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Red Room, a novel by August Strindberg |
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Chapter 2. Between Brothers |
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_ CHAPTER II. BETWEEN BROTHERS The flax merchant, Charles Nicholas Falk--son of the late flax merchant, one of the fifty elders of the burgesses, captain of the infantry of militia, vestryman and member of the Board of Administration of the Stockholm Fire Insurance, Charles John Falk, and brother of the former assessor and present writer, Arvid Falk--had a business or, as his enemies preferred to call it, a shop in Long Street East, nearly opposite Pig Street, so that the young man who sat behind the counter, surreptitiously reading a novel, could see a piece of a steamer, the paddle-box perhaps, or the jib-boom, and the crown of a tree on Skeppsholm, with a patch of sky above it, whenever he raised his eyes from his book. The shop assistant, who answered to the not unusual name of Andersson, and he had learnt to answer to it, had just--it was early in the morning--opened the shop, hung up outside the door a flax tress, a fish and an eel basket, a bundle of fishing-rods, and a crawl of unstripped quills; this done, he had swept the shop, strewn the floor with sawdust, and sat down behind the counter. He had converted an empty candle-box into a kind of mouse-trap, which he set with a hooked stick; immediately on the appearance of his principal, or any of the latter's friends, the novel on which Andersson was intent dropped into the box. He did not seem afraid of customers; for one thing it was early in the morning and for another he was not used to very many customers. The business had been established in the days of the late King Frederick--Charles Nicholas Falk had inherited this statement from his father, to whom it had descended from his grandfather; it had flourished and earned a good deal of money until a few years ago; but the disastrous chamber-system killed trade, ruined all prospects, impeded all enterprise, and threatened all citizens with bankruptcy. So, at least, Falk said; others were inclined to believe that the business was mismanaged; to say nothing of the fact that a dangerous competitor had established himself close to the lock. Falk never talked of the decline of the business if he could help it, and he was shrewd enough carefully to choose occasion and audience whenever he touched upon that string. If an old business connexion expressed surprise, in a friendly way, at the reduced trade, he told him that his principal business was a wholesale trade in the provinces, and that he was looking upon the shop merely in the light of a sign-board; nobody doubted this, for he had, behind the shop, a small counting-house where he generally could be found when he was not in town or at the Exchange. But it was quite another tale if any of his acquaintances, such as the notary or the schoolmaster, for instance, expressed the same friendly uneasiness. Then he blamed the bad times, the result of the new chamber-system; this alone was to blame for the stagnation of trade. Andersson was disturbed in his reading by two or three boys who were standing in the doorway, asking the price of the fishing-rods. Looking out into the street he caught sight of our Mr. Arvid Falk. Falk had lent him the book, so that it could safely be left on the counter; and as his former playfellow entered the shop, he greeted him familiarly, with a knowing look. "Is he upstairs?" asked Falk, not without a certain uneasiness. "He's at breakfast," replied Andersson, pointing to the ceiling. A chair was pushed back on the floor above their heads. "He's got up from the table now, Mr. Arvid." Both young men seemed familiar with the noise and its purport. Heavy, creaking footsteps crossed the floor, apparently in all directions, and a subdued murmur penetrated through the ceiling to the listeners below. "Was he at home last night?" asked Falk. "No, he was out." "With friends or acquaintances?" "Acquaintances." "Did he come home late?" "Very late." "Do you think he'll be coming down soon, Andersson? I don't want to go upstairs on account of my sister-in-law." "He'll be here directly; I can tell by his footsteps." A door slammed upstairs; they looked at each other significantly. Arvid made a movement towards the door, but pulled himself together. A few moments later they heard sounds in the counting-house. A violent cough shook the little room and then came the well-known footsteps, saying: stamp--stamp, stamp--stamp! Arvid went behind the counter and knocked at the door of the counting-house. "Come in!" He stood before his brother, a man of forty who looked his age. He was fifteen years older than Arvid, and for that and other reasons he had accustomed himself to look upon his younger brother as a boy towards whom he acted as a father. He had fair hair, a fair moustache, fair eyebrows, and eye-lashes. He was rather stout, and that was the reason why his boots always creaked; they groaned under the weight of his thick-set figure. "Oh, it's only you?" he said with good-natured contempt. This attitude of mind was typical of the man; he was never angry with those who for some reason or other could be considered his inferiors; he despised them. But his face expressed disappointment; he had expected a more satisfactory subject for an outburst; his brother was shy and modest, and never offered resistance if he could possibly help it. "I hope I'm not inconveniencing you, brother Charles?" asked Arvid, standing on the threshold. This humble question disposed the brother to show benevolence. He helped himself to a cigar from his big, embroidered leather cigar-case, offering his brother a smoke from a box which stood near the fire-place; that boxful--visitors' cigars, as he frankly called them, and he was of a candid disposition--had been through a shipwreck, which made them interesting, but did not improve them, and a sale by auction on the strand, which had made them very cheap. "Well, what is it you want?" asked Charles Nicholas, lighting his cigar, and absent-mindedly putting the match into his pocket--he could only concentrate his thoughts on one spot inside a not very large circumference; his tailor could have expressed the size of it in inches after measuring him round the stomach. "I want to talk business with you," answered Arvid, fingering his unlighted cigar. "Sit down!" commanded the brother. It was customary with him to ask people to sit down whenever he intended to take them to task; he had them under him, then, and it was more easy to crush them--if necessary. "Business? Are we doing business together?" he began. "I don't know anything about it. Are you doing business? Are you?" "I only meant to say that I should like to know whether there's anything more coming to me?" "What, may I ask? Do you mean money?" said Charles Nicholas, jestingly, allowing his brother to enjoy the scent of his good cigar. As the reply, which he did not want, was not forthcoming, he went on: "Coming to you? Haven't you received everything due to you? Haven't you yourself receipted the account for the Court of Wards? Haven't I kept and clothed you since--to be strictly correct, haven't I made you a loan, according to your own wish, to be paid back when you are able to do so? I've put it all down, in readiness for the day when you will be earning your livelihood, a thing which you've not done yet." "I'm going to do it now, and that's why I'm here. I wanted to know whether there's still anything owing to me, or whether I am in debt." The brother cast a penetrating look at his victim, wondering whether he had any mental reservations. His creaking boots began stamping the floor on a diagonal line between spittoon and umbrella-stand; the trinkets on his watch-chain tinkled, a warning to people not to cross his way; the smoke of his cigar rose and lay in long, ominous clouds, portentous of a thunderstorm, between tiled stove and door. He paced up and down the room furiously, his head bowed, his shoulders rounded, as if he were rehearsing a part. When he thought he knew it, he stopped short before his brother, gazed into his eyes with a long, glinting, deceitful look, intended to express both confidence and sorrow, and said, in a voice meant to sound as if it came from the family grave in the churchyard of St. Clara's: "You're not straight, Arvid; you're not straight." Who, with the exception of Andersson, who was standing behind the door, listening, would not have been touched by those words, spoken by a brother to a brother, fraught with the deepest brotherly sorrow? Even Arvid, accustomed from his childhood to believe all men perfect and himself alone unworthy, wondered for a moment whether he was straight or not? And as his education, by efficacious means, had provided him with a highly sensitive conscience, he found that he really had not been quite straight, or at least quite frank, when he asked his brother the not-altogether candid question as to whether he wasn't a scoundrel. "I've come to the conclusion," he said, "that you cheated me out of a part of my inheritance; I've calculated that you charged too much for your inferior board and your cast-off clothes; I know that I didn't spend all my fortune during my terrible college days, and I believe that you owe me a fairly big sum; I want it now, and I request you to hand it over to me." A smile illuminated the brother's fair face, and with an expression so calm and a gesture so steady, that he might have been rehearsing them for years, so as to be in readiness when his cue was given to him, he put his hand in his trousers pocket, rattled his bunch of keys before taking it out, threw it up and dexterously caught it again, and walked solemnly to his safe. He opened it more quickly than he intended and, perhaps, than the sacredness of the spot justified, took out a paper lying ready to his hand and evidently also waiting for its cue, and handed it to his brother. "Did you write this? Answer me! Did you write it?" "Yes!" Arvid rose and turned towards the door. "Don't go! Sit down! Sit down!" If a dog had been present it would have sat down at once. "What's written here? Read it! 'I, Arvid Falk, acknowledge and testify--that--I--have received from my brother, Charles Nicholas Falk--who was appointed my guardian--my inheritance in full--amounting to--' and so on." He was ashamed to mention the sum. "You have acknowledged and testified a fact which you did not believe. Is that straight? No, answer my question! Is that straight? No! Therefore you have borne false witness. Ergo--you're a blackguard! Yes, that's what you are! Am I right?" The part was too excellent and the triumph too great to be enjoyed without an audience. The innocently accused must have witnesses. He opened the door leading into the shop. "Andersson!" he shouted, "answer this question! Listen to me! If I bear false witness, am I a blackguard or not?" "Of course, you are a blackguard, sir!" Andersson answered unhesitatingly and with warmth. "Do you hear? He says I'm a blackguard--if I put my signature to a false receipt. What did I say? You're not straight, Arvid, you are not straight. Good-natured people often are blackguards; you have always been good-natured and yielding, but I've always been aware that in your secret heart you harboured very different thoughts; you're a blackguard! Your father always said so; I say 'said,' for he always said what he thought, and he was a straight man, Arvid, and that--you--are--not! And you may be sure that if he were still alive he would say with grief and pain: 'You're not straight, Arvid, you--are--not--straight!'" He did a few more diagonal lines and it sounded as if he were applauding the scene with his feet; he rattled his bunch of keys as if he were giving the signal for the curtain to rise. His closing remarks had been so rounded off that the smallest addition would have spoilt the whole. In spite of the heavy charge which he had actually expected for years--for he had always believed his brother to be acting a part--he was very glad that it was over, happily over, well and cleverly over, so that he felt almost gay and even a little grateful. Moreover he had had a splendid chance of venting the wrath which had been kindled upstairs, in his family, on some one; to vent it on Andersson had lost its charm; and he knew better than to vent it on his wife. Arvid was silent; the education he had received had so intimidated him that he always believed himself to be in the wrong; since his childhood the great words "upright, honest, sincere, true," had daily and hourly been drummed into his ears, so that they stood before him like a judge, continuously saying: "Guilty...." For a moment he thought that he must have been mistaken in his calculations, that his brother must be innocent and he himself a scoundrel; but immediately after he realized that his brother was a cheat, deceiving him by a simple lawyer's trick. He felt prompted to run away, fearful of being drawn into a quarrel, to run away without making his request number two, and confessing that he was on the point of changing his profession. There was a long pause. Charles Nicholas had plenty of time to recapitulate his triumph in his memory. That little word "blackguard" had done his tongue good. It had been as pleasant as if he had said "Get out!" And the opening of the door, Andersson's reply, and the production of the paper, everything had passed off splendidly; he had not forgotten the bunch of keys on his night-table; he had turned the key in the lock without any difficulty; his proof was binding as a rope, the conclusion he had drawn had been the baited hook by which the fish had been caught. He had regained his good temper; he had forgiven, nay, he had forgotten, and as he slammed the door of the safe, he shut away the disagreeable story for ever. But he did not want to part from his brother in this mood; he wanted to talk to him on other subjects; throw a few shovelfuls of gossip on the unpleasant affair, see him under commonplace circumstances, sitting at his table, for instance--and why not eating and drinking? People always looked happy and content when they were eating and drinking; he wanted so see him happy and content. He wanted to see his face calm, listen to his voice speaking without a tremor, and he resolved to ask him to luncheon. But he felt puzzled how to lead up to it, find a suitable bridge across the gulf. He searched his brain, but found nothing. He searched his pockets and found--the match. "Hang it all, you've never lit your cigar, old boy!" he exclaimed with genuine, not feigned, warmth. But the old boy had crushed his cigar during the conversation, so that it would not draw. "Look here! Take another!" and he pulled out his big leather case. "Here! Take one of these! They are good ones!" Arvid, who, unfortunately, could not bear to hurt anybody's feelings, accepted it gratefully, like a hand offered in reconciliation. "Now, old boy," continued Charles Nicholas, talking lightly and pleasantly, an accomplishment at which he was an expert. "Let's go to the nearest restaurant and have lunch. Come along!" Arvid, unused to friendliness, was so touched by these advances that he hastily pressed his brother's hand and hurried away through the shop without taking any notice of Andersson, and out into the street. The brother felt embarrassed; he could not understand it. To run away when he had been asked to lunch! To run away when he was not in the least angry with him! To run away! No dog would have run away if a piece of meat had been thrown to him! "He's a queer chap!" he muttered, stamping the floor. Then he went to his desk, screwed up the seat of his chair as high as it would go and climbed up. From this raised position he was in the habit of contemplating men and circumstances as from a higher point of view, and he found them small; yet not so small that he could not use them for his purposes. _ |
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