When Marit Norby entered, she saw the pastor’s wife and Fru Thora of Lidarende among the audience. They both gave her a friendly recognition, and made room for her between them.
When Wangen stood at the bar and protested his innocence, the pastor’s wife turned towards Marit Norby with a sigh and a look, which said: “Poor man, how foolish he is!”
Thora of Lidarende already felt as if she must burst into tears. Wangen was so pale and emaciated; his throat was so thin inside his collar, and the back of his head seemed so big. His back was actually bent. Poor man! If only he would confess!
It never occurred to Fru Thora that her opinion of Wangen’s guilt could be wrong, since she sat there and pitied him. From the very first this opinion had fostered a number of beautiful, charitable thoughts in her mind; and she therefore never considered how she had arrived at it. It was a view that had made her willing to make some sacrifice, for instance, to adopt one of Wangen’s children; and a conviction for which one sacrifices something, not only becomes a certainty, but grows so dear that it actually acquires a moral value.
“Poor Wangen!” she thought. “Who can say whether all this is not really the outcome of an unfortunate inheritance from his father? But the human tribunal does not take that into consideration; it is merciless;” and at that thought she seemed to see before her a community with tribunals that were different.
Knut Norby was called as the first witness in the case. The moment had come for which he had previously felt such terror. He had to go in and say that he had not put his name to any paper for Wangen.
When he entered the corridor he felt the excitement of the card-player who has good cards in his hand, and is impatient to play them. His one thought was that he must not for the world forget anything. As his hand touched the handle of the door, a far-off voice seemed to say: “Turn back! There is still time!” But the voice was far too distant. “Did you really defraud that widow?” said another voice; and this filled him with a desire to knock Wangen down. As he entered the court, he raised his shoulders a little, as he was accustomed to do when he knew that a number of people were looking at him. The first thing he saw was Wangen in the dock; and when their eyes met in a flash, the old man felt a dull anger rising within him. He remembered all the reports that Wangen had spread about him. “You wait!” he thought.
On his way to the witness-box he saw both the pastor’s wife and Fru Thora nodding to him, and it gave him encouragement. When he saw that it was not the magistrate himself, but his head clerk who was conducting the inquiry, he was offended. The magistrate might send his clerk to unimportant cases; but it was Knut Norby that this concerned. When the young man with the eye-glasses and the downy moustache adjured him to speak the truth, the old man felt a desire to laugh. Fancy that whipper-snapper acting magistrate! He had heard that this very gentleman had been as drunk as a lord at Lawyer Basting’s last Saturday evening. And there sat Basting, too, that pauper, trying to look like a sage! He had come already to help Wangen, the fool! Yes, this was a court to inspire respect!
The questioning began. Norby found it easy to answer, just because Basting was on the watch. He had been on the watch, too, when he had tried to agitate for Norby’s removal from the bank board, and to get appointed himself. The poor wretch’s goods were distrained for the poor-rate, and he was thankful to get a bill for two krones to collect. And that man was on the watch against Knut Norby? Supposing it were he who had got hold of Einar!