So at dawn they lay out at Kallö skerries, which belonged to Järnö. In front of them lay the grey sea with smooth patches to the lea of white drifting ice floes, where the little waves lapped the point of land and the silly eider decoys nodded in their wooden way and pretended to be alive. But here Tord’s horror of business lifted a little. He felt a grim, fierce kind of excitement. “This is the struggle for life in all its hellish nakedness,” he thought, not without satisfaction. “Here I lie in the icy cold on a primitive rock in an arctic sea and wait for the opportunity to lure and kill.” Under the open sky with a gun in his hand he felt hardened and reckless, capable of any struggle. Yes, he even became intoxicated at the crazy thought that Peter was in some way in his power out here in the wilderness of Järnö. Where it was a matter of deceiving himself he could be a poet right enough, poor Tord!
But Peter lay there in his greasy old fur coat and peeped at Tord with his cunning little bear eyes. He appreciated those little, nervous twitchings which suddenly stiffened into defiance. “But how mad is he?” thought Peter. “How far can I go?” He made little frightened delicious guesses, and he felt much easier in the region of his pocketbook.
Then a flight of ducks approached from the south. It looked at first like a dark, billowing ribbon against a low, bright rift in a cloud. Then it quickly became a stormy, vibrating wave. The wind held its breath before this space-devouring speed, which made sea and sky shrink. The living wave swung around in a curve towards the decoys. A confusion of wings beat the air to froth around their heavy bodies. The ducks did not seem to want to descend. All the same Tord had time to let go his two barrels into the flight. Peter’s gun boomed a little later. His furs were too heavy for him. The old gardener who lay concealed with the boat was able to bring in three birds. “Of course, one can get a shot in when Peter is here,” thought Tord, with a certain bitterness. The fact was that he had never had the patience to wait when he was alone. But Peter loudly praised Tord’s shot and confessed that he himself had missed.
They shot quite a lot of eiders and also longtailed ducks later on in the day. Peter was lost in admiration. He warmly praised the fine shooting and the wonders of Järnö generally. He himself was a heavy-witted, clumsy, impossible rustic whilst Tord appeared to be a master shot and a splendid sportsman. And it ended in Tord, under the influence of the several drinks, indulging in the wildest bragging of his fierce, free, eagle’s life betwixt sea and cliff.
Then they returned home.
Dinner was quite festive. Dagmar had, in honour of the occasion, put on some gaudy silk rags and had powdered her nose. It was of no importance that her fingers were sooty. Tord’s excited pride derived new strength from the burgundy, the brandy, and the whiskey. He clenched his fists and stalked to and fro between his bear skins and elk heads in the high resounding hall. The firelight from the burning logs flickered over his jersey, Lapp shoes and untrimmed beard. He showed his contempt, with terrible oaths, of the miserable herds that thronged the streets out there in the town. He was the lonely, free, scornful ... superman. He recognized no other relations and friends than the sea, the wind and infinite space.
Peter also seemed to be very far from claiming the honour of relationship. He shrank up in his seat. He enjoyed doing so before the magnificent Tord. He was not well, he was dusty, worried, tired. Business worried him. There was no difficulty in making oneself small if only one’s pocketbook grew fat in the process.
They did not talk of Tord’s affairs.
Three days of constant drinking passed. Then Peter suddenly got it into his head that he must go back home at once. He had a great big bill falling due the following day. He groaned over that bill as he was packing up his things. He had still not said a word of Tord’s affairs. “You begin, old man,” he thought.
Tord stood there with a sick headache and bit his lips. “Cash! Cash! Cash!” throbbed in his head. It was sickening to talk money after all his wild, eagle-like boasting. He caught hold of Peter’s arm in a way that rather resembled pinching: