Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part one - III
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nineteen years older than I; when I was eleven she married
again, and that made her younger still.
“The curious thing when you leave home is that the
influence of the people with whom you accidentally have lived is
broken. You learn to see with your own eyes and to think
for yourself, and you understand that it rests with yourself to
get something good out of your journey: what you mean to see
and to learn, how you mean to arrange your life and what
influence you choose to submit to. You learn to understand
that what you will get out of life as a whole depends on
yourself. Circumstances count for something, of course, as you
said, but you learn how to avoid obstacles or surmount them in
the way that comes easiest to your individuality, and most of
the disagreeable things that happen to you are of your own
doing. You are never alone in your home, don’t you think?
The greatest advantage of travelling seems to me that you are
alone, without any one to help or advise you. You cannot
appreciate all you owe to your home, or be grateful for it, until
you are away from it, and you know that you will never be
dependent on it any more, since you are your own master. You
cannot really love it till then — for how could you love
anything that you are dependent on?”
“I don’t know. Are we not always dependent on what we
love? — you and your work, for instance. And when once you
get really fond of people,” he said quietly, “you make
yourself dependent on them for good and all.”
“Ye—s” — she reflected a moment, then said suddenly,
“but it is your own choice. You are not a slave; you serve
willingly something or somebody that you prize higher than
yourself. Are you not glad you can begin the new year alone,
entirely free, and only do the work you like?”
Helge remembered the previous evening in the piazza San
Pietro; he looked at the city, the soft veiled colourings of it in
the sun, and he looked at the fair young girl beside him.
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