What was he seeking? Happiness? And beyond it? As a boy he had called it the anthem, the universal hymn. What was it now? God? But he would hardly find Him in idleness.
You have drawn such nourishment as you could from joy in your home, from your marriage, your fatherhood, nature, and the fellowmen around you here. There are unused faculties in you that hunger for exercise; that long to be set free to work, to strive, to act.
You should take up the barrage on the Besna, Peer. But could you get the contract? If you once buckle-to in earnest, no one is likely to beat you—you’ll get it, sure enough. But do you really want it?
Are you not working away at a mowing-machine as it is? Better own up that you can’t get on without your old craft, after all—that you must for ever be messing and meddling with steel and fire. You can’t help yourself.
All the things your eyes have been fixed on in these last years have been only golden visions in a mist. The steel has its own will. The steel is beginning to wake in you—singing—singing—bent on pressing onward. You have no choice.
The world-will goes on its way. Go with it or be cast overboard as useless.
And still Peer walked up and down, up and down.
Next morning he set off for the capital. Merle watched the carriage as it drove away, and thought to herself: “He was right. Something new is beginning.”