Tie selvä : Romaani nykyajalta, I

In a modest single‑window room on the outskirts of Laidala, young Hesse grows up surrounded by the clang of hammers and the smell of fresh‑cut timber. His father, a journeyman blacksmith from Rönne, now works in a new railway workshop near the church, while his mother, once a service girl for the stern Colonel Erving, fills the house with stories of the Finnish War. Their modest life is marked by the rhythm of the railway’s early construction and the quiet persistence of a working‑class family.

Evenings gather around a battered table littered with Russian newspaper clippings, where Hesse listens to his parents’ recollections—his mother’s nervous laughter when recalling an encounter with the intimidating “Big Boot,” and his father’s dry humor as he rolls a pipe and lights a cigarette. The tales of military men and battlefield legends blend with the simple chores of daily life, giving the boy a vivid, if slightly unsettling, picture of authority and survival. Yet the household is warm, its humor a shield against the hardships of the time.