[Subsection]

Father was out of sorts the whole time the snow lay. Everyone knew what the matter was, and everyone waited for the snow to go so that Father could begin working on the cleared land, digging in the earth. After all, his affairs were theirs as well.

And then the snow went. The river began murmuring again. Father began digging. At this time too, the last cow calved. Per heard a question inside himself on the morning of pancake day: Do you love earth, Per?

The earth lay there around him; he looked at it, but it said nothing to him.

He was asked to do more that summer: now this, now that. "You do it for me, Per." "Perhaps you could do it, Per." "You must try, Per."

He was seven years old. In the autumn he would start school. He had learned to read a little, stammering through it. More and more often he was told: "You must try, Per."

To the end of my days, he thought, and ran to do as he was told. Father, over there on the cleared land, had sentenced him.