424 
THE AMERICAN-SC AN DIN AVIAN REVIEW 
On his way home, and for several hours after, Henrik reviewed 
carefully his past life. He had to admit that there had been moments 
when he had—not exactly regretted, but almost regretted his engage¬ 
ment. Not because he had found any fault whatsoever with Rosalie; 
in the light in which he now viewed the situation, he asked himself what 
it was that at times had made him less appreciative of his good fortune, 
in fact so ungrateful that it was now difficult for him to realize his 
former feeling. When he examined his own heart, he remembered that 
even the previous day it had almost seemed to him as if Rosalie had been 
won too easily. They met at a dance shortly after he had finished 
college; later there was a casual meeting, a walk, a happy mood and 
the word was said. He had been accepted, and fortune had bestowed 
upon him a happiness far greater than he had heretofore realized. Yes, 
that was the trouble, he had not appreciated his good luck; in his heart 
there had been an apathy, a lack of force and will, a want of enthusiasm 
which she undoubtedly had noticed, and now she had punished him 
cruelly but justly. In his present mood she appeared to him in all her 
loveliness which for some time he had almost overlooked. He saw her 
before his mind’s eye more clearly than he had ever beheld her with his 
physical eye. And now it was all over! For among the qualities which 
heretofore he had hardly noticed or appreciated in her, one trait now 
seemed to stand out: she was determined and high-minded. It was due 
to her ideality and womanly loftiness, and to her lack of coquetry that 
she had immediately accepted him, and this romance he had dragged 
into mere prose and thereby become extremely unhappy himself. 
For some time he grieved very much and, although his sorrow be¬ 
came less intense as time passed, it remained in his heart and made a 
great change in him. 
To begin with, he gave up the study of theology. This desire had 
been as sudden as his engagement. He had discussed with Rosalie 
country life, parsonages, happiness, and before he knew it this had led 
him to speak the decisive word; later he had had a feeling that the way 
in which he had spoken contained a promise that he would lead her into 
his parsonage. This was the reason why he chose the study of theology. 
But now there was no reason why he should follow this profession. He 
had lost all desire either for parsonages or parsons’ wives, or, in fact, 
for wives of any kind, and he decided to take up the study which he had 
originally preferred, and which in his present mood seemed to offer the 
greatest emancipation from his former plans, namely medicine. 
After five and a half years of hard study, Henrik Falk had fin¬ 
ished and was ready to start out as a young physician. He decided to 
settle down in some provincial town, and this was especially due to the 
fact that in the course of time he had developed a certain romantic sen¬ 
timent. In Copenhagen everything seemed to him so prosaic, while 
life in a small town with visits to the neighboring villages still offered 
