Can't you tell him? No, that wouldn't do.
Mrs. Evje (to GERTRUD). I suppose you have had to confess to him
what is the matter?
Gertrud (trying to conceal an emotion that is almost too much for
her). Yes. (Finds the paper, and goes out.)
Mrs. Evje (when GERTRUD has gone). Poor child!
Evje. Does not what she is carrying to him, with all that it says
about you and about your brother, seem to you like an omen? I will
tell you how it strikes me. Your brother is a very much more gifted
man than I am; and although it is true, as that paper says, that
nothing of all that he has worked for has ever come to anything,
still perhaps he may nevertheless have accomplished more than
either you or me, although we have done a good deal between us to
increase the prosperity of our town. I feel that to be so, although
I cannot express what I mean precisely. But consider the reputation
he will leave behind him. All educated people will say just what
that paper says to-day--and to-morrow he will be forgotten. He will
scarcely find a place in history, for history only concerns itself
with the great leaders of men. What does it all come to, then?
Neither present nor posthumous fame; but death--death all the time.
He is dying by inches now, dying of the most horrible persecution;
and the emotion that his end will cause among a few individuals
cannot be called posthumous fame.
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