Chapter 16. In The White Mountains

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_ CHAPTER XVI. IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

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 is not 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, the Grey Bonnet had 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 meditations on 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 is a conviction, but because it is his conviction. 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 been engaged 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 have walked on every 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 everything and 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 phoenix 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 be patient. 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 to see 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 that devil 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 in the 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 put impenitent, 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, "and nobody 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!" _

Read next: Chapter 17. Natura....

Read previous: Chapter 15. The Theatrical Company "Phoenix"

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