“I shall go in to town and lay down the law to that scoundrel,” he said.
As might have been expected, Thomson would not move. But Peter returned with a new proposal:
“I have managed to interest a few old boys in Ekbacken,” he said. “They are prepared to take over the whole thing and there will still be a nice little sum left over for you. You will escape all trouble and worry and get a little pile of thousand-crown notes that you can do what you deuced well like with!”
Herman sat there pale and with trembling hands:
“Yes, but the house ... the boat....”
“Well ... the old boys want the lot, of course....”
Herman started in alarm, like a child that has been left alone out in the forest. His home...! His memories from childhood ... the memory of Laura ... the boat ... his retreat, his consolation!
“No, I will never agree to that! It is too damnable!”
He rushed out of Selambshof. He roamed about the roads. It was a snowless winter day, raw and windy, when everything wears a frozen, worn face without the peace of age. He stopped and beat the dry thistles on the roadside with his stick. “I have been a child,” he thought. “A weak, obstinate, helpless wretch. But now I must become a man. Now I must go into town and fight for Ekbacken, tooth and nail.”
He hastened towards the town, walking and running, but as he approached the toll bar, his steps became slower. The old hopelessness, laziness, and cowardice crept over him again. “What’s the use?” he muttered. “Everybody is expecting my ruin, the workmen, the foreman, Lundbom, Peter ... everybody.... What’s the use?”