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Allan thought it sounded unnecessary for the people in the seventeenth century to kill each other. If they had only been a little patient they would all have died in the end anyway.
—Revenge is not a good thing, Allan warned him. Revenge is like politics: one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.
At that point Allan’s hundred-year-old brain gave birth to an idea. It was a wild idea, and there was an evident risk that he would get shot in the process, unless of course he really was immortal after all. He took a deep breath and with a naive smile on his lips, he walked straight toward the troublemaker.
Allan had always reasoned about religion that if you couldn’t know for sure then there was no point in going around guessing.
But God answered with silence. He did that sometimes, and Father Ferguson always interpreted it to mean that he should think for himself. Admittedly, it didn’t always work out well when the pastor thought for himself, but you couldn’t just give up.
People could do what they wanted, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.
But he soon introduced a rule: Herbert wasn’t allowed to complain about how miserable his life was. Allan had already understood that to be the case, and there was nothing wrong with his memory. To keep on saying the same thing over and over again thus served no purpose.
Anyway, Allan encouraged the marshal to think positively, but added that it was of course entirely up to the marshal himself. If he really wanted to walk along wearing only his underpants and have negative thoughts about life, then he could do so.
Once you’ve reached a certain age, it is easier to sense when everything feels exactly right.
It had been exciting, the entire journey, but nothing lasts forever, except possibly general stupidity.
