And Laura accepted the homage calmly and unmoved.
Herman was still a very young man. He could not go about forever satisfied with the sensation of being a happy father. There came a moment when he wanted to receive some of the gracious caresses that were occasionally bestowed on little Georg. He found something especially bewitching in Laura’s new fullness, in the milky whiteness of her skin, in her lazy, contented, catlike purring after the storm she had passed through. But he was far too sensitive to behave roughly. And there was something in that purring that made him a little shy and timid. He went about with a new and hesitating love as if he were the fiancé of his own wife. He seized every opportunity to pay her little attentions and to make her little presents which she graciously deigned to accept. Soon, Herman thought, I shall be a happy man again. But Laura smiled and shrugged her shoulders. She was playing with her tall fiancé. She gave him her little finger. But when he suddenly wanted the whole hand she shook her head and said “no,” a pitiless purring little “no.”
Herman reproached himself. “I have not behaved properly,” he thought. “I have been too rough and hasty.” And then once more he played the chivalrous fiancé for a while, and tried to get her out in the yacht as he did last summer, but no! the lake amused her no longer. Then he heaped amusements, jewels, and pretty clothes upon her. She developed a studied coquetry and opened out boldly in the sunshine.
Now it was their wedding day. Herman waited on her with an enormous bunch of red roses; he appeared at dinner in full dress and drank her health in champagne and appealed to their sweet memories. At last he thought she would be able to celebrate the anniversary of their wedding. For a moment Laura seemed touched. But it was only the champagne. At the last moment she turned away from him, froze up, and talked of her delicate health, of an uncontrollable anxiety, and held up the child as a shield between herself and her husband. And then the key grated in the bedroom door and Herman was shut out.
Laura sat down on the edge of her bed and slowly picked Herman’s roses to pieces. She felt that she would never again belong to him. It was not only cowardly selfishness in face of the new demands of life. She was no longer afraid, because her body had already forgotten. No, she no longer wanted to belong to him. It was the air itself here at old Hermansson’s Ekbacken that did not suit her.
Laura flicked away the last rose petal. “He allowed me to lock the door,” she thought, with a shrug of her shoulders, “I am much stronger than he is.”
It is dangerous for a woman of Laura’s temperament to begin to think like that.
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
