To Siberia Read Online Free PDF

coachman sat on the driver’s seat staring at the wall and not even looking at Lucifer who was still more restless now with the two new horses beside him.
    “I’m going home!” I called.
    “All right, then,” said Jesper to the windowpane, “I can see quite well alone.” I could barely hear him, his black back had diminished until it was just a streak against the golden light, did he really want to be alone? I could not believe it, he was older than me, he was going to die first, and if he didn’t know that, I had known it for ages, and was it really wintertime? I remember it all as winter, the early dark and the empty streets and the cold that crept in under my coat and up my back, and I turned and walked across the square thinking of my mother who was sure to be standing in the doorway by now waiting. Then I stopped, turned around again and ran up to Jesper. I pressed my nose to the glass and felt him against my shoulder.
    “I knew you’d come back,” he said, laughing softly, and I do not know if I thought it then or several years later, I definitely can’t have been more than twelve and Jesper was fourteen, but the cold down my back was unbearable, and I knew I would not always have to stand outside in the dark looking in at the light. I was shivering all over and I felt a sudden urge to smash the window in front of me or get away as fast as possible. But I stayed there with my shoulder against Jesper.
    One of the windows was ajar and heat came flooding out with the light and we saw the baron leaning against the barroom counter. He cleared a place for himself with one hand so the glasses toppled and rolled over the edge and broke on the floor.
    “To hell with it, I’m paying!” he yelled, turning round with a brimming glass in his hand and being The Baron.
    “This town is full of peasant farmers. Skål, peasants!”
    There were no farmers there apart from Grandfather. I knew who they all were. Most of them worked at the shipyard, some were fishermen and a few were artisans like my father. He knew them and met them sometimes, and every summer they went on an excursion to the west coast with the retired workers, but he never went to the Aftenstjernen at night.
    The baron was annoyed and raised his glass again.
    “Drink up then, for Christ’s sake, peasants! Do I have to pay for you?”
    Grandfather sat at a table near the door. I could only see his hand holding a glass, but I knew it well and we heard the scraping of chairs and table when he got to his feet and said:
    “I pay my own way and I don’t drink with any toy baron,” and took two steps forward so that his whole body came in sight. He wore his flat-brimmed hat, he was tall and thin without his coat and not quite steady as he walked between the tables towards the counter where the baron was standing.
    “I’m going in,” said Jesper.
    “They’re going to fight.”
    “Exactly.”
    “But you’re not allowed to, you’re not old enough.”
    “I’m fourteen, that’s more than enough,” he said and I looked in again and saw Grandfather and Baron Biegler standing close together each with a glass in his hand. They both had beards that almost touched and Grandfather’s hat cast a shadow over the baron’s face and his own so you could not see where one ended and the other began. The baron hit out with his arm to protect himself and the spirits in his glass splashed down Grandfather’s dark suit and then Grandfather took hold of the sheepskin and started to shake and tug.
    “Now they’re off,” I said.
    “I’m going in then,” said Jesper. And he went, straight past the coachman who still sat there as stiffly as before, in through the double doors and only when I could see him inside from my place at the window did I hurry after him.
    The heat hit me. It came from the four-storied stove in the corner and from all the bodies sitting and standing around the tables, and the way across to the counter was clear like the walkway through a