in this direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew
fainter and fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of
a dog within the building behind him. He looked up at the house in
which Camilla lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The
white-washed panes received only a little restless life from the
flickering gleam of the lantern of the house next door. On the second
story the windows were open and from one of them a whole heap of
planks protruded beyond the window-frame. Camilla's window was dark,
dark also was everything above, except that in one of the attic
windows there shimmered a white-golden gleam from the moon. Above the
house the clouds were driving in a wild flight. In the houses on both
sides the windows were lighted.

The dark house made Mogens sad. It stood there so forlorn and
disconsolate; the open windows rattled on their hinges; water ran
monotonously droning down the rainpipe; now and then a little water
fell with a hollow dull thud at some spot which he could not see; the
wind swept heavily through the street. The dark, dark house! Tears
came into Mogen's eyes, an oppressive weight lay on his chest, and he
was seized by a strange dark sensation that he had to reproach himself
for something concerning Camilla. Then he had to think of his mother,
and he felt a great desire of laying his head on her lap and weeping
his fill.

For a long while he stood thus with his hand pressed against his
breast until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he
followed it and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle
the front door before it would open, then he ran humming up the
stairs, and when he had entered the room he threw himself down on the
sofa with one of Smollett's novels in his hand, and read and laughed