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THE POWER OF A LIE
HEINEMANN'S SHORTER NOVELS.
2s. 6d.
_Uniform with "The Power of a Lie._"
THE BLOTTING BOOK. By E. F. BENSON.
"The story is 'the real thing'--life as it is, and crime as it occurs
a spectacle of the deepest human pity."--
Daily Telegraph.
THE UTTERMOST FARTHING. By Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES. [_Shortly_
HALL CAINE'S NOVELS. 6s.
THE PRODIGAL SON.
THE BONDMAN.
THE SCAPEGOAT.
THE MANXMAN.
THE CHRISTIAN.
THE ETERNAL CITY.
LONDON:
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET W.C.
This work has been crowned by the French Academy
The Power of a Lie
By
JOHAN BOJER
Translated from the Norwegian by JESSIE MUIR
With an Introduction by
HALL CAINE
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1908
_Copyright_, 1908
_London William Heinemann_
_And in U.S.A._
TO
MRS. MARTHA ARMITAGE
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN
GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
BY
THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
THIS is a great book. I can have no hesitation whatever in saying
that. Rarely in reading a modern novel have I felt so strong a sense
of reality and so deep an impression of motive. It would be difficult
to praise too highly the power and the reticence of this story.
When I compare it with other Norwegian novels, even the best and by
the best-known writers, I feel that it transcends them in its high
seriousness, and in the almost relentless strength with which its
dominant idea is carried through. Its atmosphere is often wonderful,
sometimes startling, and its structure is without any fault that has
betrayed itself to me.
Of isolated scenes of beauty and pathos it has not a few, and its
closeness to nature in little things fills its pages with surprises.
All its characters bear the stamp of truth, and some of them are
deeply impressive, especially, perhaps, that of Fru Wangen, a tragic
figure of a woman, never to be forgotten as long as memory lasts.
Its theme is a noble one. That an evil act is irrevocable, that no
retraction and no penitence can wipe it out; that its consequences,
and the consequences of its consequences, must go on and on for
ever--this may not be a new thing to say, but it is a fine thing to
have finely said.
I might easily dwell on the passages, and they are many, which have
moved me to the highest admiration--the passages with the old
pensioners, the passages (especially the last of them, at night and in
bed) between the accused man and his great-hearted wife. But this
would be a long task, and I am compelled to address myself to a part
of my duty which may appear to be less gracious.
When I ask myself what is the effect of this book, its net result, its
ultimate teaching, I am confronted by a number of questions which I
find it hard to answer with enthusiasm.
This is the story of a man who signs his name as bond for a friend,
and then, when the friend becomes bankrupt, denies that he has done so
and accuses the friend of forgery. In the end the innocent man is
committed to prison and the guilty one is banqueted by his fellow
townsmen.
So far the subject of the book cannot antagonise anybody. That the
right may be worsted in the battle of life and the wrong may triumph
is a fact of tremendous significance, capable of treatment as great,
as helpful, and as stimulating as that of the Book of Job. It is
against the moral drawn by the author from this fact of life that some
of us may find reason to rebel.
If I read this wonderful book aright, it says as its final word that a
life of deception does not always wither up and harden the human
heart, but sometimes expands and softens it; that a man may pass from
lie to lie until he is convinced that he is as white as an angel, and,
having betrayed himself into a belief in his innocence, that he may
become generous, unselfish, and noble.
On the other hand, this book says, if I do not misunderstand it, that
the sense of innocence in an innocent man may be corrupting and
debasing; that to prove himself guiltless a man may make himself
guilty, and that nearly every good and true impulse of the heart may
be whittled away by the suspicion and abuse of the world.
I confess, though I am here to introduce this book to English readers,
and do so with gladness and pride, that this is teaching of which I
utterly disapprove. It conflicts with all my experience of life to
think that a man may commit forgery, as Wangen does, to prove himself
innocent of forgery, and that a man may become unselfish, as Norby
becomes unselfish, by practising the most selfish duplicity. If I had
to believe this I should also have to believe that there is no
knowledge of right and wrong in the heart of man, no sense of sin,
that conscience is only a juggling fiend, and that the presiding power
in the world not only is not God, but the devil.
I hold it to be entirely within the right of the artist to show by
what machinations of the demon of circumstance the bad man may be
raised up to honour and the good man brought down to shame, but I also
hold it to be the first and highest duty of the artist to show that
victory may be worse than defeat, success more to be feared than
failure, and that it is better to lie with the just man on his
dunghill than to sit with the evil one on his throne.
That is, in my view, what great art is for--to lift us above and
beyond the transient fact, the mere semblance and form of things, and
show the essence of truth which life so often hides. Without it I find
no function for art except that of the photographer, however faithful,
the reproducer and transcriber of just what the eye can see.
All the same, I recognise the plausibility of quite other views, and I
know that the opinions both on art and life of the author of this
book, so far as they have revealed themselves to me, are such as
receive the warm support of some of the wisest and best minds of our
time.
It does not surprise me to hear that the Academy of France has lately
crowned "The Power of a Lie," for both its morality and its excelling
power are of the kind which at the present moment appeal most strongly
to the French mind. That they will also appeal to a certain side of
the Anglo-Saxon mind I confidently believe; and I am no less sure that
however a reader may revolt against certain aspects of the teaching of
this fine book, he will find that it stirs and touches him and makes
him think.
H. C.
ISLE OF MAN, _July_ 1908.
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE night was falling as Knut Norby drove homewards in his sledge from
a meeting of the school committee. The ice on Lake Mjösen had not been
safe for some little time, and he had promised his wife to go round by
the high-road. But various annoyances in the course of the day had
irritated the old man, and down by the craggy promontory he suddenly
tightened the reins and turned off on to the ice. "It has borne others
already to-day," he thought, "and there is no reason why it shouldn't
bear me." The horse pricked up its ears, and stepped timidly over the
rough ice; but Knut roused it with a smart touch of the whip, and the
sledge bounded from hummock to hummock until it reached the smooth,
shining surface of the lake.
When one annoyance follows close upon another, the feeling induced is
like that of a blow falling upon a place where there is a wound
already. First of all to-day, the old man had been outvoted in a
school committee matter; it was against that wretched parish
schoolmaster. When, in the midst of this annoyance, his son-in-law
came and asked for a fresh advance upon his inheritance, it seemed to
the old man like downright extortion; but when, an hour later, he
heard that Wangen, the merchant, had failed, the couple of thousand
krones for which he himself was liable assumed the proportions of an
overwhelming calamity. "I shall soon be keeping half the parish," he
thought. "People really seem to be doing their very best to rob me of
my last shilling."
The horse was a long, black stallion, with a red-brown wavy mane and
easy motion. The old man himself was almost hidden in a great bearskin
coat with the collar turned up. The darkness was beginning to fall out
on the ice, and one by one lights appeared in the farms upon the
snow-covered country surrounding the bay.
"And how when my wife gets to know of this?" he thought, as the
sledge-bells jingled and the ice flew from the horse's hoofs. He had
put his name to Wangen's paper without her knowledge. It must have
been about three or four years ago, and the guarantee was to help
Wangen to obtain larger credit with a merchant in the capital. And
even earlier than that, he had promised his wife not to stand surety
for any one at all, for they had lost quite enough. And now? "How in
the world did he manage to fool me that time?" thought Knut. But even
the wisest men have their weak moments when they are good and kind.
They were both in town, and Wangen had stood a good dinner at the Carl
Johan Hotel. And afterwards--this happened. That had been an expensive
dinner! And now with the feeling of dread at the prospect of having to
stand shame-faced before his wife, and confess that he had broken his
word, Norby felt a rising dislike to Wangen, who was of course to
blame for it all. "He knew what he was about, that fellow, with his
dinner!" And involuntarily the old man began to recall a number of bad
things about Wangen; there was a kind of self-defence in feeling
enraged with him.
The shadows of the fir-trees grew black, and the stars came out; while
a fiery streak in the west glowed through the darkness and threw a
glare upon the ice. It shone upon the plating of the harness and
sledge, and cast long shadows of man and horse, that steadily kept
pace with their owners. Scarcely a living being was to be seen on the
desolate expanse. A solitary fisherman was visible at his hole far
out, where the red reflection met the pointed shadows of the
mountains; and out at the promontory might be seen a little dot of a
man moving out from the land, dragging a sledge after him.
"And Herlufsen of Rud! Won't he be delighted!"
Norby, being himself of a combative disposition and hard in his
dealings with others, imagined that a number of persons were always on
the watch to pick a quarrel with him. If he did a good stroke of
business in timber, his first feeling was one of satisfaction as he
thought: "How they will envy me!" And in unfortunate transactions he
did not care a rap about the money he lost; he was only troubled at
the thought that it was now the turn of other people to exult.
He was now out in the middle of the ice, and had passed from the fiery
reflection into the dark shadows. The horse heard sledge-bells near
the shore, and without slackening its pace raised its head and
neighed. "Suppose the ice were to give way!" thought the old man with
a cold shiver of apprehension. His father, a wealthy old peasant, was
once driving a heavy load of polished granite blocks across the lake.
When the ice began to give loud reports and to bend under the weight,
the old man, unwilling to throw off any of the valuable blocks in
order to lighten the load, knelt down and prayed: "If only Thou wilt
let me get safely to land, I'll send ten bushels of my best barley to
the pastor." He got to land; but when he stood on the shore, he looked
back across the ice with a chuckle, saying: "I had Him there!" And the
pastor got no barley.
The sledge-bells rang out their clear, bright, silvery tones, but all
the time the old man sat thinking the ice was giving way.
"If I go through, it will probably be because I didn't want to go to
the sacrament next Sunday," he thought; for when he left home he had
half promised his wife to call at the clerk's and give in their names
for the sacrament. But at the last moment the old pagan had come to
life within him, and he had driven past the clerk's house.
"It's against my conscience," he had said to himself. "I don't believe
in the sacrament, scarcely in the redemption even."
There were two different men in Knut Norby. One of these had acquired
ideals at school at the parsonage, in his travels, and from all kinds
of books. But when, on the death of his father, Knut had had to take
over the farm, he had little by little developed some traits of his
father's character. The old man still seemed present among the
farm-hands, in the bank-books, in the great forest, in unsettled
bargains, and above all in the Norby family's standing in the
country-side. It seemed natural to Knut to continue to be a part of
his father, and often, when he was about to settle some new timber
transaction, he would suddenly feel as if he actually were that
father, and would involuntarily see with his father's eyes, use his
father's artifices, and have his father's conscience. The other Knut
Norby busied himself with books and with political and religious
questions, whenever the first had nothing to do.
"I ought to have given in our names for that sacrament all the same,"
he said to himself, when he saw that he was still a long way from the
shore. "It's all very well with ideas and that sort of thing; but it's
not at all certain they'll be enough when we come before the
judgment-seat." However, there would still be time to send word to the
clerk, if only he got safely to land.
At last he reached the firm, frosty high-road, and breathed freely
once more. He let the horse walk, as it was in a perspiration; but it
wanted to get home to its stable, and soon broke into a trot again.
In the wood the sledge-bells sounded loud and clear. The fir-trees
stretched their snow-laden branches overhead, leaving here and there a
glimpse of the starry sky above.
Norby was now passing farms with lights in the windows. The largest of
them, standing up on the hill, was Rud, which Norby's enemies
maintained was larger than Norby's place. It was here that his great
rival lived, the wealthy Mads Herlufsen of Rud.
Norby could see this farm from his own sitting-room window; and as
time went on it became impossible for him to think of Herlufsen
without seeing in his mind's eye his farm-buildings, the woods around,
the hill behind--the whole thing like a troll with its head towards
the sky; and it was all Mads Herlufsen sitting there and keeping watch
upon Norby.
"And now when he hears this, how he will exult!"
His worries, which had vanished in the possibility of danger out on
the ice, now returned, and he recollected having seen Wangen
intoxicated on several occasions in town. "And that's the man I've
helped!"
At last he turned up an avenue, at the end of which could be seen the
dark mass of the Norby buildings against the fir-clad slope. In the
large dwelling-house there were lights in only two or three of the
windows. A large black dog came bounding towards Knut with delighted
barks, leaping up in front of the horse, which snapped at it.
The stable-man came with a lantern, and held the horse while Norby,
stiff with sitting still so long, got slowly out of the sledge.
Beams of light flickered across the snow from lanterns passing in and
out of the doors of the cow-sheds and stables that surrounded the
large farm-yard on three sides. To the left of the barn stood a
separate little dwelling-house, in which lived as pensioners old
disabled servants, whom Norby would not allow to become a burden upon
the parish.
"Put a cloth over the horse, and don't give him water just yet," said
he to the stable-man, as, whip in hand, he tramped up the steps to the
house, followed by the dog.
CHAPTER II
MARIT NORBY was proud--with the peasant women, because she looked down
upon them, and with the wives of the local authorities, because she
was afraid they might look down upon her.
"Oh, of course," she would say with her own peculiar smile, "we who
live in the country know nothing at all!"
"You are late," she said, when Knut came in. She was sitting with her
knitting in the little room between the kitchen and the large
sitting-rooms. She wore a little cap upon her silvery hair, like the
pastor's wife; and her face was refined and handsome, with a firm
mouth and prominent chin.
"The school meeting was a lengthy one," said Knut, as he stood rubbing
his hands in front of the stove.
"How did it go?" she asked, meaning the matter that she knew Knut had
wanted to carry in the school committee that day.
"It went of course as badly as it could go," said Knut, turning his
back to the stove. He thought he saw a sarcastic gleam in his wife's
eye when he faced her, and his anger rose. Was it not enough to have
had strangers worrying him to-day, without having his own people begin
too? Of course she thought him a poor creature; and what would she say
when she heard about Wangen?
"It seems to me you always lose, Knut," she said, sticking a
knitting-needle into her hair.
"Always? No, indeed I do not!"
She knew that tone, and added adroitly, as she took the
knitting-needle out again and went on knitting:
"Yes, you are always so much too good, while those who don't possess a
penny, and don't pay a farthing in taxes, govern us and order us
about, and we have just to say 'Thank you' and pay."
This was a healing balm, as she gave expression to the very sentiment
that Norby himself was accustomed to propound.
"I suppose you've heard what has happened to Wangen," she said,
smiling grimly at her knitting.
"She knows it, then, confound it!" thought the old man. He was
standing in front of the stove with his hands behind him,
black-bearded, bald, with his blue serge coat buttoned tightly across
his broad chest. His large head drooped wearily upon his breast, and
he glanced at his wife from beneath his eyebrows. He did not feel
equal to any explanations this evening. He had been out in the cold
for several hours, and the warmth of the house made him feel
increasingly heavy and sleepy.
"Yes indeed!" he said with a yawn; "who would have thought of such a
thing happening?"
She gave a little scornful laugh.
"It seems to me you have prophesied it often enough of late," she
said. "But you may be glad you've had nothing to do with him."
"She doesn't know," thought Norby, with a feeling of relief.
"Ye--es," he growled in an uncertain tone of voice, his eyes dropping
once more. He was not equal to either the sacrament matter or Wangen
this evening.
Hearing at that moment a well-known laugh in the adjoining room, he
took the opportunity of slipping out.
When he entered the next room, his daughter-in-law was sitting by a
steaming bath in the middle of the floor, occupied in undressing her
two-year-old son, preparatory to giving him his bath.
The old man paused at the door, and his tired face suddenly lit up.
"Who is that?" asked the fair-haired young mother, looking at the
child. The boy looked at his grandfather with large, round eyes, and
laughed a little shyly; but no sooner was his vest drawn over his head
than he wriggled down to the floor to run to Norby. On gaining his
liberty, however, he discovered the fact that he was naked, and this
was even more interesting than his grandfather. He began to run
backwards and forwards upon the floor, slapping his little body and
laughing. Then he caught sight of his small breasts, and touched them
with his fore-finger, then evaded once more the grasp of his mother,
who tried to catch him, and laughed in triumph as he escaped. The old
man was obliged to sit down and laugh too.
"Well, I shall go and get something good from grandfather!" said his
mother; and in a twinkling the boy had climbed upon the old man's
knee, and began an investigation of all his pockets, until a packet of
sweets was brought to light.
The boy's name was Knut, of course. His father, Norby's eldest son,
had been thrown from his sledge and killed when driving home from
Lillehammer fair before the boy was born; and ever since the old man
had had a horror of strong drink.
A secret worry very quickly assumes the dimensions of an actual
misfortune. Just because the old man was tired and wanted to be left
in peace, he felt the explanation he must have with his wife to be
doubly painful. With his grandchild he always became a child himself;
but this evening he could see nothing but Wangen all the time, and
this irritated him. While he sat and smiled at the boy, he suddenly
glanced aside, as much as to say: "Cannot you leave me in peace even
here?" Wangen penetrated, as it were, into the old man's holy of
holies, and Norby wanted to turn him out. He began to look upon Wangen
as his enemy because he had brought dissension into his house, and
because Norby had been guilty of a little deception towards his wife,
which would now have to be unveiled.
"Now it's time for the bath," said the mother, taking up her boy, and
while he splashed and screamed in the water, the old man stood as he
always did, and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. But all
the time he had a dim vision of Wangen's brickfields, and remembered
how last autumn Wangen had instituted an eight-hours working-day. It
was just like the fool! It would be a nice thing to be a farmer if
such mad ideas spread and made labour conditions even worse than they
were! Was it to be wondered at if such men went bankrupt? But it
wasn't his fault if Wangen said more than he meant on that subject
when it was a question of inducing people to stand surety for him. And
the old man began to pace the floor.
"Won't grandfather say good-night to us?" said his daughter-in-law, as
the old man went to the door as if about to rush out in a rage. Norby
woke up. The boy was ready for bed, and was stretching out his arms
towards him.
The family had supper in the little room between the kitchen and the
large rooms. Since the new house had been built, they had been
literally homeless, for none of them were at ease in the large,
sparely-furnished rooms, and they were too much cramped for space in
the little room. The hanging lamp with its glass pendants shed its
light upon the tea-things and the white cloth, and a large copper
kettle shone upon the old sideboard. Five people sat down to supper.
There were the two daughters, Ingeborg and Laura, who sat one on each
side of their father; opposite him sat his wife, with a silver chain
about her neck, and a reserved expression on her face, and her
daughter-in-law by her side. They still had one son living, but he was
in Christiania studying philology.
"I must get you to put out my forest clothes this evening," said Norby
to Ingeborg; "I must go and see to the timber-felling in the morning."
Ingeborg was the good angel of the house. Her fiancé, a young doctor,
had been found dead in his bed three days before their wedding, and
since then she had never been the same. Although she was not much more
than five-and-twenty, her hair was sprinkled with grey, her cheeks
were hollow, and her eyes had a timid, far-away look in them. She was
worrying already as to what would become of her when her parents died;
and in order to run no risk of being left with a bad conscience, she
was constantly occupied in attending to their wants, was the first up
in the morning, was always busy in the kitchen and larder, shed tears
of despair when she had forgotten anything, and in spite of all this
thought herself quite useless in the house.
"Do you eat as inelegantly when you are in town as you do here?" said
the mother to Laura, looking sternly at her.
Laura looked a little embarrassed, and tried to throw an obstinate
lock of hair off her rosy face; but she was not long in regaining her
cheerfulness.
She went to school in town, and now began to talk about her old
teacher and her mincing ways, her snuff-box and her inky fingers.
"Dear children," she mimicked, making an exceedingly funny face, and
pretending to take a pinch of snuff; "do sit still and don't give me
so much trouble!" Her sister-in-law laughed, showing as she did so the
absence of a front tooth; her mother could not help smiling, and even
the old man glanced merrily at the lively girl.
"I will write to him to-morrow," he said to himself as he emptied his
cup. "I am sure it was not more than two thousand, and if there is
more----"
When at last he got into bed in his room on the first floor, he put
out the light on the table by his bedside, and yawned wearily. "I'll
pretend to be asleep when she comes up," he said to himself, "and then
I shall be spared both sacrament and guarantee for this evening."
As he lay looking at the red glow from the half-closed draught of the
stove, the door opened, and Laura crept softly in. She seated herself
on the edge of her father's bed, stroked his beard two or three times,
and then confided to him in a whisper that her monthly account was in
terrible disorder. Her mother had not gone over it yet, but she might
ask for it any day now.
"And you think you can cheat me as much as you like, do you?" said the
old man from his pillows. The child withdrew her hand from his beard
in some confusion, but he caught it, and as he felt how small and soft
it was, he said in a sleepy voice:
"You must come into my office to-morrow, then, and we shall see!"
The girl stroked his beard once more, and laid her cheek against his,
for she knew now that her deficit would be made good.
She had scarcely gone when the door opened again. The old man hastily
closed his eyes; but it was Ingeborg with the clothes he had asked for
upon her arm.
"Isn't some one crossing the yard with a lantern?" asked her father,
seeing a light upon the blind.
"Yes, it's the dairymaid," said Ingeborg; "she's expecting a calf
to-night."
And now Ingeborg too came and upon sat his bed.
"There's something I must tell you, father," she began softly. "When I
was at the post-office to-day, I heard that Lawyer Basting had been
declaring that you would suffer too by this failure. I didn't dare to
tell mother until I had spoken to you about it."
The old man had made up his mind to be left in peace for this evening,
so he said:
"Poor Basting! He's always got something or other to chatter about."
"I was sure it was untrue," said Ingeborg, rising; and after drawing
the blind farther down, she quietly left the room again.
The next morning, before Norby rose, his wife asked him whether he had
remembered to call at the clerk's. Upon his saying that he had not, a
scene ensued, and Marit left the room, slamming the door behind her,
and threatening to go to the sacrament alone.
Norby lay in bed longer than usual, for when Marit was thoroughly
roused, as she was to-day, she would sometimes not utter a word for a
week at a time; and then neither of them was willing to stoop low
enough to be the first to bridge the gulf that separated them, and
break the silence.
When at last he came down and went out into the yard, one of the men
came up to him and asked with a knowing smile whether it were really
true that Wangen had forged somebody's signature.
"It would be very like him if he had!" said Norby, looking up at the
sky to see if it were weather for tree-felling. The man, who was
busied in shovelling the snow from the road, leaned upon his spade,
and looking askance at the old man, continued:
"We've heard that it's your name. He's been boasting that it's Norby
himself that is surety for him; but now we hear from the house
servants that it's a lie."
"It's no business of that idiot's anyhow!" thought the old man, and
passed on without answering.
But on going round by the barn, where threshing was in progress, he
had the same question of Wangen's forgery put to him. He still made no
answer, but plunged his hand into the grain at the back of the
machine, whereupon an old labourer said, as he scratched his head:
"Well, well; haven't I always said that man would see the inside of a
prison some day?"
This, however, made Norby a little uneasy. "If it comes out that I
have circulated a report like that," he thought, "he can make it
unpleasant for me, and give people enough to talk about." He was on
the point of nipping the report in the bud by explaining matters, when
he caught sight, through the barn-door, of the smith going along the
road with a sack upon his back.
"Has the smith been in here?" he asked.
"Yes," was the answer from several voices amidst the rustling of straw
in the half-darkness.
"Then _he_ knows it too!" thought Norby; "and by the evening it will
be all over the parish. I must stop the smith!--Why, he was to have
come and done the new sledges!" he said aloud as a pretext for rushing
out and hastening down the road after the smith.
The snow-plough had not been driven along the road since the fall
during the night, and it was heavy walking and still heavier running.
The farther the old man ran, the angrier he became. "Here am I running
like a madman," he thought, "and all because I've helped that
rogue!--Ola, Ola!" he shouted, waving his hand.
But the sack on the smith's back could neither see nor hear, and the
old man had to go on running. The tale must be stopped, or he might
have to pay dearly for it.
At last the smith stopped because he met a man on _ski;_ but before
Norby came up to them the man had gone on down the hill.
"What's this I hear?" said the smith, advancing a few steps towards
Norby. "That Wangen _is_ a nice fellow, he is! He's fleeced me too.
I've just got a bill from him for a sack of rye-flour that I paid for
down!"
"It's a lie!" cried Norby, thinking of the forgery, and breathless
after his run.
"A lie? No, indeed it's not; it's as true as I'm standing here!" said
the smith, thinking of his flour.
But now the old man recollected the man on _ski._
"Did you tell that man about Wangen?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed I did," said the smith. "Ah, they're bad times these!"
Norby wiped the perspiration from his face, removing his cap and
wiping the crown of his head, as he turned and gazed after the man on
_ski_, who was now gaily scudding down towards the fjord, raising a
cloud of snow as he went. And that story was flying down with him!
Knut Norby stood there utterly helpless, gazing after him.
"It's no use now my making a fool of myself either to the smith or the
men," he said to himself; "for the devil himself's gone off with the
report, and I'm in a pretty fix!"
"You were calling to me, weren't you?" said the smith. "Was there
anything you wanted?"
"Yes, there was!" cried the old man, turning upon him angrily.
"Confound you! You've promised for months past to come and fix up my
sledges; but you're a rascal, that's what you are! You owe me money
and you won't pay. I'll set the bailiff upon you this very day!" And
Norby set off homewards, leaving the smith standing with his sack on
his back, staring after him.
"This forgery must have made him daft!" he thought, as he turned and
went slowly on his way.
CHAPTER III
AS Knut plodded homewards, he felt like a man whose hat has been blown
off his head, and who cannot find out which way it has gone. He could
not conceive how this rumour about Wangen's forgery had arisen, but at
the same time he felt that in reality he himself was responsible for
it. It was of course the women-folk who had misunderstood him
yesterday evening when he was tired and wanted to be quiet. And then
it had gone by way of the kitchen to the farm-hands. And by the
evening the whole parish would be full of the story, for it would be
quite a tit-bit to carry about. And Wangen? Of course he would take
the opportunity to bring an action against Norby. He almost wished he
had had a rifle in his hand, so that he could have shot the man on
_ski_, who was flying along with that confounded story. If he had not
existed, Norby would have had the hard task of going to his men and
saying: "This is a misunderstanding about Wangen. I am actually surety
for him; he has not forged my signature." But now there would be the
whole parish to go to, and the thought of it made him furious.
He first turned his steps towards the kitchen entrance, to give the
maid-servants a scolding, but stopped half-way across the yard. "If
there's going to be any unpleasantness over this," he thought, "I
shall have to bear the brunt of it after all, and I suppose I'm master
in my house."
Nothing came of his projected forest excursion that day. He went
instead to the stables, and threatened to discharge the stableman
because a young horse was badly curried. Then he suddenly made his
appearance in the barn, just when the men were taking a rest, and gave
them a talking to. Finally he went into his office, and began to write
dunning letters to a number of his debtors.
"I shall be fined, of course, and shall perhaps have to make a
retractation in the newspaper," was his thought all the time he was
writing. "This is all one gets for helping such
good-for-nothings--domestic scenes, loss of money, and in addition to
that you make a fool of yourself, and lose your good name!"
The door opened, and to his great astonishment Marit entered. If she
was going to break the silence already, something unusual must be at
the bottom of it. She had better not come too and worry him about
this!
She stood erect, with both hands hanging down and her chin thrust
forward, and began in a vibrating voice:
"I can see you intend to keep this from me, but I just want to ask you
whether you are going to report him to the bailiff."
Knut sprang up, and stood with legs apart and his hands behind his
back.
"To the bailiff?" he asked, eyeing her over the spectacles he used for
writing. "No, indeed; I'm not quite crazy!"
But Marit was already incensed at his having failed her in the matter
of the sacrament, and she now suspected that something else was being
kept from her. She came a step nearer.
"You won't?" she cried, her voice trembling still more.
The old man began to breathe hard. Now that he was angry, her
self-importance seemed both ridiculous and irritating. He would never
think of confessing his misdeeds to this impertinent creature!
"What are you doing here?" he cried, throwing back his head, and
glaring at her through his spectacles.
"I want you to go to the bailiff."
"Leave the room! I _will_ be left in peace!"
But she laughed scornfully.
"Oh, I see you would rather pay, and pay even if your children hadn't
a rag to their backs! And after this any rogue can make use of your
name, and _you_'ll pay! Or"--and she laughed again, and looked sharply
at him--"perhaps you _have_ backed his bill? Yes, I shouldn't wonder
if you're guilty."
The word "guilty" sounded as if she suspected him of murder or theft.
He became purple with anger, but could find no words to express his
indignation. Then he caught his breath, raised his arm as if to
strike, and pushed her out of the room.
Some time had elapsed when he heard sledge-bells in the yard, and
looking out, he saw that it was Marit driving off. Oh, indeed! They
were beginning to take the horses out of the stable without asking his
leave, were they? "The next thing she'll take will be my breeches," he
said to himself, beginning to pace the floor, as his habit was when
angry.
A little later he heard the bells returning. He did not look out, but
lay down upon the leather sofa and closed his eyes. Soon after he
heard the well-known steps in the passage, the door opened, and Marit
entered; but the old man lay still with his eyes closed.
She began at once, while she untied the strings of her bonnet.
"I know quite well you're man enough to order me to leave the room
once more; but as you're not man enough to look after your own
affairs, I shall have to do it for you; and as sure as I'm mistress in
this house, this shall not pass. So now I've been to the bailiff."
Knut rose slowly, pushing the rug aside. He gazed at her, opened his
mouth and gazed. At last he passed his hand through his beard, and
then over his bald head, and said in an uncomfortably ordinary tone of
voice:
"Oh, have you been to the bailiff, Marit?"
"Yes! When there are no men on the farm, the women have to go out to
work," she said. "I didn't come quite empty-handed when I became
mistress at Norby, and I didn't mean to let you give my share to
tramps and beggars."
Knut turned pale, but once more passed his hand over his bald crown
and through his beard, and tried to laugh. She could hardly have
wounded the capable Knut Norby more deeply, for he had about doubled
their fortune.
Marit now deemed it wisest to withdraw, but she closed the door slowly
behind her, and walked with slow firm step. Knut remained sitting, and
again passed his hand over his head two or three times. For the first
time in his life Norby thought of going after his wife and thrashing
her, for domestic peace was at an end anyhow.
He rose and began to wander about with his thumbs in the armholes of
his waistcoat. Now and again he stood still as if to make quite
certain whether this was not a dream from which he might awake. But
there stood the outhouses right enough, painted red, and a magpie let
itself slip down the sloping roof, and left a furrow in the snow; and
there hung Johan Sverdrup over the writing-table, and he himself stood
here and still had his forest clothes on. No, it must be true after
all that his wife had been to the bailiff--with this----
The floor seemed to become insecure beneath his feet, the office
became too small, and he had to go into the large corner room, where
he began to walk about with his hands in his pockets. Here there was
mahogany furniture and there were large gilt-framed mirrors and other
splendours, but now it seemed to Norby as if they were his no longer.
He stood still again and again to wonder: "Is it you, Norby, or is it
not?"
He stood at the window in the white light reflected from the snow, and
looked out at the half-buried garden. But it was not the trees he saw.
He saw himself being driven down the hill by the bailiff on his way to
prison for having brought a false accusation.
He turned suddenly round, and went resolutely towards the door, but
stopped with his hand on the handle. He felt that it was utterly
impossible to go to his wife now and tell her the truth, in the first
place because he felt more inclined to thrash her, and in the second
because he did not know how she would take such a communication. She
would perhaps only faint with rage at having run like a fool to the
village, but she might also do something worse.
He mounted the stairs to his room in order to change his clothes. He
must go to the bailiff. But when his trousers were off, and he was
about to pull on his blue serge ones, his hands dropped and he sighed
heavily.
"Now isn't all this a sin and a shame!" he thought. "First I help the
man out of kindness, then I have to pay up, then there's a row in the
house, and then I run about and make a fool of myself. And now I was
actually going off to hold up my wife to the ridicule of the whole
parish! No, that is really going too far!"
He remained sitting with the new trousers in his hand. Yesterday's
unpleasant picture of Wangen had become still more unpleasant now, for
in reality he was to blame for all this to-day too. And for that man
he was ready to----! The old man suddenly threw down the serge
trousers, and drew on the old ones; for if he did withdraw his
accusation from the bailiff, he would still have to answer for the
report. And go to Wangen and eat humble pie? To ask pardon of that
man? Never! Never would he do it!
No, there must be some back way out of this. He would think it over.
Knut Norby suddenly found himself in a misfortune for which he himself
was not exactly to blame, but for which he had to bear the
responsibility. He did not therefore feel the responsibility to be
quite so heavy as it otherwise would have been. All the misery that
had come upon his house to-day was thanks to his kindness in helping
that fellow. It was Wangen's fault altogether.
When the old man was sitting in the little room at dusk, he heard
little Knut laughing in the next room, and rose to go in to him, but
stopped at the door. He was not equal to seeing little Knut to-day.
"Perhaps he had a hand in bringing your father to such a bad end too,"
he said to himself, thinking of the child. At any rate, Wangen was at
Lillehammer fair that time.
One day went by, and then another. The old man was on thorns. But
every time he thought of changing his clothes and going to the
bailiff, he half unconsciously began to conjure up a picture of
Wangen, to remember bad things about him, to place him in a ridiculous
or an odious light, to impute to him all kinds of repulsive failings;
and this gave him fresh courage to put off going, and he felt it more
and more impossible that he should humble himself to such a man.
And suppose that Wangen was to blame for his son's death? Although
this possibility made the old man sick with anger, he was still uneasy
in his mind. The witness, Jörgen Haarstad, was dead, it was true; but
Knut Norby would not disown his signature. There must be some back way
out of it.
CHAPTER IV
HENRY WANGEN descended from the snow-covered train from Christiania,
and with his bag in his hand hurried homewards. He exchanged greetings
with no one. His failure would ruin half the parish, and he knew that
people stood and looked after him as they would after a rogue they
would like to thrash.
He was a man of about five-and-thirty, tall and spare, with a reddish
beard and a refined, youthful face. But he walked like an old man. His
going humbly from one merchant to another in Christiania had been in
vain; and he dreaded going home, because his wife must at last be told
the truth.
Henry Wangen was the son of a magistrate who had misappropriated the
public funds. He had tried many occupations, but was an agriculturist
when he married the daughter of a wealthy fanner. Her father, who had
long opposed the marriage, made it a condition that she should have
the control of her own property. But when Wangen started the
brickfields, he not only obtained his wife's confidence and money, but
he was so eloquent and enthusiastic that he also induced her father
and brother, and many others, to entrust him with their money. And
now?
When he came to the end of the bridge, where a number of cottages are
dotted over the hill, he met a bent figure in a faded overcoat and fur
cap, with a toothless mouth and a pair of gold spectacles upon a
prominent red nose. Wangen stopped, opened his bag, and took out a
bottle wrapped in paper. It was a commission he had had in town. The
man with the spectacles smiled at the bottle as at something very
precious, and put it under his arm.
"I say!" he said with a smile, "I've got a little piece of news for
you."
But Wangen was gone. He was thinking of his wife, who was expecting
their fourth child. Could she bear what he had to tell her?
The other followed him, however, and took hold of his arm.
"Oh, but you must wait and hear the news!" he said, and laughed a
little spitefully. "Come in a moment, and taste the purchase."
"No, I can't just now," said Wangen, hurrying on. Wangen had
unfortunately more than once allowed himself to be tempted by this
inebriate consul from Christiania, whose relations boarded him here in
the country; but now he was determined to be thoroughly sober when he
got home. The elder man still hung upon his arm, however, and spoke so
persuasively that he at length allowed himself to be drawn into his
little house.
At the window of the low room they entered, which smelt of whisky and
tobacco, sat a lean, tailor-like figure, playing patience. This was
the third member of the whisky-drinking trio, an old lawyer, crippled
with rheumatism, and long since past work. He went by the name of "the
late future prime minister."
"Sit down!" said the consul, but Wangen remained standing with his bag
in his hand.
"Shall we have a game at cards?" said the man at the window, smiling
in his white beard.
"Hold your tongue!" said the consul, busying himself with the rinsing
of two glasses. "We're first going to have a glass of three-stars."
"No, I won't have any!" said Wangen. "But what was it that I
positively must hear?"
"Just you sit down, my boy!" said the consul, chuckling as he held up
a glass to the light. "Upon my word, the world is worse than I
thought."
This meant a good deal, for the consul was not accustomed to judge
people leniently.
"What is it?" said Wangen. "Has anything happened to my wife?"
The consul placed the glasses on the table, and fixed his little,
venomous eyes upon Wangen, while his red nose wrinkled in a smile.
"Oh well, so many things happen," he said. "Now for instance, what is
your opinion of the great man at Norby?"
"Norby? I really don't know. I've got enough to do to look after
myself. But I must go."
"Wait!" said the consul. "Norby must have a spite against you, for, to
tell the truth, he means to get you sent to prison because you have
forged his signature."
The prime minister looked up from his patience, and tried to see by
Wangen's face whether he should laugh or not.
There was a short pause, during which the consul enjoyed the situation
and continued to gaze at Wangen through his spectacles.
Wangen broke into a laugh, and involuntarily stretched out his hand
for the filled glass.
"Your health!" he said. "That's not a bad story!"
"You don't believe it, perhaps? Upon my word it's true, old chap! Ask
the prime minister!"
The late future prime minister nodded.
Wangen looked from the one to the other.
"What's all this nonsense you're talking?" he said. He did not believe
it yet.
"You may well say so," said the consul with a venomous smile. "It's a
delightful world we live in!"
"Has any one been to tell my wife?" Wangen's voice trembled, and he
turned pale. He reached out his hand for his bag.
"Yes, she's had a visitor," said the consul, with his most venomous
glance.
"The bailiff?"
"Yes."
"Because--because I've committed forgery?"
"Exactly." The consul was enjoying the situation to such an extent
that he forgot to empty his glass.
Wangen had emptied his, and now held it out for more.
"Your health!" he said. "If this is true, then by Jove it'll be Norby
and not me to go to prison!" And with that he buttoned up his coat and
hurried to the door.
CHAPTER V
IT sometimes happens that in the even current of our lives we suddenly
meet with an obstacle that compels us to pause and consider. To Henry
Wangen his failure was such an obstacle as this. As he sat in the
train on his way home from town, with unavoidable ruin staring him in
the face, he was nearly passing sentence of death upon himself. He saw
that this failure, which brought misfortune to so many, was due to his
own incapacity and recklessness. It was terrible, but it was true.
"This is a consequence of never having taken the trouble to acquire
thorough knowledge," he thought. "And if I hadn't so often sat
drinking far into the night at the consul's, I should have had more
judgment in my business the next day." Every drowsy or lazy moment in
which a determination was taken now seemed to him to have come to life
in the form of a starving, despairing family. "There! There!"
And during these moments of calm justice towards himself, he saw one
thing that impressed him more than any other, namely, that his
kindness of heart had really been a greater enemy to him than drink;
for he had always contented himself with the knowledge that he meant
well. And he did mean it all so well, and sheltered by this good
intention, he had done the most thoughtless acts, and always with a
good conscience; for good faith was always ready to excuse the
blackest lies and raise them into the light of truth.
And now? Reality had no use for good faith; it demanded more.
While the train rolled on, he also saw how his pet idea for the
improvement of the conditions of the working-man, an eight-hours'
working-day, had also helped in the ruin. So it was not only necessary
to have benevolent ideas in this world; they must be such as did not
bring misfortune upon those they were intended to help, as they had
done in this case.
He was filled with a dull rage against himself, and swore that he
would not rest until he had paid back to them all that he had wheedled
out of them. He swore not to touch strong drink again. He was fully
aware that this was not enough. He would never, never be able to make
up for the suffering he had brought upon so many.
And his wife, who had put such confidence in him? He felt as if he
could have taken himself by the throat and called himself a scoundrel.
He was now on his way home from the consul's after having heard the
"news." Strange to say, his mind had become more composed. He did not
hang his head any longer. He walked more easily. He did not know
himself how it came about, but he was not quite so afraid of going
home to his wife and confessing the truth.
When he came in sight of his house, which lay a little to the left of
the dark mass of the brick-kilns, he saw a light in a single window.
He remembered his wife's condition and the bailiff's visit. "Poor
Karen!" he thought; "perhaps she was at home, alone too." And a flood
of anger filled his heart, anger this time not against himself, but
against Norby. "Is he quite mad? What does he mean by this?" It was a
relief to be able to turn his indignation against others than himself.
When he entered the dining-room where he had seen the light, he found
his young wife sitting by a small lamp. She rose mechanically. He saw
at once that the children were in bed, and the supper was laid and
waiting for him. How cosy and peaceful it was! But in the middle of
this peace she stood pale and frightened, gazing at him as if she
would say: "Tell me quickly, is it true?"
She was a tall, stately woman, not yet thirty years of age. She was
dressed in a loose-fitting grey dress, and her wealth of fair hair was
set like a crown upon her head. Her long eyelashes gave a depth and
brightness to her eyes. Her face was in the shadow of the lamp-shade,
as she stood leaning upon the back of a chair, motionless, impatient
and anxious.
"I know all!" he said abruptly, stooping to put down his bag; and even
before he raised himself again, he heard her drop into a chair and
burst into tears.
"I thought I should have gone out of my mind!" she sobbed.
He stood looking at her. She did not come up to him and throw her arms
about his neck. Did she really suspect him? His indignation and pain
at this again felt like a relief; for in this he was innocent at any
rate; he could defend himself here with a good conscience.
He went up to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"Karen!" he said, "do you believe it?"
There was a pause, during which he grew more and more anxious. At last
she raised her hand and placed it in his. He clasped it; it was so
thin and helpless, and so warm, and it seemed to give him all her
confidence. It is true that during the last few days she had often
reproached him, and had mercilessly demanded from him the return of
her money; but this was beyond ordinary limits, and made everything
else seem small, and now she clung to him confidingly.
In a little while she pointed to the supper-table and whispered:
"Won't you have supper?" And she rose slowly and went to the stove for
the tea-pot. "Would you like me to light the big lamp?" she asked
gently.
"No, dear," he said, seating himself at the table, and beginning to
eat, more for the purpose of removing the smell of whisky than of
satisfying any hunger. He noticed that there was a half-bottle of beer
upon the table, and this positively agitated him. They could not
afford to drink beer now, but perhaps she had found this last bottle
in some box, and in spite of her own troubles, had not forgotten to
put it on the table when she expected him.
"Have you had supper?" he asked, as she did not come to table.
"No, thank you," she said; "I don't think I can eat anything."
"Oh yes, Karen," he said; "Sören will want his supper, you know."
This little joke seemed so strange in their present gloomy mood. For
Sören was their secret pet-name for the little one that was still
unborn. And now, when the father said this, it was as though a little
bridge of gold had been thrown between them, and she could not help
looking brightly up at him and smiling.
That smile seemed to light up the room. It relieved them both, and
they were now able to talk quietly about this affair with Norby.
"Can you imagine what has made him do it?" she said, as she poured
herself out a cup of tea.
He felt her eyes upon him, and this time he could raise his head and
meet them.
"Well, it must come to light some day. It is either a
misunderstanding, or----"
"Or?" she questioned.
While he was seeking for probable reasons, he felt at the same time an
ill-defined anxiety lest it should only be a misunderstanding. A star
seemed to have risen in the firmament of his consciousness, and
pointed to an inquiry, acquittal, and reparation. Half unconsciously
he felt that this would be salvation, not only as regarded this
accusation, but also all others.
"Norby is one of those men of whom you never can make anything," he
answered. "It is quite possible that the couple of thousand now in
question have quite robbed him of his wits."
She raised her eyes, and her glance said: "Two thousand? There too!"
And she almost imperceptibly shook her head.
With an involuntary anxiety lest she should attach too much importance
to this side of the question, he continued:
"He's a great idiot anyhow; for he must surely understand that as
there's a witness, he can't get out of it."
As they talked, and he was able to occupy himself with his innocence
in the matter, his tranquillity of mind increased, and things looked
easier and brighter. And he carried her along with him. She had quite
forgotten to ask how he had got on in town, and whether he could save
her money. An event had taken place in the house which swept
everything else into the background.
"How did you get on in town to-day?" she asked at length.
And he could answer frankly now: "Karen dear, the worst is about your
money--" He could get no further, his voice grew husky. Instead of
being afraid and in despair, he now felt so certain of forgiveness
that he could safely be distressed.
He was quite right. She did not spring up. She did not call him to
account for all his false representations. She bowed her head; she
still had a vision of the bailiff before her eyes, and she answered
with a sigh:
"Well, well--so long as you are innocent in this----"
"Don't say that, Karen!" he said with tears in his eyes. "I feel that
I have so much to answer for both to you and----"
"Oh, it may turn out all right in the end," she said, her face turned
towards the lamp. "So long as one doesn't lose one's honour."
So that was over. He had not this confession to dread any longer; but
he had never dreamt it would have been got through so easily.
"What is it, though?" he thought, as he rose from the table. He felt
as if it were his duty to be unhappy, and now he could not. He kept
his eyes all the time fixed upon his innocence in this one matter, and
this feeling of innocence was like a lamp that suddenly shone upon his
darkness; it illuminated everything, softened everything, so that the
remorse and despair he had felt in the train, all that had chafed and
wounded him earlier in the day, melted away into far-off, shapeless
mist.
He had to go into the bedroom to look at the children, and he sat down
on the edge of the bed in which the two little girls slept. In the
train he had felt himself unworthy to bring children into the world,
but now he was once more happy in being a father.
"How long do you think we shall be able to stay here?" she asked, when
he came in again. "Do you think we shall have to move before I am laid
up?"
It sounded so unusually resigned.
"No," he said; "certainly not."
They walked through the rooms, he carrying the lamp. They seemed to
have a mutual feeling that it would soon all be taken from them, and
they be left homeless and empty-handed. They paused in front of
various things--a mirror, a rug, a picture--and looked at them, his
disengaged arm round her waist, as if to support her.
"Do you know," she said with a little sigh, "when my confinement is
over I'm going to try to do without a servant."
"Oh," said he, "there will be no sense in that."
"Yes, but, Henry, have you considered what we're going to live upon?"
He recollected a vow he had made in the train, to put his hand to any
sort of work, if only she, to whom he owed so much, could live free
from care. But he said nothing about it now. This feeling of innocence
gave him an involuntary pride, and he contented himself with saying:
"Let's hope I shall yet be able to arrange a composition."
He drew her closer to him, as if to have her with him in this faint
hope; and she leaned against him, with her fair head resting upon his
shoulder, now that she felt sure that he was innocent of this crime,
before which everything else dwindled into easily surmountable
trifles.
The maid was out. They were alone in the house, and the stillness made
them talk in undertones. She grew tired of standing, and sank down
upon a sofa; and he seated himself beside her, when he had placed the
lamp upon a table close by.
They sat in silence, gazing vacantly at the piano. The little lamp
threw a pale light about them, while the furniture in the rest of the
room was lost in the darkness.
"Father came while the bailiff was here," she said at last, looking
straight before her.
"How did he take it?"
"Every one will believe you're guilty," she said. "And Norby is
powerful. Father is coming again to-morrow. You'd promised to bring
him from town the last ten thousand krones he got for you."
Wangen's head drooped. A vision of her father, with his white hair and
red, watery eyes, came before him. What should he say to the old man
to-morrow, now that everything was lost?
"And the widow from Thorstad has been here," she went on. "You had
promised her half as soon as you came from town."
Wangen still stared into the shadow by the piano. He was afraid she
would ask him if he had the money.
"It is worst for the working-men," she continued, "who are now quite
destitute, and cannot get credit anywhere. And in the middle of winter
too!" She was on the verge of tears.
Perhaps they too would be coming in the morning to ask about what he
had promised them. In the half-darkness Wangen could see before him
the old man with the red, watery eyes, the widow whose fortune he had
wasted, the work-people--all of them. They would all come in the
morning, and call him to account.
He turned cold at the thought, and the same dark accusation he had
brought against himself in the train appeared once more, while he felt
his clear innocence of forgery to be valueless; it grew fainter, like
a lantern on the point of going out, leaving him in a darkness where
the crushing sense of responsibility brought him to despair, where
remorse fastened upon him with innumerable hands, and where he must
eternally and inexorably remain a prisoner and be tortured with the
pains of hell.
He rose suddenly. "Let's go into the other room," he said, raising his
shoulders; "it's so cold here."
In the dining-room he placed the lamp on the table, and stood a moment
gazing at it.
"When I think about it," he said at last, "I can after all understand
why Norby wants to injure me."
"Can you?" she said eagerly.
He continued to stand motionless in the same position.
"Yes," he said; "that man is both jealous of his honour and
revengeful. He wasn't made chairman of the parish last time either,
and I expect he thinks it's my fault."
"Good heavens!" she sighed.
As he stood there, he could see in his mind's eye Norby with his
cherished grudge, sitting in his house like a wicked ogre, ready to
burst with a desire for revenge, and this distorted picture
strengthened Wangen's feeling of innocence, which now seemed like a
kind of thread upon which he hung, and which must not break.
He heard his wife say good-night, but he still stood there. When at
last he went into the bedroom, she was standing half-undressed in
front of the looking-glass, doing up her thick hair for the night in a
long plait.
"And what's more," he said softly, gazing as if at a dawning
salvation, "I understand now why Norby managed to frustrate the
intention of building the church of brick. The brickfields, do you
see, shouldn't make anything out of it. Norby wanted to provide the
timber."
He began to walk up and down, and then stopped again. "And now I
understand too," he went on, "how it is that so many customers have
left me lately. The brickfields were to be removed out of the way of
the large forest-owners here."
"Do you really think so?" she exclaimed, turning from the glass and
looking at him, half in horror that people could be so wicked, half in
gladness that the decline in the brickfields business was not wholly
his fault.
The wind began to howl in the great factory chimneys. A door up in the
loft opened and shut with a bang so that the house shook.
"Oh, would you mind?" she said. "That door has been banging ever since
the girl went out, but I didn't venture on the stairs. Will you?"
He went, and on coming down again he said:
"And this normal working-day--it has frightened the rich big-wigs too.
Yes, now I begin to understand."
And each time he exhumed a fresh probability of a conspiracy against
him, it lifted a fresh burden from his own shoulders; so he dug again
and again, half in anxiety that he should not be able to find enough.
While Fru Wangen stood in her night-dress by the bed, winding up her
watch for the night, he came and laid his arm round her shoulders, and
said with some emotion:
"So now, Karen, it can be explained why they have begun to lose
confidence in me in town, and I am hardly likely to be allowed to
compound. The rumour of a crime will knock that on the head."
"Poor Henry!" she said, and hanging her watch in its place, she turned
and threw her arms about his neck. "I'm afraid I've misjudged you,
Henry! Can you forgive me?"
He was touched, and folded her in a close embrace, feeling as he did
so the warmth of her body through her nightdress. They stood thus
silent, her head upon his shoulder, both seeing the same persecution
and injustice, feeling themselves united in the same innocence, and
finding warmth in their mutual need of standing together.
And now when he thought of her money, it no longer seemed to be his
fault; the blame was transferred to those in whose way the brick-kilns
had lain. And he thought of her old, ruined father, and he no longer
dreaded his coming in the morning. The widow, the workmen's families
passed before his mind's eye, but they no longer accused him. He felt
sympathy for them, and indignation on their account; but now the
indignation was turned against others, not against himself.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" she asked.
"Oh, wait a little!" he said, still standing as before.
"Yes, but I'm getting cold, Henry."
He was actually afraid of letting her go, as if she were the happy
conscience he had now built up, which felt like a deliverance from
something terrible.
"I think I'll go out for a little," he said at last. "I shan't be able
to sleep anyhow."
"Don't be out too long!" she said. "Remember I'm lying here alone."
Of course he would not be long. But she was anxious nevertheless; for
he was always "only going out for a little" when it ended at the
consul's, and he came home a little unsteady in his gait.
Wangen set out with his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. The
hard snow creaked beneath his feet, and above the snowy hills and dark
ridges was spread a wide, brilliant, starry sky.
"Thank goodness!" thought Wangen, "that eight-hours' working-day
probably has nothing to do with the failure." And he involuntarily
felt as if a lost ideal had been regained, so that he had a beloved,
bright idea for the future to believe in. From this his thoughts
passed insensibly to Norby and the other rich men, who sat brooding
over their money-bags, suspicious of everything new, fearful of
everything, averse to all improvement of the condition of the lower
classes.
"They managed to quash it this time," he thought; "but there will be a
next time."
He walked on until he found himself outside the consul's house. A
light was still burning in the sitting-room. A good impulse took him
by the button-hole and said: "Remember your vow in the train!" But
there are times when we feel ourselves so morally well-to-do that we
think nothing of flinging away a halfpenny. Wangen must have some one
to talk to now, and he would only stay a quarter of an hour.
"Why, dear me! Aren't you arrested yet?" said the consul, who was
sitting in his dressing-gown, stirring a freshly-made toddy.
And they sat with the bottle between them, and discussed the matter
very thoroughly. Wangen talked himself into more guesses, suspected
more rich men, one after another, of being in the conspiracy, and was
lavish in his use of forcible expressions about them all. The consul
encouraged him with little spiteful remarks, and made numerous mental
notes. To-morrow he would go for a walk.
They emptied the bottle between them, and when Wangen went home a
little after midnight, he stumbled every now and then over his own
boots.
"Poor consul!" he thought, dreading going home; "he has had a hard
life, and needs a little sympathy and appreciation."
When he staggered into the bedroom, his wife awoke with a cry of
terror.
His head was heavy next morning; he was ashamed to meet his wife, and
again began to dread meeting those who were to come to him that day.
By clinging, however, to his innocence in the one matter, he very soon
succeeded in regaining his self-confidence; and when, later in the
day, he had to go to the station, he was no longer afraid of meeting
people. He began to entertain a dim idea of giving a lecture to the
workmen, and explaining to them the true cause of their common ruin.
As he went homewards, the sun was shining upon the wide, snow-covered
fields, and dazzled his eyes. There stood the dead factory-buildings
with their tall chimneys, seeming to cry to heaven; but it was not
with him they had to do. Yesterday in the train he had thought that
his own house was too luxurious, and the factory buildings too large
and expensive; but now he looked at everything with different eyes. He
knew in his own heart that he had built these works in an honest
belief in the future of this industry in the district; and a banner of
innocence waved over both the works and the house.
CHAPTER VI
DAY after day passed, and Norby had not yet recalled his declaration.
A notice of the forgery had already appeared in the newspaper, and the
more the story spread and grew, the more humiliating it seemed to
Norby it would be to retract; and the longer he put off, the more the
dread of humiliation grew, and the more powerless did he feel to stoop
and take the consequences.
It would in fact be deliberately to make himself out a dishonourable
man. Was that too to be the thanks he got for having in his kindness
of heart helped Wangen?
His enemies? They would rejoice as long as he lived. And the parish?
An avalanche of ridicule would descend upon him, and he would always
feel as if he were standing in the pillory to be the laughing-stock of
every one.
In Norby's eyes the parish was something of indefinite size, which
only paid attention to what he did. It was his parish, and he saw it
especially when he lay with closed eyes. The woods and farms and hills
and rivers were the same, but the people were of two kinds--those who
praised him, and those who spoke evil of him. There lived no others in
the parish. The first he looked upon as honourable, worthy people, the
second as his enemies whom he should certainly not forget. And now? He
was quite sure that now people did nothing but talk about this affair.
Heads were put in at doors, voices called across back-yards: Have you
heard it? He saw people bustling up paths, flying off on _ski_,
writing letters to other villages and towns: Have you heard it?
And if he now gave his wife away to this same parish, there would be
further excitement; it made him angry to think of it.
But now people began to come to the old man and talk about the matter.
What was he to say? He must say something. At first he tried to get
away from the subject, but afterwards he was afraid that he might have
betrayed himself. "I am an idiot," he thought. "It won't make it any
worse than it is already if I say it until I can find a way out." And
at last the day came when he said it in so many words, half in
impatience to be left alone.
When the stranger went away, the old man stood at the window looking
after him with a feeling similar to that with which he had looked
after the man on _ski_ that day. This man would tell it to others. He
had said something that he could never recall.
He felt now that the way to the bailiff was closed. He must keep it up
for the present. And henceforward, every time he repeated the bitter
falsehood, he felt bound to say it once more in order to make it
consistent. But he always stood, as it were, and looked after this
dangerous lie, which branched out from his own tongue, wandered about
the parish, and grew every day like a spectre that would one day turn
against him. And yet he was obliged to help the spectre to grow still
more, for, like the lion-tamer who dares not turn his back on the
lion, he must not waver, must not show fear, and there was nothing to
be done but to stick to the story.
During the dark, snow-laden, winter days, the old man tramped about
the yard, went in at one outhouse door, came out of another, scolded a
little here and there, and imagined he was busy, which he was not.
When he knew he was not observed he would stand and stare at his
boots, then shake his head and say: "If it only hadn't been
Herlufsen!"
But there sat the house like the troll with its head up to the sky,
and called across the valley, jibing and mocking as it always did when
Norby was in trouble: "How are you, Norby? Do you feel bad?"
"Poor father!" said Ingeborg to her mother in the kitchen. "He begins
to look so pale and wretched; he can't possibly be well."
"No," said her mother; "I suppose it's this affair that is telling
upon him. Of course it can't be very pleasant, but it isn't our fault.
Wangen has himself to thank for it."
Ingeborg became doubly zealous in her attentions to her father the
more depressed he seemed to be. How touched she was at his taking the
matter so much to heart! People could see now how good her father was!
She had always known that he was the best man in the world.
But how frightened the poor girl was the day she heard that Wangen had
said that it was Norby, and not himself, who would go to prison. Up to
that time she had had a certain amount of sympathy with Wangen,
because he was guilty; but now he became a dreadful man in her eyes.
And suppose he succeeded in bringing trouble upon her father! She
dared not mention it to her mother, and as there was no one to whom
she could confide her anxiety, it grew larger and larger, and began to
keep her awake at night.
It was now, however, that she sought comfort of God, and every night
prayed long, fervent prayers; but she knew that if her prayers were to
be answered, she must make herself worthy to pray. She thought too
that as she succeeded in overcoming the powers of evil in herself, she
noticed that her prayers seemed to receive comforting answers; and
little by little she began to see her father surrounded by the powers
of goodness, who would protect him. How happy she was! Wangen could
not hurt him now; he might try if he liked, but it would be of no use!
From that day the weary, sad girl began to go about with a brighter
face and lighter step, as if she had a secret joy glowing within her.
The disagreement between Norby and his wife was over; but it had never
been so impossible to tell her the rights of the case as it was now.
One day, about the middle of the week, the old man drove Laura in the
double sledge to the station, as she was going back to town to
continue school. It was a frosty day with cloudless sky and glittering
stretches of snow. The sledge-runners creaked upon the hard snowy
road. The old man sat in his fur coat, and glanced now and then at his
daughter. He had never seen her so pretty as she was to-day. The frost
had put such a colour into her young cheeks, and made her eyes so
clear and blue; and the oftener she turned those eyes upon him while
she talked and laughed the more ashamed did he feel of no longer
deserving this child's confidence.
"You must write to us a little oftener than you generally do," he
said, looking straight before him at the horse. "We should like to
know if anything happens to you."
When he said good-bye at the station, while the engine stood snorting
preparatory to the departure of the train, he had a great desire to
kiss her on the forehead; but caresses were not in Norby's line, and
he contented himself with slipping some extra money into her hand.
"You must buy something with that," he said. That was the kiss.
When he drove home again in the sledge, he felt as though he were
alone in the world. And who could tell what evil he was now driving
towards, as he went home to Norby?
When he arrived there, Marit met him at the outer door.
"You've actually gone and forgotten that declaration again," she said,
referring to a written declaration to the merchant with whom Wangen
had deposited his guarantee document.
"Where's the hurry?" murmured the old man as he took off his fur coat.
"It's been lying here for a week now, and yesterday he telephoned to
ask what had become of it."
Norby went slowly into his office where the declaration lay written
out. But though he had now spoken about Wangen's forgery to all sorts
of people, it was quite another thing to have to put his name to it.
Marit had followed him, and she stood waiting at the door.
"Must it be done now?" said the old man, slowly raising his eyes to
hers as he fumbled for his spectacle-case.
"I am going to the post-office, and I'll take it with me."
Marit felt herself the motive-power in this affair. She feared that
behind her back he might be prevailed upon to pull down what she had
built up.
He dipped his pen in the ink, but then paused and sat gazing at Johan
Sverdrup's portrait.
"It's a bad business, this," he said, with his eyes upon the portrait.
"Yes!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "You must protect yourself
and your belongings while there's law and justice in the land."
"Yes, yes," sighed the old man. And again he saw the spectre that grew
and grew, and would fall down upon him on the day he turned round; and
slowly he signed his name, Knut O. Norby.
When his wife had left the house he was once more standing and looking
after an action that was set in motion and could not be overtaken. The
thing was done now; he had put his name to a false declaration. The
name Knut O. Norby would henceforth not be so well esteemed as
formerly.
"No, I must find some work to do," he thought, shaking himself.
"Perhaps that'll cheer me up."
But feeling rather tired, for he had not slept much the night before,
he lay down upon the leather sofa and closed his eyes for a moment,
feeling as though he should not be able to get up for ever so long.
What made him uncomfortable was that he now always had a vision of
Wangen before him. Ever since the day when he had set Wangen in an
ugly light in order to have an excuse for not going to the bailiff,
the man seemed burnt into his consciousness. He began to meet him
everywhere, and to see him in every one he talked to. He saw him now,
and sprang up and out, harnessed a horse, and drove to the forest to
look at the timber-driving.
He heard the crash of the logs far in among the hills, and was not
long in getting there. Some great trunks had been driven out to the
road, and a load was just coming to the top of the steep hill where a
slide had been cut through the trees. But what was that? The horse sat
down upon its haunches, and down the long steep incline went horse and
load hidden in a cloud of snow. This was madness, and the old man's
anger rose. But when the load reached the road the horse was unhurt,
and Norby saw, to his great surprise, that the driver was Wangen.
Norby went up with his whip. Words failed him. Then Wangen, beginning
to unload, said: "You're trying to tax me with a forgery, Norby, but
how about your own affairs?" Norby raised his whip and would have
struck him, but another load appeared at the top of the hill, and
again the horse sat down upon its haunches and away it went. And that
was the way they used Norby's horses, was it? He'd give them a lesson,
he would! But when the driver came out down at the pile of logs, it
was Wangen again! How the d----? And now he unloaded and said with a
mocking smile: "You're trying to tax me with forgery, Norby,
but--ha!--ha!--what about yourself?" Norby again raised his whip and
would have struck him, but suddenly caught sight of another horse at
the top of the hill. It was the young brood-mare, and it would injure
its feet in the slide. But it was Wangen again, and his lips were
parted with the same smile: "I say, Norby, have you a good conscience?
It's true the witness is dead, but just you wait!" And then another
load came, and another; the hill was one cloud of snow enveloping a
string of loads, and there were more coming; and Wangen drove every
load, always that cursed Wangen!
The old man cried out and sprang up from the sofa, rubbing his eyes.
Thank goodness!
"I must get something to do," he said, and put on his things and went
out. It was too late to look at the timber-felling that day. He
sauntered along to the pig-stye: but the twelve fat, yellow animals
that had hitherto been his pride now seemed to him to be utter
failures. "Things are beginning to go wrong with me," he thought. "And
now in addition I'm to have this! That's the thanks I get for my
kindness!" He sighed, and was passing on; but a pig put its snout
between the palings and wanted to be scratched. The old man stretched
out his hand, but suddenly drew back a step, for this pig too was----
A shudder ran through him, and he hastened out, and from a kind of
curiosity he also went through the cow-shed. The cows turned in their
stalls and lowed gently one after another; and he gazed, half in
curiosity, half in terror, at each head, and saw that the first, the
second, the third--ugh, what did it mean! He turned quickly and fled.
He was beginning to see that hated face in innocent animals too. He
slammed the heavy cow-shed door after him, and the lowing of two or
three cows at the same moment added to his feeling of uncanniness.
"You great idiot!" he said at last to himself when he was fairly out.
"To go and imagine things like that!" He was going in the direction of
the stables, but turned round suddenly. He did not dare.
He began to think that his men had not the respect for him that they
formerly had, and he was therefore unusually hot-tempered with them.
When he was driving he thought that the horses did not go so willingly
either--as if they had a suspicion too; and he used the whip more than
ever before, and drove recklessly. It was at any rate no mistake that
his good dog Hector began to look timidly at him, as if he too
suspected something.
"Don't be uneasy!" he said to himself, "you've risen in the esteem of
your fellow creatures at any rate." The fury of the country-side
against Wangen only placed Norby in a better light. If one man took
Wangen's part, it stirred up twenty to range themselves on Norby's
side; and as the old man drove along in his single sledge, dressed in
his fur coat, people bowed lower than before, and those who had
hitherto never bowed did so now. And the old man would laugh silently
to himself. "The beasts despise me for what I have done," he thought,
"but men respect me. Such is life!"
"They surely can't be merely making fun of me?" he thought one day.
"Suppose they're only showing me all this respect in mockery!" The
idea was unbearable, and he felt he must make sure whether it were so
or not.
One day the people at the parsonage were surprised to see Norby drive
up to the door, and come tramping in in his great driving boots. He
was very cheerful, and as he sat leaning forward and stroking his
knees, he told them that next Saturday he and his wife had determined
to roast a pig whole, as he had seen it done in England, and if any
one cared to come they might get a bone to gnaw.
Both the pastor and his wife began to laugh, for Norby always gave an
invitation in his own peculiar way. And the old man thought: "They
can't have any suspicion of me when they laugh so naturally;" and when
they both accepted his invitation he felt himself secure.
He also dropped in at the doctor's, and there things went just as
smoothly. And he was at the bailiff's, the judge's and the sheriff's;
and when he finally turned his face homewards he sat and chuckled.
It was, as usual, a capital dinner at Norby. The old man took a
special pleasure in being able to put such silver and wine on his
table as none of the other magnates could produce. Both the pork and
the wine raised the spirits of the guests, and the old man's face
shone, and grew redder and brighter the more he ate and drank and
talked. No mention was made of the great matter itself; but as Norby
sat at the head of the table, and drank with one after another down
the rows, or with all together, he noted in each glance and smile the
very feeling he wished to see, namely: "You're a jolly good fellow!"
When at last the company were scattered over the two large
drawing-rooms with their coffee, the bailiff came and drew him a
little aside; and while they stood with their cups at the level of
their chests the bailiff told him in a whisper that the judge had
received the guarantee document. The bailiff had seen it, and he must
say that Norby's signature was well counterfeited. But Jörgen
Haarstad's! That was too foolish! Haarstad did not write like a
copy-book, it is true; but his writing was not so crooked and
illegible as all that, _that_ the bailiff could testify.
"You fool!" thought Norby, and drank liqueur with him. "As if men like
Haarstad didn't write their name in a dozen different ways. You _are_
a genius!" But aloud he said: "Have you spoken to Wangen?"
The bailiff laughed. "Indeed I have," he said. "He declares that the
signing took place in the café at the Grand."
"That's not true," thought Norby; "it was at the Hotel Carl Johan."
The bailiff emptied his liqueur-glass and continued: "But it's awkward
for him that his witness is dead, and that there's no one who saw you
write your name. And it gives a bad impression, too, to hear that a
number of people are now getting bills from his general store, which
they have paid long ago. He's a shady character."
When the sound of the last sledge-bells passed from the yard a little
over midnight, Norby began to walk about the empty rooms, rubbing his
hands, for he knew now for certain that people esteemed him as the old
Knut Norby.
"But in the Grand café? That's a downright lie. I've never in my life
put my name to any paper there. What a confounded liar he is!"
The consciousness that at any rate a fraction of this matter was a
lie, now felt like a relief. No one in the world could prove that he
had ever signed anything at the Grand.
"But I shall win the whole thing. I can be quite easy about that." And
then a little later: "But shall I win?"
He sank down at a table in the little room leading off one of the
drawing-rooms, on which stood a bottle of liqueur. When Marit came to
get him to go to bed she was very much astonished to find him
intoxicated, and she could not get him to move. An hour later she went
with a candle in her hand through the dark rooms where the
tobacco-smoke still hung in light clouds. There was a light behind the
curtains in the doorway. She peeped cautiously in, and saw that the
old man had sunk back on to the sofa, and was asleep with his glass in
his hand.
CHAPTER VII
DOWN by the fjord lay a little one-storeyed house, half hidden by
large trees within a garden. Here lived Fru Thora Skard, the widow of
the inspector of forests. Upon the death of her husband she had
withdrawn from the social life to which she was accustomed, and
henceforth lived quietly behind her flowers in her pretty little
rooms. On rare occasions she might be seen going out to some sick or
poor person with a book and a basket. Although she was more than
forty, she was still young in mind; it was she who had started the
young people's club in the parish. Any young peasant girl who wished
it, was certain of obtaining from her free instruction in sewing and
weaving. She had a little boy called Gunnar. Being a sincere admirer
of everything national, she had her little house, after her husband's
death, renamed and registered as "Lidarende"; and from that time
forward she liked to be called Thora of Lidarende.
When she heard the news about Wangen she thought: "Poor wife! Poor
children!" She knew Fru Wangen very well, and she was so upset about
this, that she could think of nothing else. Although she had only a
small pension, and was trying moreover to put something by for Gunnar,
her kind heart said over and over again: "I must go and help them.
Three children, the parents destitute, and then this crime! It would
be wrong of me not to go."
There were such different opinions about Wangen's guilt and innocence.
Fru Thora was sufficiently well acquainted with her fellow creatures
to know that most of them believed Wangen to be guilty because he had
already gone down in the world. She wanted to form her own opinion
about the matter, uninfluenced by others, and therefore meditated
deeply upon the matter, reasoning from her knowledge of the two men.
For one of them must be in the wrong.
It happened that Norby realised in himself and his belongings some of
the ideals that Fru Thora of Lidarende cherished. She had always
thought there was something particularly Norwegian about Norby. The
broad, strongly-built farmer, living in his large house and ruling
over his labourers, was like a direct descendant of the old kings. In
the store-house at Norby she knew there lay a quantity of old harness,
drinking-bowls, sledges, and carved household articles, and she had
speculated as to how to get hold of them for a country museum. Without
her noticing it, or being able to prevent it, the impression from
these things entered into her valuation of Norby in this particular
case. And Wangen? He was the son of that magistrate who was noted for
his animosity towards the peasant, and yet was not too refined himself
to misappropriate public money; and now, whenever Fru Thora thought of
the son, it was as though the atmosphere of the father surrounded him.
Norby and Wangen opposing one another? Could there be any doubt in
such a case?
It was thus that Thora of Lidarende's opinion on this matter was
formed, and when once it was there, she felt no doubt at all about the
matter, omitting to inquire into the origin of the opinion.
She did not, however, grow to dislike or scorn Wangen on account of
this crime. On the contrary she felt it was just now he was to be
pitied, just now he needed help. "You must not shirk your duty," her
kind heart said to her every day; and she had no peace until she had
made up her mind to offer to take one of the children.
She wanted, moreover, to set the parish an example in not condemning
too severely one who has given way to temptation; and on the day when
she fought her way in a snow-storm along the fjord to call on Fru
Wangen, she felt light-hearted, notwithstanding the cold and wind, in
the thought that even this sad affair could afford her an opportunity
of doing good.
When she reached the Wangens' house, she was told by the maid that her
mistress had been confined; but as this was the fifth day, Fru Thora
was allowed to go in to her.
Fru Thora could scarcely restrain her tears at sight of this
unfortunate woman, who had thrown herself away upon such a man; and
when she bent over the bed, and Fru Wangen threw her arms about her
neck, they both sobbed aloud.
They talked together for a long time before Fru Thora broached the
subject of her errand; but although she chose her words carefully, Fru
Wangen seemed offended, and curtly declined her offer. And when Fru
Thora went away she had an unhappy feeling of having done something
utterly wrong.
When she was gone, Wangen went in to his wife, and when he had heard
Fru Thora's errand, stood silent with a peculiar smile upon his face.
"Oh, indeed!" he said at last. "They're beginning to want to take our
children from us too now, are they?"
"But Henry, don't you really think she meant it kindly?"
He laughed. "Yes, of course! Why they mean everything kindly."
A little while after he said: "I suppose they understand that as long
as I have my family about me I have a kind of backbone. But," he
continued, going up to the window, "that she too----"
He stood watching the energetic little woman struggling down the road
against a wind that almost blew her away. He could really see now that
her errand had been one of which she was ashamed.
But she had come to the house trying to coax his wife to give up the
child when he was not there, and when the mother lay helpless in bed.
He suddenly clenched his hands in fierce anger as he looked after her.
How she struggled against the wind! How her shawl fluttered! A shiver
ran down his back as it struck him that she resembled a bat, and he
thought of witches.
"Henry!" came from the bed. And when he turned, his wife stretched out
her arms towards him.
He bent down, and when he felt her arms about his neck, sank upon his
knees. "Henry!" she said, stroking the back of his head; "Henry! You
mustn't think that any of us will forsake you!"
He could not answer, but took her head between his hands and kissed
her forehead.
"Poor Henry!" she said again. "I never thought people could be so
unkind."
When at last he rose, he said in a kind of exalted indignation: "I'll
pay them out for this!"
CHAPTER VIII
MADS HERLUFSEN in the meantime sat for hours together looking across
at Norby. In his eyes Norby Farm was a kind of fox's den away there
under the fir-clad slope, upon which he must keep watch to see what
Reynard was doing.
At the approach of crises in forest prices, and of political
elections, it was always against Norby that Mads Herlufsen directed
his moves. When he won he slapped his thigh and was in good spirits
for more than a week. If Norby were successful he was as ashamed as if
he had done something wrong himself. But although these two little
kings thought of nothing but doing one another harm, at the same time
they were good friends when they met. They warred upon one another
chiefly because there was no other worthy opponent within a wide area.
Mads Herlufsen now sat pursing up his mouth, looking across at Norby
and wondering. "What does he mean by this?" he thought; for he was
always accustomed to think this when Norby did anything. "It certainly
isn't that he wants to quarrel with Wangen, nor is it for the sake of
the money. There must be something behind."
At last he discovered that Norby wanted to get Wangen punished in
order to frustrate his composition, and thus force the brickfields
under the hammer. It was the brickfields that Reynard wanted to get
hold of this time.
For a little time Mads Herlufsen sat rubbing his nose in
disappointment at not being able to think of a counter-move. He did
not care in the least whether Wangen were guilty or not; his only care
was for Norby.
"Do I want the brickfields? Bless me, no! But why should Norby have
them?"
At last a thought struck him. One of his farm labourers, Sören Kvikne,
had once been in the employment of the deceased witness, Jörgen
Haarstad. Wangen had no witnesses now that Haarstad was dead. Suppose
Sören Kvikne could be utilised!
He remembered what an honest man Sören Kvikne had always been, so he
took out a bottle of brandy, and sent over to the men's quarters for
him, for the men were in at dinner.
It was not a customary thing for the men to be called into the
sitting-room of the farm; and when Sören Kvikne went in, he looked
about cautiously to see where he should spit, and scarcely dared to
seat himself upon the beautiful chair.
But Herlufsen gave him a long pipe to smoke, and placed him on the
sofa opposite himself, and after filling his glass two or three times,
said to him:
"Weren't you once in the employment of Haarstad, Sören?"
Sören Kvikne fingered his thin beard, and gazed in front of him with a
melancholy stare. Oh yes! He was, he answered.
"You can't remember, I suppose, whether Haarstad ever mentioned
anything about having signed his name as a witness for Wangen and
Norby?"
Sören Kvikne shook his head. He could not remember it at all.
"Well, well," said Herlufsen, "you must think a little, Sören."
Sören thought a little--but no!--no!
"For it's possible that the whole thing may depend upon you," said
Herlufsen.
The man looked askance at his master; but Herlufsen was perfectly
serious, and when he went away, told him to remember that the whole
matter now depended upon him.
When Sören Kvikne came back to the men's room, he stood in the middle
of the floor and asked in a loud voice whether any of the others had
ever been in the farm parlour and drunk a dram and smoked a long pipe
with the master.
At this there was a roar of laughter, whereupon Sören grew angry, and
let them know that the whole matter between Wangen and Norby now
depended upon him.
"Upon you?" exclaimed several voices; and some, who were reclining on
the benches, sat up and looked curiously at him.
"Yes, upon me," said Sören, nodding his head. But there was nothing
more to be got out of him; he was not a man to let his tongue run away
with him.
From that day he had no peace either day or night. Whenever he met his
master, he was urged on with: "Haven't you considered that matter
yet?" It was quite true he had been in Haarstad's service five years,
and it was quite true that Haarstad and he had often talked together
alone; but--but--. He scratched his ear a great many times a day. He
talked to his wife about the matter, and his wife too said he must
think a little. And Sören did think a little. He thought both day and
night, since the whole matter now depended upon him.
It couldn't be that time Haarstad and he--no, no, it wasn't then. No,
if it was any time, then--then it must have been when they were
painting the cariole together. Haarstad was painting the shafts, and
he was doing the wheels and the body. They were standing in the sun
behind the barn. And this scene, in which they painted the cariole,
fastened itself little by little in Sören's mind, until he gradually
became certain that if there positively was a time when Haarstad
confided the matter to him, it must have been then; and when he came
to think of it, it certainly was on that occasion.
When he told Herlufsen one day that he had thought the matter over, he
could not understand why his master became so exceedingly affable.
Herlufsen told him he might take a holiday for the rest of the day. He
might go down to Wangen and ask to be called as a witness.
CHAPTER IX
THE inquiry was now approaching, and the nearer it came, the more
uneasy did Norby become. He had found no way out of his difficulty
yet, and he began to fear that he would not be able to find one.
Whichever way he turned, he ran against his own assertions; and these
assertions, which now lived in people's minds and travelled by post
and railway, had grown into a power, greater than Norby himself; they
were like a son grown beyond the control of his father; they dragged
him on continually, they compelled him with threats to stand on their
side in this matter.
He would not go to an inquiry, however, for then he would have to take
his oath; and he was not so far gone yet as to go there and perjure
himself.
"I'm beginning to feel my rheumatism again," he said to his wife, when
he was restless at night.
It occurred to him that there was a suspicious stillness over the
country-side, in spite of what he had done--a stillness as if some one
were lying in wait. He himself had no desire to talk of anything but
this one matter; for he thought of nothing else, and was only easy in
his mind when others listened to what he said, and had no time, as it
were, to think for themselves.
But each new falsehood always cost another as its proof, and that in
its turn another. He had to keep a constant watch upon himself, lest
his tongue should run away with him; he was afraid of perhaps letting
something out in his sleep, and hardly dared sleep.
But day by day the inquiry drew nearer, and he involuntarily began to
grope about for a means of pulling through after all, if in spite of
everything it should come to an inquiry.
But what he now had to get ready to say at the bar would be falsehoods
again; and at this Norby stopped like a horse that will not venture
upon an unsafe bridge. He pushed backwards; he was afraid; he was not
accustomed to it.
No one is so much in the humour for philosophising as he who is
suffering in secret. As he cannot talk upon the subject he would most
prefer, he chooses something similar. One day, when Norby heard of the
sudden death of an acquaintance of his in another part of the parish,
a cold shiver ran through him as an inward voice whispered: "You will
be the next, Norby."
That evening, when he and his wife were in bed and the light was out,
he yawned heavily, and said in a tired voice:
"Isn't it a strange thing that we human beings, who may die at any
moment, should pass all our time in doing evil to others?"
Marit sighed and smoothed out the sheet over the counterpane.
"Yes," she said, "it is."
"And when we look into our own hearts, we see that even those who go
wrong and commit crime need not be any worse than one of us."
After a brief pause Marit answered: "No, not if they repent; there is
pardon for them too, then, I suppose."
It was very quiet during the pauses in their conversation. The winter
night was dark and cold, and now and again the wind was heard
whistling past the corner like a dying howl.
In this feeling of death and the dark night, Norby again saw the
parish--his parish; but this time all the people were alike, they were
all ready to die, all cold, pale, suffering beings, such as one ought
to be good to.
"Do you know what I'm thinking about, Marit?"
"No," came the rather sleepy answer.
"Why, that if we do something downright bad it's not at all certain
that the consequences will be obliterated if we die. It's very likely
they go on living and doing harm to others for a long time."
"H'm!"
"But can you tell me then how such a man can have peace in his grave?"
Marit expressed her opinion that our intelligence was not sufficient
for that, and turned over on the other side.
The old man lay long, however, seeing a long string of Wangen's
descendants having to suffer for this. Could he then at the same time
be saved and sit in heaven? He lay there looking and looking, until he
grew hot with anxiety lest he should not get any sleep that night
either. He began to be sure that he had some disease or other, perhaps
heart-disease. And then, while he stood in the witness-box and held up
his fingers, it would come. He would drop down.
"Oh God, be merciful to my soul!"
At last he sat up in bed and quietly struck a match. Heaven help us!
It was past two already, and he had not slept yet.
When he once more tried to go to sleep, he began to see how difficult
it is honestly and fairly to put right a wrong done.
He lay with closed eyes and saw it all.
"If I wanted to make it all straight again," he said to himself,
"neither getting forgiveness from God nor taking my punishment in a
prison would help, for my wicked accusation would still live
somewhere. But if I could find out all the ways it had gone, and
follow all the threads to the end, should I be finished then? No. I
should have to give compensation for the evil consequences. One will
have forgotten the falsehood, another will have laughed at it, but a
third will remember it and make Wangen suffer for it. But suppose I
could make up for this too? Would that be the end of it? No. There
would still be need to pay for what he suffered all the time people
believed him guilty. Can that be paid for? No! No!" And he
involuntarily shook his head as he lay with closed eyes. How was he to
get to sleep?
The next day he roused himself and went up to Gudbrandsdal where he
owned large forests, and where his men were driving timber. He felt
that he must get away--he must forget.
Up there he was not a rich man dressed in furs. He was in a frieze
suit, and went on _ski_ through the forest; and the exercise and the
fresh air did him good. He saw immense piles of timber, and it was
his; he stopped now and again to look out over endless stretches of
tufted fir-trees, sprinkled with snow and gilded by the sun, and they
were his.
"If Wangen had even been a worthy antagonist," he thought, as he leant
upon his _ski_-staff and surveyed his wealth. "If it had been
Herlufsen now." But this man was down in the world, and did not own so
much as the spoon he ate with. "And it's that poor wretch you want to
injure!" he said to himself. "And not even using honourable means; for
you're attacking him in the rear--attacking a dead man in the rear!"
He felt inclined to thrash himself.
When he got home he had caught cold and was a little feverish in the
night. He himself thought it might be typhoid fever, and that he would
die; and he was tortured by the thought of the evil action that would
live after him.
At last one morning he felt he could bear it no longer, and determined
to get rid of the whole thing--first go to his wife and tell her the
truth, and then go to the bailiff and make things right with him. Now
it was settled, thank goodness!
But just as he was getting out of bed, Marit called from the door that
there was some one downstairs who had been waiting for him for ever so
long.
"That's sure to be the bailiff," he said to himself, turning cold at
the thought. But when he came down he found it was an old farm
labourer, Lars Kleven, who wanted to speak to him.
"Come into the office!" said Norby.
He was vexed that it was only this old man who had frightened him and
made him hasten his dressing.
"What do you want?" he asked, sitting down before his writing-table.
To his great astonishment the old man came close up to him and seated
himself so that he could look Norby straight in the face.
"It's a hard task I have to-day," began the old man.
"Indeed?" said Norby impatiently.
"I've come to ask you, sir"--he stopped to cough--"whether you've laid
this matter with Wangen before the Lord."
Norby stared. He leant back in his chair and stared still more; and
wretched as he felt, he could not help bursting out laughing. He
thought, as he had so often done, that it was his father who sat there
listening to this. And to think that one of his small tenants, an old
clod, whom he kept alive up on the hill out of kindness, that he
should come here and want to interfere in a matter that concerned only
himself and Providence! No, that was too much! And Norby laughed. It
was like an avalanche falling, and he shouted and could not stop,
until the floor shook under him. Finally he did not know whether to
give this poor fellow a krone, or kick him out of the room.
"And what then?" he at last managed to ask, trying to be serious.
The old cottager placed his hands upon his stick which he held between
his knees, and continued calmly:
"I want to rest quiet in my coffin; but I'd rather not go and witness
against you, sir."
"What?" said Norby, involuntarily drawing nearer. "Has any one asked
you to do so?"
"Yes," said the old cottager.
"Is Wangen allowing you tobacco on credit?"
"It's God Almighty who's asked me."
There was a pause. Then Norby cleared his throat, and asked:
"And what have you got to witness about, eh?"
"I went to town with you that time, sir."
"When?"
"The time you signed that paper," said the old man.
Norby grasped the arms of his chair and pressed his lips together, and
the two men looked at one another. At last Norby cleared his throat
again.
"You're in your second childhood," he said. "You'd better get home and
go to bed." He rose and turned towards the window, but then seemed to
recollect something fresh, and looked again at the cottager.
"And by-the-bye, if you appear at the inquiry I shall have you
declared irresponsible. Now go!"
"Good-bye!" said the other gently as he moved towards the door. "I
only wanted to lie quiet in my coffin," he said once more, and then
went quietly out.
Norby remained standing at the window with his hands in his pockets.
It had done him good to be able to laugh for once; but it was still
better to be able to be angry with some one besides one's self.
They'd better just come and interfere in matters that concerned only
himself and God Almighty! If they did, he was still man enough to show
them the door. They'd better begin suspecting that he was not happy!
If they did, he would be man enough to show them something else. It
would not be that poor old fellow at any rate who would make him break
down. There would be no confession to-day. Some way out of the
difficulty could still be found.
While he was sitting at supper that evening, Marit said with a little
laugh: "Do you know that the widow down at Lidarende has started
helping Wangen?"
"No." But it was a piece of news that stung, and he thought of that
active woman with the bright face that usually smiled at him; but
suddenly her face seemed to become grave, to turn away from him
towards Wangen.
It would be a nice thing indeed if they began to doubt Wangen's guilt
in the parish. If they one and all continued to believe in it, so that
Norby could be at peace with God Almighty, he might still make his
confession. But he _would_ have peace. They must not think they could
take him by force.
Something healthy within him seemed to begin to growl and rise in
opposition whenever any one irritated him. He could not get this
woman, who was on her way to Wangen to help him, out of his head. The
master of the parish school, who had defeated Norby in the school
committee, was a friend of hers. The fool! Norby soon saw him
accompanying her in order to join Wangen, and at night, when he lay in
bed, he saw yet others leaving him to go over to the adversary.
"Just see if my enemies don't make this an opportunity of injuring
me!" he thought, and the anger that this roused made him still
stronger. What a relief it was to be able to turn his eyes away from
himself, and instead occupy his thoughts with what was possibly taking
place in the parish! He wouldn't wonder if his enemies utilised the
opportunity.
One day he heard that his old enemy, Lawyer Basting, was going to
defend Wangen, and that he was not only going to insist upon an
acquittal, but claim enormous damages. Wangen, moreover, had found
witnesses who would prove that for a long time Norby had done all he
could to injure his business.
Norby began to laugh, and then sprang up and began to bustle about
with his thumb hooked into the armhole of his waistcoat. After a time
he stopped and drew a long breath as if of relief.
"No, really, Marit! The wolf's beginning to howl now. Basting! So that
hedge-lawyer has at last got a case, has he? Ha, ha! And then these
lies about my having----No, this is really too much, Marit!"
"Isn't that just what I said?" said Marit.
From that day forward the parish was always in Knut Norby's mind, that
parish which he saw best when he closed his eyes. All that every one
now did was to walk along roads and sit in rooms and gather together
and take sides in this matter. He guessed more and more who were
gathering against him. He would perhaps be left quite alone at last;
and they would make use of this in order to do for him entirely. Mind
and health grew stronger and stronger in Knut Norby. It was too bad of
Christian people to go and witness falsely against him. He had never
wanted to injure Wangen's business, never!
He was in bed one morning when Marit came and told him about Sören
Kvikne, who had been in service with Haarstad. He sprang up, and began
to look for his slippers, and said, laughing:
"By Jove, Marit, Mads Herlufsen has had his finger in that pie!"
This eased him of his last burden. It was not hard on Wangen any
longer now, for he had so many powerful friends, and besides he was
circulating falsehoods. It now became as it were a matter between
Norby and Herlufsen. Norby had at last found a worthy opponent.
There came fresh rumours. Wangen had asserted that Norby had cheated
him in a timber transaction; then that he had defrauded the widow
whose trustee he was. In his righteous indignation, Wangen did not
weigh his words very carefully, and they all came to Norby as
poisonous, irritating stings, exciting the old man by their positive
untruth, and helping him more and more to forget the original matter,
and instead to look upon himself as attacked, persecuted, and
compelled to defend himself.
But the indignation he now felt only produced a growing improvement in
his health, and he began in real earnest to prepare for the inquiry
with moves and counter-moves. It was no longer a question of who was
in the right, but of who would lose. It was no longer a matter between
him and God Almighty, but between him and his enemies. Every time he
heard of new witnesses appearing upon his opponent's side, his anxiety
lest he should fail increased; and this urged him on incessantly to
think of ways of being even with these men. "We shall see if they
succeed!" he said to himself with clenched teeth. He recollected now
the evil that many of these witnesses had done to him in days gone by.
They were like old wounds, that opened and added their pain to that of
the fresh ones. He became more and more angry; he no longer thought,
but only looked about for weapons with which to strike.
The strange thing was that Norby began to be at peace in his inmost
soul. The wound in the innermost recesses of his heart was forgotten,
and he thought only of those that grazed the skin; so he began to
sleep better, regained his appetite, and was in good spirits. He had a
good conscience such as a man may have who, being innocent on twenty
charges, forgets that he is guilty on the twenty-first. When he
thought of all the twenty, he, as it were, told God Almighty that they
balanced.
There was no longer an impressive stillness round about him. There was
a noise. He went on with his preparations, went to his lawyer in
Christiania, always recollecting new false accusations and writing
them down, letting himself be wounded by them in order to feel
thoroughly how innocent he was. If there came moments when all was
quiet about him, he went on expecting new false accusations. He wanted
them. If none came, he made some up without noticing that he did so.
"Of course they say now that I disown this signature out of avarice.
I! Or because I am afraid of my wife. Knut Norby afraid of his wife!"
It irritated him that people could say such things, and he made up new
charges one after another, without noticing that they were made up.
They were like glasses of spirits, which always kept him in a hazy
condition, always buoyed him up, always made him forget what he most
desired to forget, always gave him a feeling of innocence and of being
in the right.
The inquiry was now close at hand, and the old man drove about the
country-side and collected counter evidence. He was quite ready for
the inquiry now.
PART II
CHAPTER I
IN a room in a Christiania boarding-house a young man was sitting with
his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. In front of him lay
a large open book, with certain passages underlined with red; but he
was not reading. It was Einar Norby, Knut's only surviving son; and he
was a student of philology, and was reading for his final examination.
The window was open to the warm March sun, but now he rose, and went
to shut it, as the noise from the street disturbed his thoughts. He
began to pace up and down the floor, now and then passing his hand
across his forehead with a pained movement. "What shall I do about
this?" he thought. "For things have taken a different aspect now."
He was a tall, slim, fair young man of about five-and-twenty. His not
yet having taken his degree was not owing to laziness. He had first
studied theology for a couple of years; but one day he had gone home
and had appeared before his father in his office to say privately that
he could not go on with it any longer, that his conscience would not
let him be a priest.
His father sat gnawing the end of his pipe, and when he had listened
to his son's explanation, said:
"Well, well, you're quite right, my boy, to give it up if you are so
sure of what you're doing. It'll be worse for your mother; but I must
try and talk to her." So Einar went abroad to travel for a year and
look about him, and on his return he had taken up philology.
A week earlier he had heard in a letter from his mother of Wangen's
forgery, and it had at once excited his greatest astonishment, for he
remembered with perfect distinctness how one day three or four years
ago his father had come up to him and said: "Wangen's got the better
of me nicely to-day!" And then he had told him about the guarantee,
but begged him not to tell any one, not even his mother. This had
surprised him at the time, and perhaps it was for that very reason
that he remembered it so distinctly.
"What shall I do?" he asked himself over and over again. It was
possible there was some misunderstanding, but he nevertheless thought
it best to write to his father about it.
He had had an answer to-day. The old man wrote that Einar was talking
nonsense. He had never had anything to do with Wangen.
"Is it nonsense!" thought Einar as he paced his room. His father wrote
quite confidently that it was all nonsense; but Einar took heaven to
witness that it was not. The more he thought about it, the more
certain he was that he remembered accurately.
"But what shall I do?" he said again; for he felt that he could not at
once give in about it. "Suppose Wangen is innocent and I am the only
person who can save him. Mother wrote too that Wangen had no
witnesses. What shall I do?"
The inquiry was to take place in a few days, so he could not put off
acting any longer.
"And father writes that he has never had anything to do with Wangen;
so it cannot refer to some other matter than the one I remember. Is it
possible that father is so forgetful, or----?"
Certain of his father's ways in business matters had often jarred upon
Einar. But this? No!
"But suppose that Wangen is punished for what he is innocent of? Could
I ever be happy again?"
He threw himself upon the sofa and covered his eyes with his hand.
Supposing he went home and put things to his father? What a row there
would be! And if his father had really embarked upon something wrong,
he supposed it was too late now to turn back, at any rate from the old
man's point of view.
"But what am I to do? Shall I not do anything at all?"
The thought of what it would involve, namely, his going before the
court and giving evidence against his father, made him dizzy. But if
he were to interfere at all in the matter, he must be prepared for all
that it involved. On the one side stood his father, and on the other
the impulse to do what was right; and he heard a mocking voice within
him say: "There, now you can see how easy it is to rise above family
considerations! What if it had been some one else and not your
father?"
Einar Norby had often been guilty of judging harshly, especially in
the case of public men. He belonged to the generation of young men
who, through bitter disappointments, have conceived a deep suspicion
both of the ideas and of the men who had once aroused the enthusiasm
of their early youth.
While he lay upon the sofa with his hand over his eyes, the mocking
voice within him went on: "Now you must show what one ought to do. Be
sure you don't show any family considerations; don't be a party to any
corruption, like public men! Do what is right! How you have been
applauded in the Students' Club when you have spoken of public men who
float about on vague sentiments, and whose conscience is kept entirely
by relations and friends. You once said that their meaning well was no
defence; for they made their judgment drunk with sentiments that did
not concern them, and thought they were honest, like the drunkard who
believes that he alone is sober. Take care! Don't be a coward! Be sure
you do what is right! It cannot be such a dreadful thing to come
forward and give evidence against your father when you are in the
right!"
It seemed to take him by the throat. There appeared to be no choice
between the two things, either to be a coward, or to go home and bring
unhappiness upon all those he loved.
At moments such as these, when a momentous decision has to be made,
perhaps at great cost, there are always certain voices that lull and
weaken. "You are a fool!" they said. "What in the world do you want to
meddle with that matter for? Your father has one son living, and that
son now wants to get his father sent to prison. Do you know anything
about the matter? You talk a lot of twaddle about remembering this,
that, and the other; but what about your father? Do you suppose he
doesn't remember what he did? Does he generally act like a scoundrel?
In any case, stick to your last! Leave to the courts of justice that
which belongs to them, and see if you really can manage to be ready
for your examination!"
This relieved him for a time, but when he rose and began to walk up
and down, he once more saw the funny, white-bearded mask that
somewhere in his inner consciousness began to grin. "Of course not,
don't have anything to do with it! You might risk something this time,
for this time it affects yourself, your own people. But talk in a loud
voice when it's about persons that you don't know! Declaim then, and
bring tears into people's eyes; but now? Be silent! Sneak off! Hide
yourself! And start again to-morrow, when you take aim at some poor
person who doesn't belong to you! Be one of those champions of truth
for whom you have always shown such contempt!"
He grew more and more agitated. He sat down and passed his hand again
and again across his brow, then started up once more and paced the
floor, with his head in a whirl. He had scarcely slept all night owing
to the same thoughts.
"I must come to a decision! There are only two days left! And if I
sneak out of it now, it will not exactly be a heroic deed, and ever
after I shall have to keep quiet when anything is said about justice
and truth."
He looked at his watch. There was a train in a couple of hours. But
just as he was about to get out his bag and pack it, he was once more
seized with uncertainty. Suppose his father would not be persuaded?
"What should I do then! I ought to have some plan of what I am going
to do, if I _am_ going to interfere."
He seemed to see his father, and Norby Farm in the summer, waving
cornfields, and the calm waters of Lake Mjösen. Go and give evidence?
Break with them all? Bring unhappiness upon them? Never more have a
home at Norby? He sank upon a chair and sighed heavily. "No, I can't
do it!"
CHAPTER II
THE parsonage was not far from Norby Farm. The day before the inquiry
Pastor Borring began to wonder whether he could not bring about some
reasonable agreement in this wicked and foolish case between two
honest men.
No one knew that Pastor Borring had a secret trouble that caused him
continual suffering. He believed neither in the atonement nor in the
utility of the sacraments; and yet as pastor he had to say and do what
was pure and true. He felt that he was too old to resign his living
and start again in life; and with his present good stipend, he could
help on his numerous children in the world.
But this faithlessness to his convictions had made a very good man of
Pastor Borring. He knew himself sufficiently well to judge others
leniently. He took no interest in gossip, for he thought that the evil
that could be said about others was not nearly so bad as that which
could be said about himself. Many came to him with their troubles, and
it was easy for him to comfort them, because their misfortunes seemed
to him small in comparison with his own. People thought him a good
pastor and a noble man; and perhaps he was both of these, because he
was always burning with a secret despair.
"I'm going a drive to-day," he said to his wife.
"Is any one ill?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Out at the brickfields," said the pastor.
Enveloped in his grey ulster, with a red scarf round his waist, he
seated himself in the sledge, and the little bay fjord horse set off
in its usual trot.
It was a sad sight that met him out at the red factory buildings,
where there was no smoke ascending from the chimneys, and the shop
stood with locked doors and shuttered windows. "Poor man!" thought the
pastor. "If he is guilty, all this trouble is too great for him to
bear; and if he is innocent, this will be the worst evidence against
him. He must be encouraged."
Wangen still lived in his pretty house, and after taking off his coat
in the cheerful hall, the pastor went into the drawing-room. A servant
was occupied in dusting, and she went at once to tell Wangen.
Tick! tick! went a little clock in its polished case on the wall.
There was a sound of children crying in the adjoining room, and
Wangen's voice hushing them.
The door opened and Wangen entered. He had grown very thin, his eyes
wore an expression of suffering, and he was almost unrecognisable.
"Our little baby died last night," he said, when he had seated
himself. "It was undoubtedly because of his mother's milk. She has had
too much to bear lately."
"He means by that that Norby is to blame for this too," thought the
pastor. "It is high time I talked to him. Dear Wangen," he said aloud,
"will you do an old pastor a favour? Will you get up on my sledge, and
drive over with me to Norby?"
Wangen started up involuntarily, and put his hand to his head. "To
Norby?" he said in astonishment.
"Yes. We'll try and put an end to this matter, dear Wangen."
Wangen smiled and his eyes began to glow. "He's afraid at last, is
he?" he said. "And so he sends you."
The pastor shook his head. "I've come on my own account, my friend,"
he said. "Let me tell you that it is easiest for the innocent one to
forgive. Show this now. Come with me to Norby, and there I'll say:
'Knut, I want to talk to you a little, and Wangen is going to hear
what I say.' Then we three'll go into a room by ourselves, and I shall
say: 'You two, who want to send one another to prison, you're both
guilty. Shake hands! Sign a declaration that henceforward neither of
you will ever mention the matter again'; and when we go into the other
room, I shall say to the others: 'There won't be any inquiry; for
Wangen and Norby think that this has nothing to do with either the
authorities or any one else; they have arranged the matter between
themselves.' In a couple of days, people will have found something
else to talk about, and in a month's time the whole thing will be
forgotten. Now put on your things, Wangen, and come with me!"
But instead of this, Wangen sat down, and smiled a little uncertainly.
"And who is to pay the two thousand krones that Norby is responsible
for?" he asked.
The pastor was a little perplexed. He had not thought of that, and
involuntarily he stroked his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
"We-ell--But dear me! Peace between people is worth more than two
thousand, especially when it's a case of going to prison. I'll say to
Norby--let me see--I'll say: 'If you haven't given security for Wangen
before, then do it now! Pay this! You'll never miss it!' I'm sure my
friend Norby will be reasonable."
But Wangen started up again.
"No," he cried, "not for the world! Shall I beg him for the help that
he's given once, but backed out of? Good heavens, no! No! Do you
really think, Pastor Borring, that when first Norby has ruined me,
then dishonoured me, then driven my wife to the verge of madness, I am
going to Norby to ask him to be friends? No! That would be a little
too much!"
"I don't know who is guilty," said the pastor sadly. "Let the guilty
one settle the matter with God."
Wangen laughed scornfully. "That sounds very nice, Hr. Borring, but
what have we got law and justice for? You should feel what it is like
to be in my place. I spent my wife's and my own fortune in creating an
industry here, and it succeeded as long as it wasn't in Norby's way.
He has traduced me until I was refused credit; he has managed to
prevent my compounding; and it is not even enough for him to know that
I am destitute! No, I'm not to keep my good name either; I'm to go to
prison too. And you want me to forget all this? If Norby were to come
here himself and ask me--but it's too late for that too now."
The pastor sat for a while with his lips compressed.
"Tell me, Wangen! Have you never caused suffering to any one else in
this world?" he said.
The question startled Wangen, and he again forced a laugh.
"All I know is," he said after a short pause, "that I'm innocent in
this instance. And Norby has now tortured and worried me so long that
he shall go to the prison that he intended for me. If he is so rich
too he shall be made to pay. I won't take a small compensation."
"Ah! it's all very well suffering when you get paid for it," thought
the pastor. "That man is the guilty one." Aloud he said: "God help us
that we find it so difficult to forgive one another! And yet we expect
Him to be always ready to forgive us."
"Do you think we shouldn't have courts of law to help us to obtain
justice, Hr. Borring?"
"Judicial proceedings of that kind, dear Wangen, are a bad means of
bringing right to light. They may perhaps get hold of the fruit but
never of the root. Just you notice when the witnesses stand forward.
They lie without knowing it; they raise a dust, and the court passes
judgment from the dust. It is human; but God deliver us both from the
sentence and its consequences!"
All this time Wangen was in the belief that the pastor had been sent
by Norby, and that he wanted to entice him with fair words. He had
therefore become impatient and wished to put an end to the interview.
He rose with an impetuous movement, and began to pace the floor.
"The only thing I'm afraid of," he said demonstratively--for he was
quite willing that Norby should hear this--"is that he'll get off too
easily. After thinking it over, I don't think he ought to come out of
prison any more."
The pastor felt as if he had received a blow, and rose quickly. "If he
is in the right," he thought, "then Heaven help the right that has
fallen into such hands! Can being in the right make a man so coarse
and bad? No! He is guilty!"
He sighed and took his leave despondently. Wangen went to the door
with him, and on the steps remarked:
"This is much more than a question between Norby and me. It most
concerns the working men, who are left without bread. It is a social
question."
"Indeed?" said the pastor, seating himself in his sledge, and
gathering up the reins, thinking as he did so: "Of course! If a man
only has toothache nowadays, he tries to make it into a social
question. People are too cowardly to bear anything alone."
"Yes," continued Wangen, "I don't stand so much alone now, thank
goodness, as Norby thinks."
"Then he's not so much to be pitied after all," thought the pastor,
adding aloud: "Yes, I hear you've started a new working-men's union,
and that you've often given lectures there lately."
"Yes," answered Wangen; "a man must be blind if he doesn't see that
Norby has a number of rich men behind him, and that the end and aim of
this matter is to do away with the eight-hours' working day in this
part of the country."
The pastor smiled and said good-bye, and cracked his whip over the
bay.
"That was a very unsuccessful visit," thought the pastor, and sighed.
"People are only amenable to reason when they are dying; and even then
it is in order to gain something."
Wangen had returned to the drawing-room, and stood at the window
watching the pastor as he drove away. He could not at once regain his
mental equilibrium, for, in spite of everything, the old man had left
a good impression upon him, although at the same time this was
something he was unwilling to acknowledge; for it might disturb the
calculation respecting man's wickedness, to which Wangen daily added
fresh amounts, thereby strengthening his righteous anger.
"How strange it is," he thought with some agitation, "that the priests
always play into the hands of the rich!" The thought had half
unconsciously been admitted, in order to get rid of the good
impression. "And they try with texts and solemn faces to make the poor
man give up his rights. I dare say!"
As he stood and followed the pastor's sledge with his eyes, he
gradually let loose a whole series of such reflections, and little by
little felt the irritation that made him believe in what he said; and
little by little the old pastor driving along the road seemed to him
to be a theological messenger in the service of wealth, like so many
other priests in this world.
"Has there ever been an affair too rotten for some priest or other to
lend himself, his God, and his church in defence of it? Look at war,
for instance! And the doctrine of eternal punishment! A nice thing
indeed!"
Wangen had nothing to do all day now, so he was always busy with this
affair with Norby, and it grew and grew in his imagination. At the
same time he constantly had to witness fresh sad consequences of his
failure. If he only met the old tailor who had entrusted his small
savings to him, he involuntarily went another way; for he thought the
tailor stared at him with wild eyes.
From his early youth Henry Wangen had been intelligent and warmly
interested in questions and ideas; but these ideas had always been
aimed at what others should do, and how others should be helped. When
finally an extraordinary responsibility had brought him to the last
extremity, he was in despair at having to stand alone; he felt the
duty of expiating and suffering to be a burden beyond the power of man
to bear, and he involuntarily tried even now to turn the matter into a
social question. He had at first, therefore, half unconsciously wished
and hoped that this forgery matter was only the expression of a
conspiracy against his business. Now he felt quite sure, and every
time he could suspect some one fresh of being the rich men's
accomplice, he became more comfortably certain.
When he really thought about it, he had long seen signs of something
brewing among his connections outside as well as inside the district.
Rich men were rich men, whether they called themselves farmers or
merchants. They were all afraid of him because of his eight-hours'
working day. And they not only wanted to force him into bankruptcy in
order to be able to say "That's how things go with such a short
working day." No, they wanted revenge. They wanted to send him to
prison. They wanted to dishonour him so greatly that he would
henceforth be harmless. He understood it now. Like many others, he had
fallen a victim to the demoniacal brutality that wealth and capital
breed.
For this very reason the work-people began to be unspeakably dear to
him. He no longer feared them in consequence of having deceived them;
they had become his brothers and fellow sufferers; it was in fact for
their sakes that he was now being persecuted.
In this way the recollection of his regrets and resolutions in the
dark railway carriage became less and less frequent, and in their
place rose anger against the social powers, whose the blame really
was. Nor was the oppressive sense of duty to expiate and become better
himself, any longer any concern of his; in this matter, too, he could
leave himself out of consideration, and look at society.
He turned from the window, and began to pace the floor. "So he was
willing to let himself be used too, was he?" he thought, and the more
he thought about it, the more excited he became. "Fancy! that lazy
priest, who perhaps lies in bed until ten o'clock in the morning,
grudges the working men a little ease!"
He bit his lip. By Jove, the working men ought to hear this! It would
be a good thing if they could hear it all over the country. Priests
were priests all the world over. He would have it in the newspapers in
some form or other.
And Norby? He might send out as many priests as ever he liked. He
should go to prison anyhow. Wait till the day after to-morrow!
CHAPTER III
EVERY evening lately, Ingeborg Norby had sat and read the Bible to the
pensioners in the little house. The pensioners were four in number,
the dairymaid and the two farm-servants, who were all between seventy
and eighty years of age, and had been in service at the farm for more
than half a century; and the blind tenant farmer, whom Norby had taken
in, so that he should not go to the workhouse.
In the little room lay the bedridden dairymaid; and in the larger room
sat the two white-haired farm-labourers and speculated on various
matters. They smoked, moved from one chair to another, and talked
together chiefly about their various illnesses. The blind man for the
most part kept his bed.
From the large house nothing was seen of these four persons. Even
Norby seldom went to see them; but he kept them supplied with clothes
and tobacco, although they all had money in the bank.
This evening the birch-wood was crackling in the stove, and the lamp
shed its light upon the long table; and Ingeborg sat at the door
between the two rooms and read so that she could be heard on both
sides.
When she had finished reading, she repeated the Lord's Prayer and sang
a hymn, in which the two old men upon the bench tried to join. When
this was over and she was about to go, one of the men said:
"How is the case going on?"
"There will be an inquiry the day after to-morrow," said Ingeborg.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the blind man from his bed, while he scratched
himself.
"Hasn't that there Wangen confessed yet?" murmured one of the
farm-labourers, shaking his head sympathetically.
"No!" sighed Ingeborg, adding: "May God turn his heart!"
"If he'd only been wise enough to confess at once his punishment would
have been lighter," said the blind man, still scratching himself.
"He may have confessed to God," said Ingeborg. "But the Bible says
that if any one wants to do God's will, he must go and be reconciled
to his brother. I'm sure if Wangen had come and asked father to
forgive him, father would have forgiven him."
"Yes, God bless him!" said the dairymaid from the little room.
Ingeborg said good-night and left the house.
The two old men upon the bench began to undress, with many sighs over
their rheumatism and pains in their limbs. One of them, after taking
off his trousers, sat down upon the edge of his bed and lighted his
pipe before drawing off his stockings. The other was also in his
drawers, and now crept cautiously in his clumsy slippers into the
dairymaid's little room, and seated himself upon the edge of her bed.
"Have you got enough on you at night?" he asked, as he struck a match
upon his nether garments, and lighted his short pipe with a trembling
hand.
"Oh yes!" said the dairymaid in a sleepy voice.
These two had been engaged, and had broken it off, and been engaged
again, over and over again for pretty well a lifetime. For a couple of
years they were not on friendly terms, and were each engaged to some
one else; but then they became reconciled and engaged again, until
things again went wrong, and so on. Since they had become pensioners,
however, they had made peace and were good friends.
"Because you're welcome to one of my sheepskins!" he said, looking at
the bowl of his pipe and trying to make it draw.
"Did you ever hear such nonsense! And you would lie and shiver
perhaps?" she said. "No; if I'm cold, I've only got to speak to the
mistress."
"Very well," said the old man, rising and tucking her carefully up. He
came in every evening before he went to bed to ask her if she wanted
anything. It was a kind of good-night. Of late he had induced her to
smoke, for then he could always do her some little service, such as to
clean her pipe and cut up the tobacco for her. But now, without saying
good-night, he slouched away and went to bed.
"You've forgotten to put out the lamp," said the blind man. He could
not see it, but felt its light upon him.
After the lamp was put out, the three old men lay and yawned audibly
for some time, until there came from the little room a yawn so loud
that the three men could hear it. This was their good-night to one
another.
"It's coming on to blow and there'll be a storm to-night," said the
blind man, drawing the skin coverlet over him.
"Then they'll have to have the snow-plough out again to-morrow," said
one of the others, after a short pause. Then they yawned a little
more, and silence fell upon the little house.
CHAPTER IV
THE day before the inquiry, Norby was in his office all day, arranging
his papers, making notes, and preparing his answers to the questions
he would probably be asked the next day. He no longer felt that it was
he who accused Wangen, but on the contrary he thought it was he who
had to make the defence.
The grey light of a snowy day fell upon the table and his papers, and
upon the old man as he stood with his spectacles far down upon his
nose, and passed his defences in review. He was tired of going about
collecting counter-evidence and taking declarations; but now he was
well armed, and was only impatient to begin.
A slight smile came over the old man's face as he looked at a paper
that he held carefully as if it were something precious. It was
precious too. It was a declaration from Jörgen Haarstad's bed-ridden
widow; and it would completely confound the evidence that Sören Kvikne
was going to give. This was amusing, because Herlufsen would be
disappointed. The old man was looking forward with intense pleasure to
the moment when he should read the declaration aloud in court, perhaps
with Herlufsen sitting there and listening to it. There was no doubt
that poor Sören had simply been bribed to give evidence as to his
having heard this remark of Jörgen Haarstad's. That was the kind of
means these people used; it was really beyond a joke.
The old man began to pace the floor, sighing now and again. He was
pale; of late he had been unable to think of anything but of how he
could be even with his enemies. He had as it were passed by the actual
heart of the matter in a railway train; and it now lay so far behind
in mist, that there were far more important things to be thought of.
It was clear, too, that it was not justice that his enemies were so
anxious for. No; what they were striving to do was to injure him and
knock him down.
At one time that scene at the hotel had stood very distinctly before
him; but Wangen's assertion that it took place in the Grand Café had
taken the sting out of the recollection. "Oh," thought Norby. "So it
was at the Grand? Very well! Perhaps he's right. But then it's all the
more certain that it's a lie. I've never in my life signed any
document at the Grand. If any paper was signed there with my name,
then it's a forgery!" Although these thoughts did not always bring
satisfaction, it was nevertheless a relief to let them out. And there
was so much besides to indicate that Wangen's hands were not clean;
there were thousands of other things to think about and be incensed
over, and the old man had now so often expressed himself regarding the
affair, that to remember his assertions was the same as remembering
the reality.
He was still standing rummaging among his papers, when the door opened
and Marit entered.
"Didn't I hear you talking at the telephone?" asked the old man,
looking over his spectacles.
"Einar's coming home to-day," she said. "He has asked to be met at the
station with a sledge."
The old man put his hands behind his back and his legs astride, and
looked at her over his spectacles.
"What do you say?" he exclaimed. "Einar coming home now? He must have
plenty of time, that gentleman. He must be thinking of becoming a
perpetual student!"
"You are so hot-tempered," said Marit. "You're generally glad to have
the boy come home."
He did not answer, but again began to rummage among his papers. Was
the boy going to interfere in earnest in this affair? He felt as if an
enemy had suddenly stabbed him in the back. Einar? He'd better try,
that's all.
"If only he doesn't first go and talk to his mother about it," thought
the old man. "But that wouldn't be like him."
He hung about, however, on the watch to be the first to meet his son
at the house.
When Einar alighted at the station, he found Ingeborg waiting with
horse and sledge.
The mocking voice had at last forced Einar's courage up; and when he
finally determined to go home, he felt as if he had burnt his ships
behind him. He would put this matter right, and first of all he would
try to bring his father to reason; but all the time he felt as if he
were going up for an examination.
When he saw the old brown horse, the familiar double sledge and fur
rug, a warm feeling seemed to come to him from home; and as he sat
beside his sister, driving homewards amid the jingle of the
sledge-bells, he was imperceptibly filled with the childlike happiness
of going home. But these were the feelings that Einar had had to
overcome before he came to his determination; and he was therefore on
guard against them, for on this occasion they were a danger.
Ingeborg had met him at Christmas with the same horse, and this
brought a host of bright, pleasant recollections into his mind. He
thought of the ball they had given, remembered the doctor's daughter,
who looked so pretty that evening, saw her eyes. His father and mother
had done everything to make them enjoy themselves. And now? Now he had
a feeling that he was coming home as a traitor in disguise.
"Why have you come so suddenly?" asked Ingeborg.
"To be here at the inquiry," he answered. "I want to see how it will
turn out."
"Oh, you can be quite sure that father's all right," she said with
warm conviction. Einar found himself wishing it might be so, and had
to say hastily to himself: "Take care that your good feelings don't
weaken your purpose."
"Poor father," said Ingeborg. "You can't think what stories people are
telling about him now. That Wangen must be a dreadful man!"
Her eyes shone with confidence in her father, and Einar felt the
infection.
"How are they all at home?" he asked, in order to change the subject.
"Little Knut has not been very well," answered Ingeborg, "but he is
better now." At these words, Einar seemed to see the little fatherless
boy looking at him and asking: "Are you really going to be unkind to
grandfather?"
A little later Ingeborg told him that a young horse had been found
dead in its stable the morning before. Einar felt for his father's
loss, and seemed to be standing at his side and looking at the stable
where the horses were stamping. And he thought how the beautiful
creatures would turn their heads in their stalls and whinny their
recognition of him, as if they too would say: "Are you really going
to!" For he kept in mind all the time that he would have to go through
it all.
As they turned up the avenue and approached the house, he asked
himself again: "Am I really going to?" It began to seem dreadful.
When they turned into the yard, their father and mother stood upon the
steps, as they always did when he came home.
"How do you do, father? How do you do, mother?" he cried; but the
words sounded like treachery to-day.
"Come into my office; I want to tell you something," said his father,
when Einar had taken off his coat in the passage.
"But you must come in soon and have something to eat," said his
mother. "It's all ready."
When they entered the office, Norby turned round at the writing-table,
and said, with his hands behind his back and his legs astride:
"I only want to tell you that your mother knows nothing about your
letter."
Einar inclined his head, and the old man continued:
"And if that's what you've come home about, you'll have to keep to
me."
"Very well, father."
"So that is what you've come for?"
"Yes, father," said Einar in a low voice.
The old man compressed his lips, but he moved towards the door,
saying: "Well, let's first go in and have dinner." Einar followed in a
shamefaced way, as if he were a naughty boy. He was old enough to see
his father's faults, but he had a very great respect for him.
"Then mother knows nothing," he thought. "And if father is so afraid
of its coming to her ears----" He dared not think it out.
The old man was quiet, almost cheerful, during dinner; but Einar
noticed how pale he was. His mother seemed to have grown greyer
lately, and he felt an involuntary desire to spare her; she had such
complete faith in their cause.
He felt more and more drawn into the home atmosphere. He asked for
news from the district, and had to tell his news from town. He had his
old place at table, and was the son just returned home, to whom every
one showed the most friendly face. Little Knut came creeping under the
table several times, and up between his knees. Everything combined to
draw him into something beautiful and soft, where he felt he must
surrender; but all the time a good instinct seemed to be shaking him.
"Take care!" it said, "take care! Don't let your good feelings play
you a trick!"
"Now, little Knut," said the little boy's mother, "you mustn't worry
uncle."
It sometimes happens that we suddenly receive a new impression of a
person, as if he had in a moment changed his identity. Up to the
present Einar had looked upon his father as the man who was unjustly
accusing Wangen, and whom he was ready to oppose; but before he was
aware of it, this same father was he who had been laid up last winter
with typhoid fever, and was perhaps not quite recovered from it yet.
On the way home, Ingeborg had told him of all the false accusations
that Wangen was spreading about their father; and now Einar too felt
his anger rising, and at the same time a desire to take his father's
part. As the atmosphere of home gradually brought out the feeling of
being son of the house, he felt an increasing shame of his intention
to betray his father, his own family. Here they were all sitting round
him without a suspicion of the true object of his journey. He felt
like a tyrant who was going to make use of his power of bringing, with
a single word, misfortune upon them all.
After dinner he felt inclined to sit down and chat with his mother and
little Knut; but his father, calling to him to come, went towards the
door.
"God help me!" thought Einar. "Now it's coming." His purpose was
already so weakened, that he heartily wished himself back in town.
Little Knut wanted to go with him, but Einar loosened the clasp of his
hands about his knees, saying: "I'll soon be back, Knut."
In the office the old man sat down in his customary place at the
writing-table; and Einar could not help admiring the tranquillity with
which his father slowly and deliberately filled his pipe.
"Won't you sit down?" said the old man, carefully lighting his long
pipe, and then calmly lying down upon the leather sofa. Einar sat down
a little way off.
"Are you in want of money?" asked the old man, raising his eyelids
just far enough to be able to look at his son.
Einar felt slightly irritated at this question being put just now, and
answered quickly: "No, thank you!"
The old man himself was a little embarrassed; for he had a secret
respect for this son, who knew so much, and in a way was of a finer
metal than himself. He would treat him as well as he possibly could.
"What was that nonsense you wrote in your last letter?" he said at
last, once more raising his eyes.
Einar rose involuntarily. A voice within him seemed to say: "Be
brave!" He began a little hesitatingly:
"I didn't mean any harm, father; and I still seem to remember that day
you came up to my room and told me about the guarantee."
The old man laughed a little, and pressed down the tobacco in the bowl
of his pipe with his fore-finger. "My dear boy," he said at last,
putting on a merry look, "you've dreamt that."
"No, father," said Einar, in rather an injured tone: "I'm not a child.
It's my firm conviction that you're mistaken in this matter. It's
quite possible you've forgotten it. And I want to ask you to take back
your accusation, for I suppose there's still time, and of course I
know that you wouldn't do anything that was wrong."
"Are you taking leave of your senses, man?" exclaimed the old man,
taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking at his son in
astonishment, although he laughed again.
Einar bowed slightly, and said, "I mean no harm, father."
"Yes, you mean no harm," said the old man, trying again to laugh, "but
do you quite know what it is that you're accusing me of?" And the
astonishment with which he now looked at his son was more serious.
Einar put his hands behind his back, and leant against the wall. He
had become more courageous, and all the time he heard the good voice
saying: "Take care!"
"Can't you remember that day, father, when you came up to my room
and----"
His father interrupted him with another laugh.
"No, Einar; you can't expect me to remember what you dream."
For a moment Einar felt perplexed. He had expected to be loaded with
abuse; but this kindness and this cool assurance began to disarm him.
He passed his hand across his forehead, and looked before him a little
helplessly. Had he dreamt it? Was it really nonsense he was talking?
And though for his part the old man laughed, he thought to himself: "I
wonder whether some one or other has been taking the boy in! It would
be just like them!"
But now Einar raised his head.
"No, father," he said, "I'm not making a mistake; for you haven't put
your name to any other papers for Wangen, have you?"
"Ha! ha! ha! No indeed, thank goodness!"
"Well, father, then you must take back your accusation, for Wangen is
innocent!"
There was a pause.
"Take back my accusation?" The old man sat up, and passed his hand
over the crown of his head, looking straight in front of him, and
putting bits of his beard into his mouth. At length he said, with
stony gaiety: "Oh no, Einar! It's you who are talking nonsense. So I
propose that you go back to town again, and set to work upon things
that you understand better than you do this matter." Saying which he
rose, and took a step towards the table. Einar had noticed an
alteration in his father's voice, which indicated storm.
"Well?" said the old man, turning round. "You stand there like a
parson in the pulpit!"
"Once more, father, take back your accusation! Do, father!"
"You're quite sure your father's a scoundrel?"
"It's only that you don't remember, father!"
"Now seriously, Einar, what have you come home for?" His father looked
actually curious, and Einar felt angry at not being taken seriously.
So he said as forcibly as he could:
"I've come home, father, to prevent you doing something you will
repent of."
"Don't you think, Einar," his voice sounded a little pained, "that
I've got enough with half the parish down upon me? There are numbers
of them only trying to get me locked up. And now you come too! Aren't
you ashamed?"
Einar's head sank. "Father--but--." His knees began to give away under
him; but unwittingly his father came to his aid?
"Who has persuaded you to do this, Einar?"
"Who?" Einar looked up suddenly, bit his lip and took a step forward.
His voice trembled with anger as he said: "What do you mean by that,
father?"
The old man could not help laughing at the lad's imperiousness. "I
believe you mean to go to the inquiry and give evidence against your
father!" he said, and laughed again.
"If you take back your accusation, father, I shan't have to." Would
his father take him seriously now?
A deep flush overspread the old man's face. He attempted to laugh, to
gnaw his beard, to pass his hand over the crown of his head, to sit
down; but he did none of these things. He rushed at Einar, took him by
the collar, and said laughing, but at the same time grinding his
teeth: "Go! Go! And you shall go back to town this very day, or
else--heaven help you!"
He drew back a couple of steps, as if afraid of being tempted to
strike him. "Ha, ha! Indeed!" And he suddenly began to measure him
from top to toe. He had only just become aware that the young man who
stood there was no boy whom he could laugh at or thrash. It was his
own son, who had suddenly grown up, and now stood up as his
opponent--he too!
"_Will_ you go?"
"Take back your accusation, father."
This was too much. The old man seized a chair, lifted it up and cried:
"Be off with you! Go, do you hear? Will you leave the room at once? Be
off, do you hear? Go, Einar!"
"Yes, I'm going!" said Einar, raising his head. He was so angry that
he would have liked to take the chair away from his father and show
him that he was too old now to let himself be struck. "But let me tell
you," he continued, "that you'll have to leave off treating me in that
way. Good-bye!" And so saying, he slowly left the room.
As evening fell, Norby drove out. After supper, Einar felt a longing
to confide everything to his mother, but he did not dare. What should
he do in the morning? Should he flee from the affair? It seemed doubly
hard now that he had staked so much upon it. He went early to bed, for
he was afraid of the influences that hovered about the rooms
downstairs and the people there; they all seemed to tempt him to
surrender.
In his little room, the birch-wood crackled in the stove, and diffused
the familiar odour of which he was so fond. A metal candlestick shone
in the light from the stove, and in it stood a candle of his mother's
own moulding. He had fled from the good impressions in the downstairs
rooms, and had run straight into the new ones here, that quite folded
him in their embrace. The sheets on the bed, the clean curtains at the
window, the recollections of all the nights he had spent here in his
holidays--everything asked: "Are you really going to?"
"I shall never be able to do it," he thought, as he lay in his
comfortable bed, wrapped up in his mother's sheets and blankets. It
was very different from what he was accustomed to in the
boarding-house in town. "But suppose sentence is passed on Wangen, and
I might have saved him! God help me! I should never have another happy
day."
During the night Ingeborg was awakened by Einar's coming into her room
with a candle in his hand.
"What's the matter?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.
"Hush!" he said, for there was only a thin match-boarding between her
room and the one in which her parents slept.
"There's something I must tell you, Ingeborg." And he seated himself
upon the edge of her bed with the light in his hand. At first it
dazzled her, but she soon grew accustomed to it. These two had always
been one another's confidants, for Ingeborg was the nearest to her
brother in age.
He spoke almost in a whisper, and she listened to him with wide-open,
frightened eyes, and her breath coming quicker and quicker. She made
excuses, she seized his hand convulsively, and said: "Don't say any
more, Einar! You must be mad!" But she took his hand again. She wanted
to hear all his reasons, and he told her them, because he needed to
have some one on his side. At length she closed her eyes as if she did
not dare to look up; she breathed still more heavily; something seemed
to have given way within her.
When at last he left her, she lay still with her eyes closed. She
began to be afraid because it was so dismally dark, and it was such a
long time to morning.
She tossed about in her bed and could not sleep, owing to an
indefinable terror. A criminal had found his way into the house, he
was sleeping under the same roof; and this criminal was--he was
her----No, no, it was not true! It could not be true!
"O God, help me! Help me!" she sobbed out in passionate ecstasy. "Help
me! Give me a sign that it is not true!" But she suddenly noticed that
it seemed as if God were gone. It was the first time this had happened
since her conversion. What was it! Why did she not go on praying,
instead of lying, her eyes gazing terror-stricken into the darkness.
Was there no God? Had it all been a delusion? She had prayed that this
affair might turn out well for her father. She had thanked God for his
innocence, and felt a comfort in thanking Him. She had also prayed for
Wangen; she had won this victory over herself and had felt a pleasure
in it. And was it all a delusion? Had God made fun of her? Or did He
not exist? Was that a delusion too? Was this comfort to her soul in
being in fellowship with Him, this pleasure in doing good, also
delusion, delusion, delusion?
She tossed about in her bed, weeping convulsively. If her father were
guilty, then there was no God. It was all a delusion, a delusion!
"O God, give me a sign that Thou art! Give me peace! Is my father a
bad man, who will give false evidence to-morrow? My father? O God,
give me a sign! Help me if there be a God! For Christ's sake, give me
a sign!"
At last she knelt in her bed, stretching out her clasped hands.
Towards morning Einar was greatly astonished to see Ingeborg come
creeping into his room. She took his face between her hands, and said
in a voice that trembled with joy:
"I must tell you at once. You've made a mistake, and thank God for
it!" She involuntarily laid her hand upon her breast.
He lighted the candle and looked questioningly at her. Her eyes were
positively shining with joy.
"Yes, Einar, God has given me a sign. You've made a mistake, and I was
sure you had. And now you must go and ask father's pardon." She
stroked his forehead with her hand, and disappeared noiselessly.
"Poor Ingeborg!" thought Einar. This young girl, whose hair sorrow had
turned grey--this nun, who lived always with her thoughts on the other
side of the grave--would it not crush her, too, if to-morrow he----?
"Remember, Einar, whatever you do, don't take any family
considerations!"
CHAPTER V
WHEN Norby drove off the next morning, his wife sat by his side. He
always wanted her with him when anything serious was going on.
It was a grey winter's day, and the snow was falling fast. As they
turned out of the yard, the old man's thought was: "I wonder how
things will be when we drive in here again."
At last the day was come of which he had once stood in such fear, but
which had gone on inexorably approaching. He was not afraid now; he
was only impatient to begin, like the excited gambler, who only thinks
of winning. A slight suspicion that some enemy or other had had
something to do with Einar's behaviour the day before, only increased
his inward excitement. They didn't know what shame was, those people!
They bought witnesses like that Sören Kvikne. They tried to make the
son rise against his father. But just let them wait!
The court-house lay near the sound, which is the centre of the parish,
and near which the magistrates lived upon their farms. Along the
narrow lines that ran across the stretches of snow and represented
roads, people could be seen like black dots moving in the direction of
the court-house. The body of the court would be full enough to-day.
The first person Norby saw when he got there was Herlufsen, in his
great wolf-skin coat; and the first thing he did when he got out of
the sledge was to go up and shake hands with him. Herlufsen also
advanced to meet him, drawn like steel to magnet. The handshake was
warm, and the two smiling faces shone with pleasure at meeting one
another. Both were thinking: "I wouldn't be in your shoes to-day for
something!" So Herlufsen invited Norby to take a cup of coffee with
him at the hotel, but Norby protested that on this occasion he would
stand treat.
The doors were almost too narrow to admit the big, fur-clad men. At
the coffee-table they were soon warmly united in speaking evil of one
and another whom they both hated. The great case they only ventured to
mention very carefully, for fear that the one should see through the
other.
Outside there was a bitter east wind blowing, which swept the smoke
from the neighbouring factories through the driving snow. People
walked about beating their hands together to warm them; and some went
into the baker's shop and bought bread as an excuse to warm
themselves. At length the magistrate arrived, the court was opened,
and the people streamed in, stamping the snow from their boots as they
went up the stairs.
When Marit Norby entered, she saw the pastor's wife and Fru Thora of
Lidarende among the audience. They both gave her a friendly
recognition, and made room for her between them.
When Wangen stood at the bar and protested his innocence, the pastor's
wife turned towards Marit Norby with a sigh and a look, which said:
"Poor man, how foolish he is!"
Thora of Lidarende already felt as if she must burst into tears.
Wangen was so pale and emaciated; his throat was so thin inside his
collar, and the back of his head seemed so big. His back was actually
bent. Poor man! If only he would confess!
It never occurred to Fru Thora that her opinion of Wangen's guilt
could be wrong, since she sat there and pitied him. From the very
first this opinion had fostered a number of beautiful, charitable
thoughts in her mind; and she therefore never considered how she had
arrived at it. It was a view that had made her willing to make some
sacrifice, for instance, to adopt one of Wangen's children; and a
conviction for which one sacrifices something, not only becomes a
certainty, but grows so dear that it actually acquires a moral value.
"Poor Wangen!" she thought. "Who can say whether all this is not
really the outcome of an unfortunate inheritance from his father? But
the human tribunal does not take that into consideration; it is
merciless;" and at that thought she seemed to see before her a
community with tribunals that were different.
Knut Norby was called as the first witness in the case. The moment had
come for which he had previously felt such terror. He had to go in and
say that he had not put his name to any paper for Wangen.
When he entered the corridor he felt the excitement of the card-player
who has good cards in his hand, and is impatient to play them. His one
thought was that he must not for the world forget anything. As his
hand touched the handle of the door, a far-off voice seemed to say:
"Turn back! There is still time!" But the voice was far too distant.
"Did you really defraud that widow?" said another voice; and this
filled him with a desire to knock Wangen down. As he entered the
court, he raised his shoulders a little, as he was accustomed to do
when he knew that a number of people were looking at him. The first
thing he saw was Wangen in the dock; and when their eyes met in a
flash, the old man felt a dull anger rising within him. He remembered
all the reports that Wangen had spread about him. "You wait!" he
thought.
On his way to the witness-box he saw both the pastor's wife and Fru
Thora nodding to him, and it gave him encouragement. When he saw that
it was not the magistrate himself, but his head clerk who was
conducting the inquiry, he was offended. The magistrate might send his
clerk to unimportant cases; but it was Knut Norby that this concerned.
When the young man with the eye-glasses and the downy moustache
adjured him to speak the truth, the old man felt a desire to laugh.
Fancy that whipper-snapper acting magistrate! He had heard that this
very gentleman had been as drunk as a lord at Lawyer Basting's last
Saturday evening. And there sat Basting, too, that pauper, trying to
look like a sage! He had come already to help Wangen, the fool! Yes,
this was a court to inspire respect!
The questioning began. Norby found it easy to answer, just because
Basting was on the watch. He had been on the watch, too, when he had
tried to agitate for Norby's removal from the bank board, and to get
appointed himself. The poor wretch's goods were distrained for the
poor-rate, and he was thankful to get a bill for two krones to
collect. And that man was on the watch against Knut Norby? Supposing
it were he who had got hold of Einar!
"Wangen asserts that he distinctly remembers the place where the
signing took place," said the clerk.
"Well, perhaps I might be allowed to know where it was, too," said
Norby, innocently.
The clerk turned towards Wangen. "Wasn't it at the Grand Café?"
Wangen rose, and his eyes shone as brightly now when he said it took
place at the Grand as when he said he was innocent.
To Norby this gave a welcome touch of comicality, and he answered with
deep conviction: "That document was not signed by me."
At these words he heard a little sarcastic laugh from Wangen, which
made him boil with rage. "I'll give him something to laugh at," he
thought. "Wait a little!"
Then something happened, which came quite unexpectedly upon Norby. The
clerk took out a paper and handed it to him. "Here is the document,"
he said, "and there is your name. Will you see whether it resembles
your signature? You might possibly have forgotten the matter."
For a moment Norby saw his name, as he himself had written it. It had
the effect of a ghost. He would not look at it. He looked at Lawyer
Basting, who was looking askance at him, and this made him quite
angry, and he threw the document upon the table, saying: "I don't need
to look at that thing. I know what I've done."
At this Basting asked permission to put a question, and rising, came
nearer to the witness-box. "Has Wangen never asked you to be surety
for him?" he asked.
Norby looked contemptuously at the greasy-looking, bald-headed old
man. He was about to laugh or give a scornful answer; but a voice
whispered! "Take care not to let the cat out of the bag!" and he said
with a smile:
"A great many people have asked me to be surety for them; but I can't
remember them all." Then, irritated at again hearing Wangen's
sarcastic laugh, he added casually: "He must have asked me, however;
for latterly he was running about and asking every blessed soul he
knew."
This time he heard Marit laugh.
When his examination was over, he remembered the declaration from
Haarstad's widow, and asked to be recalled when Sören Kvikne had given
evidence. When he came out of the room he stood on the stairs for a
little while to cool himself before putting on his cap. There was a
voice far away, crying: "You have lied!" But it was too far away, and
powerful voices rose against it. It was true, was it, that he had
defrauded that widow?
He still seemed to hear Wangen's laughter, and he thought once more:
"Wait a little, and I'll give you something to laugh at!" He still had
his best cards in his hand.
"It's too bad all the same," he thought, as he sauntered across the
yard, "that one should be exposed to the attacks of such riff-raff.
You have both to circumvent them and to wriggle away from them; but
I'll be d----d if that man doesn't have to leave the parish now!"
Suddenly the old man stood still. A young man in overcoat and fur cap
was coming towards him. Was he mistaken? No; it was Einar.
Norby was excited already; and now when Einar came, too, perhaps to
interfere, he felt inclined to give the boy a thrashing.
They both stopped within a few steps of one another. Einar was very
pale.
"Is that you?" said the old man, attempting to laugh. He knew that
people could see them from the window.
"Yes, father!" said Einar, as he dug his stick into a snow-drift, "and
it isn't very pleasant to be myself just now."
At this the old man laughed scornfully, and shrugged his shoulders.
"No, of course not," he said. "Is a hundred and fifty krones a month
too little? You have a family in Christiania, perhaps?"
Einar pressed his lips together, and his voice shook as he said,
looking calmly at his father: "I wanted to follow the dictates of my
conscience, and do what was right."
"Yes, of course!" said the old man, coming a step nearer, and laughing
again. "Does any one forbid you to do so?"
"I shall have to go in and save the innocent man," said Einar, "no
matter what it costs me." But he involuntarily retreated a step, and
gazed at his father in fear. The old man still tried to smile, because
people could see them from the windows; but he suddenly turned pale.
"Yes, I thought so," he said, breathing heavily; "but who has put you
up to this?"
At this Einar flushed, and drew a step nearer. "Father!" he said, and
his voice was indignant; "you must tell me what you mean by that."
The old man, however, resented the authoritative tone, and began to
gesticulate, while he shouted: "Go in and give evidence then, confound
you! Don't stand there and torture your father! Go at once, do you
hear?"
He caught his breath and gesticulated with his arms, but no more words
came; and he turned abruptly and tramped away, while Einar began
mechanically to walk towards the court-house. Suddenly he heard his
name called: "Einar!" He turned. "Yes, father?" His father was
standing looking after him, but made a sudden movement with his hand.
"Nothing!" he said, and went on. Pride had conquered.
Einar stood upon the steps of the court-house. There were a few steps
to be made. "The fact is that father himself is the best proof that
Wangen is innocent," he thought. "But can I? Am I cowardly or
courageous? All I have to do is to tell the truth and save an innocent
man. Is that so dreadful? Perhaps it's the only time in my life that a
brave action will be required of me. I must be a man!" And he went on
with slower steps into the passage, and knocked at the door.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN Norby left Einar, he did not know where he went. He met some
acquaintances, and had to stop and shake hands with them and chat,
although he felt inclined to throw himself upon the ground and weep.
"There's no lack of snow this winter," he said, laughing almost
convulsively at the group gathered about him, and at the same time
thinking: "Now he is in there giving evidence."
Every one without exception spoke to him with the usual deference, and
gave him sympathetic glances; and this gave him fresh courage. "He's
welcome to give evidence," he thought. "But we shall see!"
At last he was alone, and stood at the window in a little general
store. Above him on the hill stood the court-house, and he could see
at the window the profile of a head with a hand raised to the chin.
"Now they're enjoying the scandal," he thought. "They think they've
caught me when they've caught my boy; but wait a bit."
It seemed to freeze something within him. This son, upon whom he had
spent so many thousand krones, but who suddenly attacked his father in
this way, was not Norby's son any longer. There was only a smart, as
if something had been cut away, and it made him set his teeth hard.
"They are mistaken. If I'm not man enough to overthrow his assertions,
I'm not what I thought I was; for now it's a matter of life and death
in any case." He could not help laughing, but it was a cold, hard
laugh; for the thought that he was going to disgrace himself and his
son by having to refute his evidence in court, made him quite fierce.
"As sure as I live, they shall regret that they took the boy from me."
When Einar entered the court, he saw at a glance that the witness-box
was empty. The clerk was dictating something to be entered in the
minutes. The witness's place was waiting for him who should tell the
truth. It seemed to beckon to him.
When he shut the door behind him, the little noise made him start. The
door was shut now between him and his father for ever. "I can never go
home again," he thought; and at the same moment he caught sight of his
mother among the audience. She smiled at him. She was flushed and
perspiring with the heat. "If you only knew that I can never come home
again!" thought Einar, as she made room for him beside her; and the
fact that she sat there and made room for him, without suspecting why
he had come, agitated him greatly. "When she hears my evidence," he
thought, "she'll faint."
It must be done now, however, now or never. He felt that if he did not
go straight at it, his courage would ebb, and he would collapse. It
had cost him so much to make up his mind; to turn round now would be
an insult to himself. He looked across once more at his mother, as if
to say: "You cannot want me to tell anything but the truth. I tried to
save father while there was time, but it was impossible."
He was about to address himself to the clerk, when Thora of Lidarende
and the pastor's wife gave him a friendly nod, and he had to nod back
again; and his mother beckoned to him, while the two other ladies
helped to make room for him. Should he go there for a moment? He very
much wanted to sit down. He had been wandering about for hours out in
the cold, and the court was hot and badly ventilated, and he felt
giddy and the blood rushed to his head. His mother beckoned again and
smiled; and before he quite knew what he was about, he was sitting
beside her. The two ladies with her gave his hand a warm pressure as
they shook hands with him.
The next moment his mother was called as a witness. The clerk looked
at her and said: "I thought you were sitting among the audience?"
"Yes, I was," said Fru Norby.
"But that is not allowed," said the clerk. "You must be good enough to
remain outside when you are a witness."
Einar had a strange feeling on seeing his mother in the witness-box.
It seemed to him that standing there she was in some danger or other;
and when the clerk administered this rebuke, he felt an involuntary
agitation. All his filial instincts were aroused and took up their
stand beside her. He was no longer capable of thought; he only felt.
After strenuously working himself up to a high pitch of clearness of
judgment and truthful endeavour, he now suddenly lost his balance and
fell into a strange world of indistinct but warm impulses. Far off a
star beckoned to him; it was for him to go up and give evidence. But
it seemed to go farther and farther away. There stood his mother,
looking all at once so thin and helpless. The clerk had offended her.
And was Einar now going up to contradict her before all these people?
He might just as well go up and knock her down. He grew more and more
afraid that something would happen to her out there. Nothing must
happen to her!
When his mother had finished, she went out: and Einar had to follow
her to see if anything was the matter, and in doing so forgot his
overcoat, which he had taken off and placed beside him on the bench.
When he caught her up near the baker's, a sudden resolution came to
him to leave her, for he could not bear this any longer. He was not
equal to the task of concocting any explanation; he only said good-bye
and hurried away.
Sharp hail-showers had taken the place of the snow-storm, and deluged
him with rolling ice-pearls. The road meandered along the fjord and on
to the station; there was an hour before the train went and he had
plenty of time, but he hurried like a man who is running away.
At last he began to walk more slowly. There was a voice that whispered
to him: "But this inquiry is only an investigation of the matter. It
will be time enough if you give evidence before the jury." But he
stood still, as if the thought were something that he could knock
down. "Confound it!" he thought. "This is just as cowardly, _I_
imagine I can go to the trial by jury? I? The coward!"
He had wandered backwards and forwards in this way before to-day, now
determined to go away, now to go straight to the inquiry and give
evidence; and when he finally approached the court-house with firm
steps, he had felt glad and proud that what was truest and bravest in
him had conquered.
And now? He could not go home any more. Even if his father could
forgive him, he would despise this sorry hero; and as son at Norby
Farm, he had betrayed the house and all his family just as much as if
he had not been too cowardly to put his resolve into action.
He stopped and looked back. There, on the white snowy surface by the
sound, stood the court-house, enveloped in driving showers. In Einar's
eyes, that building was now only a den of injustice, in which false
accusations were made and false evidence given, and where an innocent
man was condemned, and had his life ruined. And he who could save him?
He fled! He was the greatest coward of them all.
Einar suddenly felt it was quite impossible for him to go back to town
and be the old Einar Norby. He could never look his friends in the
face. He would have to live with shame in his heart, and always bow
his head and keep silence when mention was made of honesty and truth
in the world. Could he ever have another happy day if Wangen were
condemned?
No, he could not walk any farther towards the station; his feet
refused to carry him. At last he sat down upon a stone by the wayside.
He had not yet noticed that he had forgotten his overcoat.
An hour later he was still sitting there, with his head in his hands.
He was roused by the sound of sledge-bells. Two men drove past in a
double sledge, laughing and talking about the inquiry. Something must
have happened. But Einar sat on. Should he turn back? he thought;
perhaps there was still time. And then he suddenly burst into a laugh.
That this desire to do something great could still raise its head made
him laugh scornfully and bitterly; and as he laughed he coughed.
When Sören Kvikne at last came into the witness-box, he put himself
into an important attitude, and thrust his hands deep into his
pockets; for he knew now that the whole thing depended upon him. He
declared that while he worked at Haarstad's, Haarstad had once told
him that he had seen Norby put his name to a paper for Wangen, and
that he himself had signed as witness.
There was a great sensation in the court. This was an acquittal for
Wangen.
"Are you sure of that?" asked the clerk, and looked at the
farm-labourer.
"I remember it as if it had been yesterday," said Sören. "We were
painting a cariole, what's more, when he told me."
The clerk now recollected that Norby wished to give evidence after
this man, and as he scented something interesting, he determined to
confront the two witnesses.
Norby had freshened up since Marit had told him of Einar's departure;
and now his great moment had come at last.
When he stood in the witness-box with Sören Kvikne, he first looked
round. Yes, Herlufsen was in court. He then took out his document, and
asked the clerk if he might read it aloud.
"Certainly," said the clerk, a little uncertainly, involuntarily
extending his hand for the paper.
Norby read: "I, Jörgen Haarstad's widow, hereby declare upon my honour
that Sören Kvikne left our service six months before the date of the
signature of Wangen's document. As he then went into service for some
time in another parish, it is impossible that my husband can have
spoken to him about this matter before he died."
The clerk now took the document and ran his eye over it. The audience
had risen in their excitement, and the accused had also risen and had
to lean against the wall for support.
"What have you to say to that?" asked the clerk, fixing his eyes upon
Sören Kvikne. Norby had turned to look at Mads Herlufsen. "That's one
for you!" he thought, thinking too that Herlufsen looked as if he had
got the toothache.
"What have you to say to that?" repeated the clerk, as Sören Kvikne
stood staring at his boots. "You said you were painting a cariole when
he told you about it; but it appears that your memory is at fault. How
do you explain this?"
But Sören was by no means equal to a new explanation, so he was
allowed to go.
When Norby and Marit were sitting in the sledge in the twilight ready
to drive home, a number of people crowded about them, and gave them
quite an ovation. Norby had had his case in such first-rate order that
all Wangen's witnesses had only provoked laughter.
As the old man took up the reins, Wangen chanced to pass. He looked
broken down; and as he caught sight of his adversary, he suddenly came
nearer and shook his fist at him. "You wait!" he cried, his features
distorted with anger. "You scoundrel! You think you've won to-day, but
wait a little! You shall go to prison, both you and the woman sitting
beside you!" He made a sudden dash forward in the snow as if to attack
them; but two men caught him by the collar and drew him away, although
he resisted strenuously.
"Ah, that brandy!" said an old man, shaking his head after him. "I saw
that there consul had him into the hotel and stood treat."
"The best thing would be for the bailiff to take him in charge at
once," said another, looking sympathetically at Norby.
Norby laughed, cracked his whip and drove off, while they all took off
their hats to him. He was tired. There had been so much excitement
to-day. But he seemed to be sitting all the time reading aloud that
declaration and seeing Herlufsen's face. He should never forget it as
long as he lived.
As they turned into the yard at Norby, Ingeborg came out on to the
steps, and said in a frightened voice: "Einar!"
"Einar?" said Marit, who was the first to get out of the sledge. "He's
gone back to town, hasn't he?"
"They brought him here in a sledge," said Ingeborg. "I've telephoned
for the doctor."
CHAPTER VII
A BRIGHT moon shone out from among floating, silvery clouds, over
snowy fields and forests in the dead of night. The buildings and the
flagstaff at Norby cast shadows upon the sparkling snow. The sledges
standing in the yard were turned up on their edge, so as not to freeze
under their runners. A solitary dog was running round the house,
giving short barks because no one let it in, although there was a
light burning in one of the attic windows.
During the night, one of the old men in the pensioners' house got out
of bed and crept to the window in his slippers. He stood there with
the moon shining in his face, and looked across at the house. The
other farm-labourer was also awake, and after yawning asked:
"I suppose there's a light in Einar's window, isn't there?"
"Yes," said the man at the window, hunching his shoulders because he
felt cold. "I wonder," he continued, "whether there is any change."
The dairymaid could now be heard turning over in bed in her little
room, and she murmured: "The dog has howled so dreadfully all night,
and that doesn't mean anything good."
There was a pause. The old man at the window continued to stand there
looking out into the silvery night and across at the lighted window in
the big house.
"I heard owls last night," said the blind man suddenly from his bed,
and yawned. "And I've not heard an owl here since old Norby died."
"Ah, well, Einar's always been a good lad," said the dairymaid. "God
have mercy upon his soul!" There was another pause.
"It seems to me there's some one walking up and down in the big
drawing-room," said the old man at the window. The next moment he
hurried into bed as if he were frightened. After a little, the blind
man said:
"Wasn't it in the big drawing-room that old Norby's ghost used to be
seen?"
"If there's any one there to-night," said a voice from the little
room, "we know very well what'll happen."
The moon drew two windows right across the floor. The big clock on the
wall struck two, and the old men turned over and drew the coverlet
over their heads.
The big drawing-room lay between Einar's room and that in which the
servants slept. A figure was really walking up and down there in
noiseless felt slippers. The moon sent a flood of light across the
floor, and the frost-ferns upon the window-panes were flames of
silver. But the man walking about there kept in the shade. At last he
paused at the window, and looked out. It was very quiet out there in
the night. The stars twinkled among the shining clouds, and lower down
above the hills hung red and black banks of clouds, looking like some
strange, variegated land. The old man wore his overcoat, and his hands
were thrust deep into his pockets.
The door opened, and Ingeborg entered with a candle in her hand.
"How is he?" asked the old man, quietly.
"Won't you come in, father?"
"Is it Einar who wants me?"
"No, mother. He's spitting blood again."
But the old man shrugged his shoulders and answered:
"They often do that in inflammation of the lungs. Just you go back and
take it quietly. He's so young and strong, he'll get over it all
right."
Ingeborg went quietly out, and the old man began to pace the floor
again. There was no use in fetching the doctor again; the complaint
must take its course. But the old man felt he must be here because he
could not sleep, and because the women wanted to have him at hand.
"Oh dear!" he thought. "I do hope Einar will pull through!" But the
terrible thing was that sometimes he caught himself wishing that he
would not pull through. Thoughts such as these buzzed about like
stinging wasps on the surface of his mind. He was sometimes
frightened, and sometimes would have liked to have given himself a
thrashing; but the wasps came again. So low had he been dragged down
in this confounded matter with Wangen.
Why of course he forgave the boy! He would never refer to the matter
again, if the boy recovered. But--but--this illness had followed so
close upon his anger; and it would take something to sweep away every
little sting.
He paused again at the window, and looked out into the bright night.
The wind was rising now towards morning, and began to raise
snow-clouds away over the hills.
Oh, how pleasant life would be, when this nasty case was done with,
and he could be the old Norby once more! Here he lived on his farm,
and only wanted to be left in peace; but was he allowed to? No; they
dragged him into this foolery with Wangen--wanted him to support such
swindles as these brickfields; and when he wanted to get out of it,
they threatened him with imprisonment. Then they suborned witnesses.
And then they set the son up against his father. And why was Einar
ill? If they hadn't persuaded him to come to this inquiry he would
have been in town now reading his books, instead of going down there
on a winter's day without his overcoat, and getting inflammation of
the lungs. Supposing he died! It would be the fault of those who had
persuaded him; and they would be sure to exult if Norby lost this son
too, for they had succeeded in causing him to lose his eldest. His
lips began to quiver as he stood in the moonlight. Would they succeed?
Would they have that pleasure? And he turned suddenly, and walked
towards the door. "I'll go for the doctor all the same," he thought;
but then he remembered that the doctor had promised to come early in
the morning, and he turned back to the window, and stood gazing out at
the red and black banks of cloud in the north.
Supposing Einar died and went over there. There he would stand for
ever, always looking at him as he had done down at the court-house,
when he dug his stick into a snow-drift. "I want to follow my own
conscience." Would he not hear those words night and day, and see that
form, as long as ever he lived? Always this accusation from the dead.
He might travel all over the world and collect evidence and
declarations to disprove it, but it would be of no use.
The old man pressed his lips together again. No, the boy must be kept
alive. Better that he should go to the trial and give evidence against
him, than die and witness against him everlastingly.
The wind was rising. It howled round the corners of the house and in
the roof, and up under the icicle-fringed eaves. In the east a grey
band of light began to show above the hills, but the moon still spread
her silvery veil over land and water.
Suddenly there was a sound of sledge-bells going down the avenue. It
was the old man, in his fur coat with the collar turned up, hastening
away to fetch the doctor. Einar must be kept alive. The poor dog,
which had not been let in, uttered a joyful bark at sight of the
driver, and bounded through the snow to join him.
It was still long before any one at the farm got up; only the
pensioners in the old cottage began to yawn in their sleep. This they
began to do an hour before they woke, and they always woke at four,
from long habit. The dairymaid always had it in her mind that she had
to get up to go to the cows as she did fifteen years ago; and the men
dreamed of getting up and going to the forest as they had so often
done in the early winter mornings long ago. The old habit had now
become regular dreams. Perhaps when these old people lie in the
churchyard they will dream the same things as morning approaches.
PART III
CHAPTER I
ON the morning after the inquiry, Fru Wangen rose at six, as she was
now without a servant, and had to do the washing that day. She had
scarcely dressed herself, however, before she was obliged to sit down.
She felt so tired and worn out, for she had been wakened not only by
the children, but also by Wangen several times in the night, and even
when at last he fell asleep, he kept crying out in his sleep.
At length she rose to go down, but stood for a little while with the
lamp in her hand, and let the light fall upon him. He lay curled up,
his face buried in the pillow. Perhaps he was dreaming something
horrible even now.
She stole quietly out, so as not to wake any of them. In the rooms
downstairs the windows were thick with ice; and while she knelt and
lighted the fires, she often had to stop to breathe upon her fingers.
At a little past eight she went upstairs to surprise him with a cup of
coffee before he got up; but while she was on the stairs she heard him
calling her, although he might have known he would wake the children.
"What are you thinking of?" she said, as she entered. "Do you want to
have them wake up?"
He sat up in bed. "Do you know, Karen," he said, "there is no doubt
that that Sören Kvikne, who came and offered to give evidence, was
sent!"
"What do you mean?" she said, standing still with the tray in her
hand.
"Can you tell me what interest that poor man could have in going and
giving false evidence that was so easy to disprove?"
"No, no?" She still stood there, and hardly dared to offer him the
coffee.
"No, Karen," he said; "the fact is that Norby had bought him.
Herlufsen of Rud, who once pretended he was on my side, is in the ring
too, as I might have known beforehand. And he lent this man of his in
order to set this trap for me. Upon my word it was well calculated. It
made me ridiculous, and increased people's suspicion. It was as
diabolical as it could be!"
"Are you quite sure now, Henry?"
"Sure?" He became still more angry. "Sure? Good heavens!"
"Well, because I can't imagine how people can be so wicked."
"No, you can't imagine, although you have to see it every blessed day.
I begin to think you'd rather it were I that was wicked."
"Will you have some coffee?" she asked, handing him the tray.
While he sat with the tray in front of him on the counterpane, Fru
Wangen drew up the blinds to let in the wealth of snow-light from the
bright winter's morning. Shortly after she turned to him saying: "I
got such a fright this morning."
"You got a fright?" he said, as he gulped down his coffee.
"Yes. There was a man sitting on the steps when I opened the door; and
I couldn't help being frightened, for it was the tailor."
"What?" he cried, putting down the cup.
"He must be mad. He's still sitting there. He said he would wait until
you came down."
"Can't you get rid of the fellow?" he said angrily.
"No. He said he'd sit there now until you came. I'm at my wits' end!"
It was the old tailor, who had lost by the bankruptcy all his savings,
upon which Wangen had promised him such good interest. He came almost
every day and wanted to speak to Wangen; but the latter was afraid of
him, because his eyes had latterly acquired such a wild expression.
It was not this tailor only who was constantly reminding him of the
sad consequences of his failure. He received despairing letters,
begging him for only a third of the money that had been entrusted to
him; and letters that threatened and cursed him. People were
continually coming to the house with tears and threats. It was enough
to make one mad.
These people still believed that he and no other was to blame for the
disaster. And that was not the worst; for in Wangen's inner
consciousness, dark arms were extended, and he had to hasten to think
of something else.
"Here!" he said, holding out the tray to her.
"But you haven't drunk your coffee!" she said in surprise.
He lay down again with his hands under his head.
"No," he said; "you take one's appetite away, Karen."
"I do?"
"Well, yes, to tell the truth. I can't think what pleasure you can
have in telling me this about the tailor. I think you ought rather to
ask him to go to Norby." And he breathed hard, as if something
exceedingly painful were working in him.
"Well, I'm sorry," she said, sighing; and taking the tray, she left
the room.
Since the inquiry Wangen had lived as if in a fever. His tactics for
asserting his innocence, namely, trying to prove that the forgery was
only a link in a chain of conspiracies against his business, had
turned out miserably. It had only increased people's suspicion of him.
It did not, however, on that account occur to him that he had chosen a
wrong method of procedure, but only worked his suspicion up to greater
certainty. The belief in this conspiracy was just what had given him a
good conscience in the midst of the troubles after his failure.
The trial, which was either to condemn or acquit him, was approaching
inexorably. It was not the fear of being found guilty of forgery that
made Wangen ill with anxiety as to the result, for of that he could
acquit himself; but the dread he felt was of having his illusion
concerning the conspiracy torn to pieces, and thus being obliged to
condemn himself. Moreover, because this belief in the malice of his
enemies made him feel good, it seemed like treachery in his wife when
she defended them. He grew angry, and felt inclined to fly at her; she
wanted to take away from him the plank with which he kept himself up.
He also had a feeling that it was only on the basis of this conspiracy
that he had any right to make the working men his brothers in
misfortune; so her slightest word in defence of Norby seemed an
attempt to rob himself of a virtue, a strength, which the homage of
the working men gave him.
When at last he came downstairs that morning the rooms felt very warm
and comfortable. "Has the tailor gone?" he asked almost anxiously.
"Yes," she answered--she was standing in the kitchen, rinsing
clothes--"I managed to get rid of him at last."
When he had finished breakfast, he sat down to the only work he did at
that time, namely, writing articles for a labour-paper. The title
to-day was "The Experiences of a Factory-Owner with Regard to the
Eight-hours' Working-Day."
His recollections on this subject acquired a wonderful golden radiance
from the very fact of his clinging to the belief that the cause of his
ruin lay neither in himself nor in any thoughtless reform. It was an
ideal that he felt an affection for, and he found a comfort in
glorifying it, because it acquitted him while at the same time it cast
a shadow upon his enemies.
As he sat with his pipe in his mouth, becoming warmer and warmer as he
wrote, the kitchen door opened and Fru Wangen entered with her sleeves
rolled up.
"Henry, dear," she said; "are you going to let another day go by
without seeing about a house?"
"I've told you," he said, a little irritated at the interruption,
"that it's no good looking for a house as long as I have this hanging
over me." And he went on writing, when she continued:
"But would you rather be turned out? Have you forgotten that the
auction is to be here next week?"
He threw his pencil across the table. Latterly she seemed always to be
having a suspicion that he was doing something wrong, and must
therefore come and interfere.
"Can't you go then and look for one, instead of coming everlastingly
and interrupting me?" he said.
"I didn't know it was anything so important, Henry. And if you're
writing something anonymous about Norby or others that you suspect,
please don't go on with it! I'm sure you'll only lose by it."
"It seems as if you couldn't imagine my writing anything but what was
mean. That's a nice thing to hear, Karen."
She stood a few moments looking at him, and then went quietly out into
the kitchen, and went on rinsing children's clothes in a tub. She
found it painful to live in these luxurious surroundings when none of
it was theirs any longer, and when they never knew for certain at
dinner whether there would be anything for supper or not. But to go
into the parish--she--and beg for a roof over their heads, was the
very last humiliation she would take upon herself; for this was just
what so many people had prophesied when she married him. But why did
he not go, when he always had plenty of time? Why could he not save
her a little? These were the thoughts that had of late made Fru Wangen
so bitter.
Wangen succeeded in recovering his happy mood, and had got on a long
way with his article, when his wife came in once more and disturbed
him. This time she had their two-year-old little girl with her.
"You must forgive me, Henry," she said, "but you haven't chopped the
wood I asked you for; and now you must take care of the child while I
go out and do it myself."
He raised his head and looked straight before him for a moment. Then
he sighed deeply. She saw that he had something to say, and stood
waiting with anxious eyes.
"Oh, dear!" he groaned.
"Do I bother you so dreadfully, Henry?"
"I thought you would help me a little just now, Karen; but I believe
even if people came here and killed me, you would go out and in just
as calmly, cook and wash, think of house-rent, and above all not
forget to chop wood."
"It must be done, Henry. It's not my fault that I haven't a servant
now."
At this he rose to his feet in great excitement.
"Are you beginning with that again? As sure as I live, I shall try to
let you have back your money."
She drew back as if she had been struck in the face, and then she too
grew angry.
"No, really!" she cried. "I won't bear that! I shall soon begin to
wish that you were guilty, Henry; for to tell the truth, you become
more and more unbearable because of this innocence."
"What do you say, Karen?" he exclaimed, turning pale and biting his
lip.
"You heard well enough!" she said, taking the child in her arms and
leaving the room. In a little while he heard the sound of
wood-chopping in the wood-shed.
"It won't do her any harm to chop a few sticks of firewood," he
thought; "for she takes everything else quietly enough, goodness
knows! I wonder if they won't succeed in enticing her away from me
some day."
While Fru Wangen chopped wood, she had to keep a watchful eye upon the
child, to whom she had given some twigs to play with. It was such a
shame that on account of this innocence, he no longer bestowed a
thought upon either her or the children. It was as if she were not
allowed to think about anything but his innocence, not allowed to feel
anything but pity for him. It was not five weeks since they had laid a
little baby in the grave; but he never mentioned it, and would hardly
allow her to do so either. But it was his continual suspicion that
began to weary her most of all. It made the whole world so exceedingly
sad and ugly; and the worst of it was that she involuntarily began to
be infected by it, like a disease for which she felt disgust, and
which she would like to shake off.
And while he was resorting to more and more ignoble means for
defending this innocence, she thought he grew a worse man. He oftener
came home drunk than he had ever done before; he was churlish and
brooked no contradiction. It was as if this innocence not only
acquitted him of all the evil he had ever done, but it also gave him
the right to do anything he liked, both now and in the future.
When at last Fru Wangen came in again, he was walking up and down the
room.
"Karen," he said, "can you blame me for expecting that you will devote
yourself a little at any rate to me just now?"
"But what is it you want me to do, Henry? I'm toiling from morning to
night."
"Yes, you're toiling; but you might toil a little less. Couldn't you
let my aunt have the children for a time? You know she would like to,
and you could be sure----"
"Do you really want to send all three of them away, Henry?"
He stopped. "Would that be such a dreadful thing?"
"No, perhaps not for you," she said, and went into the kitchen again.
It was near the middle of April, and the spring had begun to appear.
One day the sun was shining warm upon the bare fields when Fru Wangen
stood on the verandah looking out. The river was rushing by, yellow
and foaming, often hidden by alder bushes that were beginning to show
green buds. To the right lay the shining lake, reflecting soft, bright
clouds.
"Let me see, mamma!" cried the two little girls, as they hung on to
her skirts, both trying to climb up and see.
At that moment she heard a well-known cough down by the garden gate.
It was her father. It was always painful now when he came, and when he
came on to the verandah breathing hard, she was sitting in the
drawing-room with her sewing. He pretended not to see that she rose
and held out her hand. The two little girls, who had run up to their
grandfather, were also perplexed at his pushing them away as he made
his way to a comfortable chair and sank into it. He was breathing
hard, and placed his stick between his knees, resting his trembling
hands upon the handle.
"Isn't he at home to-day either?" he asked at length.
"No, father."
"He used always to be at home before, ha, ha!"
The old man was over seventy, but was a very giant. His long white
hair, thick, yellowish beard beneath his chin, and red, watery eyes,
gave him a patriarchal appearance. He was dressed in black frieze,
with silver buttons on his waistcoat, of which the lowest three were
left unfastened to allow for his corpulence.
"How are you, father?"
"I? Grand! We're going to have an auction at home--sell every mortal
thing; and your brother's going to America, and I shall have nothing
to live on, and must choose between going with him or to the
workhouse."
"Father!" she exclaimed in a whisper, her eyes fixed on him.
The old man laughed with his lips compressed and his blue-red hands
trembling still more upon the handle of his stick. His head shook too
upon his thin neck.
"Is he holding a meeting for the workpeople to-day again?" asked the
old man with a bitter smile.
"No," she replied in a low voice.
"It's so strange to us old fogies, Karen, that the worse people are
themselves, the more they feel called upon to make others better. Can
you tell me what he has to say to those vagabonds--he, the man who has
cheated them out of so much pay?"
She did not reply, but sighed.
"And those 'working men'--yes. They're amusing too. You may cheat them
as much as you like, if only you provide them lectures to listen to.
Never mind food and clothes, if only they can have bits of paper to go
about with and wave. Yes, it is strange in these days."
"You don't think of going to America then, father?"
"No, not if he pays me back the last ten thousand krones; for he said
he wanted them only for a fortnight." The old man laughed again.
"You can be quite sure he said it in good faith, father."
"Good faith! Yes, of course! And this good faith is now driving us out
of house and home. That was good faith indeed!"
Fru Wangen again closed her lips and kept silence.
The old man passed his hand across his mouth.
"But I want something in return. You must leave him, Karen, both you
and the children; for if I were to go to America, I should die in the
middle of the Atlantic. Now I might perhaps get a living out of the
farm all the same. But do you imagine that I'll live there and see
strangers managing the farm, if none of my own family are with me? You
must live with me; do you hear, Karen?" And he fixed his red eyes upon
her.
Fru Wangen looked at him quite helplessly, but after a little shook
her head; and as so often before, the old man went away in a rage,
threatening that he would never set his foot there again. But in a
little while she heard his voice in the garden, and going on to the
verandah, she saw him standing at the garden gate looking back, with
trembling hands on the handle of his stick.
"You've thought over your answer, Karen?" he cried. "For it's the last
time I shall ask anything of you."
She could not answer, but made a helpless motion with her hands and
went in, where she sank upon a sofa and began to sob. But leave
Wangen? No, people would be right then!
When Wangen came home he told her that the workmen had determined on a
demonstration on the first of May, and that he had a suspicion that
they intended going to Norby Farm.
It seemed to her that this pleased him, and she rose suddenly, saying:
"It isn't you, I suppose, Henry, that have thought of this, is it?"
"I? Oh, of course!" he replied, smiling a little scornfully.
"Yes, but you'll do what you can to prevent it?"
"Goodness me, how you do take on! To tell the truth, I'm not going to
prevent it. To make known their opinion in a body is the only weapon
these poor working men have; and I can't blame them for wishing to
show Norby and the other money-bags what they think of them."
"That's just what I thought!" she sighed, and left the room.
It was doubly painful to her to despise him now when she was obliged
to cling to him against all the world. It was just now that she needed
to respect him; but the worst of it was that while others were trying
to ruin him he was doing them the service of ruining himself.
One day they received notice from the liquidators that the works and
villa had been sold privately, and that they must quit them at once.
And so the day came when Fru Wangen had to go and look for rooms.
There was an empty cottage on a farm close by that had been occupied
by a schoolmaster; but the owner, Lars Kringen, had once proposed to
her and been refused; and to go to him now----! But after going round
to a number of houses, she came home quite discouraged, and remained
sitting with her hat and jacket on. She had received the answer "No"
everywhere. But a house they must have; and she felt she could not ask
Wangen again. "Well," she thought, rising, "I may just as well throw
the last overboard!" And she went to Lars Kringen.
A few days later a cart-load of furniture was driven from the door of
the pretty villa. Upon it sat two children, and Fru Wangen carried the
third in her arms. A little way behind, Wangen walked with bowed head,
and hands buried in the pockets of his coat.
The little cottage stood upon a mound surrounded with fir trees, and
had only two rooms and a kitchen; and when they entered, the
difference between it and the home they had left brought them both to
a standstill in the middle of the floor. The rooms were dark, the
paint was worn off the doors and window-frames, the boards were
splintered, and the timbers in the walls cracked.
Fru Wangen had to undertake a very thorough cleaning.
The greatest humiliation, however, had still to be gone through. They
had to ask Lars Kringen for milk and provisions on credit; and on her
way to and from his house Fru Wangen felt as if she could sink into
the earth. But all this was Wangen's fault, and strive as she would
she could not help a growing bitterness from rising up in her heart
against him; and in all this poverty and discomfort, it soon came to
be that they never talked to one another except to scold. And Wangen
came home drunk more and more frequently.