+PETER CASTS OUT MAJÄNGEN AND BRINGS HOME EKBACKEN+
Peter the Boss had begun to frequent the observatory again. But it was
not in order to watch the workers at Selambshof as old Enoch had done.
No, the observatory was rather the scene of his economic dreams. With
the help of the old marine glass he now and then peeped into the future.
On the blackened billiard marker he had a few calculations, for the
airiness of which quickly wiped-off chalk was a better medium than paper
and ink. It was a sort of game. But behind the game lurked a serious
purpose. Peter the Boss longed more and more to rise above the humble
rank of an ordinary farm-bailiff. It is true that he had been called
“Director” ever since the estate had been transformed into a limited
company after the death of their father, but the change of the title did
not alter the facts. Peter was tired of his elementary tricks in buying
and selling and they had now become a matter of mechanical routine with
him. They were simply a means of obtaining the commission which his
sisters and brothers were too mean to pay him. Of course he did earn a
certain amount of money. Yes, the amount increased quite nicely, quite
nicely. But all the same he felt the restlessness of one who is
conscientiously capable of greater things. He had half-frightened,
dizzying visions of profits of millions. The future teemed with
possibilities which confused and distracted him during his day’s work.
He had to climb up to a high place in order to survey the situation. And
that place was the observatory.
Peter used to begin his observations from the west window. At first he
pretended to be there for the sake of the fine view. He was coquetting,
as it were, with his shy hopes. Contemptuously his look passed over
treeless and insignificant Ryssvik. But further away he beheld Trefvinge
beyond the fine fishing water and densely wooded forests. Well grown and
no mortgages! Fancy what a lot of money could be got out of that estate.
Peter could not help making calculations. It was, of course, mere fancy,
idle fancies ... though perhaps Stellan might ... he had flirted rather
freely with Elvira Lähnfeldt at Laura’s wedding ... but probably it
meant nothing.
With a little sigh Peter stepped to the south window. Here he at once
approached a little nearer to reality. Here lay Kolsnäs and it looked
quite different, with big bare patches in the forest, and bushes and
felled trees and melancholy seed-pines on the horizon. Yes, yes, cash
would be wanted there when the old lady died and Lieutenant Manne von
Strelert began to sow his wild oats. Lots of timber had been cut down
and the estate was mortgaged, but there was still lots more to take.
Manne was a deuced decent fellow, anyhow, and Peter would not have
minded making him a little loan now and then. He had a distinct
sensation of pressing a bundle of notes into the Lieutenant’s hand and
receiving a nice little I.O.U. in return, which would give him a hold
over a corner of Kolsnäs.
Yes, those were his dreams. Unfortunately Peter had nothing to spare for
Kolsnäs now. Stellan immediately consumed the cash Peter could lay hands
on. He was awful, Stellan. Already more than half of his shares lay as
security in Peter’s drawer.
At last Peter came to the east window. From here he had a fine view
nowadays since he had felled a couple of enormous aspens on the slope
behind the avenue. He did that because of Ekbacken. Now he could see
both the yard and the sawmill and a bit of the town behind. Peter could
not help interesting himself in Ekbacken. Herman had avoided him since
the divorce. It was not so easy either to enter into conversation with
old Lundbom now that his trusteeship had lapsed. So Peter had to be
content with what he could discover with the help of his glasses, though
that was quite a lot. He saw, for instance, that the proud yacht
building Herman had spoken of had completely ceased. There was never
more than one yacht and that was Herman’s own “Laura.” Well, the name
was of course painted out, which really was not to be wondered at. That
tall figure over there was Herman himself. He would stroll out onto the
pier and sit for hours with a glass and a bottle beside him on the green
seat. Sometimes he went out sailing for a couple of days and then the
boat would lie rubbing against the pier with sails up whilst half the
pier was littered with empty bottles handed up out of the boat.
Peter shook his head in joyful concern:
“Poor boy,” he muttered, “breakers after a storm. This will never end
well.”
Neither did it.
Peter soon saw that activity in the shipyard decreased. The repairing
slips began to be empty for long periods, the capstan struggled with its
long arms as if it were begging for help from all the four quarters of
the compass and the crane hung helpless over the water as if in
expectation of an inevitable fall. And the few workmen visible were
mostly loitering or sitting smoking on the sly between the weathering
stacks of boards round the sawmill.
Peter was quite touched at this decay. He felt an agreeable compassion
for the excellent Herman. It was not his fault that all this misery
might turn out to his advantage and to that of Selambshof. For if the
resistance of Ekbacken was broken then Herman could no longer foolishly
oppose the advance of the town. And in that fact Peter secretly already
saw his great opportunity.
Peter had felt a profound emotion when for the first time he fully
realised that the town over there was smoking and sweating in order to
increase the value of Selambshof. From that moment he began to think
that the smell from the glue works on the other side of the lake was
rather pleasant. The glue works was the first outpost of the town and
with one blow it had broken the spell of the silent little Mälare bay.
What would it not bring in its train? Damage to property, stolen boats,
poaching, brawls, servants in trouble. And worst of all the horrid
smell. A southerly wind was a real trial to Selambshof nowadays. Stellan
called it the sirocco. But Peter thought in his heart that the smell was
rather pleasant. It smelt of money, money. But as he walked and sniffed
it, he grew impatient with the sirocco all the same, but not in the same
way as ordinary people did. On the other shore, things moved along
deuced quickly he thought. But on this side Ekbacken can’t resist for
many years. And the town may expand in other directions.
It was a close day in July. There had been a bad drought this summer and
the fields at Selambshof were half scorched, and promised a failure of
the crops. Between the drooping and dusty elms of the avenue there was a
smell of carrion and old cheese. The whole estate was enveloped in a
vapour of putrefaction. The glue works over on the other side of the
lake vibrated in the heat haze and seemed to dissolve in mere smells.
Peter suffered from the economic sirocco worse than ever. He could not
even remain in the observatory, but had to go out for a walk in spite of
the heat. How were things going at Ekbacken? Eagerly but carefully he
spied round the corner, afraid of being seen, and cursing beneath his
breath the high wooden fence that Herman had built towards the road.
Then he moved on further in order to see how the town was behaving.
Well, at last the new quay was ready. But how was building progressing
on this side? Peter ferretted amongst the dumps of macadam and the blast
holes. He searched for newly staked-out building sites and for new
foundations. No, there was not enough progress to record. Why did they
not hurry on the work more? It irritated him to see the workmen lying
with their coats under their heads sleeping amongst the stones after
their lunch.
Peter returned home by another way. He took a dull, ill-kept road, far
back from the lake, which led on past the old quarry between the bare
hills. Unsightly, ragged, untidy, the hill rose up, useless for all but
the crows. The black smoke from a goods train puffing up the incline on
the other side drifted slowly in between the dwarfed and miserable
pines. Peter stopped a moment in the damp cold that rose even in the hot
sun out of the fens of Träskängen. He struck his stick on the dried-up
lumps of clay on the road and stared in front of him. He had suddenly
got an idea. The railway! he thought. The railway! This corner is
furthest from town, but I have got the railway. I attack Ekbacken from
behind. I am finding gold on the rubbish heap!
He staggered home as in a delirium.
A few days later the shareholders of Selambshof were summoned to a
meeting. Peter told them in a few words that he had found a buyer for
the quarry and Träskängen. “That rubbish is not worth keeping and we
need money to cover the bad season,” he said. Nobody had any serious
objection and the sale was made. The buyer was Peter Selamb, through an
agent of the name of Thomson. Mr. Thomson got very favourable terms of
payment. Then there appeared an immense white board up in the Quarry
overlooking the railway and bearing the words:
“SOLBERGET and MAJÄNGEN
Building Sites for Sale!
Majängen Building Co., 3, Nygatan, Stockholm.”
Peter the Boss had thought it suitable to make this little change in the
old place-names.
At the same time a magnificent system of wide intersecting streets was
marked out with neat white painted posts and iron stakes.
Strange to say the sites found a ready sale, for it was during the
golden time of uncritical speculation in suburban land. And evidently
there were some poor overcrowded, shut up souls for whom even the Quarry
and Träskängen was a taste of liberty and of nature.
The whole autumn, winter and spring, the money dribbled in regularly.
“Majängen” was a splendid coup. But Peter did not sit down on his gold
hoard and purr. On the contrary he grew more and more restless as his
banking account grew. He kept all his money in ready cash. With this ace
of trumps in his hands he watched eagerly for the best moment to play it
and gather in a fat trick. His glass almost burnt in his hand when he
directed it towards Ekbacken. During many soliloquies he roamed
restlessly about outside the cursed high wooden fence. Yes, yes, it
reeked of an exquisite decay from afar. But why did not that stupid
Herman come to Peter the Boss? If he had only known how willingly Peter
would have helped him! It was not right of him to forget an old friend.
Just fancy if Herman had been foolish enough to throw himself into the
arms of one of the banks in the town, which would just hold his head
above water for a time in order to let him sink afterwards and then
march off with everything!
This thought worried Peter the Boss cruelly. One day when he had seen
Herman sail out with the usual case of bottles he went straight through
the high wooden gate and in to old Lundbom in the office.
Lundbom sat there aged and grey-haired, with a worried expression.
Peter stretched out a big and honest hand:
“Tell me all,” he said. “You can rely upon an old country neighbour. I
am Herman’s friend, though he does not care about me. I want to help as
much as I can.”
Lundbom had always had a sort of tender regard for Peter. He had taught
him to play “vira.” He had been his legal adviser. With a sort of
impartial pleasure he had seen his knowledge boldly applied by his
clever pupil. In his theoretical eagerness he had been rather proud,
though he was himself the soul of honour, of his being able to show
Peter certain loopholes and snags. Old Lundbom symbolised, as it were,
the fate of the law in this world: to be made use of by rogues.
Peter stood there with outstretched hand, and Lundbom really could not
help seizing it, though Herman had forbidden all communication with
Selambshof.
“What’s the position?” grunted Peter. “If I can do anything I must know
the position.”
Lundbom shook the ledger:
“There were losses last year already. This year will be still worse.”
“The figures?”
“Thirty thousand last year. At least fifty thousand this year, if things
go on like this. Now we are selling out our timber below cost. We are
hard up for ready money.”
“Have you any specially difficult payment to make?”
“Yes, on Saturday week, a bill for twenty thousand. Fancy, we who never
used to touch bills before.”
“Who has got your bill?”
Lundbom mentioned a small notorious usurious banker. Peter whistled.
That bank proved that Herman had not known how to look after his
business in town properly. He rose and pressed Lundbom’s hand:
“Good-bye! Not a word to Herman about this. He must be managed
carefully, poor boy, Good-bye!”
A week later Herman came back from his sailing trip. He was once more
sitting on the pier. The twilight was strangely yellow. In the south a
big grey-black cloud floated, so heavy and solid-looking that it seemed
a miracle that it did not fall. A warm but strong south-easterly wind
had sprung up after the day’s calm. The leafy mosses of the willows on
the shore turned in the wind and yellow crested waves beat with
foreboding insistence against the slimy green piles on their sloping
stone ballast. Then the foresail halyard of the cutter began to flap
persistently against the mast, a sound which in a badly chosen harbour
at night threatens to cast you adrift and to shift your anchor in the
dark.
Herman was sitting with outstretched legs. His chin had sunk into the
sweater and he stared motionless out over the water. Over his whole
being there descended a chill shadow of loneliness which gave a touch of
melancholy and appeal even to his warm yachting shoes.
He stretched out for his whiskey glass but checked his groping hand and
muttered something to himself about a renewal, a commission, and nine
per cent. He came no further. There he stopped. He refused, from a kind
of spite, to think any more than was necessary to keep things just
afloat for the moment. It was also from some foolish spite that he had
sought the assistance of an ill-famed bank. “That fits in with me best,”
he thought, “for everybody thinks I am an impossible person.”
Ugh! business ... banks ... the whole town!
He felt such a strong desire to take flight in his boat again that it
hurt him. Alone! out into the storm and darkness!
At this moment a massive figure came walking out along the pier. There
was something disarming even in his way of dodging between the holes in
the rotten floor-boards of the pier. His little, round, wrinkled head
hung on one side between his enormous shoulders—as if it were drooping
from sheer compassion. He somehow looked like an enormous child. He
stopped and looked at Herman, with two small watery eyes that threatened
to overflow.
Herman jumped up when he caught sight of the newcomer, he drew himself
to his full height, erect and rigid as a post:
“What do you want here?”
Peter stretched out his arms, which resembled thighs on which hands had
happened to grow.
“Look here, old boy ... why should we go on like this, ... two old
friends like ourselves.... You know I couldn’t help things....”
Herman suppressed his angry impulse and with a shrug of his shoulders
sank back on the seat, staring once again out over the water where an
old black-tarred fire-wood smack was just taking in her topsail and
slowly turning into the wind with dark sails booming.
Peter seized the opportunity of sitting down on the seat without further
ceremony:
“You mustn’t think I am on Laura’s side,” he assured Herman. “She is a
handful, she is, without a heart in her breast!”
“I have never asked to hear your opinion about my divorced wife,” said
Herman in a voice that was meant to be frigid.
But all the same there was a corner in his soul where Peter’s words did
good. He could not hide his wound. Peter noticed it at once. So much
sensitiveness he had left from the time of the Great Fear. Yes, yes,
that is the after-swell, he thought, and moved closer up to Herman,
ready to give him another dose. Then it suddenly started to rain. Big,
whipping drops. Herman rose silently, taking his glass and bottle with
him. Without looking at Peter he walked quickly up to the house. “I
don’t mind your being short with me if it soothes you,” thought Peter,
and followed him faithfully up the steps and into the smoking room.
Herman put the bottle on the table, threw himself on the sofa and stared
at his toes.
Peter took the matches and lit the lamp. Then he went into the kitchen
and returned with a couple of bottles of soda water and a clean glass.
After that he filled Herman’s glass and prepared one for himself.
“Your health,” he said.
Herman drank deeply without replying. Then followed a moment’s silence.
The rain drummed against the upper windows, and rushed down the
rainpipes. A cool damp penetrated into the close room.
Peter took a cigar out of a box and lit it:
“I’ll be damned if I don’t stay the night, old boy! It feels jolly to be
back at old Ekbacken again!”
Herman was still mute and seemed absorbed in the opposite wall. But when
Peter drank he drank also. And that happened often. Peter thought the
whiskey tasted good. Yes it really was very jolly to be sitting here at
Ekbacken and see old father Hermansson’s treasures gleam behind the
glass of the cupboard in the corner. He was already drinking Herman’s
health, the delightful sensation of being host himself and of Herman
being less secure in the place than himself. Not that he was thinking of
business tonight. He could save that up for tomorrow. No, now he gave
himself up to his feelings and the whiskey. And it was no small amount
of feeling that he showed.
In the intervals between draining their glasses, Peter suddenly began to
abuse Laura again. Was this mere calculation on his part? Did he sit
there in cold blood and sacrifice the sister for his own profit? Was he,
with his diabolical cunning, playing upon poor Herman’s love and hate?
No, Peter really began to realise Herman’s loneliness. Was he not
himself a poor bachelor too? He felt real pity for Herman. Why shouldn’t
he curse Laura if it did any good to this poor devil—and to himself,
also, by the way? He sat there working up his fury at the recollection
of his sister’s old sarcasms. Like a mad bull he tore fiercely and
passionately at the red tissue of lies, caprice, ingratitude, and cursed
coquetry called woman. Yes it was a relief to him to take his revenge on
the whole of the abominable sex that turned up its nose at Peter the
Boss, but ran after such scamps as Brundin.
With a stiff expression of disapproval, Herman sat and listened to
Peter’s disclosures concerning Laura. But he listened all the same—he
couldn’t help it—till at last he banged his fist on the table so that
the glasses jumped:
“Be quiet,” he shrieked, “she is the mother of my child!”
Peter sat for a moment puzzled, he gasped and blinked his eyes. Laura
was evidently played out. He must change his front:
“Herman, you are a gentleman,” he muttered at last, admiringly, “I’ll be
damned if you are not a gentleman.”
What was Peter the Boss to do now with all the vague emotions that rose
in his massive body? Some use must be made of this beautiful
intoxication. Yes, move at once to the other extreme. He overflowed with
sympathy and brotherhood and memories from boyhood. “Do you remember
when it rained and we were playing in the loft at home?” “Do you
remember when we climbed into the rigging down in the shipyard?” “Yes,
that was in the good old days, old boy!” “We have had a damned fine time
together all the same!”
Here Peter’s eyes filled with tears and he slapped the old fellow on the
back and swore that a helping hand from Peter the Boss would not be
lacking. Herman made no opposition. He suddenly looked terribly tired.
He had been so utterly, miserably lonely. Though he still felt
suspicious he had no longer strength to resist. Peter overpowered him by
his sheer weight.
Peter forgot to remove his hand from Herman’s shoulder. He felt a great,
vague exaltation. At that moment he really loved his dear old Herman. He
felt an irresistible desire to do something for him. The observatory,
Majängen and his errand to Ekbacken: all were forgotten in this moment:
“Look here, Herman,” he muttered in a thick voice, “I saw little Georg
the other day. In his fourth year. Sailor blouse and a whistle on a
white cord. Your image. Wouldn’t you like to have a look at him? Laura
is going away, so it is easy to arrange. He can stay for a few days with
the nurse at Selambshof. That’s not a bad idea, eh? Now do say yes!”
Herman had not wanted to see his child. In his injured pride he had
refused for three years to allow himself that crumb of comfort. Yes, he
had almost imagined that he hated the baby. Now he sank down with his
hands in front of his face:
“Tomorrow,” he muttered. “Tomorrow, before I change my mind.”
“All right, tomorrow, old boy. With milk teeth and whistle and spade and
pail and all the rest of it. Come up to Selambshof and have an afternoon
whiskey and soda and then you’ll see him.”
Peter rose. He stood there like a lump of dough, massive and swaying to
and fro, and would not let Herman’s hand go:
“Tomorrow, old boy, tomorrow. Welcome!”
Then Peter the Boss walked home to Selambshof.
But Herman swept bottle and glass on to the floor and then sat
motionless as a statue and stared into the night and thought of his son.
* * * * *
There are men who are fat for slaughter and there are those who are
fattened by the slaughter of others. Peter the Boss certainly belonged
to the latter category. But heavy and sluggish blood may still leave you
a victim of softer feelings. And Peter had, as we have seen, his
weaknesses. But the strange thing is that somehow when it came to the
point they always served his purpose. He could yield to any excess of
feelings because the real Peter the Boss remained safely behind on
guard. Whilst others awoke with remorse and a splitting head, he
realised through the lifting mists that he was on the point of doing a
fine stroke of business.
Big and good-tempered, he now stood in his soiled flannels and
wide-brimmed sombrero by the corner of his house and looked at the
touching group on the terrace. He was confoundedly fond both of the fair
little thing between the sand moulds and of that tall unhappy Herman who
had—God help him—dressed up in morning coat to meet his son. Perhaps it
was because they were both equally helpless.
Herman sat there rigid and pale, torn by conflicting emotions. He did
not try to explain who he was. He did not even dare to take the boy on
his lap, he only looked silently at the vivacious open face and the
chubby little eager hands. A living memory of the past! There they had
mixed their blood, he and the woman from whom he would never escape as
long as he lived.
There was a sighing of the wind in the old maple above the rusty
signalling guns. Here Laura had sat, and there up the avenue he had
come—always with that strange anxiety in his inmost heart, Herman leant
back on the bench. A feeling of resignation stole over him. Here at
Selambshof he had met his fate—and here he would still find it. Here
were beings against whom it was no use fighting.
Peter coughed before he came up to them, a wonderful act of delicacy on
his part.
Then the nurse came to put little Georg to bed. Herman started up as if
in alarm. He lifted the boy up in his arms as if to kiss him, but put
him down again and sank back on the seat beside Peter.
“I hope you have not talked about me—you have not told the nurse who I
am,” he muttered.
“Not a word,” Peter assured him.
But Herman felt all the same a pang in his heart. “Then Laura won’t hear
of it,” he thought. “And she won’t be forced to give me a thought.” And
he hated himself because he could not help feeling a cold emptiness. In
one draught he emptied the glass before him.
But Peter carefully slipped into business. He did not of course speak of
Herman’s bill that was due or of the affairs of Ekbacken at all. He only
said that he had met somebody who wanted to invest about fifty thousand
crowns on good security. And then he had thought of Herman at once.
Times were difficult and working capital always useful.
Herman did not seem to hear at first. Then his face contracted at the
thought of this wretched business. And then he suddenly assumed the
cold, severe, businesslike tone which is so often found in very
impatient people:
“Terms? Interest?”
“Not bad—six per cent—”
“If I am to consider the proposition I must have half tomorrow against
my promissory note until the bills of sale are redeemed.”
“Aha!” thought Peter the Boss, “there you gave yourself away. I should
never have said that.”
“Well,” he muttered, “you might get about twenty thousand at once.”
Herman felt that this was easy. He glanced suspiciously at Peter:
“Who is this benefactor? Does he prefer to remain unknown?”
Peter smiled and looked transparently honest:
“Not at all, he is O. W. Thomson, director of Majängen. I can vouch for
him. Decent fellow. I shall be pleased to arrange the business for you
out of gratitude for all you have done for us at Ekbacken.”
Herman suspected that Thomson was Peter’s dummy. A few days ago when old
Lundbom, encouraged by a certain visit he had received, had hinted
vaguely at Peter, Herman had sworn that he would never have anything to
do with Selambshof. But before he walked home that evening he had all
the same arranged for a meeting. He was not strong enough to resist.
The following day it appeared that O. W. Thomson had gone away. The
matter could not be arranged until two days later, that is to say, the
day before the due date of Herman’s bill. And then Thomson was in a bad
temper. He demanded eight per cent and only a month’s notice. It was
risky. Peter had done what he could but that confounded Thomson was
quite impossible. There was nothing left for Herman to do but sign and
rush off to the bank.
* * * * *
Peter continued these friendly potations with Herman. He enjoyed his
company very much, and showed a touching interest for his welfare, yes,
he really ministered to his weaknesses:
“You have been living in hell, Herman,” he said. “It has got on your
nerves.” (Yes, Peter had actually found out that there were such things
as nerves.) “You must take care of yourself, sleep, amuse yourself, go
sailing. Lundbom looks after the business. He is a magician, old
Lundbom.”
“As if it helped to sail,” muttered Herman, as gloomy as the Flying
Dutchman.
But he did go sailing, anyhow, and Peter went too, and did not let go of
his dear Herman. And when now after long stormy cruises out to sea, they
had dropped their hook far out in a fine night harbour under some rugged
cliff and the waves roared on the pebbles on the shore and the crescent
moon shone over the sea, whilst the evening sky hung green and cold over
the long ragged forest edges in the west, then they both revelled in a
beautiful and romantic hatred of the town, its dirt and stuffiness and
humbug and misery. It was a most beautiful accord between shyness,
laziness and weakness on the one hand and instinctive, furtive,
self-interest on the other. To Herman the town meant rubbish, masons,
walls scrawled all over, insidious threats against the idyls of his
childhood. But it also meant his great smouldering trouble, neglected
duties and a bad conscience. For Peter on the other hand the town meant
ten thousand possibilities and the fine opportunities which Herman must
not suspect. He liked to finish off his exhortation with little edifying
stories, terrifying little accounts of the cursed banks.
“Yes, beware of the banks, Herman,” he exclaimed. “Bills here and bills
there and not a moment’s peace. One fine day they get you into their
clutches and then you have to say good-bye to everything. But we will
defend ourselves, old boy. We know a few little tricks, we rustics too,
now don’t we? If you get into difficulties don’t make them offers. There
is nothing so dangerous as to make them offers. No, you come to Peter
the Boss and he will stand by you. Not an inch shall they have of
Ekbacken and Selambshof.”
Herman sat there eating his tinned food, half touched, half suspicious.
“Yes, but you have already sold some of it.”
Peter smiled a superior smile:
“Don’t you understand. I tricked them, tricked those town scoundrels
splendidly. Sold away the rubbish heap in order to sit more securely in
the Castle.”
There Herman had got something to sleep on. And in fact he did sleep
better than usual. It was as if Peter had lifted the worries from off
his back and taken them on his own broad shoulders.
Peter also snored soundly. He had not by any means done everything he
might have done to ensure and isolate his victim. Never! he who liked
Herman so much! No, he had only been jolly decent and said what he knew
Herman liked to hear.
And when Peter afterwards came into town and told everybody he met that
that fellow at Ekbacken was far too fine for business, and that he had
such damned bad luck in all he did, it was not done at all in order to
destroy the last remnants of Herman’s credit and make him even more
impossible than before. He merely felt so frightfully sorry for Herman
that it was impossible for him to keep quiet about it.
But the whole manœuvre was as a matter of fact quite unnecessary. When,
towards the autumn, cash again began to run short, Herman simply had not
the energy to go to anybody else but Peter. The mere thought of going to
cold strangers made him shiver. And Peter did not say “no.” He really
surpassed himself. Herman got all he wanted at once on the security of a
new mortgage on Ekbacken, though this time with lower interest and a
more reasonable notice of calling in.
Herman was really moved when he went home. Fancy if it had been Laura
who had repented and forced Peter to this. Yes he really lived on this
fantastic dream through the whole of the autumn. Poor Herman, his pride
had been dealt a severe blow.
But a great calm had descended on Peter after his former restlessness.
The sirocco no longer irritated him. He had only to wait for the
ripening of the fruit now. Soon he would be able to free Herman from all
his worries about Ekbacken, which only made him unhappy.
Whilst waiting, Peter made little dreary excursions to his little gold
mine “Majängen” and “Solberget.”
It was mostly poorer people who had ventured out to the new suburb. They
blasted, and dug, and sawed and hammered in nails. Quite a lot of queer
looking cottages had already been hammered together down in the marsh
and up in the quarry. And there were already geraniums in the windows
and children on the doorsteps. Peter shook his head, smiled and
pondered. “They build,” he thought. “That’s a mistake. They ought to buy
from those who overbuild themselves. But they are decent people all the
same, quite decent people.” He moved on carefully among the blocks of
stone and the clay holes in the staked-out streets. He stopped before an
arbour consisting of a few recently planted lilac bushes of the size of
broom, in front of a patch of golden nasturtiums in a cleft in the
granite filled with soil.
Peter the Boss really felt quite touched. It is strange how poetic
poverty can be—in others. Fancy how simply one can live. Yes, they were
really quite comfortable here in Majängen and Solberget. Peter actually
began to feel a benefactor of all these people. “Goodness! I wonder if I
did not let those sites go too cheaply,” he thought.
Meanwhile Ekbacken was ripening, as I have said before.
One day towards winter Herman came up to Selambshof and wanted more
money. But the end had come, Peter had not a penny free. To crown it all
that fellow Thomson came to Ekbacken a few days later and called in his
fifty thousand. Herman ran over to Peter again. He had no hope. No, in
his heart he knew that Peter and Thomson were one and the same. But he
went all the same, he had nobody else to turn to after the way he had
managed his business in town.
Peter grew furious with Thomson:
“I shall go in to town and lay down the law to that scoundrel,” he said.
As might have been expected, Thomson would not move. But Peter returned
with a new proposal:
“I have managed to interest a few old boys in Ekbacken,” he said. “They
are prepared to take over the whole thing and there will still be a nice
little sum left over for you. You will escape all trouble and worry and
get a little pile of thousand-crown notes that you can do what you
deuced well like with!”
Herman sat there pale and with trembling hands:
“Yes, but the house ... the boat....”
“Well ... the old boys want the lot, of course....”
Herman started in alarm, like a child that has been left alone out in
the forest. His home...! His memories from childhood ... the memory of
Laura ... the boat ... his retreat, his consolation!
“No, I will never agree to that! It is too damnable!”
He rushed out of Selambshof. He roamed about the roads. It was a
snowless winter day, raw and windy, when everything wears a frozen, worn
face without the peace of age. He stopped and beat the dry thistles on
the roadside with his stick. “I have been a child,” he thought. “A weak,
obstinate, helpless wretch. But now I must become a man. Now I must go
into town and fight for Ekbacken, tooth and nail.”
He hastened towards the town, walking and running, but as he approached
the toll bar, his steps became slower. The old hopelessness, laziness,
and cowardice crept over him again. “What’s the use?” he muttered.
“Everybody is expecting my ruin, the workmen, the foreman, Lundbom,
Peter ... everybody.... What’s the use?”
Huddled up, shivering, crushed with shame, he slunk into Ekbacken by a
side path. He sank groaning into a settee and swallowed a glass of
undiluted whiskey. And out of the whiskey came a thought, the thought of
flight and failure, but also the thought of a thousand possibilities:
“America!”
Peter the Boss had been right in his calculation. Three days later the
business was settled and Herman received twenty thousand crowns.
“You saved the slam anyhow, old boy,” said Peter, “You saved the slam
anyhow.”
He was pleased with himself for having helped a friend in difficulties.
It hurt him that Herman went about looking drained dry. And then those
stupid America plans. Why the devil should Herman want to go away? With
whom was Peter now to drink his whiskey during the long winter evenings?
Who would be with him when he was out sailing in his new yacht? Herman,
who knew the boat so well.
“It will be empty after you, Herman,” complained Peter, “damned empty.”
But for once Herman stuck to his decision and so the moment of farewell
arrived. Peter was down at the station. Herman was already at the
carriage window, filled with an impotent bitterness both sharp and dull.
He had been a hopeless failure, fit to be plucked and cast aside. Laura
and Peter had taken everything away from him. And in spite of it all he
had not got the strength of mind to hate them. Yes, when he saw Peter’s
coarse face, swollen with emotion, he positively did not know what to
believe. “Perhaps he has really done what he could for me,” he thought.
“And it was rather decent of him to come down here so that I need not be
quite alone.”
Then the engine took its first deep breath as if it were challenging the
distance it was about to cover.
Peter wept. He could not let go Herman’s hand:
“Good-bye, old boy! Take care of yourself now. Good-bye, Herman!”
And then old Hermansson’s tall Herman was swept off the stage.
But Peter the Boss drove slowly home in Brundin’s old dog-cart. He was
both sad and glad. When he had passed the toll bar he fell into a solemn
mood. The short cut across Ekbacken was open to him now. Somebody ran to
the gate to open it for him. He drove past the house on the lake side
and past the landing stage and the old office. Dusk began to fall and
Peter felt suddenly very sorry for himself. What had he not undertaken!
Fancy looking after all this. The road now ran along the lake. Peter
held the reins very loosely and by and by the horse stopped. It was
perfectly still and the lake was on the point of freezing over. A big,
cold, glowing cloud hung over Kolsnäs and was reflected in the glassy
surface of the water. The heavy clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the
floating bridge floated out into the quiet of the evening. Peter sighed
deeply. He envied Herman. Fancy travelling about with twenty thousand in
your pocket. He will see something of the world. But I, old peasant,
will never get abroad anywhere. I sit here in old Selambshof ... and old
Ekbacken....
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