Читать книгу The Power of a Lie - Johan Bojer - Страница 7

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.