Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

although it may tremble, it is immutable and eternal, cemented to the earth itself. Yes, at this moment it is almost a religious conviction he wants to impart to his daughter, since he doesn’t have a son, and with every day that passes he becomes more and more sure that he will never have one and that he will have to be content with a daughter and teach her the basic principle that an island can withstand everything, always. • LATER, INGRID WAS TO REFLECT how strange this evening had been, something I’ll never forget, she would say, but this was long after the storm had passed, and only those things which are immutable remain, an island is of weightier stuff than a grain of sand. These thoughts are prompted not by her father but by her mother, who, after they have struggled home again, receives them with loud screaming, complaining that she cannot even enter the cowshed without this idiot of a man endangering the life of her daughter, if he gets any more of these crazy ideas – I’ll get a divorce and be off. This is not the first time words of this kind have been uttered in this plain-speaking household, they have nerves of steel, but it is the first time Ingrid has understood what the words mean: it is possible to leave an island.

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