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Red Room, a novel by August Strindberg |
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Chapter 27. Recovery |
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_ CHAPTER XXVII. RECOVERY It was autumn again. On a clear November morning Arvid Falk was walking from his elegantly furnished rooms in Great Street to ... man's Boarding School near Charles XII Market, where he had an appointment as master of the Swedish language and history. During the autumn months he had made his way back into civilized society, a proceeding which had brought home to him the fact that he had become a perfect savage during his wanderings. He had discarded his disreputable hat and bought a high one which he found difficult, at first, to keep on his head; he had bought gloves, but in his savagery he had replied "fifteen" when the shopgirl asked for his size, and blushed when his reply brought a smile to the face of every girl in the shop. The fashion had changed, since he had last bought clothes; as he was walking through the streets, he looked upon himself as a dandy, and every now and then examined his reflexion in the shop windows, to see whether his garments set well. Now he was strolling up and down the pavement before the Dramatic Theatre and waiting for the clock on St. James' Church to strike nine; he felt uneasy and embarrassed, as if he were a schoolboy going to school himself; the pavement was so short, and as again and again he retraced his footsteps he compared himself to a dog on a chain. For a moment he had a wild thought of taking a wider range, a very much wider range, for if he went straight on, he would come to Lill-Jans, and he remembered the spring morning when that very pavement had led him away from society, which he detested, into liberty, nature, and--slavery. It struck nine. He stood in the corridor; the schoolroom doors were closed; in the twilight he saw a long row of children's garments hanging against the wall: hats, boas, bonnets, wraps, gloves, and muffs were lying on tables and window sills, and whole regiments of button boots and overshoes stood on the floor. But there was no smell of damp clothes and wet leather as in the halls of the Parliamentary Buildings and in the Working-men's Union "Phoenix," or--he became conscious of a faint odour of newly mown hay--it seemed to come from a little muff lined with blue silk and trimmed with tassels, which looked like a white kitten with black dots. He could not resist taking it in his hand and smelling the perfume--new-mown hay--when the front door opened and a little girl of about ten came in accompanied by a maid. She looked at the master with big fearless eyes, and dropped a coquettish little curtsey; the almost embarrassed master replied with a bow which made the little beauty smile--and the maid, too. She was late; but she was quite unconcerned and allowed her maid to take off her outdoor garments and overshoes as calmly as if she had come to a dance. From the class-room came a sound which made his heart beat--what was it? Ah! The organ--the old organ! a legion of children's voices were singing "Jesus, at the day's beginning...." He felt ill at ease, and forced himself to fix his mind on Borg and Isaac in order to control his feelings. But matters went from bad to worse: "Our Father, which art in Heaven...." The old prayer--it was long ago.... The silence was so profound that he could hear the raising of all the little heads and the rustling of collars and pinafores; the doors were thrown open; he looked at a huge, moving flower-bed composed of little girls between eight and fourteen. He felt self-conscious like a thief caught in the act, when the old headmistress shook hands with him; the flowers waved to and fro, and there was much excited whispering and exchanging of significant glances. He sat down at the end of a long table, surrounded by twenty fresh faces with sparkling eyes; twenty children who had never experienced the bitterest of all sorrows, the humiliations of poverty; they met his glance boldly and inquisitively, but he was embarrassed and had to pull himself together with an effort; before long, however, he was on friendly terms with Anna and Charlotte, Georgina and Lizzy and Harry; teaching was a pleasure. He made allowances, and let Louis XIV and Alexander be termed great men, like all others who had been successful; he permitted the French Revolution to be called a terrible event, during which the noble Louis XVI and the virtuous Marie Antoinette perished miserably, and so on. When he entered the office of the Board of Purveyance of Hay for the Cavalry Regiments, he felt young and refreshed. He stayed till eleven reading the Conservative; then he went to the offices of the Committee on Brandy Distilleries, lunched, and wrote two letters, one to Borg and one to Struve. On the stroke of one he was in the Department for Death Duties. Here he collated an assessment of property which brought him in a hundred crowns; he had time enough before dinner to read the proofs of the revised edition of the Forest Laws, which he was editing. It struck three. Anybody crossing the Riddarhus Market at that time could have met on the bridge a young, important-looking man, with pockets bulging with manuscripts, and hands crossed on his back; he is strolling slowly along, accompanied by an elderly, lean, grey-haired man of fifty, the actuary of the dead. The estate of every citizen who dies has to be declared to him; according to the amount he takes his percentage; some say that this is his duty; others that he represents the Earth, and has to watch that the dead take nothing away with them, as everything is a loan--without interest. In any case, he is a man more interested in the dead than the living, and therefore Falk likes his company; he, on the other hand, is attached to Falk because, like himself, he collects coins and autographs, and because he possesses that excellent quality, tolerance, which is rarely found in a young man. The two friends enter the Restaurant Rosengren, where they are fairly certain not to meet young men and where they can discuss numismatics and autography. They take their coffee in the Café Rydberg and look at catalogues of coins until six. At six o'clock the official Post appears, and they read the promotions. Each enjoys the other's company, for they never quarrel. Falk is so free from fixed opinions that he is the most amiable man in the world, liked and appreciated by chiefs and colleagues. Occasionally they dine in the Hamburg Exchange and take a liqueur or two at the Opera Restaurant, and to see them walking along arm in arm, at eleven o'clock, is really quite an edifying sight. Moreover, Falk has become a regular guest at family dinners and suppers in houses into which Borg's father has introduced him. The women find him interesting, although they do not know how to take him; he is always smiling and expert at sarcastic little pleasantries. But when he is sick of family life and the social life, he visits the Red Room, and there he meets the redoubtable Borg, his admirer Isaac, his secret enemy and envier Struve, the man who never has any money, and the sarcastic Sellén, who is gradually preparing his second success, after all his imitators have accustomed the public to his manner. Lundell, who, after the completion of his altar-piece, gave up painting sacred pictures and became a fat Epicurean, only comes to the Red Room when he has no money to pay for his dinner; he makes a living by portrait painting, a profession which brings him countless invitations to dinners and suppers; Lundell maintains that these invitations are essential for making character studies. Olle, who is still employed by the stonemason, has become a gloomy misanthrope after his great failure as a politician and orator. He refuses "to impose on" his former friends and lives a solitary life. Falk is in a boisterous, riotous mood whenever he visits the Red Room, and Borg is of opinion that he does him credit; he is a veritable sappeur to whom nothing is sacred--except politics; this is a subject on which he never touches. But if, while he lets off his fireworks for the amusement of his friends, he should catch, through the dense tobacco smoke, a glimpse of the morose Olle on the other side of the room, his mood changes, he becomes gloomy like a night on the sea, and swallows large quantities of strong liquor, as if he wanted to extinguish a smouldering fire. But Olle has not been seen for a long time. _ |
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