Belgarath the Sorcerer Read Online Free Page A

townsmen.’
    â€˜Is that so important to them?’
    â€˜Very important, boy. A Tolnedran always wants to keep a good opinion of himself.’
    â€˜I think it’s stupid, myself.’
    â€˜Many of the things people do are stupid. Keep your eyes and ears open the next time we go through one of these villages. If you pay attention, you’ll see what I’m talking about.’
    I probably wouldn’t even have noticed if he hadn’t pointed it out. We passed through several of those villages during the next couple of weeks, and I got to know the Tolnedrans. I didn’t care too much for them, but I got to know them. A Tolnedran spends just about every waking minute trying to determine his exact rank in his community, and the higher he perceives his rank to be, themore offensive he becomes. He treats his servant badly-not out of cruelty, but out of a deep-seated need to establish his superiority. He’ll spend hours in front of a mirror practicing a haughty, superior expression. Maybe that’s what set my teeth on edge. I don’t like having people look down their noses at me, and my status as a vagabond put me at the very bottom of the social ladder, so everybody looked down his nose at me.
    â€˜The next pompous ass who sneers at me is going to get a punch in the mouth,’ I muttered darkly as we left one village as summer was winding down.
    The old man shrugged. ‘Why bother?’
    â€˜I don’t care for people who treat me like dirt.’
    â€˜Do you really care what they think?’
    â€˜Not in the slightest.’
    â€˜Why waste your energy then? You’ve got to learn to laugh these things off, boy. Those self-important villagers are silly, aren’t they?’
    â€˜Of course they are.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t hitting one of them in the face make you just as silly - or even sillier? As long as you know who you are, does it really matter what other people think about you?’
    â€˜Well, no, but -’ I groped for some kind of explanation, but I didn’t find one. I finally laughed a bit sheepishly.
    He patted my shoulder affectionately. ‘I thought you might see it that way - eventually.’
    That may have been one of the more important lessons I’ve learned over the years. Privately laughing at silly people is much more satisfying in the long run than rolling around in the middle of a dusty street with them trying to knock out all of their teeth. If nothing else, it’s easier on your clothes.
    The old man didn’t really seem to have a destination. He had a cart, but he wasn’t carrying anything important in it - just a few half-full sacks of grain for his stumpy horse, a keg of water, a bit of food and several shabby old blankets which he seemed happy to share with me. The better wegrew acquainted, the more I grew to like him. He seemed to see his way straight to the core of things, and he usually found something to laugh about in what he saw. In time, I began to laugh, too, and I realized that he was the closest thing to a friend I’d ever had.
    He passed the time by telling me about the people who lived on that broad plain. I got the impression that he spent a great deal of his time traveling. Despite his humorous way of talking - or maybe because of it - I found his perceptions about the various races to be quite acute. I’ve spent thousands of years with those people, and I’ve never once found those first impressions he gave me to be wrong. He told me that the Alorns were rowdies, the Tolnedrans materialistic, and the Arends not quite bright. The Marags were emotional, flighty, and generous to a fault. The Nyissans were sluggish and devious, and the Angaraks obsessed with religion. He had nothing but pity for the Morindim and the Karands, and, given his earthy nature, a peculiar kind of respect for the mystical Dals. I felt a peculiar wrench and a sense of profound loss when, on another one of those cool,