Chapter 3

When, late in the evening, I arrived at the inn in Slagelse, I asked
the hostess if there were anything remarkable in the city.

"Yes," said she, "a new English fire-engine and Pastor Bastholm's
library," and those probably were all the lions in the city. A few
officers of the Lancers composed the fine-gentleman world. Everybody
knew what was done in everybody's house, whether a scholar was elevated
or degraded in his class, and the like. A private theatre, to which, at
general rehearsal, the scholars of the grammar school and the maid-
servants of the town had free entrance, furnished rich material for
conversation. The place was remote from woods, and still farther from
the coast; but the great post-road went through the city, and the post-
horn resounded from the rolling carriage.

I boarded with a respectable widow of the educated class, and had a
little chamber looking out into the garden and field. My place in the
school was in the lowest class, among little boys:--I knew indeed
nothing at all.

I was actually like a wild bird which is confined in a cage; I had the
greatest desire to learn, but for the moment I floundered about, as if
I had been thrown into the sea; the one wave followed another; grammar,
geography, mathematics--I felt myself overpowered by them, and feared
that I should never be able to acquire all these. The rector, who took
a peculiar delight in turning everything to ridicule, did not, of
course, make an exception in my case. To me he stood then as a
divinity; I believed unconditionally every word which he spoke. One
day, when I had replied incorrectly to his question, and he said that I
was stupid, I mentioned it to Collin, and told him my anxiety, lest I
did not deserve all that people had done for me; but he consoled me.
Occasionally, however, on some subjects of instruction, I began to
receive a good certificate, and the teachers were heartily kind to me;
yet, notwithstanding that I advanced, I still lost confidence in myself
more and more. On one of the first examinations, however, I obtained
the praise of the rector. He wrote the same in my character-book; and,
happy in this, I went a few days afterwards to Copenhagen. Guldberg,
who saw the progress I had made, received me kindly, and commended my
zeal; and his brother in Odense furnished me the next summer with the
means of visiting the place of my birth, where I had not been since I
left it to seek adventures. I crossed the Belt, and went on foot to
Odense. When I came near enough to see the lofty old church tower, my
heart was more and more affected; I felt deeply the care of God for me,
and I burst into tears. My mother rejoiced over me. The families of
Iversen and Guldberg received me