Peter crawled down from the heap of road metal as if the very sight of the seat of plague were dangerous. As usual, he returned by way of Ekbacken.
Slowly he walked past the fine house, where old Hermansson had lived, and which was now used as a public-house and for working men’s tenements. Down in the shipyard he stopped below an old ghost of a brig that raised its blackened rigging towards the empty space above and whose riven sides disclosed serious rot. Here, as usual, his temper improved. Why did Peter really like to walk about among the tarred shavings or to sit and ponder over the rough weathered logs on the stack? Why did he continue this business, which, even if it did not quite run at a loss, was still of no importance? Did he perhaps after all enjoy the shadow of honest and productive work that lifted its languishing head here on his fine shore property—which increased in value from year to year? Or did he keep the yard going from a pious memory of Herman and his first good stroke of business?
Then he came down to the pier, the long rotting, shaking, pier which still, as if by miracle, held together. Out there on the seat two figures were visible against the dark smooth water, one bent and huddled up and the other thin like a boy, with straight back. One was, of course, Lundbom, the old fixture Lundbom, who was still able to keep the books. But the other? It was funny how he reminded you of poor old Herman! But it must be Georg, Laura’s Georg! It was not the first time Peter had seen the tall lad wandering about here on the quay, talking to the workmen and old Lundbom. “Let me see,” thought Peter, “what if the fellow is planning some trouble for Laura.” And this thought brought him a certain satisfaction. For his own part he did not feel any remorse or the least unpleasantness at the sight of Georg out here. It simply did not occur to him that he had once wronged his father. He thought rather with a certain phantom-like return of sentimentality of the twenty thousand that Herman had with him when he left. “Well, yes, I saved the slam for him anyhow, I saved the slam.”
Of Herman’s fate in America he had during all these years never heard a sound, he did not even know if he was alive. …
At last Peter reached the avenue leading up to Selambshof. He now walked slowly and half reluctantly. The evenings had grown very long in the bailiff’s wing. And he did not dare to call in the coachman now when Stellan’s cursed butler was there in the main building. …
It was very dark under the dense old elms. Just over his head Peter saw a narrow strip of sky and some faint, twinkling stars. Then he heard steps and whispers in the garden. Holding his stick tight and feeling quite revived, he crept behind a scraggy tree trunk.
The old fence creaked and suddenly several boys came jumping over the ditch beside Peter. He got hold of the nearest whilst the others disappeared quick as lightning in the dark. Aha! Apple thieves! The boy had his pockets full of unripe fruit.
“Damned rascal!” roared Peter. “You damned rascal! I’ll give you something for stealing.”
And he struck the writhing figure with his rough stick.
A long, terrible, shrill scream rent the close air. And then Peter suddenly felt the pain of a bite in his arm. He did not let go, but puffing and blowing he dragged the boy with him into the office, where he locked the door and lit the lamp.
“Here nobody will hear if you yell,” he mumbled.
But when Peter came up to the boy again with the stick, he was startled at something in his pale dirty face, distorted with crying:
“Where do you come from?” he mumbled.
“Majängen.”
“Who are your parents?”
“Mother washes. …”
“What’s her name?”
“Frida Öberg!”
Then the boy suddenly stopped sobbing and stared Peter boldly in the face with an impudent, horribly precocious look that seemed to indicate that he knew all.
Peter had the sensation of horrid nakedness, of bare shivering flesh. It was as when in a nightmare you suddenly find you have forgotten your trousers. But at the same time he was afraid to betray himself by a hint of weakness. So he seized the boy firmly by the ear and led him to the door:
“Don’t ever steal apples again,” he muttered. “It’s ugly to steal. I won’t thrash you any more this time.”
Quick as a flash the boy disappeared from his grip and was swallowed up in the shadows of the trees. But from the thick silent darkness Peter at once heard a shrill, sharp voice, mad with fury but at the same time pitiful and terrible:
“You damned carcase. I’ll pay you out for that, you damned old carcase!”
Peter closed the shutters.
