Chapter II: Part 2

With these thoughts he fell asleep. He awoke in the middle of the night. He had dreamt of a champagne supper in the company of a girl. And the whole terrible evening arose fresh in his memory.

He leapt out of bed with a bound, threw his sheets and blankets on the floor and lay down to sleep on the bare mattress, covering himself with nothing but a thin coverlet. He was cold and hungry, but he must subdue the devil. Again he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, with additions of his own. By and by his thoughts grew confused, the strained expression of his features relaxed, a smile softened the expression of his mouth; lovely figures appeared before him, serene and smiling, he heard subdued voices, half-stifled laughter, a few bars from a waltz, saw sparkling glasses and frank and merry faces with candid eyes, which met his own unabashed; suddenly a curtain was parted in the middle; a charming little face peeped through the red silk draperies, with smiling lips and dancing eyes; the slender throat is bare, the beautiful sloping shoulders look as if they had been modelled by a caressing hand; she holds out her arms and he draws her to his thumping heart.

The clock was striking three. Again he had been worsted in the fight.

Determined to win, he picked up the mattress and threw it out of the bed. Then he knelt on the cold floor and fervently prayed to God for strength, for he felt that he was indeed wrestling with the devil. When he had finished his prayer he lay down on the bare frame, and with a feeling of satisfaction felt the ropes and belting cutting into his arms and shins.

He awoke in the morning in a high fever.

He was laid up for six weeks. When he arose from his bed of sickness, he felt better than he had ever felt before. The rest, the good food and the medicine had increased his strength, and the struggle was now twice as hard. But he continued to struggle.

His confirmation took place in the spring. The moving scene in which the lower classes promise on oath never to interfere with these things which the upper classes consider their privilege, made a lasting impression on him. It didn’t trouble him that the minister offered him wine bought from the wine-merchant Högstedt at sixty-five öre the pint, and wafers from Lettstroem, the baker, at one crown a pound, as the flesh and blood of the great agitator Jesus of Nazareth, who was done to death nineteen hundred years ago. He didn’t think about it, for one didn’t think in those days, one had emotions.

A year after his confirmation he passed his final examination. The smart little college cap was a source of great pleasure to him; without being actually conscious of it, he felt that he, as a member of the upper classes, had received a charter. They were not a little proud of their knowledge, too, these young men, for the masters had pronounced them “mature.” The conceited youths! If at least they had mastered all the nonsense of which they boasted! If anybody had listened to their conversation at the banquet given in their honour, it would have been a revelation to him. They declared openly that they had not acquired five per cent. of the knowledge which ought to have been in their possession; they assured everybody who had ears to listen that it was a miracle that they had passed; the uninitiated would not have believed a word of it. And some of the young masters, now that the barrier between pupil and teacher was removed, and simulation was no longer necessary, swore solemnly, with half-intoxicated gestures, that there was not a single master in the whole school who would not have been plucked. A sober person could not help drawing the conclusion that the examination was like a line which could be drawn at will between upper and lower classes; and then he saw in the miracle nothing but a gigantic fraud.

It was one of the masters who, sipping a glass of punch, maintained that only an idiot could imagine that a human brain could remember at the same time: the three thousand dates mentioned in history; the names of the five thousand towns situated in all parts of the world; the names of six hundred plants and seven hundred animals; the bones in the human body, the stones which form the crust of the earth, all theological disputes, one thousand French words, one thousand English, one thousand German, one thousand Latin, one thousand Greek, half a million rules and exceptions to the rules: five hundred mathematical, physical, geometrical, chemical formulas. He was willing to prove that in order to be capable of such a feat the brain would have to be as large as the cupola of the Observatory at Upsala. Humboldt, he went on to say, finally forgot his tables, and the professor of astronomy at Lund had been unable to divide two whole numbers of six figures each. The newly-fledged under-graduates imagined that they knew six languages, and yet they knew no more than five thousand words at most of the twenty thousand which composed their mother tongue. And hadn’t he seen how they cheated? Oh! he knew all their tricks! He had seen the dates written on their finger nails; he had watched them consulting books under cover of their desks, he had heard them whispering to one another! But, he concluded, what is one to do? Unless one closes an eye to these things, the supply of students is bound to come to an end. During the summer Theodore remained at home, spending much of his time in the garden. He brooded over the problem of his future; what profession was he to choose? He had gained so much insight into the methods of the huge Jesuitical community which, under the name of the upper classes, constituted society, that he felt dissatisfied with the world and decided to enter the Church to save himself from despair. And yet the world beckoned to him. It lay before him, fair and bright, and his young, fermenting blood yearned for life. He spent himself in the struggle and his idleness added to his torments.

Theodore’s increasing melancholy and waning health began to alarm his father. He had no doubt about the cause, but he could not bring himself to talk to his son on such a delicate subject.

One Sunday afternoon the Professor’s brother who was an officer in the Pioneers, called. They were sitting in the garden, sipping their coffee.

“Have you noticed the change in Theodore?” asked the Professor.

“Yes, his time has come,” answered the Captain.

“I believe it has come long ago.”

“I wish you’d talk to him, I can’t do it.”

“If I were a bachelor, I should play the part of the uncle,” said the Captain; “as it is, I’ll ask Gustav to do it. The boy must see something of life, or he’ll go wrong. Hot stuff these Wennerstroems, what?”

“Yes,” said the Professor, “I was a man at fifteen, but I had a school-friend who was never confirmed because he was a father at thirteen.”

“Look at Gustav! Isn’t he a fine fellow? I’m hanged if he isn’t as broad across the back as an old captain! He’s a handful!”

“Yes,” answered the Professor, “he costs me a lot, but after all, I’d rather pay than see the boy running any risks. I wish you’d ask Gustav to take Theodore about with him a little, just to rouse him.”

“Oh! with pleasure!” answered the Captain.

And so the matter was settled.

One evening in July, when the summer is in its prime and all the blossoms which the spring has fertilised ripen into fruit, Theodore was sitting in his bed-room, waiting. He had pinned a text against his wall. “Come to Jesus,” it said, and it was intended as a hint to the lieutenant not to argue with him when he occasionally came home from barracks for a few minutes. Gustav was of a lively disposition, “a handful,” as his uncle had said. He wasted no time in brooding. He had promised to call for Theodore at seven o’clock; they were going to make arrangements for the celebration of the professor’s birthday. Theodore’s secret plan was to convert his brother, and Gustav’s equally secret intention was to make his younger brother take a more reasonable view of life.

Punctually at seven o’clock, a cab stopped before the house, (the lieutenant invariably arrived in a cab) and immediately after Theodore heard the ringing of his spurs and the rattling of his sword on the stairs.

“Good evening, you old mole,” said the elder brother with a laugh. He was the picture of health and youth. His highly-polished Hessian boots revealed a pair of fine legs, his tunic outlined the loins of a cart-horse; the golden bandolier of his cartridge box made his chest appear broader and his sword-belt showed off a pair of enormous thighs.

He glanced at the text and grinned, but said nothing.

“Come along, old man, let’s be off to Bellevue! We’ll call on the gardener there and make arrangements for the old man’s birthday. Put on your hat, and come, old chap!”

Theodore tried to think of an excuse, but the brother took him by the arm, put a hat on his head, back to front, pushed a cigarette between his lips and opened the door. Theodore felt like a fish out of water, but he went with his brother.

“To Bellevue!” said the lieutenant to the cab-driver, “and mind you make your thoroughbreds fly!”

Theodore could not help being amused. It would never have occurred to him to address an elderly married man, like the cabman, with so much familiarity.

On the way the lieutenant talked of everything under the sun and stared at every pretty girl they passed.

They met a funeral procession on its return from the cemetery.

“Did you notice that devilish pretty girl in the last coach?” asked Gustav.

Theodore had not seen her and did not want to see her.

They passed an omnibus full of girls of the barmaid type. The lieutenant stood up, unconcernedly, in the public thoroughfare, and kissed his hands to them. He really behaved like a madman.

The business at Bellevue was soon settled. On their return the cab-driver drove them, without waiting for an order, to “The Equerry,” a restaurant where Gustav was evidently well-known.

“Let’s go and have something to eat,” said the lieutenant, pushing his brother out of the cab.

Theodore was fascinated. He was no abstainer and saw nothing wrong in entering a public-house, although it never occurred to him to do so. He followed, though not without a slight feeling of uneasiness.

They were received in the hall by two girls. “Good evening, little doves,” said the lieutenant, and kissed them both on the lips. “Let me introduce you to my learned brother; he’s very young and innocent, not at all like me; what do you say, Jossa?”

The girls looked shyly at Theodore, who did not know which way to turn. His brother’s language appeared to him unutterably impudent.

On their way upstairs they met a dark-haired little girl, who had evidently been crying; she looked quiet and modest and made a good impression on Theodore.

The lieutenant did not kiss her, but he pulled out his handkerchief and dried her eyes. Then he ordered an extravagant supper.

They were in a bright and pretty room, hung with mirrors and containing a piano, a perfect room for banquetting. The lieutenant opened the piano with his sword, and before Theodore knew where he was, he was sitting on the music-stool, and his hands were resting on the keyboard.

“Play us a waltz,” commanded the lieutenant, and Theodore played a waltz. The lieutenant took off his sword and danced with Jossa; Theodore heard his spurs knocking against the legs of the chairs and tables. Then he threw himself on the sofa and shouted:

“Come here, ye slaves, and fan me!”

Theodore began to play softly and presently he was absorbed in the music of Gounod’s _Faust_. He did not dare to turn round.

“Go and kiss him,” whispered the brother.

But the girls felt shy. They were almost afraid of him and his melancholy music.

The boldest of them, however, went up to the piano.

“You are playing from the Freischütz, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No,” said Theodore, politely, “I’m playing Gounod’s _Faust_.”

“Your brother looks frightfully respectable,” said the little dark one, whose name was Rieke; “he’s different to you, you old villain.”

“Oh! well, he’s going into the Church,” whispered the lieutenant.

These words made a great impression on the girls, and henceforth they only kissed the lieutenant when Theodore’s back was turned, and looked at Theodore shyly and apprehensively, like fowls at a chained mastiff.

Supper appeared, a great number of courses. There were eighteen dishes, not counting the hot ones.

Gustav poured out the liqueurs.

“Your health, you old hypocrite!” he laughed.

Theodore swallowed the liqueur. A delicious warmth ran through his limbs, a thin, warm veil fell over his eyes, he felt ravenous like a starving beast. What a banquet it was! The fresh salmon with its peculiar flavour, and the dill with its narcotic aroma; the radishes which seem to scrape the throat and call for beer; the small beef-steaks and sweet Portuguese onions, which made him think of dancing girls; the fried lobster which smelt of the sea; the chicken stuffed with parsley which reminded him of the gardener, and the first gerkins with their poisonous flavour of verdigris which made such a jolly, crackling sound between his crunching teeth. The porter flowed through his veins like hot streams of lava; they drank champagne after the strawberries; a waitress brought the foaming drink which bubbled in the glasses like a fountain. They poured out a glass for her. And then they talked of all sorts of things.

Theodore sat there like a tree in which the sap is rising. He had eaten a good supper and felt as if a whole volcano was seething in his inside. New thoughts, new emotions, new ideas, new points of view fluttered round his brow like butterflies. He went to the piano and played, he himself knew not what. The ivory keys under his hands were like a heap of bones from which his spirit drew life and melody.

He did not know how long he had been playing, but when he turned, round he saw his brother entering the room. He looked like a god, radiating life and strength. Behind him came Rieke with a bowl of punch, and immediately after all the girls came upstairs. The lieutenant drank to each one of them separately; Theodore found that everything was as it should be and finally became so bold that he kissed Rieke on the shoulder. But she looked annoyed and drew away from him, and he felt ashamed.

When Theodore found himself alone in his room, he had a feeling as if the whole world were turned upside down. He tore the text from the wall, not because he no longer believed in Jesus, but because its being pinned against the wall struck him as a species of bragging. He was amazed to find that religion sat on him as loosely as a Sunday suit, and he asked himself whether it was not unseemly to go about during the whole week in Sunday clothes. After all he was but an ordinary, commonplace person with whom he was well content, and he came to the conclusion that he had a better chance of living in peace with himself if he lived a simple, unpretentious, unassuming life.

He slept soundly during the night, undisturbed by dreams.

When he arose on the following morning, his pale cheeks looked fuller and there was a new gladness in his heart. He went out for a walk and suddenly found himself in the country. The thought struck him that he might go to the restaurant and look up the girls. He went into the large room; there he found Rieke and Jossa alone, in morning dresses, snubbing gooseberries. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting at the table beside them with a pair of scissors in his hand, helping them. They talked of Theodore’s brother and the pleasant evening they had spent together. Not a single loose remark was made. They were just like a happy family; surely he had fallen in good hands, he was among friends.

When they had finished with the gooseberries, he ordered coffee and invited the girls to share it with him. Later on the proprietress came and read the paper to them. He felt at home.

He repeated his visit. One afternoon he went upstairs, to look for Rieke. She was sewing a seam. Theodore asked her whether he was in her way. “Not at all,” she replied, “on the contrary.” They talked of his brother who was away at camp, and would be away for another two months. Presently he ordered some punch and their intimacy grew.

On another occasion Theodore met her in the Park. She was gathering flowers. They both sat down in the grass. She was wearing a light summer dress, the material of which was so thin that it plainly revealed her slight girlish figure. He put his arms round her waist and kissed her. She returned his kisses and he drew her to him in a passionate embrace; but she tore herself away and told him gravely that if he did not behave himself she would never meet him again.

They went on meeting one another for two months. Theodore had fallen in love with her. He had long and serious conversations with her on the most sacred duties of life, on love, on religion, on everything, and between-whiles he spoke to her of his passion. But she invariably confounded him with his own arguments. Then he felt ashamed of having harboured base thoughts of so innocent a girl, and finally his passion was transformed into admiration for this poor little thing, who had managed to keep herself unspotted in the midst of temptation.

He had given up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to take the doctor’s degree and--who knows--perhaps marry Rieke. He read poetry to her while she did needlework. She let him kiss her as much as he liked, she allowed him to fondle and caress her; but that was the limit.

At last his brother returned from camp. He immediately ordered a banquet at “The Equerry”; Theodore was invited. But he was made to play all the time. He was in the middle of a waltz, to which nobody danced, when he happened to look round; he was alone. He rose and went into the corridor, passed a long row of doors, and at last came to a bed-room. There he saw a sight which made him turn round, seize his hat and disappear into the darkness.

It was dawn when he reached his own bed-room, alone, annihilated, robbed of his faith in life, in love, and, of course, in women, for to him there was but one woman in the world, and that was Rieke from “The Equerry.” On the fifteenth of September he went to Upsala to study theology.

* * * * *

The years passed. His sound common-sense was slowly extinguished by all the nonsense with which he had to fill his brain daily and hourly. But at night he was powerless to resist. Nature burst her bonds and took by force what rebellious man denied her. He lost his health; all his skull bones were visible in his haggard face, his complexion was sallow and his skin looked damp and clammy; ugly pimples appeared between the scanty locks of his beard. His eyes were without lustre, his hands so emaciated that the joints seemed to poke through the skin. He looked like the illustration to an essay on human vice, and yet he lived a perfectly pure life.

One day the professor of Christian Ethics, a married man with very strict ideas on morality, called on him and asked him pointblank whether he had anything on his conscience; if so, he advised him to make a clean breast of it. Theodore answered that he had nothing to confess, but that he was unhappy. Thereupon the professor exhorted him to watch and pray and be strong.

His brother had written him a long letter, begging him not to take a certain stupid matter too much to heart. He told him that it was absurd to take a girl seriously. His philosophy, and he had always found it answering admirably, was to pay debts incurred and go; to play while one was young, for the gravity of life made itself felt quite soon enough. Marriage was nothing but a civil institution for the protection of the children. There was plenty of time for it.

Theodore replied at some length in a letter imbued with true Christian sentiment, which the lieutenant left unanswered.

After passing his first examination in the spring, Theodore was obliged to spend a summer at Sköfde, in order to undergo the cold water cure. In the autumn he returned to Upsala. His newly-regained strength was merely so much fresh fuel to the fire.

Matters grew worse and worse. His hair had grown so thin that the scalp was plainly visible. He walked with dragging footsteps and whenever his fellow students met him in the street, they cut him as if he were possessed of all the vices. He noticed it and shunned them in his turn. He only left his rooms in the evening. He did not dare to go to bed at night. The iron which he had taken to excess, had ruined his digestion, and in the following summer the doctors sent him to Karlsbad.

On his return to Upsala, in the autumn, a rumour got abroad, an ugly rumour, which hung over the town like a black cloud. It was as if a drain had been left open and men were suddenly reminded that the town, that splendid creation of civilisation, was built over a sea of corruption, which might at any moment burst its bonds and poison the inhabitants. It was said that Theodore Wennerstroem, in a paroxysm of passion had assaulted one of his friends, and the rumour did not lie.

His father went to Upsala and had an interview with the Dean of the Theological Faculty. The professor of pathology was present. What was to be done? The doctor remained silent. They pressed him for his opinion.

“Since you ask me,” he said, “I must give you an answer; but you know as well as I do that there is but one remedy.”

“And that is?” asked the theologian.

“Need you ask?” replied the doctor.

“Yes,” said the theologian, who was a married man. “Surely, nature does not require immorality from a man?”

The father said that he quite understood the case, but that he was afraid of making recommendations to his son, on account of the risks the latter would run.

“If he can’t take care of himself he must be a fool,” said the doctor.

The Dean requested them to continue such an agitating conversation in a more suitable place.... He himself had nothing more to add.

This ended the matter.

Since Theodore was a member of the upper classes the scandal was hushed up. A few years later he passed his final, and was sent by the doctor to Spa. The amount of quinine which he had taken had affected his knees and he walked with two sticks. At Spa he looked so ill that he was a conspicuous figure even in a crowd of invalids.

But an unmarried woman of thirty-five, a German, took compassion on the unhappy man. She spent many hours with him in a lonely summer arbour in the park, discussing the problems of life. She was a member of a big evangelical society, whose object was the raising of the moral standard. She showed him prospectuses for newspapers and magazines, the principal mission of which was the suppression of prostitution.

“Look at me,” she said, “I am thirty-five years old and enjoy excellent health! What fools’ talk it is to say that immorality is a necessary evil. I have watched and fought a good fight for Christ’s sake.”

The young clergyman silently compared her well-developed figure, her large hips, with his own wasted body.

“What a difference there is between human beings in this world,” was his unspoken comment.

In the autumn the Rev. Theodore Wennerstroem and Sophia Leidschütz, spinster, were engaged to be married.

“Saved!” sighed the father, when the news reached him in his house at Stockholm.

“I wonder how it will end,” thought the brother in his barracks. “I’m afraid that my poor Theodore is ‘one of those Asra who die when they love.’”

Theodore Wennerstroem was married. Nine months after the wedding his wife presented him with a boy who suffered from rickets--another thirteen months and Theodore Wennerstroem had breathed his last.

The doctor who filled up the certificate of death, looked at the fine healthy woman, who stood weeping by the small coffin which contained the skeleton of her young husband of not much over twenty years.

“The plus was too great, the minus too small,” he thought, “and therefore the plus devoured the minus.”

But the father, who received the news of his son’s death on a Sunday, sat down to read a sermon. When he had finished, he fell into a brown study.

“There must be something very wrong with a world where virtue is rewarded with death,” he thought.

And the virtuous widow, _née_ Leidschütz, had two more husbands and eight children, wrote pamphlets on overpopulation and immorality. But her brother-in-law called her a cursed woman who killed her husbands.

The anything but virtuous lieutenant married and was father of six children. He got promotion and lived happily to the end of his life.

LOVE AND BREAD

The assistant had not thought of studying the price of wheat before he called on the major to ask him for the hand of his daughter; but the major had studied it.

“I love her,” said the assistant.

“What’s your salary?” said the old man.

“Well, twelve hundred crowns, at present; but we love one another....”

“That has nothing to do with me; twelve hundred crowns is not enough.”

“And then I make a little in addition to my salary, and Louisa knows that my heart....”

“Don’t talk nonsense! How much in addition to your salary?”

He seized paper and pencil.

“And my feelings....”

“How much in addition to your salary?”

And he drew hieroglyphics on the blotting paper.

“Oh! We’ll get on well enough, if only....”

“Are you going to answer my question or not? How much in addition to your salary? Figures! figures, my boy! Facts!”

“I do translations at ten crowns a sheet; I give French lessons, I am promised proof-correcting....”

“Promises aren’t facts! Figures, my boy! Figures! Look here, now, I’ll put it down. What are you translating?”

“What am I translating? I can’t tell you straight off.”

“You can’t tell me straight off? You are engaged on a translation, you say; can’t you tell me what it is? Don’t talk such rubbish!”

“I am translating Guizot’s _History of Civilisation_, twenty-five sheets.”

“At ten crowns a sheet makes two hundred and fifty crowns. And then?”

“And then? How can I tell beforehand?”

“Indeed, can’t you tell beforehand? But you ought to know. You seem to imagine that being married simply means living together and amusing yourselves! No, my dear boy, there will be children, and children require feeding and clothing.”

“There needn’t be babies directly, if one loves _as we love_ one another.”

“How the dickens do you love one another?”

“_As we love_ one another.” He put his hand on his waistcoat.

“And won’t there be any children if people love as you love? You must be mad! But you are a decent, respectable member of society, and therefore I’ll give my consent; but make good use of the time, my boy, and increase your income, for hard times are coming. The price of wheat is rising.”

The assistant grew red in the face when he heard the last words, but his joy at the old man’s consent was so great that he seized his hand and kissed it. Heaven knew how happy he was! When he walked for the first time down the street with his future bride on his arm, they both radiated light; it seemed to them that the passers-by stood still and lined the road in honour of their triumphal march; and they walked along with proud eyes, squared shoulders and elastic steps.

In the evening he called at her house; they sat down in the centre of the room and read proofs; she helped him. “He’s a good sort,” chuckled the old man. When they had finished, he took her in his arms and said: “Now we have earned three crowns,” and then he kissed her. On the following evening they went to the theatre and he took her home in a cab, and that cost twelve crowns.

Sometimes, when he ought to have given a lesson in the evening, he (is there anything a man will not do for love’s sake?) cancelled his lesson and took her out for a walk instead.

But the wedding-day approached. They were very busy. They had to choose the furniture. They began with the most important purchases. Louisa had not intended to be present when he bought the bedroom furniture, but when it came to the point she went with him. They bought two beds, which were, of course, to stand side by side. The furniture had to be walnut, every single piece real walnut. And they must have spring mattresses covered with red and white striped tick, and bolsters filled with down; and two eiderdown quilts, exactly alike. Louisa chose blue, because she was very fair.

They went to the best stores. They could not do without a red hanging-lamp and a Venus made of plaster of Paris. Then they bought a dinner-service; and six dozen differently shaped glasses with cut edges; and knives and forks, grooved and engraved with their initials. And then the kitchen utensils! Mama had to accompany them to see to those.

And what a lot he had to do besides! There were bills to accept, journeys to the banks and interviews with tradespeople and artisans; a flat had to be found and curtains had to be put up. He saw to everything. Of course he had to neglect his work; but once he was married, he would soon make up for it.

They were only going to take two rooms to begin with, for they were going to be frightfully economical. And as they were only going to have two rooms, they could afford to furnish them well. He rented two rooms and a kitchen on the first floor in Government Street, for six hundred crowns. When Louisa remarked that they might just as well have taken three rooms and a kitchen on the fourth floor for five hundred crowns, he was a little embarrassed; but what did it matter if only they loved one another? Yes, of course, Louisa agreed, but couldn’t they have loved one another just as well in four rooms at a lower rent, as in three at a higher? Yes, he admitted that he had been foolish, but what _did_ it matter so long as they loved one another?

The rooms were furnished. The bed-room looked like a little temple. The two beds stood side by side, like two carriages. The rays of the sun fell on the blue eiderdown quilt, the white, white sheets and the little pillow-slips which an elderly maiden aunt had embroidered with their monogram; the latter consisted of two huge letters, formed of flowers, joined together in one single embrace, and kissing here and there, wherever they touched, at the corners. The bride had her own little alcove, which was screened off by a Japanese screen. The drawing-room, which was also dining-room, study and morning-room, contained her piano, (which had cost twelve hundred crowns) his writing-table with twelve pigeon-holes, (every single piece of it real walnut) a pier-glass, armchairs; a sideboard and a dining-table. “It looks as if nice people lived here,” they said, and they could not understand why people wanted a separate dining-room, which always looked so cheerless with its cane chairs.

The wedding took place on a Saturday. Sunday dawned, the first day of their married life. Oh! what a life it was! Wasn’t it lovely to be married! Wasn’t marriage a splendid institution! One was allowed one’s own way in everything, and parents and relations came and congratulated one into the bargain.

At nine o’clock in the morning their bedroom was still dark. He wouldn’t open the shutters to let in daylight, but re-lighted the red lamp which threw its bewitching light on the blue eiderdown, the white sheets, a little crumpled now, and the Venus made of plaster of Paris, who stood there rosy-red and without shame. And the red light also fell on his little wife who nestled in her pillows with a look of contrition, and yet so refreshed as if she had never slept so well in all her life. There was no traffic in the street to-day for it was Sunday, and the church-bells were calling people to the morning service with exulting, eager voices, as if they wanted all the world to come to church and praise Him who had created men and women.

He whispered to his little bride to shut her eyes so that he might get up and order breakfast. She buried her head in the pillows, while he slipped on his dressing-gown and went behind the screen to dress.

A broad radiant path of sunlight lay on the sitting-room floor; he did not know whether it was spring or summer, autumn or winter; he only knew that it was Sunday!

His bachelor life was receding into the background like something ugly and dark; the sight of his little home stirred his heart with a faint recollection of the home of his childhood, and at the same time held out a glorious promise for the future.

How strong he felt! The future appeared to him like a mountain coming to meet him. He would breathe on it and the mountain would fall down at his feet like sand; he would fly away, far above gables and chimneys, holding his little wife in his arm.

He collected his clothes which were scattered all over the room; he found his white neck-tie hanging on a picture frame; it looked like a big white butterfly.

He went into the kitchen. How the new copper vessels sparkled, the new tin kettles shone! And all this belonged to him and to her! He called the maid who came out of her room in her petticoat. But he did not notice it, nor did he notice that her shoulders were bare. For him there was but one woman in all the world. He spoke to the girl as a father would to his daughter. He told her to go to the restaurant and order breakfast, at once, a first-rate breakfast. Porter and Burgundy! The manager knew his taste. She was to give him his regards.

He went out of the kitchen and knocked at the bed-room door.

“May I come in?”

There was a little startled scream.

“Oh, no, darling, wait a bit!”

He laid the breakfast table himself. When the breakfast was brought from the restaurant, he served it on her new breakfast set. He folded the dinner napkins according to all the rules of art. He wiped the wine-glasses, and finally took her bridal-bouquet and put it in a vase before her place.

When she emerged from her bed-room in her embroidered morning gown and stepped into the brilliant sunlight, she felt just a tiny bit faint; he helped her into the armchair, made her drink a little liqueur out of a liqueur glass and eat a caviare sandwich.

What fun it all was! One could please oneself when one was married. What would Mama have said if she had seen her daughter drinking liqueurs at this hour of the morning!

He waited on her as if she were still his fiancee. What a breakfast they were having on the first morning after their wedding! And nobody had a right to say a word. Everything was perfectly right and proper, one could enjoy oneself with the very best of consciences, and that was the most delightful part of it all. It was not for the first time that he was eating such a breakfast, but what a difference between then and now! He had been restless and dissatisfied then; he could not bear to think of it, now. And as he drank a glass of genuine Swedish porter after the oysters, he felt the deepest contempt for all bachelors.

“How stupid of people not to get married! Such selfishness! They ought to be taxed like dogs.”

“I’m sorry for those poor men who haven’t the means to get married,” replied his demure little wife kindly, “for I am sure, if they had the means they would all get married.”

A little pang shot through the assistant’s heart; for a moment he felt afraid, lest he had been a little too venturesome. All his happiness rested on the solution of a financial problem, and if, if.... Pooh! A glass of Burgundy! Now he would work! They should see!

“Game? With cranberries and cucumbers!” The young wife was a little startled, but it was really delicious.

“Lewis, darling,” she put a trembling little hand on his arm, “can we afford it?”

Fortunately she said “we.”

“Pooh! It doesn’t matter for once! Later on we can dine on potatoes and herrings.”

“Can you eat potatoes and herrings?”

“I should think so!”

“When you have been drinking more than is good for you, and expect a beefsteak after the herring?”

“Nonsense! Nothing of the kind! Your health, sweetheart! The game is excellent! So are these artichokes!”

“No, but you are mad, darling! Artichokes at this time of the year! What a bill you will have to pay!”

“Bill! Aren’t they good? Don’t you think that it is glorious to be alive? Oh! It’s splendid, splendid!”

At six o’clock in the afternoon a carriage drove up to the front door. The young wife would have been angry if it had not been so pleasant to loll luxuriously on the soft cushions, while they were being slowly driven to the Deer Park.

“It’s just like lying on a couch,” whispered Lewis.

She playfully hit his fingers with her sunshade. Mutual acquaintances bowed to them from the footpath. Friends waved their hands to him as if they were saying:

“Hallo! you rascal, you have come into a fortune!”

How small the passers-by looked, how smooth the street was, how pleasant their ride on springs and cushions!

Life should always be like that.

It went on for a whole month. Balls, visits, dinners, theatres. Sometimes, of course, they remained at home. And at home it was more pleasant than anywhere else. How lovely, for instance, to carry off one’s wife from her parents’ house, after supper, without saying as much as “by your leave,” put her into a closed carriage, slam the door, nod to her people and say: “Now we’re off home, to our own four walls! And there we’ll do exactly what we like!”

And then to have a little supper at home and sit over it, talking and gossiping until the small hours of the morning.

Lewis was always very sensible at home, at least in theory. One day his wife put him to the test by giving him salt salmon, potatoes boiled in milk and oatmeal soup for dinner. Oh! how he enjoyed it! He was sick of elaborate menus.

On the following Friday, when she again suggested salt salmon for dinner, Lewis came home, carrying two ptarmigans! He called to her from the threshold:

“Just imagine, Lou, a most extraordinary thing happened! A most extraordinary thing!”

“Well, what is it?”

“You’ll hardly believe me when I tell you that I bought a brace of ptarmigans, bought them myself at the market for--guess!”

His little wife seemed more annoyed than curious.

“Just think! One crown the two!”

“I have bought ptarmigans at eightpence the brace; but--” she added in a more conciliatory tone, so as not to upset him altogether, “that was in a very cold winter.”

“Well, but you must admit that I bought them very cheaply.”

Was there anything she would not admit in order to see him happy?

She had ordered boiled groats for dinner, as an experiment. But after Lewis had eaten a ptarmigan, he regretted that he could not eat as much of the groats as he would have liked, in order to show her that he was really very fond of groats. He liked groats very much indeed--milk did not agree with him after his attack of ague. He couldn’t take milk, but groats he would like to see on his table every evening, every blessed evening of his life, if only she wouldn’t be angry with him.

And groats never again appeared on his table.

When they had been married for six weeks, the young wife fell ill. She suffered from headaches and sickness. It could not be anything serious, just a little cold. But this sickness? Had she eaten anything which had disagreed with her? Hadn’t all the copper vessels new coatings of tin? He sent for the doctor. The doctor smiled and said it was all right.

“What was all right? Oh! Nonsense! It wasn’t possible. How could it have been possible? No, surely, the bed-room paper was to blame. It must contain arsenic. Let us send a piece to the chemist’s at once and have it tested.”

“Entirely free from arsenic,” reported the chemist.

“How strange! No arsenic in the wall papers?”

The young wife was still ill. He consulted a medical book and whispered a question in her ear. “There now! a hot bath!”

Four weeks later the midwife declared that everything was “as it should be.”

“As it should be? Well, of course! Only it was somewhat premature!”

But as it could not, be helped, they were delighted. Fancy, a baby! They would be papa and mama! What should they call him? For, of course, it would be a boy. No doubt, it would. But now she had a serious conversation with her husband! There had been no translating or proof-correcting since their marriage. And his salary alone was not sufficient.

“Yes, they had given no thought to the morrow. But, dear me, one was young only once! Now, however, there would be a change.”

On the following morning the assistant called on an old schoolfriend, a registrar, to ask him to stand security for a loan.

“You see, my dear fellow, when one is about to become a father, one has to consider how to meet increasing expenses.”

“Quite so, old man,” answered the registrar, “therefore I have been unable to get married. But you are fortunate in having the means.”

The assistant hesitated to make his request. How could he have the audacity to ask this poor bachelor to help him to provide the expenses for the coming event? This bachelor, who had not the means to found a family of his own? He could not bring himself to do it.

When he came home to dinner, his wife told him that two gentlemen had called to see him.

“What did they look like? Were they young? Did they wear eye-glasses? Then there was no doubt, they were two lieutenants, old friends of his whom he had met at Vaxholm.”

“No, they couldn’t have been lieutenants; they were too old for that.”

“Then he knew; they were old college friends from Upsala, probably P. who was a lecturer, and O. who was a curate, now. They had come to see how their old pal was shaping as a husband.”

“No, they didn’t come from Upsala, they came from Stockholm.”

The maid was called in and cross-examined. She thought the callers had been shabbily dressed and had carried sticks.

“Sticks! I can’t make out what sort of people they can have been. Well, we’ll know soon enough, as they said they would call again. But to change the subject, I happened to see a basket of hothouse strawberries at a really ridiculous price; it really is absurd! Just imagine, hothouse strawberries at one and sixpence a basket! And at this time of the year!”

“But, my darling, what is this extravagance to lead to?”

“It’ll be all right. I have got an order for a translation this very day.”

“But you are in debt, Lewis?”

“Trifles! Mere nothings! It’ll be all right when I take up a big loan, presently.”

“A loan! But that’ll be a new debt!”

“True! But there’ll be easy terms! Don’t let’s talk business now! Aren’t these strawberries delicious? What? A glass of sherry with them would be tip-top. Don’t you think so? Lina, run round to the stores and fetch a bottle of sherry, the best they have.”

After his afternoon nap, his wife insisted on a serious conversation.

“You won’t be angry, dear, will you?”

“Angry? I! Good heavens, no! Is it about household expenses?”

“Yes! We owe money at the stores! The butcher is pressing for payment; the man from the livery stables has called for his money; it’s most unpleasant.”

“Is that all? I shall pay them to the last farthing to-morrow. How dare they worry you about such trifles? They shall be paid to-morrow, but they shall lose a customer. Now, don’t let’s talk about it any more. Come out for a walk. No carriage! Well, we’ll take the car to the Deer Park, it will cheer us up.”

They went to the Deer Park. They asked for a private room at the restaurant, and people stared at them and whispered.

“They think we are out on a spree,” he laughed. “What fun! What madness!”

But his wife did not like it.

They had a big bill to pay.

“If only we had stayed at home! We might have bought such a lot of things for the money.”

Months elapsed. The great event was coming nearer and nearer. A cradle had to be bought and baby-clothes. A number of things were wanted. The young husband was out on business all day long. The price of wheat had risen. Hard times were at hand. He could get no translations, no proof-correcting. Men had become materialists. They didn’t spend money on books, they bought food. What a prosaic period we were living in! Ideals were melting away, one after the other, and ptarmigans were not to be had under two crowns the brace. The livery stables would not provide carriages for nothing for the cab-proprietors had wives and families to support, just as everybody else; at the stores cash had to be paid for goods, Oh! what realists they all were!

The great day had come at last. It was evening. He must run for the midwife. And while his wife suffered all the pangs of childbirth, he had to go down into the hall and pacify the creditors.

At last he held a daughter in his arms. His tears fell on the baby, for now he realised his responsibility, a responsibility which he was unable to shoulder. He made new resolutions. But his nerves were unstrung. He was working at a translation which he seemed unable to finish, for he had to be constantly out on business.

He rushed to his father-in-law, who was staying in town, to bring him the glad news.

“We have a little daughter!”

“Well and good,” replied his father-in-law; “can you support a child?”

“Not at present; for heaven’s sake, help us, father!”

“I’ll tide you over your present difficulties. I can’t do more. My means are only sufficient to support my own family.”

The patient required chickens which he bought himself at the market, and wine at six crowns the bottle. It had to be the very best.

The midwife expected a hundred crowns.

“Why should we pay her less than others? Hasn’t she just received a cheque for a hundred crowns from the captain?”

Very soon the young wife was up again. She looked like a girl, as slender as a willow, a little pale, it was true, but the pallor suited her.

The old man called and had a private conversation with his son-in-law.

“No more children, for the present,” he said, “or you’ll be ruined.”

“What language from a father! Aren’t we married! Don’t we love one another? Aren’t we to have a family?”

“Yes, but not until you can provide for them. It’s all very fine to love one another, but you musn’t forget that you have responsibilities.”

His father-in-law, too, had become a materialist. Oh! what a miserable world it was! A world without ideals!

The home was undermined, but love survived, for love was strong, and the hearts of the young couple were soft. The bailiff, on the contrary, was anything but soft. Distraint was imminent, and bankruptcy threatened. Well, let them distrain then!

The father-in-law arrived with a large travelling coach to fetch his daughter and grand-child. He warned his son-in-law not to show his face at his house until he could pay his debts and make a home for his wife and child. He said nothing to his daughter, but it seemed to him that he was bringing home a girl who had been led astray. It was as if he had lent his innocent child to a casual admirer and now received her back “dishonoured.” She would have preferred to stay with her husband, but he had no home to offer her.

And so the husband of one year’s standing was left behind to watch the pillaging of his home, if he could call it his home, for he had paid for nothing. The two men with spectacles carted away the beds and bedclothes; the copper kettles and tin vessels; the dinner set, the chandelier and the candlesticks; everything, everything!

He was left alone in the two empty, wretched rooms! If only _she_ had been left to him! But what should she do here, in these empty rooms? No, she was better off where she was! She was being taken care of.

Now the struggle for a livelihood began in bitter earnest. He found work at a daily paper as a proof-corrector. He had to be at the office at midnight; at three in the morning his work was done. He did not lose his berth, for bankruptcy had been avoided, but he had lost all chance of promotion.

Later on he is permitted to visit wife and child once a week, but he is never allowed to see her alone. He spends Saturday night in a tiny room, close to his father-in-law’s bedroom. On Sunday morning he has to return to town, for the paper appears on Monday morning.... He says good-bye to his wife and child who are allowed to accompany him as far as the garden gate, he waves his hand to them once more from the furthest hillock, and succumbs to his wretchedness, his misery, his humiliation. And she is no less unhappy.

He has calculated that it will take him twenty years to pay his debts. And then? Even then he cannot maintain a wife and child. And his prospects? He has none! If his father-in-law should die, his wife and child would be thrown on the street; he cannot venture to look forward to the death of their only support.

Oh! How cruel it is of nature to provide food for all her creatures, leaving the children of men alone to starve! Oh! How cruel, how cruel! that life has not ptarmigans and strawberries to give to all men. How cruel! How cruel!

COMPELLED TO

Punctually at half past nine on a winter evening he appears at the door leading to the glass-roofed verandah of the restaurant. While, with mathematical precision, he takes off his gloves, he peers over his dim spectacles, first to the right, then to the left, to find out whether any of his acquaintances are present. Then he hangs up his overcoat on its special hook, the one to the right of the fireplace. Gustav, the waiter, an old pupil of his, flies to his table and, without waiting for an order, brushes the crumbs off the tablecloth, stirs up the mustard, smooths the salt in the salt-cellar and turns over the dinner napkin. Then he fetches, still without any order, a bottle of Medhamra, opens half a bottle of Union beer and, merely for appearance sake, hands the schoolmaster the bill of fare.

“Crabs?” he asks, more as a matter of form than because there is any need of the question.

“Female crabs,” answers the schoolmaster.

“Large, female crabs,” repeats Gustav, walks to the speaking tube which communicates with the kitchen, and shouts: “Large female crabs for Mr. Blom, and plenty of dill.”