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

which the castle is built there towers another, from which a more commanding view over the Inferno-like landscape can be gained than from any other. The way thither lies through the remains of an ancient oak forest, which, according to tradition, was a scene of Druidic worship, and where mistletoe grows luxuriantly on the apple and lime trees. Above this wood the path mounts steeply through pines.

Several times I have tried to reach the summit, but something unforeseen has always hindered me. One time it was a deer which broke the silence with an unexpected leap, another time a hare, which resembled no hare which I had ever seen, and yet another time a magpie with its deafening chatter. But on the last morning, the day before my departure, I pressed in spite of all hindrances through the dark melancholy pine wood up to the summit, whence I obtained a splendid view of the valley of the Danube and the Styrian Alps. I breathe freely for the first time now that I have at last emerged from the gloomy, funnel-shaped valley below. The sun illuminates the landscape to the farthest horizon, and the white crests of the Alps melt into the clouds. The whole scene is one of heavenly beauty. Does the earth comprise at the same time heaven and hell, and is there no other place of punishment and reward? Perhaps. Certainly, the most beautiful moments of my life seem to me heavenly, and the worst, hellish. Has the future still in reserve for me hours or minutes of that happiness which can be won only by tribulation and a tolerably clean conscience?

I feel little inclination to descend into the valley of sorrows again, and walk about on the mountain plateau, wondering at the beauty of the earth. On the summit is a rock shaped by nature like an Egyptian Sphinx. On its gigantic head is a heap of stones in which stands a stick bearing a white piece of linen attached, like a flag. Without troubling myself about its significance, an uncontrollable desire to seize the flag takes possession of me. Despising death, I clamber up the steep rock, and lay hold of it. At the same moment the sound of a bridal march sung by triumphant voices arises from the Danube below. It is a marriage party; I cannot see it, but the musket shots customarily fired on such occasions place it beyond a doubt. Childish enough and unhappy enough to give a poetical colouring to the most ordinary occurrences, I take this as a good omen.

Reluctantly and slowly I descend again into the valley of sorrows, of death, of sleeplessness, and of demons, where my little Beatrice awaits me and the promised piece of mistletoe, the green branch in the midst of the snow, which really ought to be cut with a golden sickle.

For a long time past the grandmother had expressed a wish to see me, whether it were to bring about a reconciliation or for occultist reasons, because she is a clairvoyante and visionary. I had postponed the visit under various pretexts, but now that my departure was resolved on, my mother-in-law obliged me to visit the old lady and bid her farewell, probably for the last time on this side of the grave. On November 26th, a cold, clear day, my mother-in-law, the child, and I made the pilgrimage to the bank of the Danube, where the family residence is. We alighted at the inn, and while my mother-in-law went to announce my visit to her mother, I wandered through the meadows and woods, which I had not seen for two years. Recollections overpowered me, and in all of them was interwoven the figure of my wife. And now everything is blighted by autumnal frosts; there is now not a single flower, nor a green blade of grass where we both plucked all the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn!

After the midday meal I am taken to the old lady who occupies the annex to the villa, the little house in which my child was born. Our meeting is, considering the circumstances, a cold one; they seem to expect that I should appear as the prodigal son, but I have no wish to act that role. I confine myself to indulging in reminiscences of our lost paradise. She and I had painted the door- and window-panels in honour of the little Christina’s arrival in the world. The roses and clematis which adorn the front of the house were planted by my own hands. I had cut out the path through the garden. But the walnut tree which I planted the morning after Christina’s birth has disappeared. The “life-tree,” as we called it, is dead. Two years, two eternities, have elapsed since the farewell between her on the shore and me on the ship, in which I went to Linz in order to proceed thence to Paris.

Who has caused the breach between us? I, for I have murdered my own love and hers. Farewell, my white house, where grew thorns and roses. Farewell, Danube! I say to comfort myself, “You were a dream, short as summer, too sweet to be real, and I do not regret it.”

The night comes. My mother-in-law and my child have, at my request, taken up their quarters in the inn, in order to protect me against the deadly attacks, which I forebode by means of a sixth sense which has been developed in me during the six months of persecution which I have suffered.

About ten o’clock in the evening a gust of wind begins to shake the door of my room, which is on the ground-floor. I make it fast with wooden wedges; it is no use; the door shakes still more. The windows rattle; there is a doglike howling in the stove; the whole house reels like a ship. I cannot sleep; at one time my mother-in-law groans, at another the child cries. The next morning my mother-in-law,