It may be that old Hermansson was also somewhat mistaken. It may be that callousness developed early in life may be one of the conditions of success in this world. It may be that daily and hourly contact with degraded humanity simply hardens a little Indian’s heart for life’s cruel warfare.
IV
Peter the Watchdog
Peter’s school report at the end of the term was, as usual, not good, and he was not promoted. Now he sat in the billiard room on the third floor grinding away in the summer holidays.
Peter sat drawing his fingers through his rough hair and bent over his book. We all know that struggle against an incurable lack of concentration, the bending very closely over an unfortunate text until the letters begin to swell and jostle each other out of line and shamelessly vanish in the blue.
Peter lifted his head, puffing as if he had been under water and could no longer hold his breath. But it was not only the common, boyish instinct to throw all to the winds and rush out to the day’s adventures in the forest and field. It was not only the healthy restlessness of a growing boy that was reflected in his face. He turned and twisted on his chair and looked about him, and secretly cast stealthy side-glances from beneath his unkempt shock of hair as if fearing that somebody stood behind him listening to his thoughts.
Not even when he was alone could he look anything straight in the face.
Now he jumped up and took a turn round the old billiard table covered by an old torn dust sheet. All round him in the dilapidated room the torn wallpaper was curling and the dry paint was peeling off the skirting boards and window frames. Peter stopped a moment in front of a blackboard that had once been the billiard marker, but which was now covered with his unsolved algebra problems. He made a weak effort, but then he flung away the chalk as if it had burnt his fingers, and rushed suddenly to the window and peeped out.
Since Old Hök’s time the billiard room had been generally called the conservatory. Its high, narrow fortress-like windows faced three ways, and from this high point one could look out over the whole of the Selamb estate. On a stand made of three worn-out cues stood a long, battered leather-covered telescope. It was here that Peter’s grandfather used to sit and spy on his people in order mercilessly to sweep down on the idle or the dishonest. You could still see his old focus marks on the brass tube of the telescope, and they had crept further and further out as he grew older and more short sighted.
If anybody had seen Peter by the window overlooking the terrace he would have thought that Old Hök was not yet quite dead.
The bailiff was going to have a crayfish party for some friends from the town. He was standing down there hanging up Chinese lanterns. Frida, the new maid, was handing them to him out of a big clothes basket.
Peter found it impossible to remain any longer at his work. Silently as a mouse he stole out into the garden. He did not make straight for the terrace, but walked with long, searching side-glances till at last he settled on an observation post in the dense lilac hedge. Then he pretended to be carving a stick, but all the time he kept his eyes on the little lantern-scene. Brundin was standing in his shirt sleeves with a long cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth so as not to get the smoke in his eyes. He was a fair man with small, light, curly mustaches. He was wearing a check waistcoat, riding breeches and top boots. But even if he did not look like the Fairy Prince himself, he might at least have passed for one of the members of his suite. For the moment he was carrying on with Frida, who made eyes and giggled as if he had tickled her.
Peter sat and fidgeted. There was a lot of questions that tormented him like insects. That Brundin fellow had no farm, so how could he be so awfully smart with his check waistcoat and heavy gold chain stretched across his vest? And his tiepin was as big as a penny! And where had he got all those splendid lanterns. And why should Frida stand there and dance attendance on him and hand him the lanterns?
All Peter’s brooding and discontent found expression in that one question: why should our Frida stand there and hand lanterns to Brundin? And he had to gulp it down time after time lest it should escape his lips in a loud growl.
No, he could not bear to look any longer.
With his eyes on the ground and his big hands hanging awkwardly by his sides Peter strolled round the yard and out into the fields. He lumbered about like a watchdog, sniffing reflectively at every corner. Everywhere he scented decay. From his own father, who sat there heedless and inert on his bench by the front door, and who in the depth of his decay had no thought for anything else but his next meal, this ruin spread itself over garden, barn, stable and granary—and out over fields, meadows and forest. There were a thousand things that whispered of it, the weeds in the paths, the broken glass of the cucumber frames, the broken down, moss-covered fences, bottomless patches of road, bare neglected forest slopes. There were a thousand things Peter would have liked to ask Brundin about, but when he met him smart and resplendent with a big cigar in the corner of his mouth, a kind of paralysis of fear overtook him. Not with red-hot tongs could one have dragged a straightforward, direct question
