BUT LIFE LIVES

"The third generation now rules in Jensen's large hardware store at Segelfoss. The founder was Per Jensen, called Per på bua, it continued with his son Theodor, Theodor på bua, who ran it very widely and became a pot and pan and a progressive man in the town. It's not that long ago, people remember him well, he was at the same time as the old lieutenant's son, the one who only cared about music and didn't become anything."

1933

In Men livet lever (1933), August has left Polden and gone to Segelfoss, the setting for the two novels Barn av tiden (1913) and Segelfoss by (1915).

The story is set around the time of World War I, and August has turned 70. He goes by the name "Altmulig" and is, among other things, in the service of the local matador Gordon Tidemand. However, a large lottery win allows him to summon the power of youth, and he invests heavily in sheep farming. Ironically, August dies when his sheep become frightened and, in a panic, pull him over an abyss.

The character of August has been compared to Peer Gynt, but falls far short of Ibsen's nuanced portrait. But Life Lives is one of Gyldendal's biggest sales successes.

"When he looked around he was in a foreign world with a profusion of peaks and ravines everywhere, a gluttony of gray mountains. [...] Since nothing moved here – no, not a bush or a blade of grass – there was no sound here either, only silence in his face. He sits here between his two ears and hears true emptiness."

"Yes," said August, "isn't that how it always goes? I think that two dockers are a perfect pair to be married together."