Read "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHEN little Nonni came rushing jubilantly up the stairs with the teacher's medicine in a bottle, Asta Sollilja could hardly control her delight, as may well be imagined. She looked at him with glad participation and clapped her hands together quite involuntarily. But only once. For when she looked at him, it was after all not delight that showed in his face, but a savage, staring greed as he tore the bottle from the boy's hand, scanned the label intently, and sprang out of bed with a greater burst of energy than she had ever seen him use before. Then he stuck the bottle under his pillow and asked whether supper wouldn't be ready soon. Asta Sollilja put more wood under the pan.
At length she asked him shyly whether they had sent him the right medicine, for she felt that thereon depended their whole future. If perhaps he had got the wrong medicine, then-it would be the same as no medicine at all. But he replied that they wouldn't bother with books that evening, we'll go early to bed. We will go early to bed so that the teacher's medicine will do him good, said Asta Sollilja.