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.