Herman’s wounded pride did not rebel, he did not seek any revenge. He was miserable, and in despair. He fell on his knees and begged and entreated her, humiliated himself before her. And then she despised him, grew tired of him, and became cruel, deliberately cruel, so that afterwards she was half surprised at herself.
Herman flew to drink and neglected his work. All ordinary business was of course still in Lundbom’s hands but Herman supervised the building on the slips. Now he roamed about brooding and gloomy, gave orders and counter-orders, began to quarrel with his men and then suddenly he threw it all up and went down to stare at the dump. Yes! that had been the result of his lawsuit. The ground over which the town had acquired the shore rights was his, but they had begun to fill in the lake in order to build a quay. Barge after barge came along with broken china and bricks, rubbish, and sweepings. The evil smelling dump already stretched far out into the lake. One could see it all from the windows of Ekbacken and the comfort of the old place was gone. Herman would stand there for hours with his hands in his pockets, and reflect with a certain melancholy pleasure how the town dumped its rubbish there under his very nose. Then he would go inside and sit down and drink.
Once when he was half drunk he struck Laura, when for the fiftieth time she cast the unsuccessful lawsuit in his face. It was a feeble hesitating blow that only recoiled on his own suffering heart. But Laura accepted it with secret satisfaction. She had already begun to plan how she might escape with the greatest possible profit from this besieged fortress, whilst retaining all the honours of war.
An unhappy marriage is the finest arsenal of egoism. In the constant clash of two wills, selfishness sharpens its edge, and in the suffering of an opponent tempers its steel.
Laura developed surprisingly fast. It was not long before she understood with masterly cunning how to push Herman to extremes and to make him compromise himself seriously whilst she herself wisely kept quiet. It was she who encouraged him to seek men’s company and to amuse himself in town so that he should be spoken of as a reveller and a drunkard. Finally it was she who in devious ways reminded him that the world was full of women and thus furtively placed in his hands an instrument of revenge for her coldness. Otherwise Herman would never have been able to make up his mind. He was, as it were, hypnotised by her. Certainly it seemed as if it was directly by her secret influence that he threw himself with the courage of despair, and without a spark of desire, into the arms of a waitress at the nearest public house. But all the same, some childish hopes of making Laura jealous must have seized him, for a woman’s voice began to ask for him on the telephone and the poor boy tried to look provokingly cheerful when he answered. These conversations on the ’phone were followed by nights out which in their turn were followed by forced explanations which Laura had never asked for. Finally, in order to reveal the situation quite clearly to her, he began to forget and leave lying about short incriminating notes where Laura must find them. She almost felt sorry for him. But anyhow she took great care of the letters.
With a selection of these documents in her little silk bag Laura now paid a visit to Selambshof. She went off in a state of clear, cool exhilaration like a business man who is about to settle up a difficult piece of business. It seemed as if she wanted to gather strength amidst the old surroundings before the decisive battle. But all this did not prevent her from playing the martyr, a rôle that was really more pleasant than she had anticipated. Even when confronting Peter the Boss it had its satisfaction, though she felt that he looked through her completely. Peter, of course was disgusting. She was almost ashamed to meet him in the streets in town. And all the same here in his office she felt a strange affinity to him. Yes, it was almost like quenching one’s thirst to look at his coarse ugliness. And now she suddenly knew instinctively that their wishes concerning Herman coincided.
Laura presented her husband’s compromising letters with a tragic mien and she soon saw Peter’s eyes looking at her with almost frightened admiration. “How the deuce have you already brought him so far?” they seemed to ask. But meanwhile he poured forth expressions of good-natured and sentimental commiseration, in much the same way as a dog dribbles when it catches sight of a rich piece of food. But afterwards he showed his teeth:
“Valuable papers,” he muttered.
It came out so suddenly that Laura had some difficulty in preserving her mien of martyrdom.