Stellan did not notice that it was the roar of the flight of Nidhögg, who feeds on corpses, that he heard, nor that he passed along Nastrand, the shore of corpses, where the dragon sucks the dead. …
The stiff mask lit up for a moment as he lifted a gloved finger in the direction of the arc lamps:
“Good shares,” he mumbled, “rose five today again.”
“I see,” said Laura, “then I will buy. …”
“All right, but don’t keep them too long. …”
The sledge was already turning up the avenue before Stellan seemed to remember why they were driving out to Selambshof.
“We must go slow with Peter,” he said. “If we make a mess of the thing now we shall scarcely have time to repair the damage. At any moment there might be serious complications. Fortunately he does not seem to have written any letters to that woman in Majängen. I mean the mother. And neither has he taken any steps that point to recognition or adoption. I know it both through the coachman and the housekeeper, because I have long been forced to maintain certain relations with them. This war crisis at once sharpened Peter’s appetite for unpleasant kinds of business in a way that made it necessary to keep an eye on him. It is not long since he had half Selambshof full of boxes of sugar and butter. Yes, the house was practically used as a warehouse. I was there one evening myself and saw the exquisite portrait of our old grandfather peeping out from behind a pile of boxes of butter. … And then his company. He has developed a habit of taking home real criminals, and then they sit up half the night and drink and gamble like madmen. That creature from Majängen is by no means the first of his kind. Peter had scarcely been ill a week when he sent the coachman for him. The mother, who was a well-known termagant, swore and behaved like a lunatic. She would have nothing to do with ‘that devil at Selambshof’ she said. And even the young rogue himself seemed to have had remorse, for at first he was unwilling to go. But when the coachman returned with certain vague promises things went more easily and he ran away from his dear mother to Selambshof.”
Laura had listened with great interest:
“I should have liked to see the first touching meeting,” she said.
“It can’t have been very sentimental; Peter is said to have stared rather angrily at the figure before him and to have cried: ‘You are a lucky young rascal!’ And then he asked: ‘Can you play camphio?’ No, he could not play camphio but he must have been willing to learn, because from that time the cards were out several evenings one after the other. Now when Peter is too weak himself, the coachman and that creature have to be in with him with cards and alcohol. …
“Yes, that is how things are at present. I don’t for a moment suppose that Peter’s conscience has in any way awakened or that he has grown fond of the scamp. No, he is the slave of his money and nothing else. And now he is working out a trick to keep his fortune together and to cheat his legal heirs.”
The sledge stopped, they had arrived.
Selambshof looked higher and gloomier than ever—with all its black windows. In the trees the crows were quarrelling over their perch for the night. Nobody kept them in check any longer, so they collected there every evening. Both horses and people started at the screams of hundreds of black ghostlike birds in the deep twilight.
An uncanny presentiment of death came over brother and sisters. Selambshof was at one with Peter the Boss. But Selambshof was also their own youth … the root of their lives … and now Peter was going to die and lots of other things with him. …
Laura was frightened and wanted to get out of the sledge:
“No, this is too awful! I am going home again!”
Stellan had to pull her with him. They walked in silently.
Peter had had his bed moved into the office. It stood in the place of the old leather settee underneath the yellow, fly-marked Selambshof map. A lonely oil lamp feebly lit up some soiled glasses on the night table and his own swollen, puffy, pale face. It really was a room in which an Eskimo might have complained of the lack of comfort. But Peter seemed to think it ought to be like that. He had cheated many in the course of his life, had Peter the Boss, amongst others himself.
The visit of his sisters and brother did not seem to be unexpected or unwelcome. You could even see a little flash of satisfaction in his features, which seemed to worry Stellan. Hedvig was earnestly requested to keep quiet at first, and even did so, after she had crept away into a corner, wrapped up in all her jerseys and shawls. Otherwise their tones were of the gentlest. They were all kind care and spoke eagerly of doctors, nurses, cures, during which Laura all the same kept at a certain cautious distance, nervously chewing. …
Then a dog was heard to bark outside, a great dull subterranean sound as if it had come from beyond the copper gates of death. All felt a shiver pass through them. Even Peter seemed to feel rather uncomfortable:
“That damned dog!” he swore. “It sounds as if the devil himself was on the way.”
Stellan ran to the window. Out in the snow he saw a shadowy figure dancing a sort of war dance, whilst throwing snowballs and lumps of ice at the furious watchdog. Thin,
