“No, since poor Camilla lost her life in that dreadful manner, we have not seen anything of him!”
“Yes, it is curious, how much may lie hidden in a person. No one would have suspected anything, so quiet and shy, almost awkward. Isn’t it so? You did not suspect anything?”
“About the sickness! How can you ask such a question! Oh, you mean—I did not quite understand you—you mean it was in the blood, something hereditary?—Oh, yes, I remember there was something like that, they took his father to Aarhus. Wasn’t it so, Mr. Carlsen?”
“No! Yes, but it was to bury him, his first wife is buried there. No, what I was thinking of was the dreadful—yes, the dreadful life he has been leading the last two or two and a half years.”
“Why no, really! I know nothing about that.”
“Well, you see, of course, it is of the things one doesn’t like to talk about.... You understand, of course, consideration for those nearest. The councilor’s family....”
“Yes, there is a certain amount of justice in what you say—but on the other hand—tell me quite frankly, isn’t there at present a false, a sanctimonious striving to veil, to cover up the weaknesses of our fellow-men? As for myself I don’t understand much about that sort of thing, but don’t you think that truth or public morals, I don’t mean this morality, but—morals, conditions, whatever you will, suffer under it?”
“Of course, and I am very glad to be able to agree so with you, and in this case... the fact simply is, that he has given himself to all sorts of excesses. He has lived in the most disreputable manner with the lowest dregs, people without honor, without conscience, without position, religion, or anything else, with loafers, mountebanks, drunkards, and—and to tell the truth with women of easy virtue.”
“And this after having been engaged to Camilla, good heavens, and after having been down with brain-fever for three months!”