Hedvig was getting on nicely, at school and in her situation, and Sivert’s curious revelations grew less frequent.
Indeed, the boy suffered less now from the attentions of his tormentor at the smithy than at first. There were always the wonderful stories to begin with, and these he took as a kind of compensation for what followed. Olsen had also a book which he would bring out on rare occasions. It was a crumpled rag to look at, from the outside. But within were marvels. Sivert’s eyes glowed when Olsen took it out of the drawer. It was his journeyman’s book, at once a passport and a register.
Page after page, the stamp and signatures of the police—the State Authorities, no less. One stamp for every imaginable town.
Sivert was dumb with emotion. Even Olsen’s voice shook. And in the middle of showing it, he would sometimes snatch up the book with an oath and hide it jealously against his naked breast, only to draw it forth lovingly a moment later. It was as if he could not bear the glorious vision for more than a little glimpse at a time.
It was a treasure of almost inconceivable value, was that book. Better to lose one’s own head than that, for, once lost, the unfortunate owner would be put in prison on the spot. On the other hand, whoever held such a book, duly stamped and signed and in order, might wander the whole world over, and none should dare to touch a hair of his head.
In the front of the book was something more wonderful even than the police stamps. Sivert had been three times granted a sight of it. Nothing less than a painting in words of the owner of the book. The boy grew giddy at the thought that in five years’ time he, too, might attain a like distinction.
“Height—58 inches.
Hair—black.
Eyes—brown (eyebrows meeting in centre).
Nose—ordinary.”
Sivert turned his eyes from the book to the living Olsen before him; it was a marvel that anyone could have hit off the description thus to a hair.