The Trial of Sören Qvist. Janet Lewis

I tell you, I was frightened, and I asked him what he thought he was going to do, and he told me he was going to play a little trick on Pastor Sören, and that I should ask no more questions. Then he made me dress in the clothes of the suicide. That I did not like. And he dressed the body in my clothes, with everything I had been wearing, even to my earring. I had only one earring. Even that he took.

      “Then he struck the dead man in the face with the spade two or three times, and once on the crown of the head, and he said, laughing, ‘That is to make him look more like you.’ Then he put the body in a sack that he had brought with him, and he said to me, ‘Carry the sack.’ ‘No,’ I said, but I had to carry it all the same.”

      The beggar paused and looked into the mug, which was empty, and no one offered to refill it.

      “I had to carry the sack all the way to Vejlby to the road that runs east of the pastor’s garden to Tolstrup. I tell you, it was heavy. But Morten carried the spade. There we went into the wood that is on the hillside overlooking the garden, and we waited, and watched the road and the parsonage for some time. It was moonlight and we could see very well. But everything was still. No one came on the road. By and by Morten said to me, ‘Go down to the house, to Parson’s room, and bring me back his nightcap and his dressing gown.’ But that he did not make me do. I was too frightened. I should have fallen on my knees before the hedge if I had tried to do that.

      “Then Morten said, ‘I will go myself,’ and he left me, with the sack alone in the woods. I swear to you, I wished that I had never seen my brother Morten. I cursed him and I cursed the hour. But he came back after a little while, and he was wearing the dressing gown and the nightcap, and never a cat had heard him. He was clever, oh, he was. He reached into his pocket, then, and took out a little leather bag. I heard it go clink.

      “He untied the bag, and he poured out on the ground a little pile of silver. No, a big pile of silver. I had never seen so much money all at once before—no, nor since. Then he made me hold the bag, and he counted the money back into it, a piece at a time. There were one hundred rix-dollars. The moonlight came through the leaves and shone on every piece, so that he knew I could see that they were all good.

      “He said, ‘I am going to play a little trick on Pastor Sören, and you talk too much. You must go out of Jutland. I will give you that bag which you hold in your hands, but if you ever so much as show your nose in Jutland again, I will say that you stole the money, and have you hanged for it. Go now, and remember, my word against yours, and I am much cleverer than you.’ Such a brother he was.

      “I went that night as far as I could. I slept by day, and traveled by night, until I was in South Jutland. At first it was not so bad. When the money was gone, I joined with Wallenstein. After I lost my arm it was worse. I have had a bad time of it, all told, but now I shall be rich. He laughs best who lives longest, eh? This time I am cleverer than Morten, for I am still alive.” He looked again into the pewter mug, then turned it upside down upon the table and waited, grinning hopefully.

      Vibeke had not taken her eyes from the face of the one-armed man during this long recital. He had spoken with a slowness which in its way testified to his honesty, for he seemed never to have made this speech before. Indeed, it might have been surmised that he had avoided the subject even in his thought, turning his back upon it whenever it had edged into his conscious vision. When he had finished speaking, she stared at him unmoving for a long full minute and then dropped her face into her hands and began to weep. She wept as women do who have restrained their tears for a long time. She wept as if her heart would break. Judge Thorwaldsen also dropped his head in his hands, as if struck with a mighty contrition. Only Pastor Juste, whose head had been bent above his paper, laid down his quill, lifted his head, and, leaning back in his chair, stared at the beggar with eyes unclouded by sorrow but so intent that they might have run him through with their sharp light. The beggar, looking in surprise from the bowed head of the magistrate to the shielded face of Vibeke, brought back his eyes to the eyes of Juste, but could not sustain the narrowed steady gaze. His eyes faltered, turned aside; he sat looking at the floor. Suddenly Pastor Juste slapped his hand upon the table. He cried:

      “But this man is a murderer!”

      “Oh no,” said the beggar, looking up quickly. “The corpse was a suicide. I swear to you it was a suicide. We never killed it.”

      “Fool, fool,” said Juste, “the suicide is of no importance. This man is the murderer of Sören Qvist.”

      The beggar actually stood up at this, then, his knees giving way, sank slowly back upon his stool. “No, Pastor, no!” he said. “Morten never touched Pastor Sören. Nor I, neither. Pastor was sleeping in his bed. Morten only took the dressing gown.”