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“Why, boy... Ormarr, my dear lad, what is this? what has come over you? Surely you do not—you could not think of throwing everything away now—burning your ships? Ten years of hard work—yours and mine.... If there were any risk, I could understand perhaps your being afraid... but as it is... you have only to show yourself—one first appearance, and the thing is done. No, Ormarr, you could not draw back now. It would be madness—nothing else.”

“That may be. But none the less, that is how I feel. I have lost all desire to show myself, to appear in public. I do not care for any ‘conquest.’ I could do it, I know. But that means that in reality I have already conquered. It is satisfaction enough to me; I need not show myself on a platform to utter strangers who have paid so much for the right to hear me play this or that. Every item on the programme as a right—and extras in return for their applause. No—if you cared, I should not mind playing to you every day, for hours together—to you alone. Or to any others that I cared about. Come back with me to Iceland. I will look after you, be a son to you, take care of you, in every way. But spare me this; release me from the burden of that concert and all that should come after it.”