broad back, which before had been so straight and so proudly erect, was bent and tired; and his face looked worn as if after a long illness. His glance went down the train from carriage to carriage. I waved my hand to him and called out: "Father!" He turned at the sound and stared at me a moment. At first a startled look seemed to pass over his face. A sudden wonder, as when you see something you have not expected, and then it seemed to me that he tottered backwards a step or two when he understood who it was that had called. He bent his head and pressed his hand to his eyes. I think he was weeping. Then I jumped out of the carriage, and the next instant I was beside him. VIII--"MY FATHER THANKED GOD" He threw his arms round my neck and kissed me fervently on both cheeks as he whispered in a trembling voice: "Oh, thank God we've got you back again! Welcome home, my dear boy--welcome--welcome! Thanks be to God from your mother and me and all of us! O my God, my God!--it has been a hard time!" He shook me as you shake a friend in exuberant joy. And then he took my arm. "Why, I could not recognize you at first," he said with a little smile. "You have changed--somewhat.... But on the whole you are looking quite well." "Yes, am I not?" I said. "Quite well--I think so myself." I smiled. I remembered that that was what they always said at the hospital.... Then we drove along the road to my home, and in thirsty eagerness my mind drank in all the old, familiar and beautiful luxuriance: the white road with the perfume of the poplars; the hedges with the wild roses; the white-washed, thatched farmsteads; the bright, summer gleam of the blue fjord. It was all just the same as when I left home nearly two years ago--so it seemed to me, at any rate. I could not see any change. My father had sat silent awhile and had now and then stolen a glance at me, and I understood why. He had to feel at home with my face first before he could feel quite at home with myself. He was never at any time one to speak much, by the way. We drove past one of the big farms. The house stood close up to the road, and looked so peaceful, so bathed in sunshine; and the blossoms from the fruit trees sprinkled their pure white snow over the bright lawns. "The farmer in there fell last September," said my father; "and his two sons are also gone. There are no more men left now in that family....