I

When Martin Birck had got the white cap, his first errand was to go into a cigar booth to buy a cane of cinnamon wood and a package of cigarettes. The young girl who stood in the shop had black eyes and a thick bang. Her exterior corresponded but imperfectly with the ideal of his dreams, which belonged to a more blonde and Gretchen-like sphere; but when she congratulated him pleasantly on his white cap and at the same time regarded him with a look full of kindliness, despite the fact that he had never before been in her shop, he suddenly felt all warm about the heart, caught her dirty hand, which lay outstretched across the counter display of Cameo and Duke of Durham, and tenderly kissed it. However, he repented almost at once. He had no doubt behaved badly. He did not, to be sure, imagine that the young girl was completely innocent⁠—she had no doubt a lover, possibly several; but that was no reason why anyone at all had the right to come in from the street and kiss her hand just like that. He was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say or do, till he finally plucked up courage to select a cane, light a cigarette, and go out.

Queen Street was still wet after the last shower, little ladies with jogging bustles lifted their skirts to jump over puddles, which mirrored the blue above; stylish gentlemen with thin angular legs and canes like Martin’s swung their top-hats in pompous salutation, revealing in the act heads so close-clipped that the scalp shone through. Over the roofs and chimneys of the gray houses the restless white spring clouds hurried in fluttering haste, and far down at the bottom of the street the sunlight quivered between churches and towers.

Martin stopped in front of every store window to see the reflection of his white cap. He could not understand how he had become a student. Up to the last he had believed he would be flunked. His surprise was the more joyous when he received his student certificate the same as the others, and especially when he came to the closing lines, “In consideration whereof the aforesaid M. Birck has been adjudged worthy to receive the certificate: Graduated with honor.” These words caused his heart to swell with deep gratitude toward his corps of teachers, for although he considered himself fairly proficient, it was far beyond his expectations to find this idea shared by his instructors. During the last terms he had seldom known his lessons. Often he had not even been able to bring himself to read them over in the ten-minute intermission before classes or to slip a couple of loose leaves from his textbook into his Bible so as to study them during morning prayers, while the lector in theology stood on the platform and talked bosh⁠—a resource which ordinarily even the most frivolous of his comrades would not fail to use. He would, however, have liked to gratify his parents with good marks, although for his own part he had not any great ambition in that direction; but during the last years there had come over him a dull apathy for everything connected with school, against which he could do nothing. It was so hard for him to take it in full earnest. Whenever, contrary to his custom, he had distinguished himself in this or that subject, he was almost ashamed within himself, as if he had done something stupid. As often as he was supposed to dig down into the paltry details in which textbooks delight, he felt himself as ridiculous as the man who, when his house was on fire, saved the poker.

Now that the poker was saved, however, he was so overjoyed that he could have sung; he felt that he was happy and free, as he hastened home with his white cap, home to the blossoming street of his childhood. But the street was no longer the same as before. From a single plot the cherry tree still stretched its branches out over a mossy board fence; everything else was great red brick buildings and small commonplace meetinghouses. The rowdy Franz could no longer disturb what idyllic atmosphere was still left, for he had grown up and become big, and had now been for some time behind the bars of Langholm jail.