Certain of his father’s ways in business matters had often jarred upon Einar. But this? No!
“But suppose that Wangen is punished for what he is innocent of? Could I ever be happy again?”
He threw himself upon the sofa and covered his eyes with his hand. Supposing he went home and put things to his father? What a row there would be! And if his father had really embarked upon something wrong, he supposed it was too late now to turn back, at any rate from the old man’s point of view.
“But what am I to do? Shall I not do anything at all?”
The thought of what it would involve, namely, his going before the court and giving evidence against his father, made him dizzy. But if he were to interfere at all in the matter, he must be prepared for all that it involved. On the one side stood his father, and on the other the impulse to do what was right; and he heard a mocking voice within him say: “There, now you can see how easy it is to rise above family considerations! What if it had been some one else and not your father?”
Einar Norby had often been guilty of judging harshly, especially in the case of public men. He belonged to the generation of young men who, through bitter disappointments, have conceived a deep suspicion both of the ideas and of the men who had once aroused the enthusiasm of their early youth.
While he lay upon the sofa with his hand over his eyes, the mocking voice within him went on: “Now you must show what one ought to do. Be sure you don’t show any family considerations; don’t be a party to any corruption, like public men! Do what is right! How you have been applauded in the Students’ Club when you have spoken of public men who float about on vague sentiments, and whose conscience is kept entirely by relations and friends. You once said that their meaning well was no defence; for they made their judgment drunk with sentiments that did not concern them, and thought they were honest, like the drunkard who believes that he alone is sober. Take care! Don’t be a coward! Be sure you do what is right! It cannot be such a dreadful thing to come forward and give evidence against your father when you are in the right!”
It seemed to take him by the throat. There appeared to be no choice between the two things, either to be a coward, or to go home and bring unhappiness upon all those he loved.
At moments such as these, when a momentous decision has to be made, perhaps at great cost, there are always certain voices that lull and weaken. “You are a fool!” they said. “What in the world do you want to meddle with that matter for? Your father has one son living, and that son now wants to get his father sent to prison. Do you know anything about the matter? You talk a lot of twaddle about remembering this, that, and the other; but what about your father? Do you suppose he doesn’t remember what he did? Does he generally act like a scoundrel? In any case, stick to your last! Leave to the courts of justice that which belongs to them, and see if you really can manage to be ready for your examination!”
This relieved him for a time, but when he rose and began to walk up and down, he once more saw the funny, white-bearded mask that somewhere in his inner consciousness began to grin. “Of course not, don’t have anything to do with it! You might risk something this time, for this time it affects yourself, your own people. But talk in a loud voice when it’s about persons that you don’t know! Declaim then, and bring tears into people’s eyes; but now? Be silent! Sneak off! Hide yourself! And start again to-morrow, when you take aim at some poor person who doesn’t belong to you! Be one of those champions of truth for whom you have always shown such contempt!”