Title: The Growth of a Soul
Author: Strindberg, August, 1849-1912
Language: English
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GROWTH OF A SOUL

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG


AUTHOR OF "THE INFERNO," "THE SON OF A SERVANT," ETC.


TRANSLATED BY CLAUD FIELD



NEW YORK

McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY

1914


     CONTENTS

     I IN THE FORECOURT
    II BELOW AND ABOVE
   III THE DOCTOR
    IV IN FRONT OF THE CURTAIN
     V JOHN BECOMES AN ARISTOCRAT
    VI BEHIND THE CURTAIN
   VII JOHN BECOMES AN AUTHOR
  VIII THE "RUNA" CLUB
    IX BOOKS AND THE STAGE
     X TORN TO PIECES
    XI IDEALISM AND REALISM
   XII A KING'S PROTÉGÉ
  XIII THE WINDING UP
   XIV AMONG THE MALCONTENTS
    XV THE RED ROOM



THE GROWTH OF A SOUL



CHAPTER I

IN THE FORECOURT

(1867)


The steamer had passed Flottsund and Domstyrken and the university
buildings of Upsala began to appear. "Now begins the real
stone-throwing!" exclaimed one of his companions,--an expression
borrowed from the street-riots of 1864. The hilarity induced by punch
and breakfast abated; one felt that things were now serious and that
the battle of life was beginning. No vows of perpetual friendship were
made, no promises of helping each other. The young men had awakened
from their romantic dreams; they knew that they would part at the
gang-way, new interests would scatter the company which the school-room
had united; competition would break the bonds which had united them and
all else would be forgotten. The "real stone-throwing" was about to
begin.

John and his friend Fritz hired a room in the Klostergränden. It
contained two beds, two tables, two chairs and a cupboard. The rent was
30 kronas[1] a term,--15 kronas each. Their midday meal was brought
by the servant for 12 kronas a month,--6 kronas each. For breakfast
and supper they had a glass of milk and some bread and butter. That
was all. They bought wood in the market,--a small bundle for 4 kronas.
John had also received a bottle of petroleum from home as a present,
and he could send his washing to Stockholm. He had 80 kronas in his
table-drawer with which to meet all the expenses of the term.

It was a new and peculiar society into which he now entered, quite
unlike any other. It had privileges like the old house of peers and a
jurisdiction of its own; but it was a "little Pedlington" and reeked
of rusticity. All the professors were country-born; not a single one
hailed from Stockholm. The houses and streets were like those of
Nyköping. And it was here that the head-quarters of culture had been
placed, owing to an inconsistency of the government which certainly
regarded Stockholm as answering to that description.

The students were regarded as the upper class in the town and the
citizens were stigmatised by the contemptuous epithet of "Philistines."
The students were outside and above the civic law. To smash windows,
break down fences, tussle with the police, disturb the peace of the
streets,--all was allowed to them and went unpunished; at most they
received a reprimand, for the old lock-up in the castle was no more
used. For their militia-service they had a special uniform of their
own which carried privileges with it. Thus they were systematically
educated as aristocrats, a new order of nobility after the fall of the
house of peers.

What would have been a crime in a citizen was a "practical joke" in a
student. Just at this time the students' spirits were at a high pitch,
as a band of student-singers had gone to Paris, had been successful
there, and were acclaimed as conquerors on their return.

John now wished to work for his degree but did not possess a single
book. "During the first term one must take one's bearings" was the
saying. John went to the student's club. The constitution of the club
was antiquated,--so much so that the annexed provinces Skåne, Halland
and Blekinge were not represented in it. It was well arranged and
divided into classes, not according to merit, but according to age
and certain dubious qualities. In the list the title "nobilis" still
stood after the names of those of high birth. There were several ways
of gaining influence in the club, through an aristocratic name, family
influence, money, talent, pluck and adaptability, but the last quality
by itself was not enough among these intelligent and sceptical youths.
On the first evening in the club John made his observations. There were
several of his old companions from the Clara School present, but he
avoided them as much as possible and they him. He had deserted them and
gone by a short cut through the private school, while they had tramped
along the regular course through the state school. They all seemed
to him somewhat conventional and stunted. Fritz plunged among the
aristocrats and obtained introductions, made acquaintances easily and
got on well.

As they went home in the evening John asked him who was the "snob" in
the velvet jacket with stirrups painted on his collar. Fritz answered
that he was not a snob, and that it was as stupid to judge people by
fine clothes as by poor ones. John with his democratic ideas did not
understand this and stuck to his opinion. Fritz asserted that the youth
referred to was a very fine fellow and the senior in the club, and
in order to rouse John further, added that he had expressed himself
satisfied with the newcomers' appearance and manners; he was reported
to have said "they had an air about them; formerly the fellows from
Stockholm when they came there, looked like workmen."

John was ruffled at this information and felt that something had come
in between him and his friend. Fritz's father had been a miller's
servant, but his mother had been of noble birth. He had inherited from
his mother what John had from his.

The days passed on. Fritz put on his frock coat every morning and went
to pay his respects to the professors. He intended to be a jurist;
that was a proper career, for lawyers were the only ones who obtained
real knowledge which was of use in public life, who tried to obtain
deeper insight into social organisation and to keep in touch with the
practical business of everyday life. They were realists.

John had no frock coat, no books, no acquaintances.

"Borrow my coat," said Fritz.

"No, I will not go and pay court to the professors," said John.

"You are stupid," answered Fritz, and in that he was right, for the
professors gave real though somewhat hazy information regarding the
courses of study. It was a piece of pride in John that he did not
wish to owe his progress to anything but his own work, and what was
worse, he thought it ignominious to be regarded as a flunkey. Would
not an old professor at once perceive that he was flattering him for
his own purposes? To submit himself to his superiors was, in his mind,
synonymous with grovelling.

Moreover everything was too indefinite. The university which he had
imagined to be an institution for free investigation, was only one for
tasks and examinations. The professors gave lectures for the sake of
appearances or to maintain their income, but it was useless to go up
for an examination without taking private lessons. John resolved to
attend those lectures for which no fee was necessary. He went to the
Gustavianum to hear a lecture on the history of philosophy. For the
three-quarters of an hour during which the lecture lasted the professor
went through the introduction to Aristotle's Ethics. John calculated
that with three lectures a week he would require forty years to go
through the history of philosophy. "Forty years," he thought, "that is
too long for me." And did not go again. It was the same everywhere.
An assistant-professor expounded Shakespeare's _Henry VIII_ with the
commentary, in English, to an audience of five. John went there a few
times, but reckoned that it would be ten years before _Henry VIII_ was
finished.

It began to dawn upon him what the requirements of the degree
examination were. The first was to write a Latin essay; therefore he
must learn more Latin, which he did not like. He had chosen æsthetics
and modern languages as his chief subject. Æsthetics comprised the
study of Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Literary History and the
various systems of æsthetics. That was work enough for a lifetime. The
modern languages were French, German, English, Italian and Spanish,
with comparative grammar. How was he to obtain the requisite books? And
he had not the means of paying for private lessons.

Meanwhile he set to work at Æsthetics. He found that one could borrow
books from the club and so he took out the volumes of Atterbom's
_Prophets and Poets_ which happened to be there. These unfortunately
only dealt with Swedenborg and contained Thorild's epistles. Swedenborg
seemed to him crazy, and Thorild's epistles did not interest him.
Swedenborg and Thorild were two arrogant Swedes who had lived in
retirement and fallen a prey to megalomania, the special disease
of solitary people. It is remarkable how often outbreaks of this
hallucination occur in Sweden, owing probably to the isolated position
of the country and to the fact that a sparse population is scattered
over enormous distances. Megalomania is apparent in the imperial
projects of Gustavus Adolphus, in Charles X's ambition of becoming
a great European power, in Charles XII's Attila-like schemes, in
Rudbeck's Atlantic-mania, and in Swedenborg's and Thorild's dreams of
storming heaven and of world-conflagrations. John thought them mad and
threw them aside. Was that the sort of stuff he was expected to read?

He began to reflect over his situation. What did he expect to do in
Upsala? To support himself for six years on 80 kronas till he took
his degree. And then? his thoughts did not stretch further; he had no
higher plan or ambition than to take his degree--the laurel crown, the
graduate's coat, and then to teach the catechism in the Jakob school
till his death. No, he did not wish to do that.

Time went on, and Christmas approached. The little stock of money in
his table-drawer diminished slowly but surely. And then? It was not so
easy for students to obtain employment as private teachers since the
railways had made communication easier between remote country places
and the towns where schools were. He felt that he had embarked upon a
foolish undertaking. When he found he could get no more books, he began
to make visits among his fellow-students and discovered companions in
misfortune. Among them were two who had spent the whole term playing
chess and possessed nothing between them but a hymn-book which the
mother of one had placed in his box. They were also asking themselves
the question "What have we to do here?" The way to the degree
examination was not easy; one was compelled to seek out secret ways,
bribe door-keepers, creep through holes, run into debt for books, be
seen at lectures and much more besides.

In order to fill up the time, he learnt to play the B-cornet in the
band of the students' club by the advice of Fritz who played the
trombone. But the practices were very irregular and began to cause
disputes. John also played backgammon, which Fritz hated, and so he
wandered about to acquaintances with his backgammon board and played
with them. He found it as dull as reading Swedenborg.

"Why do you not study?" Fritz often asked him.

"I have no books," answered John. That was a good reason. He could
not visit the restaurants, for he had no money, and lived very
quietly. At the midday meal he drank only water, and when on Sundays
he and Fritz drank half a bottle of beer, they remained sitting at
table half-fuddled and telling each other, perhaps for the hundredth
time, old school adventures. The term crept along intolerably slow,
uneventful and torpid. John perceived that, as one of the lower class,
he could plod on thus far but no further. The economic question brought
his plans to a standstill. Or was it that he was tired of living a
one-sided mental life without muscular exercise? Trifling experiences
for which he ought to have been prepared contributed to embitter him.
One day Fritz entered their room with a young count. He introduced
John to him, and the count tried to remember whether they had not been
comrades at the Clara School. John seemed to remember something of
the kind. The old friends and intimate companions addressed each other
as "count" and "sir." Then John remembered how he and the young count
had once played as boys in a tobacco store on the Sabbatsberg, and how
something had made him prophesy, "In a few years, old fellow, we shall
not know each other any more." The young count had protested strongly
against this and felt hurt. Why did John remember this just then
particularly, since it is quite natural that comrades should become
strangers to each other when intercourse has been so long broken off?
Because at the sight of the noble, he felt the slave blood seethe in
his veins. This kind of feeling has been ascribed to the difference of
races. But that is not so, for then the stronger plebeian race would
feel superior to the weaker aristocratic. It is simply class-hatred.

The count in question was a pale, tall, slender youth of no striking
appearance. He was very poor and looked half-starved. He was
intelligent, industrious, and not at all proud. Later on in life
John came across him again and found him to be a sociable, pleasant
man, leading an inconspicuous life as an official, amid difficulties
resembling John's own. Why should he hate him? And then they both
laughed at their youthful stupidity. That was possible then, for John
seemed to have "got ahead" as the saying is; otherwise he would not
have laughed at all. "Stand up that I may sit down," this was the
more malicious than luminous way of expressing the aspiration of the
lower orders in those days. But it was a misunderstanding. Formerly
one strove to elbow one's way up to the other; now one would rather
pull the other down to save oneself the trouble of clambering up where
nothing is to be found. "Move a little so that we can both sit" would
now be the proper formula.

It has been said that those who are "above" are there by a law of
necessity and would be there under all circumstances; competition
is free and each can ascend if he likes, and if the conditions were
changed, the same race would begin again. "Good!" say the lower
classes, "let us race again, but come down here and stand where I
do. You have got a start with privileges and capital, but now let us
be weighed with carriage harness and racing saddle after the modern
fashion. You have got ahead by cheating. The race is therefore declared
null and void and we will run it again, unless we come to an agreement
to do away with all racing, as an antiquated sport of ancient times."

Fritz saw things from another point of view. He did not wish to pull
those above down, but to become an aristocrat himself, climb up to
them and be like them. He began to lisp and made elegant gestures with
his hands, greeted people as though he were a cabinet minister, and
threw his head back as though he had a private income. But he respected
himself too much to become ridiculous and satirised himself and his
ambition. The fact was that the aristocrats whom he wished to resemble
had simple, easy, unaffected manners,--some of them indeed quite like
the middle class, while Fritz was fashioning himself after an ancient
theatrical pattern which no longer existed. He did not therefore
become what he expected in life though he had dozed away many a summer
in the castles of his friends, and ended in a very modest official
post. He was received as a student in their guest-rooms but came no
further; as a district judge he was not introduced in the salons which
as a student he had entered without introduction.

The effects of the different circles in which John and Fritz moved
began now to be apparent, first in mutual coldness, then in hostility.
One evening it broke out at the card-table.

Fritz one day towards the end of the term said to John, "You should not
go about with such bounders as you do."

"What is the matter with them?"

"Nothing, but it would be better if you went with me to my friends."

"They don't suit me."

"Well, they suit me, but they think you are proud."

"I?"

"Yes; and to show you are not, come with me this evening and drink
punch."

John went though unwillingly. They were a solid-looking set of
law-students who played cards. They discussed the stakes for which they
should play, and John succeeded in reducing them to a minimum, though
they made sour faces. Then a game of "knack" was proposed. John said
that he never played it.

"On principle?" he was asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"How long ago did you make that resolve," asked Fritz sarcastically.

"Just this minute."

"Just now, here?"

"Yes, just now, here!" answered John.

They exchanged hostile looks and that was the end. They went home
silent; went to bed silent; and got up silent. For five weeks they ate
their dinner at the same table and never spoke to each other. A gulf
had opened between them and their friendship was ended; they had no
more intercourse with each other and there was nothing to bring them
together again. How had that come about?

These two characters so opposed to each other had held together for
five years through habit, through comradeship in the class-room,
and common interests; they had felt drawn to each other by common
recollections, defeats and victories. It was a compromise between fire
and water which must cease sooner or later and might cease at any
moment. Now they flew asunder as if by an explosion; the masks fell;
they did not become enemies, but simply discovered that they _were_
born enemies, _i.e._ two oppositely-disposed natures which must go,
each its own way. They did not close accounts with a quarrel or useless
accusations, but simply made an end without more ado. An unnatural
silence prevailed at their midday meal; sometimes in lifting dishes
their hands crossed but their looks avoided each other; now and then
Fritz's lips moved, as though he wished to say something, but his
larynx remained closed. What should he say after all. There was nothing
to say but what the silence expressed: "We have nothing more in common."

And yet there was something left after all. Sometimes Fritz came home
in the evening, cheerful, and obviously prepared to say, "Come! cheer
up old fellow!" But then he stood still in the middle of the room,
petrified by John's icy manner, and went out again. Sometimes also
it occurred to John, who suffered under the breach of friendship to
say to his friend, "How stupid we are!" But then he felt frozen again
by Fritz's indifferent manner. They had worn out their friendship by
living together. They knew each other by heart, all one another's
secrets and weaknesses, and precisely what answer either would give.
That was the end. Nothing more remained.

A miserable torpid time followed. Tom away from the common life of
school where he had worked like part of a machine in unison with
others, and abandoned to himself, he ceased to live in the proper sense
of the word. Without books, papers or social intercourse, he remained
empty; for the brain produces of itself very little, perhaps nothing;
in order to make combinations it must be supplied with material from
without. Now nothing came; the channels were stopped, the ways blocked,
and his soul pined away. Sometimes he took Fritz's books and looked
into them; among them he came across Geijer's History for the first
time. Geijer was a great name and known through his "Kolargossen,"
"Sista Kampen," "Vikingen" and other poems. John now read his history
of Gustav Vasa. He was astonished to find no illuminating point of
view nor any fresh information. The style, which he had heard praised,
was pedestrian. It was like a mere memorial sketch, this history of a
long-lived king's reign, and cursory also like a text-book. Printed in
small type, and without notes, the history of this important king would
not have been longer than a small pamphlet. One day John asked some of
his friends what they thought of Geijer.

"He is devilish dull," they answered.

That was the common opinion before jubilee-commemorations and the
erection of statues prevented people saying plainly what they thought.

John then looked for a little into law-books, but was alarmed at the
idea of having to study that sort of thing. His home life and religious
education had given him a distaste for everything that concerned the
common interests of people. Through the ceaseless repetition of the
maxim that young men should not interfere with politics, that is to
say, with the common weal, and through Christian individualism and
introspection, John had become a consistent egoist.

"Let every one mind his own business" was the first command of this
egotistic morality. Therefore he read no papers and troubled little how
things were going on about him, what was happening in the world, how
the destinies of men were being shaped, or what were the thoughts of
the leading minds of the time. Therefore it never occurred to him to
go to the meetings of the club where questions of common interest were
dealt with. "There were enough to look after those things," he thought.

He was not alone in that opinion, so that the meetings of the club were
managed by a few energetic fellows, who were regarded perhaps wrongly,
as egoists and managed public business in their own interests. John who
let the affairs of the little society go as they liked, was perhaps a
greater egoist, occupied as he was with the affairs of his own soul.
But in his own defence and on behalf of many of his countrymen it must
be said that he and they were shy. This shyness, however, should have
been got rid of at school by practice in public speaking. In this
shyness there was also a degree of cowardice, the fear of opposition
or ridicule, and especially the fear of being thought presumptuous or
wishing to push oneself forward. Every youth who did so, was at once
suppressed, for here the aristocracy of seniority prevailed in a very
high degree.

When he found the room too stuffy, he went out of the town. But the
depressing landscape with its endless expanse of clay made him sad. He
was no plain-dweller, but had his roots in the undulating scenery of
Stockholm, diversified by water channels. The flat country depressed
him and he suffered from homesickness to such a degree that when he
returned to Stockholm at Christmas and saw again the smiling contours
of the coast of Brunsvik, he was moved to the point of sentimentality.
When he saw once more the gentle curves of the woods of Haga Park he
felt his soul, as it were, attuned again, after having been so long
out of tune. To such a degree were his nerves affected by his natural
surroundings.

Under other circumstances, the society of a smaller town like Upsala
would have been more congenial to him than that of the great town
which he hated. Had the small town been but a developed form of the
village, preserving the simple rustic appliances for health and
comfort, with fragments of landscape between the houses, it would have
been far preferable to the great town. But now the small town was
merely a shabby pretentious copy of the great town with its mistakes,
and therefore the more offensive. It also reeked with provinciality.
Every one mentioned their birthplace, "My name is Pettersson, from
Ostgothland," "Mine is Andersson, from Småland." There was a keen
rivalry between the members of different provinces. Those from
Stockholm regarded themselves as the first and were therefore envied
and despised by the "peasants." There was much dispute as to whom the
first place really belonged. The Wormlanders boasted of having produced
Geijer whose portrait hung in their hall, while the Smålanders had
Tegner, Berzelius and Linnæus. The Stockholm students who had only
Bergfalk and Bellmann were called "gutter-snipes." This was not a very
brilliant piece of wit especially as it emanated from a Kalmar student
who was thereupon asked "whether there were no gutters in Kalmar?"

There was something pettifogging also in the way in which the
professors fought for advancement by means of pamphlets and newspaper
articles. The election to any particular professorial chair rested in
the last resource with the Chancellor of the University who lived at
Stockholm.

In 1867 the University had no especially distinguished teachers. Some
of them were merely old decayed tipplers. Others were young immature
dilettantes who had obtained advancement through their wives and the
modicum of talent which they possessed. The only one who enjoyed a
certain reputation was Swedelius. This, however, was rather due to
his bonhomie and the anecdotes which gathered round him, then to his
own talent. His learned activity was confined to the composition in
an austere style of textbooks and memorial addresses. These were not
strictly scientific, but showed traces of original research.

On the whole all the subjects of study were introduced from abroad,
for the most part from Germany. The textbooks in most departments
were in German or French. Very few were in English which was little
known. Even the Professor of Literary History could not pronounce
English and began his lectures with an apology for not being able
to do so. There was no doubt that he knew the language for he had
published translations of Swedish poems. "But why did he not learn
the pronunciation?" the students asked. Most of the dissertations for
degrees were mere compilations from the German; occasionally they were
direct translations which caused a scandal.

The fact was that the period had no special feature to characterise
it. There is no such thing as Swedish culture any more than there is
Belgian, Swiss, or Hungarian. Sweden had indeed produced a Linnæus and
a Berzelius, but they had had no successors.

John had no spirit of enterprise. At school his work had been settled
for him; at the university it was all left to him. He was overcome by
lethargy and listlessness and worried by not knowing what to do at the
end of the term. He saw that he must seek for a position in which he
could support himself. A friend had told him that one might become an
elementary teacher in the country without passing any more examinations
and could very well support oneself in such a post. Now it was John's
dream to live in the country. He had a natural dislike to towns though
he had been born in the metropolis. He could not accustom himself
to live without light and air, nor flourish in these streets and
market-places, where the outward signs of a higher or lower position in
the absurd social scale counted for so much, _e.g._ such subordinate
things as dress and manner. He had hostility to culture in his blood
and could never conceive of himself as anything else than a natural
product, which did not wish to be severed from its organic connection
with the earth. He was like a plant vainly feeling with its roots
between the pavement-stones for some soil; like an animal pining for
the forest.

There is a fish which climbs up trees, and an eel can go on land to
look for a pease-field, but both of them return to the water. Fowls
have been domesticated so long that their ancestral characteristics
have died out, but they preserve the habit of sleeping on a perch which
represents the branch on which the black-cock and the wood-grouse
roost. Geese become restless in autumn, for an instinct in their blood
tells them that it is migrating time. So in spite of accommodation to
new circumstances there is always a tendency to go back.

Thus is it also with men. The dweller in the north, so long as he
preserves civilised habits, has not been able to acclimatise himself
thoroughly, and is still liable to consumption. His stomach, nerves,
heart and skin were able to accommodate themselves, but not his lungs.
The Eskimo on the other hand, originally a southerner, succeeded in
acclimatising himself but had to give up civilised habits.

And what is the meaning of the northerner's longing for the south
unless it be the wish to return to his first home, the land of the
sun, the bank of the Ganges where he was cradled? And the dislike
of children to meat, their longing for fruit and love of climbing,
what is it all but "reversion to type?" Therefore civilisation means
a continual strain and struggle to combat this backward tendency.
Education winds up the clock, but when the mainspring is not strong
enough it snaps and the works run down, till quiet ensues. As
civilisation advances the strain is ever greater and the statistics
of insanity show a perpetual increase. One cannot swim against the
stream of civilisation, but one may escape to land. Modern Socialism
which wishes to bring down the upper classes with their worthless
and dangerous motto "Higher!" is a backward movement in a healthy
direction. The strain will decrease as the pressure from above
decreases, and thereby a great deal of superfluous luxury will be got
rid of. In certain parts of German Switzerland there is already a
certain relative quiet. There we find no restless hunting after honours
and distinctions because there are none to be had. A millionaire
lives in a large cottage and laughs at the bedizened townsfolk,--a
good-natured laugh without any envy in it, for he knows that he could
buy up their finery for ready cash, if he chose. But he will not, for
luxury has no value in his neighbours' eyes.

Men could therefore be happier if competition were not so keen and
they will yet be so, for the chief constituent of happiness is peace
along with less toil and less luxury. It is not the railways which are
to be blamed, but the superabundance of them. In Arcadian Switzerland
railways have ruined whole districts where no freightage is required
and people usually go on foot. To this day distances are reckoned by
pedestrian measures.

"It is eight hours to Zurich," says some one.

"Eight! is it possible?"

"Yes, certainly."

"By the railway?"

"Oh! by the railway,--that is only an hour and a half."

In Sweden there is a railway which carries regularly three passengers
in its three classes, a factory-owner, a bailiff and a clerk. We may
live to see them shut up the railway stations for want of coal when
the coal strikes have sent up the price, for want of guards when wages
rise, and for want of freight when wood and oats can no longer be
procured; iron is already too dear to be used for railways, and the old
water-ways ought to be tried.

It is no use to preach against civilisation,--that one knows well, but
if we observe the currents of the time we shall see that a return to
nature is in process of going on. Turgenieff has already described this
by the word "simplification." That is the mistake of the evolutionists
that in everything which is in motion or course of development they
see a progress towards human happiness, forgetting that a sickness may
develop to death or recovery.

After all, what a superficial appendage civilisation is! Make a
nobleman drunk and he can become like a savage; let a child loose in
a wood without any one to look after it (provided that it can feed
itself) and it will not learn to speak of itself. Out of a peasant's
son who is generally considered so low in the social scale, one
can make in a single generation a man of science, a minister, an
arch-bishop, or an artist. Here there can be no talk of heredity, for
the peasant-father who stood apparently at such a low level, could not
have inherited anything from cultivated brains. On the other hand, the
children of a genius inherit usually nothing but used-up brains, except
occasionally a skill in their father's line of work, which they have
acquired by daily intercourse with their father.

The town is the fire-place whither the living fuel from the country is
brought and devoured; it is to keep the present social machinery at
work, it is true, but in the long run the fuel will prove too dear, and
the machine come to a standstill. The society of the future will not
need this machine in order to work or they will be more sparing of the
fuel. But it is a mistake to conjecture the needs of a future state of
society from the present one.

Our present society is perhaps a natural product, but inorganic; the
future society will be an organic product and a higher one, for it
will not deprive men of the first conditions for an organic existence.
There will be the same difference between these two forms of society as
between paved streets and grass meadows.

The youth's dream often left artificial society to wander at large
in nature. Society had been formed by men doing violence to natural
laws, just as one may bleach a plant under a flower-pot and produce an
edible salad, but the plant's capacity to live healthily and propagate
itself as a plant is destroyed. Such a plant is the civilised man
made by artificial bleaching useful for an anæmic society, but, as
an individual, wretched and unhealthy. Must the process of bleaching
continue in order to insure the existence of this decayed society?
Must the individual remain wretched in order to maintain an unhealthy
society? For how can society be healthy when its individual members
are ailing? A single individual cannot demand that society should be
sacrificed for his sake, but a majority of individuals have a right to
bring about such changes in the society, which they themselves compose,
as may be beneficial to themselves.

Under the simpler conditions of country life John believed he could
be happy in an obscure post, without feeling that he had sunk in the
social scale. But he could not be so in the town where he would be
continually reminded of the height from which he had fallen. To come
down voluntarily is not painful if the onlookers can be persuaded that
it _is_ voluntarily, but to fall is bitter, especially as a fall always
arouses satisfaction in those standing below. To mount, strive upwards
and better one's position has become a social instinct, and the youth
felt the force of it, though in his view the "upper" was not always
higher.

John wished now to realise some result,--an active life which should
bring him an income. He looked through many advertisements for teachers
in elementary schools. Positions were advertised to which were attached
salaries of 300 or 600 kronas, a house, a meadow and a garden. He tried
for one of these places after another but obtained no answer.

When the term was over and his 80 kronas spent, he returned home, not
knowing whither to turn, what he should become, or how he should live.
He had glanced in the forecourt and seen that there was no room in it
for him.


[1] A krona = 1s. _2d_.



CHAPTER II

BELOW AND ABOVE


"Are you a complete scholar now?" With this and similar questions John
was greeted ironically on his return home. His father took the matter
seriously and strove to frame plans without coming to any result. John
was a student; that was a fact; but what was to follow?

It was winter, and so the white student cap could not bestow on him
a mild halo of glory or bring any honour to the family. Some one has
asserted that war would cease if uniforms were done away with; and it
is certain there would not be so many students if they had no outward
sign to parade. In Paris where they have none, they disappear in the
crowd, and no one makes a fuss about them; in Berlin on the other hand,
they have a privileged place by the side of officers. Therefore also
Germany is a land of professors and France of the bourgeois.

John's father now saw that he had educated a good-for-nothing for
society who could not dig, but perhaps was not ashamed to beg. The
world stood open for the youth to starve or to perish in. His father
did not like his idea of becoming an elementary school-teacher. Was
that to be the only result of so much work? His ambitious dreams
received a shock from the idea of such a come-down. An elementary
school-teacher was on a level with a sergeant, oil a plane from which
there was no hope of mounting. Climb one must as long as others did;
one must climb till one broke one's neck, so long as society was
divided into ranks and classes. John had not passed the student's
examination for the sake of knowledge, but of belonging to the upper
class, and now he seemed to be meditating a descent to the lower.

It became painful for him at home for he felt as though he were eating
the bread of charity when Christmas was over, and he could no longer be
regarded as a Christmas guest.

One day he accidentally met in the street a school-teacher whom he
knew, and whom he had not seen for a long time. They talked about the
future and John's friend suggested to him a post in the Stockholm
elementary school as suitable for him while reading for his degree. He
would get a thousand kronas salary and have an hour to himself daily.
John objected "Anywhere except in Stockholm." His friend replied that
several students had been teachers in the elementary school, "Really!
then he would have companions in misfortune." Yes, and one had come
from the New Elementary School where he was a teacher. John went, made
an application, and was appointed with a salary of 900 kronas. His
father approved his decision when he heard that it would help him to
read for his degree, and John undertook to live as a boarder at home.
One winter morning at half-past eight, John went down the Nordtullsgata
to the Clara School, exactly as he had done when he was eight years
old. There were the same streets and the same Clara bells, and he was
to teach the lowest class! It was like being put back to learn a lesson
of eleven years ago. Just as afraid as then,--yes, more afraid of
coming too late he entered the large class-room, where together with
two female teachers he was to have the oversight of a hundred children.
There they sat,--children like those in the Jakob School, but younger.
Ugly, stunted, pale, swollen, sickly, with cast-down looks, in coarse
clothes and heavy shoes. Suffering, most probably, suffering from the
consciousness that others were more fortunate, and would always be
so, as one then believed, had impressed on their faces the stamp of
pain, which neither religious resignation nor the hope of heaven could
obliterate. The upper classes avoided them with a bad conscience, built
themselves houses outside the town, and left it to the professional
over-seers of the poor to come in contact with these outcasts.

A hymn was sung, the Lord's Prayer was read; everything was as before;
no progress had been made except that the forms had been exchanged for
seats and desks, and the room was light and airy. John had to fold his
hands and join in the hymn, thus already being obliged to do violence
to his conscience. Prayers over, the head-master entered. He spoke to
John in a fatherly way and as his superintendent gave him instruction
and advice. This class, he said, was the worst, and the teacher must
be strict.

So John took his class into a special room to begin the lesson. The
room was exactly like that in the Clara School, and there stood the
dreadful desk with steps, which resembled a scaffold and was painted
red as though stained with blood. A stick was put into his hand with
which he might rap or strike as he chose. He mounted the scaffold. He
felt shy before the thirsty faces of girls and boys opposite who looked
curiously at him, to see if he were going to worry them.

"What is your lesson?" he asked.

"The first commandment," the whole class exclaimed.

"Only one must answer at a time. You, top boy what is your name?"

"Hallberg," cried the whole class.

"No, only one at a time,--the one I ask."

The children giggled. "He is not dangerous," they thought.

"Well, then, what is the first commandment?" John asked the top boy.

"Thou shalt have no other gods but Me." He knew that then.

"What is that?" John asked again, trying to lay as little emphasis
as possible on the "that." Then he asked fifteen children the same
question and a quarter of an hour had passed. John thought this
idiotic. What should he do now? Say what he knew about God? But the
common point of view then was, that nothing was known about Him. John
was a theist, and still believed in a personal God, but could say
nothing more. He would have liked to have attacked the divinity of
Christ, but would have been dismissed had he done so.

A pause followed. There was an unnatural stillness while he reflected
on his false position and the foolish method of teaching. If he had
now said that nothing was known of God, the whole catechism and Bible
instruction would have been superfluous. They knew that they must not
steal or lie. Why then make such a fuss? He felt a mad wish to make
friends and fellow-sinners of the children.

"What shall we do now?" he said.

The whole class looked at each other and giggled.

"This is a jolly sort of teacher," they thought.

"What must the teacher do when he has heard the lesson?" he asked the
top boy.

"Hm! he generally explains it," he and one or two others answered.

John could certainly explain the origin and growth of the conception of
God, but that would not do.

"You need not do any more," he said, "but don't make a noise."

The children looked at him, and he at them mutually smiling.

"Don't you think this is absurd," he felt inclined to say, but checked
himself and only smiled. But he collected himself when he saw that they
were laughing at him. "This method would not do," he thought. So he
commanded attention and went through the first commandment again till
each child had had a question. After extraordinary exertions on his
part, the clock at last struck nine, and the lesson was over.

Then the three divisions of the class were assembled in the great
hall to prepare for going into the play-ground to get fresh air.
"Prepare" is the right word for such a simple affair as going into the
play-ground demanded a long preparation. An exact description would
fill a whole printed page, and perhaps be regarded as a caricature; we
will be content with giving a hint.

In the first place, all the hundred children had to sit motionless,
absolutely motionless, and silent, absolutely silent, in their seats as
though they were to be photographed. From the master's desk the whole
assembly looked like a grey carpet with bright patterns, but the next
moment one of them moved the head; the offender had to rise from his
seat and stand by the wall. The total effect was now disturbed, and
there had to be a good many raps with the cane before two hundred arms
lay parallel on the desks and a hundred heads were at right angles
with their collar-bones. When quiet was in some degree restored a new
rapping began which demanded absolute quiet. But at the very moment
when the absolute was all but attained, some muscle grew tired, some
nerve slackened, some sinew relaxed. Again there was confusion, cries,
blows, and a new attempt to reach the absolute. It generally ended by
the female teacher (the males did not drive it so far) closing one eye
and pretending that the absolute had been reached.

Then came the important moment, when, at a given signal the whole
hundred must spring from their seats and stand in order, but nothing
more. It was a ticklish moment when slates fell down and rulers
clattered. Then they had to sit down and begin all over again by
keeping perfectly still.

When they had really got on their legs, they were marched off in
divisions but on tip-toe without exception. Otherwise they had to turn
round and sit down again, get up again and so on. They had to go on
tip-toe in wooden sabots and water-boots. It was a great mistake; it
accustomed the children to stealthiness and gave their whole appearance
something cat-like and deceitful. In the play-ground a teacher had
to arrange those who wanted to drink in a straight line before the
water-tap by the entrance; at the same time the lavatories at the
other end of the play-ground had to be inspected, and games had to be
organised and watched over. Then the children were again drawn up and
marched into school. If it was not done quietly, they had to go out
again.

Then another lesson began. The children read out of a patriotic
reading-book the principal object of which seemed to be to instil
respect for the upper classes and to represent Sweden as the best
country in Europe, although as regards climate and social economy,
it is one of the worst, its culture is borrowed from abroad, and all
its kings were of foreign origin. They did not venture to give such
teaching to the children of the upper classes in the Clara School and
the Lyceum, but in the Jakob School they had sufficient courage to
make poor children sing a patriotic song about the Duke of Ostgothland.
In this occurred a verse addressed to the crew of the fleet, saying
victory was sure in the battle they wished for "because Prince Oscar
leads us on," or something of the sort.

Meanwhile the reading-lesson began. But just at that moment the
head-master came in. John wished to stop but the head-master beckoned
to him to go on. The children who had lost their respect for him after
the catechism-lesson were inattentive. John scolded them, but without
result. Then the head-master came forward with a cane; took the book
from John and made a little speech, to the effect that this division
was the worst, but now their teacher should see how to deal with them.
The exercise which followed seemed to have as its object the attainment
of perfect attention. The absolute again seemed to be the standard by
which these children were to be trained in this incomplete world of
relativity.

The boy who was reading was interrupted, and another name called at
random out of the class. To follow attentively was assumed to be the
easiest thing in the world by this old man who certainly must have
experienced how thoughts wander their own way while the eyes pass
over the printed page. The inattentive one was dragged by his hair or
clothes and caned till he fell howling on the ground.

Then the head-master departed after recommending John to use the cane
diligently. There remained nothing but to follow this method or to go;
the latter did not suit John's plans, therefore he remained. He made a
speech to the children and referred to the head-master. "Now," he said,
"you know how you must behave if you want to escape a thrashing. He who
gets one, has himself to thank. Don't blame me. Here is the stick, and
there is your lesson. Learn your lesson or you will get the stick,--and
it isn't my fault."

That was cunningly put, but it was unmerciful, for one ought to have
first ascertained how far the children could do their work. They could
not, for they were the most lively and therefore the most inattentive.
So the cane was kept going all day, accompanied by cries of pain, and
fear on the faces of the innocent. It was terrible! To pay attention
is not in the power of the will, and therefore all this punishment was
mere torture. John felt the absurdity of the part he had to play, but
he had to do his duty. Sometimes he was tired and let things go as they
liked, but then his colleagues, male and female, came and made friendly
representations. Sometimes he found the whole thing so ridiculous
that he could not help smiling with the children while he caned them.
Both sides saw that they were working at something impossible and
unnecessary.

Ibsen, who does not believe in the aristocracy of birth or of wealth,
has lately (1886) expressed his belief that the industrial class
are the true nobility. But why should they necessarily be so? If to
do no manual labour tends to degeneration, perhaps degeneration is
brought about even more quickly by excessive labour and want. All
these children born of manual labourers looked more sickly, weak and
stupid than the upper-class children which he had seen. One or the
other muscle might be more strongly developed,--a shoulder-blade, a
hand, or a foot,--but they looked anæmic under their pale skins.
Many had extraordinarily large heads which seemed to be swollen with
water, their ears and noses ran, their hands were frost-bitten. The
various professional diseases of town-labourers seemed to have been
inherited; one saw in miniature the gas-worker's lungs and blood spoilt
by sulphur-fumes, the smith's shoulders and feet bent out-wards, the
painter's brain atrophied by varnishes and poisonous colours, the
scrofulous eruption of the chimney sweeper, the contracted chest of
the book-binder; here one heard the cough of the workers in metal
and asphalt, smelt the poisons of the paper-stainer, observed the
watch-maker's short-sightedness, in second editions, so to speak. In
truth this was no race to which the future belonged, or on which the
future could build; nor was it a race which could permanently increase,
for the ranks of the workers are continually recruited from the country.

It was not till about two o'clock that the great school-room was
emptied, for it took them about an hour with blows and raps to get out
of it into the street. The most unpractical part of it was that the
children had to march into the hall in troops to get their overcoats
and cloaks, and then march into the school-room again, instead of
going straight home. When John got into the street, he asked himself
"Is that the celebrated education which they have given to the lower
classes with so much sacrifice?" He could ask, and he was answered,
"Can it be done in any other way?" "No," he was obliged to answer. "If
it is your intention to educate a slavish lower class, always ready to
obey, train them with the stick,--if you mean to bring up a proletariat
to demand nothing of life, tell them lies about heaven. Tell them that
your method of teaching is ridiculous, let them begin to criticise
or get their way in one point and you have taken a step towards the
dissolution of society. But society is built up upon an obedient
conscientious lower class; therefore keep them down from the first;
deprive them of will and reason, and teach them to hope for nothing but
to be content." There was method in this madness.

As regards the instruction in the elementary school, there was both
a good and bad side to it; the good was that they had introduced
object-teaching after the example of Pestalozzi, Rousseau's disciple;
the bad, that the students who taught in the elementary schools had
introduced "scientific" teaching. The simple learning by heart of the
multiplication table was not enough; it, together with fractions,
had to be understood. Understood? And yet an engineer who has been
through the technical high school cannot explain "why" a fraction
can be diminished by three if the sum of the figures is divisible by
three. On this principle seamen would not be allowed to use logarithm
tables, because they cannot calculate logarithms. To be always
relaying the foundation instead of building on what is already laid is
an educational luxury and leads to the over-multiplication of lessons
in schools.

Some one may object that John should first have reformed himself
as teacher, before he set about reforming the system of education;
but he could not; he was a passive instrument in the hands of the
superintendent and the school authorities. The best teachers, that is
to say, those who forced the worst (in this case the best) results out
of the pupils were the uneducated ones who came from the Seminary. They
were not sceptical about the methods in use and had no squeamishness
about caning, but the children respected them the most. A great coarse
fellow who had formerly been a carriage-maker had the bigger boys
completely under his thumb. The lower class seem to have really more
fear and respect for those of their own rank than the upper class.
Bailiffs and foremen are more awe-imposing than superintendents and
teachers. Do the lower classes see that the superior who has come out
of their ranks understands their affairs better, and therefore pay him
more respect? The female teachers also enjoyed more respect than the
male. They were pedantic, demanded absolute perfection, and were not at
all soft-hearted, but rather cruel. They were fond of practising the
refined cruelty of blows on the palm of the hand and showed in so doing
a want of intelligence which the most superficial study of physiology
would have remedied. When a child by involuntary reflex action, drew
his fingers back, he was punished all the more for not keeping his
fingers still. As if one could prevent blinking, when something blew
into one's eye! The female teachers had the advantage of knowing very
little about teaching and were plagued with no doubts. It was not true
that they had less pay than the men teachers. They had relatively more;
and if after passing a paltry teacher's examination they had received
more than the students, that would have been unjust. They were treated
with partiality, regarded as miracles, when they were competent, and
received allowances for travelling abroad.

As comrades, they were friendly and helpful if one was polite and
submissive and let them hold the reins. There was not the slightest
trace of flirtation; the men saw them in anything but becoming
situations, and under an aspect which women do not usually show to
the other sex, viz. that of jailers. They made notes of everything,
prepared themselves for their lessons, were narrow-minded and content,
and saw through nothing. It was a very suitable occupation for them
under existing circumstances.

When John was thoroughly sick of caning, or could not manage a boy, or
was in despair generally, he sent the black sheep to a female teacher,
who willingly undertook the unpleasant rôle of executioner.

What it is that makes the competent teacher is not clear. Some produced
an effect by their quiet manner, others by their nervousness; some
seemed to magnetise the children, others beat them; some imposed on
them by their age or their manly appearance, etc. The women worked as
women, _i.e._ through a half-forgotten tradition of a past matriarchate.

John was not competent. He looked too young and was only just nineteen;
he was sceptical about the methods employed and everything else; with
all his seriousness he was playful and boyish. The whole matter to him
was only an employment by the way, for he was ambitious and wished to
advance, but did not know in which direction.

Moreover he was an aristocrat like his contemporaries. Through
education his habits and senses had been refined, or spoilt, as one may
choose to call it; he found it hard to tolerate unpleasant smells, ugly
objects, distorted bodies, coarse expressions, torn clothes. Life had
given him much, and these daily reminders of poverty plagued him like
an evil conscience. He himself might have been one of the lower class
if his mother had married one of her own position.

"He was proud" a shop-boy would have said, who had mounted to the
position of editor of a paper and boasted that he was content with his
lot, forgetting that he might well be content since he had risen from
a low position. "He was proud" a master shoemaker would have said, who
would have rather thrown himself into the sea than become an apprentice
again. John _was_ proud, of that there was no doubt, as proud as the
master shoemaker, but not in such a high degree, as he had descended
from the level of the student to the elementary school-teacher. That,
however, was no virtue, but a necessity, and he did not therefore boast
of his step downward, nor give himself the air of being a friend of
the people. One cannot command sympathies and antipathies, and for the
lower class to demand love and self-sacrifice from the upper class is
mere idealism. The lower class is sacrificed for the upper class, but
they have offered themselves willingly. They have the right to take
back their rights, but they should do it themselves. No one gives up
his position willingly, therefore the lower class should not wait for
kings and the upper class to go. "Pull us down! but all together."

If an intelligent man of the upper class help in such an operation,
those below should be thankful to him especially since such an act is
liable to the imputation of being inspired by impure motives. Therefore
the lower class should not too narrowly inspect the motives of those
who help them; the result is in all eases the same. The aristocrats
seem to have seen this and therefore regard one of themselves who sides
with the proletariat as a traitor. He is a traitor to his class, that
is true; and the lower class should put it to his credit.

John was not an aristocrat in the sense that he used the word "mob" or
despised the poor. Through his mother he was closely allied to them,
but circumstances had estranged him from them. That was the fault of
class-education. This fault might be done away with for the future, if
elementary schools were reformed by the inclusion of the knowledge of
civil duties in their programme, and by their being made obligatory for
all, without exception, as the militia-schools are. Then it would be no
longer a disgrace to become an elementary school-teacher as it now is,
and made a matter of reproach to a man that he has been one.

John, in order to keep himself above, applied himself to his future
work. To this end he studied Italian grammar in his spare time at the
school. He could now buy books and did so. He was honest enough not to
construe these efforts at climbing up as an ideal thirst for knowledge
or a striving for the good of humanity. He simply read for his degree.

But the meagre diet he had lived on in Upsala, his midday meals at 6
kronas, the milk and the bread had undermined his strength, and he
was now in the pleasure-seeking period of youth. It was tedious at
home, and in the afternoons he went to the café or the restaurant,
where he met friends. Strong drinks invigorated him and he slept well
after them. The desire for alcohol seems to appear regularly in each
adolescent. All northerners are born of generations of drinkers from
the early heathen times, when beer and mead was drunk, and it is quite
natural that this desire should be felt as a necessity. With John it
was an imperious need the suppression of which resulted in a diminution
of strength. It may be questioned whether abstinence for us may not
involve the same risk, as the giving up of poison for an arsenic-eater.
Probably the otherwise praiseworthy temperance movement will merely
end in demanding moderation; that is a virtue and not a mere exhibition
of will power which results in boasting and self-righteousness.

John who had hitherto only worn east-off suits, began to wear fine
clothes. His salary seemed to him extraordinarily great and in the
magnifying-glass of his fancy assumed huge proportions, with the result
that he soon ran into debt. Debt which grew and grew and could never be
paid, became the vulture gnawing at his life, the object of his dreams,
the wormwood which poisoned his content. What foolish hopefulness, what
colossal self-deceit it was to incur debts! What did he expect? To gain
an academic dignity. And then? To become a teacher with a salary of 750
kronas! Less than he had now! Not the least trying part of his work was
to accommodate his brain to the capacity of the children. That meant
to come down to the level of the younger and less intelligent, and to
screw down the hammer so that it might hit the anvil,--an operation
which injured the machine.

On the other hand he derived real profit from his observations in
the families of the children, whom his duty required him to visit on
Sundays. There was one boy in his class who was the most difficult of
all. He was dirty and ill-dressed, grinned continually, smelt badly,
never knew his lessons and was always being caned. He had a very large
head and staring eyes which rolled and turned about continually. John
had to visit his parents in order to find out the reason of his
irregular attendance at school and bad behaviour. He therefore went
to the Apelbergsgata where they kept a public-house. He found that
the father had gone to work, but the mother was at the counter. The
public-house was dark and evil-smelling, filled with men who looked
threateningly at John as he entered probably taking him for a plain
clothes policeman. He gave his message to the mother and was asked
into a room behind the counter. One glance at it sufficed to explain
everything. The mother blamed her son and excused him alternately and
she had some reason for the latter. The boy was accustomed to "lick the
glasses,"--that was the explanation and that was enough. What could be
done in such a case? A change of dwelling, better food, a nurse to look
after him and so on. All these were questions of money!

Afterwards he came to the Clara poor-house, which was empty of its
usual occupants and provisionally opened to families because of the
want of houses. In a great hall lay and stood quite a dozen families,
who had divided the floor with strokes of chalk. There stood a
carpenter with his planing-bench, here sat a shoemaker with his board;
round about on both sides of the chalk-line women sat and children
crawled. What could John do there? Send in a report on a matter which
was perfectly well known, distribute wood-tickets and orders for meat
and clothing.

In Kungsholmsbergen he came across specimens of proud poverty. There he
was shown the door, "God be thanked, we have no need of charity. We
are all right."

"Indeed! Then you should not let your boy go in torn boots in winter."

"That is not your business, sir," and the door was slammed.

Sometimes he saw sad scenes,--a child sick, the room full of sulphur
fumes of coke, and all coughing from the grandmother down to the
youngest. What could he do except feel dispirited and make his escape?
At that period there was no other means of help except charity; writers
who described the state of things, contented themselves with lamenting
it; no one saw any hope. Therefore there was nothing to do except to be
sorry, help temporarily, and fly in order not to despair.

All this lay like a heavy cloud upon him, and he lost pleasure in
study. He felt there was something wrong here, but nothing could be
done said all the newspapers and books and people. It must be so but
every one is free to climb. You climb too!

Time went on and spring approached. John's closest acquaintance
was a teacher from the Slöjd School. He was a poet, well-versed
in literature, and also musical. They generally walked to the
Stallmastergarden restaurant, discussed literature, and ate their
supper there. While John was paying his attentions to the waitress,
his friend played the piano. Sometimes the latter amused himself by
writing comic verses to girls. John was seized with a craze for writing
verse but could not. The gift must be born with one, he thought, and
inspiration descend all of a sudden, as in the case of conversion.
He was evidently not one of the elect, and felt himself neglected by
nature and maimed.

One evening when John was sitting and chatting with the girl, she said
quite suddenly to him, "Friday is my birthday; you must write some
verses for me."

"Yes," answered John, "I will."

Later on when he met his friend, he told him of his hasty promise.

"I will write them for you," he said. The next day he brought a poem,
copied out in a fine hand-writing and composed in John's name. It was
piquant and amusing. John dispatched it on the morning of the birthday.

In the evening of the same day both the friends came to eat their
supper and to congratulate the girl. She did not appear for an hour for
she had to serve guests. The teachers' meal was brought and they began
to eat.

Then the girl appeared in the doorway and beckoned John. She looked
almost severe. John went to her and they ascended a flight of stairs.
"Have you written the verses?" she asked.

"No," said John.

"Ah, I thought so. The lady behind the buffet said she had read them
two years ago when the teacher sent them to Majke who was an ugly girl.
For shame, John!"

He took his cap and wanted to rush out, but the girl caught hold of him
and tried to keep him back for she saw that he looked deathly pale
and beside himself. But he wrenched himself free and hastened into
the Bellevue Park. He ran into the wood leaving the beaten tracks.
The branches of the bushes flew into his face, stones rolled over his
feet, and frightened birds rose up. He was quite wild with shame, and
instinctively sought the wood in order to hide himself. It is a curious
phenomenon that at the utmost pitch of despair a man runs into the
wood before he plunges into the water. The wood is the penultimate and
the water the ultimate resource. It is related of a famous author, who
had enjoyed a twenty years' popularity quietly and proudly, that he
was suddenly cast down from his position. He was as though struck by a
thunderbolt, went half-mad and sought the shelter of the woods where
he recovered himself. The wood is the original home of the savage and
the enemy of the plough and therefore of culture. When a civilised man
suddenly strips off the garb of civilisation, the artistically woven
fabric of his repute, he becomes in a moment a savage or a wild beast.
When a man becomes mad, he begins to throw off his clothes. What is
madness? A relapse? Yes, many think animals mad.

It was evening when John entered the wood. In the midst of some
bushes he laid down on a great block of stone. He was ashamed of
himself,--that was the chief impression on his mind. An emotional man
is more severe with himself than others think. He scourged himself
unmercifully. He had wished to shine in borrowed plumage, and so lied;
and in the second place he had insulted an innocent girl. The first
part of the accusation affected him in a very sensitive point,--his
want of poetic capacity. He wished to do more than he could. He was
discontent with the position which nature and society had assigned
him. Yes, but (and now his self-defence began after the evening air
had cooled his blood), in the school one had been always exhorted to
strive upwards; those who did so were praised, and discontent with
the position one might happen to be in, was justified. Yes but (here
the scourge descended!) he had tried to deceive. To deceive! That was
unpardonable. He was ashamed, stripped and unmasked without any means
of retreat. Deception, falsity, cheating! So it was!

As a quondam Christian, John was most afraid of having a fault, and
as a member of society he feared lest it should be visible. Everybody
knew that one had faults, but to acknowledge them was regarded as a
piece of cynicism, for society always wishes to appear better than it
is. Sometimes, however, society demanded that one should confess one's
fault if one wished for forgiveness, but that was a trick. Society
wished for confession in order to enjoy the punishment, and was very
deceitful. John had confessed his fault, been punished, and still his
conscience was uneasy.

The second point regarding the girl was also difficult. She had loved
him purely and he had insulted her. How coarse and vulgar! Why should
he think that a waitress could not love innocently? His own mother had
been in the same position as that girl. He had insulted her. Shame
upon him!

Now he heard shouts in the park, and his name being called. The girl's
voice and his friend's echoed among the trees, but he did not answer
them. For a moment the scourge fell out of his hands; he became sobered
and thought, "I will go back, we will have supper, call Riken and drink
a glass with her, and it will be all over." But no! He was too high up
and one cannot descend all at once.

The voices became silent. He lay back in a state of semi-stupefaction
and ground his double crime between the mill-stones of rumination. He
had lied and hurt her feelings.

It began to grow dark. There was a rustling in the bushes; he started
and a sweat broke out upon him. Then he went out and sat upon a seat
till the dew fell. He shivered and felt poorly. Then he got up and went
home.

Now his head was clear and he could think. What a stupid business it
all was! He did not really mean that she should take him for a poet,
and had been quite ready to explain the whole trick. It was all a joke.
His friend had made a fool of him, but it did not matter.

When he got home he found his friend sleeping in his bed. He wanted
to rise but John would not let him. He wished to scourge himself once
more. He lay on the floor, put a cigar-box under his head and drew a
volunteer's cloak over him. In the morning when he awoke, John asked in
trembling tones, "How did she take it?"

"Ah, she laughed; then we drank a glass, and it was over. She liked the
verses."

"She laughed! Was she not angry?"

"Not at all."

"Then she only humbugged me."

John wished to hear no more. This trifle had kept him on the rack for a
whole dreadful night. He felt ashamed of having asked whether she was
disquieted about him. But since she had laughed and drunk punch she
could not have been. Not even anxious about his life!

He dressed himself and went down to the school.

The habit of self-criticism derived from his religious training had
accustomed him to occupy himself with his ego, to fondle and cherish
it, as though it were a separate and beloved personality. So cherished
the ego expanded and kept continually looking within instead of
without upon the world. It was an interesting personal acquaintance, a
friend who must be flattered, but who must also hear the truth and be
corrected.

It was the mental malady of the time reduced to a system by Fichte,
who taught that everything took place in the ego and through the ego,
without which there was no reality. It was the formula for romanticism
and for subjective idealism.

"I stood on the shore under the king's castle," "I dwell in the cave
of the mountain," "I, small boy, watch the door," "I think of the
beautiful times,"--all these phrases struck the same note. Was this "I"
really so proud. Was not the poet's "I" more modest than the editor's
royal "we"?

This absorption in self, or the new malady of culture, of which much
is written nowadays, has been common with all men who have not worked
with their bodies. The brain is only an organ for imparting movement
to the muscles. Now when in a civilised man the brain cannot act upon
the muscles, nor bring its power into play, there results a disturbance
of equilibrium. The brain begins to dream; too full of juices which
cannot be absorbed by muscular activity, it converts them involuntarily
into systems, into thought-combinations, into the hallucinations which
haunt painters, sculptors and poets. If no outlet can be found, there
follows stagnation, violent outbreaks, depression, and at last madness.
Schools which are often vestibules for asylums, have recourse to
gymnastics, but with what result? There is no connection between the
pupil's cerebral activity and the muscular activity called into play by
gymnastics; the latter is only directed by another's will through the
word of command.

All studious youths are aware of this tendency to congestion of the
brain. It is a good thing that they often go out to improve or to
beautify society, but it would be better if the equilibrium were
restored, and a sound mind dwelt in a sound body. It has been sought to
introduce physical work into schools as a remedy. It would be better
to let elementary knowledge be acquired at home, to make the school
a day-school, and to let every one look after himself. For the rest
the emancipation of the lower classes will compel the higher classes
to undertake some of the physical labour now carried on by domestics
and so the equilibrium will be restored. That such labour does not
blunt the intelligence can be easily seen by observing that some of
the strongest minds of the time have had such daily contact with
reality, _e.g._ Mill the civil service official, Spencer, the civil
engineer, Edison the telegraphist. The student period of life, the most
unwholesome because not under discipline, is also the most dangerous.
The brain continually takes in, without producing anything, not even
anything intellectual, while the whole muscular system is unoccupied.

John at this time was suffering from an over-production of thought and
imagination. The mechanical school-work continually revolving in the
same circle with the same questions and answers afforded no relief.
It increased on the other hand his stock of observations of children
and teachers. There lay and fermented in his mind a quantity of
experiences, perceptions, criticisms and thoughts without any order. He
therefore sought for society in order to speak his mind out. But it was
not sufficient, and as he did not find any one who was willing to act
as a sounding-board, he took to declaiming poetry.

In the early sixties declamation was much the fashion. In families they
used to read aloud "The Kings of Salamis." In the numerous volunteer
concerts the same pieces were declaimed over and over again. These
declamations were what the quartette singing had been, an outlet for
all the hope and enthusiasm called forth by the awakening of 1865.
Since Swedes are neither born nor trained orators, they became singers
and reciters, perhaps because their want of originality sought a
ready-made means of expression. They could execute but not create. The
same want of originality showed itself in the bachelor's gatherings
where reciters of anecdotes were much in request. This feeble and
tedious form of amusement was superseded when the new questions of the
day provided food for conversation and discussion.

One day John came to his friend the elementary school-teacher whom he
found together with another young colleague. When the conversation
began to slacken, his friend produced a volume of Schiller, whose poems
had just then appeared in a cheap edition and were bought mostly for
that reason. They opened "The Robbers" and read round in turn, John
taking the part of Karl Moor. The first scene of the first act took
place between old Moor and Franz. Then came the second scene: John
read, "I am sick of this quill-driving age when I read of great men
in Plutarch." He did not know the play and had never seen bandits.
At first he read absent-mindedly, but his interest was soon aroused.
The play struck a new note. He found his obscure dreams expressed
in words; his rebellious criticisms printed. Here then was another,
a great and famous author who felt the same disgust at the whole
course of education in school and university as he did, who would
rather be Robinson Crusoe or a bandit than be enrolled in this army
which is called society. He read on; his voice shook, his cheeks
glowed, his breast heaved: "They bar out healthy nature with tasteless
conventionalities."... There it stood all in black and white. "And that
is Schiller!" he exclaimed, "the same Schiller who wrote the tedious
history of the Thirty Years' War, and the tame drama "Wallenstein"
which is read in schools!" Yes, it was the same man. Here (in "The
Robbers") he preached revolt, revolt against law, society, morals
and religion. That was in the revolt of 1781 eight years before the
great revolution. That was the anarchists' programme a hundred years
before its time, and Karl Moor was a nihilist. The drama came out with
a lion on the title-page and with the inscription "In Tyrannos." The
author then (1781) aged two-and-twenty had to fly. There was no doubt
therefore about the intention of the piece. There was also another
motto from Hippocrates which showed this intention as plainly; "What is
not cured by medicine must be cured by iron; what is not cured by iron
must be cured by fire."

That was clear enough! But in the preface the author apologised and
recanted. He disclaimed all sympathy with Franz Moor's sophisms and
said that he wished to exhibit the punishment of wickedness in Karl
Moor. Regarding religion he said, "Just now it is the fashion to make
religion a subject for one's wit to play upon as Voltaire and Frederick
the Great did, and a man is scarcely reckoned a genius unless he can
make the holiest truths the object of his godless satire...." I hope
I have exacted no ordinary revenge for religion and sound morality in
handing over these obstinate despisers of Scripture in the person of
this scoundrelly bandit, to public contumely. Was then Schiller true
when he wrote the drama, and false when he wrote the preface? True in
both cases, for man is a complex creature, and sometimes appears in his
natural sometimes in his artificial character. At his writing-table
in loneliness, when the silent letters were being written down on
paper, Schiller seems like other young authors to have worked under the
influence of a blind natural impulse without regard to mens' opinion,
without thinking of the public, or laws, or constitutions. The veil
was lifted for a moment and the falsity of society seen through in its
whole extent. The silence of the night when literary work--especially
in youth,--is carried on, causes one to forget the noisy artificial
life outside, and darkness hides the heaps of stones over which animals
which are ill-adapted to their environment stumble. Then comes the
morning, the light of day, the street noises, men, friends, police,
clocks striking, and the seer is afraid of his own thoughts. Public
opinion raises its cry, newspapers sound the alarm, friends drop off,
it becomes lonely round one, and an irresistible terror seizes the
attacker of society. "If you will not be with us," society says, "then
go into the woods. If you are an animal ill-adapted to its environment,
or a savage, we will deport you to a lower state of society which
you will suit." And from its own point of view society is right and
always will be right. But the society of the future will celebrate the
revolter, the individual, who has brought about social improvement, and
the revolter is justified long after his death.

In every intelligent youth's life there comes a moment when he is in
the transition stage between family life and that of society, when
he feels disgusted at artificial civilisation and breaks out. If he
remains in society, he is soon suppressed by the united wet-blankets
of sentiment and anxiety about living; he becomes tired, dazzled,
drops off and leaves other young men to continue the fight. This
unsophisticated glance into things, this outbreak of a healthy nature
which must of necessity take place in an unspoilt youth, has been
stigmatised by a name which is intended to depreciate the idealistic
impulses of youth. It is called "spring fever" by which is meant that
it is only a temporary illness of childhood, a rising of the vernal
sap, which produces stoppage of the circulation and giddiness. But who
knows whether the youth did not see right before society put out his
eyes? And why do they despise him afterwards?

Schiller had to creep into a public post for the sake of a living and
even eat the bread of charity from a duke's hand. Therefore his writing
degenerated, though perhaps not from an æsthetic or subordinate point
of view. But his hatred of tyrants is everywhere manifest. It declares
itself against Philip II of Spain, Dorea of Genoa, Gessler of Austria,
but therefore ceases to be effective. Schiller's rebellion which was in
the first instance directed against society, was afterwards directed
against the monarchy alone. He closes his career with the following
advice to a world reformer (not, however, till he had seen the reaction
which followed the French Revolution). "For rain and dew and for the
welfare of mankind, let heaven care to-day, my friend, as it has always
done." Heaven, the unfortunate old heaven will care for it, just as
well as it has done before.

Just as a man once does his militia duty at the age of twenty-one, so
Schiller did his. How many have shirked it!

John did not take the preface to "The Robbers" very seriously or rather
ignored it; but he took Karl Moor literally for he was congenial. He
did not imitate him, for he was so like him that he had no need to do
so. He was just as mutinous, just as wavering, and just as ready at an
alarm to go and deliver himself into the hands of justice.

His disgust at everything continually increased and he began to make
plans for flight from organised society. Once it occurred to him to
journey to Algiers and enlist in the Foreign Legion. That would be
fine he thought to live in the desert in a tent, to shoot at half-wild
men or perhaps be shot by them. But circumstances occurred at the
right moment, to reconcile him again with his environment. Through the
recommendation of a friend he was offered the post of tutor to two
girls in a rich and cultured family. The children were to be educated
in a new and liberal-minded method and neither to go to a girls' school
nor have a governess. That was an important task to which he was
called and John did not feel himself adequate to it; besides which he
objected that he was only an elementary school-teacher. He was answered
that his future employers knew that, but were liberal-minded. How
liberal-minded people were at that time!

Now there commenced a new double life for him. From the penal
institution of the elementary school with its compulsory catechism and
Bible, its poverty, wretchedness, and cruelty, he went to dinner at
one o'clock, which he swallowed in a quarter of an hour, and then by
two o'clock was at his post as private tutor. The house was one of the
finest at that time in Stockholm with a porter, Pompeian stair-cases
and painted windows in the hall. In a handsome, large, well-lighted
corner room with flowers, bird-cages and an aquarium he was to give
lessons to two well-dressed, washed and combed little girls, who
looked cheerful and satisfied after their dinner. Here he could give
expression to his own thoughts. The catechism was banished, and only
select Bible stories were to be read together with broad-minded
explanations of the life and teachings of the Ideal Man, for the
children were not to be confirmed, but brought up after a new model.
They read Schiller and were enthusiastic for William Tell and the
fortunate little land of freedom. John taught them all that he knew and
spent more time in talking than in asking questions; he roused in them
the hopes of a better future which he shared himself.

Here he obtained an insight into a social circle hitherto unknown to
him, that of the rich and cultured. Here he found liberal-mindedness,
courage and the desire for truth. Down below in the elementary school
they were cowardly, conservative and untruthful. Would the parents of
the children be willing to have religious teaching done away with,
even if the school authorities recommended it? Probably not. Must
then illumination come from the upper classes? Certainly, though not
from the highest class of all, but from the republic of truth-seeking
scientists. John saw that one must get an upper place in order to be
heard; therefore he must strive upwards or pull culture down and cast
the sparks of it among all. One needed to be economically independent
in order to be liberally minded; a position was necessary in order to
give one's words weight; thus aristocracy ruled in this sphere also.

There was at that time a group of young doctors, men of science and
letters, and members of parliament who formed a liberal league without
constituting themselves a formal society. They gave popular lectures,
engaged not to receive any honorary decorations, cherished liberal
views on the subject of the State Church and wrote in the papers. Among
them were Axel Key, Nordenskiöld, Christian Loven, Harald Wieselgren,
Hedlund, Victor Rydberg, Meijerberg, Jolin, and many less-known names.
These, with one or two exceptions, worked quietly without creating
excitement. After the reaction of 1872 they fell off and became tired;
they could not join any political party which was rather an advantage
than otherwise for the country party had already begun to be corrupted
by yearly visiting Stockholm and attendance at the court. They now all
belong to the moderate or respectable liberal party, except those of
them who have joined the indifferents, a fact not to be wondered at,
after they had for so many years fought uselessly for nothing.

Through the family of his pupils John came into external touch with
this group, obtained a closer view of them, and heard their speeches at
dinners and suppers. To John they sometimes seemed the very men whom
the time needed, who would first spread enlightenment and then work
for reform. Here he met the superintendent of the elementary school
and was surprised at finding him among the liberals. But he had the
school authorities over him and was as good as powerless. At a cheerful
dinner, when John had plucked up heart, he wished to have an intimate
talk with him and to come to an understanding. "Here," he thought,
"we can play the part of augurs and laugh with each other over our
champagne." But the superintendent did not want to laugh and asked him
to postpone the conversation till they met in the school. No, John did
not want to do that, for in the school both would have other views, and
speak of something else.

John's debts increased and so did his work. He was in the school from
eight till one; then he ate his dinner and went to give his private
lessons within half-an-hour, arriving out of breath, with food half
digested, and sleepy; then he taught till four o'clock going out
afterwards to give more lessons in the Nordtullsgata; he returned to
his girl pupils in the evening, and then read far into the night for
his examination after ten hours' teaching. That was over-work. The
pupil thinks his work hard, but he is only the carriage while the
teacher is the horse. Teaching is decidedly harder than standing by a
screw or the crane of a machine, and equally monotonous.

His brain, dulled by work and disturbed digestion, needed to be roused,
and his strength needed replenishing. He chose the shortest and best
method by going into a café, drinking a glass of wine, and sitting for
a while. It was good that there were such places of recreation, where
young men could meet and fathers of families recruit themselves over a
newspaper and talk of something else than business.

The following summer he went out to a summer settlement outside the
city. There he read daily for a couple of hours with his girl pupils
and a whole number of children besides them. The summer settlement
afforded rich and varied opportunities of social intercourse. It was
divided into three camps,--the learned, the æsthetic and the civic.
John belonged to all three. It has been asserted that loneliness
injures the development of character (into an automaton), and if
has been also asserted that much social intercourse is bad for the
development of character. Everything can be said and can be true; it
all depends upon the point of view. But no doubt for the development
of the soul into a rich and free life much social intercourse is
necessary. The more men one sees and talks with, the more points
of view and experiences one gains. Every one conceals a grain of
originality in himself, every individual has his own history. John got
on equally well with all; he spoke on learned matters with the learned,
discussed art and literature with the æsthetes, sang quartettes and
danced with the young people, taught the children and botanised,
sailed, rode and swam with them. But after he had spent some time in
the rush, he withdrew into solitude for a day or two to digest his
impressions. Those who were really happy were the townsmen. They came
from their work in the town, shook off their cares and played in the
evening. Old wholesale merchants played in the ring and sang and danced
like children. The learned and the æsthetic on the other hand sat
on chairs, spoke of their work, were worried by their thoughts as by
nightmares and never seemed to be really happy. They could not free
themselves from the tyranny of thought. The tradesmen, however, had
preserved a little green spot in their hearts which neither the thirst
for gain nor speculation nor competition had been able to parch up.
There was something emotional and hearty about them which John was
inclined to call "nature." They could laugh like lunatics, scream like
savages, and be swayed by the emotions of the moment. They wept over
a friend's misfortune or death, embraced each other when delighted
and could be carried out of themselves by a beautiful sunset. The
professors sat in chairs and could not see the landscape because of
their eye-glasses, their looks were directed inwards, and they never
showed their feelings. They talked in syllogisms and formulas; their
laughter was bitter, and all their learning seemed like a puppet play.
Is that then the highest point of view? It is not a defect to have let
a whole region of the soul's life lie fallow?

It was the third camp with which John was on the most intimate
terms. This was a little clique consisting of a doctor's family and
their friends. There sang the renowned tenor W. while Professor M.
accompanied him; there played and sang the composer J.; there the
old Professor P. talked about his journeys to Rome in the company
of painters of high birth. Here the emotions had full play, but
were under the control of good taste. They enjoyed the sunsets, but
analysed the lights and shades and talked of lines and "values." The
more noisy enjoyments of the tradesmen were regarded as disturbing
and unæsthetic. They were enthusiasts for art. John spent some hours
pleasantly with these amiable people, but when he heard the sound of
quartette singing and dance-music from the villa close by, he longed to
be there. That was certainly more lively.

In hours of solitude he read, and now for the first time, became really
acquainted with Byron. "Don Juan," which he already knew, he had found
merely frivolous. It really dealt with nothing and the descriptions
of scenery were intolerably long. The work seemed merely a string of
adventures and anecdotes. In "Manfred" he renewed acquaintance with
Karl Moor in another dress. Manfred was no hater of men; he hated
himself more, and went to the Alps in order to fly himself, but always
found his guilty self beside him, for John guessed at once that he had
been guilty of incest. Nowadays it is generally believed that Byron
hinted at this crime, which was purely imaginary, in order to make
himself appear interesting. To become interesting as a romanticist at
whatever price would at the present time be called "differentiating
oneself, going beyond and above the others." Crime was regarded as
a sign of strength, therefore it was considered desirable to have a
crime to boast about, but not such a one as could be punished. They did
not want to have anything to do with the police and penal servitude.
There was certainly a spirit of opposition to law and morality in this
boasting of crime.

Manfred's discontent with heaven and the government of Providence
pleased John. Manfred's denunciations of men were really levelled at
society, though society as we now understand it, had not then been
discovered. Rousseau, Byron and the rest were by no means discontented
misogynists. It was only primitive Christianity which demanded that men
should love men. To say that one was interested in them would be more
modest and truthful. One who has been overreached and thrust aside in
the battle of life may well fear men, but one cannot hate them when
one realises one's solidarity with humanity and that human intercourse
is the greatest pleasure in life. Byron was a spirit who awoke before
the others and might have been expected to hate his contemporaries, but
none the less strove and suffered for the good of all.

When John saw that the poem was written in blank verse he tried to
translate it, but had not got far, before he discovered that he could
not write verse. He was not "called." Sometimes melancholy, sometimes
frisky, John felt at times an uncontrollable desire to quench the
burning fire of thought in intoxication and bring the working of his
brain to a standstill. Though he was shy, he felt occasionally impelled
to step forward, to make himself impressive, to collect hearers and
appear on a stage. When he had drunk a good deal, he wanted to declaim
poetry in the grand style. But in the middle of the piece, when his
ecstasy was at its highest, he heard his own voice, became nervous and
embarrassed, found himself ridiculous, suddenly dropped into a prosaic
and comic tone and ended with a grimace; he could be pathetic, but
only for a while; then came self-criticism and he laughed at his own
overwrought feelings. The romantic was in his blood, but the realistic
side of him was about to wake up.

He was also liable to attacks of caprice and self-punishment. Thus he
remained away from a dinner to which he had been invited and lay in his
room hungry till the evening. He excused himself by saying that he had
overslept.

The summer approached its end and he looked forward to the beginning of
the autumn term in the elementary school with dread. He had now been
in circles where poverty never showed its emaciated face; he had tasted
the enticing wine of culture and did not wish to become sober again.

His depression increased; he retired into himself and withdrew from the
circle of his friends. But one evening, there was a knock at his door;
the old doctor who had been his most intimate friend and lived in the
same villa, stepped in.

"How are the moods?" he asked, and sat down with the air of an old
fatherly friend.

John did not wish to confess. How was he to say that he was
discontented with his position, and acknowledge that he was ambitious
and wished to advance in life? But the doctor had seen and understood
all. "You must be a doctor," he said. "That is a practical vocation
which will suit you, and bring you into touch with real life. You have
a lively imagination which you must hold in check, or it will do harm.
Now are you inclined to this? Have I guessed right?"

He had. Through his intercourse from afar with these new prophets who
succeeded the priests and confessors, John had come to see in their
practical knowledge of men's lives, the highest pitch of human wisdom.
To become a wise man who could solve the riddles of life,--that was for
a while his dream. For a while, for he did not really wish to enter any
career in which he could be enrolled as a regular member of society.
It was not from dislike of work, for he worked strenuously and was
unhappy when unoccupied, but he had a strong objection to be enrolled.
He did not wish to be a cypher, a cog-wheel, or a screw in the social
machine. He wished to stand outside and contemplate, learn and preach.
A doctor was in a certain sense free; he was not an official, had no
superiors, set in no public office, was not tied by the clock. That was
a fairly enticing prospect, and John was enticed. But how was he to
take a medical degree, which required eight years' study? His friend,
however, had seen a way out of this difficulty. "Live with us and teach
my boys," he said.

This was certainly a business-like offer which carried with it no sense
of accepting a humiliating favour. But what about his place in the
school? Should he give it up?

"That is not your place!" the doctor cut him short. "Every one should
work where his talents can have free scope, and yours cannot in the
elementary school, where you have to teach, as prescribed by the school
authorities."

John found this reasonable, but he had been so imbued with ascetic
teaching that he felt a pang of conscience. He wanted to leave the
school, but a strange feeling of duty and obligation held him back. He
felt quite ashamed of being suspected of such a natural weakness as
ambition. And his place, as the son of a servant, had been assigned to
him below. But his father had literally pulled him up, why should he
sink and strike his roots down there again?

He fought a short bloody conflict, then accepted the offer thankfully,
and sent in his resignation as a school-teacher.



CHAPTER III

THE DOCTOR

(1868)


John now found his new home with the homeless, the Israelites. He
was immediately surrounded by a new atmosphere. Here there was no
recollection of Christianity; one neither plagued oneself or others;
there was no grace at meals, no going to church, no catechism.

"It is good to be here," thought John. "These are liberal-minded men
who have brought the best of foreign culture home, without being
obliged to take what is bad." Here for the first time, he encountered
foreign influences. The family had journeyed much, had relatives
abroad, spoke all languages, and received foreign guests. Both the
small and great affairs of the country were spoken about, and light
thrown on them by comparison with their originals abroad. By this means
John's mental horizon was widened and he was enabled to estimate his
native country better.

The patriarchal constitution of the family had not assumed the form of
domestic tyranny. On the contrary the children treated their parents
more as their equals, and the parents were gentle with them without
losing their dignity. Placed in an unfriendly part of the world,
surrounded by half-enemies, the members of the family helped each other
and held together. To be without a native country, which is regarded
as such a hard-ship, has this advantage that it keeps the intelligence
alive and vigorous. Men who are wanderers have to watch unceasingly,
observe continually, and gain new and rich experiences, while those who
sit at home become lazy and lean upon others.

The children of Israel occupy a peculiar and exceptional position from
a social point of view. They have forgotten the Messianic promise and
do not believe in it. In most European countries they have remained
among the middle classes; to join the lower classes was for the most
part denied them, though not so widely as is generally believed. Nor
could they join the upper classes; therefore they feel related to
neither of the latter. They are aristocrats from habit and inclination,
but have the same interests as the lower classes, _i.e_. they wish to
roll away the stone which lies upon and presses them. But they fear the
proletariat who have no religious sense and who do not love the rich.
Therefore the children of Abraham rather aspire to those above them,
than seek sympathy from those below.

About this time (1868) the question of Jewish emancipation began to be
raised. All liberals supported it and it was practically a discarding
of Christianity. Baptism, ecclesiastical marriage, confirmation,
church attendance were all declared to be unnecessary conditions for
membership in a Christian community. Such apparently small reforms
make an impression on the state, like the dropping of water on a rock.

At that time a cheerful tone prevailed in the family, the sons having a
brighter future in prospect than their fathers, whose academic course
had been hindered by State regulations.

A liberal table was kept in the house; everything was of the best
quality, and there was plenty of it. The servants managed the house
and were allowed a free hand in everything; they were not regarded as
servants. The housemaid was a pietist and allowed to be so, as much
as she pleased. She was good-natured and humorous, and, illogically
enough, adopted the jesting tone of the cheerful paganism which reigned
in the house. On the other hand, no one laughed at her belief. John
himself was treated as an intimate friend and a child alternately and
lived with the boys. His work was easy and he was rather required to
keep the boys company than to give them lessons. Meanwhile he became
somewhat "spoiled" as people, who have the usual idea of keeping youth
in the background, call it. Though only nineteen, he was received
on an equal footing among well-known and mature artists, doctors,
_littérateurs_ and officials. He became accustomed to regard himself as
grown up, and therefore the set-backs he encountered afterwards, were
the harder to bear.

His medical career began with chemical experiments in the technological
institute. There he obtained a closer view of some of the glories he
had dreamed of in his childhood. But how dry and tedious were the
rudiments of science! To stand and pour acids on salts and to watch the
solution change colour, was not pleasant; to produce salts from two or
more solutions was not very interesting. But later on, when the time
came for analysis, the mysterious part began. To fill a glass about
the size of a punch-bowl with a liquid as clear as water and then to
exhibit in the filter the possibly twenty elements it contained,--this
really seemed like penetrating into nature's secrets. When he was alone
in the laboratory he made small experiments on his own account, and it
was not long before with some danger he had prepared a little phial
of prussic acid. To have death enclosed in a few drops under a glass
stopper was a curiously pleasant feeling.

At the same time he studied zoology, anatomy, botany, physic and
Latin,--still more Latin! To read and master a subject was congenial to
him, but to learn by heart he hated. His head was already filled with
so many subjects, that it was hard for anything more to enter, but it
was obliged to.

A worse drawback was that so many other interests began to vie in his
mind with his medical studies. The theatre was only a stone's throw
from the doctor's house and he went there twice a week. He had a
standing place at the end of the third row. From thence he saw elegant
and cheerful French comedies played on a Brussels carpet. The light
Gallic humour, admired by the melancholy Swedes as their missing
complement, completely captivated him. What a mental equilibrium, what
a power of resistance to the blows of fate were possessed by this
race of a southern sunnier land! His thoughts became still more gloomy
as he grew conscious of his Germanic "Weltschmerz" lying like a veil
over everything, which a hundred years of French education could not
have lifted. But he did not know that Parisian theatrical life differs
widely from that of the industrious and thrifty Parisian at the desk
and the counter. French comedies were written for the parvenus of
the Second Empire; politics and religion were subject to the censor,
but not morals. French comedy was aristocratic in tone, but had a
liberating effect on the mind as it was in touch with reality, though
it did not interfere in social questions. It accustomed the public to
sympathise with and feel at home in this superfine world; one came to
forget the lower everyday world, and when one left the theatre it felt
as though one had been at supper with a friendly duke.

As chance fell out, the doctor's wife possessed a good library in
which all the best literature of the world was represented. It was
indeed a treasure to have all these at one's elbow! Moreover the doctor
possessed a number of pictures by Swedish masters and a valuable
collection of engravings. There was an efflorescence of æstheticism
on all sides, even in the schools, where lectures on literature were
delivered. The conversation in the family circle mostly turned on
pictures, dramas, actors, books, authors, and the doctor felt from time
to time impelled to flavour it with details of his practice.

Now and then John began to read the papers. Political and social life
with their various questions opened up before him, but at first with a
repelling effect, as he was an æsthete and domestic egoist. Politics
did not seem to touch him at all; he considered it a special branch of
knowledge like any other.

He continued his lessons to the girls and his intercourse with
their family. Outside the house he met grown up relatives, who were
tradesmen, and their acquaintances. His circle was therefore widened,
and he saw life from more than one point of view. But this constant
occupation with children had a hampering effect on his development. He
never felt himself older, and he could not treat the young with an air
of superiority. He already noticed that they were in advance of him,
that they were born with new thoughts, and that they built on, where he
had ceased. When later on in life, he met grown-up pupils, he looked up
to them as though they were the older.

The autumn of 1865 had commenced. There had been so much miscalculation
as to the effects of the new State constitution that there was
widespread discontent. Society was turned topsy-turvy. The peasant
threatened the civilised town-dwellers and there was a general feeling
of bitterness.

Has the last word regarding the agrarian party yet been said? Probably
not. It began with a democratic and reforming programme and its attack
on the Civil List was the boldest stroke which had yet been seen. It
was a legal attempt to overthrow the monarchy. If the vote of supply
was screwed down to the lowest possible, the king would go. It was a
simple and at the same time a clever stroke.

At a period which proclaims the right of the majority, one would not
have expected the peasants' cause would encounter resistance. Sweden
was a kingdom of peasants, for the country population numbered four
millions, which in a population of four and a half millions, is
certainly the majority. Should then the half million rule the four or
vice versa? The latter course seemed the fairer. Now naturally the
townsmen talk of the egotism and tyranny of the peasants, but have the
labour party in the town a single item in their programme to improve
the condition of the peasants and cottagers? It is so stupid to talk
of egotism when every one now sees that he profits the whole, in
proportion as he profits himself.

Meanwhile, in 1868, the malcontents discovered a party which could be
opposed to the constitutional majority and whose programme contained
all kinds of thorough-going reforms. That was the new liberal party,
consisting for the most part of authors, some artisans, a professor,
etc. By means of this handful of people who had none of the weighty
interests which landed property involves, and whose social position
was so insecure that a single unfavourable harvest could turn them
into members of the proletariat, it was proposed to remodel society.
What did the artisans know about society? How did they wish it to be
constituted? Did they wish it to be remodelled in their interest,
although the peasantry should be ruined? But that meant cutting off
their own legs, for Sweden is not a land of exporting industries.
Therefore the four million consumers in the land, as soon as their
purchasing power was diminished, would involuntarily ruin the
industries and leave the artisans stranded. That the artisans should
advance is a necessity, but to wish to make all men industrial workers
as the industrial socialists do, is much more unreasonable than to make
them all peasants as the agrarian socialists purpose doing. Capital,
which the labour party now attack, is the foundation of industry and if
that is touched, industry is overthrown, and then the workmen must go
back whence they came and still daily come,--to the country.

Meanwhile, the agrarian party was not yet corrupted by intercourse with
aristocrats; it was neither conservative nor did it make compromises.
The war seemed to be between the country and the town. The atmosphere
was electric and the smallest cause might produce a thunderstorm.

In the capital there prevailed a general desire to erect a statue to
Charles XII. Why? Was this last knight of the Middle Ages the ideal
of the age? Bid the character of the idol of Gustav IV, Adolf, and
Charles XV suitably express the spirit of the new peaceful period
which now commenced? Or did the idea originate, as so often is the
case in the sculptor's studio? Who knows? The statue was ready and the
unveiling was to take place. Stands were erected for the spectators,
but so unskilfully that the ceremony could not be witnessed by the
general public, and the space railed off could only contain the
invited guests, the singers and those who paid for their seats. But
the subscription had been national and all believed they had a right
to see. The arrangements were obnoxious to the people. Petitions were
made to have the stands removed, but without success. The crowd began
to make attempts to tear them down, but the military intervened. The
doctor that day was giving a dinner to the Italian Opera Company. They
had just risen from dessert when a noise was heard from the street; it
was at first like rain falling on an iron roof, but then cries were
distinctly audible. John listened, but for the moment nothing more was
to be heard. The wine-glasses clinked amid Italian and French phrases
which flew hither and thither over the table; there was such a noise of
jests and laughter that those at the table could hardly hear themselves
speak. But now there came a roar from the street, followed immediately
by the tramp of horses, the rattle of weapons and harness. There was
silence in the room for a moment, and one and another turned pale.

"What is it?" asked the prima donna.

"The mob making a noise," answered a professor.

John stood up from the table, went into his room, took his hat and
stick and hurried out. "The mob!"--the words rang in his ear while
he went down the street. "The mob!" They were his mother's former
associates, his own school-mates and afterwards his pupils; they formed
the dark background against which the society he had just quitted,
stood out like a brilliant picture. He felt again as though he were a
deserter, and had done wrong in working his way up. But he must get
above if he was to do anything for those below. Yes many had said
that, but when once they did get above, they found it so pleasant,
that they forgot those below. These cavalrymen, for instance, whose
origin was of the humblest, what airs they gave themselves! With what
unmixed pleasure they cut down their former comrades, though it must
be confessed they would have even more enjoyed cutting down the "black
hats."

He went on and came to the market-place. The stands for the spectators
stood out against the November sky like gigantic market booths, and
the space below swarmed with men. From the opening of the Arsenal
street the tramp of horses was heard only a short way off. Then they
came riding forth, the blue guardsmen, the support of society, on whom
the upper class relied. John was seized with a wild desire to dash
against this mass of horses, men and sabres, as though he saw in them
oppression incarnate. That was the enemy! very well--at them! The troop
rode on and John stationed himself in the middle of the street. Whence
had he derived this hatred against the supporters of law and order, who
some day would protect him and his rights after he had clambered up,
and was in a position to oppress others? If the mob with whom he now
felt his solidarity had had their hands free, they would probably have
thrown the first stone through the window, behind which he had sat with
four wine-glasses in front of him. Certainly, but that did not prevent
his taking their side just as the upper class often, inconsistently
enough, takes sides against the police. This mania for freedom in the
abstract is probably the natural man's small revolt against society.

He was going against the cavalry with a vague idea of striking them
all to the ground or something of the sort, when fortunately some one
seized him by the arm firmly but in a friendly way. He was brought back
to the doctor's who had sent out to seek for him. After he had given
his word of honour not to go out again he sank on a sofa, and lay all
the evening in fever.

On the day of the unveiling of Charles XII's statue, he was one of the
student singers, therefore among the elect, the "upper ten thousand,"
and had no reason to be discontented with his lot. When the ceremony
was over, the people rushed forward. The police forced them back, and
then they began to throw stones. The mounted police drew their sabres
and struck, arresting some and assaulting others.

John had entered the market in front of the Jakob's church when he saw
a policeman lay hold of a man, under a shower of stones which knocked
off the constables' helmets. Without hesitation he sprang on the
policeman, seized him by the collar, shook him and shouted, "Let the
fellow go!"

The policeman looked at his assailant in astonishment.

"Who are you?" he asked irresolutely.

"I am Satan, and I will take you, if you don't let him go."

He actually did let him go and tried to seize John. At the same instant
a stone knocked off his three-cornered hat. John tore himself loose;
the crowd were now driven back by bayonets towards the guard-house in
the Gustaf Adolf market. After them followed a swarm of well-dressed
men, obviously members of the upper classes, shouting wildly, and as it
seemed, resolved to free the prisoners. John ran with them; it was as
though they were all impelled by a storm-wind. Men who had not been
molested or oppressed at all, who had high positions in society, rushed
blindly forward, risking their position, their domestic happiness,
their living, everything. John felt a hand grasp his. He returned the
pressure, and saw close beside him a middle-aged man, well-dressed,
with distorted features. They did not know each other, nor did they
speak together, but ran hand in hand, as if seized by one impulse.
They came across a third in whom John recognised an old school-fellow,
subsequently a civil service official, son of the head of a department.
This young man had never sided with the opposition party in school,
but on the contrary, was looked upon as a re-actionary with a future
in front of him. He was now as white as a corpse, his cheeks were
bloodless, the muscles of his forehead swollen, and his face resembled
a skull in which two eyes were burning. They could not speak, but
took each other's hands and ran on against the guards whom they were
attacking. The human waves advanced till they were met by the bayonets,
and then as always, dispersed in foam. Half-an-hour later John was
discussing a beefsteak with some students in the Opera restaurant. He
spoke of his adventure as though it were something which had happened
independently of him and his will. Nay, he even jested at it. That
may have been fear of public opinion, but also it may have been the
case that he regarded his outbreak objectively and now quietly judged
it as a member of society. The trap-door had opened for a moment, the
prisoner had put his head out, and then it had closed again.

His unknown fellow-criminal, as he discovered later, was a pronounced
conservative, a wholesale tradesman. He always avoided meeting John's
eye, when they met after this. One time they met on a narrow pavement,
and had to look at each other, but did not smile.

While they were sitting in the restaurant, came the news of the death
of Blanche. The students took it fairly coolly, the artists and middle
class citizens more warmly, but the lower classes talked of murder.
They knew that he had personally besought Charles XV to have the
spectators' stands taken down; they knew also, that though he was
very prosperous himself, he had always thought of them and they were
thankful. Stupid people objected, as is usual in such cases, that it
required no great skill on his part to speak on behalf of the poor,
when he was rich and celebrated. Did it not? It required the greatest.

It is remarkable that the chief outbreak of discontent was directed,
not as elsewhere against the King, but against the governor and the
police. Charles XV was a _persona grata_; he could do as he liked
without becoming unpopular. He was neither condescending nor democratic
in his tastes, but rather proud. Stories were told of some of his
favourites having fallen into disgrace for want of respect on some
mirthful occasion. He could put tobacco into his soldiers' mouths,
but he scolded officers who did not at once fall in with his moods.
He could box people's ears at a fire, and did not laugh when he was
caricatured in a comic paper, as was supposed. He was a ruler and
believed he was also a warrior and a statesman; he interfered in the
government and could snub specialists with a "You don't understand
that!" But he was popular and remained so. Swedes, who do not like to
see a man's will slackening, admired this will and bowed before it.
It was also strange, that they forgave his irregular life; perhaps it
was because he made no secret of it. He had laid down a standard of
morality for himself and lived according to it. Therefore he lived at
harmony with himself, and harmony is always pleasant to contemplate.

People might be revolters by instinct, but they did not believe in the
transition form to a better social constitution, _i.e_. a republic.
They had seen how two French republics had been followed by new
monarchies. There were secret anarchists, but no republicans, and they
had persuaded themselves that the monarchy offered no barrier to the
progress of liberty.

These were the ideas of the younger men. The elder men with Blanche
thought a republic the only means of social salvation and therefore in
our days the old liberal school has become conservative-republican.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the doctor saw that his wife's literary books threatened to
encroach upon John's medical studies, he resolved to give him a
glimpse into the secrets of his profession, and to allow him such a
foretaste of real work as should entice him to overcome the tedious
preliminary studies which he himself thought too extensive. John now
knew more chemistry and physics than the doctor, and the latter thought
it was merely malicious to hinder a rival's course by imposing too
hard preliminary studies. Why should he not, as in America, commence
dissection, which was a special branch of study? Now after the
theoretical study of anatomy, he could begin practice as an assistant.
That was a new life full of variety and reality. One went for instance
into a dark alley and came into a porter's room, where a woman lay,
sick of fever, surrounded by poor children, the grandmother and other
relations, who stole about on tip-toe, awaiting the doctor's verdict.
The malodorous ragged bed-cover would be lifted, a sunken heaving chest
exposed to view, and a prescription written. Then one went to the
Tvädgårdsgatan and was conducted over soft carpets through splendid
rooms into a bed-chamber which looked liked a temple; one lifted a
blue silk coverlet and put in splints the leg of an angelic-looking
child, dressed in lace. On the way out one looked at a collection of
paintings, and talked about artists. This was something novel and
interesting, but what connection had it with Titus Livius and the
history of philosophy?

But then came the details of surgery. One was roused at seven o'clock
in the morning, came into the doctor's dark room, and manually assisted
at the cauterising of a syphilitic sore. The room reeked of human
flesh, and was repugnant to an empty stomach. Or he had to hold a
patient's head and felt it twitch with pain while the doctor with a
fork extracted glands from his throat.

"One soon gets accustomed to that," said the doctor, and that was true,
but John's thoughts were busy with Goethe's Faust, Wieland's Epicurean
romances, George Sand's social phantasies, Chateaubriand's soliloquies
with nature, and Lessing's common-sense theories. His imagination
was set in motion and his memory refused to work; the reality of
cauterisations and flowing blood was ugly; æstheticism had laid hold
of him, and actual life seemed to him tedious and repulsive. His
intercourse with artists had opened his eyes to a new world, a free
society within Society. They would come to a well-spread table where
cultivated people were sitting with badly-fitting clothes, black nails,
and dirty linen, as if they were not merely equal, but superior to the
rest,--in what?

They could scarcely write their names, they borrowed money without
repaying it, and their talk was coarse. Everything was permitted to
them, which was not permitted to others. Why? They could paint. They
studied at the Academy, and the Academy did not ask whether all who
enrolled themselves as students were geniuses. How was it known that
they were geniuses? Was painting greater than knowledge and science?

They also had, as was well recognised, a peculiar morality of their
own. They opened studios, hired models, and boasted of their paramours,
while other men were ashamed of theirs and incurred disapproval on
account of them. They laughed at what were very serious matters for
other men, nay, it seemed to be part of an artist's equipment to be a
"scoundrel," as any one else would be called for similar conduct.

"That was a glad free world," thought John, and one in which he could
thrive, without conventional fetters or social obligations, and above
all, without contact with banal realities. But he was not a genius?
How should he get the entrée to it? Should he learn to paint and so be
initiated? No! that would not do; he had never thought of painting;
that demanded a special vocation, he thought, and painting would not
express all he had to say, when once he began to speak. If he _had_
to find a medium for self-expression it would be the theatre. An actor
could step forward, and say all kinds of truths, however bitter they
might be, without being brought to book for them. That was certainly a
tempting career.



CHAPTER IV

IN FRONT OF THE CURTAIN

(1869)


John's proposal to transfer the university from Upsala to Stockholm was
destined to have consequences, and his comrades had warned him of them.
When he went up early in spring in order to write the obligatory Latin
essay he had sent the professor by post the three test-essays and the
15 krona fee. So he could carry out his purpose unhindered and enrolled
himself.

But now in May he wished to go and pass the preliminary examination in
chemistry. In order to be well prepared, he had himself tested by the
assistant-professor at the technological institute. The latter did so
and declared that he already knew more than was needed for the medical
examination. Thus prepared, he went up to Upsala. His first visit was
to a comrade, who had already passed the preliminary examination in
chemistry, and knew the "tips" for it.

John began: "I can do synthesis and analysis, and have studied organic
chemistry."

"That is very well, for we only need synthesis; however, it is no use
for you have not studied in the professor's laboratory."

"That is true; but the course at the Institute is much better."

"No matter,--it is not his."

"We shall see," said John, "whether knowledge does not tell in any
ease."

"If you are so sure, then try, but consider first what I say. You must
first go to the assistant-professor and get a 'tip'."

"What do you mean?"

"For a krona he will give you an hour's polishing, and ask you all the
important questions which the professor has put during the past year.
Just now he is in the habit of asking whether matches can be made out
of his carcase and ammonia from your old boots. But that you will
learn from the assistant. Secondly, you must not go to be examined
in a frock coat and white tie; least of all, dressed as well as you
are now. Therefore you must borrow my riding-coat, which is green in
the shoulders and red in the seams, and my top-boots, for he does not
like elastic boots."

John followed his friend's instructions and went first to the
assistant-professor who gave him the questions which had been last
asked. In return John promised that under all circumstances he would
return and tell him the questions which he himself had been asked, as a
means of enlarging his catechism.

The next day John went to his friend to array himself. His trousers
were drawn up so that the tops of the boots should be seen and his
loose collar turned on one side, so that the skin should show between
the tie and the collar. Thus equipped, he went up for his first trial.

The professor of chemistry had formerly been a fortification officer,
and had received in his time a not very cordial welcome from the
learned staff in Upsala. He was a soldier, not academically cultivated,
and thus a kind of "Philistine." This had galled him and made him
bilious. In order to efface the effect of his laymen-like exterior, he
affected the airs of an over-read and blunt professor. He went about
ill-dressed and behaved eccentrically. Though many hundreds besides
himself had been pupils of Berzelius, he was fond of mentioning the
fact; it was his trump card. Berzelius, among other things, went about
in shabby trousers, therefore a hole in one's clothes was the sign of a
learned chemist, and so on. Hence all these peculiarities.

John presented himself, was regarded with suspicion and bidden to come
again in a week. He replied that he had come from Stockholm and was
too poor to support himself for a week in the town. He managed to get
permission to present himself the next day. "It would be soon over,"
said the old man.

The next day he sat on a seat opposite the professor. It was a sunny
afternoon in May, and the old man seemed to have digested his dinner
badly. He looked grim as he threw out his first question from his
rocking-chair. The answers were correct at the beginning. Then the
questions became more tortuous like snakes.

"If I have an estate, where I suspect the presence of saltpetre, how
shall I begin to construct a saltpetre factory?"

John suggested a saltpetre analysis.

"No."

"Well, then, I don't know anything else."

There was silence and the flies buzzed,--a long and terrible silence.
"Now will come the question about the boots or the matches," thought
John, "and there I shall shine." He coughed by way of rousing the
professor, but the silence continued. John wondered whether he had been
seen through and whether the old man recognised the "examination coat."

Then came a new question which was unanswered, and then another.

"You have come too soon," said the old man, and rose up.

"Yes, but I have worked a whole year in the laboratory, and can do
chemical analysis."

"Yes, you know how to make up prescriptions, but you have not digested
your knowledge. In the Institute only manual dexterity is necessary,
but here scientific knowledge is required."

As a matter of fact the case was exactly the reverse for the medical
students in Upsala complained that they had to stand like cooks and
make up mixtures and salts, without having time to look at an analysis,
which last was just what a doctor ought to do while synthesis was the
apothecary's work. But now the proposal made some years before whether
the university had not better be transferred to Stockholm had roused a
feeling in Upsala against the capital. Moreover the laboratory of the
newly-built technological institute was as famous for its excellent
equipment, as that of Upsala was notorious for its poor one. Here,
therefore, petty prejudices were at work and John felt the unfairness
of it. "I do not then get a certificate?" he asked.

"No, sir, not this year; but come again next year."

The professor was ashamed to say, "Go to my only soul-saving
laboratory."

John went out furious. Here then again neither diligence nor knowledge
prevailed, but only cash and cringing! Had he tried short cuts? No,
on the contrary, he had been obliged to travel by painful circuitous
paths, while others had gone the direct road, and the directest is the
shortest.

He went to the Carolina Park, as angry as an irritated bee. He did
not wish to return at once to the town, but sat down on a seat. If he
could only set this devil's hole on fire! Another year? No, never! Why
read so much unnecessary stuff, which would only be forgotten, and be
of no practical use? And slave in order to enter this dirty profession
where one had to analyse urine, pick about in vomit, poke about in all
the recesses of the body? Faugh! Just as he was sitting there, a group
of cheerful-looking people came by, and stood laughing outside the
Carolina library. They looked up to the window's, through which long
rows of books were visible, shelf after shelf. They laughed,--the men
and women laughed at the books. He thought he recognised them. Yes,
they were Levasseur's French actors, whom he had seen in Stockholm and
who were now visiting Upsala. They laughed at the books! Lucky people
who could be importers of genius and culture without books. Perhaps
every soul had something to give which was not in books, but would be
there some day. Yes, certainly it was so. He himself possessed stories
of experience and thoughts, which could enrich anthropology, and were
ready to be throw out.

Again there stole upon him the thought of entering this privileged
profession, which stood outside and above petty social conventions
which ignored distinctions of rank, and in which one need never be
conscious of belonging to the lower classes. There one could appeal to
the universal judgment, and work in full publicity instead of being
hung up here in a remote dark hole, without a verdict, examination, or
witnesses.

Strengthened by this new idea, he stood up, east a glance at the books
above, and went down to the town resolved to go home and seek for an
engagement in the Theatre Royal.

Every townsman has probably felt once in his life the wish to appear
as an actor. This is probably due to the impulse of the cultivated
man to magnify and make himself something, to identify himself with
great and celebrated personalities. John, who was a romanticist, had
also the desire to step forward and harangue the public. He believed
that he could choose his proper rôle, and he knew beforehand which it
would be. The fact that he, like all others, believed that he had the
capacity to become an actor, sprang from the superfluity of unused
force, produced by a want of sufficient physical exercise, and from the
tendency to megalomania connected with mental over-exertion. He saw no
difficulties in the profession itself, but expected opposition from
another quarter.

To attribute his being stage-struck to hereditary tendencies would
perhaps be hasty, since we have just remarked that it is an almost
universal impulse. But his paternal grandfather, a Stockholm citizen,
had written dramatic pieces for an amateur theatre, and a young
distant relative still lived as a warning example. The latter had been
an engineer, had been through a course of instruction in the Motala
iron-works, and had a post on the Köping-Hult railway. He therefore had
fine prospects in front of him, but suddenly threw them up, and became
an actor. This step of his was an incessant trouble to his family. Up
to this time the young man had become nothing but was still travelling
about with an obscure theatrical company. The danger of becoming like
him was the difficult point. "Yes," said John to himself, "but I shall
have luck." Why? Because he believed it; and he believed it because he
wished it.

Some might be inclined to derive this strong impulse on John's part
from the fact that he loved to play, as a child, with a toy theatre,
but that is not sufficient, as all children do the same and he had got
the taste from seeing them do it. The theatre was an unreal better
world which enticed one out of the tedious real one. The latter would
not have seemed so tedious if his education had been more harmonious
and realistic and not given him such a strong tendency to romance.
Enough; his resolution was taken; and without saying anything to any
one, he went to the director of the Theatrical Academy the dramaturgist
of the Theatre Royal.

When he heard the sound of his own words "I want to be an actor,"
he shuddered. He felt as though he tore down the veil of his inborn
modesty, and did violence to his own nature.

The director asked what he was doing at present.

"Studying medicine."

"And you want to give up such a career, for one that is the hardest and
the worst of all?"

"Yes."

All actors called their profession the "hardest and the worst" though
they had such a good time of it. That was in order to frighten away
aspirants.

John asked for private lessons in order that he might make his début.
The director replied that he was now going to the country for the
theatrical season was at an end, but he told John to come again on the
1st of September when the theatre opened, and the board of management
came again to the town. That was a definite appointment and he saw his
way clear.

When he went down the street, he walked with his eyes wide open, as
though he gazed into a brilliant future; victory was already his; he
felt its intoxicating eating fumes, and hurried, though with unsteady
steps, down the street.

He said nothing to the doctor nor to any one else. He had still three
months in front of him in which to train and prepare himself, but in
secret, for he was shy and timid. He was afraid of annoying his father
and the doctor, afraid of the whole town knowing that he thought
himself capable of being an actor, afraid of his relatives' scorn, his
friends' grimaces and efforts to dissuade him. This was the fruit of
his education, the fear,--"What will people say?" His imagination made
the act seem like a crime. It was certainly an interference with other
people's peace of mind for relations and friends feel a shock, when
they see a link torn out of the social chain. He felt it himself, and
had to shake off the scruples of conscience.

For his début he had chosen the rôles of Karl Moor and Wijkander's
Lucidor. This was no mere chance but perfectly logical. In both of
these characters he had found the expression of his inner experience,
and therefore he wished to speak with their tongues. He conceived of
Lucidor as a higher nature undermined and ruined by poverty. A higher
nature of course! In his enthusiasm for the theatre he felt again what
he had felt when he had preached, and when he had revolted against the
school prayers,[1] something of the proclaimer, the prophet, and the
soothsayer.

What most of all elevated his ideas of the great significance of the
theatre was the perusal of Schiller's essay, "The theatre regarded
as an instrument of moral education." Sentences like the following
show how lofty was the goal at which Schiller aimed. "The stage is
the chief channel through which the light of wisdom descends from
the better, thinking portion of the populace in order to spread its
beneficent light over the whole state." "In this world of art we
dream ourselves away from the real one, we find ourselves again, our
feelings are roused, wholesome emotions stir our slumbering nature and
drive our blood in swift currents. The unhappy here forget their own
sorrows in watching those of others, the happy become sober, and the
self-confident, reflective. The effeminate weakling is hardened into a
man, the coarse and callous here begin to feel. And then finally,--what
a triumph for thee O Nature, so often trodden down and so often
re-arisen,--when men of all climates and conditions, casting away all
fetters of convention and fashion, set free from the iron hand of fate,
fraternising in one all-embracing sympathy, dissolved into _one_ race,
forget themselves and the world, and approach their heavenly origin.
Each individual enjoys the delight of all, which is mirrored back to
him strengthened and beautified from a hundred eyes, and his breast has
only room for one aspiration,--to be a man!"

Thus wrote the young Schiller at twenty-five, and the youth of twenty
subscribed it.

The theatre is certainly still a means of culture for young people and
the middle class who can still feel the illusion of actors and painted
canvas. For older and cultivated people it is a recreation in which the
actor's art is the chief object of attention. Therefore old critics
are almost invariably discontent and crabbed. They have lost their
illusions and do not pass over any mistake in the acting.

Modern times have overprised the theatre, especially the actor's art in
an exaggerated degree, and a re-action has followed. Actors have tried
to ply their art independently of the dramatist, believing that they
could stand on their own legs. Therefore particular "stars" become the
objects of homage and therefore also opposition has been aroused. In
Paris, where people had gone to the greatest lengths, a reaction first
showed itself. The _Figaro_ called the heroes of the Théâtre-Français
to order, and reminded them that they were only the author's puppets.

The decay of all the great European theatres shows that the actor's
art has lost its interest. Cultivated people no more go to the
theatre because their sense for reality has been developed, and
their imagination which is a relic of the savage has diminished; the
uncultivated lack the time, and the money to go. The future seems to
belong to the variety theatre, which amuses without instructing, for it
is mere play and recreation. All important writers choose another, more
suitable form in which to handle important questions. Ibsen's dramas
have always produced their effect in book form before they were played;
and when they are played, the spectators' interest is generally
concentrated on the _manner_ of their performance; consequently it is a
secondary interest.

John committed the usual mistake of youth, _i.e._ of confusing the
actor with the author; the actor is the mere enunciator of the
sentiments for which the author who stands behind him, is responsible.

In the spring John resigned his post as tutor to the two girls, and
now he had leisure during the summer to study his art in secret,
and on his own responsibility. He had scoffed at books, and now the
first things he sought were books. They contained the thoughts and
experiences of men with whom, though most of them were dead, he could
converse familiarly, without being betrayed. He had heard that in the
castle there was a library which belonged to the State, and from which
one could borrow books. He obtained a surety and went there. It was a
solemn place with small rooms full of books where grey-haired silent
old men sat and read. He got his books and went shyly and happily home.

He wished to study the matter thoroughly in all its aspects, as was his
custom. In Schiller he found the assurance that the theatre was of deep
significance; in Goethe he found a whole treatise on the histrionic
art with directions how one should walk and stand, behave oneself, sit
down, come in and go out; in Lessing's _Hamburgische Dramaturgie_ he
found a whole volume of theatrical critiques filled with the closest
observations. Lessing especially roused his hopes, for he went so far
as to declare that the theatre had come down owing to the inferiority
of the actors, and said that it would be better to employ amateurs
from the cultivated classes who would play better than the drilled and
often uncultured actors. He also read Raymond de St. Albin, whose often
quoted observations on the actor's art are of great value.

At the same time he exercised himself practically. At the doctor's he
arranged a stage when the boys were out. He practised entrances and
exits; he arranged the stage for "The Robbers," dressed himself like
Karl Moor, and played that part. He went to the National Museum and
studied gestures of antique sculptures and gave up using his walking
stick in order to accustom himself to walk freely. He did violence
to his shyness, which had almost produced in him "agoraphobia," or
the dread of crossing open places, and accustomed himself to walk
across Karl XIII's square where great crowds used to be found. He did
gymnastics every day at home, and fenced with his pupils. He gave
attention to every movement of the muscles; practised walking with head
erect and chest expanded, with arms hanging free and hands loosely
clenched, as Goethe directs.

The chief difficulty he found was in the cultivation of his voice,
for he was overheard when he declaimed in the house. Then it occurred
to him to go outside the town. The only place where he could be
undisturbed was the Ladugårdsgärdet. There he could look over the plain
for a great distance and see whether any one was coming; there sounds
died away so quickly that it cost him an effort to hear himself. This
strengthened his voice.

Every day he went out there, and declaimed against heaven and earth.
The town whose church tower rose opposite Ladugårdsgärdet symbolised
society, while he stood out here alone with Nature. He shook his fist
at the castle, the churches, and the barracks, and stormed at the
troops who during their manoeuvres often came too close to him. There
was something fanatical in his work and he spared himself no pains in
order to make his unwilling muscles obedient.


[1] _Vide_ the _Son of a Servant_.



CHAPTER V

JOHN BECOMES AN ARISTOCRAT

(1869)


Among those who frequented the doctor's house was a young man who
studied sculpture. He had come from the lower strata of society, had
been a smith's apprentice, and had now entered the Academy, where he
was a probationary student. He was happy and always cheerful, believed
himself called by providence to his new career, and narrated how he
had been aroused and impelled by the spirit to work in the service
of the Beautiful. John liked him because he was not introspective or
self-critical and quite free from self-consciousness. Moreover he was a
fellow culprit, who was making the same daring attempt as John to work
his way out of the lower class, but entirely lacked the consciousness
of guilt which persecuted the latter.

One day this friend, whose name was Albert, came to him and said
that he was going to Copenhagen to visit Thorwaldsen's Museum. An
enterprising speculator had arranged a trip there through the canal
and back by sea for a very small fare. "You come too," he said, and it
was soon settled that John should accompany him with one of the boys.
The occasion of the expedition was the crown princess's entry into
Copenhagen, but that was a secondary object in the eyes of the pilgrims
to Thorwaldsen's tomb.

On an August evening John sat on the poop of the steamer with the
sculptor, one of the boys and a school friend of his. In the twilight
which had already fallen one saw ladies and gentlemen coming on board.
The society seemed to be first-class. Stout fathers of families with
field-glasses and tourist knapsacks, ladies in summer dresses and hats
of the latest fashion. There was a bustle and stir, as each sought a
sleeping-place which was guaranteed to all. John and his companions sat
quietly waiting. They had their provisions and rugs and feared nothing.
When the steamer had started and the confusion had ceased, John said,
"Now we will have some bread and butter before we lie down."

They looked for their knapsacks and the provision basket, but they were
not to be found. They discovered that they had not come with them. This
was a hard blow, for they had only a little cash and they had counted
on the excellent provisions which the doctor's wife had put up for
them. Accordingly they had to eat from the sculptor's box, which only
contained poor dry victuals.

Then they wanted to lie down. On all sides people were asking for
sleeping-places, but could not find any. The passengers were in an
uproar and there was a storm of curses. They had therefore to sit on
deck; there were inquiries for the organiser of the expedition, but he
was not on board. John lay down on the bare deck and the boys drew a
tarpaulin over themselves, for the dew was falling and it was bitterly
cold. They awoke at Södertelje, freezing, for the sailors had taken
away the tarpaulin.

On the canal bank there now appeared the organiser of the excursion,
who was an upholsterer. The passengers rushed at him, drew him on
board, and loaded him with reproaches. He defended himself and tried
to land again, but in vain. A court martial was held; they resolved
to continue their journey, but detained the upholsterer as a hostage.
The steamer went on through the canal, but as it was passing through a
lock, the man-swung himself up on the dam and disappeared amid a hail
of curses.

The journey was continued and by midday they were in the Gotha canal.
Dinner was laid on the poop. John and his companions ensconced
themselves in the lifeboat which hung there and ate a simple meal out
of the sculptor's box. The sculptor, who had slept on a bale do mu in
the luggage-hold, was in a good humour and knew all the passengers'
characters and names.

The dinner-table was now crowded. It was presided over by a master
chimney-sweep with his family. Then there came pawnbrokers,
public-house keepers, cabmen, butchers, waiters, with their families,
a number of young shop boys and some girls. John suffered when he saw
stewed perch and strawberries together with claret and sherry, for he
had been so spoilt by luxury that simple food made him poorly. This
was the "upper class" among the passengers. The master chimney-sweep
played the grand gentleman, he made a grimace at the claret and scolded
the waitress who said that the restaurant-keeper was responsible. The
porter from the Record Office affected the learned man, and as an
official seemed to look down on the "Philistines."

While the sherry circulated, speeches were made. The lower class
from the fore-deck hung on the gunwales and hand-rails and listened.
The pariahs in the lifeboat were ignored. People knew that they were
there, but did not see them. They may very likely have wished the
"white cap" away, for there were two eyes under its peak, which saw
that they were no better than himself. John felt that. He had just
emerged from this class to which he belonged by birth, but he had no
food and was nothing. He felt his inferiority and his superiority; and
their superiority. They had worked; therefore they ate. Yes, but he
had worked as much as they, though not in the same way. He had derived
honour from his work, while they took the good eating and dispensed
with the honour. One could not have both.

The people sat there satisfied and happy, drank their coffee and
liqueurs, and occupied the whole poop. They now became bold and made
remarks over those in the lifeboat, who could only suffer in silence,
because the others were in the majority and the upper class, for they
were consumers.

John felt himself in an element which was not his. There was an
atmosphere of hostility about him, and he felt depressed. There were
no police on board to help him, no arbitration to appeal to, and if
there were a quarrel, all would condemn him. There only needed a sharp
retort on his part, and he would be struck. "The deuce!" he thought,
"it would be better to obey officers and officials; they would never
be such tyrants as these democrats." Later on, at Albert's advice, he
sought to approach them, but they were inaccessible.

Further on during the voyage between Venersborg and Göteborg the
explosion came. John and his companions' hunger increased so much that
one day they determined to go down to the dining-saloon and eat some
bread and butter. It was so full of people eating and drinking that
they could hardly find room. John's pupil, according to the custom of
his class, kept his hat on. The master chimney-sweep noticed this.
"Hullo!" he said, "is the ceiling too high for you?"

The boy seemed not to understand him.

"Take your hat off, boy!" he shouted again.

The hat remained as it was. A shop assistant knocked it off. The boy
picked up the hat, and put it again on his head. Then the storm burst.
They all rushed on him like one man and knocked the hat off. Then they
went for John, "And such a young devil has a tutor who cannot teach
boys to know their proper place! We know well enough who _you_ are."
Then they rained abuse on his parents. John tried to inform them that
in the social circles to which the boy belonged, it was the custom to
keep one's hat on in public places, and that he had not intended any
expression of contempt by it. But his explanation was ill-received.
What did he mean by "those circles"? What nonsense he talked! Did he
want to teach them manners? And so on.

Yes, he could; for it was precisely from these circles that they had
learnt five-and-twenty years ago to take their hats off, which was no
longer the custom, and he could have told them that in twenty-five
years more they would keep their hats on as soon as they got wind that
_that_ was the fashion. But they had not discovered it yet.

John and his friends went again on deck. "One cannot argue with these
people," he said.

His nerves were shaken by the scene just witnessed. He had seen an
outbreak of class-hatred and the flashing eyes of people whom he had
not injured; he had felt the foot of the upper class of the future upon
his breast. They had become his enemies; the bridge between him and
them was broken down; but the tie of blood remained and he cherished
the same hatred towards aristocratic society, and its unjust ascendency
as they did; he felt the same grudge against the conventions before
which they all had to bow; yes, he had Karl Moor's replies in his mind,
but those who had just defeated him were all Spiegelbergers.[1] If they
got the upper hand they would trample on all,--great and small; if he
got the upper hand, he would only trample on the great. That was the
difference between them. It was, however, education which had made him
more democratic than they; he would therefore side with the educated.
They would work for those below, but from a distance, and from above.
One could not handle this raw uncouth mass.

The stay on board was now intolerable. An outbreak might take place at
any moment. And it came.

They were now in the Kattegat, and John was sitting on the upper deck
when he heard a loud noise beneath him of voices and cries. He thought
he recognised his pupil's voice, and rushed down. On the middle deck
stood the accused surrounded by a crowd. A pawnbroker waved his arms
about and shouted. John asked what the matter was.

"He has stolen my cap," shouted the pawnbroker.

"I don't believe it possible," said John.

"Yes, I saw it; he has put it in this clothes bag."

It was John's bag. "That is mine," said John. "You can look into it
yourself." He opened the bag and there lay the pawnbroker's cap! There
was general excitement. John stood convicted and a storm was on the
point of breaking out against the two thieves. A student who stole!
That was a bonne bouche. How had it happened? Now John remembered. He
had a grey cap similar to the pawnbroker's which he used to sleep in
at night. He had told the boy to put it in his bag; the boy had taken
the wrong one. John turned to the foredeck passengers: "Gentlemen," he
began, "do you think it likely that a rich man's son would go and take
a greasy cap when he has a perfectly new one? Do you not see that there
has been a mistake?"

"Yes," said the plebeians, "there has."

Only the pawnbroker was obstinate and stuck to his statement.

"Then it only remains for me to beg this gentleman's pardon for the
mistake, and I ask my pupil to do the same."

The latter did so, though unwillingly. There was general satisfaction
and a murmured opinion that he had "spoken like a gentleman." The
matter was fortunately settled.

"You see," said John to the boy, "the people are open to reason after
all!"

"Bah! That was only because they felt flattered at being called
gentlemen,--the cursed rabble!"

"Perhaps," answered John, who felt that he had been sufficiently
humiliated for such a trifle.

At last they reached Copenhagen. Hungry, freezing, and in the worst of
humours they sat in the rain outside the Thorwaldsen Museum, which was
closed on account of the festivities. But Albert swore he would get
in. After they had waited for an hour with the master chimney-sweep,
the public-house keeper, and all the other passengers there came an
old man who looked learned and wished to enter. Albert rushed after
him, mentioned the name of Molins, the Swedish sculptor, and they got
in, leaving the other passengers outside. Albert was delighted, and
could not help making a face at the master chimney-sweep who remained
outside. But the one who enjoyed it most was the young sinner, who
hated the mob.

"Now we are gentlemen," he said.

John was not in the mood to enjoy Thorwaldsen's works. He regarded
him as an average artist talented enough to win fame. Albert found
the antiques too elaborate, but did not dare to criticise them.
They did not witness the royal entry, but sat on the tower of the
Fruekirke and looked at the view. At nightfall, when they felt tired
and exhausted, they wanted to go down to the steamer to sleep, but it
had gone to Malmö. They stood in the street in the rain. They could
not go to an hotel, for they had no money. Albert resolved to go to a
public-house and ask for a night's lodging. They found a sailors' inn
near the public-house. The landlord said it was only for seamen, but
they answered that they must have shelter. They were taken into a back
room where there were two camp-beds, but a basin was not to be seen.
The walls were unpapered and looked shabby. In one of the beds lay a
sailor. Who was to be his bed-fellow? Albert undertook that, and slept
with the stranger, who was a Dutchman. So they all went to sleep, John
cursing the whole adventure, for the bed-clothes were malodorous.

The return voyage home by sea was one long penance. Without provisions
and hardly any money they had to sustain life on raw eggs which they
bought in the small towns they touched at. These along with stale
bread and brandy, composed their diet for three days. Albert alone
was cheerful and enjoyed himself. He slept on the poop with the
passengers and amused them with stories; he was akin to them, and knew
their language. He drank with them and got hot food; he even went into
the kitchen sometimes and begged himself a plate of soup. "How easily
he takes life!" thought John. "He does not miss luxuries, for he has
never known them; he will never be expelled as an intruder when he
approaches people; he feasts while others starve, and sees only friends
everywhere. But his day will come when he will no longer be one of the
lower class, when luxury and refined habits will make him as helpless
and unfortunate as me."

When he got home he was furious. So it was everywhere. Those who were
above trampled on those below, and those who were below tried to
pull one back when one tried to mount. What was the meaning of all
this talk about aristocrats and democrats? The lower class spoke of
their democratic way of thinking, as though it were a virtue. What
virtue is there in hating those who are above? What is the meaning of
"aristocrat"? Αριστος means the best, and κρατέω "I rule." Therefore
an aristocrat is one who wishes that the best should rule and a
democrat one who wishes that the worst should do so. But then comes the
question: Who are really the best? Are a low social position, poverty
and ignorance things that make men better? No, for then one would not
try to do away with poverty and ignorance. Into whose hands then should
men commit political power, with the knowledge that it would be in the
hands of the least mischievous? Into the hands of those who knew most?
Then one would have professorial government, and Upsala would be--no,
not the professors! To whom then should power be given? He could not
answer, but certainly not to the chimney-sweep and cab-owner who were
on the steamer.

On this occasion he did not go deeper into the matter, for the question
had not yet been raised whether the same culture could not be imparted
to every one, or whether there need be any governing body at all.

He had come across the worst aristocracy of all, the upper stratum
of the lower class, or, to name them by their usual ugly title, "the
Philistines." They were a bad copy of the aristocracy; they sided with
the powerful, aped the habits of their superiors, grew rich by others'
labours, quoted authorities and hated opposition with the exception of
their silent opposition to those above them. The master chimney-sweep
made money through the toil of the abjectly poor, the cab-owner through
the wretched cabbies and hacks, the pawnbroker wrung unrighteous
gain from the need of the poverty-stricken, and so on, everywhere.
A teacher, on the other hand, a doctor, an artist, could not depute
slaves to his work; he must do it himself, and was therefore not such
a shark as those below. If, then, culture brought men happiness and
made them better, then the aristocracy were justified and beneficent,
and could regard themselves as better than those below. Yes, but one
could buy culture for money, could beg or borrow the means for it,
as so many students did, and there was no virtue in that at any rate.
Yet one could not help feeling superior to others when one knew more
and observed the laws of social life so as to injure no one. All that
remained for the real democracy was to reduce everything to a dead
level, so that no one need feel themselves below, and no one could
think they were above.


[1] _Vide_ Schiller's "Robbers."



CHAPTER VI

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

(1869)


The Swedish theatre was at this time exposed to many attacks, and when
is a theatre not in that condition? The theatre is a miniature society
within society, with a monarch, ministers, officials, and a whole
number of classes, ranged above one another in ranks. Is it any wonder
that this society is always exposed to the attacks of the malcontents?
But at this period the attacks had a more practical object. A former
provincial actor had written a pamphlet against the Theatre Royal, of
little real importance, but with the result that the author was invited
to a seat on the board of directors. This aroused imitators, and many
published treatises in order to attain the same result.

As a matter of fact, the Theatre Royal was neither better nor worse
than it had been before. "But," it was asked, "if the theatre is
an institution supported by subscriptions for forwarding culture,
why set an uncultivated person at the head of it?" To this it was
answered, "We have just had one of the most learned men in the country
as director, and how did that answer? Although he had the advantage
of plebeian birth he was worried to death by the democratic press,
which incessantly carped at him." At last, in our time, the utopia of
self-government has been realised, the theatre has a man from the lower
classes at its head, and there is general satisfaction.

On the day fixed, John went to the theatre in order to announce his
intention of making his début. After some delay, he was sent for and
asked his business.

"I want to make my début."

"Oh! have you studied any special character?"

"Karl Moor in 'The Robbers,'" he answered more defiantly than was
necessary.

They looked at each other and smiled. "But one must have three rôles;
have you got no other to suggest?"

"Lucidor!"

There was a consultation, and John was informed that these dramas were
not now in the repertory of the theatre. He objected that this was not
a sufficient reason for his not undertaking those rôles, but received
the perfectly fair answer, that the theatre could not stage such
important dramas and disarrange its programme for untried débutants.
Then the director proposed to John that he should take the rôle of the
"Warrior of Ravenna." But after the great success which had attended
the last actor of that part, he dared not. They finally suggested that
he should have a talk with the literary manager. Then began a battle
which was probably not the first or the last which had taken place in
that room.

"Be reasonable, sir; one must study this profession like all others. No
one becomes an adept all of a sudden. Creep before you walk. Undertake
at first a minor rôle."

"No, the rôle must be great enough to sustain me. In a minor rôle one
must be a great artist in order to attract attention."

"Yes, but listen to me, sir; I have experience."

"Yes, but others have made their début in leading parts, without having
been on the stage before."

"But you will break your neck."

"Very well, then! I will!"

"Yes, but the board of directors will not give the best stage in the
country to the first chance aspirant to make experiments on."

That seemed reasonable. He therefore consented to undertake a minor
rôle. He was given the part of Härved Boson in Hedberg's _Marriage of
Ulfosa_.

John read over the part at home, and was astonished. It was quite
insignificant. He only had a few quarrels with his brother-in-law and
then embraced his wife. But he had to undertake the part, as he had
agreed to do.

The rehearsals began. To have to shout out empty words without meaning
was repugnant to him.

After some trials the teacher declared that he had no more time and
recommended John to take lessons in the Dramatic Academy.

"But I won't be a pupil," he said.

"No, of course."

They talked of the Dramatic Academy, as of an elementary or Sunday
School; all kinds of pupils were accepted whether they had any
education or not. John did not intend to become a pupil, but went
just to listen. He went there reluctantly. Accustomed to be a teacher
himself, he was received as a sort of honorary guest, and sat down, but
attracted an uncomfortable amount of attention. The hour was passed in
reciting "Vintergatan," which he knew by heart, and some other pieces
of verse.

"But one can't learn anything for the stage here," he ventured to say
to the teacher.

"Well! come on the stage, and try before the footlights."

"How can I do that?"

"As a supernumerary actor."

"Supernumerary! H'm! That is like going downhill before beginning,"
thought John. But he determined to go through with it. One morning he
received an invitation to try a part in Björnson's _Maria Stuart_.
The theatre messenger gave him a little blue note-book on which was
written, "A nobleman," and inside, on a white sheet of paper, "The
Lords have sent an intermediary with a challenge to Count Both well."
That was the whole part! Such was to be his début!

At the appointed time he went up the little back stairs, passed the
door-keeper and came on the stage. It was the first time that he was
behind the scenes, and saw the reverse of the medal. The stage looked
like a great warehouse with black walls; a cracked and dirty floor like
that of a hay loft, and grey linen screens mounted on rough wood.

It was here that he had seen represented majestic scenes from the
world's history; here Masaniello had shouted "Death to Tyrants" while
John stood trembling at the end of the fourth row among the audience;
here Hamlet had given vent to his scorn and suffered his sorrows, and
from here Karl Moor had defied society and the whole world. John felt
alarmed. How could one preserve the illusion hero in sight of the
unpainted wood and the grey canvas? Everything looked dusty and dirty;
the workmen were poor melancholy devils, and the actors and actresses
looked insignificant in their ordinary clothes.

He was led into the lobby where they were going to dance for
half-an-hour the gavotte, which introduced the play. It was broad
daylight. The old music teacher sat on a chair and played the viol. The
ballet-master shouted, struck his hands together and arranged them in
their places. "I didn't bargain for this," thought John, but it was too
late. So he found himself in the midst of a complicated dance which he
did not know, and was pushed about and scolded. "No, I am not going to
do this," he thought, but he could not get out of it.

A feeling of shame came over him. Dancing in the day-time was not a
seemly occupation. And then to descend from teacher to pupil, and be
the last here; he had never before gone back so far.

The bell rang for the rehearsal, and they were driven on the stage.
Then they were arranged for the gavotte. By the footlights stood the
chief actors who had the important rôles; and behind them the rest in
two lines occupied the background.

The orchestra struck up and the dance began in slow solemn rhythm. From
the footlights were heard the deep voices of the two Puritans lamenting
the depravity of the court.

_Lindsay_. "Look! the dancing lines wind like snakes in the sun.
Listen! the music plays with the flames of hell! The devil's roar of
laughter is in it."

_Andrew Kerr_. "Hush, hush; the penalty will overwhelm them as the sea
overwhelmed Pharaoh's army."

_Lindsay_. "Look, how they whisper! The infecting breath of sin! See
their voluptuous smiles; see the ladies' frivolous gowns."

_Citizen_. "All that Knox preaches is wasted on this court."

_Lindsay_. "He is as the prophet in Israel, he does not speak in vain;
for the Lord Himself shall perform His word upon the ungodly race."

The piece had an arresting effect, and John felt it. The men actors had
their hats, overcoats and sticks, and the women their cloaks and muffs,
but still the drama was impressive in its simple greatness. He stood in
the wings and listened to the whole of it; Mary Stuart did not please
him; she was cruel and coquettish; Bothwell was too rough and strong;
his favourite was Darnley, the weak, Hamlet-like man whose love to this
woman continued to burn in spite of unfaithfulness, scorn, malice and
everything. Knox was as hard as stone with his Puritanism and gloomy
Christianity.

It was after all something to step forward and enact a piece of history
in the garb of such persons. There was something solemn about it as he
had felt before in the church. After he had gone on the stage and made
his speech he went away firmly resolved to bear all on behalf of sacred
art.

He had thus taken the decisive step. To his father he had written a
high-flown letter, and declared that he would either become something
great in the career which he had now entered or would retire from it
altogether; he had resolved not to go home till he had succeeded. The
doctor was sorry but made no fuss, for he saw it was impossible to
stop him. But he had other secret plans for saving him which he now
began to set in motion. In the first place he induced John to translate
one or two medical pamphlets for which he had found a publisher. Now
he came with a proposal that they should together write articles for
the _Aftonbladet (Evening New's_). John for his part had translated
Schiller's essay, _The Theatre Regarded as a Moral Institution_, and as
the subject of the theatre had now conic up in the Reichstag the doctor
wrote an introduction to it in which he seriously expostulated with
the Agrarian party on their indifference to culture. The whole article
was inserted. Another day the doctor came with a member of the medical
journal, the _Lancet_, which treated of the question whether women were
fit for a medical career. Without hesitation and instinctively John
decided against it. He had an indescribable reverence for women as
woman, mother and wife, but as a matter of fact, society was founded
upon the man regarded as provider for the family, and upon the woman
as wife and mother; thus man had a full right to his work-market and
all the duties involved in it. Every occupation taken from the man
would mean a marriage less or one more overworked family-provider, for
the impulse to marry was so strong in men that they would not cease
to marry, however great the difficulties in which they might become
involved. Moreover women had abundant opportunities of work; they
could become servants, house-keepers, governesses, teachers, midwives,
seamstresses, actresses, artists, authoresses, queens, empresses,
besides wives and mothers. Many of these vocations were also open to
the unmarried. Anything more than this was an encroachment on the man's
territory. If the woman did that, the man should be free from the cares
of providing for the family, and inquiries after paternity should not
be made. But society would not consent to that. On the contrary it
began to persecute the prostitutes by way of forcing men to marry. Once
caught in the snares of the married women's property law, they would
sink to the level of domestic slaves.

John instinctively took sides in this complicated problem, which was
destined to take many years to solve, and wrote against the women's
movement, which he saw would involve, if victorious, man's overthrow.
The movement for the emancipation of women had during the fifties,
assumed the wildest forms, and the war-cry, "No lords! No lords!" had
shown the true nature of the movement, which had also been ridiculed
by Rudolf Wall in his comedy, _Miss Garibaldi_. But while years went
on, the women had worked in silence.

Great therefore was the surprise of the doctor and John when they found
their article in the _Aftonbladet_ so altered that it seemed in favour
of the movement. "The editor is under the thumbs of women," said the
doctor, and thereby the matter was explained.

Meanwhile John's theatrical career approached a crisis. He had been
sent into a green room where brandy was drunk and everything was dirty,
to put on his clothes with the supernumeraries. "They want to humiliate
me," he thought, "but patience!"

Now he was simply appointed as supernumerary in one opera after the
other. He declared that he feared neither the footlights nor the
public after having preached in church, but it was no good. The worst
was, having to lounge about at the rehearsals for hours together with
nothing to do. If he read a book, he was told he had no interest in the
play, and if he went away, an outcry was raised.

In the Theatrical Academy roles were merely learnt by heart. Children
who had only gone through an elementary school, began to read Goethe's
_Faust_, naturally without understanding anything of it. But curiously
enough, their very boldness saved them; they got on so well that one
was inclined to think there was no need for an actor to understand
anything, if only he could say his piece fluently. After a few
months John was sick of it all. It was all mechanical. The greatest
actors were blasé and indifferent, never spoke of art, but only of
engagements and honorariums. There was no trace of the gay life behind
the scenes, of which so much had been written. They sat silent waiting
for their turns to come; the dancers and actresses in their costumes,
sewing and stitching. In the lobby the actors went about on tip-toe,
looked at the clock and put on their false beards, without speaking a
word.

One evening, when _Maria Stuart_ was being acted, John sat alone in
the lobby reading a paper. The actor Dahlqvist, who was taking the
part of John Knox, came in. John, who cherished a deep admiration
for the great actor, stood up and bowed. If he could only speak with
such a man. He trembled at the very thought. Knox, with his venerable
long white hair, his black dress, and his great eyes half-sunk in his
powerful deeply-lined face, sat down at the table. He yawned. "What is
the time?" he asked in a sepulchral tone. John answered that it was
half-past ten, unbuttoning his Burgundian velvet jacket to look for the
watch which was not there.

"The time is going devilish slow this evening," said Knox and yawned
again. Then he began to retail bits of gossip. He was only a ruin of
his former greatness when his acting of Karl Moor had cast all his
rivals into the shade. He too had seen through everything and was weary
of it all. And yet he had once thought so highly of his art.

Since John had now the right of free entrance into the theatre he
tried to study acting from the auditorium. But behold! the illusion
was gone! There was Mr. So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so, there was the
background for _Quentin Durward_, there sat Högfelt, and there behind
the scenes, stood Boberg. There was no further possibility of illusion.

He was sick of the wretched rôle which he had to repeat continually.
But he also felt remorse and feared that he could not retire from the
game honourably. At last he plucked up courage and demanded a leading
part. The piece in which it occurred had already been performed fifty
times, and the chief actors were tired of it, but they had to come. The
rehearsal took place without costumes or scenery. John was accustomed
to the declamatory manner usual then, and shouted like a preacher. It
was a failure. After the rehearsal the head of the theatrical academy
pronounced his verdict and advised John to enter it for a course of
training, but he would not. He wept for rage, went home and took an
opium pill which he had long kept by him, but without effect; then a
friend took him out and he got intoxicated.



CHAPTER VII

JOHN BECOMES AN AUTHOR

(1869)


The next morning he felt in a state of complete collapse. His nerves
still trembled and his body felt the fever of shame and intoxication.
What should he do? He must save his honour. He must still hold out
for two or three months and try again. That day he remained at home
and read _The Stories of a Barber-Surgeon_. As he read it seemed
to him that they recorded his own experience; they were about the
reconciliation of a step-son to his step-mother. The breach in
his domestic life had always weighed upon him like a sin, and he
longed for reconciliation and peace. That day this longing took an
unusually melancholy form, and as he lay on the sofa, his brain began
to evolve various plans for smoothing away the domestic discord. A
woman-worshipper as he then was, and under the influence of the book he
had been reading, he thought that only a woman could reconcile him with
his father. This noble rôle he assigned to his step-mother.

While thus tying on the sofa he felt an unusual degree of fever,
during which his brain seemed to work at arranging memories of the
past, cutting out some scenes, and adding others. New minor characters
entered; he saw them mixing in the action, and heard them speaking,
just as he had done on the stage. After one or two hours had passed,
he had a comedy in two acts ready in his head. This was both a painful
and pleasurable form of work if it could be called a work; for it went
forward of itself, without his will or co-operation.

But now he had to write it. In four days the piece was ready. He kept
on going from the writing-table to the sofa and back; and in the
intervals of his work, he collapsed like a rag. When the work was
finished, he drew a deep sigh of relief, as though years of pain were
over, as though a tumour had been cut out. He was so glad, that he felt
as though some one was singing within him. Now he would offer his piece
to the theatre;--that was the way of salvation. The same evening he
sat down to write a note of congratulation to a relative who had found
a situation. When he had written the first line, it seemed to him to
read like a verse. Then he added the second line which rhymed with the
first. Was it no harder than that? Then with a single effort he wrote a
four-page letter in rhyme and discovered that he could write verse. Was
it no harder than that? Only a few months before he had asked a friend
to help him with some verses for a special occasion. He had, however,
received a negative but complimentary answer, in being told not to
drive in a hired carriage, when he had one of his own.

One was not then born to write verses, he said to himself, nor did one
learn it, though all kinds of verse-measures were taught in school,
but it came,--or did not come. It seemed to him like the working of
the Holy Spirit. Had the psychical convulsion, which he had felt at
his defeat as an actor, been so strong that it had turned upside down
all the strata of his memories and impressions, and had the violent
impulse set his imagination to work? There had doubtless been a long
preparation going on. Was it not his imagination, which had conjured up
pictures, when as a child he had been afraid of the dark? Had he not
written essays in school and letters for years? Had he not formed his
style through reading, translating and writing for the papers? Yes, he
had, but it was not till now that he noticed in himself the so-called
creative power of the artist.

The art of the actor was therefore not the one suited to his powers;
his having thought so was a mistake which could easily be rectified.
Meanwhile he must keep his authorship fairly secret and remain at the
theatre till the end of the season, so that his failure as an actor
might not be known, or at any rate till his piece was accepted, as it
naturally would be, for he thought it good.

But he wished to make sure of it, and for that purpose invited two
of his learned friends outside the theatrical circle. In the evening
before they came, he arranged the lumber-room which he had hired in
the doctor's house. He tidied it up, lighted two candles instead of
the study lamp, covered the table with a clean cloth and set on it a
punch-bowl with glass, ash-trays and matches. This was the first time
he had entertained guests, and the experience was novel and strange.

The work of an author has often been compared to childbirth, and the
comparison has something to justify it. He felt a kind of peace like
that which follows parturition; something or some one seemed to be
there which, or who, was not there before; there had been suffering and
crying and now there was silence and peace. He felt in a festival mood
as he used to do in the old times at home; the children were in their
Sunday best, and their father in his black frock coat cast a last look
round on the arrangements before the guests came.

His friends arrived and he read the piece through in silence till the
end. They gave their verdict, and John was greeted by his elders as an
author.

When they had gone, he fell on his knees on the floor, and thanked
God for having delivered him from difficulty and bestowed on him the
gift of poetry. His communion with God had been very irregular; it
was a curious fact, that in cases of great necessity he rallied his
powers within himself and did not cry to the Lord at all; but on joyful
occasions, on the other hand, he involuntarily felt the need of at once
thanking the Giver of all good. It was just the contrary to what it had
been in his childhood, and that was natural since his idea of God had
developed into that of the Author and Giver of all good things, whereas
the God of his childhood had been a God of terror whose hand was full
of misfortunes.

At last he had found his calling, his true rôle in life and his
wavering character began to develop a backbone. He had a pretty good
idea now of what he wanted, and this gave him at least a rudder to
steer by. Now he pushed off from land to go for a long voyage, but
always ready to tack when he encountered too strong a head wind,--not,
however, to fall to leeward, but the next moment to luff his ship up to
the wind with bellying sails.

By writing this comedy, he had now relieved himself of his domestic
troubles. He next described the religious conflicts he remembered so
vividly in a three-act play. This lightened the ship considerably.

His creative energy during this period was immense. He had the writing
fever daily; within two months he composed two comedies and a rhymed
tragedy, besides occasional verses. The tragedy was his first real
"work of art," as the phrase is, for it did not deal with any of his
subjective experiences. "Sinking Hellas" was the not inconsiderable
theme. The composition was finished and clear, but the situations were
somewhat threadbare, and there was a good deal of declamation. The
only original elements in it were an austere moral tone and contempt
for uncultured demagogues. Thus, for instance, he introduced an old
man inveighing against the immorality and want of patriotism of the
youth of the time. He made Demosthenes speak disparagingly of a
demagogue, and express something of what he had felt towards the master
chimney-sweep and pawnbroker on the journey to Copenhagen. The head
of the Theatrical Academy also got a rap over the knuckles because
he had often lamented over John's "lack of culture." The piece was
aristocratic in tone, and the freedom celebrated in it was that which
was the object of aspiration in the sixties,--national freedom.

Meanwhile he had sent his domestic comedy anonymously to the board of
management of the Theatre Royal. While it was under consideration, he
went on cheerfully with his work as supernumerary actor. "Just you
wait!" he said to himself, "then my turn will come and I shall have a
word to say in the matter." He was now quite cool on the stage, and
felt, even when dressed as a peasant youth in _Wilhelm Tell_, like a
prince in disguise. "I am certainly no swineherd, though you may think
so," he hummed to himself.

He had to wait long for an answer about his piece. At last he lost
patience and revealed himself as the author to the head of the
Theatrical Academy. The latter had read the piece and found talent in
it, but said it could not be played. This was not a great blow for him,
for he still had the tragedy in reserve. That was better received, but
he was told it needed remodelling here and there.

One evening when the Academy closed, the head instructor expressed a
wish to speak with John. "Now we see what you are good for," he said.
"You have a fine career in front of you; why should you choose an
inferior one? You can become an actor probably if you work for some
years, but why toil at this thankless task? Go back to Upsala and take
your degree if you can. Then become an author, for one must first have
experiences in order to write well."

To become an author,--that John agreed with, and also with the
suggestion that he should give up the theatre; but as for returning to
Upsala,--no! He hated the university, and did not see how the useless
things one learnt there could help him as an author; he rather needed
to study life at first hand. But then he began to reflect, and when
he considered that, at present, he could get no piece of his accepted
so as to serve as a plank to save himself by, he grasped at the other
straw,--Upsala. There was no disgrace in becoming a student again, and
at the theatre they knew that he was not only an unsuccessful débutant,
but also an author.

At the same time he learnt that there was a legacy due to him from his
mother of a few hundred kronas. With them he could support himself for
a half-year at the university. He went to his father, not as a prodigal
son, but as a promising author, and as a creditor. There was a vehement
dispute between them which ended in John receiving his legacy. He had
now conceived the plan of a tragedy with the startling title "Jesus of
Nazareth." It dealt in dramatic form with the life of Christ, and was
intended, with one blow and once for all, to shatter the divine image
and eradicate Christianity. But when he had completed some scenes, he
saw that the subject-matter was too great and would demand prolonged
and tedious study.

The theatrical season now approached its end. The Theatrical Academy
gave their customary stage performance. John had received no rôle in
it, but undertook the task of prompter. And his career as an actor
closed in the prompter's box. To this was reduced his ambition of
acting Karl Moor on the stage of the Great Theatre! Did he deserve this
fate? Was he worse equipped for acting than the rest? That was probably
not so, but the question was never decided.

In the evening after the performance, a dinner was given to the
Academy pupils. John was invited and made a speech in verse in order
to make his exit seem as little like a fiasco as possible. He became
intoxicated, as usual, behaved foolishly and disappeared from the
scene.



CHAPTER VIII

THE "RUNA" CLUB

(1870)


The Upsala of the sixties showed signs of the end and dissolution of a
period which might be called the Boströmic.[1] In what relation does
the philosophic system which prevails in a given period stand to the
period itself? The system seems like a collection of the thoughts of
the period at a particular point of time. The philosopher does not
make the period, but the period makes the philosopher. He collects all
the thoughts of his period and thereby exercises an influence on it,
and with the close of the period his influence ends. The Boströmic
philosophy had three defects; it wished to be definitely Swedish;
it came too late; and it wished to outlive its period. To attempt
to construct a purely Swedish philosophy was absurd, for that meant
trying to break loose from the connection with the great mother-stem
which grows on the Continent and only sends out seeds towards the
Northern peninsula. The attempt came too late, for time is necessary to
construct a system, and before the system was constructed, the period
had passed. Boström, as a philosopher, was not, as it were, shot out
of a cannon. All knowledge is collecting-work, and is coloured by
the personality of the collector. Boström was a branch grown out of
Kant and Hegel, watered by Biberg and Grubbe, and finally producing
some offshoots of his own. That was all. He seems to have derived
his fundamental principle from Krause's Pantheism, which itself was
an attempt to unite the philosophy of Kant and Fichte with that of
Schelling and Hegel. This eclecticism had been already attempted by
Grubbe. Boström first studied theology, and this seemed to have a
hampering effect on his mind when he wrote about speculative theology.
His moral philosophy he derived from Kant. To call him an original
philosopher is provincial patriotism. His influence did not reach
beyond the frontiers of Sweden, nor did it outlast the sixties. His
political system was already antiquated in 1865, when the students out
of reverence for the philosopher, had still to declare, conformably to
his textbook, that the representation of the four estates was the only
reasonable one--a doctrine which was subsequently contradicted in the
college lectures.

How did Boström come by such an idea? Can one draw an inference from
the accidental circumstance that he, a poor man's son from Norrland,
came into too close touch with King John and his court, in his capacity
of tutor to the princes? Could the philosopher escape the common lot
of generalising in _certain_ respects, from his own predilections and
current time-sanctioned ideas? Probably not. Boström as an idealist
was subjective--so subjective that he denied reality an independent
existence, declaring that, "to be is to be perceived (by men)." The
world of phenomena therefore, according to him, exists only in and
through our perceptions. The error of the deduction was overlooked, and
it was a double one. The system rested on an unproved assumption, and
had to be corrected; it is true that the phenomenal world only exists
for its through our perception, but that does not prevent its existing
for itself without our perception. In fact science has demonstrated
that the earth already existed with a very high degree of organic life,
before any one was there to perceive it.

Boström broke with ecclesiastical Christianity, but, like Kant and
the later evolutionist philosophers, retained Christian morality.
Kant had been arrested in the bold progress of his thought by a want
of psychological knowledge, and had simply laid down as axioms the
categorical imperative and the practical postulate. The moral law,
which depends on the epoch and changes with it, received in his system
quite a Christian colouring as God's command. Boström was still
"under the law"; he judged the moral worth or baseness of an action
simply by its motives; according to him the only satisfactory motive
is that regard for the spiritual nature of duty which is revealed in
conscience. But there are as many consciences as there are religions
and races; therefore his moral system was quite sterile.

Boström's importance for theological development only consisted in
his coming forward against Bishop Beckman in the discussion regarding
the doctrine of hell (1864), although that doctrine had recently been
rejected by the cultivated with the assistance of the rationalists.
On the other hand Boström was obstructive in his pamphlets _The
Irresponsibility and Divine Right of the King_ and _Are the Estates of
the Realm Justified in Resolving on and Carrying Out the Change in the
So-called (!) Representation of the People_? (1865).

In his capacity as an idealist, Boström is, for the present generation,
not only without significance, but positively reactionary. He is
nothing but a necessary link in the worthless reactionary philosophy
which followed with such fatal obscurantism the "illuminative"
philosophy of the eighteenth century. He has lived and is dead. Peace
to his ashes!

Literature ought to be another barometer for testing the atmosphere of
any given period. And in order to be that, it must be free to deal with
the questions of that period; but this, the then prevailing æsthetic
theories forbade.

Poetry ought to be and was (according to Boström) a recreation like the
other fine arts. Under such a theory and influenced by the prevalent
idolatry of the "ego," poetry became merely lyrical, expressing
the poet's small personal feelings and inclination, and reflecting
therefore only some of the features of the period, and those perhaps,
not the most important. Only two names in the poetry of the sixties
were of importance--Snoilsky and Björck. Snoilsky was "awake," to use
a pietistic expression, Björck was dead. Both were born poets, as the
saying is; that is to say, their talents showed themselves earlier
than usual. Both attained distinction while still at school, early won
honour and renown, and by birth and position were enabled to view life
from its sunny heights. Snoilsky, without knowing it, was under the
power of the spirit of the new age. Freed from the fear of hell and
monkish morality, experiencing the retrenchment of his privileges as a
nobleman, he gave free play both to mind and body. In his first poems
he was a revolutionary and praised the cap of liberty; he preached the
emancipation of the flesh and had a certain dislike to over-culture as
a conventional restraint. But as a poet, he did not escape the poet's
tragic destiny--not to be taken seriously. Poetry in the eyes of the
public, was simply poetry, and Snoilsky was a poet. Björck had a mind
which was not capable of receiving strong impressions. At peace with
himself, languid, complete from the beginning, he lived his life sunk
in his own reflections or noticed only the trifling events of the
outer world and described them neatly and correctly. In the opinion of
the great majority who live the peaceful life of automata his poetry
shows a remarkable degree of philanthropy. But why does not this
philanthropy extend itself further to large circles of men, and to
humanity at large? In the writer's opinion Björck's philanthropy does
not extend beyond the limits of the personal quiet which the individual
attains when he ignores the duties of social life. He is satisfied
with the world because the world has been kind to him; he avoids
strife because it disturbs his own serenity. Björck is an example of
the fortunate man whose life is not in conflict with his upbringing,
but who rather builds up stone by stone, on the foundation already
laid; everything proceeds in a workmanlike way by level and rule; the
house is finished, as it was designed, without the plan undergoing any
alteration. Stunted by domestic tyranny, tasting early the sweets
of homage and reverence, he ceased to grow. He accepted Boström's
compromise with Christianity without examining it, and in doing so, he
had finished his life-work. His poetry is especially praised for its
purity and spiritual character. What is this "purity" which in our
days is so sharply contrasted with the sensual? The secret is, that he
did not get her; just as Dante's heavenly love for Beatrice was due to
the same involuntary cause. Björck therefore sang of the unattainable
with the quiet melancholy of unsatisfied love. But that, however, is no
virtue, and purity should be a virtue.

In short, Björck and Snoilsky sang of water and drank wine, and in this
were just the opposite to the poets of our time, who are said to sing
of wine and drink water. A poet's life always seems to be at variance
with his teachings. Why? Is it that, in composing, he wishes to escape
from his own personality, and find another? Is it a wish to disguise
himself? Or is it modesty, the fear of giving himself away, and of
self-exposure? This is a weighty problem for future psychologists to
unravel.

Björck composed poems both for the reformation of the constitution
in 1865, and for the restoration to power of the King. He saw harmony
everywhere, and when he celebrated the restored union between Sweden
and Norway in 1864, he was extremely melodious. He also praised
Abraham Lincoln; negro-emancipation and white slavery--that is the
ideal of freedom of the Holy Alliance! Revolution certainly, but legal
revolution by the will of God! Well, he knew no better, and few did at
that time. Therefore we do not judge the man but only his work, the
motives inspiring which are a matter of indifference to posterity.

Young men read these poets, many of them with great edification.
They proclaimed no new era, but prophesied after the event that
now the millennium was come, the ideal realised, and lines of
demarcation obliterated once for all. They looked with satisfaction
on their creations, rubbed their hands, and found them all good. An
atmosphere of peace had spread itself over the whole of Upsala and
its neighbourhood; now one might sleep till Doomsday was the belief
of old and young. But then discordant sounds began to be heard, and
in the days of universal peace fire-beacons began to be seen on the
neighbouring mountain-tops. From Norway open water was signalled
and the revolving lights were kindled. Rome captured Greece, but
Greece re-captured Rome. Sweden had captured Norway, but now Norway
re-captured Sweden. Lorenz Dietrichson was appointed as professor
at the university of Upsala in 1861, and he was the forerunner of
Norwegian influence. He made Sweden acquainted with Danish and
Norwegian literature, then almost unknown, and founded the literary
society which produced poets like Snoilsky and Björck.

After Norway had broken loose from the Danish monarchy and had ceased
to be a branch of the head office in Copenhagen, it was not grafted
into Sweden but retreated into itself. At the same time it opened
direct communication with the continent. Its awakening to independence
was coincident with a strong stream of foreign influence. It was
Björnson who first roused Norway to self-consciousness; but when this
degenerated into a narrow patriotism, Ibsen came with the pruning
shears.

As the strife became fiercer and Christiania would not lend itself
to be a field of battle, the conflict was transferred to hospitable
Sweden. The Norwegian wine was well adapted for exportation; pamphlets
grew in size as they travelled and in Sweden became literature.
Thoughts came to the top and personalities settled at the bottom of
the vessel. Ibsen and Björnson broke into Sweden; Tidemand and Gude
took prizes in the art exhibition of 1866; Kierulf and Nordraak were
authorities in singing and music. Then came Ibsen's _Brand_. This had
appeared in 1866, but John did not see it till 1869. It made a deep
impression on the primitive Christian side of him, but it was gloomy
and severe. The final utterance in it regarding "Deus caritatis" was
not satisfying, and the poet seemed to have had too much sympathy with
his hero to have described his overthrow with cold irony.

_Brand_ gave John a good deal of trouble. He (Brand) had dropped
Christianity but kept its stern ascetic morality; he demanded obedience
for his old doctrines though they were no more practicable; he despised
the tendency of the time towards humanity and compromise, but ended by
recommending the God of compromise. Brand was a fanatic, a pietist,
who dared to believe himself right against the whole world, and John
felt himself related to this terrible egoist who was wrong besides. No
half-measures! go straight on; break down everything that stands in the
way, for you only are right! John's tender conscience, which suffered
at every step he took lest it should vex his father or friends, was
stupefied by Brand. All ties of consideration and of love should be
torn asunder for the sake of "the cause." That John was no longer a
pietist was a piece of good fortune, otherwise he too would have been
overwhelmed by the avalanche.[2] But Brand gave him a belief in a
conscience which was purer than that which education had given him, and
a law which was higher than conventional law. And he needed this iron
backbone in his weak back, for he had long periods during which by
fits and starts and out of mildness he thought himself wrong, and the
first who came, right; therefore, he was also very easily misled. Brand
was the last Christian who followed an old ideal, therefore he could be
110 pattern for one who felt a vague inclination to revolt against all
old ideals.

_Brand_ after all was a fine plant, but without any roots in its own
period; and, therefore, it belonged to the herbarium. Then came
_Peer Gynt_. This was rather obscure than deep and had its value as
an antidote against the national self-love. The fact that Ibsen was
neither banished nor persecuted after having said such bitter things
against the proud Norwegians, shows that in Norway they were more
honourable fighters than the Swedes afterwards showed themselves to be.

Ibsen was at that time regarded as a misanthrope and as an enemy and
envier of Björnson. People were divided into two camps, and the dispute
as to which of the two was the greater was endless, for it concerned an
artistic problem--"contents or form."

The influence of Norwegian on Swedish poetry has been great and partly
beneficent, but there was a peculiarly Norwegian element in it, which
was not adaptable to Sweden, a land with quite another development.
In the sequestered valleys of Norway there lived a people who, under
the pressure of need and poverty, found ready to their hand in the
Christian doctrine of renunciation an ascetic philosophy which promised
heaven as a compensation for earth's hardships. Nature in her most
gloomy and parsimonious aspect, a damp climate, long winters, great
distances between the villages,--all co-operated to preserve an
austere mediæval type of Christianity. There is something which may
be said to resemble insanity in the Norwegian character, of the same
kind as the English "spleen;" and possibly the intimate relations of
Norway with the hypochondriacal islanders may have impressed traces
on its civilisation. In Jonas Lie's _Clair-voyant_ this melancholy
is depleted, and in it one finds the same weird atmosphere as in the
Icelandic sagas, and the theme also is similar,--the struggle of the
spirit against physical darkness and cold. There we have depicted
the tragic lot of the Norseman banished from sunny lands to gloomy
wildernesses, and seeking relief by emigration, the ethnographical
significance of which has been overlooked in view of its economical
aspect. The Norwegian character is the result of many hundred years of
tyranny, of injustice, of hard struggling for a livelihood, of want of
gladness.

Swedish literature should have avoided absorbing these national
peculiarities, but they have made it half-Norwegian. Brand still haunts
Swedish literature with his ideal demands, with which the romanticised
and cheerful Swede cannot sincerely sympathise. Therefore this foreign
garb suits him so badly; therefore modern Swedish music sounds so
unharmonious, like an echo of the violins of Hardanger, tuned over
again by Grieg; therefore the talk of greater moral purity sounds
discordant in the mouth of the vivacious Swede. He has not suffered
from long oppression and does not need to seek himself in the past;
melancholy has not so beset him in his open flat land of lakes and
rivers, and therefore a sour mien becomes him ill.

When the Swedes received great and novel ideas by way of Norway or
direct from the Continent through Ibsen and Björnson, they should have
kept the kernel and thrown away the Norwegian husk. Even the _Doll's
House_ is Norwegian. Nora is related to the Icelandic women who wished
to set up a matriarchate; she belongs to the weird imperious women in
_Härmännen_ who again are pure Norse. In them the emotions have become
frozen or distorted by centuries of cognate marriages.

The whole Swedish literature of feminism is ultra-Norwegian; it
contains the same immodest demands on the man and petting of the spoilt
woman. Several young authors have introduced the Norwegian style into
Swedish; one authoress has placed the scene of her book in Norway, and
made her hero talk Norwegian! Further one could not go!

Let us welcome foreign influence which is cosmopolitan; but not
Norwegian, for that is provincial, and we have plenty of the same kind
ourselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

So John found himself again in Upsala,--the same Upsala from which he
had fled nine months before, and to which he most unwillingly returned.
To be compelled to a course which he did not wish always made him feel
as though he were encountering a personal foe, who cajoled him out of
his wishes and antipathies, and forced him to bend. Since he still
believed himself under God's personal providence, he accepted that as
though it were for his best. Later on he had a feeling that there was
a malignant power; this developed into the belief that there were two
ruling powers, one good, one evil, which divided the empery, or ruled
alternately.

He asked himself again, "What have you to do here?" To take his degree,
but especially to cover his retreat from the theatre. Privately he
wished to write a play, and, under the screen of its success, wriggle
out of the examination.

At first he was not at all comfortable in his lonely attic. He had
become accustomed to luxury, a large room, a good table, attendance
and society. After having been habituated to be treated as a man and
to have intercourse with older and cultivated people, he found himself
again in a state of pupilage as a student. But he cast himself into
the crowd and soon found himself on social terms with three distinct
circles. The first consisted of friends whom he met by day, who were
students of medicine and natural history and atheists. From them he
heard for the first time the name of Darwin; but it passed by him like
a doctrine for which he was not yet ripe. His evening society consisted
of a priest and a lawyer with whom he played cards till deep in the
night. He considered himself now in Upsala merely to grow and get
older, and that it was a matter of indifference what he did, as long as
he killed the time. He drew up the scheme of a new tragedy, Eric XIV,
but found it poor, and burnt it, for his faculty of self-criticism had
awakened and was severer in its demands.

Later on in the term he entered a third society, which formed his
special circle during the whole of his time at Upsala and for a long
while afterwards. One evening he chanced to meet a young companion
with whom he had been a pupil at the private school. They discussed
literature, and over a glass of toddy made the plan of forming some
young poets into a club for literary work. The plan was carried out.
Besides John and the other founder of the club, four young students
were elected to it. They were fine young fellows of an idealist turn of
mind, as the saying is, with high purposes and enthusiastic for vague
ideals. They had not yet come into contact with the hard realities of
life; they had all well-to-do parents, no cares, and knew nothing at
all of the struggle for a subsistence. John, on the other hand, had
just left the most unpleasant surroundings; he had seen people who
were always ready to quarrel, conceited, empty-headed pupils of the
Theatrical Academy. Here he found himself transplanted into an entirely
new world. There were these happy youths going to their well-supplied
tables, smoking fine cigars, taking walks, and poetising beautifully
over the beauty of life which they knew nothing of.

Rules were drawn up for the club, which received the name "Runa,"
_i.e_. "song." The choice of this title was probably due to the
Northern renaissance which came in with the Scandinavian movement.
Its chief ornaments were Karl XV in poetry, Winge and Malmström in
painting, and Molin in sculpture. Recently it had been quickened by
Björnson's and Ibsen's dramas on subjects from the old Norse life.
The study of Icelandic, which had been newly introduced into the
university, also lent strength to this movement.

The number of members of the club was not to exceed nine; each of
them was known by a Runic sign. John was called "Frö" and the other
founder of the club, "Ur." Every variety of opinion was represented.
Ur was a great patriot and venerated Sweden with its memories. In his
opinion it had the most brilliant history in Europe, and had always
been free. For the rest he was a practically minded man with a special
faculty for statistics, politics, and biography; he was a severe and
clever critic, and also managed the affairs of the club. He was a
reliable friend, good company, helpful and hearty. Secondly, there
was a full-blooded romanticist who read Heine and drank absinthe--a
sensitive youth enthusiastic for all old ideals, but especially for
Heine. There was also a seraph who sang of the indescribably little,
especially the happiness of childhood; fourthly, a silent worshipper of
nature, and, lastly, an eclectic philosopher and improvisator, who had
an extraordinary faculty for improvising in any style whatever, when
requested. Two minutes after he had been asked, he would stand up and
speak or sing on the spur of the moment in the character of Anacreon,
Horace, the Edda, or any one else, and even in foreign languages.

The first meeting of the club was at Thurs', who was lodged the most
comfortably in two rooms and had the best pipes. As one of the founders
of the club John first of all read his prologue, which, according
to the rules of the society, had to be in verse. It began by asking
after the ancient bard Brage and his harp which was now silent. Brage
represented the new Norse element, the resuscitation of which was
believed necessary. The whole programme of the idealists was called
"a trivial striving." All the great efforts of their contemporaries
after reality and for the improvement of the conditions of life was
"trivial." The spirit was taken prisoner in matter, and therefore
all that was material was to be regarded as the enemy. Such was the
teaching of the romanticists, and of John's prologue. Then the poet
went out into nature, listened to the bells of the cathedral, the
wind, the pines, and the singing of the birds in order to ask the very
natural question: "Nature sings; why should I then be silent?" He
resolved to be no longer silent but to sing,--about the joyous youthful
spring-time of life, its autumn, and about love to one's native soil.
Then (he said) came the wise man with the frozen heart, took his song,
dissected it and found that it was all nonsense. Thus the song was
killed by "overwiseness."

It is not easy to say exactly now what John meant by "overwiseness"
in 1870. He probably had simply forebodings of future critics, and
the "wise man" was no other than the reviewer. Then he inveighed
against the wretched mercenary souls who worship the golden calf but
do not love songs. This had no connection with contemporary matters,
for the sixties were remarkable for bad harvests and consequently
for want of gold. The swindles by company-promoters began with the
seventies. But it was the custom of the contemporary poets to attack
money and the golden calf, and therefore John did so in his prologue.
Now began a life of poetic idleness. Every evening they met either in
a restaurant, or in each other's rooms. But the time was not wasted
in view of his future authorship. John could borrow books from the
well-stocked libraries of his friends, and the interchange of opinions
accustomed him to look at literature from different points of view. But
for them real life, public interests, contemporary politics did not
exist; they lived in dreams. Sometimes his lower-class consciousness
awoke, and he asked himself what he had to do among these rich youths.
But he soon stilled these scruples by drink and talk, and encouraged
himself to go forward and demand something of life, for he had in his
companions' opinion a good chance.

His room was a wretched one; the rain came through the roof, and he had
no proper bed, but only a plank-bed, which in the day-time served as a
sofa. When time hung heavily on his hands and he grew weary of poetical
discussions he looked up his old school-fellow, the natural history
student. There he looked through the microscope, and heard of Darwin
and the new scientific views. His friend gave him well-meant practical
advice and recommended him to get out of his difficulties by writing a
one-act play in verse for the Theatre Royal.

John objected that his dramatic talent had not scope enough in one act,
and said that he would rather write a tragedy in five.

"Yes, but it is harder to get that accepted," replied his friend.
Finally he let himself be persuaded and determined to carry out a
small idea he had of a short play based on Thorwaldson's first visit
to Rome. His friend lent him books on Italy and John set to work. In
fourteen days the piece was ready.

"That will be acted," said his friend. "It has dramatic points, you
see."

Since it was still a long time to the next meeting of the club, John
hastened in the evening to Thurs and Rejd and read the piece to them.
They were both of the same opinion as the natural history student,
that the piece would be performed. They had a champagne supper, and
kept drinking till the morning, and then went to sleep on the floor of
Rejd's room with the punch-glasses by them. In a couple of hours they
awoke, finished their half-empty glasses at sunrise and went out to
continue the celebration of the occasion.

The sympathy of John's friends was hearty, unselfish and warm, without
a trace of envy. He always remembered with pleasure this first success
as one of the brightest recollections of his youth. The enthusiastic,
devoted Rejd increased Hohn's debt of gratitude by copying out the
piece in his graceful hand-writing. Then it was sent to the board of
management of the Theatre Royal. Spring arrived and they spent the
month of May in a continual carouse. The club had a small room in the
restaurant Lilia Förderfvet for their evening suppers. There they
talked, made speeches, and drank enormously. At last the term ended and
they had to part, but they arranged to meet once more at Stockholm,
and celebrate the festival day of the club by an excursion into the
country.

At six o'clock one June morning the four members of the club met at
Skeppsholm, where they had hired a rowing-boat. The chest of the club,
a card-board box containing documents, was stowed away with baskets of
provisions and bottles of wine. After Os and Rejd had taken the oars,
they steered the boat to the canal leading through the Zoological
Gardens, in order to reach the place they had appointed, a promontory
of Liding Island. Thurs played airs on the flute to Bellmann's songs,
and Frö (John) accompanied him on a guitar which he had learnt to play
at Upsala.

As soon as they landed, breakfast was laid in a meadow by the shore.
The club-chest adorned with leaves and flowers was set in the middle
of the table-cloth, and on it were set the brandy-bottles and glasses.
John, who had studied antiquities for his play, _Sinking Hellas_,
arranged the meal in the Greek style, so that they wore garlands, and
ate reclining. A fire was lit between some stones and coffee was made.
At nine o'clock in the morning they drank brandy and punch.

John read his drama, _The Free-thinker_, which was duly criticised.
Then they gave full course to their eloquence. Thurs was the best
speaker; he could express emotions and thoughts rhythmically. Poems
were read and received with applause. John sang folk-songs to the
accompaniment of his guitar, some on sentimental subjects, and some on
improper ones. At noon they were still in high spirits but inclined to
be sleepy.

In the afternoon when the sun was over Lilia Värtan they had a short
sleep, and then the carouse passed into a new phase. Thurs, the
Israelite, had recited a poem on the greatness of the North, and called
on the old gods of Scandinavia. Ur, the patriot, denied him the right
to appropriate other people's gods. The Jewish question came up; they
took fire and nearly quarrelled, but ended by embracing.

Then began the sentimental stage. They had to weep, for alcohol has
this effect on the membranes of the stomach and the lachrymal duets.
Ur first felt this and unconsciously sought for a melancholy subject.
He burst into tears. When asked why, he did not know, but said at last
that he had been treated as a buffoon, which he always was. He declared
that he had a very serious nature and that he also had great troubles
which no one knew about, but now he unburdened his heart and told us a
domestic story. After he had done so, he became cheerful again.

But the evening was long and they began to wish to go home. Their
brains were empty; they were tired of each other, and weary of play
and drinking. They began to reflect and examine the philosophy of
intoxication. From whence do men derive this desire to make themselves
senseless? What lies behind it? Is it the southern exile's longing
for a lost sunny existence in northern lands? There must be some felt
necessity underlying intoxication, for a vice like this would not
have laid hold of all mankind without reason. Is it that the member
of society in a state of intoxication throws away all the lies of
society? For the laws of social intercourse involuntarily forbid one to
speak out all one's thoughts. Otherwise whence comes the saying, _In
vino veritas_? Why did the Greeks honour Bacchus as one who improved
men and manners? Why did Dionysus love peace, and why was he said
to increase riches? Has wine, which is chiefly drunk by men, some
influence on the development of man's intelligence and activity, so
that he becomes superior to woman? And why do the Muhammadans who drink
no wine stand on what is regarded as a lower level of civilisation?
As salt is used as a daily nutrient to replace the salts which their
hunting forefathers found in the blood of beasts of the chase, does not
wine compensate for some lost nutritive matter belonging to earlier
stages, and, if so, which? Some idea or necessity must underlie so
singular a custom.

Perhaps the need of losing consciousness justifies the axiom of the
pessimists that consciousness is the beginning of suffering. Wine makes
one naive and unconscious as a child; or even as an animal. Is it
the lost paradise which one wishes to recover? But the remorse which
follows it? Remorse and acidity of the stomach have the same symptoms.
Is there then a confusion, and are sensations called "remorse" which
are only heart-burn? Or does the drinker returned to consciousness
regret that he has exposed himself by daylight and betrayed his
secrets? There is something to feel remorse for in that! He is ashamed
that he has been taken by surprise, he feels afraid because he has
exposed himself and given away his weapons. Remorse and fear are close
neighbours.

Yet once more the members of the club drowned their consciousness in
drink and then got into the boat to proceed home. John and Thurs began
a dispute about Bellmann[3] which lasted till they reached Skeppsholm,
and closed with sharp remarks on both sides.

John had an old grudge against this poet. Once as a child, he had been
ill for a whole summer, and had by chance taken Bellmann's _Fredman's
Epistles_ out of his father's book-case. The book seemed to him silly,
but he was too young to form a well-grounded opinion on it. Later on,
it sometimes happened that his father sat at the piano, and hummed
Bellmann's songs. The boy found it incomprehensible that his father and
uncle admired them so much. Subsequently one Christmas he saw a violent
controversy break out between his mother and his uncle on the subject
of Bellmann. The latter set the poet above everything--Bible, sermons
and all. There were depths, he said, in Bellmann. Depths indeed!
Probably Atterbom's romanticist one-sided criticism had filtered
through the daily papers to the middle classes. As a school-boy and
student, John had sung "Up, Amaryllis" and other idylls of Bellmann's,
naturally without understanding them or thinking of the meaning of the
words. He sang in a quartette, or choir, for it sounded well. Finally,
in 1867, he read Ljunggren's lectures and a light broke upon him, but
not one of Ljunggren's kindling. He thought the latter mad. Bellmann
was a ballad-singer, that was true, but a great poet, the greatest poet
of the North?--impossible!

Bellmann had sung his songs composed on the French model for the
Court and his own friends, but not for the common people, who would
not have understood "Amaryllis," "Eol," "The Tritons," "Fröja" and
all the rococo stock-in-trade. He died and was forgotten. Why had
he been disinterred by Atterbom? Because the pugnacious romantic
school required an embodiment of irregularity to set up against the
classicists, as they had nothing of their own to boast of. Thus the
romantic school gained the day; and when one considers how cowardly
most people are in the face of public opinion, and the tendency of the
middle-class to ape its superiors and reverence authority, one ceases
to be surprised at the elevation of Bellmann. Ljunggren and Eichhorn
outstripped Atterbom in finding beauty and genius in his writings they
were reinforced by the clerical element, and thus the idol was set up
for worship. Bystrom, the sculptor, had already magnified the little
lottery-secretary and court-poet into a Dionysus and lent him the
features of an antique bust of Bacchus.

Bellmann's idylls are careless, extemporised compositions with forced
rhymes, and as disconnected as the thoughts in the brain of a drunkard.
One does not know whether it is day or night, the thunder rolls in the
sunshine, and the weaves beat while the boat is floating calmly on the
waters. They simply provide a text for music, and for that purpose
one might use a book of addresses. The meaning of the words does not
matter, as long as they sound well.

According to his custom Thurs took the matter personally. It was an
attack on his good taste and on his honour, for John said that his
admiration of Bellmann was mere humbug; that he had read himself into
it, and that it was not genuine. Thurs on the other hand declared John
to be presumptuous, because he wished to criticise the greatest Swedish
poet.

"Prove that he is the greatest," said John.

"Tegner and Atterbom say so."

"That is no proof."

"Simply because you have a spirit of contradiction."

"Doubt is the beginning of certainty, and absurd assertions must arouse
opposition in a healthy brain."

And so on.

Although there is no such thing as a judgment which holds good
universally, since every judgment is individualistic, there are, on the
other hand, judgments of a majority and of a party. By means of these
John was suppressed and kept silence on the subject of Bellmann for
many years. Only when later on the old historian Fryxell proved that
Bellmann was not the apostle of sobriety which Eichhorn and Ljunggren
had made him out to be, and also no god, but a mediocre ballad-singer,
did John see a gleam of hope that his individual opinion might become
some day the opinion of the majority. But he already saw the question
from another point of view; Sweden would have been neither unhappier
nor worse, if Bellmann had never lived. He would like to have said to
the patriots and democrats, "Bellmann was a poet of Stockholm and of
the Court, who jested very cruelly with poor people." He would like
to have said to the Good Templars who sang Bellmann's songs, "You are
singing drinking songs which were written during fits of intoxication
and celebrate drink." For his own part, John held that Bellmann's
songs were pleasant to sing because of the light French melodies which
accompanied them, and as for their French morality it did not vex him
at all--quite the contrary. But earlier, at the age of twenty-one, he
was vexed by it, for he was an idealist and desired purity in poetry,
just as the surviving idealists and admirers of Bellmann do at the
present time.

These have used the word "humour" to save themselves and their
morality. But what do they mean by "humour"? Is it jest or earnest?
What is jest? The reluctance of the cowardly to speak out his mind?
Humour reflects the double nature of man,--the indifference of the
natural man to conventional morality, and the Christian's sigh over
immorality which is after all so enticing and seductive. Humour speaks
with two tongues,--one of the satyr, the other of the monk. The
humorist lets the mænad loose, but for old unsound reasons thinks that
he ought to flog her with rods. This is a transitional form of humour
which is passing away, and already at the last gasp. The greatest
modern writers have thrown away the rod, and play the hypocrite
no longer, but speak their minds plainly out. The old tippler's
sentimentality can no longer count for "a good heart," for it has been
discovered to be merely bad nerves.

After arguing till they were weary, the members of the club landed in
Stockholm harbour.

[1] Boström: Swedish Philosopher (1797-1866).

[2] _Vide_ the end of _Brand_.

[3] Famous Swedish poet.



CHAPTER IX

BOOKS AND THE STAGE


The history of the development of a soul can be sometimes written by
giving a simple bibliography; for a man who lives in a narrow circle
and never meets great men personally, seeks to make their acquaintance
through books. The fact that the same books do not make the same
impression, nor have the same effect upon all, shows their relative
powerlessness to convert anybody. For example, we call the criticism
with which we agree good; the criticism which contradicts our views is
bad. Thus we seem to be educated with preconceived views, and the book
which strengthens, expresses and develops these makes an impression
on us. The danger of a one-sided education through books is that most
books, especially those composed at the end of an era, and at the
university, are antiquated. The youth who has received old ideals from
his parents and teachers is accordingly necessarily out of date before
his education is completed. When he enters manhood, he is generally
obliged to fling away his whole stock of old ideas, and be born again,
as it were. Time has gone by him, while he was reading the old books,
and he finds himself a stranger among his contemporaries.

John had spent his youth in accumulating antiquarian lore. He knew all
about Marathon and Cannae, the war of the Spanish succession and the
Thirty Years' War, the Middle Ages and antiquity; but when the war
between France and Germany broke out, he did not know the cause of it.
He read about it as he would have read a play, and was interested to
see what the result of it would be.

In Kristineberg, where he spent the summer with his parents, he lay
out on the grass in the park and read Oehlenschläger. For his degree
examination, he had, besides his chief subject--æsthetics,--to
choose a special one, and, enticed by Dietrichson's lectures, he had
chosen Danish literature. In Oehlenschläger he had found the summit
of Northern poetry. That was for him the quintessence of poetry,--the
directness which he admired perhaps for the very reason that he had
not got it. The Danish language perhaps also contributed to this
result; it seemed to him an idealised Swedish, and sounded like his
mother-speech from the lips of a woman worshipped from afar. When he
read Oehlenschläger's _Helge_, Tegner's _Frithiof's Saga_ seemed to him
petty; he found it unwieldy, prosaic, clerical, unpoetic.

Oehlenschläger's dramas were a book which had an influence on John by
way of a supplementary contrast. Perhaps the romantic element in them
found an echo in the youth's mind, which had now awoken* to poetic
activity, and looked upon poetry and romance as identical. Other
contributory circumstances were his liking for Norse antiquities which
Oehlenschläger had just discovered, and the unrequited love he had
just then for a blond maiden who was engaged to a lieutenant. But the
impression made by Oehlenschläger was only fleeting, and hardly lasted
a year; it was a light spring breeze which passed by.

It fared worse with John's study of æsthetics as expounded by
Ljunggren in two closely printed volumes, containing the views of all
philosophers on the Beautiful, but giving no satisfactory definition of
it.

John had studied the antique in the National Museum, and asked himself
how the pot-house scenes of the Dutch genre painters which, when
they occurred in reality, were called ugly, could be reckoned among
beautiful pictures, although they were in no way idealised. To this the
æsthetic philosophers gave no answer. They shirked the question and
set up one theory after another, but the only excuse they could find
for the admission of ugliness was that it acted as a foil, and provided
a comic element. But a strong suspicion had been aroused in John that
the "Beautiful" was not always beautiful.

Furthermore, he was troubled by doubts whether it was possible to
have independent standards of taste. In the newly-founded paper, the
_Schwedische Zeitschrift_, he had read discussions about works of
art, and seen how disputants on both sides defended their position
with equally strong arguments. One sought beauty in form, another in
subject, and a third in the harmony between the two. Accordingly a
well-painted subject from still life can rank higher than the Niobe,
for this group of statuary is not beautiful in its outlines, the
arrangement of the drapery of the principal figure being especially
tasteless although the judgment of the majority regards the work as
sublime. Therefore the sublime does not necessarily consist in beauty
of form.

Victor Hugo's romances had found a fertile soil in John's mind. The
revolt against society; the reverence paid to Nature by the poet living
on a lonely island; the scorn for the ever-prevalent stupidity; the
indignation against formal religion and the enthusiasm for God as the
Creator of all,--all that was germinating in the young man's mind began
to grow, but was stifled by the autumn leaf-drifts of old books.

John's life in the domestic circle was now a quiet one. The storms
had subsided; his brothers and sisters were grown up. His father, who
still always sat over his account-ledgers, calculating the ways and
means of providing for his flock of children, had become older, and
now perceived that John was also older. They often discussed together
topics of common interest. As regards the Franco-German War they were
both fairly neutral. As Latinised Teutons they did not love the German.
They hated and feared him as a sort of uncle with a right of seniority
against the Swedes, and they did not forget that victorious Prussia had
once been a Swedish province. The Swede had become more French than he
was aware, and now he felt conscious of his relationship to _la grande
nation_. In the evenings when they sat in the garden and the noise of
traffic had ceased, they heard the singing of the Marseillaise from
Blanch's café, and the hurrahs which were soon to be silent.

In August, when the theatres re-opened, John received the long-desired
news that his play had been accepted for the stage. That was the first
intoxicating success which he had experienced. To have a play accepted
at the Theatre Royal when he was only twenty-one was sufficient
compensation for all his misfortunes. His words would reach the public
from the first stage in the land; his failure as an actor would be
forgotten; his father would see that his son amid all his notorious
fluctuations had chosen right, and all would be well. In autumn, before
the university term began, the piece was performed. It was naive,
pious and full of reverence for art, but had one dramatic scene which
saved it in spite of its slightness--Thorwaldsen about to shatter
the statue of Jason with his hammer. But on the other hand the piece
contained a presumptuous outburst against contemporary rhymers. What
was the author's intention in that? How could a beginner who had so
many forced rhymes himself, cast a stone at another? It was a piece
of temerity which found its own punishment. John stole to the bottom
of the third row of seats to view the performance of his piece from a
standing position. Rejd was already there before him and the curtain
was up. John felt as though he stood under an electric machine. Every
nerve quivered, his legs shook, and his tears ran the whole time from
pure nervousness. Rejd had to hold his hand in order to quiet him.
Now and then there was applause, but John knew that it was mostly from
his relatives and friends, and did not let himself be deceived. Every
stupidity which had inadvertently escaped him now jarred on his ear,
and made him quiver; he saw nothing but crudeness in the piece; he felt
so ashamed that his ears burned; before the curtain fell he rushed away
out into the dark market-place.

He felt as though annihilated. The attack on the priests was stupid and
unjust; the glorification of poverty and pride seemed to him false, his
description of the relationship between father and son was cynical. How
could he have shown off in this absurd way? It seemed to him as though
he had exposed his nakedness, and shame overpowered every other feeling.

On the other hand he found the actors good; the _mise en scène_ was
more appropriate than he had expected. Everything was good except the
piece itself. He wandered down to the Norrstrom, and felt inclined
to drown himself. What most annoyed him was that he had so openly
exhibited his feelings. Whence came that? And why should one in general
be ashamed of such exhibitions? Why are the feelings so sacred? Perhaps
because the feelings in general are false, as they only express a
physical sensation, in which personality of the individual does not
fully participate. If it is really so, then John was ashamed as an
ordinary man, to have been untruthful in his writing and to have worn
disguise.

To be moved at the sight of human suffering is regarded as a mark of
fine feeling and meritorious, but it is said to be only a natural
reflex-movement. One involuntarily transfers the sufferings of the
other to oneself and suffers for one's own sake. Another's tears could
bring one to weep just as another's yawning could make one yawn. That
was all. John felt ashamed that he had lied and caught himself in the
act, though the public had not caught him.

No one is such a merciless critic as a dramatist who sees his own play
acted. He lets no single word pass through his sieve. He does not lay
the blame on the actors, but generally admires them for rendering his
stupidities with such taste. John found his play stupid. It had lain
by for half a year, and perhaps he had outgrown it. Another piece was
performed after it which lasted for two hours. During the whole time
he wandered about the streets in the darkness, feeling ashamed of
himself. He had made an appointment to drink a glass with some friends
and relatives after the performance in the Hôtel du Nord, but remained
away. He saw they were looking for him but did not wish to meet them.
So they went in again to see the second play. At last it was over. The
spectators streamed out and dispersed through the streets. He hastened
away in order not to hear their comments.

At last he saw a single group standing under the portico of the
dramatic theatre. They were looking out in all directions and called
him. Finally he came forward as pale and melancholy as a corpse.

They congratulated him on his success. The play had been applauded and
was very good. They repeated to him the verdicts of other spectators
and quieted him. Then they dragged him to a restaurant and compelled
him to eat and drink. "That will do you good, you old death's-head!"
said a shop-assistant. John was soon pulled down from his imaginative
flight. "What have you got to be melancholy for," he was asked, "when
you have had a play acted by the Theatre Royal?" He could not tell
them. His boldest ambition was fulfilled; but it was probably not
what he wanted. The thought that in any case it was an honour did not
comfort him.

The next morning he went into a shop, and bought the morning paper
and read a criticism to the effect that the piece was written in
choice language, and (since it was anonymous) probably by a well-known
art-critic who had moved among artistic circles at Rome. That was
pleasant and cheered his spirits.

At noon he started for Upsala. His father had engaged a room for him
in a boarding-house, kept by the widow of a clergyman, that he might
complete his studies under proper supervision.



CHAPTER X

TORN TO PIECES


John's entrance into the boarding-house secured for him intercourse
with a large and varied circle,--perhaps too varied. There were
students of all ages, of all subjects, and from all districts, from
clergymen who were reading for their last examination to young medical
and law students. There were also ladies in the house, and John was
for the eighth time in love. Again the object of his affections
was unattainable, being engaged to another. The variety of this
social intercourse overloaded his brain with impressions from all
circles; his personality became relaxed and distracted through the
self-adaptation and compromises with other people's views which are
necessary in society. Besides this a great deal of drinking went on
nearly every evening. On one of the first days after his arrival
appeared a criticism of his play in one of the evening papers. It was
very sharp but just, and therefore hit John hard. He felt stripped
and seen through. The critic said that the author had concealed his
insignificant personality behind a great name--Thorwaldsen--but
that the disguise did not avail him and so on. John felt altogether
bankrupt. In such cases one tries to defend oneself, and he compared
his own with other bad plays, which the same severe critic had
praised. He felt treated unjustly, and indeed when compared with others
it was so, but not when he was regarded by himself alone. The fact that
the critic was worse did not make his piece better.

John became shy and averse to company. This was increased by the
students' club starting a paper in which they made merry over him and
his play. He fancied he saw grimaces and contempt everywhere, and went
preferably by back streets on his walks.

Then there came a yet severer blow. A friend had, on his own account,
published one of John's first plays,--the _Free-thinker_. While he was
spending an evening with Rejd an acquaintance brought in the hated
evening paper. It contained a scathing article on the play, which was
mocked at and cut to pieces. John was obliged to read the article in
the presence of his friends. He had, against his will, to admit that
the critic was not unjust, but it upset him terribly.

Why is it so hard to hear the truth from others, while at the same
time one can be so severe against oneself? Probably because the social
masquerade in which we all take part makes every one fear being
unmasked, probably also because responsibility and unpleasantness are
involved in it. One feels oneself overreached and cheated. The critic
who sits at ease and unmasks others would feel himself equally scourged
and exposed if his secrets were betrayed. Social life is honeycombed
with falsity, but who likes to be discovered? That is why at times of
solitude, when the past rises up unescapably, we do not feel remorse
for our faults, but for our follies and necessary cruelties. Mistakes
were necessary and had some use, but follies were merely injurious and
should have been avoided. It is for this reason that men pay greater
honour to intelligence than to morality, for the former is a reality,
the latter an idea.

Meanwhile John felt the same pains which he imagined a criminal must
feel. He felt impelled to obliterate as soon as possible the impression
made by his stupidity. But he felt also that a kind of injustice
had been done him since he had been criticised simply and solely as
a writer, although his production was a year old, and he himself,
therefore, maturer than it, by a year. But it was not the fault of the
critic that there was an incongruity between the criticism and the
_corpus delicti_.

He began to compose another tragedy, _The Assistant at the Sacrifice_.
This was intended to deal with Christendom in artistic form, and to
handle the same problem and the same questions as his former play. By
"artistic form" at that period was meant the laying of the scene of
the play in a past epoch. John wrote the piece under the influence of
Oehlenschläger and the Icelandic sagas which he had lately read in the
original.

He had, however, a severe struggle with his conscience, for his father
had exacted a promise from him not to write for the stage till he had
passed his examination. It was, therefore, an act of deceit to take
help from his father and not to fulfil the conditions on which it was
granted. But he silenced his scruples by saying to himself, "Father
will be pleased enough if I have a speedy and great success." In that
he was not far wrong.

But another element now entered into his life, and had a decided
influence both on his views of things and his work. This was his
acquaintance with two men,--an author and a remarkable personality.
Unfortunately they were both abnormal and therefore had only a
disturbing effect upon his development.

The author was Kierkegaard,[1] whose book, _Either--Or_, John had
borrowed from a member of the Song Club, and read with fear and
trembling. His friends had also read it as a work of genius, had
admired the style, but not been specialty influenced by it,--a proof
that books have little effect, when they do not find readers in
sympathy with the author. But upon John the book made the impression
intended by the author. He read the first part containing "The
Confessions of an Æsthete." He felt sometimes carried away by it, but
always had an uncomfortable feeling as though present at a sick-bed.
The perusal of the first part left a feeling of emptiness and despair
behind it. The book agitated him. "The Diary of a Seducer" he regarded
as the fancies of an unclean imagination. Things were not like that in
real life. Moreover John was no sybarite, but on the contrary inclined
to asceticism and self-torment. Such egotistic sensuality as that of
the hero of Kierkegaard's work was absurd because the suffering he
caused by the satisfaction of his desires necessarily involved him in
suffering and, therefore, defeated his object.

The second part of the work containing the philosopher's "Discourse on
Life as a Duty," made a deeper impression on John. It showed him that
he himself was an "æsthete" who had conceived of authorship as a form
of enjoyment. Kierkegaard said that it should be regarded as a calling.
Why? The proof was wanting, and John, who did not know that Kierkegaard
was a Christian, but thought the contrary, not having seen his
_Edifying Discourses_, imbibed unaware the Christian system of ethics
with its doctrine of self-sacrifice and duty Along with these the idea
of sin returned. Enjoyment was a sin, and one had to do one's duty.
Why? Was it for the sake of society to which one was under obligations?
No! merely because it was duty. That was simply Kant's categorical
imperative. When he reached the end of the work _Either--Or_ and found
the moral philosopher also in despair, and that all this teaching about
duty had only produced a Philistine, he felt broken in two. "Then," he
thought, "better be an æsthete." But one cannot be an æsthete if one
has been a Christian for five-sixths of one's life, and one cannot be
moral without Christ. Thus he was tossed to and fro like a ball between
the two, and ended in sheer despair.

Had he now read Kierkegaard's discourses, he might possibly have
come a step nearer to Christianity--possibly--for it is difficult to
decide that now, but to receive Christianity again seemed to him like
replacing a tooth which had been torn out, and joyfully thrown into the
fire, along with the accompanying toothache. It was also possible that
if he had known that the book _Either--Or_ was intended to scourge one
to the Cross he might have thrown it away as a jesuitical writing and
been saved from his embarrassment. All that he felt now, however, was
a terrible discord. He had to choose and make the jump between ethics
and æsthetics, but choose how? and jump whither? He could not jump
out in space to embrace a paradox or Christ,--that would have been
self-destruction or madness. But Kierkegaard preached madness? Was
it the despair of the over-self-conscious at finding himself always
self-conscious? Was it the longing of one who sees too deeply for the
unconsciousness of intoxication?

John knew well what the battle between his own will and the will of
others meant. He had given his father trouble enough when he crossed
his plans; but the trouble was mutual; the whole of life consisted of
a web of wills crossing one another. The death of one was life-breath
to another; no one could gain an advantage without hurting the one
he passed by. Life was a perpetual interchange and struggle between
pleasure and pain. His sensuality or desire for enjoyment had not
injured others nor caused them trouble. He had never seduced the
innocent, and had never enjoyed himself without paying the price. He
was moral from habit; from instinct, from fear of the consequences,
from good taste or from education, but the very fact that he did
not feel himself immoral, was a defect and a sin. After reading
_Either--Or_ he felt sinful. The categorical imperative stole on him
under a Latin name and without a cross on its back, and he let himself
be beguiled by it. He did not see that it was a two-thousand-years-old
Christianity in disguise.

Kierkegaard would not have made so deep an impression on him, if a
number of concurrent circumstances had not contributed to that result.
In the letters of the æsthete, Kierkegaard expounded suffering as
enjoyment. John suffered from public contumely; he suffered from his
hard work; he suffered from unrequited affection; he suffered from
unsatisfied desires; he suffered from drink, for he was intoxicated
nearly every evening; he suffered as an artist from mental struggles
and doubts; he suffered from the ugly scenery of Upsala; he suffered
from the discomfort of his rooms; he suffered from examination-books;
he suffered from a bad conscience because he did not study but wrote
plays. But something else lay at the bottom of all this. He had been
brought up to fulfil hard tasks and duties. Now he lived well amid ease
and enjoyment. Study was an enjoyment; authorship, in spite of all its
pains, was a wonderful enjoyment; the life with his comrades was sheer
festivity and jollity. But his plebeian consciousness awoke and told
him that it was not right to enjoy while others worked; _his_ work was
an enjoyment, for it brought him a good deal of honour, and perhaps
money. This accounted for his persistently uneasy conscience which
persecuted him without a cause. Was it that he felt already the signs
of this awakening consciousness of tremendous guilt as regards the
lower classes, the slaves who toiled, while he enjoyed? Did he already
have a foreboding of that sense of justice, which in our days has laid
so strong a hold on many of the upper classes that they have restored
capital which was not quite honestly earned, have expended time and
toil for the liberation of the lower classes, and have worked from
impulse and instinct against their own interests, in order to do right?
Possibly.

But Kierkegaard was not the man to resolve the discord. It was reserved
for the evolutionary philosophers to make peace between passion and
reason, between enjoyment and duty. They cancelled the deceptive
_Either_--_Or_, and substituted _Both--And,_ giving both flesh and
spirit their due. The real significance of Kierkegaard became clear
to John many years later. Then he saw in him the simple pietist, the
ultra-Christian who wished to realise in modern society oriental ideals
of two thousand years ago. But Kierkegaard was right in one point: if
we were to have Christianity, we ought to have it thoroughly; but his
_Either--Or_ was only valid for the priests of the church who called
themselves Christians.

Kierkegaard saw no further, and from him who wrote his book in 1843,
and had a clerical education, one could not expect that he should say:
"Either a Christianity like this, or none!" In that case people would
probably have chosen none. Instead of that Kierkegaard said: "Whether
you are æsthetical or ethical you must cast yourself into the arms
of Christ." His mistake was to oppose ethics and æsthetics to each
other, for they can go very well together. But John did not succeed
in harmonising them till, after endless struggles, at the age of
thirty-seven, he attempted a compromise when he discovered that work
and duty are forms of enjoyment, and that enjoyment itself, well-used,
is a duty.

But at that time, the book weighed on him like a nightmare. He was
angry when his friends wished to regard it as mere literature. He was
not pacified by their regarding it superior in richness, depth and
style to Goethe's _Faust_, which it certainly did surpass by far. John
could not at that time understand that the pillar-saint Kierkegaard had
himself known what enjoyment was when he wrote the first part, and that
the seducer and Don Juan were the author himself, who satisfied his
desires in imagination. No, he thought it was poetry.

John had been already predisposed to receive Kierkegaard's influence,
and now came the other acquaintance, which would not have played a
great rôle in his life if circumstances had not prepared him for
that also. His companions merely regarded the person in question as
ludicrous.

It came about in the following way. Thurs the Jew came one day and told
John that he had made the acquaintance of a genius who wished to join
their Song Club.

"Ah, a genius!"

None of the members of the club believed that they were geniuses, not
even John, and it is doubtful whether any poet has really believed
or felt that he was one. One can, when one makes comparisons, find
that one has produced better work than others, and a clever man
will naturally feel that he understands better than others, but
genius,--that is something else. This title is not generally bestowed
on any one till after death and is now dropping out of common use,
since the secret of the evolution of genius has been discovered.

The novelty aroused attention, and the stranger was elected to the
club under the name of Is. He was not a poet, they were told, but very
learned and a powerful critic.

One evening when the club-meeting was at Thurs' rooms he came--a
little thin person, without an overcoat, dressed like a labourer on
his holiday. His clothes looked as though they were borrowed, for
their elbows and knees were not in the right places. John, who used
to succeed to his elder brother's clothes, noticed this at once. In
his hand he held a dirty beer-soup-coloured hat, such as is only worn
by organ-grinders. His face looked like that of a southern rat-trap
seller. His black hair hung on his shoulders and a black beard fell on
his breast.

"Is it possible?" they asked themselves. "Can he be a student?" He
looked forty, but was only thirty. He stood with his hat in his hand
at the door like a beggar, and hardly ventured to come forward. After
Thurs had drawn him into the room and introduced him, the meeting was
declared open. Is began to speak and they listened. His voice was like
a woman's and sank sometimes, without apology, to a whisper, as though
the speaker demanded perfect silence or spoke for his own satisfaction.
It would be difficult to repeat what he spoke of, for his speech ranged
over everything that he had read, and since he had read for ten years
more than the youths of twenty, they found his learning wonderful.

After that, another member of the club read a poem. Is had to deliver
an opinion on it. He began with Kant, quoted Schopenhauer and
Thackeray, and finished with a lecture on George Sand. No one noticed
that he said nothing about the poem.

Then they went into a restaurant to eat. Is talked philosophy,
æsthetics and history. He spoke sometimes with a melancholy expression
in his dark unfathomable eyes, which never rested on those present, as
though he sought an unseen audience far in the distance, in unknown
space. The club listened reverently with absorbed attention.

John was to hear this man's opinion on his work. He, as well as one of
the most poetical members of the club, began to have serious doubts as
to their vocation. Often, when they had drunk a good deal, they asked
whether they still believed--meaning whether each thought the Other
called to be a poet. It was just the same sort of doubt which John had
felt when he had wondered whether he was a child of God. Is was to
read John's drama, _The Assistant at the Sacrifice_, and to give his
opinion.

One morning John went up to his room to hear his verdict. Is spoke
till noon. About what? About everything. But he had now taken hold of
John's soul. Through conversations with Thurs, he know which strings to
pull, and did so, as he chose. He burrowed in John's mind, not out of
sympathy, but from a spider-like curiosity. He did not speak directly
of John's play but suggested the plan of a new one after his own ideas.
He had the effect of a mesmeriser, and John was magnetised. But he
felt in a state of despair when he left him, as though his friend had
taken his soul, picked it to pieces and thrown them away after he had
satisfied his curiosity.

But John came again, sat on the wise man's sofa, listened to his words
as though they were an oracle, and felt himself completely under his
power. Sometimes he thought it was a ghost who walked on the carpet
when his body disappeared in clouds of tobacco-smoke. The man exercised
what is called a "demonic" influence, _i.e_. inexplicable at first
sight. He had no blood in his veins, no feelings, no will, no desires.
He was a talking head. His standpoint was nothing and all at the same
time. He was a decoction of books, and the type of a book-worm who had
never lived.

Often when the other members of the club were alone, they talked
about Is. Thurs was already tired of him and wondered whether he
had committed some crime, for he seemed driven about by a constant
restlessness. Then it was reported that he was a poet, but never would
show his poems, for he had such a high idea of the poetic art. They
also wondered why no one ever saw a book in the learned man's rooms.
It was also strange that he should seek the company of these youths,
to whom he was so superior, and whose poetry he must despise. They who
were themselves in the full bloom of romanticism did not detect the
anæmic romantic who had lost his footing on firm ground. They did not
see in his long hair and shabby hat the copy of Murger's Bohemian; they
did not know that this dilapidated condition was a Parisian fashion;
that this hollow wisdom was a web woven out of German metaphysics; that
this experimental psychology was derived from a peep into Kierkegaard;
and that that interesting air of hinting at uncommitted crimes and
secret griefs was Byronic in origin. All this they did not understand.
Therefore Is could play with John's soul and catch him in his snare.
Yes, John was so thoroughly taken by him that in a speech he called
himself Gamaliel, who sat at Paul's Is's feet to learn wisdom.

The upshot of it all was that Julm, one fine evening, burnt his new
play. It was the work of three months which went up in flames. As he
collected the ashes, he wept. Is, without saying so directly, had shown
him that he was no poet. So everything was a mistake, this also! Then
he felt in despair, because he had deceived his father and could take
no work home to justify his neglect of his wishes. In a fit of remorse,
and in order to be able to point to some definite result, he entered
his name for the written examination in Latin, without, however, having
written any of the requisite preliminary exercises or essays. The Latin
professor saw his name in the list and did not know it. One Sunday
evening, when John had returned to his rooms in good spirits after a
supper, the university bedell appeared to summon him. John went boldly
to the professor and asked what he wanted.

"You wish to take the written examination in Latin?"

"Yes."

"But I do not see your name on my list."

"I entered myself before for the medical examination."

"That has nothing to do with this. You must go by the rules."

"I know no rules about the three essays."

"I think you are impertinent, sir."

"It may seem so----"

"Out with you, sir!--or----"

The door was opened, and John was ejected. He swore to himself he
would still go up for the written examination, but the next morning he
overslept himself.

So even that last straw failed.

Shortly afterwards one morning a friend came and woke him.

"Do you know that W. is dead?" (W. sat at the same table in the
boarding-house.)

"No!"

"Yes! he has cut his throat."

John started up, dressed himself, and hurried with his friend to the
Jernbrogatan where W. lived. They rushed up the stairs and came to a
dark attic.

"Is it here?"

"No, here!"

John felt for a door; the door gave way and fell upon him. At the same
moment he saw a pool of blood on the ground. He turned round, let go
of the door, and was at the bottom of the stairs before the door fell
on the ground. This scene shook him terribly and woke his memory. Some
days previously John had gone into the Carolina Park to work at his
play in solitude. W. came up, greeted him, and asked whether he might
bear him company or whether he disturbed him. John answered sincerely
that he did disturb him, and W. went away with a melancholy air. Was
it a case of a lonely drowning man who sought a companion and was
repulsed? John felt almost guilty of his death. But he was not intended
for a comforter. Now the dead man seemed to haunt him; he dared not go
to his room, but slept with his friend. One night he slept with Rejd.
The latter had to keep a light burning and was woken several times in
the night by John, who could not sleep.

One day Rejd found John with a bottle of prussic acid. He apparently
approved the idea of suicide, but first asked him to take a farewell
drink with him. They went to the restaurant and ordered eight glasses
of whisky, which were brought in on a tray. Each of them drank four
glasses in four pulls, with the desired result that John became dead
drunk. He was carried home, but since the house door was locked, he was
carried over an empty piece of ground and thrown over a fence. There he
remained lying in a snow-drift, till he recovered his senses, and crept
up into his room.

The last night which he spent in Upsala some days later he slept on a
sofa in Thurs' rooms; his friends kept watch over him, and the room
was lighted up. They watched good-naturedly till morning, then they
accompanied him to the station, and put him in the coupé. When the
train had passed Bergsbrunna, John breathed again. He felt as though
he had left something dreadful and weird, like a northern winter night
with thirty degrees of cold, behind him, and registered a vow never
again to settle in this town, where men's souls, banished from life and
society, grew rotten from over-production of thought, were corroded
by stagnant waters which had no outlet, and took fire like millstones
which revolved without having anything to grind.


[1] Danish theologian.



CHAPTER XI

IDEALISM AND REALISM

(1871)


When John again reached his parents' house, he felt himself in shelter
like one who has reached land after a stormy sea-passage by night.
Again he had quiet nights in his old tent-bed in the brothers' room.
Here were quiet patient men, who came and went, worked and slept at
stated times without being disturbed by dreams or ambitious designs.
His sisters had grown up into young women and managed the house. All
were at work with the exception of himself. When he compared his
irregular, dissipated life, which knew no rest or peace, with theirs,
he considered them happier and better than himself. They took life
seriously, went about their work and fulfilled their duties without
noise or boasting.

John now looked up his old acquaintances among the tradespeople,
clerks, and sea-captains, and found intercourse with them novel and
refreshing. They led his thoughts back to reality and he felt firm
ground once more under his feet. At the same time he began to despise
false ideality, and saw that it was vulgar of the students to look down
on the "Philistines."

He now confessed quite simply and openly to his father, but without
remorse, the wretched life he had led at Upsala, and begged him to let
him stay at home and prepare for his examination there,--otherwise he
would be lost. His father granted permission, and now John prepared his
plan of campaign for the spring term. In the first place he meant to
take lessons in Latin composition with a good teacher in Stockholm, and
then go up in spring, and pass the examination. Furthermore he would
write his disquisition for a certificate in æsthetics and prepare for
the examination in that subject. With these resolutions he began a
quiet and industrious manner of life with the new year.

But the failure of his play the _Free-thinker_ still weighed upon his
mind, and the questions of his friends as to whether they should soon
see something new from him, stirred him up to re-write, in the form
of a one-act play, the drama he had burnt. He finished it, and then
continued his studies.

Shortly before April he wrote a test-composition for his teacher, who
declared that he would pass. His father did not disapprove of his plan
when he heard that John felt quite confident, but he suggested that it
would be more practical if he conformed to custom and wrote exercises
for the Upsala professor. "No," said John, "it was now a question of
principle and a matter of honour." So he went to Upsala.

He called on the professor on his at-home day and waited till his turn
for an interview. When the latter saw him, he grew red in the face and
asked:

"Are you here again?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"I want to go in for the Latin Composition examination."

"Without having written a test-composition?"

"I have done that in Stockholm--and I only want to ask whether the
statutes allow me to go up for the examination."

"The statutes? Ask the dean about that; I only know what I require."

John went straight to the dean, who was a young, lively and sympathetic
man. John made known his purpose and described what had passed.

"Yes," said the dean, "the statutes say nothing about the matter, but
old P. can pluck you without their help."

"Well, we shall see. Will you allow me, Mr. Dean, to go up for the
written examination, that is the question?"

"Yes, I can't refuse that. You mean then to have your own way?"

"Yes, I do."

"Arc you so sure about the matter?"

"Yes."

"Very well! Good luck to you!" said the Dean, and clapped him on the
shoulder.

So John went up for the examination and after a week received a
telegram to say that he had passed. Some ascribed this result to
the professor's generosity and disapproved of John's rebellious
procedure; but John considered his success due to his own diligence
and knowledge, although he could not deny that the professor had acted
honourably in not plucking him when he had the power to do so.

The examination in æsthetics was fixed for May. Contrary to all usage
John sent his disquisition by post to Upsala with the written request
that he might stand for the examination.

His essay was entitled "Hakon Jarl," and treated of Idealism and
Realism. Its object was firstly to convince the professor that
the writer was well-read in æsthetics and particularly in Danish
literature, and secondly, to clear up to the writer himself his own
point of view. The essay, in imitation of Kierkegaard, was in the form
of a correspondence between A and B, criticising Oehlenschläger's
_Hakon Jarl_ and Kierkegaard's _Either--Or_.

At the appointed time John appeared before the professor, who had
the reputation of being liberal-minded, but felt at once that he had
no sympathy with him. With an almost contemptuous air the professor
handed him back his essay and declared that it was best suited for the
female readers of the _Illustrated News_. He further stated that Danish
literature was not a subject of sufficient importance to be taken up as
a special branch of study.

John felt annoyed, and asserted that Danish literature had greater
interest for Sweden than Boileau and Malesherbes, for example, on whom
students wrote essays.

His examination then began and took the form of a violent argument.
It was continued in the afternoon and ended by the professor giving
him a certificate which was not so good as he had hoped, and telling
him that university studies could only be properly carried on at the
university. John replied that æsthetic studies could be best carried
on at Stockholm where one had the National Museum, Library, Theatre,
Academy of Music and Artists.

"No," said the professor, "that is nonsense; one ought to study here."

John let fall some remarks on college lectures, and they parted, not as
particularly good friends.



CHAPTER XII

A KING'S PROTÉGÉ

(1871)


During the whole of this time, John had been on pleasant terms with his
father, and the old man had shown himself to a certain extent willing
to be educated, but his tactless pride sometimes broke out and annoyed
John. The latter, who was now continually at home, spent many evening
hours with the old man in conversations on all sorts of subjects, and
finally on religion. One day John spoke for half-an-hour about Theodore
Parker, so that his father at last expressed a wish to read some of
him. He kept the book for several days, but said nothing, and John
found it again in his room. His father was too proud to acknowledge
that he liked the book, but John learned through one of his brothers
that he was especially delighted with the famous sermon "On Old Age."

In the matter of John's opposition to the professor, his father
vacillated. His opinion was that right was always right, but he did
not like the disrespectful way in which John spoke of the professor.
Meanwhile John saw that he had won the game and that his father had a
lively interest in his success.

But one day in spring John went into the country, telling the servant
that he would be absent for the day. When he returned the next morning
he had an unpleasant reception.

"You go away without telling me?"

"I told the servant."

"I require you to ask permission of me as long as you eat my bread."

"Ask permission! What nonsense!"

John departed, borrowed three hundred kronas from a friendly tradesman,
and then with three of his club associates went to one of the islands
near Stockholm, where they hired rooms in a fisher's house at a rent
of thirty kronas per month. No one tried to stop him, and probably
this crisis was occasioned by the fact that John was exercising a
perceptible influence on his father, brothers and sisters in matters
concerning domestic arrangements. The mistress of the house feared that
the power would be taken out of her hands.

He spent the summer in strenuously working for his examination, for
he had now no hope of receiving further supplies from home. It was
a healthy and ascetic life with innocent amusements. He went about
in dressing-gown, drawers and sea-boots, and the toilette of his
companions was still more scanty. They bathed, sailed, fenced, and
John gave himself over increasingly to a process of decivilisation.
There were almost always spirituous liquors on the table, and John
feared them, for they made him mad. But to this asceticism and industry
succeeded a desire to make converts of others, and a great amount of
self-satisfaction. The latter is always the case, whether the ascetic
feels that in this respect he is better than others, or whether he
makes the sacrifice in order to feel himself better. Therefore he
preached to one brother who drank, and moralised over the others who
did not work, but went to Dalarö to dance or to feast. Kierkegaard's
influence was strong upon him; he wished to be moral, and thundered
against æstheticism.

He now studied philology, and went through Dante, Shakespeare and
Goethe. The last he hated because he was an æsthete. Behind all, like
a dark background, was the breach with his father. After their life
together during the last winter, he saw him as it were transfigured,
justified him with respect to all that had happened in the past, and
had forgotten all the petty troubles of his childhood. He missed most
of all his brothers and sisters, especially his sisters whom he
had really learnt to know. Toiling with a lexicon and investigating
roots of words had become painful to him, but he enjoyed this pain,
and disciplined his imagination by hard work, looking upon it as his
professional duty.

Towards the end of the summer he was wild and shy. The clothes, winch
he rummaged out again, were too tight, his collar, which he had not
worn for months, tormented him as though it had been of iron, and his
shoes pinched him. Everything seemed to him constrained, conventional
and unnatural. Once he had been enticed to an evening party at Dalarö
but had immediately returned. He was shy and could not bear frivolity
and laughter. This time it was not the consciousness of belonging
to the lower classes, for he had ceased to regard himself as one of
them. Meanwhile the ascetic life he had been leading increased his
will-power and his activity. When the next term at Upsala commenced,
he took his travelling-bag and journeyed thither, without having more
than a krona to call his own, and without knowing where he would find a
room and something to eat. On his arrival he took up his quarters with
Rejd, and set about working. The first evening, feeling half famished,
he looked up Is, who had remained the whole summer alone in Upsala
and seemed more melancholy than usual. His appearance was that of a
shadow, and solitude had made him still more morbid. He went out with
John and invited him to supper at a restaurant. He spoke in his usual
style and mangled his prey, who, on the other hand, defended himself,
struck back, and attacked the æsthete. Is contemplated his hungry
companion while he ate, and intoxicated himself with the brandy-bottle.
He adopted a maternal air and offered to lend John money. The latter
was touched, thanked him, and borrowed about ten kronas, for, since he
believed he had a future before him, he borrowed without fear. Finally
Is became drunk and raved. He changed his attitude, called John an
egoist, and reproached him for having taken the ten kronas.

To be suspected of egotism was the worst thing John knew, for Christ
had taught him that the "ego" must be crucified. His individuality had
grown since it had been freed from pressure and attained publicity.
Conspicuous persons obtain a greater individuality through the
attention they receive, or they attract attention for the simple reason
that they have a greater individuality. John felt that he was working
in the right way for his future; he pressed forward with energy and
will and the help of many friends, but not as a charlatan or schemer.
But Is's accusation struck him in the face, as it must all men who
have an "ego." He wished to return the money, but Is drew himself up
proudly, played the "gentleman" and continued to romance. It struck
John that this idealist was a mean fellow who behaved in this fantastic
way in order to conceal his vexation at the temporary loss of the ten
kronas.

Now the students returned for the term, and all of them with money.
John wandered about with his travelling-bag and his books, and
discovered how soon a welcome is worn out when one lies upon somebody
else's sofa. He borrowed money to hire a room with. It was a real
rats' nest with a camp-bed without sheets or cushions. No candlestick,
nothing. But he lay in bed in his under-clothes and read by the light
of a candle stuck in a bottle. His friends here and there provided him
with meals. But then came the winter. He used to go out after dark and
buy a quantity of wood, which he carried home in his bag. A scientific
friend taught him how to make a charcoal fire. Moreover, the shaft of
a chimney passed through his room and was warm every washing-day. He
stood beside it with his hands behind him and read out of a book which
he had placed on the chest of drawers, dragging the latter close to
him. In the meantime his drama had been played and coldly received. The
subject-matter was religious. It dealt with heathendom and Christendom,
the former being defended as an epoch-making movement, not as a creed.
Christ was placed on one side and the only true God exalted. The drama
also contained a domestic struggle, and, after the fashion of the
time, women were extolled at the expense of the men. In one passage
the author expressed his opinion as to the position of a poet in life.
"Are you a man, Orm?" asks the duke. "I am only a poet," answers Orm.
"Therefore you will never become anything," is the rejoinder.

In fact, John believed now that the poet's life was a shadow existence,
that he had no individuality, but only lived in that of others. But is
it then so certain that the poet possesses no individuality because
he has more than one? Perhaps he is richer because he possesses more
than the others. And why is it better to have only one "ego," since
in any case a single "ego" is not more one's own than many "egos,"
seeing that even one "ego" is a compound product derived from parents,
educators, social intercourse and books? Perhaps it is for this reason
that society, like a machine, demands that the single "egos" shall act
each like a wheel, screw, or separate piece of the machine in a limited
automatic way. But the poet is more than a piece of a machine, since he
is a whole machine in himself.

In the drama John had incorporated himself in five persons;--in the
Jarl, who is at war with his contemporaries; in the Poet, who looks
over things and looks through them; in the Mother, who is angry and
revengeful but whose thirst for vengeance is counteracted by her
sympathy; in the Daughter, who for the sake of her faith breaks with
her father; in the Lover, whose love is ill-starred. John understood
the motives of all the dramatis personae; and spoke from their varying
points of view. But a drama written for the average man who has
ready-made views on all subjects, must at least take sides with one
of its characters in order to win the excitable and partisan public.
John could not do this, because he believed in no absolute right or
wrong, for the simple reason that all these ideas are relative. One may
be right as regards the future, and wrong as regards the present; one
may be wrong in one year and right in the next; a father may justify
his son while the mother condemns him; a daughter is right in loving
the man she loves, but in her father's view she is wrong in loving a
heathen. There comes in doubt: Why do men hate and despise the doubter?
Because doubt is the seed of development and progress, and the average
man hates development because it disturbs his quiet. Only the stupid
man is certain; only the ignorant one thinks he has found the truth.
Doubt undermines energy, they say. But it is better to act without
considering the consequences. The animal and the savage act blindly,
obeying desire and impulse; in that they resemble our "men of action"!

When John returned to Upsala, he was again followed by disparaging
criticisms. To some extent they were true, _e.g._ the assertion that
the form of the piece was borrowed from the _Kongsemnerne,_ but only
to some extent, for John had taken the frigid tone and the rough
phraseology direct from the Icelandic sagas, and the views of life he
expressed were original. Scorn followed him, and he was regarded as a
man who was ambitious of being a poet, the worst suspicion under which
any one can fall.

But in the midst of his toil and needy circumstances, a week after his
overthrow, there came a letter from the chamberlain of the Theatre
Royal at Stockholm, requesting him to go there immediately as the
king wished to see him. Morbidly suspicious he believed that it was a
practical joke, and took the letter to his wise friend--the student of
Natural History. The latter telegraphed in the evening to a well-known
actor of the Theatre Royal requesting him to ask the chamberlain
whether he had written to John. The latter spent a restless night,
tossed to and fro between hope and fear. The next morning the answer
came that it was indeed so and that John should come at once. He set
off forthwith.

Why did he, a born rebel, accept the royal favour without hesitation?
For the simple reason that he did not belong to the democratic party;
he had never promised his father or mother not to receive a favour from
the king. Furthermore he believed in the aristocracy or the right of
the best to govern, and he considered the upper classes the best, as
he had shown in his tragedy, _Sinking Hellas_, in which he expressed
contempt for the demagogues. He hated tyrants, but this king was no
tyrant. Therefore there was no reason for hesitation within him or
without him. Accordingly he travelled to Stockholm and was received in
audience by the king. The latter was just now very ill, and looked so
emaciated as to make a painful impression. He stood with a benevolent
aspect, smoking his long tobacco-pipe, and smiled at the young
beardless author, walking awkwardly between the rows of aide-de-camps
and chamberlains. He thanked him for the pleasure which he had derived
from his drama, adding that he himself when young had competed for an
academical prize with a poem on the Vikings, and was fond of the old
Norse legends. He said that he wished to help the young student to take
his doctor's degree, and closed the interview by referring him to the
treasurer, who had been ordered to make him a first payment. Later on
he would receive more, and the king said he supposed there were still
two or three years to elapse before he took his degree.

John's immediate future was now secure. He felt gratefully moved by
this kindness on the part of a king who had so many things to think
about. On his return to Upsala, he saw for two months how the court
sunshine had turned him into a star. The official who had paid him,
had asked him whether he thought later on of obtaining a post in some
public department or in the Royal Library. His ambition had never
soared so high and did not yet do so.

The chief object of human existence seems to be, and must indeed be, to
spend one's life till death in the least unpleasant manner possible.
This aim does not exclude solicitude for the good of others, for
happiness includes the consciousness of not having infringed others'
rights unnecessarily. Therefore ill-gotten wealth cannot secure a
pleasant life, nor can any path which leads over the prostrate bodies
of others. Accordingly Utilitarianism, or the philosophy which aims at
the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is not immoral.

In spite of all his asceticism John could not help feeling happy.
His happiness consisted in the half-consciousness that he could live
his life without the great anxiety which the insecurity of means
of existence causes. He had been threatened by penury and was now
secure; life had been restored to him, and it is a happy thing to be
able to live before one has done growing. His chest, which had been
narrowed by hunger and over-exertion, broadened itself; his back grew
straighter; life no longer seemed so melancholy. He was contented with
his lot; things took on a more cheerful aspect, and he would have been
ungrateful had he still remained among the malcontents.

But this did not last long. When he saw his old comrades round him in
a position in which _his_ happiness had effected no change, he found
that there was a want of harmony between them. They had been accustomed
to help him as one in need and now he needed their help no longer.
They had liked him, because they protected him and were accustomed
to see him below them. But when he came upwards, near them and above
them, they found him necessarily altered by altered circumstances. The
necessitous man is not so bold in his opinions nor so stiff in the back
as the prosperous one. He was altered for them, but was he therefore
worse? Self-esteem under other circumstances is generally well thought
of. Enough! He annoyed others by the fact that he was fortunate, and
still more because he wished to help others to be so.

The present he had received entailed obligations, and John gave
himself diligently to study. He passed his examinations in Philology,
Astronomy, and Political Science, but received in none of these
subjects such a good testimonial as he had expected. He had studied too
much in one way and too little in another.

In examination time he generally had an attack of aphasia.
Physiologists usually ascribe this weakness to an injury in the left
temple. And as a matter of fact John had two scars above his left eye.
One was caused by the blow of an axe, the other by a rock against which
he had struck himself in jumping down the Observatory hill. He was
inclined to trace to this the great difficulty he had in delivering
public addresses and speaking foreign languages.

Accordingly, during examinations, he would sit there, unable to give
an answer although he knew more than was asked. Then there came over
him a spirit of defiance, of self-torment, of ill-humour, and he felt
tempted to throw up the whole thing. He criticised the text-books and
felt dishonest in learning what he despised. The rôle assigned to him
began to oppress him; he longed to get away from it all to something
else, wherever it might be. It was not that he regarded the king's
present as a benefaction. It was a stipend, a reward for merit, such
as artists at all periods have received for the purpose of carrying
on their self-cultivation. His royal patron was not merely the king
but his personal friend and admirer. Therefore the gift exercised no
kind of restraint upon his rebellious thoughts; he only let himself be
temporarily deceived, and believed that all was right with the world,
because he prospered. His radicalism had been considerably mitigated;
he no longer thought that all which was wrong in the state was the
fault of the monarchy, nor did he believe with the pagans that better
harvests would follow if the king was sacrificed on an idol-altar. His
mother would have wept for joy at his distinction, had she lived, so
strong were her aristocratic leanings.

All of us, including crown princes, are democrats, inasmuch as we wish
those above us to come down to our level; but when we ascend, we do
not wish to be pulled down. The question is only whether that winch
is "above" us is so in a spiritual sense, and whether it ought to be
there. That was what John began to be doubtful of.



CHAPTER XIII

THE WINDING UP

(1872)


At the beginning of the spring term, John took up his quarters with an
elder comrade in order to continue his studies. But when he had again
the old books before him which he had already studied so long, he felt
a distaste for them. His brain was full of impressions, of collected
literary material, and refused to take in any more; his imagination
and thought were busily at work and would not let memory be alone
active; he had fits of doubt and apathy and often remained the whole
day lying on the sofa. Then the desire would sometimes awake to be
altogether free and to plunge into the life of activity. But the royal
stipend held him fast in fetters and imposed on him obligations. Having
received it, he was bound to go on studying for his doctor's degree,
the course of reading for which he had half completed. So he applied
himself to philosophy, but when he read the history of it, he found all
systems equally valid or invalid, and his mind resisted all new ideas.

In the literary club there was disunion and lethargy. All their
youthful poems had been read and no one produced any more, so that
they only met together to drink punch. Is had exposed himself, and
after a scene with another member, he had been thrown out. He drew his
knife and got well thrashed. He saved himself from worse by affecting
to treat the affair as a joke, and was now a mere laughing-stock, since
it had been discovered that his wisdom consisted in quotations from the
students' periodicals which the others had not had the wit to utilise.
At the beginning of term an Æsthetic Society had been founded by the
professor of Æsthetics, and this made their own literary society, the
"Runa," superfluous.

At one of the meetings of the former, John's discontent with classical
authorities broke out. He had been drinking that evening and was
half-intoxicated. In conversation with the professor dangerous ground
was touched upon and John was enticed so far out of his reserve as to
declare Dante without significance for humanity and overestimated. John
had plenty of reasons to allege for his opinion, but could not express
them to advantage when the professor set upon him, and the whole
company gathered round the disputants, who were squeezed into a corner
by the stove. He wanted in the first place to say that the construction
of the _Divine Comedy_ was not original, but a very ordinary form which
had already been employed shortly before in the _Vision of Albericus_.
Furthermore his opinion was that in this poem Dante did not reflect
the culture and thoughts of his period, because he was so uncultured
that he did not even know Greek. He was not a philosopher, for he
hampered thought by the fetters of revelation, and therefore he was no
precursor of the Renaissance or the Reformation. He was no patriot, for
he venerated the German empire as established by God. He was at most a
local patriot of Florence. Nor was he a democrat, for he always dreamt
of a union of the empire and the papacy. He did not attack the papacy,
but only individual popes who lived immoral lives, as he himself
had done in his youth. He was a monk, a truly idiotic child of his
age, for he sent unbaptised children to hell. He was a narrow-minded
royalist who put Brutus next to Satan in the deepest hell. He was
entirely wanting in the power of selfcriticism;--while he reckons
ingratitude to friends and betrayal of one's fatherland among the worst
of crimes, he places his own friend and teacher, Brunetto Latini, in
hell, and supports the German Emperor, Henry VII, against his native
city Florence. He had bad literary taste, for he reckoned as the six
greatest poets of the world Homer, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, Virgil and
himself. How could modern critics who were so severe on all scandalous
literature praise Dante, who in his poem cast dishonour on so many
contemporary persons and families? He even scolds his own dear native
city, exclaiming when he finds five nobly-born Florentines in Hell:
"Rejoice! O Florence! for thy name is not only great over land and
sea, but also in hell. Five of thy citizens are in thieves' company;
my cheeks blush at the sight of them. But one thing I know; punishment
will light upon thee, Florence, and may it happen soon!"

As is usual in such debates, the attacked and the attacker often
changed their ground. John wished to prove to the professor that from
his point of view the _Commedia_ was a political pamphlet, but then
the professor veered round, adopted the enemy's point of view and said
that _he_ should value it as such. Whereupon John answered that it was
exactly as such that he designated it, but not as a magnificent poem
of everlasting value, which the professor had declared it to be in his
lectures. Again the professor changed his ground, and said that the
poem should be judged by the standard of the period at which it was
composed.

"Exactly so," answered John, "but you have judged it by the standard
of our time and all succeeding times, and therefore you are wrong. But
even with regard to its own time the work is not an epoch-making one;
it is not in advance of its period, but belongs strictly to it, or
rather lags behind it. It is a linguistic monument for Italy, nothing
more, and should never be read in a Swedish university, because the
language is antiquated, and finally because it is too insignificant to
be regarded as a link in the development of culture."

The result of the controversy was that John was regarded as shameless
and half-cracked.

After this explosion he was exhausted and incapable of work. The whole
of the life in a town where he did not feel at home was distasteful
to him. His companions advised him to take a thorough rest, for he
had worked too hard, and so, as a matter of fact, he had. Various
schemes again presented themselves to his mind, but without result.
The grey dirty town vexed him, the scenery around depressed him; he
lay on a sofa and looked at the illustrations in a German newspaper.
Views of foreign scenery had the same effect as music on his mind and
he felt a longing to see green trees and blue seas; he wished to go
into the country but it was still only February, the sky was as grey
as sack-cloth, the streets and roads were muddy. When he felt most
depressed, he went to his friend the natural science student. It
refreshed him to see his herbarium and microscope, his aquarium and
physiological preparations. Most of all he found a pleasure in the
society of the quiet, peaceable atheist, who let the world go its way,
for he knew that he worked better for the future, in his small measure,
than the poet with his excitable outbreaks. He had a little of the
artist left in him and painted in oils. To think that he could call up
as if by enchantment a green landscape amid the mists of this wintry
spring and hang it on his wall!

"Is painting difficult?" he asked his friend.

"No, indeed! It is easier than drawing. Try it!"

John, who had already, with the greatest calm, composed a song with a
guitar-accompaniment, thought it not impossible for him to paint, and
he borrowed an easel, colours, and a paint-brush. Then he went home
and shut himself up in his room. From an illustrated paper he copied a
picture of a ruined castle. When he saw the clear blue of the sky he
felt sentimental, and when he had conjured up green bushes and grass
he felt unspeakably happy as though he had eaten haschish. His first
effort was successful. But now he wished to copy a painting. That was
harder. Everything was green and brown. He could not make his colours
harmonise with the original and felt in despair.

One day when he had shut himself up he heard a visitor talking with his
friend in the next room. They whispered as though they were near a sick
person. "Now he is actually painting," said his friend in a depressed
tone.

What did that mean? Did they consider him cracked? Yes. He began to
think about himself, and like all brooders came to the conclusion that
he was cracked. What was to be done? If they shut him up, he would
certainly go quite mad. "Better anticipate them," he thought, and as he
had heard of private asylums in the country, where the patients could
walk about and work in the garden, he wrote to the director of one of
them. After some time he received a friendly answer advising him to be
quiet. His correspondent had received information about John through
his friend and understood his state of mind. He told him it was only a
crisis which all sensitive natures must pass through, etc.

_That_ danger, then, was over. But he wished to get out into active
life when ever it might be.

One day he heard that a travelling theatrical company had come to the
town. He wrote a letter to the manager and solicited an engagement,
but he received no answer and did not call on the manager. Thus he
was tossed to and fro, till at last fate intervened and set him
free. Three months had passed and he had received no money from the
court-treasurer. His companions advised him to write and make a polite
inquiry. In reply he was told that it had never been his Majesty's
intention to pay him a regular pension, but only a single donation.
However, in consideration of his needy circumstances, by way of
exception, he had made him a grant of 200 kronas, which would shortly
be sent.

John at first felt glad, for he was free, but afterwards the turn which
affairs had taken made him uneasy, for the papers had stated that
he was the king's stipendiary, and the king had really promised him
a stipend during the year that he must read for his degree. Besides
this the court-marshal had given him a sort of half promise for the
future which could hardly be considered as adequately fulfilled by
a donation of 200 kronas. Different opinions were expressed on the
matter. Some thought that the king had forgotten, others that the state
of his finances did not allow of a further gift, or that his good
wishes exceeded his powers. No one expressed disapproval, and John was
secretly glad, had he not felt a certain disgrace in the withdrawal
of the stipend, so that he might be suspected of having groundlessly
boasted of it. Those who believed that John was in disfavour at court
ascribed this to the fact that he had omitted to wait upon the king
in person when he was in Stockholm at Christmas and the New Year.
Others attributed it to the fact that he had not formally presented
his tragedy, _Sinking Hellas_, but had simply sent it to the palace,
instead of going with it, which his sense of independence forbade
him to do. Ten years later he heard quite a new explanation of this
disfavour. He was said to have composed a lampoon on the king. But this
was a pure legend, probably the only one of its obscure fabricator
which would reach posterity. Anyhow facts remained as they were and
his resolve was quickly taken. He would go to Stockholm and become
a literary man, an author if possible, should he prove to possess
sufficient capacity for that calling.

The student who shared his room undertook to pay his return journey,
and alleged as a pretext that John must wait some time in Stockholm
lest the landlord should be uneasy. Meanwhile he could collect enough
money to pay the rent which was due at the end of the term.

His friends gave John a farewell feast and John thanked them,
acknowledging the obligations which each owes to those he meets in
social intercourse. Every personality is not developed simply out
of itself, but derives something from each with whom it comes in
contact, just as the bee gathering her honey from a million flowers,
appropriates it and gives it out as her own.

Thus he stepped into life, abandoning dreams and the past to live in
reality and the present. But he was ill-prepared and the university is
not the proper school for life. He felt also that the decisive hour had
come. In a clumsy speech he called the feast a "svensexa," _i.e_. a
farewell supper for a bachelor on the eve of his marriage, for he was
now to be a man and leave boyhood behind; he was to become a member of
society, a useful citizen and eat his own bread.

So he believed at the time, but he soon discovered that his education
had unfitted him for society, and as he did not wish to be an outlaw
the doubt awoke in him whether society, of which after all school and
university were a part, was not to blame for his education, and whether
it had not serious defects which needed a remedy.



CHAPTER XIV

AMONG THE MALCONTENTS

(1872)


When John came to Stockholm, he borrowed money in order to hire a
room near the Ladugärdslandet. Always under the sway of sentiment, he
chose this quarter of the town because he always used to walk there
in his childhood on the 1st of May, and the High Street especially
had something of a holiday air about it. Moreover it soon opened into
the Zoological Gardens, which became his favourite place for walks.
The barracks with their drums and trumpets had something exhilarating
about them, and there were fine views over the sea which was close at
hand. There was plenty of light and air. When he went for his morning
walk he could choose his route according to his mood. If he was sad
and depressed, he went along the Sirishofsvägen; if he was cheerful
he turned off to the level ground of Manilla, where the paradisial
rose-valley exhaled joy and delight; if he was despairing and anxious
to avoid people he went out to Ladugärdsgardet, where no one could
disturb his self-communings and his prayers to God. Sometimes, when his
soul was in a tumult, he remained standing by the cross-ways above the
bridge near the Zoological Gardens, irresolute which way to take. On
such occasion a thousand forces seemed to pull him in all directions.

His room was very simple and commanded no view. It smelt of poverty,
as the whole house did, in which the only person of standing was the
deputy-landlord, a policeman. John began his active career by painting,
out of a sense of need to give his feelings shape and to express them
in a palpable way, for the little letters huddled together on the paper
were dead and could not express his mind so plainly and simultaneously.
He did not think of being a painter in order to exhibit or sell
pictures. To step to the easel was for him just like sitting down and
singing. At the same time he renewed his acquaintance with his friend
the sculptor, who introduced him to a circle of young painters. These
were all discontent with the Academy and the antiquated methods which
could not express their vague dreams. They still preserved the Bohemian
type, so late did the waves of modern ideas beat on the far coasts of
the North. They wore long hair, slouched hats, brilliant cravats, and
lived like the birds of heaven. They read and quoted Byron and dreamt
of enormous canvases and subjects such as no studio could contain. A
sculptor and a Norwegian had conceived the idea of hewing a statue out
of the Dovre rock; a painter wished to paint the sea not merely as a
level, but with such a wide horizon as to show the convex curve of the
globe.

This took John's fancy. One should give expression to one's inner
feelings and not depict mere sticks and stones which are meaningless in
themselves till they have passed through the alembic of a percipient
mind. Therefore the artists did not make studies out of doors, but
painted at home from their memory and imagination. John always painted
the sea with a coast in the foreground, some gnarled pine-trees, a
couple of rocky islets in the distance and a white-painted buoy. The
atmosphere was generally gloomy, with a weak or strong light on the
horizon; it was always sunset or moonlight, never clear daylight.

But he was soon woken out of this dream-life partly by hunger, partly
by recollecting the reality which he had sought in order to save
himself from his dreams.

Although John knew little of contemporary politics, he knew that the
democracy or peasant-class had arrived at power, that they had declared
war on the official and middle classes, and that they were hated in
Upsala. And now he himself was to enter the ranks of the combatants
and attack the old order of things. The only item of the knowledge
which he had brought with him from Upsala which was likely to be useful
here, was the small amount of political science which he had studied.
Of what use were Astronomy, Philology, Æsthetics, Latin and Chemistry
here? He knew something about the land-laws and communal-laws, but had
no idea of political economy, finance or jurisprudence. When he now
began to look about for a suitable paper to which to attach himself,
it did not occur to him to make use of his old connection with the
_Aftonbladet_, but he wrote for a small evening paper which had lately
appeared, which was regarded as radical and was issued by the New
Liberal Union. The editor held receptions in the La Croix Café, and
here John was introduced into the society of journalists. He felt ill
at ease among them. They did not think as he did, seemed uncultivated,
as indeed they were, and rather gossiped than discussed important
matters. They certainly busied themselves with facts, but these were
rather trifles than great questions. They were full of phrases, but
did not seem to have a proper command of their material. John, though
against his will, was too much of an academic aristocrat to sympathise
with these democrats, who for the most part had not chosen their
career, but been forced into it by the pressure of circumstances. He
found the atmosphere stifling for his idealism, and came no more to the
receptions after he had done his business, and been invited to write
for the paper.

He made his début as an art-critic. His first criticism concerned
Winge's "Thor with the giants" and Rosen's "Eric XIV and Karin
Monsdotter." The young critic naturally wished to display his learning,
though all he had was what he had picked up in lectures and books.
Therefore his criticism of Winge was a mere eulogy. His remarks chiefly
regarded the subject of the picture as a Norse one and treated in the
grand style. The painters did not like this sort of criticism, as
they considered the only point to be criticised in a work of art was
the execution. "Eric the XIV" he judged from his monomaniacal point
of view, "aristocrat or democrat," and found fault with the incorrect
conception of Göran Persson, whom in his own tragedy _Eric XIV_
(subsequently burnt) he had represented as an enemy of the nobility and
friend of the people.

Descended from his own height as a promising student, author and royal
protégé to the then less regarded class of journalists, he felt himself
again one of the lower orders.

After the editor had struck out his learned flourishes, the articles
were printed. The editor told him they were piquant, but advised him
to employ a more flowing style. He had not yet caught the journalistic
knack.

Then John planned a series of articles in which, under the title
"Perspective," he treated of social and economic questions. In these he
attacked university life, the divisions of the classes, the injurious
over-reading and the unfortunate position of the students. Since the
labour-question at that time was not a burning one, he ventured on a
comparison between the prospects of a student and that of a workman,
declaring the latter to be far better off. The workman was generally
in good health, could support himself at eighteen and marry at twenty,
while the student could not think of marriage and making a livelihood
before thirty. As a remedy he recommended doing away with the final
examination as Jaabaek had already done in Norway, and the transference
of the university to Stockholm in order that the students might have
a chance of earning something during their course. As an example he
adduced the case of modern students at Athens who learn a trade while
they study. This was all clear to him as early as 1872, yet when he
made similar suggestions twelve years later, he was thought to have
conceived them on the spur of the moment.

At the same time he took an engagement on a small illustrated ladies'
paper and wrote biographical notices and novelettes. The ladies were
very kind, but let him work too hard, and gave him all kinds of
commissions to execute. After he had spent two or three days in paying
visits, dived into a publisher's place of business, read biographical
romances in three or four volumes, made researches in the library,
run to the printing-office and finally written his columns carefully,
setting each person treated of in a proper historical light, and
analysing his career, he received, for all that work, fifteen kronas.
He calculated that this was less pay per hour than a servant earned.
The bread of the literary man was certainty hardly earned, and that
this is the common lot of authors does not make matters better. But the
profession was also despised, and John felt that in social position he
stood below his brothers who were tradesmen, below the actors, yes,
even below the elementary school-teachers.

The journalists led a subterranean existence, but they styled
themselves "we" and wrote as though they were sovereigns of God's
appointment; they had men's weal or woe in their hand, since the chief
weapon in the struggle for existence in our civilised days is social
reputation. How was it that society had given these free lances such
terrible power without taking any guarantees? But when one comes
to think, what assurance is there for the capacity and insight of
the law-givers in parliament, in the ministry, on the throne? None
whatever! It is therefore the same all round. There were, however, two
classes of newspapers; the conservative, which wished to preserve the
social condition with all its defects, and the liberal, which wished
to improve it. The former enjoyed a certain respect, the latter, none
at all. John instinctively sided with the last, and at once felt that
he was regarded as every one's enemy. A liberal journalist and a
chronicler of scandals were synonymous terms. At home he had heard the
usual phrase that "no one was honourable whose name had not appeared
in the paper _Fatherland_." In the street they had pointed out to him
a man who looked like a bandit, with the mark of a dagger-stab between
his eyes, and said, "There goes the journalist X." In the Café La Croix
he felt depressed among his new colleagues, but none the less chose to
associate with this unpopular group. Did he choose really? One does not
choose one's impulses, and it is no virtue to be a democrat when one
hates the upper classes and has no pleasure in their company.

Meanwhile for social intercourse he went to the artists. It was a
strange world in which they lived. There was so much nature among
these men who busied themselves with art. They dressed badly, lived
like beggars--one of them lived in the same room with the servant--and
ate what they could get; they could hardly read, and had no knowledge
of orthography. At the same time they talked like cultivated people,
they looked at things from an independent point of view, were keenly
observant and unfettered by dogmas. One of them four years previously
had minded geese, a second had wielded the smith's hammer, a third
had been a farmer's servant and walked behind the dung-cart, and a
fourth had been a soldier. They ate with knives, used their sleeves as
napkins, had no handkerchiefs and only one coat in winter. However,
John felt at home with them, though of late years he had been
conversant only with cultivated and well-to-do young people. It was not
that he was superior to them, for that they did not acknowledge, nor
was it any use to quote books to them, for they accepted no authority.
His doubts as regards books, especially text-books, began to be
aroused, and he began to suspect that old books may injure a modern
man's thinking powers. This doubt became a certainty when he met one of
the group whom all regarded as a genius.

He was a painter about thirty years old, formerly a farmer's servant
who had come to the Academy in order to become an artist. After he
had spent some time in the painting school he came to the conclusion
that art was insufficient as a medium for expressing his thoughts,
and he lived now on nothing, while he busied himself by reflecting on
the questions of the time. Badly educated at an elementary school, he
had now flung himself on the most up-to-date books and had a start of
John, since he had begun where the latter had left off. Between John
and him there was the same difference as between a mathematician and
a pilot. The former can calculate in logarithms, the latter can turn
them to practical use. But Måns also was critically disposed and did
not believe in books blindly. He had no ready-made scheme or system
into which to fit his thoughts; he always thought freely, investigated,
sifted and only retained what he recognised as tenable. More free from
passions than John, he could draw more reckless inferences, even when
they went against his own wishes and interests, though with certain
matter-of-course limitations. He was more-over prudent, as indeed he
must have been to have worked himself up from such a low position,
and understood how to be silent as to certain conclusions, which, if
expressed tactlessly and in the wrong place, might have injured him.
As his literary adviser, he had a telegraph-assistant whose knowledge
Mans knew better how to use than its owner himself; the latter had not
a very lively intellect, although in his knowledge of languages he
possessed the key to the three great modern literatures. Passionless
and self-conscious, with a strong control over his impulses, he stood
outside everything, contemplating and smiling at the free play of
thought which he enjoyed as a work of art, with the accompanying
certainly that it was after all only an illusion.

With both of these John had many friendly disputes. When he drew up
his schemes for the future of men and society he could rouse Måns'
enthusiasm and carry him along with him, but when he had taken his
hearer a certain way with his emotional and passionate descriptions,
the latter took out his microscope, found the weak spot where to
insert his knife, and cut. On such occasions John was impatient and
motioned his opponent away. "You are a pedant," he said, "and fasten
on details." But sometimes it turned out that the "detail" was a
premise the excision of which made the whole grand fabric of inference
collapse. John was always a poet, and had he continued as such
unhindered he might have brought it to something. The poet can speak
to the point like the preacher, and that is an advantageous position.
He can rattle on without being interrupted, and therefore he can
persuade if not convince. It was through these two unlearned men that
John learned a philosophy which was not known at Upsala. In the course
of conversation, his opponents often referred to an authority whom
they called "Buckle." John rejected an authority of whom he had heard
nothing in Upsala. But the name continually recurred and worried him to
such an extent that he at last asked his friends to lend him the book.
The effect of reading it was such that John regarded his acquaintance
with the book as the vestibule of his intellectual life. Here there
was an atmosphere of pure naked truth. So it should be and so it was.
Måns, like all other organised beings, was under the control of natural
laws; all so-called spiritual qualities rest on a material basis, and
chemical affinities are as spiritual as the sympathies of souls. The
whole of speculative philosophy which wished to evolve laws from the
inner consciousness was only a better kind of theology, and what was
worse, an inquisition, which wished to confine the many-sidedness
of the world-process within the limits of an individual system. "No
system" is Buckle's motto. Doubt is the beginning of all wisdom, doubt
means investigation and stimulates intellectual progress. The truth
which one seeks is simply the discovery of natural laws. Knowledge is
the highest, morality is only an accidental form of behaviour, which
depends upon different social conventions. Only knowledge can make men
happy, and the simple-minded or ignorant with their moral strivings,
their benevolence and their philanthropy are only injurious or useless.

And now he drew the necessary conclusions. Heavenly love and its
result, marriage, is conditioned as to that result by such a prosaic
matter as the price of provisions; the rate of suicide varies with
wages, and religion is conditioned by natural scenery, climate and
soil. His mind was predisposed to receive the new doctrines, and now
they made their triumphant entry. John had always planted his feet
firmly on the earth, and neither the balloon-voyages of poetry nor the
will-o'-the-wisps of German philosophy had found a sincere adherent in
him. He had sat in despair over Kant's _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_,
and asked himself with curiosity, whether it was he who was so stupid
or Kant who was so obscure. The study of the history of philosophy,
in which he had seen how each philosopher pointed to his system as
the true one, and championed it against others, had left him amazed.
Now it was clear to him that the idealists who mingle their obscure
perceptions with dear presentations of facts were only savages or
children, and that the realists, who were alone capable of clear
perceptions, were the most highly developed in the scale of creation.
The poets and philosophers are somnambulists, and the religious who
always live in fear of the unknown are like animals in a forest who
fear every rustic in the bushes, or like primitive men who sacrificed
to the thunder instead of erecting lightning rods.

Now he had a weapon in his hand to wield against the old authorities
and against the schools and universities which were enslaved by
patronage. Buckle himself had run away from school, had never been at
a university, and hated them. Apropos of Locke he remarks, "Were this
deep thinker now alive, he would inveigh against our great universities
and schools, where countless subjects are learnt which no one needs,
and which few take the trouble to remember."

Accordingly Upsala had been wrong, and John right. He knew that there
were ignorant savants there, and that it was on account of their own
want of culture that the professors of philosophy could teach nothing
but German philosophy. They neither knew English nor French philosophy
for the simple reason that they only understood Latin and German.
Buckle's _History of Civilisation in England_ was written in 1857, but
did not reach Sweden till 1871-72. Even then the soil was not ready for
the seed. The learned critics were unfavourable to Buckle, and the seed
took root only in some young minds who had no authoritative voice.

"No literature," says Buckle himself, "can be useful to a people, if
they are not prepared to receive it." Thus it was with Buckle and
his work, which preceded that of Darwin (1858) and contained all its
inferences--a proof that evolution in the world of thought is not so
strictly conditioned as has been believed. Buckle did not know Mill or
Spencer, whose thoughts now rule the world, but he said most of what
they said subsequently.

Now, if John had had a character, _i.e_. if he had been ruled by
a single quiet purpose directed towards one object, he would have
extracted from Buckle all that answered his purpose and left out all
that told against it. But he was a truth-seeker and did not shrink from
looking into the abyss of contradictions, especially as Buckle never
asserted that he had found the truth, and because truth is relative
and it is often found on both sides. Doubt, criticism, inquiry are the
chief matter, and the only useful course to pursue, as they guarantee
liberty. Sermons, programmes, certainty, system, "truth" are various
forms of constraint and stupidity. But it is impossible to be a
consistent doubter when one is crammed full with "complete evidence,"
and when one's judgment is swayed by class-prejudice, anxiety for a
living and struggles for a position. John became calm when he learnt
that all that was wrong in the world was wrong in accordance with
necessary law, but he became furious when he made the further discovery
that our social condition, our religion and morality were absurdities.
He wished to understand and pardon his opponents, since in their
actions they were no more free than he was, but he was in duty bound
to strangle them since they hindered the evolution of society towards
universal happiness, and that was the only and greatest crime that
could be committed. But as there were no criminals, how could one get
hold of the crime?

He was rejoiced that the mistakes had now been discovered, but despair
oppressed him again when he saw that the discovery was premature.
Nothing could be done for many years to come. Social evolution was a
very slow process. Consequently he must lie at anchor in the roadstead
waiting for the tide. But this waiting was too long for him; he heard
an inner voice bidding him speak, for if one does not spread what
light one has, how can popular views be changed? Yes, but a premature
promulgation of new ideas can do no good. Thus he was tossed to and
fro. Everything round him now seemed so old and out of date that he
could not read a newspaper without getting an attack of cramp. _They_
only had regard to the present moment; no one thought of the future.
His philosophical friend comforted and calmed him, through, among other
sayings, a sentence of La Bruyère, "Don't be angry because men are
stupid and bad, or you will have to be angry because a stone falls;
both are subject to the same laws; one must be stupid and the other
fall."

"That is all very well," said John, "but think of having to be a
bird and live in a ditch! Air! light! I cannot breathe or see," he
exclaimed; "I suffocate!"

"Write!" answered his friend.

"Yes, but what?"

Where should he begin? Buckle had already written everything, and
yet it was as though it had not been written. The worst thing was
that he felt he lacked the power. Hitherto he had only felt a very
moderate degree of ambition. He did not wish to march at the head, to
be a conqueror and so on. But to go in front with an axe as a simple
pioneer, to fell trees, root up thickets, and let others build bridges
and throw up redoubts, was enough for him. It is often observable that
great ambition is only the sign of great power. John was moderately
ambitious, because he was now only conscious of moderate powers.
Formerly when he was young and strong he had great confidence in
himself. He was a fanatic, _i.e_. his will was supported by powerful
passions, but his awakened insight and healthy doubt had sobered his
self-confidence. The work before him took the form of rock-walls which
must be pulled down, but he was not so simple as to venture on the task.

Now he began to habituate himself forcibly to doubt in order to be
patient and not to explode. He entrenched himself in doubt as in a
fortress, and as a means of self-preservation he determined to depict
his struggles and doubts in a drama. The subject matter which he had
been turning over in his mind for a year he took from the history of
the Reformation in Sweden. Thus was composed the drama later on known
as _The Apostate_.



CHAPTER XV

THE RED ROOM

(1872)


In autumn occurred the death of Charles XV. With the mourning, which
was fairly sincere and widespread, there mingled gloomy anxieties for
the future. One of the young painters who belonged to John's circle of
friends had just received a royal stipend and gone to Norway. He had
now to return quite destitute and without any prospects for the future.
John was accustomed to go with him into the Zoological Gardens in order
to paint, and occupy his mind while he was waiting for an answer from
the theatrical manager to whom he had sent his drama.

There is indeed no occupation which so absorbs all the thoughts and
emotions so much as painting. John watched and enjoyed the delicate
harmonies of the lines in the branch-formation of the trees, in the
wave-like curves of the ground, but his paint-brush was too coarse to
reproduce the contours as he wished. Then he took his pen and made a
drawing in detail. But when he tried to transfer it to his canvas and
paint it, the whole appeared but a smudge.

Pelle, on the other hand, was an impressionist and look no notice
of details. He took up the landscape at a stroke, so to speak, and
gave the colours their due value, but the various objects melted into
uncertain silhouettes. John thought Pelle's landscapes more beautiful
than the reality, although he cherished great reverence for the works
of the Creator. After he had wiled away about a month in painting,
he went one evening into the Café La Croix. The first person he met
was his former editor, who said, "I have just heard from X." (a young
author) "that the Theatre Royal has refused _The Apostate_."

"I know nothing about it," answered John. He did not feel well and left
the company as soon as possible. The next day he went to his former
instructor to find how the matter stood. The latter began first to
praise, and then to criticise it, which is the right method. He said
that the characters of Olaus Petri and Gustav Wasa had been brought
down from their proper level and distorted. John, on the other hand,
held that he had given a realistic representation of them as they
probably were, before their figures had been idealised by patriotic
considerations. His friend replied that that was no good; the public
would never accept a new reading of their characters till critical
inquiry had done its preliminary work.

That was true, but the blow was a heavy one, although dealt with as
much consideration as possible, and the author was invited to remodel
his drama. He had again been premature in his attempt. There was
nothing left for him but to wait and wile away the time. To think
of remodelling it now was not possible for him, for he saw, when he
read it through again, that it was all cast in one piece and that the
details could not be altered. He could not change it, unless he changed
his thoughts, and therefore he must wait.

Now he took to reading again. Chance brought into his hand two of
"the best books which one can read." They were De Tocqueville's
_Democracy in America_ and Prévost-Paradol's _The New France._ The
former increased his doubts as to the possibility of democracy in
an uncultivated community. Written with sincere admiration for the
political institutions of America, which the author holds up as a
pattern for Europe, this work points out so sincerely the dangers of
democracy, as to make even a born hater of the aristocracy pause.

John's theories received terrible blows, but this time his good sense
triumphed over his prejudices. His loss of faith in his own powers,
however, had a demoralising effect upon him, and he was soon ripe
for absolute scepticism. Sentences such as the following admitted
at that time of no contradiction: "The moral power of the majority
is based partly upon the conviction that a number of men have more
understanding, intelligence and wisdom than an individual, and a
great number of lawgivers more than a selection of them. That is the
principle of equality applied to intellectual gifts. This doctrine
attacks the pride of humanity in its innermost citadel."

An individualist like John did not perceive that this pride can and
must be overcome. Nor did he see that wisdom and intelligence can be
spread by means of good schools among the masses.

"When a man or a party in the United States suffers injustice, to whom
shall he turn? To public opinion? That is the opinion of the majority.
To the legislative officials? They are nominated by the majority
and obey it blindly. To the executive power? That is chosen by the
majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the military forces
of the State? They are simply the majority under arms. To juries?
They are formed by a majority which possesses the right to judge." De
Tocqueville goes on to say that the happiness of the majority which
consists in maintaining its rights deserves recognition, and that it is
better for a minority to suffer from pressure than a majority, but the
sufferings which an intelligent minority suffer from an unintelligent
majority are much greater than those which an intelligent minority
inflict upon a majority. On the other hand, the minority understands
much better than the majority what conduces to their own and the
general happiness, and therefore the tyranny of the minority is not to
be compared with that of the majority.

"Yes, but," thought John, "did not the European peoples generally
suffer from the tyranny of a minority?" The mere fact that there
were upper classes lay like a heavy cloud on the life of the masses.
Nowadays the question may be raised, "Why should a different
class-education result in an intelligent minority and an unintelligent
majority?" But such questions were not raised then. Moreover had such
a state really ever been seen in which an intelligent minority had the
power to "oppress"? No, for sovereigns, ministers and parliaments had
usually the due modicum of intelligence.

That which more than anything else inclined John to fear the power of
the masses, was the fact noted by De Tocqueville that they tyrannised
over freedom of thought.

"When one tries to ascertain," he says, "how much freedom of thought
there is in the United States it becomes apparent how much the tyranny
of the masses transcends any despotism known to Europe. I know no
country where there is, generally speaking, less independence of
opinion and real freedom of discussion than America. The majority
draw a terribly narrow circle round all thought. Within that circle
an author may say what he likes, but woe to him if he step across the
limit. He has no _auto-da-fé_ to fear, but he is made the mark for all
kinds of unpleasantness and daily persecutions. Every good quality is
denied him, even honour. Before he published his views, he thought he
had adherents; after he has made them known to all the world he sees
that he no longer has any, for his critics have raised an outcry,
and those who thought as he did, but lacked the courage to express
themselves, are silent and withdraw. He gives way; he finally collapses
under the strain of daily renewed effort, and resumes silence, as
though he regretted having spoken the truth,

"In democratic republics, tyranny lets the body alone and attacks the
soul. In them the dominant power does not say, 'You must think as I
do, or die;' it says, 'You are free to differ from me in opinion; your
life and property will remain untouched, but from the day that you
express a different view from mine, you will be a stranger among us.
You will retain your rights and privileges as a citizen, but they will
be useless to you. You will remain among men, but be deprived of all
a man's rights. When you approach your equals they will flee you as
though you were a leper; even those who believe in your innocence will
abandon you, lest they should be themselves abandoned. Go in peace!
I grant you life, but a life which shall be harder and bitterer than
death!'"

That is the true and credible picture which the noble De Tocqueville,
friend of the people and tyrant-hater as he was, has drawn of the
tyranny of the masses, those masses whose feet John had felt trampling
on him at home, at school, in the steamer and the theatre, those
masses whom he had satirised in the play _Sinking Hellas_, and whom
he had described as throwing the first stone at Olaus Petri just at
the moment when he was preaching to them of freedom! If it is thus in
America, how can one expect anything better in Europe. He found himself
in a cul-de-sac. His hereditary disposition prevented his becoming an
aristocrat, nor could he come to terms with the people. Had he not
himself suffered lately from an ignorant theatre-management behind
which stood the uncultivated public, and found the way blocked for
his new and liberal ideas. There was then already a mob-despotism in
Sweden, and the director of the Theatre Royal was only their servant.

It was all absurdity! And even suppose society were ruled by those who
knew most. Then they would be under professors with their heads full of
antiquarian ideas. Even if the director had put his drama on the stage,
it would have certainly been hissed off by the tradesmen in the stalls,
and no critics could have helped him!

His thoughts struggled like fishes in a net, and ended by being caught.
It was not worth the trouble of thinking about and he tried to banish
the thought, but could not. He felt a continual trouble and despair
in his mind that the world was going idiotically, majestically and
unalterably to the devil. "Unalterably," he thought, for as yet a large
number of strong minds had not attacked the problem, which was soluble
after all. Ten years later it was provisionally solved, when knowledge
on the subject of this sphinx-riddle had been so widely spread that
even a workman had obtained some insight into it, and in a public
meeting had declared that equality was impossible, for the block-heads
could not be equal to the sharp-sighted, and that the utmost one could
demand was equality of position. This workman was more of an aristocrat
than John dared to be in the year 1872, though he belonged to no party
which claimed the right to muzzle him.

Prévost-Paradol had dealt with the same theme as Tocqueville, but
he suggested a secret device against the tyranny of the masses--the
cumulative vote or the privilege of writing the same name several times
on the ballot-paper. But John considered this method, which had been
tried in England, doubtful.

He had set great hopes on his drama, and borrowed money on the strength
of them, and now felt much depressed. The disproportion between his
fancied and his real value galled him. Now he had to adopt a rôle,
learn it, and carry it out. He composed one for himself, consisting
of the sceptic, the materialist and the liar, and found that it
suited him excellently. This was for the simple reason that it was a
sceptical and materialistic period, and because he had unconsciously
developed into a man of his time. But he still believed that his
earlier discarded personality, ruled indeed by wild passions, but
cherishing ideals of a higher calling, love to mankind and similar
imaginations, was his true and better self which he hid from the world.
All men make similar mistakes when they value sickly sentimentality
above strong thought, when they look back to their youth and think
they were purer and more virtuous then, which is certainly untrue.
The world calls the weaker side of men their "better self," because
this weakness is more advantageous for the world and self-interest
seems to dictate its judgment. John found that in his new rôle he was
freed from all possible prejudices--religious, social, political and
moral. He had only one opinion,--that everything was absurd, only
one conviction,--that nothing could be done at present, and only one
hope,--that the time would come when one might effectively intervene,
and when there would be improvement. But from that time he altogether
gave up reading newspapers. To hear stupidity praised, selfish acts
lauded as philanthropic, and reason blasphemed,--that was too much for
a fanatical sceptic. Sometimes, however, he thought that the majority
were right in just being at the point of view where they were, and that
it was unnecessary that some few individuals, because of a specialised
education, should run far ahead of the rest. In quiet moments he
recognised that his mental development which had taken place so
rapidly, without his ever seeing an idea realised, could be a pattern
for such a slowly-working machine as society is. Why did he run so far
ahead? It was not the fault of the school or university, for they had
held him back equally with the majority.

Yes, but those already out in the world, by their own hearths, had
already reached the stage of Buckle's scepticism as regards the social
order, so that he was not so far ahead after all. The slow rate of
progress was enough to make one despair. What Schiller's Karl Moor
had seen a hundred years previously, what the French Revolution had
actually brought about were now regarded as brand-new ideas. After
the Revolution, social development had gone backwards; religious
superstitions were revived, belief in a better state of things lost,
and economic and industrial progress was accompanied by sweating and
terrible poverty. It was absurd! All minds that were awake at all
had to suffer,--suffer like every living organism when hindered in
growth and pressed backward. The century had been inaugurated by the
destruction of hopes, and nothing has such a paralysing effect on the
soul as disappointed hope, which, as statistics show, is one of the
most frequent causes of madness. Therefore all great spirits were,
vulgarly speaking, mad. Chateaubriand was a hypochondriac, Musset a
lunatic, Victor Hugo a maniac. The automatic pygmies of everyday life
cannot realise what such suffering means, and yet believe themselves
capable of judging in the matter.

The ancient poet is psychologically correct in representing
Prometheus as having his liver gnawed by a vulture. Prometheus was
the revolutionary who wished to spread mental illumination among
men. Whether he did it from altruistic motives, or from the selfish
one of wishing to breathe a purer mental atmosphere, may be left
undecided. John, who felt akin to this rebel, was aware of a pain which
resembled anxiety, and a perpetual boring "toothache in the liver." Was
Prometheus then a liver-patient who confusedly ascribed his pain to
causes outside himself? Probably not! But he was certainly embittered
when he saw that the world is a lunatic asylum in which the idiots go
about as they like, and the few who preserve reason are watched as
though dangerous to the public safety. Attacks of illness can certainly
colour men's views, and every one well knows how gloomy our thoughts
are when we have attacks of fever. But patients such as Samuel Oedmann
or Olaf Eneroth were neither sulky nor bitter, but, on the contrary,
mild, perhaps languid from want of strength. Voltaire, who was never
well, had an imperturbably good temper. And Musset did not write as he
did because he drank absinthe, but he drank from the same cause that
he wrote in that manner, _i.e_. from despair. Therefore it is not in
good faith that idealists who deny the existence of the body, ascribe
the discontent of many authors to causes such as indigestion, etc., the
supposition of which contradicts their own principles, but it must be
against their better knowledge, or with worse knowledge. Kierkegaard's
gloomy way of writing can be ascribed to an absurd education,
unfortunate family relations, dreary social surroundings, and alongside
of these to some organic defects, but not to the latter alone.

Discontent with the existing state of things will always assert itself
among those who are in process of development, and discontent has
pushed the world forwards, while content has pushed it back. Content
is a virtue born of necessity, hopelessness or superfluity; it can be
cancelled with impunity.

Catarrh of the stomach may cause ill temper, but it has never produced
a great politician, _i.e._ a great malcontent. But sickliness may
impart to a malcontent's energy a stronger colour and greater rapidity,
and therefore cannot be denied a certain influence. On the other hand,
a conscious insight into grievances can produce such a degree of mental
annoyance as can result in sickness. The loss of dear friends through
death, may in this way cause consumption, and the loss of a social
position or of property, madness.

If every modern individual shows a geological stratification of the
stages of development through which his ancestors passed, so in every
European mind are found traces of the primitive Aryan,--class-feeling,
fixed family ideas, religious motives, etc. From the early Christians
we have the idea of equality, love to our neighbour, contempt for mere
earthly life; from the mediæval monks, self-castigation and hopes of
heaven. Besides these, we inherit traits from the sensuous cultured
pagans of the Renaissance, the religious and political fanatics of the
sixteenth century, the sceptics of the "illumination" period, and the
anarchists of the Revolution. Education should therefore consist in the
obliteration of old stains which continually reappear however often we
polish them away.

John proceeded to obliterate the monk, the fanatic and the
self-tormentor in himself as well as he could, and took as the leading
principle of his provisional life (for it was only provisional till he
struck out a course for himself) the well-understood one of personal
advantage, which is actually, though unconsciously, employed by all, to
whatever creed they belong.

He did not transgress the ordinary laws, because he did not wish
to appear in a court of justice; he encroached on no one's rights
because he wished his own not to be encroached upon. He met men
sympathetically, for he did not hate them, nor did he study them
critically till they had broken their promises and shown a want of
sympathy to him. He justified them all so long as he could, and when
he could not, well,--he could not, but he tried by working to place
himself in a position to be able to do so. He regarded his talent as a
capital sum, which, although at present it yielded no interest, gave
him the right and imposed on him the duty to live at any price. He was
not the kind of man to force his way into society in order to exploit
it for his own purposes, he was simply a man of capacity conscious of
his own powers, who placed himself at the disposal of society modestly,
and in the first place to be used as a dramatist. The theatre, as a
matter of fact, needed him to contribute to its Swedish repertory.

After a solitary day's work, it was his habit to go to a café to meet
his acquaintances there. To seek "more elevated" recreations in family
circles such as meaningless gossip, card playing and such like had no
attraction for him. Whenever he entered a family circle he felt himself
surrounded by a musty atmosphere like that exhaled from stagnant
water. Married couples who had been badgering each other, were glad to
welcome him as a sort of lightning conductor, but he had no pleasure
in playing that part. Family life appeared to him as a prison in which
two captives spied on each other, as a place in which children were
tormented, and servant-girls quarrelled. It was something nasty from
which he ran away to the restaurants. In them there was a public room
where no one was guest and no one was host: one enjoyed plenty of
space and light, heard music, saw people and met friends. John and
his friends were accustomed to meet in a back room of Bern's great
restaurant which, because of the colour of the furniture, was called
the "red room." The little club consisted originally of John and a few
artistic and philosophical friends. But their circle was soon enlarged
by old friends whom they met again. They were first of all recruited
by the presentable former scholars of the Clara School,--a postal
clerk who was at the same time a bass singer, pianist and composer; a
secretary of the Court treasurer; and the trump card of the society,--a
lieutenant of artillery. To these were added later, the composer's
indispensable friend, a lithographer, who published his music, and a
notary who sang his compositions. The club was not homogeneous, but
they soon managed to shake down together.

But since the laymen had no wish to hear discussions on art, literature
and philosophy, their conversations were only on general subjects.
John, who did not wish to discuss any more problems, adopted a
sceptical tone, and baffled all attempts at discussion by a play upon
words, a quibble or a question. His ultimate "why?" behind every
penultimate assertion threw a light on the too-sure conclusions of
stupidity, and let his hearer surmise that behind the usually accepted
commonplaces there were possibilities of truths stretching out in
endless perspective. These views of his must have germinated like seeds
in most of their brains, for in a short time they were all sceptics,
and began to use a special language of their own. This healthy
scepticism in the infallibility of each other's judgments had, as a
natural consequence, a brutal sincerity of speech and thought. It was
of no use to speak of one's feelings as though they were praise worthy,
for one was cut short with "Are you sentimental, poor devil? Take
bi-carbonate."

If any one complained of toothache, all he received by way of answer
was, "That does not rouse my sympathy at all, for I have never had
toothache, and it has no effect upon my resolve to give a supper."

They were disciples of Helvetius in believing that one must regard
egotism as the mainspring of all human actions, and therefore it was
no use pretending to finer emotions. To borrow money or to get goods
on credit without being certain of being able to pay, was rightly
regarded as cheating, and so designated. For instance, if a member of
the club appeared in a new overcoat which seemed to have been obtained
on credit, he was asked in a friendly way, "Whom have you cheated about
that coat?" Or on another occasion another would say, "To-day I have
done Samuel out of a new suit."

Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, both overcoat and suit were
generally paid for, but as the purchaser at the time he took them was
not sure whether he would be able to pay, he regarded himself as a
potential swindler. This was severe morality and stern self-criticism.

Once during such a conversation the lieutenant got up to go and attend
church-parade with his company. "Where are you going?" he was asked.
"To play the hypocrite," he answered truthfully.

This tone of sincerity sometimes assumed the character of a deep
understanding of human nature and the nature of society. One day
the company were leaving John's lodgings for the restaurant. It was
winter, and Måns, who was generally ill-dressed, had no overcoat. The
lieutenant, who wore his uniform, was, it is true, somewhat uneasy, but
did not wish to hurt any one's feelings that day. When John opened the
door to go out, Måns said, "Go in front; I will come afterwards; I do
not want Jean to injure his position by going with me."

John offered to walk with Måns one way while the others should go by
another, but Jean exclaimed, "Ah! don't pretend to be noble-minded! you
feel as embarrassed at going with Måns as I do."

"True," replied John, "but...."

"Why, then, do you play the hypocrite?"

"I did not play the hypocrite; I only wished to try to be free from
prejudice."

"The deuce! what is the good of being free from prejudice when no one
else is, and it does you harm? It would really show more freedom from
prejudice to tell Måns your mind than to deceive him."

Måns had already departed, and arrived about the same time at the
restaurant as they did. He took part in the meal without betraying a
trace of ill-humour. "Your health, Måns, because you are a man of
sense," said the lieutenant to cheer him up.

The habit of speaking out one's inner thoughts without any regard to
current opinion, resulted in the overthrow of all traditional verdicts.
The terrible confusion of thought in which men live, since freedom
of thought has been fettered by compulsory regulations, has made it
possible for antiquated views of men and things to continue. Thus,
to-day a number of works of art are considered unsurpassable in spite
of the great progress made in technique and artistic conception. John
considered that if in the nineteenth century he was to give his views
on Shakespeare, he was not at all bound to give the opinion of the
eighteenth century, but of his own nineteenth, as it had been modified
by new points of view. This aroused a great deal of opposition, perhaps
because people fear being regarded as uncultivated a great deal more
than they fear being regarded as godless.

Every one attacked Christ, for He was thought to have been overthrown
by learned criticism, but they were afraid of attacking Shakespeare.
John, however, was not. Thoroughly understanding the works of the
poet, whose most important dramas he had read in the original and
whose chief commentators he had studied, he criticised the composition
and meagre character drawing of _Hamlet._ It is noteworthy that the
Swedish Shakespeare-worshipper, Shuck, through an inconsistency due to
the current confusion of thought and compulsory cowardice, made just
as severe criticisms of _Hamlet_ regarded as a work of art, though
he had previously extolled it above the skies. If John had at that
time been able to read the book of Professor Shuck, he would not have
needed courage in order to subscribe such criticisms as the following:
"_Hamlet_ is the most unsatisfactory of all ... the composition is
superficial and incoherent. After the action of the play has reached
its climax, it suddenly breaks off. Hamlet is suddenly sent to England,
but this journey does not in any way arouse the spectator's interest.
Still worse is the management of the catastrophe. It is a mere chance
that Hamlet's revenge is executed at all, and a similar caprice of
chance causes his overthrow. His killing Claudius just before his own
death has more the appearance of revenge for the attempt on his own
life, than that of a judgment executed in the name of injured morality."

And then the obscurity which envelops the motives of the principal
persons in the play! "The spectator is left in uncertainty regarding
such an important point as Ophelia's and Hamlet's madness. Moreover
in _King Lear_, Edward's treachery is so palpable that not the most
ordinarily intelligent man could have been deceived by it!"

If then the drama was defective precisely in the chief elements of a
drama, construction and characterisation, how could it be incomparable?
The reverence for what is ancient and celebrated is rooted in the
same instinct which creates gods; and pulling down the ancient has
the same effect as attacking the divine. Why else should a sensible
unprejudiced man fly in a rage when he hears some one express a
different opinion to his own (or what he thinks his own) about some old
classic? It ought to be a matter of indifference to him. The national
and intellectual Pantheon can be as angrily defended by atheists as by
monotheists, perhaps more so. People who are otherwise sincere, cringe
before a well-established reputation, and John had heard a pietistic
clergyman say that Shakespeare was a "pure" writer. In his mouth that
was certainly false. A determinist, on the other hand, would not
have used the words "pure" or "impure" because they would have been
meaningless to him. But the poor Christ-worshipper did not dare to bear
a cross for Shakespeare; he had enough already to bear for his own
Master.

Meanwhile John's method of judging old things from the modern point of
view seemed to be justified, for it gained him a following. That was
the whole secret of what was so little understood later on by theistic
and atheistic theologians--his irreverent handling of ancient things
and persons; they thought in their simplicity quite innocently that
it was what one calls in children a spirit of contradiction. His aim
rather was to bring people's confused ideas into order, and to teach
them to apply logically their materialistic point of view. If they
were materialists, they should not borrow phrases from Christianity,
nor think like idealists. This gave rise to a catchword, which showed
how what was ancient was despised--"That is old!" As new men, they
must think new thoughts, and new thoughts demanded a new phraseology.
Anecdotes and old jokes were done away with; stereotyped phrases and
borrowed expressions were suppressed. One might be plain-spoken and
call things by their right names, but one might not be vulgar; the
latest opera was not to be quoted, nor jokes from the newest comic
paper repeated. Thereby each became accustomed to produce something
from his own stock of original observation and acquired the faculty of
judging from a fresh point of view.

John had discovered that men in general were automata. All thought the
same; all judged in the same fashion; and the more learned they were,
the less independence of mind they displayed. This made him doubt the
whole value of book education. The graduates who came from Upsala
had, one and all, the same opinions on Rafael and Schiller, though
the differences in their characters would have led one to expect a
corresponding difference in their judgments. Therefore these men did
not think, although they called themselves free-thinkers, but merely
talked and were merely parrots.

But John could not perceive that it was not books _quá_ books which had
turned these learned men into automata. He himself and his unlearned
philosophical friends had been aroused to self-consciousness through
books. The danger of the university education was that it was derived
from inferior books published under sanction of the government, and
written by the upper classes in the interest of the upper classes,
_i.e_. with the object of exalting what was old and established, and
therefore of hindering further development.

Meanwhile John's scepticism had made him sterile. He had perceived
that art had nothing to do with social development, that it was simply
a reflection or phenomena, and was more perfect as art the more it
confined itself to this function. He still preserved the impulse to
re-mould things and it found expression in his painting. His poetic
art, on the other hand, went to pieces since it had to express thoughts
or serve a purpose.

His failure to have his play accepted had an adverse effect on his
pecuniary circumstances. The friends from whom he had borrowed money
came one evening to John's rooms in order to hear the play read, but
they were so tired after the day's work that, after hearing the first
act, they asked him to put off the rest for another occasion. One of
the audience who had kept more awake than the others thought that there
were too many Biblical quotations in the piece, and that these were not
suitable for the stage.

John's resources were dried up, and the spectre of want loomed upon
him, unbribeable and stone-deaf. After he had gone without his dinners
for a time, he began to feel weary of life, and looked about him for
the means of subsistence. How should he get bread in the wilderness?
The best means that suggested itself was to seek an engagement in a
provincial theatre. There mere nobodies often played leading roles
in tragedies, made themselves a name, and finished by getting an
appointment at the Theatre Royal. He quickly made his resolve, packed
his travelling bag, borrowed money for his fare, and went to Göteborg.
It was just about the time of the great November storm of 1872.

Since the environment in which he had been living had had a great
effect on him, he conceived a great dislike to this town. Gloomy,
correct, expensive, proud, reserved it lay, pent in its circle of stone
hills, and depressed the lively native of Upper Sweden, accustomed
to the rich and smiling landscape of Stockholm. It was a copy of the
capital but on a small scale, and John, as one of the upper class,
felt alienated from its inhabitants, who were in a lower stage of
development. But he noticed that there was something here that was
wanting in the capital. When he went down to the harbour he saw ships
which were nearly all destined for foreign parts, and large vessels
kept up continual communication with the continent. The people and
buildings did not look so exclusively Swedish, the papers took more
account of the great movements which were going on in the world. What
a short way it was from here to Copenhagen, Christiania, London,
Hamburg, Havre! Stockholm should have been situated here in a harbour
of the North Sea, whereas it lay in a remote corner of the Baltic.
Here was in truth the nucleus of a new centre, and he now understood
that that position was no longer occupied by Stockholm, but that
Göteborg was about to be the centre of the north. At present, however,
this reflection had no comfort for him since he was only in the
insignificant position of an actor.

John sought out the theatre-director and introduced himself as a
person who wished to do the theatre a service. The director, however,
considered himself very well served by his present staff. But he
allowed John to give a trial performance in the rôle in which he wished
to make his début. This was Dietrichson's _Workman_, the great success
of the day. John had discovered a certain likeness between Stephenson's
first locomotive and his rejected play; he wished to show how he, like
the engineer, had to face the ridicule of the ignorant crowd, the
apprehensions of the learned, and the fears of a wasted life on the
part of relatives. He gave his trial performance one evening by the
light of a candle and between bare walls. Naturally he felt hampered
and asked to repeat it in costume. But the director said it was not
necessary; he had heard enough. John, in his opinion, possessed talent,
but it was undeveloped. He offered him an engagement at twelve hundred
kronas yearly, to commence from the first of January. John considered:
Should he spend two months idly in Göteborg and then only have a
supernumerary's part in a provincial theatre? No! He would not! What
remained to be done? Nothing except to borrow money and return home,
which he did.

Thus his efforts had again ended in failure. His friends had given
him a farewell feast, lent him journey money, done all they could to
help him, and now he came back without having settled anything. Again
he had to hear the old too true accusation that he was unstable. To
be unstable in an ordered society is the extreme of unpracticality.
There persistent and exclusive cultivation of some special branch of
industry or knowledge is necessary in order to outstrip competitors.
Every orderly member of society feels a certain discomfort when he sees
some one wandering from his proper place. This discomfort does not
necessarily spring from excessive egotism, but possibly from a feeling
of solidarity and solicitude for others. John saw that his countless
changes of plan disquieted his friends; he felt ashamed and suffered on
account of it, but could not act otherwise.

So he found himself at home, and spent the long evenings in the "Red
Room," asking himself whether he really could find no place in a
society which for others opened up so many rich possibilities of a
career.

At Christmas time John travelled again to Upsala, for he had been
invited thither as one of the contributors to a Literary Calendar which
had just appeared. The _Calendar_, which was received with universal
disapprobation, was not without significance as an exponent of the
state of literature. The reader who was desired to wade through these
elegant extracts, might justifiably ask, "What have I got to do with
them?" The poetry they contained, like that of Snoilsky and Björck,
might have been written fifty or a hundred years before. It was of
indifferent quality, and sometimes even bad,--bad because it gave no
sign that the poet had developed any powers of perception, indifferent
because it was not rooted in its own period. The date of the book
was 1872, but it contained no echo of the Jubilee of 1865, no hint
of 1870, not a whiff of the conflagration of 1871. Had these young
versifiers been asleep? Yes, certainly. The great mass of students were
realists, sceptics, mockers, as befitted the children of the time, but
the poets were credulous fools with the ideals of Snoilsky and Björck
in their hearts. Their poetry was that of superannuated idealists in
form and thought, for the new views of things had not reached these
isolated individualists who still lived the Bohemian life of the
Romantics. Their poetry consisted of nothing but echoes. In fact it
was a question whether Swedish poetry had hitherto been anything else,
or could be anything else. Was Tegner's poetry anything but an echo
of Schiller, Oehlenschläger, the Eddas and the old Norse sagas? Was
Atterbom anything else than a musical box pieced together out of Tieck,
Hoffmann, Wieland, Burger? And so on with all the Swedish poets. But
this Literary Calendar was composed of echoes of echoes and dreams of
dreams. Realism, which had already made a premature entry into Sweden
with Kraemer's _Diamonds in Coal_, and had subsequently triumphed
in Snoilsky, had left no trace on these young poets. The poetry of
Snoilsky's school had been the careless expression of a careless time,
but these poems simply displayed the incapacity of their writers.

John had contributed to the _Calendar_ a free version of "An Basveig's
Saga." In this he had glorified himself as a kind of male Cinderella,
or ugly duckling of the family. He was moved to do this by the contempt
which had been evinced towards him by his patrons and middle-class
friends on account of his failure as an author. The language of the
piece was marked by a certain bluntness of expression and an attempt to
dignify low things, or at least to rub off the dirt from things which
were not really so, but were called so. Since the word Naturalism had
not yet come into fashion, his language was called coarse and vulgar.

But an acquaintance which John happened to make during his stay in
Upsala was of greater importance than the _Calendar_ or Christmas
dinner. He lodged with a friend on whose writing-table he found one day
a number of the _Svensk Tidskrift_ containing a notice of Hartmann's
_Philosophy of the Unconscious_. It was an exposition of Hartmann's
system by a Finn, A.V. Bolin, and betrayed throughout a half-concealed
admiration of it. But the editor, Hans Forssell, had appended to the
essay a note written in his usual style when he came across something
that his brain could not take in. Hartmann's doctrine was pessimism.
Conscious life is suffering because unconscious will is the motive
power of evolution and consciousness obstructs this unconscious will.
It was the old myth of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It
was the kernel of the Buddhistic faith and the chief doctrine of
Christianity,--"Vanitas, vanitatum vanitas."

Most of the greatest and conscious minds had been pessimists, and had
seen through and unmasked the illusions of life. Only wild animals,
children, and commonplace people could therefore be happy, because they
were unconscious of the illusion, or because they held their ears when
one wanted to tell them the truth and begged not to be robbed of their
illusions.

John found all this quite natural, and had no important objection to
make. It was true then, what he had so often dreamt, that everything
was nothing! It was the suspicion of this which had governed his
point of view and made all the great and all greatness appear on a
reduced scale. This consciousness had lurked obscurely in him, when,
as a child, although well-formed, healthy and strong, he wept over
an unknown grief, the cause of which he could not find within him or
without. That was the secret of his life, that he could not admire
anything, could not hold to anything, could not live for anything; that
he was too wide awake to be subject to illusions. Life was a form of
suffering which could only be alleviated by removing as many obstacles
as possible from the path of one's will; his own life in particular
was so extremely painful because his social and economical position
constantly prevented his will from expressing itself.

When he contemplated life and especially the course of history he saw
only cycles of errors and mistakes repeating themselves.[1] The men of
the present dreamt of a republic, as Greeks and Romans had done two
thousand years before; the civilisation of the Egyptians had decayed
when they perceived its futility; Asia was wrapped in an eternal sleep
after it had been impelled by an unconscious will to conquer the
world; all nations had invented narcotics and intoxicants in order to
quench consciousness; sleep was blessedness and death the greatest
happiness. But why not take the last step and commit suicide? Because
the unconscious Will continually enticed men to live through the
illusion of hope of a better life. Pessimism, regarded as a view of the
world's order, is more consistent than meliorism, which sees in natural
development a tendency which makes for men's happiness. This latter
view seems to be a disguised relic of belief in divine providence. Can
one believe that the mechanical blindly ruling laws of nature have any
regard for the development of human society when they produce glacial
periods, floods, and volcanic outbreaks? Must an intelligent man be
called "conservative" in a contemptuous sense because he has brought
under his yoke and rules the laws of nature as Stuart Mill facetiously
expresses it? Have men devised any certain preventives against
shipwreck, strokes of lightning, economic crises, losses of relatives
by death and sickness? Can men control at pleasure the inclination of
the earth's axis, and do away with cloud-formations which are likely
to injure harvests? In spite of the present advanced state of science,
have men been able to put an end to the grape pest, to stop floods,
eradicate, superstitions, remove despots, prevent war? Is it not
presumptuous or simple-minded to believe that man, himself governed by
chemical, physical, and physiological laws of nature, stands above them
because he understands how to use some of them to his own advantage, as
birds use the wind for their progress or beavers the pressure of the
stream in constructing their dams? Are not the wings of the falcon and
the fly more perfect means of locomotion than railways and steamers?
How can men be so simple as to think that they stand above nature when
they are themselves so subordinate to nature that they cannot will or
think freely? It looks like a residue of our primitive illusions. If
the present development of European society ends in atheism, that has
already been the case with the Buddhists; if in religious freedom,
that has already been witnessed in the early history of China; if in
polygamy, that already exists among the savages of Australia; if in
community of goods, this prevailed among primitive peoples. The fact is
that Europe has been the last of all the great ethnical groups to wake
to consciousness. It is now in the act of waking and turning itself,
not like some oriental nations, to torpid quietism, but to removing as
far as possible the pains and unpleasantnesses of earthly existence,
although the best way of doing so has not been yet discovered. The
mistake of the industrial socialists is that they, according to
the formula of the ambiguous evolution theory, wish to build upon
existing conditions, which they regard as the product of necessity,
and tending to the good of all. But existing conditions rather tend
to the happiness of the few, and are therefore something abnormal to
build on, which means erecting a house on ground from which the water
has not been drained off. Probably the form of society which they
desire, however absurd it is, is a necessary mistake through which men
must pass to reach a better. Both the danger and the hope of progress
consist in the fact that the socialistic system already has its
programme drawn up and consequently works automatically, _i.e_. like a
blind, irresistible mass. If it reconstitutes society after the pattern
of the working-class who are a minority, and makes all men mechanics,
one may venture to doubt, without being regarded as quite mad, whether
that will be happiness. Socialism as a social reform is inevitable,
for Europe in its self-idolatry has not perceived how far backward it
is. Provided with an Asiatic form of government, which interferes in
details, supporting ancient superstitions, living under the terrible
tyranny of capital, which is maintained by force of arms, it sets
on foot political and religious persecutions, it venerates embalmed
monarchs like mummies of the Pharaohs, it civilises savages with waste
goods and Krupp guns; it forgets that its civilisation came from the
east, and was better then than it is now. Hartmann and the pessimists
believe that the social reform which is called socialism will come, but
that afterwards, it will be succeeded by something else.

The bourgeois is an optimist because he cannot see or think outside
the narrow circle of everyday occurrences. That is his good fortune,
but not his merit, for he has no choice in the matter. Nay, he does not
even understand what pessimism is, but thinks it means the opinion that
this is the worst of all worlds. How could any one have a well-grounded
view on that? Voltaire, who was no pessimist, wrote a whole book to
demonstrate that this world, at any rate, was not the best of worlds
for us, as Leibnitz imagined. It is naturally the best for itself,
although not for us, and the difference between the point of view of
the hypochondriac and the pessimist consists in the fact that the
former believes that the world is the worst possible for him, while
the pessimist disregards what it may be for the individual. Hartmann
is no hypochondriac as people have tried to make out, and he seeks to
alleviate the pain of life as much as possible by placing himself in a
state of unconsciousness.

The men of the younger generation of to-day are sad, because they
have awoke to consciousness and lost many illusions. But they are not
hypochondriacal, and work at bringing the world forward into the last
stage of illusion or a new social system, as though hoping thereby to
alleviate their pain, and they work the more fanatically, the deeper
they feel it.

Meanwhile, supposing that Hartmann's philosophy may be a mistake, and a
sceptic must be willing to entertain that possibility, although it has
every probability on its side, since the instinct of self-preservation,
the first condition of life, consists in the removal of pain, which
is the first motive-power,--we must seek to explain historically
how this philosophy has come to the birth and spread. Superficial
observers like the mystic Caro, do not hesitate, inconsistently
enough, to attribute it to bodily ill-health. The socialists, who
wished to arouse the expectation that their teaching was practicable,
explained it as the foreboding of overthrow in a class, of whom
Hartmann was the representative. But Hartmann believes in socialism
and the new social system, although only as transitional forms. He
is not despairing, not even melancholy. He seems to be the first
philosopher who, quite independently of Christianity, European culture
and idealism, tries to explain the world's progress from the purely
materialistic point of view. He states facts and processes exactly as
they are. From unconscious minerals we have developed into globules
of albumen, acquired conscious nerve-centres and finally brains
with ever-increasing self-consciousness. The more highly organised
the life, the greater the capacity for pain and susceptibility to
impressions. Not till our time did the cosmic brain succeed in arriving
at clear perception and, accordingly, at divining the order of the
world. Hartmann can therefore be regarded as one who arrived at the
highest degree of consciousness, and he will be remembered as the
great unmasker before whose keen gaze the bandages fell away. It is
consequently a mistake to call him "the prophet of despair." Idealists
may feel empty and despairing when confronted by the naked truth, but
the meliorist feels an inexpressible calm. Man will be modest when he
takes the measure of his littleness as an atom of the cosmic dust.
He will no longer build his happiness on a future life, but will be
impelled by pessimism to order the only life he has as well as he can
for himself and for others. He will see how useless it is to lament
over the misery of existence; he will accept pain as a fact, and
alleviate it as well as he can. Hartmann is a realist, and the title
"pessimist" in its old significance has been fastened on him out of
malice. He shudders at the misery of the world, but does not even call
it misery. He only shows that life is not so great and beautiful as men
like to make out, and pain in his view is not a mere bodily ailment,
but an impelling motive. His is a sound and healthy view of things in
contrast to which socialism may sometimes look like idealism, since it
wishes to remodel society according to its desires, not according to
the possibilities of the case.

Meanwhile the review article on Hartmann had a quickening effect on
John. There was then a system in the apparent madness of the universe,
and his consciousness had rightly foreboded that the whole scheme of
things was something very insignificant. But a new philosophic system
is not absorbed by a brain in a day. It only left a certain deposit and
gave a keynote to his thoughts. As a theoretical point of view it was
still obscured by his idealistic education, darkened by his inborn and
acquired hatred of the upper class, and his natural tendency to seek
his point of equilibrium somewhere outside himself. Taken on the large
scale, life was meaningless, but if one wanted to live, one had to come
to grips with reality, and adopt an everyday point of view, which alas!
one very readily did. Enormous difficulties stood in the way of earning
a living or making a name. Honour, viewed absolutely, was nothing, but
in relation to the petty circumstances of life it was something great,
and worth striving for. The Philistines did not understand that, and
derived much amusement, when they saw him, pessimist as he was, toiling
after distinctions. They, with their clock-work brains, thought this
inconsistent, since they did not understand that the term "honour" has
two values, an absolute and a "relative."


[1] In his pamphlet "The Conscious Will in the World-history" (1903),
Strindberg takes the opposite view to that expressed here.





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