Barrøy is a land of silence, the adults don’t explain to their children what to do, they show them, and the children copy, and the inhabitants of Finnmark are like the Barrøyers, folk of few words and great wisdom in both hands and feet, whereas Fredrik asks why he has to hit a chisel with a hammer, questions that don’t need answers, these things are just done – like this, almost nothing is done by means of words.

It is rumoured that Fredrik has taken piano lessons, which is yet another sign of his inability to adapt, but Barbro says the piano is fine, she listened to the piano when she was in hospital, and in church they have an organ, with keys, and the fact that this is an instrument that is operated using the hands contributes to Fredrik getting off more lightly than he deserves. But the very next day he storms into the kitchen, soaking wet, and hauls himself up onto his mother’s lap.

“Goodness gracious,” Suzanne says.

“He hit me,” her son bawls.

“Who is he?”

“Him!”

He gesticulates wildly in the direction of the Finnmark boys, who have come in after him and lined up like a row of suspects, it was Helmer who hit him, the young man responsible for his training, but all the brothers were guilty of throwing him in the water, we had absolutely no choice, Arne mumbles.

Suzanne is about to fly at them, but Ingrid intervenes and asks why they did it.

Not even Fredrik wants to say why, and his eye is getting no less swollen with all that crying, it is beginning to turn black. However, Suzanne doesn’t let up and it comes to light after a good deal of persuasion that Fredrik has thrown his tools in the sea because he is lazy and can’t be bothered to work.

Fredrik screams that he dropped them by accident, the hammer and the two bolts, or was it three? And the Finnmark lads maintain their silence, standing like three soldiers before a military tribunal, until Suzanne looks down at her son, who by now has managed to get his sobbing under control and glances nervously up at his mother, waiting for the verdict. She says:

“But you can swim.”

Barbro, bent over the washing-up bowl, chuckles, the others keep a straight face.

“But I can’t dive!”

“Oh yes, you can!”

“It’s cold!”

“What nonsense. If you’ve thrown the tools into the sea, you’ll have to go and find them. Come here.”