CHAPTER IXTHEinquiry was now approaching, and the nearer it came, the more uneasy did Norby become. He had found no way out of his difficulty yet, and he began to fear that he would not be able to find one. Whichever way he turned, he ran against his own assertions; and these assertions, which now lived in people’s minds and travelled by post and railway, had grown into a power, greater than Norby himself; they were like a son grown beyond the control of his father; they dragged him on continually, they compelled him with threats to stand on their side in this matter.He would not go to an inquiry, however, for then he would have to take his oath; and he was not so far gone yet as to go there and perjure himself.“I’m beginning to feel my rheumatism again,” he said to his wife, when he was restless at night.It occurred to him that there was a suspicious stillness over the country-side, in spite of what he had done—a stillness as if some one were lying in wait. He himself had no desire to talk of anything but this one matter; for he thought of nothing else, and wasonly easy in his mind when others listened to what he said, and had no time, as it were, to think for themselves.But each new falsehood always cost another as its proof, and that in its turn another. He had to keep a constant watch upon himself, lest his tongue should run away with him; he was afraid of perhaps letting something out in his sleep, and hardly dared sleep.But day by day the inquiry drew nearer, and he involuntarily began to grope about for a means of pulling through after all, if in spite of everything it should come to an inquiry.But what he now had to get ready to say at the bar would be falsehoods again; and at this Norby stopped like a horse that will not venture upon an unsafe bridge. He pushed backwards; he was afraid; he was not accustomed to it.No one is so much in the humour for philosophising as he who is suffering in secret. As he cannot talk upon the subject he would most prefer, he chooses something similar. One day, when Norby heard of the sudden death of an acquaintance of his in another part of the parish, a cold shiver ran through him as an inward voice whispered: “You will be the next, Norby.”That evening, when he and his wife were in bed and the light was out, he yawned heavily, and said in a tired voice:“Isn’t it a strange thing that we human beings,who may die at any moment, should pass all our time in doing evil to others?”Marit sighed and smoothed out the sheet over the counterpane.“Yes,” she said, “it is.”“And when we look into our own hearts, we see that even those who go wrong and commit crime need not be any worse than one of us.”After a brief pause Marit answered: “No, not if they repent; there is pardon for them too, then, I suppose.”It was very quiet during the pauses in their conversation. The winter night was dark and cold, and now and again the wind was heard whistling past the corner like a dying howl.In this feeling of death and the dark night, Norby again saw the parish—his parish; but this time all the people were alike, they were all ready to die, all cold, pale, suffering beings, such as one ought to be good to.“Do you know what I’m thinking about, Marit?”“No,” came the rather sleepy answer.“Why, that if we do something downright bad it’s not at all certain that the consequences will be obliterated if we die. It’s very likely they go on living and doing harm to others for a long time.”“H’m!”“But can you tell me then how such a man can have peace in his grave?”Marit expressed her opinion that our intelligencewas not sufficient for that, and turned over on the other side.The old man lay long, however, seeing a long string of Wangen’s descendants having to suffer for this. Could he then at the same time be saved and sit in heaven? He lay there looking and looking, until he grew hot with anxiety lest he should not get any sleep that night either. He began to be sure that he had some disease or other, perhaps heart-disease. And then, while he stood in the witness-box and held up his fingers, it would come. He would drop down.“Oh God, be merciful to my soul!”At last he sat up in bed and quietly struck a match. Heaven help us! It was past two already, and he had not slept yet.When he once more tried to go to sleep, he began to see how difficult it is honestly and fairly to put right a wrong done.He lay with closed eyes and saw it all.“If I wanted to make it all straight again,” he said to himself, “neither getting forgiveness from God nor taking my punishment in a prison would help, for my wicked accusation would still live somewhere. But if I could find out all the ways it had gone, and follow all the threads to the end, should I be finished then? No. I should have to give compensation for the evil consequences. One will have forgotten the falsehood, another will have laughed at it, but a third will remember it and make Wangen suffer for it.But suppose I could make up for this too? Would that be the end of it? No. There would still be need to pay for what he suffered all the time people believed him guilty. Can that be paid for? No! No!” And he involuntarily shook his head as he lay with closed eyes. How was he to get to sleep?The next day he roused himself and went up to Gudbrandsdal where he owned large forests, and where his men were driving timber. He felt that he must get away—he must forget.Up there he was not a rich man dressed in furs. He was in a frieze suit, and went onskithrough the forest; and the exercise and the fresh air did him good. He saw immense piles of timber, and it was his; he stopped now and again to look out over endless stretches of tufted fir-trees, sprinkled with snow and gilded by the sun, and they were his.“If Wangen had even been a worthy antagonist,” he thought, as he leant upon hisski-staff and surveyed his wealth. “If it had been Herlufsen now.” But this man was down in the world, and did not own so much as the spoon he ate with. “And it’s that poor wretch you want to injure!” he said to himself. “And not even using honourable means; for you’re attacking him in the rear—attacking a dead man in the rear!” He felt inclined to thrash himself.When he got home he had caught cold and was a little feverish in the night. He himself thought it might be typhoid fever, and that he would die; andhe was tortured by the thought of the evil action that would live after him.At last one morning he felt he could bear it no longer, and determined to get rid of the whole thing—first go to his wife and tell her the truth, and then go to the bailiff and make things right with him. Now it was settled, thank goodness!But just as he was getting out of bed, Marit called from the door that there was some one downstairs who had been waiting for him for ever so long.“That’s sure to be the bailiff,” he said to himself, turning cold at the thought. But when he came down he found it was an old farm labourer, Lars Kleven, who wanted to speak to him.“Come into the office!” said Norby.He was vexed that it was only this old man who had frightened him and made him hasten his dressing.“What do you want?” he asked, sitting down before his writing-table.To his great astonishment the old man came close up to him and seated himself so that he could look Norby straight in the face.“It’s a hard task I have to-day,” began the old man.“Indeed?” said Norby impatiently.“I’ve come to ask you, sir”—he stopped to cough—“whether you’ve laid this matter with Wangen before the Lord.”Norby stared. He leant back in his chair and stared still more; and wretched as he felt, he couldnot help bursting out laughing. He thought, as he had so often done, that it was his father who sat there listening to this. And to think that one of his small tenants, an old clod, whom he kept alive up on the hill out of kindness, that he should come here and want to interfere in a matter that concerned only himself and Providence! No, that was too much! And Norby laughed. It was like an avalanche falling, and he shouted and could not stop, until the floor shook under him. Finally he did not know whether to give this poor fellow a krone, or kick him out of the room.“And what then?” he at last managed to ask, trying to be serious.The old cottager placed his hands upon his stick which he held between his knees, and continued calmly:“I want to rest quiet in my coffin; but I’d rather not go and witness against you, sir.”“What?” said Norby, involuntarily drawing nearer. “Has any one asked you to do so?”“Yes,” said the old cottager.“Is Wangen allowing you tobacco on credit?”“It’s God Almighty who’s asked me.”There was a pause. Then Norby cleared his throat, and asked:“And what have you got to witness about, eh?”“I went to town with you that time, sir.”“When?”“The time you signed that paper,” said the old man.Norby grasped the arms of his chair and pressed his lips together, and the two men looked at one another. At last Norby cleared his throat again.“You’re in your second childhood,” he said. “You’d better get home and go to bed.” He rose and turned towards the window, but then seemed to recollect something fresh, and looked again at the cottager.“And by-the-bye, if you appear at the inquiry I shall have you declared irresponsible. Now go!”“Good-bye!” said the other gently as he moved towards the door. “I only wanted to lie quiet in my coffin,” he said once more, and then went quietly out.Norby remained standing at the window with his hands in his pockets. It had done him good to be able to laugh for once; but it was still better to be able to be angry with some one besides one’s self.They’d better just come and interfere in matters that concerned only himself and God Almighty! If they did, he was still man enough to show them the door. They’d better begin suspecting that he was not happy! If they did, he would be man enough to show them something else. It would not be that poor old fellow at any rate who would make him break down. There would be no confession to-day. Some way out of the difficulty could still be found.While he was sitting at supper that evening, Marit said with a little laugh: “Do you know that the widow down at Lidarende has started helping Wangen?”“No.” But it was a piece of news that stung, and he thought of that active woman with the bright face that usually smiled at him; but suddenly her face seemed to become grave, to turn away from him towards Wangen.It would be a nice thing indeed if they began to doubt Wangen’s guilt in the parish. If they one and all continued to believe in it, so that Norby could be at peace with God Almighty, he might still make his confession. But hewouldhave peace. They must not think they could take him by force.Something healthy within him seemed to begin to growl and rise in opposition whenever any one irritated him. He could not get this woman, who was on her way to Wangen to help him, out of his head. The master of the parish school, who had defeated Norby in the school committee, was a friend of hers. The fool! Norby soon saw him accompanying her in order to join Wangen, and at night, when he lay in bed, he saw yet others leaving him to go over to the adversary.“Just see if my enemies don’t make this an opportunity of injuring me!” he thought, and the anger that this roused made him still stronger. What a relief it was to be able to turn his eyes away from himself, and instead occupy his thoughts with what was possibly taking place in the parish! He wouldn’t wonder if his enemies utilised the opportunity.One day he heard that his old enemy, LawyerBasting, was going to defend Wangen, and that he was not only going to insist upon an acquittal, but claim enormous damages. Wangen, moreover, had found witnesses who would prove that for a long time Norby had done all he could to injure his business.Norby began to laugh, and then sprang up and began to bustle about with his thumb hooked into the armhole of his waistcoat. After a time he stopped and drew a long breath as if of relief.“No, really, Marit! The wolf’s beginning to howl now. Basting! So that hedge-lawyer has at last got a case, has he? Ha, ha! And then these lies about my having——No, this is really too much, Marit!”“Isn’t that just what I said?” said Marit.From that day forward the parish was always in Knut Norby’s mind, that parish which he saw best when he closed his eyes. All that every one now did was to walk along roads and sit in rooms and gather together and take sides in this matter. He guessed more and more who were gathering against him. He would perhaps be left quite alone at last; and they would make use of this in order to do for him entirely. Mind and health grew stronger and stronger in Knut Norby. It was too bad of Christian people to go and witness falsely against him. He had never wanted to injure Wangen’s business, never!He was in bed one morning when Marit cameand told him about Sören Kvikne, who had been in service with Haarstad. He sprang up, and began to look for his slippers, and said, laughing:“By Jove, Marit, Mads Herlufsen has had his finger in that pie!”This eased him of his last burden. It was not hard on Wangen any longer now, for he had so many powerful friends, and besides he was circulating falsehoods. It now became as it were a matter between Norby and Herlufsen. Norby had at last found a worthy opponent.There came fresh rumours. Wangen had asserted that Norby had cheated him in a timber transaction; then that he had defrauded the widow whose trustee he was. In his righteous indignation, Wangen did not weigh his words very carefully, and they all came to Norby as poisonous, irritating stings, exciting the old man by their positive untruth, and helping him more and more to forget the original matter, and instead to look upon himself as attacked, persecuted, and compelled to defend himself.But the indignation he now felt only produced a growing improvement in his health, and he began in real earnest to prepare for the inquiry with moves and counter-moves. It was no longer a question of who was in the right, but of who would lose. It was no longer a matter between him and God Almighty, but between him and his enemies. Every time he heard of new witnesses appearing upon his opponent’s side, his anxiety lest he shouldfail increased; and this urged him on incessantly to think of ways of being even with these men. “We shall see if they succeed!” he said to himself with clenched teeth. He recollected now the evil that many of these witnesses had done to him in days gone by. They were like old wounds, that opened and added their pain to that of the fresh ones. He became more and more angry; he no longer thought, but only looked about for weapons with which to strike.The strange thing was that Norby began to be at peace in his inmost soul. The wound in the innermost recesses of his heart was forgotten, and he thought only of those that grazed the skin; so he began to sleep better, regained his appetite, and was in good spirits. He had a good conscience such as a man may have who, being innocent on twenty charges, forgets that he is guilty on the twenty-first. When he thought of all the twenty, he, as it were, told God Almighty that they balanced.There was no longer an impressive stillness round about him. There was a noise. He went on with his preparations, went to his lawyer in Christiania, always recollecting new false accusations and writing them down, letting himself be wounded by them in order to feel thoroughly how innocent he was. If there came moments when all was quiet about him, he went on expecting new false accusations. He wanted them. If none came, he made some up without noticing that he did so. “Of course theysay now that I disown this signature out of avarice. I! Or because I am afraid of my wife. Knut Norby afraid of his wife!” It irritated him that people could say such things, and he made up new charges one after another, without noticing that they were made up. They were like glasses of spirits, which always kept him in a hazy condition, always buoyed him up, always made him forget what he most desired to forget, always gave him a feeling of innocence and of being in the right.The inquiry was now close at hand, and the old man drove about the country-side and collected counter evidence. He was quite ready for the inquiry now.
THEinquiry was now approaching, and the nearer it came, the more uneasy did Norby become. He had found no way out of his difficulty yet, and he began to fear that he would not be able to find one. Whichever way he turned, he ran against his own assertions; and these assertions, which now lived in people’s minds and travelled by post and railway, had grown into a power, greater than Norby himself; they were like a son grown beyond the control of his father; they dragged him on continually, they compelled him with threats to stand on their side in this matter.
He would not go to an inquiry, however, for then he would have to take his oath; and he was not so far gone yet as to go there and perjure himself.
“I’m beginning to feel my rheumatism again,” he said to his wife, when he was restless at night.
It occurred to him that there was a suspicious stillness over the country-side, in spite of what he had done—a stillness as if some one were lying in wait. He himself had no desire to talk of anything but this one matter; for he thought of nothing else, and wasonly easy in his mind when others listened to what he said, and had no time, as it were, to think for themselves.
But each new falsehood always cost another as its proof, and that in its turn another. He had to keep a constant watch upon himself, lest his tongue should run away with him; he was afraid of perhaps letting something out in his sleep, and hardly dared sleep.
But day by day the inquiry drew nearer, and he involuntarily began to grope about for a means of pulling through after all, if in spite of everything it should come to an inquiry.
But what he now had to get ready to say at the bar would be falsehoods again; and at this Norby stopped like a horse that will not venture upon an unsafe bridge. He pushed backwards; he was afraid; he was not accustomed to it.
No one is so much in the humour for philosophising as he who is suffering in secret. As he cannot talk upon the subject he would most prefer, he chooses something similar. One day, when Norby heard of the sudden death of an acquaintance of his in another part of the parish, a cold shiver ran through him as an inward voice whispered: “You will be the next, Norby.”
That evening, when he and his wife were in bed and the light was out, he yawned heavily, and said in a tired voice:
“Isn’t it a strange thing that we human beings,who may die at any moment, should pass all our time in doing evil to others?”
Marit sighed and smoothed out the sheet over the counterpane.
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”
“And when we look into our own hearts, we see that even those who go wrong and commit crime need not be any worse than one of us.”
After a brief pause Marit answered: “No, not if they repent; there is pardon for them too, then, I suppose.”
It was very quiet during the pauses in their conversation. The winter night was dark and cold, and now and again the wind was heard whistling past the corner like a dying howl.
In this feeling of death and the dark night, Norby again saw the parish—his parish; but this time all the people were alike, they were all ready to die, all cold, pale, suffering beings, such as one ought to be good to.
“Do you know what I’m thinking about, Marit?”
“No,” came the rather sleepy answer.
“Why, that if we do something downright bad it’s not at all certain that the consequences will be obliterated if we die. It’s very likely they go on living and doing harm to others for a long time.”
“H’m!”
“But can you tell me then how such a man can have peace in his grave?”
Marit expressed her opinion that our intelligencewas not sufficient for that, and turned over on the other side.
The old man lay long, however, seeing a long string of Wangen’s descendants having to suffer for this. Could he then at the same time be saved and sit in heaven? He lay there looking and looking, until he grew hot with anxiety lest he should not get any sleep that night either. He began to be sure that he had some disease or other, perhaps heart-disease. And then, while he stood in the witness-box and held up his fingers, it would come. He would drop down.
“Oh God, be merciful to my soul!”
At last he sat up in bed and quietly struck a match. Heaven help us! It was past two already, and he had not slept yet.
When he once more tried to go to sleep, he began to see how difficult it is honestly and fairly to put right a wrong done.
He lay with closed eyes and saw it all.
“If I wanted to make it all straight again,” he said to himself, “neither getting forgiveness from God nor taking my punishment in a prison would help, for my wicked accusation would still live somewhere. But if I could find out all the ways it had gone, and follow all the threads to the end, should I be finished then? No. I should have to give compensation for the evil consequences. One will have forgotten the falsehood, another will have laughed at it, but a third will remember it and make Wangen suffer for it.But suppose I could make up for this too? Would that be the end of it? No. There would still be need to pay for what he suffered all the time people believed him guilty. Can that be paid for? No! No!” And he involuntarily shook his head as he lay with closed eyes. How was he to get to sleep?
The next day he roused himself and went up to Gudbrandsdal where he owned large forests, and where his men were driving timber. He felt that he must get away—he must forget.
Up there he was not a rich man dressed in furs. He was in a frieze suit, and went onskithrough the forest; and the exercise and the fresh air did him good. He saw immense piles of timber, and it was his; he stopped now and again to look out over endless stretches of tufted fir-trees, sprinkled with snow and gilded by the sun, and they were his.
“If Wangen had even been a worthy antagonist,” he thought, as he leant upon hisski-staff and surveyed his wealth. “If it had been Herlufsen now.” But this man was down in the world, and did not own so much as the spoon he ate with. “And it’s that poor wretch you want to injure!” he said to himself. “And not even using honourable means; for you’re attacking him in the rear—attacking a dead man in the rear!” He felt inclined to thrash himself.
When he got home he had caught cold and was a little feverish in the night. He himself thought it might be typhoid fever, and that he would die; andhe was tortured by the thought of the evil action that would live after him.
At last one morning he felt he could bear it no longer, and determined to get rid of the whole thing—first go to his wife and tell her the truth, and then go to the bailiff and make things right with him. Now it was settled, thank goodness!
But just as he was getting out of bed, Marit called from the door that there was some one downstairs who had been waiting for him for ever so long.
“That’s sure to be the bailiff,” he said to himself, turning cold at the thought. But when he came down he found it was an old farm labourer, Lars Kleven, who wanted to speak to him.
“Come into the office!” said Norby.
He was vexed that it was only this old man who had frightened him and made him hasten his dressing.
“What do you want?” he asked, sitting down before his writing-table.
To his great astonishment the old man came close up to him and seated himself so that he could look Norby straight in the face.
“It’s a hard task I have to-day,” began the old man.
“Indeed?” said Norby impatiently.
“I’ve come to ask you, sir”—he stopped to cough—“whether you’ve laid this matter with Wangen before the Lord.”
Norby stared. He leant back in his chair and stared still more; and wretched as he felt, he couldnot help bursting out laughing. He thought, as he had so often done, that it was his father who sat there listening to this. And to think that one of his small tenants, an old clod, whom he kept alive up on the hill out of kindness, that he should come here and want to interfere in a matter that concerned only himself and Providence! No, that was too much! And Norby laughed. It was like an avalanche falling, and he shouted and could not stop, until the floor shook under him. Finally he did not know whether to give this poor fellow a krone, or kick him out of the room.
“And what then?” he at last managed to ask, trying to be serious.
The old cottager placed his hands upon his stick which he held between his knees, and continued calmly:
“I want to rest quiet in my coffin; but I’d rather not go and witness against you, sir.”
“What?” said Norby, involuntarily drawing nearer. “Has any one asked you to do so?”
“Yes,” said the old cottager.
“Is Wangen allowing you tobacco on credit?”
“It’s God Almighty who’s asked me.”
There was a pause. Then Norby cleared his throat, and asked:
“And what have you got to witness about, eh?”
“I went to town with you that time, sir.”
“When?”
“The time you signed that paper,” said the old man.
Norby grasped the arms of his chair and pressed his lips together, and the two men looked at one another. At last Norby cleared his throat again.
“You’re in your second childhood,” he said. “You’d better get home and go to bed.” He rose and turned towards the window, but then seemed to recollect something fresh, and looked again at the cottager.
“And by-the-bye, if you appear at the inquiry I shall have you declared irresponsible. Now go!”
“Good-bye!” said the other gently as he moved towards the door. “I only wanted to lie quiet in my coffin,” he said once more, and then went quietly out.
Norby remained standing at the window with his hands in his pockets. It had done him good to be able to laugh for once; but it was still better to be able to be angry with some one besides one’s self.
They’d better just come and interfere in matters that concerned only himself and God Almighty! If they did, he was still man enough to show them the door. They’d better begin suspecting that he was not happy! If they did, he would be man enough to show them something else. It would not be that poor old fellow at any rate who would make him break down. There would be no confession to-day. Some way out of the difficulty could still be found.
While he was sitting at supper that evening, Marit said with a little laugh: “Do you know that the widow down at Lidarende has started helping Wangen?”
“No.” But it was a piece of news that stung, and he thought of that active woman with the bright face that usually smiled at him; but suddenly her face seemed to become grave, to turn away from him towards Wangen.
It would be a nice thing indeed if they began to doubt Wangen’s guilt in the parish. If they one and all continued to believe in it, so that Norby could be at peace with God Almighty, he might still make his confession. But hewouldhave peace. They must not think they could take him by force.
Something healthy within him seemed to begin to growl and rise in opposition whenever any one irritated him. He could not get this woman, who was on her way to Wangen to help him, out of his head. The master of the parish school, who had defeated Norby in the school committee, was a friend of hers. The fool! Norby soon saw him accompanying her in order to join Wangen, and at night, when he lay in bed, he saw yet others leaving him to go over to the adversary.
“Just see if my enemies don’t make this an opportunity of injuring me!” he thought, and the anger that this roused made him still stronger. What a relief it was to be able to turn his eyes away from himself, and instead occupy his thoughts with what was possibly taking place in the parish! He wouldn’t wonder if his enemies utilised the opportunity.
One day he heard that his old enemy, LawyerBasting, was going to defend Wangen, and that he was not only going to insist upon an acquittal, but claim enormous damages. Wangen, moreover, had found witnesses who would prove that for a long time Norby had done all he could to injure his business.
Norby began to laugh, and then sprang up and began to bustle about with his thumb hooked into the armhole of his waistcoat. After a time he stopped and drew a long breath as if of relief.
“No, really, Marit! The wolf’s beginning to howl now. Basting! So that hedge-lawyer has at last got a case, has he? Ha, ha! And then these lies about my having——No, this is really too much, Marit!”
“Isn’t that just what I said?” said Marit.
From that day forward the parish was always in Knut Norby’s mind, that parish which he saw best when he closed his eyes. All that every one now did was to walk along roads and sit in rooms and gather together and take sides in this matter. He guessed more and more who were gathering against him. He would perhaps be left quite alone at last; and they would make use of this in order to do for him entirely. Mind and health grew stronger and stronger in Knut Norby. It was too bad of Christian people to go and witness falsely against him. He had never wanted to injure Wangen’s business, never!
He was in bed one morning when Marit cameand told him about Sören Kvikne, who had been in service with Haarstad. He sprang up, and began to look for his slippers, and said, laughing:
“By Jove, Marit, Mads Herlufsen has had his finger in that pie!”
This eased him of his last burden. It was not hard on Wangen any longer now, for he had so many powerful friends, and besides he was circulating falsehoods. It now became as it were a matter between Norby and Herlufsen. Norby had at last found a worthy opponent.
There came fresh rumours. Wangen had asserted that Norby had cheated him in a timber transaction; then that he had defrauded the widow whose trustee he was. In his righteous indignation, Wangen did not weigh his words very carefully, and they all came to Norby as poisonous, irritating stings, exciting the old man by their positive untruth, and helping him more and more to forget the original matter, and instead to look upon himself as attacked, persecuted, and compelled to defend himself.
But the indignation he now felt only produced a growing improvement in his health, and he began in real earnest to prepare for the inquiry with moves and counter-moves. It was no longer a question of who was in the right, but of who would lose. It was no longer a matter between him and God Almighty, but between him and his enemies. Every time he heard of new witnesses appearing upon his opponent’s side, his anxiety lest he shouldfail increased; and this urged him on incessantly to think of ways of being even with these men. “We shall see if they succeed!” he said to himself with clenched teeth. He recollected now the evil that many of these witnesses had done to him in days gone by. They were like old wounds, that opened and added their pain to that of the fresh ones. He became more and more angry; he no longer thought, but only looked about for weapons with which to strike.
The strange thing was that Norby began to be at peace in his inmost soul. The wound in the innermost recesses of his heart was forgotten, and he thought only of those that grazed the skin; so he began to sleep better, regained his appetite, and was in good spirits. He had a good conscience such as a man may have who, being innocent on twenty charges, forgets that he is guilty on the twenty-first. When he thought of all the twenty, he, as it were, told God Almighty that they balanced.
There was no longer an impressive stillness round about him. There was a noise. He went on with his preparations, went to his lawyer in Christiania, always recollecting new false accusations and writing them down, letting himself be wounded by them in order to feel thoroughly how innocent he was. If there came moments when all was quiet about him, he went on expecting new false accusations. He wanted them. If none came, he made some up without noticing that he did so. “Of course theysay now that I disown this signature out of avarice. I! Or because I am afraid of my wife. Knut Norby afraid of his wife!” It irritated him that people could say such things, and he made up new charges one after another, without noticing that they were made up. They were like glasses of spirits, which always kept him in a hazy condition, always buoyed him up, always made him forget what he most desired to forget, always gave him a feeling of innocence and of being in the right.
The inquiry was now close at hand, and the old man drove about the country-side and collected counter evidence. He was quite ready for the inquiry now.