[CHAPTER VI]
DAY after day passed, and Norby had not yet recalled his declaration. A notice of the forgery had already appeared in the newspaper, and the more the story spread and grew, the more humiliating it seemed to Norby it would be to retract; and the longer he put off, the more the dread of humiliation grew, and the more powerless did he feel to stoop and take the consequences.
It would in fact be deliberately to make himself out a dishonourable man. Was that too to be the thanks he got for having in his kindness of heart helped Wangen?
His enemies? They would rejoice as long as he lived. And the parish? An avalanche of ridicule would descend upon him, and he would always feel as if he were standing in the pillory to be the laughing-stock of every one.
In Norby’s eyes the parish was something of indefinite size, which only paid attention to what he did. It was his parish, and he saw it especially when he lay with closed eyes. The woods and farms and hills and rivers were the same, but the people were of two kinds—those who praised him, and those who spoke evil of him. There lived no others in the parish. The first he looked upon as honourable, worthy people, the second as his enemies whom he should certainly not forget. And now? He was quite sure that now people did nothing but talk about this affair. Heads were put in at doors, voices called across back-yards: Have you heard it? He saw people bustling up paths, flying off on ski, writing letters to other villages and towns: Have you heard it?
And if he now gave his wife away to this same parish, there would be further excitement; it made him angry to think of it.
But now people began to come to the old man and talk about the matter. What was he to say? He must say something. At first he tried to get away from the subject, but afterwards he was afraid that he might have betrayed himself. “I am an idiot,” he thought. “It won’t make it any worse than it is already if I say it until I can find a way out.” And at last the day came when he said it in so many words, half in impatience to be left alone.
When the stranger went away, the old man stood at the window looking after him with a feeling similar to that with which he had looked after the man on ski that day. This man would tell it to others. He had said something that he could never recall.
He felt now that the way to the bailiff was closed. He must keep it up for the present. And henceforward, every time he repeated the bitter falsehood, he felt bound to say it once more in order to make it consistent. But he always stood, as it were, and looked after this dangerous lie, which branched out from his own tongue, wandered about the parish, and grew every day like a spectre that would one day turn against him. And yet he was obliged to help the spectre to grow still more, for, like the lion-tamer who dares not turn his back on the lion, he must not waver, must not show fear, and there was nothing to be done but to stick to the story.