Читать книгу The Power of a Lie - Johan Bojer - Страница 5

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.