They measured each other’s strength. And Finn was strong in his hopelessness, even as Cordt was strong in the hope which he could not let go, because he had nothing else to fall back upon.
“Do you know that you are a born artist, Finn?”
Finn smiled sadly and shook his head.
“You are,” said Cordt. “There is no doubt about it. When you were travelling abroad ... there was simply nothing in your letters but delight at the pictures you saw. Your journey was one long progress through a royal gallery. At sea, in the street, on the mountains ... everywhere you caught life and hung it on your wall and sat down to look at it.”
“Did I?”
“Had you not been born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you would have been lost beyond redeeming. You would have become a painter ... no ... an author.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“What use is literature to us modern people?” said Cordt. “Where does it lead us? How does it form our lives? If the old poets had lived nowadays, they would certainly have been merchants, or electricians, or arctic navigators.... Just look round you, Finn ... the books we read, the pictures we look at, the plays they perform: isn’t it all like an orchestra that plays for an hour while people walk about the grounds? Tired people, who like to hear a bit of music before they go to bed. The band plays its tune and gets its pay and its applause and we are interested in seeing that the performance is well and properly given.... But ... the poet, Finn.... A solitary horn sounds over the hills. We drop the plough and listen and look up, because the notes seem to us so rare and so powerful and we have never heard them before and know them so well. Then our eyes glisten. And the sorrow that bent our back and the gladness that held us erect and the hope we had ... all of that suddenly acquires color and light. And we go whither the horn calls us ... over the hills ... to new green fields where it is better living.”
Finn raised his head, but then could not find the phrase for what he wanted to say.