[Subsection]

Now you're grown-up, they had begun saying.

Per was told this from time to time during the course of the summer. He did not feel grown-up. He felt nowhere near as grown-up as they all seemed to expect.

It never sounded as if it were a good thing when they said, Now you're grown-up. When Mother and Aunt Anne said it, it was a complaint. It meant that he had acted childishly again. Or they said it as a reason for finding more and heavier work for him to do.

Father did not say it.

But if any of the neighbors dropped in, they would say, "Yes, Per's grown-up now, oh, yes---" And then they would smile in a friendly, well-disposed way, even though they knew they didn't mean a word of it. He felt like grinding his teeth over all these empty habits people had.

What was the next step? The future was vague. He had not decided to stay, yet he went on with the daily round just the same, doing what he was asked, doing it like a sleepwalker, taking no part in it.

Bufast held him in an iron grip. He was to be here to the end of his days; it had been inscribed on tablets of stone. That was how it would be.

He felt so small and impotent that he had a desire to throw himself down on the earth, kicking and screaming.

Yes, now you're grown-up too, Per, they said.

What did he want?

He did not know. Yes, he did. He wanted to be rid of all that weighed on him and of all memories---and then he wanted to go elsewhere. That was how he thought: go elsewhere. Everything was uncertain.

To go elsewhere sounded so easy and splendid that it made him think of light little clouds high up in the sky, or a pleasant   [p. 122]   Saturday afternoon free from work and with the longing stilled.