Book Two — The New Way

Spring. Ingmar and Strong Ingmar return from the forest after a winter of cutting timber and making charcoal. Ingmar comes back like a bear out of hibernation — delighted by a proper bed, Karin's cooking, the warmth of the lowland village. She has ordered new clothes for him. The homecoming is tender.

Then Karin tells him they are no longer on earth but in the New Jerusalem come down from Heaven. She wants him to join the movement. Ingmar says he will think it over. He has always liked Hellgum personally — they talked at the mill the previous summer, and Ingmar found him the finest fellow he had ever met. But his father had never approved anything like this. The fathers are silent on the question of a preacher from America calling Swedish farmers to Jerusalem.

Ingmar remains suspended. He attends meetings, listens to Hellgum, feels the pull of something he cannot name — and cannot act on it without a sanction that the family method cannot provide. His inability to move is not cowardice; it is faithfulness to a mode of reasoning that has run out of road. Book Two ends with this suspension in place, and Book Three will show what it costs.