It must be done now, however, now or never. He felt that if he did not go straight at it, his courage would ebb, and he would collapse. It had cost him so much to make up his mind; to turn round now would be an insult to himself. He looked across once more at his mother, as if to say: “You cannot want me to tell anything but the truth. I tried to save father while there was time, but it was impossible.”
He was about to address himself to the clerk, when Thora of Lidarende and the pastor’s wife gave him a friendly nod, and he had to nod back again; and his mother beckoned to him, while the two other ladies helped to make room for him. Should he go there for a moment? He very much wanted to sit down. He had been wandering about for hours out in the cold, and the court was hot and badly ventilated, and he felt giddy and the blood rushed to his head. His mother beckoned again and smiled; and before he quite knew what he was about, he was sitting beside her. The two ladies with her gave his hand a warm pressure as they shook hands with him.
The next moment his mother was called as a witness. The clerk looked at her and said: “I thought you were sitting among the audience?”
“Yes, I was,” said Fru Norby.
“But that is not allowed,” said the clerk. “You must be good enough to remain outside when you are a witness.”
Einar had a strange feeling on seeing his mother in the witness-box. It seemed to him that standing there she was in some danger or other; and when the clerk administered this rebuke, he felt an involuntary agitation. All his filial instincts were aroused and took up their stand beside her. He was no longer capable of thought; he only felt. After strenuously working himself up to a high pitch of clearness of judgment and truthful endeavour, he now suddenly lost his balance and fell into a strange world of indistinct but warm impulses. Far off a star beckoned to him; it was for him to go up and give evidence. But it seemed to go farther and farther away. There stood his mother, looking all at once so thin and helpless. The clerk had offended her. And was Einar now going up to contradict her before all these people? He might just as well go up and knock her down. He grew more and more afraid that something would happen to her out there. Nothing must happen to her!
When his mother had finished, she went out: and Einar had to follow her to see if anything was the matter, and in doing so forgot his overcoat, which he had taken off and placed beside him on the bench.
When he caught her up near the baker’s, a sudden resolution came to him to leave her, for he could not bear this any longer. He was not equal to the task of concocting any explanation; he only said good-bye and hurried away.
Sharp hail-showers had taken the place of the snow-storm, and deluged him with rolling ice-pearls. The road meandered along the fjord and on to the station; there was an hour before the train went and he had plenty of time, but he hurried like a man who is running away.