I knew Friele could show his teeth when he liked, and I was reminded of
that by the grinding of the key turning in the lock.

"The gas will burn for ten minutes," remarked the policeman at the door.

"And then does it go out?"

"Then it goes out!"

I sat on the bed and listened to the turning of the key. The bright
cell had a friendly air; I felt comfortably and well sheltered; and
listened with pleasure to the rain outside--I couldn't wish myself
anything better than such a cosy cell. My contentment increased.
Sitting on the bed, hat in hand, and with eyes fastened on the gas jet
over in the wall, I gave myself up to thinking over the minutes of my
first interview with the police. This was the first time, and how
hadn't I fooled them? "Journalist!--Tangen! if you please! and then
_Morgenbladet_!" Didn't I appeal straight to his heart with
_Morgenbladet_? "We won't mention that! Eh? Sat in state in the
Stiftsgaarden till two o'clock; forgot door-key and a pocket-book with
a thousand kroner at home. Show this gentleman up to the reserved
section!"...

All at once out goes the gas with a strange suddenness, without
diminishing or flickering.

I sit in the deepest darkness; I cannot see my hand, nor the white
walls--nothing. There was nothing for it but to go to bed, and I
undressed.

But I was not tired from want of sleep, and it would not come to me. I
lay a while gazing into the darkness, this dense mass of gloom that had
no bottom--my thoughts could not fathom it.

It seemed beyond all measure dense to me, and I felt its presence
oppress me. I closed my eyes, commenced to sing under my breath, and
tossed to and fro, in order to distract myself, but to no purpose. The
darkness had taken possession of my thoughts and left me not a moment
in peace. Supposing I were myself to be absorbed in darkness; made one
with it?

I raise myself up in bed and fling out my arms. My nervous condition
has got the upper hand of me, and nothing availed, no matter how much I
tried to work against it. There I sat, a prey to the most singular
fantasies, listening to myself crooning lullabies, sweating with the
exertion of striving to hush myself to rest. I peered into the gloom,
and I never in all the days of my life felt such darkness. There was no
doubt that I found myself here, in face of a peculiar kind of darkness;
a desperate element to which no one had hitherto paid attention. The
most ludicrous thoughts busied me, and ever