And now he was sitting here, unhappy once more. He had never felt more distinctly than now how altogether meaningless it was to pardon, to forgive. If God forgave Lars Kleven, was He also to pardon on Wangen’s behalf? Wangen would perhaps be unjustly condemned, in spite of the pardon. And Wangen’s family, who were the sufferers?
No, a wicked action is a thing that is set in motion, and perhaps never stops. It appears in consequences and the consequences of those consequences; it spreads like an infectious disease, and no one knows when or how it will cease. Even if it is lost to sight, it still goes on its way. Who will pardon here? God? Is it His duty to pardon it on the behalf of innocent persons?
Thus thought Pastor Borring as he sat. On his way home he felt saddened and ashamed, as he so often did during the performance of an act from which he did not feel strong enough to free himself.
But what was he to do now? The confessions of a dying man are sacred.
[CHAPTER V]
FRU WANGEN had been impatient for the demonstration to take place. The means that she had despised in her husband, she herself now felt a sudden desire to resort to, like a person in despair, who gropes about for anything he can lay hands on.
But after the day when the consul had secretly made the demonstrators drunk, so that they frightened the whole district with their behaviour, both Wangen and his wife saw that these allies of theirs had once more injured their cause; for the whole district was quite sure that Wangen was at the back of it all, and even Norby’s worst enemies began to feel sympathy for him and to turn from Wangen.
As the trial approached, Wangen’s fear of being left to stand alone became greater and greater. It was witnesses that he must have, and now he no longer relied upon witnesses, for he had a suspicion that every one hated him.
At night, when he lay and polished up his innocence, he saw more and more vividly that scene at the Grand, when the document was signed. At first he had not been quite sure that it was there; but as he had said it once, it was most probable; and the oftener he said it, the more certain he became that it was there and nowhere else. He now even remembered the corner they had sat in. There were Norby, Haarstad and himself, and they were drinking coffee after dinner. But was there no one else? Suppose there had been some one else who had seen it all!