There came fresh rumours. Wangen had asserted that Norby had cheated him in a timber transaction; then that he had defrauded the widow whose trustee he was. In his righteous indignation, Wangen did not weigh his words very carefully, and they all came to Norby as poisonous, irritating stings, exciting the old man by their positive untruth, and helping him more and more to forget the original matter, and instead to look upon himself as attacked, persecuted, and compelled to defend himself.
But the indignation he now felt only produced a growing improvement in his health, and he began in real earnest to prepare for the inquiry with moves and counter-moves. It was no longer a question of who was in the right, but of who would lose. It was no longer a matter between him and God Almighty, but between him and his enemies. Every time he heard of new witnesses appearing upon his opponent’s side, his anxiety lest he should fail increased; and this urged him on incessantly to think of ways of being even with these men. “We shall see if they succeed!” he said to himself with clenched teeth. He recollected now the evil that many of these witnesses had done to him in days gone by. They were like old wounds, that opened and added their pain to that of the fresh ones. He became more and more angry; he no longer thought, but only looked about for weapons with which to strike.
The strange thing was that Norby began to be at peace in his inmost soul. The wound in the innermost recesses of his heart was forgotten, and he thought only of those that grazed the skin; so he began to sleep better, regained his appetite, and was in good spirits. He had a good conscience such as a man may have who, being innocent on twenty charges, forgets that he is guilty on the twenty-first. When he thought of all the twenty, he, as it were, told God Almighty that they balanced.
There was no longer an impressive stillness round about him. There was a noise. He went on with his preparations, went to his lawyer in Christiania, always recollecting new false accusations and writing them down, letting himself be wounded by them in order to feel thoroughly how innocent he was. If there came moments when all was quiet about him, he went on expecting new false accusations. He wanted them. If none came, he made some up without noticing that he did so. “Of course they say now that I disown this signature out of avarice. I! Or because I am afraid of my wife. Knut Norby afraid of his wife!” It irritated him that people could say such things, and he made up new charges one after another, without noticing that they were made up. They were like glasses of spirits, which always kept him in a hazy condition, always buoyed him up, always made him forget what he most desired to forget, always gave him a feeling of innocence and of being in the right.
The inquiry was now close at hand, and the old man drove about the country-side and collected counter evidence. He was quite ready for the inquiry now.
[PART II]
[CHAPTER I]
IN a room in a Christiania boarding-house a young man was sitting with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. In front of him lay a large open book, with certain passages underlined with red; but he was not reading. It was Einar Norby, Knut’s only surviving son; and he was a student of philology, and was reading for his final examination.
The window was open to the warm March sun, but now he rose, and went to shut it, as the noise from the street disturbed his thoughts. He began to pace up and down the floor, now and then passing his hand across his forehead with a pained movement. “What shall I do about this?” he thought. “For things have taken a different aspect now.”