He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, by a kind of heroic
conscientiousness and rationality, slowly conquers him and secures his
attachment. She has solemnly abjured her connection with her husband's
family, assumed her maiden name, and has consecrated her life to what
she regards as the highest utility--the work of education. She wishes to
atone to the race for her guilt in having perpetuated the race of the
Kurts. The scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral
portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the smell of all the burning Kurts
is blown far and wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of
another novelist, have been made the central scene in the book. But
Bjoernson is so tremendously in earnest that he cannot afford to stop and
note picturesque effect. Therefore he relates the burning of the Kurts
quite incidentally, and proceeds at once to talk of more serious things.
By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion into a school, Mrs.
Rendalen believes that she can best settle the account of the Kurts with
humanity.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133