Then we drove along the road to my home, and in thirsty eagerness my
mind drank in all the old, familiar and beautiful luxuriance: the white
road with the perfume of the poplars; the hedges with the wild roses;
the white-washed, thatched farmsteads; the bright, summer gleam of the
blue fjord.
It was all just the same as when I left home nearly two years ago--so
it seemed to me, at any rate. I could not see any change.
My father had sat silent awhile and had now and then stolen a glance
at me, and I understood why. He had to feel at home with my face first
before he could feel quite at home with myself. He was never at any
time one to speak much, by the way.
We drove past one of the big farms. The house stood close up to the
road, and looked so peaceful, so bathed in sunshine; and the blossoms
from the fruit trees sprinkled their pure white snow over the bright
lawns.
"The farmer in there fell last September," said my father; "and his two
sons are also gone. There are no more men left now in that family....
"The husband is gone over there, and yonder the son. Both sons from
that place are gone. And over there they have lost a son-in-law--you
know, the one who had just got married. At the farm yonder the husband
came home a cripple last Christmas; and the son in that one is blind."
His hushed and mournful words spoke of nothing but death and grief.
There was scarcely a farm or a house the door of which was not marked
with the cross of death, or in which mourning or disablement had not a
home....