peter the boss had begun to frequent the observatory again. but it was not in order to watch the workers at selambshof as old enoch had done. no, the observatory was rather the scene of his economic dreams. with the help of the old marine glass he now and then peeped into the future. on the blackened billiard marker he had a few calculations, for the airiness of which quickly wiped-off chalk was a better medium than paper and ink. it was a sort of game. but behind the game lurked a serious purpose. peter the boss longed more and more to rise above the humble rank of an ordinary farm-bailiff. it is true that he had been called “director” ever since the estate had been transformed into a limited company after the death of their father, but the change of the title did not alter the facts. peter was tired of his elementary tricks in buying and selling and they had now become a matter of mechanical routine with him. they were simply a means of obtaining the commission which his sisters and brothers were too mean to pay him. of course he did earn a certain amount of money. yes, the amount increased quite nicely, quite nicely. but all the same he felt the restlessness of one who is conscientiously capable of greater things. he had half-frightened, dizzying visions of profits of millions. the future teemed with possibilities which confused and distracted him during his day’s work. he had to climb up 165to a high place in order to survey the situation. and that place was the observatory.
peter used to begin his observations from the west window. at first he pretended to be there for the sake of the fine view. he was coquetting, as it were, with his shy hopes. contemptuously his look passed over treeless and insignificant ryssvik. but further away he beheld trefvinge beyond the fine fishing water and densely wooded forests. well grown and no mortgages! fancy what a lot of money could be got out of that estate. peter could not help making calculations. it was, of course, mere fancy, idle fancies ... though perhaps stellan might ... he had flirted rather freely with elvira l?hnfeldt at laura’s wedding ... but probably it meant nothing.
with a little sigh peter stepped to the south window. here he at once approached a little nearer to reality. here lay kolsn?s and it looked quite different, with big bare patches in the forest, and bushes and felled trees and melancholy seed-pines on the horizon. yes, yes, cash would be wanted there when the old lady died and lieutenant manne von strelert began to sow his wild oats. lots of timber had been cut down and the estate was mortgaged, but there was still lots more to take. manne was a deuced decent fellow, anyhow, and peter would not have minded making him a little loan now and then. he had a distinct sensation of pressing a bundle of notes into the lieutenant’s hand and receiving a nice little i.o.u. in return, which would give him a hold over a corner of kolsn?s.
yes, those were his dreams. unfortunately peter had nothing to spare for kolsn?s now. stellan immediately consumed the cash peter could lay hands on. he was awful, stellan. already more than half of his shares lay as security in peter’s drawer.
at last peter came to the east window. from here he had a fine view nowadays since he had felled a couple of enormous aspens on the slope behind the avenue. he did 166that because of ekbacken. now he could see both the yard and the sawmill and a bit of the town behind. peter could not help interesting himself in ekbacken. herman had avoided him since the divorce. it was not so easy either to enter into conversation with old lundbom now that his trusteeship had lapsed. so peter had to be content with what he could discover with the help of his glasses, though that was quite a lot. he saw, for instance, that the proud yacht building herman had spoken of had completely ceased. there was never more than one yacht and that was herman’s own “laura.” well, the name was of course painted out, which really was not to be wondered at. that tall figure over there was herman himself. he would stroll out onto the pier and sit for hours with a glass and a bottle beside him on the green seat. sometimes he went out sailing for a couple of days and then the boat would lie rubbing against the pier with sails up whilst half the pier was littered with empty bottles handed up out of the boat.
peter shook his head in joyful concern:
“poor boy,” he muttered, “breakers after a storm. this will never end well.”
neither did it.
peter soon saw that activity in the shipyard decreased. the repairing slips began to be empty for long periods, the capstan struggled with its long arms as if it were begging for help from all the four quarters of the compass and the crane hung helpless over the water as if in expectation of an inevitable fall. and the few workmen visible were mostly loitering or sitting smoking on the sly between the weathering stacks of boards round the sawmill.
peter was quite touched at this decay. he felt an agreeable compassion for the excellent herman. it was not his fault that all this misery might turn out to his advantage and to that of selambshof. for if the resistance of ekbacken was broken then herman could no longer foolishly oppose 167the advance of the town. and in that fact peter secretly already saw his great opportunity.
peter had felt a profound emotion when for the first time he fully realised that the town over there was smoking and sweating in order to increase the value of selambshof. from that moment he began to think that the smell from the glue works on the other side of the lake was rather pleasant. the glue works was the first outpost of the town and with one blow it had broken the spell of the silent little m?lare bay. what would it not bring in its train? damage to property, stolen boats, poaching, brawls, servants in trouble. and worst of all the horrid smell. a southerly wind was a real trial to selambshof nowadays. stellan called it the sirocco. but peter thought in his heart that the smell was rather pleasant. it smelt of money, money. but as he walked and sniffed it, he grew impatient with the sirocco all the same, but not in the same way as ordinary people did. on the other shore, things moved along deuced quickly he thought. but on this side ekbacken can’t resist for many years. and the town may expand in other directions.
it was a close day in july. there had been a bad drought this summer and the fields at selambshof were half scorched, and promised a failure of the crops. between the drooping and dusty elms of the avenue there was a smell of carrion and old cheese. the whole estate was enveloped in a vapour of putrefaction. the glue works over on the other side of the lake vibrated in the heat haze and seemed to dissolve in mere smells.
peter suffered from the economic sirocco worse than ever. he could not even remain in the observatory, but had to go out for a walk in spite of the heat. how were things going at ekbacken? eagerly but carefully he spied round the corner, afraid of being seen, and cursing beneath his breath the high wooden fence that herman had built towards the road. then he moved on further 168in order to see how the town was behaving. well, at last the new quay was ready. but how was building progressing on this side? peter ferretted amongst the dumps of macadam and the blast holes. he searched for newly staked-out building sites and for new foundations. no, there was not enough progress to record. why did they not hurry on the work more? it irritated him to see the workmen lying with their coats under their heads sleeping amongst the stones after their lunch.
peter returned home by another way. he took a dull, ill-kept road, far back from the lake, which led on past the old quarry between the bare hills. unsightly, ragged, untidy, the hill rose up, useless for all but the crows. the black smoke from a goods train puffing up the incline on the other side drifted slowly in between the dwarfed and miserable pines. peter stopped a moment in the damp cold that rose even in the hot sun out of the fens of tr?sk?ngen. he struck his stick on the dried-up lumps of clay on the road and stared in front of him. he had suddenly got an idea. the railway! he thought. the railway! this corner is furthest from town, but i have got the railway. i attack ekbacken from behind. i am finding gold on the rubbish heap!
he staggered home as in a delirium.
a few days later the shareholders of selambshof were summoned to a meeting. peter told them in a few words that he had found a buyer for the quarry and tr?sk?ngen. “that rubbish is not worth keeping and we need money to cover the bad season,” he said. nobody had any serious objection and the sale was made. the buyer was peter selamb, through an agent of the name of thomson. mr. thomson got very favourable terms of payment. then there appeared an immense white board up in the quarry overlooking the railway and bearing the words:
169“solberget and maj?ngen
building sites for sale!
maj?ngen building co., 3, nygatan, stockholm.”
peter the boss had thought it suitable to make this little change in the old place-names.
at the same time a magnificent system of wide intersecting streets was marked out with neat white painted posts and iron stakes.
strange to say the sites found a ready sale, for it was during the golden time of uncritical speculation in suburban land. and evidently there were some poor overcrowded, shut up souls for whom even the quarry and tr?sk?ngen was a taste of liberty and of nature.
the whole autumn, winter and spring, the money dribbled in regularly. “maj?ngen” was a splendid coup. but peter did not sit down on his gold hoard and purr. on the contrary he grew more and more restless as his banking account grew. he kept all his money in ready cash. with this ace of trumps in his hands he watched eagerly for the best moment to play it and gather in a fat trick. his glass almost burnt in his hand when he directed it towards ekbacken. during many soliloquies he roamed restlessly about outside the cursed high wooden fence. yes, yes, it reeked of an exquisite decay from afar. but why did not that stupid herman come to peter the boss? if he had only known how willingly peter would have helped him! it was not right of him to forget an old friend. just fancy if herman had been foolish enough to throw himself into the arms of one of the banks in the town, which would just hold his head above water for a time in order to let him sink afterwards and then march off with everything!
this thought worried peter the boss cruelly. one day 170when he had seen herman sail out with the usual case of bottles he went straight through the high wooden gate and in to old lundbom in the office.
lundbom sat there aged and grey-haired, with a worried expression.
peter stretched out a big and honest hand:
“tell me all,” he said. “you can rely upon an old country neighbour. i am herman’s friend, though he does not care about me. i want to help as much as i can.”
lundbom had always had a sort of tender regard for peter. he had taught him to play “vira.” he had been his legal adviser. with a sort of impartial pleasure he had seen his knowledge boldly applied by his clever pupil. in his theoretical eagerness he had been rather proud, though he was himself the soul of honour, of his being able to show peter certain loopholes and snags. old lundbom symbolised, as it were, the fate of the law in this world: to be made use of by rogues.
peter stood there with outstretched hand, and lundbom really could not help seizing it, though herman had forbidden all communication with selambshof.
“what’s the position?” grunted peter. “if i can do anything i must know the position.”
lundbom shook the ledger:
“there were losses last year already. this year will be still worse.”
“the figures?”
“thirty thousand last year. at least fifty thousand this year, if things go on like this. now we are selling out our timber below cost. we are hard up for ready money.”
“have you any specially difficult payment to make?”
“yes, on saturday week, a bill for twenty thousand. fancy, we who never used to touch bills before.”
“who has got your bill?”
lundbom mentioned a small notorious usurious banker. peter whistled. that bank proved that herman had not 171known how to look after his business in town properly. he rose and pressed lundbom’s hand:
“good-bye! not a word to herman about this. he must be managed carefully, poor boy, good-bye!”
a week later herman came back from his sailing trip. he was once more sitting on the pier. the twilight was strangely yellow. in the south a big grey-black cloud floated, so heavy and solid-looking that it seemed a miracle that it did not fall. a warm but strong south-easterly wind had sprung up after the day’s calm. the leafy mosses of the willows on the shore turned in the wind and yellow crested waves beat with foreboding insistence against the slimy green piles on their sloping stone ballast. then the foresail halyard of the cutter began to flap persistently against the mast, a sound which in a badly chosen harbour at night threatens to cast you adrift and to shift your anchor in the dark.
herman was sitting with outstretched legs. his chin had sunk into the sweater and he stared motionless out over the water. over his whole being there descended a chill shadow of loneliness which gave a touch of melancholy and appeal even to his warm yachting shoes.
he stretched out for his whiskey glass but checked his groping hand and muttered something to himself about a renewal, a commission, and nine per cent. he came no further. there he stopped. he refused, from a kind of spite, to think any more than was necessary to keep things just afloat for the moment. it was also from some foolish spite that he had sought the assistance of an ill-famed bank. “that fits in with me best,” he thought, “for everybody thinks i am an impossible person.”
ugh! business ... banks ... the whole town!
he felt such a strong desire to take flight in his boat again that it hurt him. alone! out into the storm and darkness!
at this moment a massive figure came walking out 172along the pier. there was something disarming even in his way of dodging between the holes in the rotten floor-boards of the pier. his little, round, wrinkled head hung on one side between his enormous shoulders—as if it were drooping from sheer compassion. he somehow looked like an enormous child. he stopped and looked at herman, with two small watery eyes that threatened to overflow.
herman jumped up when he caught sight of the newcomer, he drew himself to his full height, erect and rigid as a post:
“what do you want here?”
peter stretched out his arms, which resembled thighs on which hands had happened to grow.
“look here, old boy ... why should we go on like this, ... two old friends like ourselves.... you know i couldn’t help things....”
herman suppressed his angry impulse and with a shrug of his shoulders sank back on the seat, staring once again out over the water where an old black-tarred fire-wood smack was just taking in her topsail and slowly turning into the wind with dark sails booming.
peter seized the opportunity of sitting down on the seat without further ceremony:
“you mustn’t think i am on laura’s side,” he assured herman. “she is a handful, she is, without a heart in her breast!”
“i have never asked to hear your opinion about my divorced wife,” said herman in a voice that was meant to be frigid.
but all the same there was a corner in his soul where peter’s words did good. he could not hide his wound. peter noticed it at once. so much sensitiveness he had left from the time of the great fear. yes, yes, that is the after-swell, he thought, and moved closer up to herman, ready to give him another dose. then it suddenly started 173to rain. big, whipping drops. herman rose silently, taking his glass and bottle with him. without looking at peter he walked quickly up to the house. “i don’t mind your being short with me if it soothes you,” thought peter, and followed him faithfully up the steps and into the smoking room.
herman put the bottle on the table, threw himself on the sofa and stared at his toes.
peter took the matches and lit the lamp. then he went into the kitchen and returned with a couple of bottles of soda water and a clean glass. after that he filled herman’s glass and prepared one for himself.
“your health,” he said.
herman drank deeply without replying. then followed a moment’s silence. the rain drummed against the upper windows, and rushed down the rainpipes. a cool damp penetrated into the close room.
peter took a cigar out of a box and lit it:
“i’ll be damned if i don’t stay the night, old boy! it feels jolly to be back at old ekbacken again!”
herman was still mute and seemed absorbed in the opposite wall. but when peter drank he drank also. and that happened often. peter thought the whiskey tasted good. yes it really was very jolly to be sitting here at ekbacken and see old father hermansson’s treasures gleam behind the glass of the cupboard in the corner. he was already drinking herman’s health, the delightful sensation of being host himself and of herman being less secure in the place than himself. not that he was thinking of business tonight. he could save that up for tomorrow. no, now he gave himself up to his feelings and the whiskey. and it was no small amount of feeling that he showed.
in the intervals between draining their glasses, peter suddenly began to abuse laura again. was this mere calculation on his part? did he sit there in cold blood 174and sacrifice the sister for his own profit? was he, with his diabolical cunning, playing upon poor herman’s love and hate? no, peter really began to realise herman’s loneliness. was he not himself a poor bachelor too? he felt real pity for herman. why shouldn’t he curse laura if it did any good to this poor devil—and to himself, also, by the way? he sat there working up his fury at the recollection of his sister’s old sarcasms. like a mad bull he tore fiercely and passionately at the red tissue of lies, caprice, ingratitude, and cursed coquetry called woman. yes it was a relief to him to take his revenge on the whole of the abominable sex that turned up its nose at peter the boss, but ran after such scamps as brundin.
with a stiff expression of disapproval, herman sat and listened to peter’s disclosures concerning laura. but he listened all the same—he couldn’t help it—till at last he banged his fist on the table so that the glasses jumped:
“be quiet,” he shrieked, “she is the mother of my child!”
peter sat for a moment puzzled, he gasped and blinked his eyes. laura was evidently played out. he must change his front:
“herman, you are a gentleman,” he muttered at last, admiringly, “i’ll be damned if you are not a gentleman.”
what was peter the boss to do now with all the vague emotions that rose in his massive body? some use must be made of this beautiful intoxication. yes, move at once to the other extreme. he overflowed with sympathy and brotherhood and memories from boyhood. “do you remember when it rained and we were playing in the loft at home?” “do you remember when we climbed into the rigging down in the shipyard?” “yes, that was in the good old days, old boy!” “we have had a damned fine time together all the same!”
here peter’s eyes filled with tears and he slapped 175the old fellow on the back and swore that a helping hand from peter the boss would not be lacking. herman made no opposition. he suddenly looked terribly tired. he had been so utterly, miserably lonely. though he still felt suspicious he had no longer strength to resist. peter overpowered him by his sheer weight.
peter forgot to remove his hand from herman’s shoulder. he felt a great, vague exaltation. at that moment he really loved his dear old herman. he felt an irresistible desire to do something for him. the observatory, maj?ngen and his errand to ekbacken: all were forgotten in this moment:
“look here, herman,” he muttered in a thick voice, “i saw little georg the other day. in his fourth year. sailor blouse and a whistle on a white cord. your image. wouldn’t you like to have a look at him? laura is going away, so it is easy to arrange. he can stay for a few days with the nurse at selambshof. that’s not a bad idea, eh? now do say yes!”
herman had not wanted to see his child. in his injured pride he had refused for three years to allow himself that crumb of comfort. yes, he had almost imagined that he hated the baby. now he sank down with his hands in front of his face:
“tomorrow,” he muttered. “tomorrow, before i change my mind.”
“all right, tomorrow, old boy. with milk teeth and whistle and spade and pail and all the rest of it. come up to selambshof and have an afternoon whiskey and soda and then you’ll see him.”
peter rose. he stood there like a lump of dough, massive and swaying to and fro, and would not let herman’s hand go:
“tomorrow, old boy, tomorrow. welcome!”
then peter the boss walked home to selambshof.
but herman swept bottle and glass on to the floor and 176then sat motionless as a statue and stared into the night and thought of his son.
there are men who are fat for slaughter and there are those who are fattened by the slaughter of others. peter the boss certainly belonged to the latter category. but heavy and sluggish blood may still leave you a victim of softer feelings. and peter had, as we have seen, his weaknesses. but the strange thing is that somehow when it came to the point they always served his purpose. he could yield to any excess of feelings because the real peter the boss remained safely behind on guard. whilst others awoke with remorse and a splitting head, he realised through the lifting mists that he was on the point of doing a fine stroke of business.
big and good-tempered, he now stood in his soiled flannels and wide-brimmed sombrero by the corner of his house and looked at the touching group on the terrace. he was confoundedly fond both of the fair little thing between the sand moulds and of that tall unhappy herman who had—god help him—dressed up in morning coat to meet his son. perhaps it was because they were both equally helpless.
herman sat there rigid and pale, torn by conflicting emotions. he did not try to explain who he was. he did not even dare to take the boy on his lap, he only looked silently at the vivacious open face and the chubby little eager hands. a living memory of the past! there they had mixed their blood, he and the woman from whom he would never escape as long as he lived.
there was a sighing of the wind in the old maple above the rusty signalling guns. here laura had sat, and there up the avenue he had come—always with that strange anxiety in his inmost heart, herman leant back on the bench. a feeling of resignation stole over him. here at selambshof he had met his fate—and here he would still 177find it. here were beings against whom it was no use fighting.
peter coughed before he came up to them, a wonderful act of delicacy on his part.
then the nurse came to put little georg to bed. herman started up as if in alarm. he lifted the boy up in his arms as if to kiss him, but put him down again and sank back on the seat beside peter.
“i hope you have not talked about me—you have not told the nurse who i am,” he muttered.
“not a word,” peter assured him.
but herman felt all the same a pang in his heart. “then laura won’t hear of it,” he thought. “and she won’t be forced to give me a thought.” and he hated himself because he could not help feeling a cold emptiness. in one draught he emptied the glass before him.
but peter carefully slipped into business. he did not of course speak of herman’s bill that was due or of the affairs of ekbacken at all. he only said that he had met somebody who wanted to invest about fifty thousand crowns on good security. and then he had thought of herman at once. times were difficult and working capital always useful.
herman did not seem to hear at first. then his face contracted at the thought of this wretched business. and then he suddenly assumed the cold, severe, businesslike tone which is so often found in very impatient people:
“terms? interest?”
“not bad—six per cent—”
“if i am to consider the proposition i must have half tomorrow against my promissory note until the bills of sale are redeemed.”
“aha!” thought peter the boss, “there you gave yourself away. i should never have said that.”
“well,” he muttered, “you might get about twenty thousand at once.”
178herman felt that this was easy. he glanced suspiciously at peter:
“who is this benefactor? does he prefer to remain unknown?”
peter smiled and looked transparently honest:
“not at all, he is o. w. thomson, director of maj?ngen. i can vouch for him. decent fellow. i shall be pleased to arrange the business for you out of gratitude for all you have done for us at ekbacken.”
herman suspected that thomson was peter’s dummy. a few days ago when old lundbom, encouraged by a certain visit he had received, had hinted vaguely at peter, herman had sworn that he would never have anything to do with selambshof. but before he walked home that evening he had all the same arranged for a meeting. he was not strong enough to resist.
the following day it appeared that o. w. thomson had gone away. the matter could not be arranged until two days later, that is to say, the day before the due date of herman’s bill. and then thomson was in a bad temper. he demanded eight per cent and only a month’s notice. it was risky. peter had done what he could but that confounded thomson was quite impossible. there was nothing left for herman to do but sign and rush off to the bank.
peter continued these friendly potations with herman. he enjoyed his company very much, and showed a touching interest for his welfare, yes, he really ministered to his weaknesses:
“you have been living in hell, herman,” he said. “it has got on your nerves.” (yes, peter had actually found out that there were such things as nerves.) “you must take care of yourself, sleep, amuse yourself, go sailing. lundbom looks after the business. he is a magician, old lundbom.”
179“as if it helped to sail,” muttered herman, as gloomy as the flying dutchman.
but he did go sailing, anyhow, and peter went too, and did not let go of his dear herman. and when now after long stormy cruises out to sea, they had dropped their hook far out in a fine night harbour under some rugged cliff and the waves roared on the pebbles on the shore and the crescent moon shone over the sea, whilst the evening sky hung green and cold over the long ragged forest edges in the west, then they both revelled in a beautiful and romantic hatred of the town, its dirt and stuffiness and humbug and misery. it was a most beautiful accord between shyness, laziness and weakness on the one hand and instinctive, furtive, self-interest on the other. to herman the town meant rubbish, masons, walls scrawled all over, insidious threats against the idyls of his childhood. but it also meant his great smouldering trouble, neglected duties and a bad conscience. for peter on the other hand the town meant ten thousand possibilities and the fine opportunities which herman must not suspect. he liked to finish off his exhortation with little edifying stories, terrifying little accounts of the cursed banks.
“yes, beware of the banks, herman,” he exclaimed. “bills here and bills there and not a moment’s peace. one fine day they get you into their clutches and then you have to say good-bye to everything. but we will defend ourselves, old boy. we know a few little tricks, we rustics too, now don’t we? if you get into difficulties don’t make them offers. there is nothing so dangerous as to make them offers. no, you come to peter the boss and he will stand by you. not an inch shall they have of ekbacken and selambshof.”
herman sat there eating his tinned food, half touched, half suspicious.
“yes, but you have already sold some of it.”
180peter smiled a superior smile:
“don’t you understand. i tricked them, tricked those town scoundrels splendidly. sold away the rubbish heap in order to sit more securely in the castle.”
there herman had got something to sleep on. and in fact he did sleep better than usual. it was as if peter had lifted the worries from off his back and taken them on his own broad shoulders.
peter also snored soundly. he had not by any means done everything he might have done to ensure and isolate his victim. never! he who liked herman so much! no, he had only been jolly decent and said what he knew herman liked to hear.
and when peter afterwards came into town and told everybody he met that that fellow at ekbacken was far too fine for business, and that he had such damned bad luck in all he did, it was not done at all in order to destroy the last remnants of herman’s credit and make him even more impossible than before. he merely felt so frightfully sorry for herman that it was impossible for him to keep quiet about it.
but the whole man?uvre was as a matter of fact quite unnecessary. when, towards the autumn, cash again began to run short, herman simply had not the energy to go to anybody else but peter. the mere thought of going to cold strangers made him shiver. and peter did not say “no.” he really surpassed himself. herman got all he wanted at once on the security of a new mortgage on ekbacken, though this time with lower interest and a more reasonable notice of calling in.
herman was really moved when he went home. fancy if it had been laura who had repented and forced peter to this. yes he really lived on this fantastic dream through the whole of the autumn. poor herman, his pride had been dealt a severe blow.
but a great calm had descended on peter after his 181former restlessness. the sirocco no longer irritated him. he had only to wait for the ripening of the fruit now. soon he would be able to free herman from all his worries about ekbacken, which only made him unhappy.
whilst waiting, peter made little dreary excursions to his little gold mine “maj?ngen” and “solberget.”
it was mostly poorer people who had ventured out to the new suburb. they blasted, and dug, and sawed and hammered in nails. quite a lot of queer looking cottages had already been hammered together down in the marsh and up in the quarry. and there were already geraniums in the windows and children on the doorsteps. peter shook his head, smiled and pondered. “they build,” he thought. “that’s a mistake. they ought to buy from those who overbuild themselves. but they are decent people all the same, quite decent people.” he moved on carefully among the blocks of stone and the clay holes in the staked-out streets. he stopped before an arbour consisting of a few recently planted lilac bushes of the size of broom, in front of a patch of golden nasturtiums in a cleft in the granite filled with soil.
peter the boss really felt quite touched. it is strange how poetic poverty can be—in others. fancy how simply one can live. yes, they were really quite comfortable here in maj?ngen and solberget. peter actually began to feel a benefactor of all these people. “goodness! i wonder if i did not let those sites go too cheaply,” he thought.
meanwhile ekbacken was ripening, as i have said before.
one day towards winter herman came up to selambshof and wanted more money. but the end had come, peter had not a penny free. to crown it all that fellow thomson came to ekbacken a few days later and called in his fifty thousand. herman ran over to peter again. he had no hope. no, in his heart he knew that peter and thomson were one and the same. but he went all the 182same, he had nobody else to turn to after the way he had managed his business in town.
peter grew furious with thomson:
“i shall go in to town and lay down the law to that scoundrel,” he said.
as might have been expected, thomson would not move. but peter returned with a new proposal:
“i have managed to interest a few old boys in ekbacken,” he said. “they are prepared to take over the whole thing and there will still be a nice little sum left over for you. you will escape all trouble and worry and get a little pile of thousand-crown notes that you can do what you deuced well like with!”
herman sat there pale and with trembling hands:
“yes, but the house ... the boat....”
“well ... the old boys want the lot, of course....”
herman started in alarm, like a child that has been left alone out in the forest. his home...! his memories from childhood ... the memory of laura ... the boat ... his retreat, his consolation!
“no, i will never agree to that! it is too damnable!”
he rushed out of selambshof. he roamed about the roads. it was a snowless winter day, raw and windy, when everything wears a frozen, worn face without the peace of age. he stopped and beat the dry thistles on the roadside with his stick. “i have been a child,” he thought. “a weak, obstinate, helpless wretch. but now i must become a man. now i must go into town and fight for ekbacken, tooth and nail.”
he hastened towards the town, walking and running, but as he approached the toll bar, his steps became slower. the old hopelessness, laziness, and cowardice crept over him again. “what’s the use?” he muttered. “everybody is expecting my ruin, the workmen, the foreman, lundbom, peter ... everybody.... what’s the use?”
183huddled up, shivering, crushed with shame, he slunk into ekbacken by a side path. he sank groaning into a settee and swallowed a glass of undiluted whiskey. and out of the whiskey came a thought, the thought of flight and failure, but also the thought of a thousand possibilities:
“america!”
peter the boss had been right in his calculation. three days later the business was settled and herman received twenty thousand crowns.
“you saved the slam anyhow, old boy,” said peter, “you saved the slam anyhow.”
he was pleased with himself for having helped a friend in difficulties. it hurt him that herman went about looking drained dry. and then those stupid america plans. why the devil should herman want to go away? with whom was peter now to drink his whiskey during the long winter evenings? who would be with him when he was out sailing in his new yacht? herman, who knew the boat so well.
“it will be empty after you, herman,” complained peter, “damned empty.”
but for once herman stuck to his decision and so the moment of farewell arrived. peter was down at the station. herman was already at the carriage window, filled with an impotent bitterness both sharp and dull. he had been a hopeless failure, fit to be plucked and cast aside. laura and peter had taken everything away from him. and in spite of it all he had not got the strength of mind to hate them. yes, when he saw peter’s coarse face, swollen with emotion, he positively did not know what to believe. “perhaps he has really done what he could for me,” he thought. “and it was rather decent of him to come down here so that i need not be quite alone.”
then the engine took its first deep breath as if it were challenging the distance it was about to cover.
184peter wept. he could not let go herman’s hand:
“good-bye, old boy! take care of yourself now. good-bye, herman!”
and then old hermansson’s tall herman was swept off the stage.
but peter the boss drove slowly home in brundin’s old dog-cart. he was both sad and glad. when he had passed the toll bar he fell into a solemn mood. the short cut across ekbacken was open to him now. somebody ran to the gate to open it for him. he drove past the house on the lake side and past the landing stage and the old office. dusk began to fall and peter felt suddenly very sorry for himself. what had he not undertaken! fancy looking after all this. the road now ran along the lake. peter held the reins very loosely and by and by the horse stopped. it was perfectly still and the lake was on the point of freezing over. a big, cold, glowing cloud hung over kolsn?s and was reflected in the glassy surface of the water. the heavy clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the floating bridge floated out into the quiet of the evening. peter sighed deeply. he envied herman. fancy travelling about with twenty thousand in your pocket. he will see something of the world. but i, old peasant, will never get abroad anywhere. i sit here in old selambshof ... and old ekbacken....
