Then he sent in his revised work to a publisher in Stockholm, this time taking good care not to read anything to Dagmar. He had to wait a long time for a reply. Already after the first week he sailed across to the store for his post. Then he went every second day. As it was a long way, he spent most of his time with the tiller in his hand. In the end he did not trouble to sail home, but stayed away in the harbour. And it was as if the store had become his home.
Poor Tord! So little was his proud self-sufficiency worth.
At last one day the storekeeper flung a parcel to him. It contained Tord’s poems. They had been returned. Pale and trembling with fury he staggered down to his boat. He did not sail directly home, but roamed about for several days among the skerries, calling the elements to witness the shocking injustice he had suffered.
But at last he had to return to his home on the cliff, which he saw wherever he sailed. His hatred began to long for her, the woman. He must have somebody to vent his spleen on.
There was something dark, startling and fierce in his face when he stepped into the hall, without a greeting, and flung himself down on one of the benches in the wall. He could not even wait for an excuse for a quarrel. Dagmar only needed to ask him where he had been so long when he poured a torrent of abuse and accusations over her. She was a stupid, dirty, greedy animal who couldn’t help pulling a man down and degrading him. Yes, a short time ago humanity had been a lot of scoundrels who would not recognize his greatness, now he was pulled down and degraded. Suffering knows no logic. He wanted to see her suffer and groan and hate as he himself suffered and groaned and hated. But alas! already long ago during the loneliness of the cold winter’s evenings he had dulled the effect of hard words. Dagmar did not even trouble to get angry:
“Poor boy, so they have been returned,” she muttered.
Then he rushed up and struck her with his clenched fist on her soft breast so that she fell to the floor. And with her cry in his ears he rushed out and sat down in a crack in the hillside. He stared into the gloomy darkness that lay so close to his eyes and blended the sea and sky to a lifeless mass. His hand shuddered after having struck something too soft. But his outburst had not brought him any relief. It was himself he had struck, himself he had hated because he was not capable of doing what he wanted to; because he had not the liberating sense of form; because he was closed off from the great brotherhood of souls. But his was a selfish self-hatred without any spirit of resignation or reconciliation. There was not a trace of self-conquest. And until he has overcome himself a Selamb does not become a poet.