In order to fill up the time, he learnt to play the B-cornet in the band of the students' club by the advice of Fritz who played the trombone. But the practices were very irregular and began to cause disputes. John also played backgammon, which Fritz hated, and so he wandered about to acquaintances with his backgammon board and played with them. He found it as dull as reading Swedenborg.
"Why do you not study?" Fritz often asked him.
"I have no books," answered John. That was a good reason. He could not visit the restaurants, for he had no money, and lived very quietly. At the midday meal he drank only water, and when on Sundays he and Fritz drank half a bottle of beer, they remained sitting at table half-fuddled and telling each other, perhaps for the hundredth time, old school adventures. The term crept along intolerably slow, uneventful and torpid. John perceived that, as one of the lower class, he could plod on thus far but no further. The economic question brought his plans to a standstill. Or was it that he was tired of living a one-sided mental life without muscular exercise? Trifling experiences for which he ought to have been prepared contributed to embitter him. One day Fritz entered their room with a young count. He introduced John to him, and the count tried to remember whether they had not been comrades at the Clara School. John seemed to remember something of the kind. The old friends and intimate companions addressed each other as "count" and "sir." Then John remembered how he and the young count had once played as boys in a tobacco store on the Sabbatsberg, and how something had made him prophesy, "In a few years, old fellow, we shall not know each other any more." The young count had protested strongly against this and felt hurt. Why did John remember this just then particularly, since it is quite natural that comrades should become strangers to each other when intercourse has been so long broken off? Because at the sight of the noble, he felt the slave blood seethe in his veins. This kind of feeling has been ascribed to the difference of races. But that is not so, for then the stronger plebeian race would feel superior to the weaker aristocratic. It is simply class-hatred.