The Power of a Lie. Johan Bojer
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,