Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part one - VI
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“Oh yes. I remember now, he has a photo of you. He
would not say who it was.”
Heggen’s attention was drawn to their conversation.
“Yes,” said Francesca inaudibly; “I think I gave him a
photo once.”
“All the same, he is too much of a bully for me,” said
Hjerrild, “unpardonably rude, but perhaps that is why he is
irresistible to women. Rather too plebeian for my taste.”
“That was exactly what ...” — she searched for the right
words — “what I admired in him was that he had made his
way from the bottom of the ladder to where he now stands —
such a struggle must necessarily make one brutal, it seems to
me. Don’t you think that a great deal — almost anything —
can be excused from that point of view?”
“Nonsense, Cesca,” said Heggen suddenly. “Hans Hermann
was discovered when he was thirteen, and has been helped
along ever since.”
“Yes, but to have to accept help always, to have to thank
other people for everything and always be afraid of being
ignored, neglected, reminded of being — as Hjerrild just said
— of plebeian origin.”
“I might say the same about myself — the last, I mean.”
“No, you cannot, Gunnar. I’m sure you have always been
superior to your surroundings. When you came among people
of higher social standing than the one you were born to, you
were superior even there. You were cleverer; you had
greater knowledge and a finer mind. You could always feel
strong in the consciousness of having done it all yourself.
You were never obliged to thank people that you knew looked
down upon you because of your low birth, who snobbishly
supported a talent which they did not understand, and who were
inferior, though believing they stood above you. You did not
have to thank people you could not feel grateful to. No,
Gunnar, you cannot speak of the feelings of a man of the people,
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