'Heaven preserve me!' he cried. 'How could I have come here and fallen so soundly asleep? That was an unquiet dream, too, that I had. The whole thing was great nonsense.'
VI
The Best that the Goloshes brought
On the following day, quite early in the morning, as the clerk still lay in bed, there came a tapping at his door: it was his neighbour who lodged on the same floor, a young theologian; and he came in.
'Lend me your goloshes,' said he. 'It is very wet in the garden, but the sun shines gloriously, and I should like to smoke a pipe down there.'
He put on the goloshes, and was soon in the garden, which contained a plum tree and a pear tree. Even a little garden like this is highly prized in Copenhagen.
The student wandered up and down the path; it was only six o'clock, and a post-horn sounded out in the street.
'Oh, travelling! travelling!' he cried out, 'that's the greatest happiness in all the world. That's the highest goal of my wishes. Then this disquietude that I feel would be stilled. But it would have to be far away. I should like to see beautiful Switzerland, to travel through Italy, to———'
Yes, it was a good thing that the goloshes took effect immediately, for he might have gone too far even for himself, and for us others too. He was travelling; he was in the midst of Switzerland, packed tightly with eight others in the interior of a diligence. He had a headache and a weary feeling in his neck, and his feet had gone to sleep, for they were swollen by the heavy boots he had on. He was hovering in a condition between sleeping and waking. In his right-hand pocket he had his letter of credit, in his left-hand pocket his passport, and a few louis d'or were sewn into a little bag he wore on his breast. Whenever he dozed off, he dreamed he had lost one or other of these possessions; and then he would start up in a feverish way, and the first movement his hand made
