e truth--I've not the power
of doing things and not regretting it. If I had, I could be lightning
myself. Now I'm a fog."

Suddenly Geissler seems to recollect himself, and asks: "Got up that
hayloft yet, above the cowshed?"

"Ay, that's done. And father's put up a new house."

"New house?"

"'Tis in case any one should come, he says--in case Geissler he should
happen to come along."

Geissler thinks over this, and takes his decision: "Well, then, I'd
better come. Yes, I'll come; you can tell your father that. But I've a
heap of things to look to. Came up here and told the engineer to
let his people in Sweden know I was ready to buy. And we'd see what
happened. All the same to me, no hurry. You ought to have seen that
engineer--here he's been going about and keeping it all up with men
and horses and money and machines and any amount of fuss; thought it
was all right, knew no better. The more bits of stone he can turn
into money, the better; he thinks he's doing something clever and
deserving, bringing money to the place, to the country, and everything
nearing disaster more and more, and he's none the wiser. 'Tis not
money the country wants, there's more than enough of it already; 'tis
men like your father there's not enough of. Ay, turning the means to
an end in itself and being proud of it! They're mad, diseased; they
don't work, they know nothing of the plough, only the dice. Mighty
deserving of them, isn't it, working and wasting themselves to nothing
in their own mad way. Look at them--staking everything, aren't they?
There's but this much wrong with it all; they forget that gambling
isn't courage, 'tis not even foolhardy courage, 'tis a horror. D'you
know what gambling is? 'Tis fear, with the sweat on your brow, that's
what it is. What's wrong with them is, they won't keep pace with life,
but want to go faster--race on, tear on ahead, driving themselves into
life itself like wedges. And then the flanks of them say: here, stop,
there's something breaking, find a remedy; stop, say the flanks! And
then life crushes them, politely but firmly crushes them. And then
they set to complaining about life, raging against life! Each to his
own taste; some may have ground to complain, others not, but there's
none should rage against life. Not be stern and strict and just with
life, but be merciful to it, and take its part; only think of the
gamblers life has to bear with!"

Geissler recollects himself again, and says: "