“Don’t you think that the poet must be a man ... a man like the others, with courage in his breast and a sword at his thigh? Then he goes forth and sings them to battle and wedding, to dance and death. He is a part of the business, foremost in the crowd.”
“The poets also sat in the ladies’ chambers and sang,” said Finn.
Cordt nodded:
“They did that also,” he said. “But the poets we now have do nothing else. There will always be fiddlers as long as there are idle women and women with two husbands and wars and kings. As long as the stars wander so far through the sky and the children cannot catch the bird that flies in the bush.... But never mind that, Finn. Never mind that. Just look at those who sit in the orchestra to-day.... Would you sit among them? They are sick people singing about their sickness. One is sick with love and one with lewdness and one with drink. One chants his faith on vellum, another sells his doubts in sixpenny editions. The feeble will of the one quavers in silly verses ... the other intoxicates his pale fancy with blood and horrors drawn from the olden times. Do you think that a free man would of his own accord select his place among those artists?”
Finn looked up with his quiet eyes:
“Who is a free man, father?... Are you?”
Cordt put his hands on Finn’s shoulders and bent over him and looked at him:
“You are, Finn.... You are a free man ... if you wish to be.”
“Father....”
Finn put out his hands like a child asking for something. But Cordt looked at him inexorably. And so strong and radiant was his glance, that Finn tried to escape it, but could not; tried to speak, but was silent.