Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/189

 like a dark, threatening bank of clouds against the last faint streaks of light. There, reckoning, strife, and excommunication awaited him!

He walked on a few steps, but felt so tired and worn out that he was obliged to sit down on a stone by the wayside. The oppression which he had kept under by force all the evening, now, in this solitude, got complete mastery over him, crushing him like a wild beast let loose. It was not that he repented what he had done. He only felt so bitterly alone, so homeless, so forsaken! There was no longer a single place in the world that he could call his own,—not one creature to give him comfort or support. If he even had a home, where he could find rest and peace after the struggle; had he but a good and faithful wife, who would share his victory and his defeat—it would then have been the joy of his life to fight for freedom and happiness. But this was struggling on a bare heath with empty hands. No comfort, never a refuge!

He sat for a time gazing into space, with one name ever on his lips.… Hansine! Then he tore himself away from the thought. Dreams! he whispered, and rose. He stood for a moment looking down at the Fiord, which was now wrapped in light, grey mists. Then he slowly continued his walk.

But he could not banish the thought of Hansine. It was as if all his restlessness, depression, and fears at last resolved themselves into this one