Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/98

 complaint, eats his dry bread and sleeps soundly on old straw? Is greater wisdom of life to be found? But what folly it is that I, a poor corrupt, monstrous product of culture, should be a teacher of the sound—an example to the undefiled! I assure you, Miss Ragnhild, I never cross the threshold of the most miserable hovel without my heart beating with holy reverence. I feel that I ought to take off my shoes—that I am entering a sacred place where human passions are still preserved in all their pristine beauty and nobility, just as the Almighty instilled them into mankind in the morning of life."

He had entered upon his usual passionate praise of the life of the countryman, about which he and Miss Ragnhild had had many a warm debate in the course of the winter. Miss Ragnhild confessed openly that she hated country life—according to her opinion it was a living burial; nor did she conceal that she looked upon peasants as beings who belonged to a lower level—a sort of now creeping, now usurping, but always evil-smelling semi-human creatures, with whom she desired to come as little as possible in contact.

On this occasion also she combated Emanuel's views most strenuously. She leant back against the seat and looked at him with an unconstrained smile.

"If many of these peasants," she said, "are