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into his room to view his library, four-hundred books, let
alone loan him any, and although the boy hopes for a
change every single day, he would never imagine asking,
out of the blue, never in his life, a man has his pride. He sits
there in the parlour, having accomplished something. Done
what’s important, something besides pull fish from the
deep, dig up peat, stack hay in the barn, and now, while the
sky quakes with the storm and ships fight against death, the
boy feels as if he matters. He who’s been called a variety of
names ever since his father drowned ten or twelve years
ago, who forgets everything, remembers nothing, hardly
notices anything, forgets and loses things. You would have
lost it a long time ago, said the old women on the farm
where he grew up after everyone died that was supposed to
have lived, you would have lost it ages ago, that thing
hanging between your thighs, if it wasn’t attached to you.
He’s been called an idiot, an imbecile, a muttonhead, a lout,
a plonker, a milksop, a wastrel, a wimp, a scoundrel, a
poltroon, scum, and loafer, the language is rich with such
words, it’s also easy to scold and humiliate, it takes neither
talent nor intelligence, let alone courage. But it could be
undeniably difficult at times to believe that a physically fit
urchin, later an adolescent and young man, could take so
long with some chores, could hardly remember anything
that his hands were supposed to learn; he might have
learned to tie a knot in the evening, and then came night
and when he woke his hands had completely forgotten how
to tie it. Chances are you’re just a dolt, an old woman said
to him once, not out of malice, but rather, astonishment.