“It must be done, Henry. It’s not my fault that I haven’t a servant now.”
At this he rose to his feet in great excitement.
“Are you beginning with that again? As sure as I live, I shall try to let you have back your money.”
She drew back as if she had been struck in the face, and then she too grew angry.
“No, really!” she cried. “I won’t bear that! I shall soon begin to wish that you were guilty, Henry; for to tell the truth, you become more and more unbearable because of this innocence.”
“What do you say, Karen?” he exclaimed, turning pale and biting his lip.
“You heard well enough!” she said, taking the child in her arms and leaving the room. In a little while he heard the sound of wood-chopping in the wood-shed.
“It won’t do her any harm to chop a few sticks of firewood,” he thought; “for she takes everything else quietly enough, goodness knows! I wonder if they won’t succeed in enticing her away from me some day.”
While Fru Wangen chopped wood, she had to keep a watchful eye upon the child, to whom she had given some twigs to play with. It was such a shame that on account of this innocence, he no longer bestowed a thought upon either her or the children. It was as if she were not allowed to think about anything but his innocence, not allowed to feel anything but pity for him. It was not five weeks since they had laid a little baby in the grave; but he never mentioned it, and would hardly allow her to do so either. But it was his continual suspicion that began to weary her most of all. It made the whole world so exceedingly sad and ugly; and the worst of it was that she involuntarily began to be infected by it, like a disease for which she felt disgust, and which she would like to shake off.
And while he was resorting to more and more ignoble means for defending this innocence, she thought he grew a worse man. He oftener came home drunk than he had ever done before; he was churlish and brooked no contradiction. It was as if this innocence not only acquitted him of all the evil he had ever done, but it also gave him the right to do anything he liked, both now and in the future.