The Inferno, August Strindberg [classic english novels TXT] 📗

malodorous. I expect a catastrophe. In the street I find a scrap of paper with the word “marten” written on it; in another street a similar scrap with the word “vulture” written by the same hand. Popoffsky certainly has a resemblance to a marten as his wife has to a vulture. Have they come to Paris to kill me? He, the murderer, is capable of everything after he has murdered wife and children.

The perusal of the delightful book La joie de mourir arouses in me the wish to quit the world. In order to learn to know the boundary between life and death, I lie on the bed, uncork the flask containing cyanide of potassium, and let its poisonous perfume stream out. The man with the scythe approaches softly and voluptuously, but at the last moment someone enters or something else happens; either an attendant enters under some pretext, or a wasp flies in through the window.

The powers deny me the only joy left, and I bow to their will.

At the beginning of July the house is empty; the students have gone for their holidays. All the more is my curiosity aroused by a stranger who has taken the room on that side of mine where my writing-table is placed. The Unknown never speaks; he appears to be occupied in writing on the other side of the wall which divides us. Curiously enough, whenever I move my chair, he moves his also, and, in general, imitates all my movements as though he wished to annoy me. Thus it goes on for three days. On the fourth day I make the following observations: If I prepare to go to sleep, he also prepares to go to sleep in the next room; when I lie down in bed, I hear him lie down on the bed by my wall. I hear him stretch himself out parallel with me; he turns over the pages of a book, then puts out the lamp, breathes loud, turns himself on his side, and goes to sleep. He apparently occupies the rooms on both sides of me, and it is unpleasant to be beset on two sides at once. Absolutely alone, I take my midday meal in my room, and I eat so little that the waiter pities me. For eight days I have not heard the sound of my own voice, which begins to grow feeble for want of exercise. I haven’t a sou left, and my tobacco and postage stamps run out. Then I rally my will power for a last attempt: I will make gold, by the dry process. I manage to borrow some money and procure the necessary apparatus: an oven, smelting-saucepans, wood-coals, bellows, and tongs. The heat is terrific and, like a workman in a smithy, I sweat before the open fire, stripped to the waist. But sparrows have built their nests in the chimney, and smoke pours out of it into the room. I feel like going mad over this first attempt, my headaches, and the frustration of my efforts; for everything goes wrong. I have smelted the mass of metal in the fire and look inside the saucepan. The borax has formed within it a death’s-head with two glowing eyes which seem to pierce my soul with uncanny irony. Not a grain of gold is there, and I give up all further effort. I resume my seat, and read the Bible just where I happen to open it: “None calleth to mind, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also, I have baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth forth the earth; who is with me? that frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.”

For the first time I despair of my scientific experiments. If they are all folly, then I have sacrificed my happiness and that of my wife and children to a phantom. Alas for my delusion! There is a gaping abyss between my parting from my family and this moment. A year and a half has elapsed, and so many painful days and nights have been spent for nothing. But no! it cannot be, it is not so.

Have I lost myself in a dark wood? The good spirit has guided me on the right way to the island of the blessed, but Satan tempts me. I am punished again. I sink relaxed on my scat, an unwonted depression weighs upon my spirits. A magnetic fluid streams from the wall, and sleep nearly overcomes me. I pull myself together, and stand up, in order to go out. As I pass through the passage, I hear two voices whispering in the room adjoining mine. Why are they whispering? In order that I may not overhear them. I go through the Rue d’Assas to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I drag myself wearily along, feeling lame from my loins to my feet, and sink on a seat behind the group of Adam and his family.

I am poisoned! That is my first thought. And Popoffsky, who has murdered his wife and children with poisonous gases, is here. He has copied the famous experiment of Pettenkofer, and discharged a stream of gas through the wall. What shall I do? Go to the police? No! for if I can adduce no proofs they will shut me up as a lunatic.