Chapter I: Part 1

MARTIN BIRCK’S YOUTH ❧

MARTIN BIRCK’S YOUTH
BY HJALMAR SÖDERBERG
TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH
BY CHARLES WHARTON
STORK ❧ WITH DRAWINGS
BY THEODORE NADEJEN ❧

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMXXX

B-E
MARTIN BIRCK’S YOUTH · COPYRIGHT
1930, BY HARPER & BROTHERS · PRINTED
IN THE U. S. A. _FIRST EDITION_

TO
A. G. H. SPIERS
CRITICAL FRIEND
FRIENDLY CRITIC
THIS VOLUME IS CORDIALLY DEDICATED
BY THE TRANSLATOR

PREFACE

_It is a sad thought that everyone cannot enjoy Söderberg, that this master of delicate and incisive realism, this prince of humorists, is--for Anglo-Saxons, at least--an acquired taste. But it is well to face at the outset the fact that Söderberg is a European Continental, an Anatole France of Sweden. To those who believe that a man is unvirile or at least anæmic if he refuses to believe in human perfectibility this attitude toward life will seem barren and depressing, one to encourage discouragement. How much pleasanter to feel with Pippa, not only at 7_ +A.M.+ _on a May morning, but at all hours and seasons, that «all’s right with the world»! To insinuate the contrary is to give sanction to those doubts which, if they overtake even the most confident of us at unguarded moments, should all the more be repressed. What is culture if it is not sweetness and light? Listen to Söderberg: «Why all this optimism when not one of the old problems is solved?» And again, one of his characters affirms, «I believe in the lust of the flesh and the incurable loneliness of the soul.»_

_We read fiction for pleasure. What does this new Swedish novelist offer in compensation for a somewhat despondent view of life? He himself rather hesitates to tell us and in this very hesitation we may, if the faculty be in us, discern one of his chief attractions. Söderberg is reticent because he wishes to present the truth as he sees it without exaggeration and without prejudice. He colors his picture neither with the golden glow of the untroubled believer nor with the red zeal of the revolutionary. He is honest to such a degree that he will not stress his own honesty. On the contrary, he doubts his very doubt: «How could I, a boy of sixteen, be right and all my elders and betters wrong?» And again in_ +Martin Birck+, _«he was not quite certain that truth in itself could produce happiness, but history had taught him that illusion created unhappiness and crime.» And yet all the more from this unobtrusiveness we divine the intellectual honesty of the skeptic, which bursts out only once in the present novel: «Would a man never come who did not sing, but spoke, and spoke plainly!» Such a man has the right to «paint the thing as he sees it,» to revalue the time-honored beliefs and customs of the past in the light of his own experience._

_We may, I think, trust in Söderberg’s fidelity to his vision as in that of few living writers. He collects his data carefully and transmits them simply. In that there is always stimulus to a reader who appreciates how difficult it is to do. But he might do all this and be no more than a good photographer._

_As we follow the everyday run of events in_ +Martin Birck+, _we may at first be impressed with their perfect verisimilitude and yet incline to class the author as unoriginal. In that respect, though probably in no other, the prose of Söderberg resembles the poetry of Wordsworth. Few readers will progress more than a page or two without that sense of the significant in the commonplace which is the very soul of originality. Söderberg has followed the famous counsel of Flaubert to De Maupassant: «Look at an object until you have seen in it everything that anyone else can see, and then look until you perceive what no one else has seen!» Rarely has any prose been fuller of implications--emotional, psychological, moral--than Söderberg’s. To re-read him is invariably to be surprised at all one has missed before. One passes through life with him as one might walk through a meadow with a great naturalist or stroll through a city at night with Whistler. The trivial is clothed with meaning, the habitual is touched with magic. The world of Söderberg lives; it lives in beauty._

_And as one grows more and more conscious of the author’s pregnance in matter, one is equally delighted with the perfect consonance of his manner. He gives not only the thing in itself, but the feel of the thing, the overtone. His curious felicity is never startling or precious, it is simply adequate. How far this may be recaptured in translation may of course be an open question. Here at least is an attempt from the short story_ +Margot+:

_It was a cool night in the early part of October. The moon was up;
a cold, moist wind was blowing. The big buildings on Blasieholm
formed a dark mass, whose broken and irregular edge seemed to
be catching at the wisps of cloud that drove forward against a
deep-blue background. The still, heavy water of Nybro Inlet
mirrored a broad glittering moonpath in oily rings, and along the
wharves the lumber sloops raised a thin and motionless forest
of masts and tackle. In the upper air was haste and tumult; the
clouds hunted each other from west to east, till over the woods
of Djurgården they congested into a low black wall. It was as if
Heaven were breaking camp for a journey, for a flight._

_The reader of_ +Martin Birck+ _will find any number of similar passages, in description, character-drawing and the power of the author to express his own reactions on life and art_.

_What manner of man is this quiet interpreter of the life about him? Hjalmar Söderberg was born in Stockholm, 1869. The outward tenor of his way has been uneventful. After trying journalism in a provincial town he tired of «serving caviare to the Bœotians» and returned to his native city, the background of nearly all his work. He first achieved distinction in the «Storiettes,» miniature stories usually told in the first person and based on some casual incident of daily life. In this form he is unsurpassed._ +Martin Birck+, _his first novel, published in 1907, was partly inspired by «Niels Lyhne,» the work of his elder Danish contemporary, J. P. Jacobsen, but was mainly autobiographical. Söderberg was also influenced by the modern French novelists, especially Flaubert, Maupassant and Anatole France. The last named he translated. He wrote two other novels, «Dr. Glas» and «The Serious Game,» and two plays, «Gertrud» and «The Hour of Fate,» besides numerous collections of short stories. His last long book is «Jehovah’s Fire,» an historico-religious narrative. Some early poems and a small sheaf of criticism complete the tally of his rather moderate output. Of recent years he has been living in Copenhagen. He has never married._

_How little this dry recital of facts has to do with the real case in point! The genius of Söderberg is inherent in the temperament of the man. In appearance he is homely, stoutish, and suave, a bit Bohemian but decidedly a gentleman. Quiet, observant, unpretentious, and rather indolent, he gives an impression of infinite leisure and tolerance which is largely borne out by his writing. His mind is a rich, seemingly passive soil, in which small events take root and grow, as it were, without an effort on his part. Therein lies the unique charm of his stories; their unforced, organic quality._

_But in the simplicity of Söderberg there is infinite subtlety. He lets life speak through him because he realizes that in the last analysis nothing speaks as persuasively as life. In his presentation there is a skill beyond praise. With all his naturalism and tranquillity of style, he gives us great moments, moments of profound insight, of wistful loveliness, of quaint and surprising humor. After all, things do not choose themselves or arrange themselves in right relation on the canvas; they only seem to do so. Without obtruding his personality Söderberg speaks to the mind and emotions of his audience in no uncertain terms._

_What does he give us finally? First, perhaps, the delight of seeing nature and humanity clearly and the greater delight of entering imaginatively into the essence of both. His truth has the beauty of understanding. We find that life does not need to be idealized to be beautiful; it needs only to be realized. And as a corollary he gives us a sympathy in this manifestation which is not unlike that of Whitman, for it is the sympathy of acceptance. There is a tone of sadness, sometimes of almost tragic depth, in the knowledge of «what man has made of man,» and with it a smile of forgiveness. What we understand we pardon. Men and women are lovable in spite of, largely no doubt because of, their mistakes._

_But also men and women are irresistibly funny. Söderberg has almost exactly the mood of Jaques in «As You Like It.» But whereas Jaques is dry, Söderberg is sly, with an ingenuous slyness that never, as with Sterne, slips off into a leer. How he enjoys letting his people amuse us, in watching with us their self-important gestures, the eternal passions that fade away in a month or a year, their curious delusions about fame and money and respectability! If these people could see themselves! And as we look, we may perhaps be a little mortified to see_ our_selves. How foolishly we have wasted our energies and annoyed those about us, for what? Perhaps we shall be a little more lenient to the faults of others from now on. The laughter which Söderberg evokes is thoughtful laughter._

_Are we then given no positive impulse, is there no meaning in life, nothing worth striving for? «Perhaps not,» says Söderberg. And yet, pessimist though he is, he has a reticent pride of his own. He cannot, we feel, tell a lie, cannot force anyone in his stories to do or think anything that is not in character. Furthermore, he adumbrates through the philosophy of Martin the ideal of writing «so that each and all who really cared to could understand him.» And, like most of Söderberg’s simple statements, that means considerably more than appears on the surface._

_Enough, perhaps more than enough, has been said to indicate the mood for best enjoying_ +Martin Birck+. _To call further attention to details would only tend to spoil the pleasure of those attempered to appreciate it. I must return to the original statement that the reader’s reaction to it will be peculiarly personal. For myself, I differ almost completely from the author in his conclusions about life, I object strongly to his rather supine attitude, yet I admire and love him. I find him as brilliant as the modern French masters, and much more kindly. He has given me more than have nine-tenths of the worthy authors with whom I agree. There is in him a strict sense of truth, a tenderness, a humor which put him definitely on the side of the angels. He will annoy, will scandalize, many excellent people, but I am afraid I am not sorry that he should. He has been called the_ enfant terrible _of Swedish literature. Perhaps we have been taking him too seriously; no doubt he himself will think so. After all, there is something perennially fascinating about a naughty child._

_C. W. S._

THE OLD STREET ❧

--I--

Martin Birck was a little child, who lay in his bed and dreamed.

It was twilight of a summer evening, a green and tranquil twilight, and Martin went holding his mother’s hand through a big and marvelous garden where the shadows lay dark in the recesses of the walks. On both sides grew strange blue and red flowers, swaying back and forth in the wind on their slender stalks. He went along holding his mother’s hand, looking at the flowers in wonder and thinking of nothing. «You must pick only the blue ones; the red ones are poisonous,» said his mother. Then he let go her hand and stopped to pick a flower for her; it was a big blue flower he wanted to pick, as it nodded heavily, poised on its stem. Such a marvelous flower! He looked at it and smelled it. And again he looked at it with big astonished eyes; it wasn’t blue, after all, but red. It was quite red! And such an ugly, poisonous red! He threw the naughty flower on the ground and trampled on it as on a dangerous animal. But then, when he turned around, his mother was gone. «Mamma,» he cried, «where are you? Where are you? Why are you hiding from me?» Martin ran a little way down the walk, but he saw no one and he was near to weeping. The walk was silent and empty, and it was getting darker and darker. At last he heard a voice quite near: «Here I am, Martin. Don’t you see me?» But Martin saw nothing. «Here I am all the time. Why don’t you come?» Now Martin understood: behind the lilac bush, that was where the voice came from. Why hadn’t he realized that at once? He ran there and peeped; he was sure his mother had hidden there. But behind the bush stood Franz from the Long Row, making an ugly face with his thick, raw-looking lips, till he finished by sticking out his tongue as far as he could. And such a tongue as he had; it got longer and longer; there was no end to it; and it was covered with little yellowish-green blisters.

Franz was a little rowdy who lived in the «Long Row» slantwise across the street. The Sunday before he had spat on Martin’s new brown jacket and called him «stuck-up.»

Martin wanted to run away, but stood as if rooted to the earth. He felt his legs grow numb beneath him. Then the garden and the flowers and the trees had vanished and he was standing alone with Franz in a dark corner of the yard at home by the ash barrel. He tried to scream, but his throat was constricted....

--II--

But when he woke, his mother was standing by the bed with a clean white shirt in her hand and saying, «Up with you, little sleepyhead; Maria is off to school already. Don’t you remember that the pear tree in the yard is to be stripped today? You must hurry if you want to be there.»

Martin’s mother had blue eyes and brown hair, and at that time the glance of her eyes was still bright and smiling. She laid the shirt on the bed, nodded to him, and went out.

Maria was Martin’s big sister. She was nine. She went to school and already knew what many things were in French.

But Martin still had slumber in his eyes and the medley of the dream in his head, so that he couldn’t bring himself to get up.

The curtain was drawn back, and the sun shone straight into the room. The door to the kitchen stood ajar. Lotta was laughing at the kitchen window while she chatted with some one; it was sure to be Heggbom, the porter. Finally Heggbom began to sing down in the yard with his rummy voice.

«If I had King Solomon’s treasure chest
With money in heaps and masses,
I’d off to Turkey and never I’d rest
Till I’d bought me a hundred lasses.»

«What would you do with them all,» inquired Lotta; «you that can’t manage even your own wife?»

Martin couldn’t hear what Heggbom answered, but Lotta began to laugh with all her lungs. «Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?» she said.

Now the porter’s wife had come into the yard, it sounded as if she was throwing out a tub of dish-water. With that she began to scold Heggbom, and Lotta as well. But Lotta only laughed and slammed the window.

Martin lay half awake, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. There was a crack that was just like Mrs. Heggbom if one looked at it right.

The clock struck nine in the neighboring church, and when it had stopped striking, the clock in the hall began. Martin jumped out of bed and ran to the window to see if the pears were still on the tree.

* * * * *

The pear tree in the yard was beloved by the children and cats. It was old and large, and many of its boughs were already dry and dead, but the others still furnished blossoms and greenery every spring and fruit every autumn.

Heggbom’s boys were sitting up in the tree, throwing down pears after having first stuffed their pockets full, while below the other children fought for every pear that fell from the tree. In the midst of the troop stood Mrs. Lundgren, broad of build and loud of voice, trying to enforce a fair distribution, but no one paid any attention to her. A little way off stood little Ida Dupont, with great eyes, her hands behind her back, not venturing into the turmoil. Mrs. Lundgren did not get any pears for her because she was ill-disposed toward Mr. Dupont, who was a violinist in the royal orchestra.

Martin became eager; he threw on his clothes in a hurry and came down by the steps.

Lotta screamed after him, «Aren’t you going to wash and comb your hair before----»

But Martin was in the yard by this time. Mrs. Lundgren at once took him under her protection.

«Throw down a pear to Martin, John. Hold up your cap, little boy, and you shall have a pear.»

A pear fell into the cap. But now Martin couldn’t find his penknife to peel the pear.

«Give me the pear; I’ll peel it for you,» said Mrs. Lundgren.

With that she took the pear, bit into it with her big yellow teeth, and tore off a piece of the skin. Martin opened his eyes very wide and grew red in the face. Now he didn’t want to have any pear at all.

Mr. Dupont lay at his window in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe, with a red skull-cap on his head. He now leaned out and laughed. Mrs. Lundgren got angry.

«That’s a spoiled child,» she said.

John now triumphantly held up the last pear, and the children hurrahed and shouted, but he stuffed it into his trousers pocket. But then Willie found still another, and this was the very last. He caught sight of Ida Dupont standing with tears in her eyes over by the wall, and at that he gallantly tossed his pear into her apron. Then there was another hurrah; the pear tree was stripped.

Now Mrs. Heggbom came out:

«Lord in heaven what a clatter, and Heggbom lying at his death! Down out of the tree with you, you little ragamuffins!»

Heggbom had been sick in bed awhile ago, and his wife’s imagination often turned back to that comparatively happy time.

The boys had come down from the tree. Their mother took John by the hair and Willie by the ear to lead them in. But Mrs. Lundgren felt somewhat huffed; she had to a certain extent presided over the tumult. Furthermore, she enjoyed scolding and therefore did not miss the opportunity of showing Mrs. Heggbom with some sharpness the unsuitability of making such a disturbance. The latter let go her boys so as to set her arms akimbo, and there was a big set-to. Listeners streamed up, and all the kitchen windows were opened wide.

At last a voice broke through the quarreling: «Sh! The Secretary!»

Everything became quiet; Secretary Oldhusen had the largest floor and was the finest tenant of the house. He was dressed in a long tight-fitting frock coat and carried under his arm a worn leather portfolio. When he had come down the steps he stood still and took a pinch of snuff. Thereupon he walked slowly out through the gate with the preoccupied and troubled mien of a statesman.

Martin and Ida slipped out into the street hand in hand. They ventured on for a few steps beyond the gate, then they stood in the street and blinked at the sun.

The street was lined with wooden houses and tile roofs and green trees. The house where Martin lived was the only large stone house on the street. Long Row, diagonally across from it, lay in shadow; a low, dirt-gray range of houses. Only really poor people lived there, Martin’s mother said. Only scum, said Mrs. Lundgren. At the dye-house a little farther down the street there was no hurrying; the dyer stood at his gate in slippers and white linen jacket and chatted with his wife in the warehouse. Even outside the corner tavern things were quiet. A brewery wagon had stopped in front of it, and the horse stood with his forefeet tied, eating oats out of a nosebag that hung on his muzzle.

The clock in the near-by church struck ten.

Ida pointed down the street. «There comes the old goat woman.»

The goat woman came with her two goats; one she led with a cord, the other was free. The Secretary’s little granddaughter had whooping-cough and drank goat’s milk.

«Yes, and there comes the ragman.»

The ragman sidled in through the gate with his pack on his back and his greasy stick. People said he had seen better days.

Two drunken men came out of the tavern and reeled along the street arm in arm. A policeman in white linen trousers walked up and down, a copy of the _Fatherland_ sticking out of his hip pocket. A flock of chickens trailed out from the yard of Long Row, the cock at their head. The policeman stopped, took half a roll out of his pocket, and began to feed them.

«What shall we do?» asked Ida.

«I don’t know,» replied Martin.

He looked very much at a loss.

«Would you like to have my pear?»

Ida took the pear out of her pocket and held it under Martin’s nose. It looked very tempting.

«We can share,» proposed Martin.

«Yes, that’s so, we can share.»

«But I have no knife to cut it with.»

«That doesn’t matter. You bite first and then I will.»

Martin bit, and Ida bit. Martin forgot he had wanted the pear peeled.

Now somebody called for Martin, and the next moment grandmother came out and took him by the hand.

«What in Heaven’s name are you thinking of today? Aren’t you going to comb your hair and wash and eat your breakfast? The mischief’s in the boy.»

Grandmother was pretending to be cross, but Martin only laughed.

In the gateway they met Heggbom; he was walking a bit unsteadily. He avoided them by a long tack and removed his cap very politely while he spluttered away at his song:

«I’d off to Turkey and never I’d rest
Till I’d bought me a hundred lasses.»

The yard had grown quiet. Mrs. Heggbom’s fat red cat lay on the ash barrel purring with half-closed eyes, and below the rats stole in and out.

--III--

On a gray October morning Martin received permission from his mother to go down and play with Ida Dupont.

Mr. Dupont had two small rooms, one flight up. At this time of day he was away at rehearsal, so Martin and Ida were alone.

It was a dark and somber day. The inner room lay in semi-twilight, with a high Venetian blind in front of the window. When one pushed aside a corner of the blind, one could see between two gray house gables a part of the great black church cupola. «Bing bong!» went the bells.

Ida showed Martin a peep-show box with tinted pictures. There were white castles and gardens with colored lanterns in long gleaming rows, yellow and red and blue. There were strange cities with churches and bridges, and steamboats and big ships on a wide river. And there were halls illuminated with radiant candelabra, but what looked like lights were just little holes made with pins. It all looked so big and alive when one saw it in the box. It almost moved; there was surely something magical about it.

«I got that from mamma,» declared Ida.

«But where is your mamma?»

«She’s away.»

Martin looked surprised.

«How--away?»

«She has gone off with a strange gentleman. But sometimes she writes me letters that papa reads to me, and sometimes I get pretty things from her that she sends.»

Martin became very inquisitive. He wanted to learn more but didn’t know just how he ought to ask.

However, Ida now caught Martin by both shoulders and looked very impressive.

«Do you know what we’ll do now?» she asked. «We’ll dress up.»

She pulled out a bureau drawer and began to take out red bodices of satin, silk, and rep with a multitude of ribbons and rosettes; silk gloves, silk stockings, and long veils of lace--pink, blue, and white.

«I got this from mamma, too, when she was in the ballet.»

She took a thin, light blue veil with silver spangles and draped it around Martin’s head. Then he was given a red bodice, a shawl of silver gauze, and a white skirt.

«My, but you look funny!» said Ida. «Just like a girl.»

Martin looked at himself in the glass and they both roared with laughter.

«Come here,» said Ida, «and I’ll put mustaches on you.»

Martin didn’t think mustaches would fit, if he was to be a girl. But Ida didn’t mind about that; she blackened a cork over a candle and traced big black mustaches on Martin, then she put black eyebrows on herself. After that they looked into the mirror again and laughed.

«It’s so handsome to have black eyebrows,» said Ida. «Don’t you think I’m handsome?»

«Uhm,» said Martin.

Ida was full of resources.

«If you’ll be terribly nice, we’ll have a banquet.»

She went to a cupboard and hunted out a half-filled bottle of wine and a couple of green glasses. Then she laid the cloth on a toilet table and filled the glasses.

Martin’s eyes grew big.

«Does your papa let you?»

«Oh, yes. He lets me do whatever I like. My papa is nice. Is your papa nice?»

«Yes,» answered Martin.

They clinked glasses and drank. It was a sweet and pleasant wine, and its dark red shone splendidly in the green glasses.

Outside it had begun to snow. There were great heavy flakes; the window sill was already white. It was the first snowfall, and the church bells rang in the black cupola: «Bing bong, bing bong!» Martin and Ida knelt on a chair with their arms around each other’s necks and their noses pressed against the pane.

But Ida poured out more wine and clinked glasses with Martin. Then she took down an old violin from the wall and began to play, and while she played she danced and swayed, wearing a white veil. It sounded very queer the way Ida played the violin. Martin held his ears, laughed, sung, and screamed. But then Martin began to notice a creepy feeling down his back, and he recalled that his mother had said Ida Dupont had fleas.

... Martin was in the sleeping alcove, peeping about. Farthest away in the semi-darkness was an image of the madonna behind two half-burned wax candles, and below hung a crucifix.

Martin stared in astonishment.

«What’s that?» he asked.

Ida became very solemn and answered in a low voice, nearly whispering, «That is our religion.»

Mr. Dupont was a Catholic.

«Wait,» said Ida, «sit over there and be quiet, and I’ll teach you our religion.»

Ida swathed herself in pink tulle with gold spangles. Then she advanced and lighted the candles under the madonna, two calm bright flames. On a little stand below the crucifix she lighted a pastille of incense. In long blue clouds the incense curled from under the curtain of the alcove, and the air grew heavy with a strong spicy fragrance.

The madonna glowed like a theatre queen with red, blue, and gold, and the stars on her mantle blinked and sparkled in the light of the wax candles.

Martin shivered with delight.

But Ida fell on her knees before the madonna. Her thick, dark-red plaits glowed like bright copper in the candlelight. She muttered something which Martin did not understand, and made strange gestures with her hands.

«What’s that?» inquired Martin; «why do you act so?»

«Tst! That is our religion.»

And Ida stayed on in the alcove. Her large black eyes had a sparkling glow. But Martin had an odd feeling of heaviness in the head.

«Come here and join in,» bade Ida. «Don’t you think it’s beautiful?»

Martin sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to imitate Ida’s gestures. But soon he began to nod. His head was so heavy, so heavy.

When Mr. Dupont came home, the two children were lying asleep on the bed. The wax candles had burned out.

--IV--

Autumn advanced over the earth, and in the city where Martin lived the houses were gray and black with rain and smoke, and the days grew shorter.

But when the afternoon came and the dusk fell, Martin Birck’s father often sat by the fire and looked at the embers. He was no longer young. He had a smooth-shaven face with sharply marked features, like an actor’s or a priest’s; and he had a way of laughing to himself without saying anything, which inspired respect and a certain feeling of insecurity. But when he laughed in this way his laugh was not taken for weakness or imbecility by his fellows, for there was nothing satiric in his temperament; he was merely laughing at an anecdote he had read in the morning paper, or at a couple of dogs that had barked at the lions around Charles XIII’s statue when he had passed through the square at noon on his way home from the office. For Martin Birck’s father was a government clerk. Although his salary was not large and he had no private means, he knew how to arrange things so that he and his family could lead a comparatively carefree existence, for his taste was given only to innocent and simple pleasures, and no feeling of vanity drove him to seek association with people who were above him in rank or fortune. He was the son of a mechanic, and when he chanced to think about his lot in life, he did not compare it with that of his superiors or his wealthy comrades but recalled instead the poor home from which he had come. He decided then that he was lucky and only wished that the luck he had should never be dimmed. He was fond of his wife and children and loved nothing in the world as much as his home. When he was free from his official duties he liked to work with his hands. He mended broken furniture; he could in an emergency even repair the old kitchen clock, which had flowers painted on its face and great brass weights on chains. He also manufactured funny and ingenious playthings for his children and neat little ornaments for his wife on her birthday. Among these was a little temple of white cardboard. It was adorned with narrow gold borders, and behind a semicircle of slender columns was a mirror, which seemed to double the number of the pillars. A spiral staircase led to the top of the temple, which was surrounded by a balustrade of marbled paper, the staircase being also of cardboard covered with marble; but in the bottom stair was a little drawer which could be pulled out. In this drawer Martin’s mother found every year on her birthday a folded banknote or a little piece of jewelry.

He also loved music and song. He liked to sing «Gluntar» with an old student comrade, Uncle Abraham, who sometimes came to visit him, and he could improvise on the piano and play by ear various pieces from his favorite operas.

But he seldom read anything except his paper.

* * * * *

Martin Birck’s mother, when twilight fell, often sat at the piano and sang to her own accompaniment. She had the sweetest of voices. The songs she sang were such as no one sings any more. At these times Martin and Maria would stand behind her stool and listen entranced; sometimes they tried to join in. There was a song about a soldier treasuring a canteen from which he had given a dying prince a drink on the field of battle. «’Twas from that His Highness drank,» was the refrain. And there was another song about a shepherdess who was tending her flock in a defile among the Alps. Suddenly she heard the roar of an avalanche and hurried to her charges: «Run fast, run fast, my lambs!» As Martin’s mother sang, her hands glided over the yellowed keys of the instrument. The strings had a brittle, glassy sound, and the pedals sighed and groaned. A string was broken in the bass, and it would buzz now and again.

There was a sense of loneliness when she had stopped singing.

Martin was drifting here and there. The room seemed to grow larger and more empty when twilight came. Finally he turned to grandmother, who was sitting by the window reading the Stockholm _Journal_.

«Tell us a story, please, grandmother,» Martin begged.

But grandmother didn’t know any new stories, and the old ones Martin had heard many times before. Grandmother continued to read the paper with her glasses far down on her nose.

«Lord deliver us,» she suddenly exclaimed, looking up from the paper, «did you see there’s a Miss Oldhusen has died?»

«No, is she dead?» remarked Martin’s father.

«Do you suppose she was a sister of the Secretary?»

«Goodness, no; she was his aunt,» said grandmother. «Her name was Pella, Pella Oldhusen. I remember her very well, I met her at Vaxholm. A plaguy smart and amusing woman she was, but she was a kleptomaniac. Her acquaintances used to say, ‹Be careful, my dear, and don’t leave anything around loose this evening; Pella Oldhusen’s coming!› There was a girl she took up. When the girl was to be got ready for her first communion, Miss Oldhusen stole her old housekeeper’s linen underskirts that hung in the same wardrobe with her own clothes and had them made up for the girl. It’s God’s own truth; I heard it from a lady that knew all about her and the whole family. ‹Look here, Miss Oldhusen,› the housekeeper said to her, for she had been with her many years and knew her peculiarities; ‹look here, Miss Oldhusen, there’s been thieves in the wardrobe! And the mischief’s in it, they’ve stolen all my underskirts, but not yours, though they were hanging side by side.› ‹Could anyone imagine such rascals?› said Pella. ‹That’s frightfully annoying, but what can I do about it?› Just the same she gave the housekeeper money for new linen a while afterward, for she was well off and not stingy neither; but the girl went to the blessed Lord’s Supper in the stolen underskirts.»

Martin and Maria listened with wide-open mouths. Grandmother had told a story, after all. Of such stories she knew plenty.

* * * * *

Father had lighted a cigar and pushed his chair nearer the fire. He now motioned to Martin and Maria: «Come, children, now we’ll play.»

The blaze had almost burned out. Father broke apart two or three empty match boxes and built out of the fragments a house away deep in the porcelain stove. He put in a lot of matches as pillars and beams and lastly twisted up a bit of stiff paper; that was a tower. At the top of the twist he cut a hole for a chimney. All this was now a stately castle like the old Stockholm castles in Dahlberg’s _Swedish Monuments_. When it was done, father set fire to all the corners.

It hissed and sputtered and burned.

«Look--just look how it’s burning!--now the farthest corner is catching--now the eastern gate’s on fire, now it’s falling!--and the tower’s burning, the tower’s tumbling----»

«Now it’s over.»

«Again, papa,» begged Martin. «Oh, again! Just once more!»

«No, not just once more,» said father; «it’s no fun the second time.»

Martin begged and implored. But father went over to the piano and stroked his wife’s hair.

Martin remained sitting in front of the fire. His cheeks burned but he couldn’t tear himself away. It flamed and glowed so finely away in there. It glimmered and glowed and burned.

Finally grandmother came, shut the damper, and put down the slats. Then Martin went to the window.

The sun was gone long ago. It had cleared a while, but murky cloud masses were driving along in broken lines over the thin, glassy blue of the sky. Long Row lay in deep twilight. The lindens and cherry trees of the garden were stripped of leaves, and here and there a light was already gleaming in a window from out the dark net of boughs. Down on the street the lamplighter went about his task; he was old and bent, and had a leather cap which came far down over his forehead. Now he came to the lamp just in front of the window on the opposite side of the street; when he had lighted it, the whole room brightened. The white lace curtains outlined their broken pattern on the ceiling and walls, while the calla lilies and fuchsias painted fantastic shadows.

It grew darker and darker.

One could see so far up above--far off over the low buildings of the old suburb with its wooden houses and gardens. One could see Humlegård Park with the roof of the rotunda between the old naked lindens. And farthest off in the west rose a gray outline, the Observatory on its hill.

The deep and empty blue of the October heavens became still more deep and still more empty. Toward the west it was suffused with a red that looked dirty with mist and soot.

Martin traced outlines with his finger on the pane, which had begun to be damp.

«Will it soon be Christmas, grandma?»

«Oh, not for a good bit, child.»

Martin stood a long while with his nose pressed against the pane staring at the sky, a melancholy twilight sky with clouds of pale red and gray.

--V--

But when the lamp was lighted and they sat around the table, each with his own work or book or paper, Martin went off and sat in a corner. For he had suddenly become sad without knowing why. There he sat in the dark, staring in at the circle of yellow light in which the others sat and talked, while he felt himself outside, abandoned and forgotten.

It did not help that Maria hunted out an old volume of _Near and Far_ to show him Garibaldi and the war in Poland and Emperor Napoleon III with his pointed mustaches; he had seen them all many times. Nor did it help that she gave him a piece of paper and taught him to fold it into the shape of a salt-cellar, a crow, or a catamaran; for, though he did not know it, Martin only longed for some one to say or do something that would make him cry. It was therefore he sat moody and silent, listening to the rain that whipped against the window, for it had begun to rain again, and the wind shook the glass.

What was that? Did he suddenly hear father say to mother: «Perhaps you’re right that we ought to try to sell the piano and buy a pianino on instalment. It goes out of tune in a couple of weeks, and a pianino would be prettier.»

Martin gave a start at the words «sell the piano.» He had no clear idea of what a pianino was, but he didn’t believe it could be a real piano; he pictured it rather as something that was worked with a handle. He didn’t believe any other instrument could sound as beautiful as their piano. He loved every dent and every crack in the red mahogany frame, for he himself had made most of them, and he remembered almost every key from its special color. Sell the piano! To his ears it sounded like something impossible. It was almost as if he had heard his parents calmly sitting and talking about selling grandmother and buying an aunt instead.

Martin began to cry before he knew it.

«Mamma,» said Maria, «Martin’s crying.»

«What are you crying for, Martin?» his mother asked.

Martin only sobbed.

«He’s tired and sleepy,» declared grandmother. «He’d better go to bed.»

* * * * *

While Martin, still sobbing, made the rounds to say good night, Lotta came in with the tea-tray. She had a very solemn expression as she said, «I’m sorry to have to tell you that Heggbom is dead.»

Everything became silent in the room. Martin stopped crying.

Grandmother clasped her hands together: «Well, and has he really passed away? Has it come that suddenly?... Glory be! and has he passed away? Ah, ’twas the brandy!... But it was for the best that he should die, though ’twill be hard for the missus; he was the porter, anyway, and maintained his wife and children.»

«He died just at seven,» said Lotta.

But when no one said anything she went out into the kitchen again.

«It might be a good idea to send out a list to the neighbors and start a little subscription,» said mother.

Martin was sent to bed. His mother sat at the side of his bed and said prayers with him. He was let off with «God Who hast us in Thy care,» because he was so tired. Otherwise he used to say «Our Father» and «Lord, let Thy blessing rest upon us» besides.

* * * * *

Martin lay awake a long time listening to the rain as it plashed against the window, for he was not at all sleepy; he had only said so to get out of the long prayers that he didn’t understand. It is impossible for a little child to associate any idea with such expressions as «hallowed be Thy name» or «Thy kingdom come.» He lay thinking about Heggbom and wondering if he could get to heaven. He always smelled of brandy.

Martin was afraid of the dark. When Lotta came in with a lighted candle to fix something in the room, he asked her to let the candle stay.

«You must sleep, Martin,» said Lotta. «Heggbom will come and bite you if you don’t.»

With that she went out and took the candle.

Martin began to cry afresh. The wind whistled in the window chinks, every now and then a gate was shut with a bang, and a dog howled outside. Before mother drew the curtains Martin thought there was a red glow in the sky. Perhaps there was a fire in South Stockholm....

There was turmoil and clamor down on the street. Drunken men coming out of the tavern--blows and screams. Heavy steps on the pavement, some one running and some one pursuing--and a cry of «Police, police!»

Martin drew the covers over his head and cried himself to sleep.

--VI--

White winter came with sleigh bells and snow and ice-flowers on the windowpane. «They are the dead summer flowers come back again,» said Martin’s mother. Evergreen forests out in the country came from the darkness and solitude into the city streets and squares, and when the Christmas bells rang in the holy day, there stood in Martin’s home a dark and timid fir which smelt of the woods, till evening came and it stood a-glitter with candles, white candles and colored candles, and was covered with winter apples and sugar-plums with mottoes which were so stupid that even Martin and Maria could see how stupid they were. All the glory of Christmas passed--it was like turning the page of a picture-book--and the star of New Year’s Eve was burning across the white roofs, and people said to each other, «Good night, and thanks for the year!» With a shivering sensation Martin thought of the line of gray winter days that were waiting, to which he could see no ending, for it was interminably long till summer, and still longer till next Christmas.

New Year’s morning he was waked while it was still dark to go to early service. Half asleep he scrambled through the snow by the side of his parents, and as they came around the corner, there stood the church like a giant lantern shining out across the white square where people were crawling in across the snow from all directions. Within the church was the organ’s roar and singing and many shining candles, and Martin felt happy and good and thought this was just the right way to begin the new year; and when the minister began to preach, he went straight to sleep. But when he woke up, the pale hue of dawn was shining in through the windows in the cupola and his mother roused him with, «Now we’ll go home and drink our coffee.»

So then they went home, their hearts full of the most beautiful intentions, for Martin understood without telling that it was this sort of thing the minister had preached about. Later in the morning Martin and Maria were sent around on the New Year’s visits to Uncle Jan and Aunt Louisa and other uncles and aunts, where they were given cakes and wine and sugar-plums from the Christmas trees. But at Uncle Abraham’s there was no Christmas tree, for he was a widower and had no children but lived alone with an old housekeeper. Uncle Abraham was a doctor and had often cured Martin and Maria of measles and scarlatina and pains in the chest. He had a black beard and a long crooked nose, for he was a Jew. He had also a parrot that could swear in French, and a black tomcat. The cat was named Kolmodin and he was the cleverest cat in the world, for when he was outside the office door and wanted to get in, he didn’t mew as other cats do, but got up on his hind feet, caught his claws in the bell-cord, and pulled it hard. This year when Martin and Maria came to wish Uncle Abraham a Happy New Year, he was sitting alone with his bottle of wine on the table playing chess with himself.

The room was large and half dark and full of books. Outside the snow was falling in great flakes. Uncle Abraham stuffed their pockets full of goodies, made the parrot swear in French, and was very cordial; but he didn’t say much, and in front of the fire which glowed in the porcelain stove sat the cat Kolmodin staring gloomily at his master. Martin and Maria stood silent and looked at each other with a feeling of oppression. For they had more than once heard their parents say that Uncle Abraham was not a happy man and that he never was really cheerful.

--VII--

So now it was the new year. The almanac which Martin had given his father for Christmas had a red cover, whereas the old one had been blue. Martin also found to his surprise and disappointment that this was the only difference he could see between the new year and the old, that the days passed as they had passed before with ringing of bells and snow and a somber sky, with weariness of the old games and the old stories, and with the longing to be big. He longed for that time but feared it too. For his mother had often pointed at the ragman who had seen better days and said that if Martin wouldn’t eat his porridge or his beer-soup and otherwise be a good and obedient boy, he would come to be just such a ragman when he was big. When he heard his mother talk so, he would feel a tightening of the chest and would see himself slinking in through the gate at dusk with a pack on his back and poking in the ash barrel with a black stick, while father and mother and sister and grandmother were sitting together around the lamp as before. For it never occurred to him to think that his home could be broken up and dispersed.

Snow fell, a great deal of snow. The drifts grew, and it became sparklingly cold. Martin had to keep indoors with his alphabet book and multiplication tables, with his color-box and jumping-jacks and all splendid things--already faded--which Christmas had left behind. Among the jumping-jacks there was one called the Red Turk which he was fonder of than the others, because Uncle Abraham, who had given it to him, had said it was the jolliest jumping-jack in all the world. «You see,» he had said one evening, «in itself it is neither amusing nor remarkable that an old pasteboard man kicks about when one pulls the strings. But the Red Turk is no common pasteboard man; he can think and choose the same as we. And when you jerk the strings and he begins to prance, he says to himself: ‹I am a being with free will, I kick just as I want to and exclusively for my own entertainment. Hoho! there’s nothing so delightful as to kick.› But when you stop jerking the string, he decides that he is tired and says to himself: ‹To the deuce with the kicking! The finest thing there is is to hang on a hook on the wall and stay entirely still.› Yes, he is the jolliest jumping-jack in the world.»

Martin didn’t understand much of this, but he understood that the Red Turk was amusing and set greater store by him than ever.

* * * * *

So the days passed, and with Twelfth Night began small family parties with stripping of Christmas trees and shadow games and doll theaters and magic lanterns with colored pictures on a ghostly white sheet. On the way home the stars sparkled, and father pointed to the heaven and said, «That’s the Milky Way, and there is the Dipper.»

--VIII--

But one morning when Martin awoke he saw that the heavens shone with a brighter blue than they had for a long time and that there was a dripping from the eaves and the naked branches of the pear tree. And while he was sitting up in bed looking out at the shining blue, Maria came in with a branch that seemed to blossom in a hundred colors; but it was not flowers--it was tinted feathers. She flicked him with the branch and danced and sang that it was Shrove Tuesday and she had a holiday from school, hurrah! And there were to be buns with almond icing for dinner.

Then they took the feathers off the branch and dressed up in them and played Indians and white men, but they were both Indians.

But mother took the switch and set it in the window in a jug filled with water in the full sunlight. The room faced the east and this was the morning sun. And lo and behold! it wasn’t many days before brown-and-greenish buds came out here and there on the twigs, they swelled and grew larger, until one day they had broken out and changed into frail light-green leaves; the whole branch had become verdant, and it was spring.

* * * * *

One afternoon a beam of sunlight fell into the hall which faced the west.

«Look at the sun, children,» said mother. «That’s our first afternoon sun this year.»

The sunbeam fell on the polished glass of the candelabra, where it broke and strewed rainbow-colored patches all over the room on the furniture and wall paper. Just then father passed through the hall and set the three-sided bits of glass in motion with a slight blow of his hand. There was a tumultuous dance of the colored patches around the walls, a dance as of fluttering butterflies. Martin and Maria began a chase after them. They ran till they were flushed and hot, striking their hands against the walls, and when they saw a patch on their hand instead of on the wall paper, they screamed with delight, «Now I’ve got it!»

But in the next second it glided away, the sunbeam paled, and the butterflies, weary of fluttering and shining, departed--Martin saw the last of them expire on his hand.

But it wasn’t spring yet after all.