Mr. Y. [Briskly.] Oh, what rot!
Mr. X. Yes, but I went scot-free.
Mr. Y. [With an air of familiarity and superiority.] All the better for you! How did you dodge the coppers?
Mr. X. There was no one to accuse me—no one to suspect me—there were no witnesses. The thing was like this. A friend of mine had invited me one Christmas to his place outside Upsala for the hunting. He sent to drive me a drunken old blighter who went to sleep upon the box, drove bang into a hole and upset in the ditch. I won’t say it was a matter of life and death, but in a fit of temper I let him have it in the neck to wake him up, with the result that he never woke up, but lay there dead.
Mr. Y. [Slyly.] Well, and didn’t you give yourself up?
Mr. X. No, for the following reasons: The man had no relations or other people for whom his life was necessary; he had lived out his vegetable existence; his place could be taken immediately by someone else who needed it much more; while on the other hand I was indispensable to my parents’ well-being, to my own—perhaps to science. The result of the whole business had already cured me of my penchant to punch people in the neck, and I didn’t feel inclined to sacrifice my own life and that of my parents to satisfy a sense of abstract justice.
Mr. Y. I see. So that’s how you judge human values?
Mr. X. In the case in question, yes.
Mr. Y. But how about the consciousness of guilt, retribution?
Mr. X. I had no consciousness of guilt, I hadn’t committed any crime. I’d taken and given punches as a boy. But what was responsible was my ignorance that a fatal result could be so easily produced upon an old person.
Mr. Y. Yes—but killing by chance-medley is punished by two years’ hard labor all the same—just the same as—forgery.
Mr. X. I’ve thought about it enough, as you can think. And many a night I’ve dreamed I was in prison. I say, tell me, is it as bad as they make out to be under lock and key?
Mr. Y. Yes, my dear fellow. They first disfigure your appearance by cutting your hair, so that if you didn’t look like a criminal before you do so afterward, and when you look at yourself in the glass you’re convinced that you’re a murderer.
Mr. X. That’s a mask which can perhaps be taken off, but it’s not such a bad idea.
Mr. Y. You joke about it, do you? And they reduced your food so that every day, nay, every hour, you feel yourself further away from life, and so much nearer to death. All the vital functions are depressed and you feel yourself dried up, and your soul, which ought to be cured and improved, is put upon starvation treatment, and thrust back a thousand years of civilization, you are only allowed to read books that have been written for the edification of our antediluvian ancestors, you can manage to hear what’s never going to take place in heaven; but what takes place on this earth remains a sealed book; you are taken away from your environment, degraded from your class, put beneath those who are beneath you; you get visions of what life was like in the Age of Bronze, feel as though you were dressed in skins in a barbarous state—lived in- a cave and drank out of a trough.
Mr. X. Quite so; but it’s only reasonable that if a man’s behaving as though this were the Age of Bronze he should live in the appropriate costume of the period.
Mr. Y. [Frowns.] You’re making fun of me, you are. You carry on like a man in the Age of Stone, who is yet somehow allowed to live in an Age of Gold.
Mr. X. [Interrogating sharply.] What! What do you mean by that expression of yours—the Age of Gold?
Mr. Y. [Slyly.] Nothing at all.
Mr. X. You’re lying, you are, because you haven’t the pluck to say what you really meant.
Mr. Y. I haven’t the pluck! You think that! I showed some pluck, I think, when I dared show myself in this neighborhood after I’d gone through what I’d gone through. But do you know the worst part of the suffering when a man’s inside? Do you? It’s just this, that the other men aren’t there too.
Mr. X. What other men?
Mr. Y. The men who went scot-free.
Mr. X. Are you referring to me?
Mr. Y. Yes.
Mr. X. I’ve not committed any crime.
Mr. Y. Really, haven’t you?
Mr. X. No; an accident isn’t a crime.
Mr. Y. I see: it’s an accident if you commit murder.
Mr. X. I haven’t committed murder.
Mr. Y. Really—really! It’s not murder, then, to strike another man dead?
Mr. X. No—not always. There’s manslaughter—there’s chance-medley—there’s accidental homicide—and there’s the distinction between malice aforethought or not. At all events, I’m quite afraid of you now—since you belong to the most dangerous category of humanity—the fools.
Mr. Y. Indeed! You imagine that I am a fool? Just listen. Would.you like a proof that I’m very smart?
Mr. X. Let’s hear it.
Mr. Y. Will you acknowledge that I reason with both shrewdness and logic when you’ve heard what I’ve got to say? You have had an accident which might have got you two years’ hard labor; you’ve escaped scot-free from the stigma of hard labor, and here sits a man who has been the victim of a misfortune—a piece of unconscious suggestion—and suffered two years’ hard labor. This man can by great scientific services wipe out the stigma which he involuntarily brought upon himself, but to perform those services he must have money—a lot of money—and money at once.
Don’t you think that the other man—the man who went unpunished—should readjust the balance of human life in the same way as if he were adjudged liable to pay compensation? Don’t you think so?
Mr. X. [Quietly.] Yes.
Mr. Y. Now we understand one another. [Pause.] How much do you think fair?
Mr. X. Fair. The law provides that fifty kronors should be the minimum compensation, but as the dead man didn’t leave any dependents your argument falls to the ground.
Mr. Y. No; you won’t understand. Let me make it clearer. It’s to me that you must make the compensation.
Mr. X. I’ve never heard before that a homicide should make compensation to a forger, and, besides, I haven’t found anybody to accuse me.
Mr. Y. No? Well, here is someone.
Mr. X. Now we’re beginning to see how the land lies. How much do you want to abet my homicide?
Mr. Y. Six thousand kronors.
Mr. X. That’s too much. Where am I to get it from? [MR. Y. points to the chest.] I won’t. I won’t be a thief.
Mr. Y. Don’t try to bluff me. Are you going to tell me that you haven’t been to that chest already?
Mr. X. [As if to himself.] To think that I could have made such a complete mistake! But that’s the case with soft natures. You like soft natures, so you’re apt to believe that they like you, and that’s why I’ve always been on my guard against anyone I liked. And so you’re absolutely convinced that I took the chest out of the ground?
Mr. Y. Yes, I’m certain.
Mr. X. And you’ll inform against me if you don’t get six thousand kronors.
Mr. Y. No mistake about it—you can’t get out of it, and it’s not worth while trying.