A fortunate man, p.51
A Fortunate Man, page 51
“And what if he has?”
“Well then . . . I mean . . .you see then . . . ,” Ivan replied, squirming as if from stomach cramps, “it would of course grease the wheels of everything if you could find it in yourself to make the kind of erm . . . declaration he has . . . has . . . requested.”
“Rubbish little friend! You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. But listen. Now I’ll get talking myself to these chaps you have been banging on about so much and if they have the intelligence I am assuming they have—well then, they’ll soon understand that I neither can, nor will, put up with any kind of mentor or supervisor on this project.”
“But that’s not what they have in mind Per, dear friend! This is purely window dressing for the public. That’s the only reason they want his name there. And I can personally guarantee the most effusive and friendly welcome for you from Bjerregrav’s side. Ever since the newspapers began running with the story, he’s been going around like a clucking, brooding hen. This I know from my own uncle.”
“Well Ivan, that’s neither here or there as far as I’m concerned. And I will not hear another word about it.”
“May I just say one more small thing? As much as I am usually happy in all respects to bow to your superior expertise and convictions, in this one instance I believe—sorry may I finish!—that you have miscalculated here. In particular where Max Bernhardt is concerned—”
At the sound of this name, Per lost all patience. He rounded on Ivan and said: “Would you give over with your eternal and infernal Max Bernhardt! Listen. It’s me who makes the damned decisions about my project. Nobody else! Don’t you worry your little banker’s head about it. Enough of this anyway! Let’s get going.”
All the other gentlemen were already assembled when Per and Ivan walked into Max Bernhardt’s elegant, Parisian style reception room a half hour later. Only Herløv the stockbroker and Max Bernhardt himself were nowhere to be seen. The other members of the board stood in a group at one of the high windows and they received Per with that particular haughty and brutal disdain for which stockbrokers are particularly renowned.
For a moment Per was completely knocked off his stride. He had never expected such a reception. Rather, his greatest fear had been an embarrassing display of unctuousness from these men who were hoping to further enrich themselves on the back of his work. And now the reality was that they could barely deign to return his salutation. The “former estate owner” simply stared at him with a pair of tight pig eyes, which sat under a fringe of beetling white eyebrows. He did not even bother to take his hands from his trouser pockets when bidding Per a curt good day.
Per, his eyes ablaze, responded to this by looking the man up and down and then turning to Ivan who had made the introduction and saying: “I believe this gentleman forgot to give his name.”
“Hr. Nørrehave,” Ivan whispered as he stood there shuffling his feet and clearly mortified by Per’s provocative demeanor towards these men who, very soon, were going to decide the fate of his life’s work.
“I see,” said Per slowly as he continued to stare at the fat, erstwhile farmer, whose whole head eventually reddened. Nørrehave then turned his back to Per with a haughty sniff but his hands were now out of his pockets and had moved to the rear of his broad coat where he now proceeded to flick his coattails up and down.
The fact was that these gentlemen were still very dubious about having allowed their names to be used in support of an undertaking in which they had little confidence. Indeed, they were all aware that only their collective, and hitherto unshakable, faith in Max Bernhardt had brought them there in the first place. Most of them were not far short of viewing Per as a crafty charlatan who, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, had managed to pull the wool over the eyes of Copenhagen’s wiliest senior solicitor. In reality, they were all trying to work out a way in which they could extricate themselves from the whole business, but without making an enemy of Bernhardt at the same time.
Now the man himself appeared from a side room, along with the stockbroker Herløv. The directors sat down around a large table in the center of the room and, after some stops and starts, a discussion of sorts ensued. To begin with, the conversation mainly dealt with issues that were only very loosely connected, or had no connection whatsoever, to Per’s project. References were made to previous points that had been raised, or questions were asked about other ventures in which the gentlemen had an interest that had no link to the matter in hand; then the latest gossip at the Exchange came up and what was being said on the streets; in fact young Hr. Sivertsen was turned in his seat entertaining the man beside him with an anecdote he had heard about one of the town’s most popular actors.
Max Bernhardt was forced to bang on the table a couple of times with a ruler and firmly request that the assembled gentlemen concentrate on the day’s agenda.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! We must turn our full attention to Hjerting bay! Our aim is to turn our frequently lauded North Sea coast into one big floating share option!” he cried with that goading and ironic delivery he always used, even during the most high-wire negotiations.
Ivan looked as if he was sitting on hot coals. He stole a quick despairing glance across to his brother-in-law, who was leaning back in his chair and bore a facial expression that spoke of a looming tempest. For the moment Per responded well—albeit somewhat dismissively—to the questions that were occasionally put to him, but it was clear to Ivan that he was quivering with indignation. At first, Per tried to deal with the situation by adopting an air of superiority. He should never, he told himself, have expected anything different from these people, who did not even have the grace to conceal the fact that they only cared about one thing—making money. But as the meeting progressed, Per found that he could no longer rein in his anger. There was also the fact that a residue of distress still coursed around his body after his discovery that his family had moved to Copenhagen. Even though Per cared not to think about it in such terms, this awareness lay like a trap in his mind, making him cautious and prickly. He had an overwhelming urge to simply stand up and walk out. When he surveyed these Exchange bandits sitting there with their slapdash ways, haughtily denigrating and bowdlerizing a work that for many years had been his one and only concern, in fact was his life, he felt personally defiled and sullied by them.
What Per did not notice was that he himself was the subject of intense scrutiny from the other end of the table, where Max Bernhardt sat with one elbow perched on the arm of his chair, and resting his dark head on his white manicured hand. His large puffed up eyelids cowled in a dark blue shadow, were as usual half closed, so that it was impossible to see exactly where his gaze was directed—but it rested almost exclusively on Per.
It was Per’s tightly pursed mouth and the bulging veins in his proudly chiseled and jutting forehead which captivated this connoisseur of men. Bernhardt was wont to boast that he would, on his deathbed, issue prizes for every even half noble head he had ever seen in his life as opposed to the majority of bovine meatheads he had observed in the Danish race. Privately, Bernhardt admitted to himself that he had been surprised by this Sidenius fellow’s imposing man-of-the-world appearance. This was not how he remembered Per at all from that dinner party at Philip Salomon’s house, where he had come across as a rather distasteful cross between a failed student and a pimp that plied his trade in brothels and gin palaces. Could he have been so wrong? Was it actually possible that a rural Danish vicarage could have lain a perfect egg of a man with a modicum of spunk in his body?
Bernhardt suddenly saw Per’s stubbornness where Colonel Bjerregrav was concerned in an entirely new light. In fact, he began to wonder about the wisdom of ever having engaged with this young man in any shape or form. Nothing could put fear into this man more than people whom he could not bend and manipulate according to his needs. In his position of public prominence, he saw an opponent and competitor in any person who did not willingly cede to his patronage. The more he watched Per, the more convinced he became that here was a man who could be a great danger to him and, therefore, had to be neutralized and removed from the scene. Of course, he had the long-fingered engineer Steiner to replace Sidenius, and given that he had been careful enough not to link Per’s name to the venture, any change of personnel could be effected without the need to inform the public thereof.
In the meantime, the question of favorable comments from the press was raised. In fatherly and patronizing tones, stockbroker Herløv told Per that he really should pay courtesy calls to the various editorial offices, preferably both here in Copenhagen and in the provinces and better today than tomorrow. He reeled off the names of some of the more influential newspapers and added that it would of course be best if he could get permission to guarantee the newspapers a dedicated sum for avertissements—“that kind of gesture is always appreciated one finds,” he concluded, in his dry wit, and turning to his fellow gentlemen to receive their appreciation.
Per let on that he had not heard a word of this and simply looked away.
But now Max Bernhardt spoke up properly for the first time. In signaling his approval of his august colleague’s last remarks, he wished to raise the matter of Colonel Bjerregrav. Turning to Per and maintaining his apparently jocular tone he said: “It really is unfortunate, Hr. Sidenius, that you and the good colonel, according to what we hear anyway, once went through a bout of scratching and pulling each other’s hair . . .well, perhaps not literally where the good colonel is concerned because the last time I checked he was bald as a coot.”
A ripple of laughter spread around the table and the young Hr. Sivertsen began braying like an ass, a verbal eruption that made Per clench his teeth and go positively white about the mouth.
“I say unfortunate,” Bernhardt continued, “because Colonel Bjerregrav is without doubt the man amongst the raft of experts who can be of greatest service to our cause . . . not to mention the fact that he would otherwise prove a difficult and perhaps dangerous adversary. However, we have fortunately—as you know—managed to secure a promise of support from the colonel on condition that you, young sir, take the initial conciliatory steps to establish a mutual understanding—a perfectly reasonable demand, we all agree, given his vintage and superb social standing.”
During this speech, all eyes were turned expectantly towards Per, whose demeanor had gradually aroused a certain bewilderment amongst the assembled gentlemen. Per was not long in providing a retort.
“I will oppose outright any attempt to force some kind of supervisory figure on my project,” he said. “I have created this whole ambitious plan without extraneous assistance and I have no wish, nor need, to be placed in harness with a pointless and superfluous joint project leader.”
Ivan visibly crumpled, as if he had been shot in the stomach. In fact everyone around the table reacted with shock and stupefaction, so unusual was it that anybody—never mind a young, completely unknown man—would dare to defy Max Bernhardt’s express wishes.
The senior solicitor himself nearly let his smiling mask slip. However he regained his composure just in time and made an attempt at levity in offering Per a chance to make amends for his rash outburst: “Hr. Sidenius obviously got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.” And then turning directly to Per he said: “How on earth can you be so hostile to an honorable man like Colonel Bjerregrav, a war veteran and invalid, a defender of the fatherland! I’m sure he’s a very lovable person really!”
In dutiful expression of his admiration Hr. Sivertsen once again emitted his donkey laugh but stopped abruptly when he noticed the grave quiet that had descended upon the gathering. But then Per completely lost the run of himself. His face was ashen as he rose from his chair and slammed the table with the palm of his hand, saying: “May I remind you gentlemen that it was your good selves who came looking for me—not the other way about. So it obviously follows that I am the one—and not you gentlemen, nor indeed anybody else—who sets the conditions on this project.”
He then sat down again and adopted an icy silence. Everybody else looked towards Max Bernhardt, whose elbow was now once again on the table and his head resting on his hand. His half-closed eyes gave the impression that he was looking down at the floor. His candle-wax face had adopted the ritually grim and stiffened expression it always showed whenever he prepared to don his black cap and pronounce sentence. Surreptitiously, he had exchanged a few glances with stockbroker Herløv. The latter sat with both arms resting on the table, his upper body and fatted red head lurching forward like a sitting somnambulist, but in reality he was on high alert and had, with the slightest of nods, sealed Per’s fate.
“Are we then to take it sir,” the apparently indifferent Max Bern-hardt now continued, “that you do not intend to facilitate Colonel Bjerregrav—and thereby us assembled directors—in the way that has been agreed?”
“Yes.”
“And is that your final, irrevocable answer?”
“Categorically!”
“Well, gentlemen, that is the end of it! Our proposal has not been accepted and the project is deemed to be liquidated. Given that there was never much enthusiasm for it amongst my esteemed colleagues, it would be pointless to spend time mourning its passing.”
With that Max Bernhardt stood up from the table. And one by one, the others also rose, most of them with a feeling of great relief at having been freed so unexpectedly quickly from this, in their eyes, stillborn project. However, some of them were somewhat unhappy with this violently executed about-face. This was especially true of gentleman farmer Nørrehave who had been mightily impressed with Per’s refusal to back down and his narrow pig-like eyes now watched Per very closely, who—after the briefest of goodbyes—stormed out of the room, with Ivan in tow.
As soon as the door was shut, Max Bernhardt spoke up again: “I presume that I don’t have to tell any of you that this does not mean I have given up the idea of establishing a freeport. Indeed, I am already in a position to advise my fellow directors that in the very near future this whole thing will be relaunched, but on a much sounder basis. In other words, we are to meet on the first of next month as planned gentlemen!”
•
That same morning, out in the country at Skovbakken, Jakobe went around as if under a dark, oppressive cloud. Of course, the huge sense of expectation that had lain in her breast in the preceding days and nights, which she had counted one by one until Per’s return, was all too charged for her not to experience some kind of anticlimax. She felt a little disappointed with him—more, in fact, than she was ready to admit to herself.
She could not deny the fact that he had changed. That extreme control, almost aloofness, that had now seemed to come over him, and which her parents had taken as a good sign, was decidedly not to her liking. It reminded her too much of the tone he had adopted in his last letters from Italy. If this was just a passing phase, a manof-the-world affectation, she would soon put a stop to it—in her eyes, it didn’t suit him one bit. She still loved him as the wild bear he was when she first got to know him, just like he had been even two months ago on their final day together in the Alpine forest of Laugen. She had become used to sitting there with her heart in her mouth as soon as they were in company, out of a dread that he would, in some way or other, start annoying people and cause offense—and she had no wish to be free of this little sacrifice for him. It was almost as if she sensed a danger of loving him less if he were no longer the subject of opprobrium and misunderstanding.
Just as she walked around and pondered these questions, Ivan landed at the house with his bombshell news from the meeting with Max Bernhardt. She was in the summerhouse with her mother when her brother stormed in with his bulging briefcase.
Her first instinct on hearing the news was to laugh. This new turn in events came like some strange bolt-out-of-the-blue riposte to everything she had only seconds before been worrying about. Indeed, the welling tears in her brother’s eyes and her mother’s horrified reaction filled her with a momentary glee. Now there was her bear letting out his roar!
But Jakobe soon saw that there were serious grounds for concern over what had happened. In fact, after gathering her thoughts, and especially after grasping from Ivan’s account how reckless and scattergun Per had been in his approach, she was even more vexed and embarrassed on his behalf than anybody else. Her worries were not so much about what he, and therefore she herself, were now facing into (though given the way things stood with her now, the prospect of living on a knife edge with regard to their future gave her a cold dread)—no, her anger was more to do with the disregard he had shown in behaving like that towards everything her father, and especially Ivan, had done both to promote his project and for him personally.
Per gave forewarning of his arrival via telegram that afternoon. Jakobe walked down to the station along the railway path through the forest, and even at some distance he began calling to her with a broad smile on his face: “I suppose you have heard the news? I followed Christ’s example and drove the merchants from the Temple!”
This outburst caused Jakobe further pain, even though she understood that it was more a ploy to hide his own embarrassment. If he had simply gathered her into his arms and warded off her reproaches by closing her mouth with kisses, she would have forgiven him on the spot and all her worries would have disappeared as she collapsed into his manly embrace. But Per made no such gesture. Even from the platform, he had picked up the disapproval in her face; and in spite of the fact that he really did feel somewhat sheepish over the depressing outcome of discussions that he had anticipated so eagerly, he felt aggrieved and wounded by her censorious air. He had been so convinced that she at least would understand him and acknowledge the importance of standing up to these glorified gamblers and speculators—she who had not only always spoken out with such passion against just these kinds of ruthless freebooters, but had also condemned the central role a man like Max Bernhardt had now come to play in public life as one of the most prominent men of the New Age.
