Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/282

 dition for hours, I mentally reviewed all that I had experienced in these last days, beginning with the previous evening at the Jagemanns', and proceeding backwards from my discussion with Minna, to the one with Stephensen; farther back I did not get. There was sufficient material; I recalled every word that had been exchanged, the tone of voice, the expression of face, gestures and movements, as precisely and carefully as if I had a special purpose in doing so, or as if, somewhere behind me, a secretary had been sitting to whom I was dictating. When, at last, I went to bed, this train of thought, having once been put in motion, could not be checked. But instead of appearing in order, as before, in its proper place and turn for a perspicuous inspection, the whole mass now thrust its way rebelliously forward, while each separate item wanted to assert itself, and the last would be the first. Had all the soldiers in King Mithridates' army appealed at the same time to his famous memory, and rushed forward pell-mell in order to catch hold of him and shout, "Do you remember me also? What's my name? What countryman am I? Where have I distinguished myself? Where did I get this scar?"—then that royal master of mnemonics would have found himself in an overwhelmed condition, similar to the one which kept me awake until daylight began to steal into the room.

Late in the forenoon I woke up with a painful heaviness in the back of my head. I did not want to go to the Polytechnic; these last weeks' study would not be of much importance, and, besides, I could hardly remember a single word of the previous day's lecture. I went out in the hope of curing my headache, and strolled about near the Zwinger and in the Theatre Square. But I was not accustomed to see the town by mid-day light with Minna,