Читать книгу The Power of a Lie - Johan Bojer - Страница 6

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.