“Who has persuaded you to do this, Einar?”
“Who?” Einar looked up suddenly, bit his lip and took a step forward. His voice trembled with anger as he said: “What do you mean by that, father?”
The old man could not help laughing at the lad’s imperiousness. “I believe you mean to go to the inquiry and give evidence against your father!” he said, and laughed again.
“If you take back your accusation, father, I shan’t have to.” Would his father take him seriously now?
A deep flush overspread the old man’s face. He attempted to laugh, to gnaw his beard, to pass his hand over the crown of his head, to sit down; but he did none of these things. He rushed at Einar, took him by the collar, and said laughing, but at the same time grinding his teeth: “Go! Go! And you shall go back to town this very day, or else—heaven help you!”
He drew back a couple of steps, as if afraid of being tempted to strike him. “Ha, ha! Indeed!” And he suddenly began to measure him from top to toe. He had only just become aware that the young man who stood there was no boy whom he could laugh at or thrash. It was his own son, who had suddenly grown up, and now stood up as his opponent—he too!
“Will you go?”
“Take back your accusation, father.”
This was too much. The old man seized a chair, lifted it up and cried: “Be off with you! Go, do you hear? Will you leave the room at once? Be off, do you hear? Go, Einar!”
“Yes, I’m going!” said Einar, raising his head. He was so angry that he would have liked to take the chair away from his father and show him that he was too old now to let himself be struck. “But let me tell you,” he continued, “that you’ll have to leave off treating me in that way. Good-bye!” And so saying, he slowly left the room.