At the end of March, Frida Öberg gave birth to a son, who was named Bernhard.
And then Peter received a summons to appear before the Court and he arrived in a grey suit in his dogcart with old “Interest.” And when he came he appeared neither haughty nor humbled.
The Court lay by the high road some distance away from the suburb. But all Majängen was of course there. The crowd stretched out as far as the yard. Peter stepped forward with half-closed eyes and a good-tempered grin on his face. Nobody could say he looked frightened. He slapped some of the men on the back:
“Make room, boys, nothing is going to happen without me, anyhow.”
A Swedish crowd is harmless when it is sober. People stared and made way. But a coarse voice was heard:
“He ought to be hanged. …”
Peter had now reached the hall. On the other side of the long table with the judge and the jurymen sat Frida. She had a bundle in her arms. She stared Peter straight in the eyes and lifted up the child so that he should really see it. Then a murmur passed through the hall and the jurymen put their close-cropped heads together. Peter turned away his eyes at once, shrugged his shoulders, and bowed to the judge as if to say: “As between gentlemen, cut the whole thing short.”
Through his friends he had conveyed to the judge the truth about Frida Öberg: An easygoing wench, maid at Selambshof, an affair with the fraudulent bailiff, dismissed with him, vengeance, blackmail, etc.
The baby began to cry. Did Frida pinch it for effect or not? The judge, who looked as if he were at a meeting of shareholders, glanced up from his papers with a wry face:
“Is it necessary to bring the child here?”
Frida jumped up, grateful for this opportunity to make a demonstration. “What am I to do when I am poor and alone, sir? I have nobody to look after the poor boy.”
The judge remarked in a dry voice that he had been informed she had a laundry and that her sister was working with her.
At last the summons was read and the judge began his questions. When Frida once began to speak, she could not stop, but flung herself with such a primitive force and such a naive matter-of-factness into the dismal love story that the judge at once thought it wise to order the hall to be cleared.
Peter grinned with malicious pleasure as the angrily muttering inhabitants of Majängen shuffled out.
When Frida had finished, Peter rose, looked at the wall, and stoutly denied everything.
Then a witness was called. Peter suddenly recognized with a certain discomfort the porter at Stellan’s house. Well, it appeared that he had never seen them together, but only believed he had noticed that they both stayed on the second floor. Peter was calm again. He had won worse cases. Then the judge showed him a love letter signed “Bull Elk,” on the reverse side of which there appeared a part of the Selambshof receipt stamp. Peter boldly denied everything except the stamp. But he began to feel rather glum.
The parties were dismissed during the deliberations of the Court. Frida sat in the midst of a crowd of women and suckled the baby. But Peter went out and patted old “Interest.” He stood there stroking and stroking and found it difficult to look up. He felt hate all round him like something prickly. He no longer felt safe. He would probably have to resort to … the last …
After a long delay all were admitted into the Court again. It was black with people but absolutely silent. The oath was taken.
All eyes were fastened on Peter the Boss. He seemed to shrink and grow smaller as he stood there. Now he looked like an old bent and grey peasant. Would he do what peasants had been accustomed to do so often before in similar cases?
Peter stepped slowly up to the table. He felt just as if he were walking in a vacuum. He seemed to be paralysed in the arm when he wanted to place his hand on the Bible, the greasy old court Bible, which had seen so many things. He could not help glancing at Frida. She also had risen and taken a step towards the table. She looked at him with an expression in which hatred and anxiety mingled with a strange cold curiosity. The child also stared at him with vacant black eyes. And a little hand moved with awkward, blind jerks. Peter suddenly thought of a newborn, trembling young fox which he had once pulled out of its lair and killed with the butt end of his gun. He felt queer, sick. He was afraid … afraid. … For a moment he let his hand fall. …
The judge fixed him with his eye:
“Well, what’s the matter? Can’t you take the oath?”
Peter started. He suddenly heard Stellan’s clear sneering voice:
“Clodhopper! In love with an old servant girl, what? Ridiculous!”
He placed his hand on the Bible again. The judge recited the oath with the expression of one who had been offered at dinner hare that was too high. Peter repeated it after him. He wanted to speak quickly, but he could only get the words out slowly. His voice was thick and indescribably humble and there was in him something of the fat rat and the lascivious dog.
Frida had been quiet, surprisingly quiet during all this. Then her voice was suddenly heard. There was no cry, no sob, no longer any affectation:
“He swore false all the same.” And it sounded like a weary statement of fact.
With that the case was finished and the defendant was acquitted of responsibility for the child. The judge muttered something to the Clerk of the Court and the jurymen next to him. Nobody in the hall moved. Peter was the first to go out, straight past all the amazed, loathing and disgusted faces that stared closely at him. He staggered out into the
