[Subsection]

Now he saw Mother better. She was always where she was needed, when clothes were torn and when any of them wanted food and drink. But she was not close to Per. He did not want to come closer to her. Sometimes Mother looked as if she were about to say something that he was sure would prove embarrassing. On these occasions he either went away or scotched it by talking nonsense. Mother must not read his heart; nobody must do that.

Everything glided forward, interlocked as it was supposed to be, so that nobody paid any attention to it. What was to be used appeared; what had been used was hidden away and only brought out again when it had to be used once more---and then it was mended and clean. It occurred to Per that Mother did all this. The days themselves passed through Mother's hands and were ordered by her before they reached other people.

Then another idea occurred to him, an uncomfortable one: without Mother everything would come to a standstill, grind to a halt, go to pieces. All would be changed into dark night.

But she never came to a standstill. There was no darkness. So there was no need to think about it again for a long time. Mother had always been there.

Was he fond of her? Yes, he was; he knew that. Sometimes he thought about her with great joy and affection. But he did not want to be involved in her thoughts; it would embarrass him. And he did not want to talk about his own thoughts.

Occasionally Mother's voice was impatient, usually in the evenings. Then she was tired, and they listened to the impatient things she said with a guilty conscience, without replying. Mother was tired because of them.

Sometimes it startled Per to see how dreadfully tired Mother was. He got a very guilty conscience and wondered what could be done so that Mother need not work so hard. Then he would do some chore or other in the house without being asked, throwing out water, fetching in wood. Mother would sit half asleep, staring into her lap.

Father would sit the whole evening with the smell of the earth about him, powerful and calm like a statue.

They went to bed, and in the morning Mother was once more the one who set things in motion so that Bufast went on running.

Mother was not disheartened. She was contented. It was only when she was over-tired that she could startle and disturb you. Sometimes she sat with a book in her hands in the evening; then the book would fall to the floor, and Mother start up out of sleep.

Mother's tired, they thought. Sometimes it seemed good, because it was late and the whole farm was looking forward to sleep and night.

In any case Mother was behind everything here. Nothing must ever happen to her, so that she was no longer there.