And lo, he gets a fine purchase
now on the lever, and puts his weight into it--the stone moves! "He's
moving," says Inger.
"'Tis but your nonsense," says Isak.
"Nonsense, indeed! But it is!"
Got so far, then--and that was something. The stone was, so to speak,
converted now, was on his side; they were working together. Isak
hoists and heaves with his lever, and the stone moves, but no more. He
keeps at it a while, nothing more. All at once he understands that it
is not merely a question of weight, the dead pull of his body; no, the
fact is that he has no longer his old strength, he has lost the tough
agility that makes all the difference. Weight? An easy matter enough
to hang on with his weight and break an iron-shod pole. No, he was
weakening, that was it. And the patient man is filled with bitterness
at the thought--at least he might have been spared the shame of having
Inger here to see it!
Suddenly he drops the lever and grasps the sledge. A fury takes him,
he is minded to go at it violently now. And see, his cap still hangs
on one ear, robber-fashion, and now he steps mightily, threateningly,
round the stone, trying, as it were, to set himself in the proper
light; ho, he will leave that stone a ruin and a wreck of what it had
been.
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