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

symptoms from which I still suffer are the result of that murderous attempt. Oh, these women! Certainly my articles on the feminist pictures of my Danish friend were not calculated to please them. But, at any rate, here is a fact, a tangible occurrence which dissipates my terrible doubts regarding my mental soundness.

I hasten with the good news to my mother-in-law. “You see that I am not out of my mind!”

“No, you are not, but only ill, and the doctor will recommend physical exercise for you⁠—wood-chopping, for instance.”

“Is that of any use against women, or not?”

My too hasty retort makes a breach between us. I had forgotten that a female saint is still a woman, i.e., man’s enemy.

All is forgotten, the Russians, the Rothschilds, the dabblers in black magic, the theosophists, and the Eternal Himself. I am the innocent sacrifice, blameless Job, Orpheus whom the women want to kill, the author of Sylva Sylvarum, the reviver of dead science. Lost in a labyrinth of doubt, I abandon the newborn idea of providential interposition with a spiritual purpose, and absorbed in the bare fact that a plot has been laid against me, I forget to think of the original Plotter. Thirsting for vengeance, I prepare to send notices to the police-offices and papers in Paris, when a timely change of affairs puts an end to the sorry drama, which would have degenerated into a farce.

One grey-yellow winter day, about an hour after the midday meal, my little Christina insists on following me to my house, where I generally have my afternoon siesta. I cannot resist her, and give way to her request, When we get to my room Christina asks for pen and paper; then she demands picture-books, and I must remain, show, and explain.

“You must not go to sleep, papa!”

Although feeling weary and exhausted, I obey my child, I don’t know why myself, but there is a tone in her voice which I cannot resist.

Outside, before the door, an organ-grinder is playing a waltz tune. I propose to the little one to dance with the nurse who has accompanied her. Attracted by the music, the neighbours’ children come, the organ-grinder is invited into the kitchen, and we improvise a dance. This goes on for an hour, and my sadness is dispelled. In order to distract myself and to keep off sleep, I take the Bible, my oracle, and open it at haphazard. “But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul’s servants said unto him, ‘Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on the harp, and it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.’ ”

An evil spirit! That is what I am always suspecting! While the children are dancing, my mother-in-law comes in in order to fetch the little one, and when she sees them, she stands still, astonished. Then she tells me that just now, down in the village, a lady of good family has been seized with an attack of frenzy.

“What is the matter with her?”

“She dances without stopping, has dressed herself as a bride and fancies she is Burger’s Lenore.”

“She dances, and then?”

“She weeps in terror of death, who she believes will come and take her.”

What lends a darker shade to this tragedy is that the lady has occupied the same house I live in now, and that her husband died in the same room where the children are noisily dancing.

Explain me that, O doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or acknowledge the bankruptcy of science!

My little daughter has exorcised the evil spirit who, driven out by her innocence, has entered into an old lady who used to boast of being a free thinker.

The death-dance lasts the whole night. The lady is guarded by friends, who she says, are to ward off the attack of death. She calls it “death” because she does not believe in the existence of evil spirits. And yet she often asserted that her deceased husband tormented her.

My departure is postponed, but, in order to recruit my strength after so many sleepless nights, I remove to my aunt’s house on the other side of the street, and leave the “rose-red” room. It is a curious fact that in the good old times the torture chamber in Sweden was called the “Chamber of Roses.”

At last I spend a night again in a quiet room. The walls are painted white and covered with pictures of saints. Over my bed hangs a crucifix. But when night comes the spirits begin their tricks again.

I light the candles in order to kill the time with reading. There is a weird stillness in which I can hear my heart beating. Then a slight noise startles me, like an electric spark.

What is that?

A large piece of wax has dropped from the candle on the ground. Nothing more, but the people here believe it is a sign of death! It may be, as far as I am concerned. After reading for half an hour, I want to take my handkerchief from under my pillow. It is not there, and when I look for it, I find it on the ground. I stoop to pick it up. Something falls on my head, and when I extricate it from my hair, I find it is another piece of wax. Instead of being alarmed, I cannot help smiling; the whole thing seems a piece of practical joking.

Smiling at death! How could that be possible, were not life essentially comic. Such a fuss about nothing! Perhaps in the depth of our souls there lurks a shadowy consciousness that everything down here is all humbug, a masquerade, a mere pretence, and that all our sufferings afford mirth to the gods.

High over the hill on