Chapter 5. At The Publisher's

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_ CHAPTER V. AT THE PUBLISHER'S

Arvid Falk decided to try Smith first, the almighty Smith--a name adopted by the publisher in his youth during a short trip to the great continent, from exaggerated admiration of everything American--the redoubtable Smith with his thousand arms who could make a writer in twelve months, however bad the original material. His method was well known, though none but he dared to make use of it, for it required an unparalleled amount of impudence. The writer whom he took up could be sure of making a name; hence Smith was overrun with nameless writers.

The following story is told as an instance of his irresistible power and capacity for starting an author on the road to fame. A young, inexperienced writer submitted his first novel, a bad one, to Smith. For some reason the latter happened to like the first chapter--he never read more--and decided to bless the world with a new author. The book was published bearing on the back of the cover the words: "Blood and Sword. A novel by Gustav Sjöholm. This work of the young and promising author whose highly respected name has for a long time been familiar to the widest circles, etc. etc. It is a book which we can strongly recommend to the novel-reading public." The book was published on April 3. On April 4, a review appeared in the widely read metropolitan paper the Grey Bonnet, in which Smith held fifty shares. It concluded by saying: "Gustav Sjöholm's name is already well known; the spreading of his fame does not lie with us; and we recommend this book not only to the novel-reading, but also to the novel-writing public." On April 5 an advertisement appeared in every paper of the capital with the following quotation: "Gustav Sjöholm's name is already well known; the spreading of his fame does not lie with us. (Grey Bonnet)." On the same evening a notice appeared in the Incorruptible, a paper read by nobody. It represented the book as a model of bad literature, and the reviewer swore that Gustav Sjöblom (reviewer's intentional slip), had no name at all. But as nobody read the Incorruptible, the opposition remained unheard. The other papers, unwilling to disagree with the venerable leading Grey Bonnet, and afraid of offending Smith, were mild in their criticisms, but no more. They held the view that with hard work Gustav Sjöholm might make a name for himself in the future. A few days of silence followed, but in every paper--in the Incorruptible in bold type--appeared the advertisement, shouting: "Gustav Sjöholm's name is already well known." Then a correspondence was started in the X-köpings Miscellaneous, reproaching the metropolitan papers with being hard on young authors. "Gustav Sjöholm is simply a genius," affirmed the hot-headed correspondent, "in spite of all that dogmatic blockheads might say to the contrary." On the next day the advertisement again appeared in all the papers, bawling: "Gustav Sjöholm's name is already well known, etc. (Grey Bonnet)." "Gustav Sjöholm is a genius, etc. (X-köpings Miscellaneous)." The cover of the next number of the magazine Our Land, one of Smith's publications, bore the notice: "We are pleased to be in a position to inform our numerous subscribers that the brilliant young author Gustav Sjöholm has promised us an original novel for our next number, etc." And then again the advertisement in the papers. Finally, when at Christmas the almanac Our People appeared, the authors mentioned on the title page were: Orvar Odd, Talis Qualis, Gustav Sjöholm, and others. It was a fact. In the eighth month Gustav Sjöholm was made. And the public was powerless. It had to swallow him. It was impossible to go into a bookseller's and look at a book without reading his name; impossible to take up a newspaper without coming across it. In all circumstances and conditions of life that name obtruded itself, printed on a slip of paper; it was put into the housewives' market baskets on Saturdays; the servants carried it home from the tradespeople; the crossing-sweeper swept it off the street, and the man of leisure went about with it in the pockets of his dressing-gown.

Being well aware of Smith's great power, the young man climbed the dark stairs of the publisher's house close to the Great Church, not without misgivings. He had to wait for a long time in an outer office, a prey to the most unpleasant meditations, until suddenly the door was burst open and a young man rushed out of an inner office, despair on his face and a roll of paper under his arm. Shaking in every limb, Falk entered the sanctum, where the despot received his visitors, seated on a low sofa, calm and serene as a god; he kindly nodded his grey head, covered by a blue cap, and went on smoking, peacefully, as if he had never shattered a man's hopes or turned an unhappy wretch from his door.

"Good morning, sir, good morning!"

His divinely flashing eyes glanced at the newcomer's clothes and approved; nevertheless he did not ask him to sit down.

"My name is--Falk."

"Unknown to me! What is your father?"

"My father is dead."

"Is he? Good! What can I do for you, sir?"

Falk produced a manuscript from his breast pocket and handed it to Smith; the latter sat on it without looking at it.

"You want me to publish it? Verse? I might have guessed it! Do you know the cost of printing a single page, sir? No, you don't."

And he playfully poked the ignoramus with the stem of his pipe.

"Have you made a name, sir? No! Have you distinguished yourself in any way? No!"

"The Academy has praised these verses."

"Which Academy? The Academy of Sciences? The one which publishes all that stuff about flints?"

"About flints?"

"Yes, you know the Academy of Sciences! Close to the Museum, near the river. Well, then!"

"Oh, no, Mr. Smith! The Swedish Academy, in the Exchange...."

"I see! The one with the tallow candles! Never mind; no man on earth can tell what purpose it serves! No, my dear sir, the essential thing is to have a name, a name like Tegnér, like Ohrenschlägel, like--Yes! Our country has many great poets, but I can't remember them just at the moment; but a name is necessary. Mr. Falk? H'm! Who knows Mr. Falk? I don't, and I know many great poets. As I recently said to my friend Ibsen: 'Now just you listen to me, Ibsen'--I call him Ibsen, quite plainly--'just you listen to me, write something for my magazine. I'll pay you whatever you ask!' He wrote--I paid--but I got my money back."

The annihilated young man longed to sink through the chinks in the floor when he realized that he was standing before a person who called Ibsen quite plainly "Ibsen." He longed to recover his manuscript, and go his way, as the other young man had done, away, far away, until he came to running water. Smith guessed it.

"Well, I've no doubt you can write Swedish, sir. And you know our literature better than I do. Good! I have an idea. I am told of great, beautiful, spiritual writers who lived in the past, let's say in the reign of Gustav Eriksson and his daughter Christina. Isn't that so?"

"Gustavus Adolfus."

"Gustavus Adolfus, so be it! I remember there was one with a great, a very great name; he wrote a fine work in verse, on God's Creation, I believe! His Christian name was Hokan!"

"You mean Haquin Spegel, Mr. Smith! 'God's Works and Rest.'"

"Ah, yes! Well, I've been thinking of publishing it. Our nation is yearning for religion these days; I've noticed that; and one must give the people something. I have given them a good deal of Hermann Francke and Arndt, but the great Foundation can sell more cheaply than I can, and now I want to bring out something good at a fair price. Will you take the matter in hand?"

"I don't know where I come in, as it is but a question of a reprint," answered Falk, not daring to refuse straight out.

"Dear me, what ignorance! You would do the editing and proof-reading, of course. Are we agreed? You publish it, sir! What? Shall we draw up a little agreement? The work must appear in numbers. What? A little agreement. Just hand me pen and ink. Well?"

Falk obeyed; he was unable to offer resistance. Smith wrote and Falk signed.

"Well, so much for that! Now, there's another thing! Give me that little book on the stand! The third shelf! There! Now look here! A brochure--title: "The Guardian Angel." Look at the vignette! An angel with an anchor and a ship--it's a schooner without any yards, I believe! The splendid influence of marine insurance on social life in general is well known. Everybody has at one time or other sent something more or less valuable across the sea in a ship. What? Well! Everybody doesn't realize this. No! Consequently it is our duty to enlighten those who are ignorant; isn't that so? Well! We know, you and I; therefore it is for us to enlighten those who don't. This book maintains that everybody who sends things across the water should insure them. But this book is badly written. Well! We'll write a better one. What? You'll write me a novel of ten pages for my magazine Our Land, and I expect you to have sufficient gumption to introduce the name Triton--which is the name of a new limited liability company, founded by my nephew, and we are told to help our neighbours--twice, neither more nor less; but it must be done cleverly and so that it is not at all obvious. Do you follow me?"

Falk found the offer repulsive, although it contained nothing dishonest; however, it gave him a start with the influential man, straight away, without any effort on his part. He thanked Smith and accepted.

"You know the size? Sixteen inches to the page, altogether a hundred and sixty inches of eight lines each. Shall we write a little agreement?"

Smith drew up an agreement and Falk signed.

"Well, now! You know the history of Sweden? Go to the stand again--you will find a cliché there, a wood block. To the right! That's it! Can you tell me who the lady is meant for? She is supposed to be a queen."

Falk, who saw nothing at first but a piece of black wood, finally made out some human features and declared that to the best of his belief it represented Ulrica Eleonora.

"Didn't I say so? Hihihi! The block has been used for Elizabeth, Queen of England, in an American popular edition. I've bought it cheaply, with a lot of others. I'm going to use it for Ulrica Eleonora in my People's Library. Our people are splendid; they are so ready to buy my books. Will you write the letterpress?"

Although Falk did not like the order, his super-sensitive conscience could find no wrong in the proposal.

"Well then! We'd better make out a little agreement. Sixteen pages octavo, at three inches, at twenty-four lines each. There!"

Falk, realizing that the audience was over, made a movement to recover his manuscript on which Smith had all along been sitting. But the latter would not give it up; he declared that he would read it, although it might take him some time.

"You're a sensible man, sir, who knows the value of time," he said. "I had a young fellow here just before you came in; he also brought me verses, a great poem, for which I have no use. I made him the same offers I just made to you, sir; do you know what he said? He told me to do something unmentionable. He did, indeed, and rushed out of the office. He'll not live long, that young man! Good day, good day! Don't forget to order a copy of Hoken Spegel! Well, good day, good day."

Smith pointed to the door with the stem of his pipe and Falk left him.

He did not walk away with light footsteps. The wood-block in his pocket was heavy and weighed him down, kept him back. He thought of the pale young man with the roll of manuscript who had dared to say a bold thing to Smith, and pride stirred in his heart. But memories of old paternal warnings and advice whispered the old lie to him that all work was equally honourable, and reproved him for his pride. He laid hold of his common sense and went home to write a hundred and ninety-two inches about Ulrica Eleonora.

As he had risen early he was at his writing-table at nine o'clock. He filled a large pipe, took two sheets of paper, wiped his steel nibs and tried to recall all he knew about Ulrica Eleonora. He looked her up in Ekelund and Fryxell. There was a great deal under the heading Ulrica Eleonora, but very little about her personally. At half-past nine he had exhausted the subject. He had written down her birthplace, and the place where she died, when she came to the throne, when she abdicated, the names of her parents and the name of her husband. It was a commonplace excerpt from a church register--and filled three pages, leaving thirteen to be covered. He smoked two or three pipes and dragged the inkstand with his pen, as if he were fishing for the Midgard serpent, but he brought up nothing. He was bound to say something about her personally, sketch her character; he felt as if he were sitting in judgment on her. Should he praise or revile her? As it was a matter of complete indifference to him, his mind was still not made up when it struck eleven. He reviled her--and came to the end of the fourth page, leaving twelve to be accounted for. He was at his wits' end. He wanted to say something about her rule, but as she had not ruled, there was nothing to be said. He wrote about her Council--one page--leaving eleven; he whitewashed Görtz--another--leaving ten. He had not yet filled half the required space. He hated the woman! More pipes! Fresh steel nibs! He went back to remoter days, passing them in review, and being now in a thoroughly bad temper, he overthrew his old idol, Charles XII, and hurled him in the dust; it was done in a few words, and only added one more page to his pile. There still remained nine. He anticipated events and criticised Frederick I. Half a page! He glanced at the paper with unhappy eyes; he glimpsed half-way house, but could not reach it. He had written seven and a half small pages; Ekelund had only managed one and a half.

He flung the wood-block on the floor, kicked it underneath his writing-table, crawled after it, dusted it and put it in its former place. It was torture! His soul was as dry as the block. He tried to work himself up to views which he did not hold; he tried to awaken some sort of emotion in his heart for the dead queen, but her plain, dull features, cut into the wood, made no more impression on him than he on the block. He realized his incapacity and felt despondent, degraded. And this was the career of his choice, the one he had preferred to all others. With a strong appeal to his reason, he turned to the guardian angel.

The brochure was originally written for a German society, the "Nereus," and the argument was as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Castle had emigrated to America, where they acquired a large estate. To make the story possible, they had sold their land, and, very unpractically, invested the total amount realized in costly furniture and objects of art. As the story required that everything should be completely lost and nothing whatever saved from the shipwreck, they sent off the whole lot in advance by the Washington, a first-class steamer, copper bottomed, with watertight bulkheads, and insured with the great German Marine Insurance Company for £60,000. Mr. and Mrs. Castle and the children followed on the Bolivar, the finest boat of the White Star Line, insured with the great Marine Insurance Company "Nereus" (Capital $10,000,000), and safely arrived at Liverpool. They left Liverpool and all went well until they came to Skagen Point. During the whole voyage the weather had, of course, been magnificent; the sky was clear and radiant, but at the dangerous Skagen Point a storm overtook them; the steamer was wrecked; the parents, whose lives were insured, were drowned, thereby guaranteeing to the children, who were saved, £1500. The latter, rejoicing at their parents' foresight, arrived at Hamburg in good spirits, eager to take possession of the insurance money and the property which they had inherited from their parents. Imagine their consternation when they were told that the Washington had been wrecked a fortnight before their arrival on Dogger Bank; their whole fortune, which had been left uninsured, was lost. All that remained was the life insurance money. They hurried to the Company's agents. A fresh disaster! They were told that their parents had not paid the last premium which--oh, fateful blow!--had been due on the day preceding their death. The distressed children bitterly mourned their parents, who had worked so hard for them. They embraced each other with tears and made a solemn vow that henceforth all their possessions should be insured, and that they would never neglect paying their life insurance premiums.

This story was to be localized, adapted to a Swedish environment and made into a readable novelette; and with this he was to make his début in the literary world. The devil of pride whispered to him not to be a blackguard and to leave the business alone, but this voice was silenced by another, which came from the region of his empty stomach, and was accompanied by a gnawing, stinging sensation. He drank a glass of water and smoked another pipe. But his discomfort increased. His thoughts became more gloomy; he found his room uncomfortable, the morning dull and monotonous; he was tired and despondent; everything seemed repulsive; his ideas were spiritless and revolved round nothing but unpleasant subjects; and still his discomfort grew. He wondered whether he was hungry? It was one o'clock. He never dined before three. He anxiously examined his purse. Threepence halfpenny! For the first time in his life he would have to go without dinner! This was a trouble hitherto unknown to him. But with threepence halfpenny there was no necessity to starve. He could send for bread and beer. No! That would not do; it was infra dig. Go to a dairy? No! Borrow? Impossible! He knew nobody who would lend. No sooner had he realized this than hunger began to rage in him like a wild beast let loose, biting him, tearing him and chasing him round the room. He smoked pipe after pipe to stupefy the monster; in vain.

A rolling of drums from the barracks yard told him that the guardsmen were lining up with their copper vessels to receive their dinner; every chimney was smoking; the dinner bell went in the dockyard; a hissing sound came from his neighbour's, the policemen's kitchen; the smell of roast meat penetrated through the chinks of the door; he heard the rattling of knives and plates in the adjacent room, and the children saying grace. The paviours in the street below were taking their after-dinner nap with their heads on their empty food baskets. The whole town was dining; everybody, except he. He raged against God. But all at once a clear thought shot through his brain. He seized Ulrica Eleonora and the guardian angel, wrapped them in paper, wrote Smith's name and address on the parcel, and handed the messenger his threepence halfpenny. And with a sigh of relief he threw himself on his sofa and starved, with a heart bursting with pride. _

Read next: Chapter 6. The Red Room

Read previous: Chapter 4. Master And Dogs

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