"Why does he hate you?"
"Because I said, at a rehearsal, Don Pasquale, in spite of his maintaining that the proper pronunciation was Pascal. Result: I was ordered, on penalty of a fine, to pronounce the word inhisway. It was immaterial to him, he said, how the rest of the worldpronounced the word, at X-köping it was to be pronounced Pascal, because it was his wish."
"Where does he come from? What was he before?"
"Can't you guess that he was a wheelwright? He'd poison you if he thought you knew it. But let us change the subject; how do you feel after last night's revels?"
"Splendid! I quite forgot to thank you!"
"Don't mention it! Are you fond of the girl? I mean Agnes?"
"Yes, I'm very fond of her."
"And she loves you? That's all right, then! Take her!"
"What nonsense you talk! We couldn't be married for a long time!"
"Who told you to be married?"
"What are you driving at?"
"You're eighteen, she's sixteen! You're in love with each other! If you're agreed, only the most private detail is wanting."
"I don't understand what you mean! Are you trying to encourage me to behave like a scoundrel towards her?"
"I am trying to encourage you to obey the great voice of nature and snap your fingers at the petty commands of men. It's only envy if men condemn your conduct; their much-talked-of morality is nothing but malice, in a suitable, presentable guise. Hasn't nature called you for some time to her great banquet, the delight of the gods and the horror of society afraid of having to pay alimony?"
"Why don't you advise me to marry her?"
"Because that's quite another thing! One doesn't bind oneself for life after having spent one evening together; it doesn't follow that he who has enjoyed the rapture, must also undergo the pain. Matrimony is an affair of souls; there can be no question of this in your case. However, there's no need for me to spur you on; the inevitable is bound to happen.Love each other while you're young, before it's too late; love each other as birds love, without worrying about how to furnish a home; love as the flowers of the species Diœcia."
"You've no right to talk disrespectfully of the girl. She is good, innocent, and to be pitied, and whoever denies it is a liar. Have you ever seen more innocent eyes than hers? Doesn't truth proclaim itself in the sound of her voice? She is worthy of a great and pure love, not merely of the passion you speak of. Don't ever talk to me about her in this way again. You can tell her that I shall look upon it as the greatest happiness, the highest honour, to ask her to marry me when I'm worthy of her."
Falander shook his head so violently that the snakes on his forehead wriggled.
"Worthy of her? Marriage? What stuff!"
"I mean it!"
"Dreadful! And if I should tell you that the girl does not only lack all the qualities which you ascribe to her, but possesses all the reverse ones, you wouldn't believe me, but would deprive me of your friendship?"
"Yes!"
"The world is so full of lies, that nobody will believe a man when he speaks the truth."
"How can a man believe you, who have no morals?"
"That word again! What an extraordinary word it is! It answers all questions, cuts off all discussions, excuses all failings—one's own, not those of others—strikes down all adversaries, pleads for or against a cause, just like a lawyer. For the moment you have defeated me with it, next time I shall defeat you. I must be off, I have a lesson at three! Good-bye, good luck!"
And he left Rehnhjelm to his dinner and his reflections.
When Falander arrived home, he put on a dressing-gown and slippers, as if he were expecting no visitors.But he seemed full of an uncontrollable restlessness. He walked up and down the room, stopping every now and then at the window and gazing at the street from behind the curtain. After a while he stopped before the looking-glass, took his collar off and laid it on the sofa table. For a few more minutes he continued his promenade, but suddenly, coming to a standstill before a card-tray, he took up the photograph of a lady, placed it under a strong magnifying glass and examined it as if it were a microscopic slide. He lingered a long time over his examination.
Presently he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs; quickly concealing the photograph in the place from where he had taken it, he jumped up and went and sat at his writing-table, turning his back to the door. He was apparently absorbed in writing when a knocking—two short, gentle raps—broke the silence.
"Come in," he called, in a voice which was anything but inviting.
A young girl, small but well-proportioned, entered the room. She had a delicate, oval face, surrounded by an aureole of hair which might have been bleached by the sun, for it was of a less pronounced tint than the usual natural blond. The constant play of the small nose and exquisitely cut mouth produced roguish curves which were incessantly changing, like the figures in a kaleidoscope; when, for instance, she moved the wings of her nose, so that the bright red cartilage showed like the leaf of the liverwort, her lips fell apart and disclosed the edges of very small, straight teeth which, although her own, were too white and even to inspire confidence. Her eyes were drawn up at the root of the nose and slanted towards the temples; this gave them a pleading, pathetic expression, which stood in bewitching contrast to the lower, roguish parts of her face; she had restless pupils, small like the point of a needle at one moment, and distended at the next, like the objective of a night-telescope.
On entering the room, she removed the key from the lock and shot the bolt.
Falander remained sitting at his table, writing.
"You are late to-day, Agnes," he said.
"Yes, I know," she replied, defiantly, taking off her hat.
"We were up late last night."
"Why don't you get up and say how do you do to me? You can't be as tired as all that!"
"I beg your pardon, I forgot all about it!"
"You forgot? I have noticed for some time that you've been forgetting yourself in many ways."
"Indeed? Since when have you noticed it?"
"Since when? What do you mean? Please change your dressing-gown and slippers."
"This is the first time you have found me in them, and you said for some time. Isn't that funny? Don't you think it is?"
"You are laughing at me! What's the matter with you? You've been strange for some time."
"For some time? There you are at it again! Why do you say for some time? Is it because lies have got to be told? Why should it be necessary to tell lies?"
"Are you accusing me of telling lies?"
"Oh! no, I'm only teasing you!"
"Do you think I can't see that you are tired of me? Do you think I didn't see last night how attentive you were to that stupid Jenny? You hadn't a word for me!"
"Do you mean to say you're jealous?"
"Jealous! No, my dear, not in the least! If you prefer her to me, well and good! I don't care a toss!"
"Really? You're not jealous? Under ordinary circumstances this would be an unpleasant fact."
"Under ordinary circumstances? What do you mean by that?"
"I mean—quite plainly—that I'm tired of you, as you just suggested."
"It's a lie! You're not!"
The wings of her nose trembled, she showed her teeth and stabbed him with the needles.
"Let's talk of something else," he said. "What do you think of Rehnhjelm?"
"I like him very much! He's a dear boy!"
"He's fallen in love with you!"
"Nonsense!"
"And the worst of it is he wants to marry you!"
"Please spare me these inanities!"
"But as he's not twenty, he's going to wait until he's worthy of you, so he said."
"The little idiot!"
"By worthy he means when he's made a name as an actor. And he can't succeed in that until he's allowed to play parts. Can't you manage it for him?"
Agnes blushed, threw herself back on the sofa cushions and exhibited a pair of elegant little boots with gold tassels.
"I? I can't manage it for myself! You're making fun of me!"
"Yes, I am!"
"You're a friend, Gustav, you really are!"
"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not. It's difficult to say. But as a sensible girl...."
"Oh! shut up!"
She took up a keen-edged paper knife and threatened him in fun, but it looked very much as if she were in earnest.
"You are very beautiful to-day, Agnes," said Falander.
"To-day? Why to-day? Has it never struck you before?"
"Of course it has!"
"Why are you sighing?"
"Too much drink last night!"
"Let me look at you! What's the matter with your eyes?"
"No sleep last night, my dear!"
"I'll go, then you can take a nap."
"Don't go! I can't sleep anyhow!"
"I must be off! I really only came to tell you that."
Her voice softened; her eyelids dropped slowly, like the curtain after a death scene.
"It was kind of you to come and tell me that it's all over," said Falander.
She rose and pinned on her hat before the glass.
"Have you any scent?" she asked.
"Not here; at the theatre."
"You should stop smoking a pipe; the smell hangs about one's clothes."
"I will."
She stooped and fastened her garter.
"I beg your pardon," she said, looking at Falander, pleadingly.
"What for?" he asked, absent-mindedly.
As she made no reply, he took courage and drew a deep breath.
"Where are you going?" he said.
"To be fitted for a dress; you needn't be afraid," she replied, innocently, as she thought.
Falander could easily tell that it was an excuse.
"Good-bye, then," he said.
She went to him to be kissed. He took her in his arms and pressed her against him as if he wanted to crush her; then he kissed her on the forehead, led her to the door, pushed her outside, and said briefly: "Good-bye!"
One afternoon in August, Falk was again sitting in the garden on Moses Height; but he was alone, and he had been alone during the whole summer. He was turning over in his mind all that had happened to him during the three months which had passed since his last visit, when his heart was brimful of hope, courage, and strength. He felt old, tired, indifferent; he had seen the houses at his feet from the inside, and on every occasion his expectations had been disappointed. He had seen humanity under many aspects, aspects which are only revealed to the eye of the poor man's doctor or the journalist, with the only difference that the journalist generally sees men as they wish to appear, and the doctor as they are. He had every opportunity of studying man as a social animal in all possible guises; he had been present at Parliamentary meetings, church councils, general meetings of shareholders, philanthropic meetings, police court proceedings, festivals, funerals, public meetings of working men; everywhere he had heard big words and many words, words never used in daily intercourse, a particular species of words which mean nothing, at least not what they ought to mean. This had given him a one-sided conception of humanity; he could see in man nothing but the deceitful social animal, a creature he is bound to be because civilization forbids open war. His aloofness blinded him to the existence of another animal, an animal which "between glass and wall" is exceedingly amiable, as long as it isnot exasperated, and which is ready to come out with all its failings and weaknesses when there are no witnesses. He was blind to it and that was the reason why he had become embittered.
But the worst of it all was he had lost his self-respect. And that had happened without his having committed a single action of which he need have been ashamed. He had been robbed of it by his fellow-creatures, and it had not been a very difficult thing to do. He had been slighted everywhere, and how could he, whose self-confidence had been destroyed in his early youth, respect a person whom everybody despised? With many a bitter pang he saw that all Conservative journalists, that was to say men who defended and upheld everything that was wrong—or if they could not defend it, at least left it untouched—were treated with the utmost courtesy. He was despised, not so much as a pressman as in his character of advocate of all those who were down-trodden and hardly dealt with.
He had lived through times of cruel doubt. For instance: in reporting the General Meeting of Shareholders of the Marine Insurance Society "Triton," he had used the word swindle. In replying to his report, theGrey Bonnethad published a long article proving so clearly that the society was a national, patriotic, philanthropic institution that he had almost felt convinced of having been wrong, and the thought of having recklessly played with the reputation of his fellow citizens was a nightmare to him for many days to come.
He was now in a state of mind which alternated between fanaticism and callousness; his next impulse would decide the direction his development was to take.
His life had been so dreary during the summer that he welcomed with malicious pleasure every rainy day, and it was a comparatively pleasant sensation to watch leaves rustling along the garden paths.
He sat absorbed in grimly humorous meditationson life and its purposes, when one lean, bony hand was laid on his shoulder, and another clutched his arm; he felt as if death had come to take him at his word. He looked up and started: before him stood Ygberg, pale as a corpse, emaciated and looking at him with those peculiarly washed out eyes which only starvation produces.
"Good morning, Falk," he whispered, almost inaudibly, and his whole body seemed to rattle.
"Good morning, Ygberg," replied Falk, suddenly brightening up. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee! How are you? You look as if you had been lying under the ice."
"Oh! I've been so ill, so ill!"
"You seem to have had as jolly a summer as I had!"
"Have you had a hard time, too?" asked Ygberg, a faint hope that it had been the case brightening his yellow face.
"I can only say: Thank God that the cursed summer is over! It might be winter all the year round for all I care! Not only that one is suffering all the time, but one also has to watch others enjoying themselves! I never put a foot out of town; did you?"
"I haven't seen a pine tree since Lundell left Lill-Jans in June! And why should one want to see pine trees? It isn't absolutely essential; nor is a pine tree anything extraordinary! But that one can't have the pleasure, that's where the sting comes in."
"Oh, well! Never mind! It's clouding over in the east, therefore it will rain to-morrow; and when the sun shines again, it will be autumn. Your health!"
Ygberg looked at the punch as if it were poison, but he drank it nevertheless.
"But you wrote that beautiful story of the guardian angel, or the Marine Insurance Society 'Triton,' for Smith," remarked Falk. "Didn't it go against your convictions?"
"Convictions? I have no convictions."
"Haven't you?"
"No, only fools have convictions."
"Have you no morals, Ygberg?"
"No! Whenever a fool has an idea—it comes to the same thing whether it is original or not—he calls it his conviction, clings to it and boasts of it, not because it isaconviction, but because it ishisconviction. So far as the Marine Insurance Society is concerned, I believe it's a swindle! I'm sure it injures many men, the shareholders at all events, but it's a splendid thing for others, the directors and employés, for instance; so it does a fair amount of good, after all."
"Have you lost all sense of honour, old friend?"
"One must sacrifice everything on the altar of duty."
"I admit that."
"The first and foremost duty of man is to live—to live at any price! Divine as well as human law demands it."
"One must never sacrifice honour."
"Both laws, as I said, demand the sacrifice of everything—they compel a poor man to sacrifice his so-called honour. It's cruel, but you can't blame the poor man for it."
"Your theory of life is anything but cheerful."
"How could it be otherwise?"
"That's true!"
"But to talk of something else: I've had a letter from Rehnhjelm. I'll read it to you, if you like."
"I heard he had gone on the stage."
"Yes, and he doesn't seem to be having a good time of it."
Ygberg took a letter from his breast-pocket, put a piece of sugar into his mouth and began to read.
"If there is a hell in a life after this, which is very doubtful...."
"The lad's become a free-thinker!"
"It cannot be a worse place than this. I've beenengaged for two months, but it seems to me like two years. A devil, formerly a wheelwright, now theatrical manager, holds my fate in his hand, and treats me in such a way that three times a day I feel tempted to run away. But he has so carefully drafted the penal clauses in the agreement, that my flight would dishonour my parents' name.
"I havewalked onevery single night, but I've never been allowed to open my lips yet. For twenty consecutive evenings I have had to smear my face with umber and wear a gipsy's costume, not a single piece of which fits me; the tights are too long, the shoes too large, the jacket is too short. An under-devil, called the prompter, takes good care that I don't exchange my costume for one more suitable; and whenever I try to hide myself behind the crowd, which is made up of the director-manufacturer's factory hands, it opens and pushes me forward to the footlights. If I look into the wings, my eyes fall on the under-devil, standing there, grinning, and if I look at the house, I see Satan himself sitting in a box, laughing.
"I seem to have been engaged for his amusement, not for the purpose of playing any parts. On one occasion I ventured to draw his attention to the fact that I ought to have practice in speaking parts if I was ever going to be an actor. He lost his temper and said that one must learn to crawl before one can learn to walk. I replied that I could walk. He said it was a lie and asked me whether I imagined that the art of acting, the most beautiful and difficult of all arts, required no training. When I said that that was exactly what I did imagine, and that I was impatiently waiting for the beginning of my training, he told me I was an ignorant puppy, and he would kick me out. When I remonstrated, he asked me whether I looked upon the stage as a refuge for impecunious youths. My reply was a frank, unconditional glad Yes. He roared that he would kill me.
"This is the present state of my affairs.
"I feel that my soul is flickering out like a tallow candle in a draught, and I shall soon believe that 'Evil will be victorious, even though it be concealed in clouds,' as the Catechism has it.
"But the worst of all is that I have lost all respect for this art, which was the dream and the love of my boyhood. Can I help it when I see that men and women without education or culture, spurred on by vanity and recklessness, completely lacking in enthusiasm and intelligence are able to play in a few months' time character parts, historical parts, fairly well, without having a glimmer of knowledge of the time in which they move, or the important part which the person they represent played in history?
"It is slow murder, and the association with this mob which keeps me down—some of the members of the company have come into collision with various paragraphs of the penal code—is making of me what I've never been, an aristocrat. The pressure of the cultured can never weigh as heavily on the uncultured.
"There is but one ray of light in this darkness: I am in love. She is purest gold among all this dross. Of course she, too, is persecuted and slowly murdered, just as I am, since she refused the stage-manager's infamous proposals. She is the only woman with a living spirit among all these beasts, wallowing in filth, and she loves me with all her soul. We are secretly engaged. I am only waiting for the day when I shall have won success, to make her my wife. But when will that be? We have often thought of dying together, but hope, treacherous hope, has always beguiled us into continuing this misery. To see my innocent love burning with shame when she is forced to wear improper costumes, is more than I can bear. But I will drop this unpleasant subject.
"Olle and Lundell wish to be remembered. Olle is very much changed. He has drifted into a new kind of philosophy, which tears down everythingand turns all things upside down. It sounds very jolly and sometimes seems true, but it must be a dangerous doctrine if carried out.
"I believe he owes these ideas to one of the actors here, an intelligent and well-informed man, who lives a very immoral life; I like and hate him at the same time. He is a queer chap, fundamentally good, noble and generous; a man who will sacrifice himself for his friends. I cannot fix on any special vice, but he is immoral, and a man without morality is a blackguard—don't you think so?
"I must stop, my angel, my good spirit is coming. There is a happy hour in store for me; all evil spirits will flee, and I shall be a better man.
"Remember me to Falk and tell him to think of me when life is hard on him.
"Your friend R."
"Well, what do you think of that?"
"It's the old story of the struggle of the wild beasts. I'll tell you what, Ygberg, I believe one has to be very unscrupulous if one wants to get on in the world."
"Try it! You may not find it so easy!"
"Are you still doing business with Smith?"
"No, unfortunately not! And you?"
"I've seen him on the subject of my poems. He has bought them, ten crowns the folio, and he can now murder me in the same way as the wheelwright is murdering Rehnhjelm. And I'm afraid something of the sort is going to happen, for I haven't heard a word about them. He was so exceedingly friendly that I expect the worst. If only I knew what's going on! But what's the matter with you? You're as white as a sheet."
"The truth is," replied Ygberg, clutching the railings, "all I've had to eat these last two days has been five lumps of sugar. I'm afraid I'm going to faint."
"If food will set you right, I can help you; fortunately I have some money."
"Of course it will set me right," whispered Ygberg faintly.
But it was not so. When they were sitting in the dining-room and food was served to them, Ygberg grew worse, and Falk had to take him to his room, which fortunately was not very far off.
The house was an old, one-story house built of wood; it had climbed on to a rock and looked as if it suffered from hip-disease. It was spotted like a leper; a long time ago it was going to be painted, but when the old paint had been burned off, nothing more was done to it; it looked in every respect miserable, and it was hard to believe the legend of the sign of the Fire Insurance Office, rusting on the wall, namely, that a phœnix should rise from the ashes.
At the base of the house grew dandelions, nettles, and roadweed, the faithful companions of poverty; sparrows were bathing in the scorching sand and scattering it about; pale-faced children with big stomachs, looking as if they were being brought up on 90 per cent. of water, were making dandelion chains and trying to embitter their sad lives by annoying and insulting each other.
Falk and Ygberg climbed a rotten, creaking staircase and came to a large room. It was divided into three parts by chalk lines. The first and second divisions served a joiner and a cobbler as workshops; the third was exclusively devoted to the more intimate pursuits of family life.
Whenever the children screamed, which happened once in every quarter of an hour, the joiner flew into a rage and burst out scolding and swearing; the cobbler remonstrated with quotations from the Bible. The joiner's nerves were so shattered by these constant screams, the unceasing punishments and scoldings, that five minutes after partaking of the snuff of reconciliation offered by the cobbler, he flew into a fresh temper in spite of his firm resolve to bepatient. Consequently he was nearly all day long in a red-hot fury. But the worst passages were when he asked the woman, "why these infernal females need bring so many children into the world;" then the woman in question came on the tapis and his antagonist gave him as good as he brought.
Falk and Ygberg had to pass this room to gain the latter's garret, and although both of them went on tiptoe, they wakened two of the children; immediately the mother began humming a lullaby, thereby interrupting a discussion between cobbler and joiner; naturally the latter nearly had a fit.
"Hold your tongue, woman!"
"Hold your tongue yourself! Can't you let the children sleep?"
"To hell with the children! Are they my children? Am I to suffer for other people's immorality? Am I an immoral man? What? Have I any children? Hold your tongue, I say, or I'll throw my plane at your head."
"I say, master, master!" began the cobbler; "you shouldn't talk like that of the children; God sends the little ones into the world."
"That's a lie, cobbler! The devil sends them! The devil! And then the dissolute parents blame God! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"
"Master, master! You shouldn't use such language! Scripture tells us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children."
"Oh, indeed! They have them in the kingdom of heaven, have they?"
"How dare you talk like that!" shrilled the furious mother. "If you ever have any children of your own, I shall pray that they may be lame and diseased; I shall pray that they shall be blind and deaf and dumb; I shall pray that they shall be sent to the reformatory and end on the gallows; see if I won't."
"Do so for all I care, you good-for-nothing hussy! I'm not going to bring children into the world tosee them living a dog's life. You ought to be sent to the House of Correction, for bringing the poor things into all this misery. You are married, you say? Well! Need you be immoral because you are married?"
"Master, master! God sends the children."
"It's a lie, cobbler! I read in a paper the other day that the damned potato is to blame for the large families of the poor; don't you see, the potato consists of two substances, called oxygen and nitrogen; whenever these substances occur in a certain quantity and proportion, women become prolific."
"But what is one to do?" asked the angry mother, whom this interesting explanation had calmed down a little.
"One shouldn't eat potatoes; can't you see that?"
"But what is one to eat if not potatoes?"
"Beef-steak, woman! Steak and onions! What! Isn't that good? Or steak à la Châteaubriand! Do you know what that is? What? I saw in the 'Fatherland' the other day that a woman who had taken womb-grain very nearly died as well as the baby."
"What's that?" asked the mother, pricking up her ears.
"You'd like to know, would you?"
"Is it true what you just said about womb-grain?" asked the cobbler, blinking his eyes.
"Hoho! That brings up your lungs and liver, but there's a heavy penalty on it, and that's as it should be."
"Is it as it should be?" asked the cobbler dully.
"Of course it is! Immorality must be punished; and it's immoral to murder one's children."
"Children! Surely, there's a difference," replied the angry mother, resignedly; "but where does the stuff you just spoke about come from, master?"
"Haha! You want more children, you hussy, although you are a widow with five! Beware of thatdevil of a cobbler! He's hard on women, in spite of his piety. A pinch of snuff, cobbler?"
"There is really a herb then...."
"Who said it was a herb? Did I say so? No; it's an organic substance. Let me tell you, all substances—nature contains about sixty—are divided into organic and inorganic substances. This one's Latin name is cornuticus secalias; it comes from abroad, for instance from the Calabrian Peninsula."
"Is it very expensive, master?" asked the cobbler.
"Expensive!" ejaculated the joiner, manipulating his plane as if it were a carbine. "It's awfully expensive!"
Falk had listened to the conversation with great interest. Now he started; he had heard a carriage stopping underneath the window, and the sound of two women's voices which seemed familiar to him.
"This house looks all right."
"Does it?" said an older voice. "I think it looks dreadful."
"I meant it looks all right for our purpose. Do you know, driver, whether any poor people are living in this house?"
"I don't know," replied the driver, "but I'd stake my oath on it."
"Swearing is a sin, so you had better not. Wait for us here, while we go upstairs to do our duty."
"I say, Eugenia, hadn't we better first talk a little to the children down here?" said Mrs. Homan to Mrs. Falk, lagging behind.
"Perhaps it would be just as well. Come here, little boy! What's your name?"
"Albert," answered a pale-faced little lad of six.
"Do you know Jesus, my laddie?"
"No," answered the child with a laugh, and put a finger into his mouth.
"Terrible!" said Mrs. Falk, taking out her note-book. "I'd better say: Parish of St. Catherine's. White Mountains. Profound spiritual darkness inthe minds of the young. I suppose darkness is the right word?" She turned to the little fellow: "And don't you want to know him?"
"No!"
"Would you like a penny?"
"Yes!"
"You should say please! Indescribably neglected, but I succeeded, by gentleness, in awakening their better feelings."
"What a horrible smell! Let's go, Eugenia," implored Mrs. Homan.
They went upstairs and entered the large room without knocking.
The joiner seized his plane and began planing a knotty board, so that the ladies had to shout to make themselves heard.
"Is anybody here thirsting for salvation?" shouted Mrs. Homan, while Mrs. Falk worked her scent-spray so vigorously that the children began to cry with the smarting of their eyes.
"Are you offering us salvation, lady?" asked the joiner, interrupting his work. "Where did you get it from? Perhaps there's charity to be had, too, and humiliation and pride?"
"You are a ruffian; you will be damned," answered Mrs. Homan.
Mrs. Falk made notes in her note-book. "He's all right," she remarked.
"Is there anything else you'd like to say?" asked Mrs. Homan.
"We know the sort you are! Perhaps you'd like to talk to me about religion, ladies? I can talk on any subject. Have you ever heard anything about the councils held at Nicæa, or the Smalcaldic Articles?"
"We know nothing about that, my good man."
"Why do you call me good? Scripture says nobody is good but God alone. So you know nothing about the Nicene Council, ladies? How can you dare to teach others, when you know nothing yourselves?And if you want to dispense charity, do it while I turn my back to you, for true charity is given secretly. Practise on the children, if you like, they can't defend themselves; but leave us in peace. Give us work and pay us a just wage and then you needn't run about like this. A pinch of snuff, cobbler!"
"Shall I write: Great unbelief, quite hardened, Evelyn?" asked Mrs. Falk.
"I should putimpenitent, dear."
"What are you writing down, ladies? Our sins? Surely your book's too small for that!"
"The outcome of the so-called working men's unions...."
"Very good," said Mrs. Homan.
"Beware of the working men's unions," said the joiner. "For hundreds of years war has been made upon the kings, but now we've discovered that the kings are not to blame. The next campaign will be against all idlers who live on the work of others; then we shall see something."
"That's enough!" said the cobbler.
The angry mother, whose eyes had been riveted on Mrs. Falk during the whole scene, took the opportunity of putting in a word.
"Excuse me, but aren't you Mrs. Falk?" she asked.
"No," answered that lady with an assurance which took even Mrs. Homan's breath away.
"But you're as like her as its possible to be! I knew her father, Ronock, who's now on the flagship."
"That's all very nice, but it doesn't concern us.... Are there any other people in this house who need salvation?"
"No," said the joiner, "they don't need salvation, they need food and clothes, or, better still, work; much work and well-paid work. But the ladies had better not go and see them, for one of them is down with small-pox...."
"Small-pox!" screamed Mrs. Homan, "andnobody said a word about it! Come along Eugenia, let's at once inform the police! What a disgusting set of people they are!"
"But the children? Whose children are these? Answer!" said Mrs. Falk, holding up her pencil, threateningly.
"They're mine, lady," answered the mother.
"But your husband? Where's your husband?"
"Disappeared!" said the joiner.
"We'll set the police on his track! He shall be sent to the Penitentiary. Things must be changed here! I said it was a good house, Evelyn."
"Won't the ladies sit down?" asked the joiner. "It's so much easier to keep up a conversation sitting down. We've no chairs, but that doesn't matter; we've no beds either; they went for taxes, for the lighting of the street, so that you need not go home from the theatre in the dark. We've no gas, as you can see for yourselves. They went in payment of the water-rate—so that your servants should be saved running up and down stairs; the water's not laid on here. They went towards the keeping up of the hospitals, so that your sons will not be laid up at home when...."
"Come away, Eugenia, for God's sake! This is unbearable!"
"I agree with you, ladies, it is unbearable," said the joiner. "And the day will come when things will be worse; on that day we shall come down from the White Mountains with a great noise, like a waterfall, and ask for the return of our beds. Ask? We shall take them! And you shall lie on wooden benches, as I've had to do, and eat potatoes until your stomachs are as tight as a drum and you feel as if you had undergone the torture by water, as we...."
But the ladies had fled, leaving behind them a pile of pamphlets.
"Ugh! What a beastly smell of eau-de-Cologne! It smells of prostitutes!" said the joiner. "A pinch of snuff, cobbler!"
He wiped his forehead with his blue apron and took up his plane while the others reflected silently.
Ygberg, who had been asleep during the whole of the scene, now awoke and made ready to go out again with Falk. Once more Mrs. Homan's voice floated through the open window:
"What did she mean when she said your father was on the flagship? Your father is a captain, isn't he?"
"That's what he's called. It's the same thing. Weren't they an insolent crowd? I'll never go there again. But it will make a fine report. To the restaurant Hasselbacken, driver!"
Falander was at home studying a part one afternoon, when he was disturbed by a gentle tapping, two double-raps, at his door. He jumped up, hastily donned a coat and opened.
"Agnes! This is a rare visit!"
"I had to come and see you, it's so damned slow!"
"What dreadful language!"
"Let me curse! It relieves my feelings."
"Hm! hm!"
"Give me a cigar; I haven't had a smoke these last six weeks. This education makes me frantic."
"Is he so severe?"
"Curse him!"
"For shame, Agnes!"
"I've been forbidden to smoke, to curse, to drink punch, to go out in the evening! But wait until we are married! I'll let him see!"
"Is he really serious about it?"
"Absolutely! Look at this handkerchief!"
"A. R. with a crown and nine balls."
"Our initials are the same and he's making me use his design. Isn't it lovely?"
"Yes, very nice. It's gone as far as that, has it?"
The angel, dressed in blue, threw herself on the sofa and puffed at her cigar. Falander looked at her body as if he were making an estimate, and said:
"Will you have a glass of punch?"
"Rather!"
"Are you in love with your fiancé?"
"He doesn't belong to the class of men with whomone can really be in love. But I don't know. Love? Hm! What is love?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"Oh, you know what I mean. He's very respectable, awfully respectable, but, but, but...."
"But?"
"He's so proper."
She looked at Falander with a smile which would have saved the absent fiancé, if he could have seen it.
"He isn't demonstrative enough?" asked Falander curiously, in an unsteady voice.
She drank her glass of punch, paused, shook her head, and said with a theatrical sigh:
"No!"
The reply seemed to satisfy Falander; it obviously relieved him. He continued his cross-examination.
"It may be a long time before you can get married. He's never played a single part yet."
"No, I know."
"Won't you find the waiting dull?"
"One must be patient."
I must use the thumbscrew, thought Falander.
"I suppose you know that Jenny and I are lovers?"
"The ugly, old hag!"
A whole shower of white northern lights flamed across her face and every muscle twitched, as if she were under the influence of a galvanic battery.
"She isn't as old as all that," said Falander coldly. "Have you heard that the waiter Gustav is going to play Don Diego in the new piece, and that Rehnhjelm has been given the part of his servant? The waiter is bound to have a success, for the part plays itself; but poor Rehnhjelm will die with shame."
"Good heavens! Is it true?"
"It's true enough."
"It shan't happen!"
"Who's to prevent it?"
She jumped up from the sofa, emptied her glass and began to sob wildly.
"Oh! How bitter the world is, how bitter!" she sobbed. "It's just as if an evil power were spying on us, finding out our wishes, merely to cross them; discerning our hopes, so as to shatter them; anticipating our thoughts so as to paralyse them. If it were possible to long for evil to happen to oneself, one ought to do it just for the sake of making a fool of that power."
"Quite true, my dear; therefore one should always be prepared for a bad ending. But that's not the worst. I'll give you a thought which will comfort you. You know that every success you attain entails someone else's failure; if you are given a part to play, some other woman is disappointed; it makes her writhe like a worm trodden under foot, and without knowing it you have committed a wrong; therefore, even happiness is poisoned. Be comforted in misfortune by the thought that every piece of ill-luck which falls to your share is equivalent to a good action, even though it be a good action committed without your knowing it; and the thought of a good action is the only pure enjoyment which is given to us mortals."
"I don't want to do any good actions! I don't want any pure joys! I have the same right to success as everybody else! And I—will—be successful!"
"At any price?"
"I won't play your mistress's maid at any price."
"You're jealous! Learn to bear failure gracefully! That's greater—and much more interesting."
"Tell me one thing! Is she in love with you?"
"I'm afraid she loves me only too well."
"And you?"
"I? I shall never love any woman but you!"
He seized her hand.
She jumped up from the sofa, showing her stockings.
"Do you believe in what is called love?" she asked, gazing at him with distended pupils.
"I believe there are several kinds of love."
She crossed the room towards the door.
"Do you love me wholly and entirely?" She put her hand on the door-handle.
He pondered for two seconds. Then he replied:
"Your soul is evil, and I don't love evil."
"I don't care a fig for my soul! Do you love me? Me?"
"Yes! So deeply...."
"Why did you send me Rehnhjelm?"
"Because I wanted to find out what life without you would be like."
"Did you lie when you said you were tired of me?"
"Yes, I lied."
"Oh! You old devil!"
She took the key out of the lock and he drew down the blind.
As Falk was walking home one rainy September evening and turning into Count-Magni-Street, he saw to his amazement that his windows were lit up. When he was near enough to be able to cast a glance into his room from below, he noticed on the ceiling the shadow of a man which seemed familiar, although he could not place it. It was a despondent-looking shadow, and the nearer he came the more despondent it looked.
On entering his room he saw Struve sitting at his writing-table with his head on his hands. His clothes were soaked with rain and clung heavily to his body; there were little puddles on the floor which slowly drained off through the chinks. His hair hung in damp strands from his head, and his usually English whiskers fell like stalactites on his damp coat collar. He had placed his black hat beside him on the table; it had collapsed under its own weight, and the wide crape band which it was wearing suggested that it was mourning for its lost youth.
"Good evening," said Falk. "This is an unexpected honour."
"Don't jeer at me," begged Struve.
"And why not? I see no reason why I should spare you."
"I see! You're done!"
"Yes! I shall turn Conservative too, before long. You're in mourning, I see; I hope I may congratulate you."
"I've lost a little son."
"Then I'll congratulate him! But what do you want here? You know I despise you! I expect you do yourself. Don't you?"
"Of course I do! But isn't life bitter enough without our unnecessarily embittering it still further? If God, or Providence, is amused at it, need it follow that man should equally degrade himself?"
"That sounds reasonable and does you honour. Won't you put on my dressing-gown while you are drying your clothes? You must be cold."
"Thank you! But I mustn't stay."
"Oh! Stay a little while! It will give us a chance of having things out."
"I don't like talking about my misfortunes."
"Then talk about your crimes!"
"I haven't committed any!"
"Oh, yes, you have! You have committed great crimes! You have put your heavy hand on the oppressed; you have kicked the wounded; you have sneered at the wretched. Do you remember the last strike when you were on the side of power?"
"The side of the law, brother!"
"Haha! The law! Who has dictated the law which governs the life of the poor man, you fool! The rich man! That is to say, the master made the law for the slave."
"The law was dictated by the whole nation and the universal sense of right. God gave the law."
"Save your big words when you talk to me. Who wrote the law of 1734? Mr. Kronstedt! Who is responsible for the law of corporal punishment? Colonel Sabelman—it was his Bill, and his friends, who formed the majority at that time, pushed it through. Colonel Sabelman is not the nation and his friends are not the universal sense of right. Who is responsible for the law concerning joint stock companies? Judge Svindelgren. Who is responsible for the new Parliamentary laws? Assessor Vallonius. Who has written the law of 'legal protection,' that is to say the protection of the rich from the just claims of thepoor? Wholesale merchant grocer. Don't talk to me! I know your claptrap. Who has written the new law of succession? Criminals! The forest laws? Thieves! The law relating to bills of private banks? Swindlers! And you maintain that God has done it? Poor God!"
"May I give you a piece of advice, bought with my own experience, advice which will be useful to you all your life? If you want to escape self-immolation, a fate which in your fanaticism you are fast approaching, change your point of view as soon as possible. Take a bird's-eye view of the world, and you will see how small and insignificant everything is. Start with the conviction that the whole world is a rubbish heap; that men are the refuse, no better than egg-shells, carrot stalks, cabbage leaves, rags; then nothing will take you by surprise, you will never lose an illusion; but, on the contrary, you will be filled with a great joy whenever you come across a fine thought, a good action; try to acquire a calm contempt of the world—you needn't be afraid of growing callous."
"I have not yet attained to that point of view, it's true, but I have a contempt for the world. But that is my misfortune; for directly I hear of a single act of generosity or kindness, I love humanity again, and overrate my fellowmen, only to be deceived afresh."
"Be more selfish! Let the devil take your fellowmen!"
"I'm afraid I can't."
"Try another profession; join your brother; he seems to get on in this world. I saw him yesterday at the church council of the Parish of St. Nicholas."
"At the church council?"
"Yes; that man has a future. The pastor primarius nodded to him. He'll soon be an alderman, like all landed proprietors."
"What about the 'Triton'?"
"They work with debentures now; but your brother hasn't lost anything by it, even though he hasn't made anything. No, he's other fish to fry!"
"Don't let us talk of that man."
"But he's your brother!"
"That isn't his merit! But now tell me what you want."
"My boy's funeral is to-morrow, and I have no dress-coat...."
"I'll lend you mine."
"Thank you, brother. You're extricating me from an awkward position. That was one thing, but there is something else, of a rather more delicate nature...."
"Why come to me, your enemy, with your delicate confidences? I'm surprised...."
"Because you are a man of heart."
"Don't build on that any longer! But go on."
"How irritable you've grown! You're not the same man; you used to be so gentle."
"We discussed that before! Speak up!"
"I want to ask you whether you would come with me to the churchyard."
"I? Why don't you ask one of your colleagues from theGrey Bonnet?"
"There are reasons. I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. I'm not married."
"Not married! You! The defender of religion and morality, have broken the sacred bonds!"
"Poverty, the force of circumstances! But I'm just as happy as if I were married! I love my wife and she loves me, and that's all. But there's another reason. The child has not been baptized; it was three weeks old when it died, and therefore no clergyman will bury it. I don't dare to tell this to my wife, because she would fret. I've told her the clergyman would meet us in the churchyard; I'm telling you this to prevent a possible scene. She, of course, will remain at home. You'll only meet two other fellows; one of them, Levi, is a younger brother of the director of the 'Triton,' and one of the employés of that society. He's a decent sort, with an unusually good head and a still better heart. Don't laugh, I cansee that you think I've borrowed money from him—and so I have—he's a man you'll like. The other one is my old friend, Dr. Borg, who treated the little one. He is very broad-minded, a man without any prejudices; you'll get on with him! I can count on you, can't I? There'll be four of us in the coach, and the little coffin, of course."
"Very well, I'll come."
"There's one more thing. My wife has religious scruples and is afraid that the little one won't go to heaven because he died without baptism. She asks everybody's opinion on the subject, so as to ease her mind."
"But what about the Augsburg Confession?"
"It's not a question of confessions."
"But in writing to your paper, you always uphold the official faith."
"The paper is the affair of the syndicate; if it likes to cling to Christianity, it may do so for all I care! My work for the syndicate is a matter apart. Please agree with my wife if she tells you that she believes that her child will go to heaven."
"I don't mind denying the faith in order to make a human heart happy, particularly as I don't hold it. But you haven't told me yet where you live."
"Do you know where the White Mountains are?"
"Yes! Are you living in the spotted house on the mountain rock?"
"Do you know it?"
"I've been there once."
"Then perhaps you know Ygberg, the Socialist, who leads the people astray? I am the landlord's deputy—Smith owns the property—I live there rent free on condition that I collect the rents; whenever the rents are not forthcoming, the people talk nonsense which he has put into their heads about capital and labour, and other things which fill the columns of the Socialistic press."
Falk did not reply.
"Do you know Ygberg?"
"Yes, I do. But won't you try on my dress-coat now?"
Struve tried it on, put his own damp coat over it, buttoned it up to the chin, lit the chewed-up end of his cigar, impaled on a match, and went.
Falk lighted him downstairs.
"You've a long way to go," he said, merely to say something.
"The Lord knows it! And I have no umbrella."
"And no overcoat. Would you like my winter coat?"
"Many thanks. It's very kind of you."
"You can return it to me by and by."
He went back to his room, fetched the overcoat and gave it to Struve, who was waiting in the entrance hall. After a brief good-night they parted.
Falk found the atmosphere in his room stifling; he opened the window. The rain was coming down in torrents, splashing on the tiles and running down into the dirty street. Tattoo sounded in the barracks opposite; vespers were being sung in the lodgment; fragments of the verses floated through the open window.
Falk felt lonely and tired. He had been longing to fight a battle with a representative of all he regarded as inimical to progress; but the enemy, after having to some extent beaten him, had fled. He tried to understand clearly what the quarrel was about, but failed in his effort; he was unable to say who was right. He asked himself whether the cause he served, namely, the cause of the oppressed, had any existence. But at the next moment he reproached himself with cowardice, and the steady fanaticism which glowed in him burst into fresh flames; he condemned the weakness which again and again had induced him to yield. Just now he had held the enemy in his hand, and not only had he not shown him his profound repugnance, but he had even treated him with kindness and sympathy; what would he think of him?
There was no merit in this good nature, as it prevented him from coming to a firm decision; it was nothing but moral laxity, making him incapable of taking up a fight which seemed more and more beyond him. He realized that he must extinguish the fire under the boilers; they would not be able to stand the pressure, as no steam was being used. He pondered over Struve's advice, and brooded until his mind was chaos in which truth and lies, right and wrong, danced together in complete harmony; his brain in which, owing to his academic training, all conceptions had been so neatly pigeon-holed, would soon resemble a pack of well-shuffled cards.
He succeeded beyond expectation in working himself into a state of complete indifference; he looked for fine motives in the actions of his enemies, and gradually it appeared to him that he had all along been in the wrong; he felt reconciled to the existing order of things, and ultimately came to the fine conclusion that it was quite immaterial whether the whole was black or white. Whatever was, had to be; he was not entitled to criticize it. He found this mood pleasant, it gave him a feeling of restfulness to which he had been a stranger all those years during which he had made the troubles of humanity his own.
He was enjoying this calm and a pipe of strong tobacco, when a maid servant brought him a letter just delivered by the postman. It was from Olle Montanus and very long. Parts of it seemed to impress Falk greatly.
My dear fellow, [it ran,]
Although Lundell and I have now finished our work and will soon be back in Stockholm, I yet feel the need of writing down my impressions, because they have been of great importance to myself and my spiritual development. I have come to a conclusion, and I am as full of amazement as a chicken which has just been hatched, and stares at the world with its newly opened eyes, trampling on the egg-shell which had shut out the light for so long. The conclusion, ofcourse, is not a new one; Plato propounded it before Christianity was: the world, the visible world, is but a delusion, the reflexion of the ideas; that is to say, reality is something low, insignificant, secondary and accidental. Yes! but I will proceed synthetically, begin with the particular and pass on from it to the general.
I will speak of my work first, in which both Government and Parliament have been interested. On the altar of the church at Träskola two wooden figures used to stand; one of them was broken, but the other one was whole. The whole one, the figure of a woman, held a cross in her hand; two sacks of fragments of the broken one were preserved in the sacristy. A learned archæologist had examined the contents of the two sacks, in order to determine the appearance of the broken figure, but the result had been mere conjecture.
But he had been very thorough. He had taken a specimen of the white paint with which the figure had been grounded, and sent it to the Pharmaceutical Institute; the latter had reported that it contained lead and not zinc; therefore, the figure must date from before 1844, because zinc-white did not come into use until after that date. (What can one say to such a conclusion, seeing that the figure might have been painted over!) Next he sent a sample of the wood to the Stockholm timber office; he was informed that it was birch. The figure was therefore made of birchwood and dated from before 1844.
But that was not all he was striving for. He had a reason (!) in plain words, he wished for his own aggrandisement, that the carved figures should be proved to date from the sixteenth century; and he would have preferred that they should be the work of the great—of coursegreat, because his name had been so deeply carved in oak that it has been preserved to our time—Burchard von Schiedenhanne, who had carved the seats in the choir of the Cathedral of Västeros.
The learned research was carried on. The professor stole a little plaster from the figures in Västeros and sent it, together with a specimen from the sacristy of Träskola to the Ekole Pollytechnik (I can't spell it). The reply completely crushed the scoffers; the analysis proved that the two specimens of plaster were identical; both contained 77 per cent. of chalk and 35 of sulphuric acid; therefore (!) the figures must date from the same period.
The age of the figures had now been settled; a sketch was made of the whole one and "sent in" (what a terrible passion these learned men have for "sending things in") to the Academy; the only thing which remained to be done was to determine and reconstruct the broken one. For two whole years the two sacks travelled up and down between Upsala and Lund; the two professors differed and carried on a lively dispute. The professor of Lund, who had just been made rector, took the figure as the subject of his inaugural address and crushed the professor of Upsala. The latter replied in a brochure. Fortunately at the very moment a professor of the Stockholm Academy of Art appeared with a totally new opinion; then Herod and Pilate "compromised," as is always the case, and attacked the man from the capital, rending him with the unbridled fury of provincials.
This was their compromise: the broken figure had represented Unbelief, because the other one must have been meant for Faith, whose symbol is the cross. The supposition (advanced by the professor of Lund) that the broken figure had been intended to represent Hope, arrived at because one of the sacks contained an anchor, was rejected, because that would have postulated a third figure, Love, of which there was no trace, and for which there could have been no room; moreover, it was proved by specimens from the rich collection of arrow-heads in the historical museum, that the fragment in question was not an anchor, but an arrowhead, which forms a part of the weaponsbelonging to the symbols of Unbelief. The shape of the arrowhead, which resembled in every detail those from the period of the Vice-regent Sture, removed the last doubt as to the age of the figure.
It was my task to make a statue of Unbelief, as a companion to the figure of Faith, in accordance with the directions of the professors. I was given my instructions and I did not hesitate. I looked for a male model, for the figure was to be a man; I had to look for a long time, but I found him in the end; I really believe I met the personification of Unbelief—and I succeeded brilliantly.
And there he now stands, Falander, the actor, to the left of the altar, with a Mexican bow (used in the dramaFerdinand Cortez) and a robber's cloak (fromFra Diavolo), but the people say that it is Unbelief throwing down his arms before Faith. And the Deputy-Superintendent, who preached the inaugural sermon, spoke of the splendid gifts which God sometimes gives to man, and which, in this case, he had given to me; and the Count, who gave the inaugural dinner, declared that I had created a masterpiece, fit to stand side by side with the antiques (he's been in Italy); and a student who occupies some post in the Count's household, seized the opportunity to write and circulate some verses, in which he developed the conception of the Sublimely Beautiful, and gave a history of the Myth of the Devil.
Up to now I have, like a true egoist, spoken only of myself. What am I to say about Lundell's altar-piece? I will try to describe it to you. Christ (Rehnhjelm) hangs on the cross in the background; to the left is the impenitent thief (I; and the rascal has made me worse-looking than I am); to the right the repenting thief (Lundell himself, squinting with hypocritical eyes at Rehnhjelm); at the foot of the cross Mary Magdalene (you will remember Marie—in a very low dress), and a Roman centurion (Falander) on horseback (stallion belonging to Alderman Olsson).
I cannot describe the awful impression made on mewhen, after the sermon, the picture was unveiled, and I saw all these well-known faces staring from the wall above the altar at the community rapturously listening to the words of the preacher on the great importance of art, particularly art in the service of religion. As far as I am concerned, a veil has been lifted from many things; I will tell you by and by my thoughts on Faith and Unbelief. I am going to embody my views on art and its high mission in an essay, and read it at some public hall as soon as I am back in town.