be able to work themselves up into another stratum; but Pelle was angry
when she worked on after the time for leaving off. He would rather they
were a little poor, if only they could afford to be human beings. Ellen
did not understand it, but she saw that his mind was turned in another
direction; he who had hitherto always fallen asleep over books would now
become so absorbed in them that he did not hear the children playing
round him. She had actually to rouse him when there was anything she
wanted; and she began to fear this new power which had come in place of
the old. It seemed like a curse that something should always work upon
him to take him beyond her. And she dared not oppose it; she had bitter
experience from former times.

"What are you looking for in those books?" she asked, sitting down
beside him. Pelle looked up absently. His thoughts were in far-off
regions where she had never been. What was he looking for? He tried to
tell her, but could not explain it. "I'm looking for myself!" he said
suddenly, striking boldly through everything. Ellen gazed at him,
wondering and disappointed.

But she tried again. This time nothing should come between them and
destroy her world. She no longer directly opposed anything; she meant to
_go with him_ and be where he was. "Tell me what you are doing and
let me take part in it," she said.

Pelle had been prepared to some extent to go into this by himself, and
was glad to meet with a desire for development in her too. For the
present the intellectual world resembled more or less a wilderness, and
it was good to have a companion with him in traversing it.

He explained to her the thoughts that occupied him, and discussed them