as greatly astonished, and did not attempt
to conceal my feelings. Martens had not attended a single one of our
meetings before the afternoon on which he was elected. I found the whole
thing quite incomprehensible. However, in our state of society, it is
not difficult to get to know anything if you only give yourself the
trouble to make a few inquiries; and so I soon got a clear knowledge
that the person who had got up the whole thing was the dean. So one day
I called upon him."

"No! I never heard of that!" cried Rachel. "What did the dean say?"

"Nothing. The answer he gave me amounted to nothing. Not that I wish you
to understand that he held his tongue. On the contrary, he talked
incessantly in his best-modulated voice, and was smiling, friendly, in
fact, almost appreciative, but not a single word fell from his lips that
was really to the point. Do what I would, I could not get him to discuss
a single question, or to give me a reason as to why he had got me turned
out of the workman's society, and put his chaplain in my place. He
denied nothing and confessed nothing, and the end of it was--there,
again, my misfortune--I got so annoyed to see him leaning back in his
chair, with his white hair and everlasting smile, that I got into one of
my worst tempers and poured out a regular volley of thunder at him."

"Well, and the dean--did he lose his temper?" asked Rachel.

Worse laughed. "I might just as well have tried to get a spark out of
wood, as to get him to lose his temper. No; the dean was bland as ever,
and when I left he shook my hand, and hoped he might soon have the
pleasure of seeing me again. But afterwards I got well paid out for that
visit."

"How was that?" she asked.

"Well, you see, since then I seem to have been under a ban, which shows
itself in all sorts of little ways--in business, in society, everywhere.
My mother, poor thing, hears it in her shop from her customers, and it
always takes the same annoying form: regret about modern disbelief, and
free-thinking, and so on; and I am certain that most people regard it as
a stroke of wonderful good luck, that I was prevented in good time from
corrupting--yes, no less than corrupting--our noble workpeople. So I
said to myself, 'Since there is such a wide difference between my
opinions and those of the people whom I wish to assist, and since my
nature is what it is, there is nothing else to be done but for me to
keep myself thoroughly occupied with my