Why not? When a man is filled with mortal hatred of a stone,
it is a mere formality to crush it. And suppose the stone resists,
suppose it declines to be crushed? Why, let it try--and see which of
the two survives!
But then it is that Inger speaks up, a little timidly, again; seeing,
no doubt, what is troubling him: "What if we both hang on the stick
there?" And the thing she calls a stick is the lever, nothing else.
"No!" cries Isak furiously. But after a moment's thought he says:
"Well, well, since you're here--though you might as well have gone
home. Let's try."
And they get the stone up on edge. Ay, they manage that. And "Puh!"
says Isak.
But now comes a revelation, a strange thing to see. The underside of
the stone is flat, mightily broad, finely cut, smooth and even as
a floor. The stone is but the half of a stone, the other half is
somewhere close by, no doubt. Isak knows well enough that two halves
of the same stone may lie in different places; the frost, no doubt,
that in course of time had shifted them apart.
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