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 role 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.
“Of course I can no longer live with Herman,” she sighed.
“These letters are worth at least a hundred thousand,” said Peter.
“I want to know how to set about getting a divorce. It’s probably a dreadful business.”
Peter thought for a moment and then he brightened up:
“I will speak to Lundbom. He knows everything.”
“Lundbom?”
“Yes, Lundbom’s the man. He won’t suspect that it concerns you two. He is absolutely blind to everything personal.”
In spite of her martyr’s air Laura laughed low:
“Hum! That really would be rather funny.”
Peter had a free consultation with Lundbom at their next card party. Lundbom saw no escape for the faithless spouse; either hopeless and scandalous divorce proceedings or a friendly settlement with a promise to surrender the children and a handsome allowance.
Armed with this information Laura made a great scene with Herman. Now all of a sudden she pretended to be insulted, in despair, and mortally wounded in her wifely dignity. She took the matter in such deadly earnest and was so absorbed in the dramatic situation that she almost began to believe in her feelings herself. Herman was aghast. His first feeling was one of wild joy that she had after all suffered, that she still loved him. This made him forget that it was she herself who had placed his revenge in his hands. But after her first outburst Laura continued more calmly, with profound reproach in her tone. Herman might have waited for her. A little patience only and everything would perhaps have been all right between them again. “You might have excused a poor woman who has had to pass through so much.”
Laura was magnificent when she said all this. Her words fell like molten lead on Herman’s heart. He confessed his helplessness, his despair at his indulgence in spirits, and his disgust at his sorry folly with the other woman, who had never given him a moment’s relief. He was filled with a deep despair and remorse and begged her forgiveness with tears streaming from his eyes.
It was the old, banal, and horrible struggle, in which the result is a foregone conclusion, the struggle between the one who loves and the one who is loved.
Laura was merely irritated by Herman’s tears. Did she suspect that they sprang from sources which in her had already dried up? Was that why her tone was so hard and dry? When one cannot be Love one wishes to be Fate. Oh! there was a secret luxury in standing there stiff and unyielding:
“You have killed my love,” she said, “I want a divorce and I shall take Georg. You have no right to refuse.”
Herman staggered as if he had been struck in the face. The violence of the blow prevented him from seeing how the whole thing had been prearranged.
He stood there gazing around him in front of an image of stone and muttered alternate prayers and curses till at last he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
But Herman could not get away from the fact that Laura had everything beautifully arranged. She had public opinion on her side, she had witnesses and letters. If he wanted to escape the horrible divorce proceedings he must accept her conditions. So he had to take the familiar journey to Copenhagen and give up little Georg, and mortgage Ekbacken heavily in order to purchase a nice little annuity for his wife.
He stayed on in his lonely home with a bleeding hatred. Sometimes he did not know whether it was hatred or love. But Laura made a triumphant entry with baby and annuity into an elegant little flat in Karlavägen, in the same house as Stellan had his little two-roomed bachelor flat. She was determined to enter society in order to amuse herself and for this
