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Red Room, a novel by August Strindberg |
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Chapter 26. Correspondence |
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_ CHAPTER XXVI. CORRESPONDENCE CANDIDATE BORG to JOURNALIST STRUVE NÄMDÖ, June 18-- OLD SCANDAL-MONGER!--As I am convinced that neither you nor Levin have paid off your instalments of the loan made by the Shoemakers' Bank, I am sending you herewith a promissory note, so that you may raise a new loan from the Architects' Bank. If there is anything over after the instalments have been paid up, we will divide it equally amongst us. Please send me my share by steamer to Dalarö, where I will call for it. I have now had Falk under treatment for a month, and I believe he is on the road to recovery. You will remember that after Olle's famous lecture he left us abruptly and, instead of making use of his brother and his brother's connexions, went on the staff of the Workman's Flag, where he was ill-treated for fifty crowns a month. But the wind of freedom which blew there must have had a demoralizing effect on him, for he became morose and neglected his appearance. With the help of the girl Beda I kept my eye on him, and when I considered him ripe for a rupture with the communards, I went and fetched him away. I found him in a low public-house called "The Star," in the company of two scandal writers with whom he was drinking brandy--I believe they were writing at the same time. He was in a melancholy condition, as you would say. As you know, I regard mankind with calm indifference; men are to me geological preparations, minerals; some crystallize under one condition, others under another; it all depends on certain laws or circumstances which should leave us completely unmoved. I don't weep over the lime-spar, because it is not as hard as a rock-crystal. Therefore I cannot regard Falk's condition as melancholy; it was the outcome of his temperament (heart you would say) plus the circumstances which his temperament had created. But he was certainly "down" when I found him. I took him on board our cutter and he remained passive. But just as we had pushed off, he turned round and saw Beda standing on the shore, beckoning to him; I can't think how she got there. On seeing her, our man went clear out of his mind. Put me ashore! he screamed, threatening to jump overboard. I seized him by the arms, pushed him into the cabin and locked the door. As we passed Vaxholm, I posted two letters; one to the editor of the Workman's Flag, begging him to excuse Falk's absence, and the other to his landlady, asking her to send him his clothes. In the meantime he had calmed down, and when he beheld the sea and the skerries, he became sentimental and talked a great deal of nonsense: he had lost all hope of ever seeing God's (?) green earth again, he said, and so on. But presently he began to suffer from something like qualms of conscience. He maintained that he had no right to be happy and take a holiday when there were so many unhappy people in the world; he imagined that he was neglecting his duty towards the scoundrel who edits the Workman's Flag, and begged us to row him back. When I talked to him of the terrible time he had just gone through, he replied that it was the duty of all men to work and suffer for one another. This view had almost become a religion with him, but I have cured him of it with soda water and salt baths. He was completely broken, and I had great difficulty in patching him up, for it was hard to say where the physical trouble ended and the psychical began. I must say that in a certain respect he excites my astonishment--I won't say admiration, for I never admire anybody. He seems to suffer from an extraordinary mania which makes him act in direct contradiction to his own interest. He might have been in a splendid position, if he had not thrown up his career in the Civil Service, particularly as his brother would, in that case have helped him with a sum of money. Instead of that he cast his reputation to the winds and slaved for a brutal plebeian; and all for the sake of his ideals! It is most extraordinary! But he seems to be mending at last, more particularly after a lesson he had here. Can you believe it, he called the fishermen "sir," and took off his hat to them. In addition he indulged in cordial chats with the natives, in order to find out "how these people lived." The result was that the fishermen pricked up their ears, and one of them asked me one day whether "this Falk" paid for his own board, or whether the doctor (I) paid for him? I told Falk about it and it depressed him; he is always despondent, whenever he is robbed of a delusion. A few days later he talked to our landlord on the subject of universal suffrage; later on our landlord asked me whether Falk was in poor circumstances. During the first few days he ran up and down the shore like a madman. Often he swam far out into the fjörd, as if he never meant to return again. As I always looked upon suicide as the sacred right of every individual, I did not interfere. Isaac told me that Falk had opened his heart to him on the subject of the girl Beda; she seems to have made an awful fool of him. A propos of Isaac! He is one of the shrewdest fellows I ever met. He has, after one month's study, mastered the Latin grammar, and he reads his Cæsar as we read the Grey Bonnet; and what's more, he knows all about it, which we never did. His brain is receptive, that is to say, capable of assimilating knowledge, and in addition to this it is practical; this combination has produced many a genius, in spite of gross stupidity in many other respects. Every now and then he indulges his business instincts; the other day he gave us a brilliant example of his talent in that direction. I know nothing about his financial position--for in that respect he is very reticent--but a little while ago he had to pay a few hundred crowns. He was very fidgety, and as he did not want to apply to his brother (of the "Triton") with whom he is not on friendly terms, he asked me to lend him the sum. I was not in a position to do so. Thereupon he sat down, took a sheet of note-paper, wrote a letter and sent it off by special messenger. For a few days nothing happened. In front of our cottage grew a pretty little oakwood which shaded us from the sun and sheltered us from the strong sea breezes. I don't know much about trees and things pertaining to nature, but I love to sit in the shade when the days are hot. One morning, on pulling up my blind, I was dumbfounded; I was looking at the open fjörd and a yacht riding at anchor about a cable-length from the shore. Every tree had gone, and Isaac was sitting on a stump reading Euclid and counting the trunks as they were being carried on board the yacht. I wakened Falk; he was furious and had a quarrel with Isaac who made a thousand crowns on the deal. Our landlord received two hundred, all he had asked for. I could have killed Isaac, not because he had had the trees cut down, but because I had not thought of it first. Falk said it was unpatriotic, but Isaac swears that the removal of the "rubbish" has improved the view; he declares that he will take a boat next week and visit the neighbouring islets with the same object. Our landlord's wife cried all day long, but her husband went to Dalarö to buy her a new dress; he remained away for two whole days, and when he returned at last, he was drunk; there was nothing in the boat, and when his wife asked for the new dress, the fisherman confessed that he had forgotten all about it. Enough for the present. Write soon and tell me a few new scandals, and be careful how you manipulate the loan.
Please put the following paragraph into the Grey Bonnet; it will affect my medical degree. Scientific Discovery: Cand. Med. Henrik Borg, one of our younger distinguished medical men has, while engaged in zootomic research on the skerries near Stockholm, discovered a new species of the family Clypeaster, to which he has given the very pertinent name of maritimus. Its characteristics may be described as follows: Cutaneous laminæ in five porous ambulacral shields and five interambulacral shields, with warts instead of pricks. The animal has excited much interest in the scientific world. * * * * * ARVID FALK to BEDA PETTERSON NÄMBÖ, August 18-- As I walk along the seashore and see the roadweed growing in sand and pebbles, I think of you blossoming for a whole winter in an inn of old Stockholm. I know nothing more delightful than to lie full length on a cliff and feel the fragments of gneiss tickling my ribs while I gaze seaward. It makes me feel proud, and I imagine that I am Prometheus, while the vulture--that is you--has to lie in a feather bed in Sandberg Street and swallow mercury. Seaweed is of no use while it grows at the bottom of the sea; but when it decays on the shore it smells of iodine which is a cure for love, and bromide, which is a cure for insanity. There was no hell until Paradise was quite complete, that is to say until woman was created (chestnut!). Far away, by the open sea, there lives a pair of eider ducks, in an old quarter cask. If one considers that the stretched out wings of the eider measure two feet, it seems a miracle--and love is a miracle. The whole world is too small for me. * * * * * BEDA PETTERSON to MR. FALK STOCKHOLM, August 18-- DEAR FRENT,--i have just receeved your letter, but i cannot say that i have understood it, i see you think that i am in Sandberg Street, but that is a grate lie and i can undertand why that blackgard says i am, it is a grate lie and i sware that i love you as much as befor, i often long to see you but it canot be yet. Your fathfull Beda. P. S. Dear Arvid, if you could lent me 30 crowns till the 15th, i sware i will pay it back on the 15th becos i shall receeve money then, i have been so ill and i am often so sad that i wish i was dead. The barmaid in the café was a horrid creechur who was jelous becaus of the stout Berglund and that is why i left. All they say of me is lies i hope you are well and dont forget your The same. You can send the money to Hulda in the Café then i shall get it. * * * * * CANDIDATE BORG to JOURNALIST STRUVE NÄMDÖ, August 18-- CONSERVATIVE BLACKGUARD,--You must have embezzled the money, for instead of receiving cash, I received a request for payment from the Shoemakers' Bank. Do you imagine a man has a right to steal because he has a wife and children? Render an account at once, else I shall come up to town and make a row. I have read the paragraph, which, of course, was not without errors. It said zoologic instead of zootomic, and Crypeaster instead of Clypeaster. Nevertheless, I hope it will serve its purpose. Falk went mad after receiving a letter in a feminine handwriting a day or two ago. One minute he was climbing trees, at the next he was diving to the bottom of the sea. I expect it was the crisis--I'll talk to him like a father a little later on. Isaac has sold his yacht without asking my permission, and for this reason we are, at the moment, enemies. He is at present reading the second book of Livy and founding a Fishing Company. He has bought a strömming-net, a seal-gun, twenty-five pipe stems, a salmon line, two bass-nets, a shed for drag-nets and a--church. The latter seems incredible, but it is quite true. I admit it was scorched a little by the Russians in 1719, but the walls are still standing. The parish possesses a new one which serves the ordinary purpose; the old one was used as a parochial store-room. Isaac is thinking of making the Academy a present of it, in the hope of receiving the order of Vasa. The latter has been given for less. Isaac's uncle, who is an innkeeper, received it for treating the deaf and dumb to bread and butter and beer when they used the riding-ground in the autumn. He did it for six years. Then he received his reward. Now he takes no more notice of the deaf and dumb, which proves how fatal the order of Vasa may be under certain circumstances. Unless I drown the rascal Isaac, he won't rest until he has bought all Sweden. Pull yourself together and behave like an honourable man, or I shall bear down upon you like Jehu, and then you'll be lost. H. B. P.S. When you write the notice relating to the distinguished strangers at Dalarö, mention me and Falk, but ignore Isaac; his presence irritates me--he went and sold his yacht. Send me some blank bills (blue ones, sola-bills) when you send the money. * * * * * CANDIDATE BORG to JOURNALIST STRUVE NÄMDÖ, September 18-- MAN OF HONOUR!--Money arrived! Seems to have been exchanged, for the Architects' Bank always pays in Scanian bills of fifty. However, never mind! Falk is well; he has passed the crisis like a man; he has regained his self-confidence--a most important quality as far as worldly success goes, but a quality which, according to statistics is considerably weakened in children who lose their mothers at an early age. I gave him a prescription which he promised to try all the more readily as the same idea had occurred to him. He will return to his former profession, but without accepting his brother's help--his last act of folly of which I do not approve--re-enter society, register his name with the rest of the cattle, become respectable, make himself a social position, and hold his tongue until his word bears weight. The latter is absolutely necessary, if he is to remain alive; he has a tendency to insanity, and is bound to lose his reason unless he forgets all about these ideas which I really cannot understand; and I don't believe that he himself could define what it is he wants. He has begun the cure and I am amazed at his progress. I'm sure he'll end as a member of the Royal Household. That is what I believed until a few days ago when he read in a paper an account of the Commune at Paris. He at once had a relapse and took to climbing trees again. He got over it, though, and now he does not dare to look at a paper. But he never says a word. Beware of the man when his apprenticeship is over. Isaac is now learning Greek. He considers the text-books too stupid and too long; therefore he takes them to pieces, cuts out the most important bits and pastes them into an account book which he has arranged like a summary for his forthcoming examinations. Unfortunately, his increasing knowledge of the classics makes him impudent and disagreeable. So, for instance, he dared to contradict the pastor the other day while playing a game of draughts with him, and maintain that the Jews had invented Christianity and that all those baptized were really Jews. Latin and Greek have ruined him! I am afraid that I have nursed a dragon in my hairy bosom; if this is so, then the seed of the woman must bruise the serpent's head. H. B. P.S. Falk has shaved his American beard and no longer raises his hat to the fishermen. You'll not hear from me again from Nämdö. We are returning to town on Monday. _ |
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