The Red Room, August Strindberg [the mitten read aloud txt] 📗

because he was a near relative of his. And so the Crèche had a treasurer with a salary of six hundred crowns.

“Ladies,” began the pastor again, “have we worked long enough in the vineyard for one day?”

There was silence. Mrs. Falk stared at the door wondering where her husband was.

“My time’s short and I’m prevented from staying any longer. Has anybody any further suggestion to make? No! In calling down the blessing of the Lord on our enterprise, which has begun so auspiciously, I commend all of us to His loving mercy; I cannot do it in a better way than by repeating the words which He Himself has taught us when He prayed: ‘Abba, Father⁠—Our Father.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

He was silent as if he were afraid of the sound of his own voice, and the Committee covered their faces with their hands as if they were ashamed of looking each other in the eyes. The ensuing pause grew long, unbearably long; yet no one dared to break it; everyone looked through the fingers hoping that someone else would make the first move, when a violent pull at the front door bell brought the party down to earth.

The pastor took his hat and emptied his glass; there was something about him of a man who is trying to steal away. Mrs. Falk beamed, for here was the crushing, the vengeance, the rehabilitation.

Revenge was there and the crushing too, for the footman handed her a letter from her husband which contained⁠—the guests were not enlightened as to its contents, but they saw enough to make them declare at once that they had pressing engagements.

Lady Rehnhjelm would have liked to stay and comfort her young hostess, whose appearance betrayed a high degree of consternation and unhappiness. The latter, however, did not encourage her, but on the contrary was so exceedingly eager to help her visitors with their hats and cloaks that it looked as if she wanted to be rid of them as quickly as possible.

They parted in great embarrassment. The footsteps died away on the staircase and the departing guests could tell from the nervous haste with which the hostess shut the door behind them that she longed for solitude in order to be able to give vent to her feelings.

It was quite true. Left by herself in the large rooms Mrs. Falk burst into violent sobs; but her tears were not the tears which fall like a May shower on a wizened old heart; they were the tears of wrath and rage which darken the mirror of the soul and fall like an acid on the roses of health and youth and wither them.

XIV Absinthe

A hot afternoon sun was scorching the pavements of the provincial town X-köping.

The large vaults of the town hall were still deserted; fir branches were scattered all over the floor, and it smelt of a funeral. The graduated liqueur bottles stood on the shelves, having an afternoon nap, opposite the brandy bottles which wore the collars of their orders round their necks and were on leave until the evening; the clock, which could never take a nap, stood against the wall like a tall peasant, whiling away the time by contemplating, apparently, a huge playbill, impaled on a clothes peg close by. The vault was very long and narrow; both of the long walls were furnished with birchwood tables, jutting out from the wall, giving it the appearance of a stable, in which the four-legged tables represented the horses tied with their heads to the wall and turning their hind quarters towards the room; at the present moment all of them were asleep; one of them lifted its hind leg a little off the ground, for the floor was very uneven. One could see that they were fast asleep, for the flies were calmly walking up and down their backs.

The sixteen-year-old waiter who was leaning against the tall clock close to the poster was not asleep; he was incessantly waving his white apron at the flies which had just finished their dinner in the kitchen and were now playing about the vaults. Every now and then he leaned back and put his ear to the chest of the clock, as if he were sounding it, or wanting to find out what it had had for dinner. He was soon to be enlightened. The tall creature gave a sob, and exactly four minutes later it sobbed again; a groaning and rumbling in its inside made the lad jump; rattling terribly it struck six times, after which it continued its silent work.

The boy, too, began to work. He walked round his stable, grooming his horses with his apron and putting everything in order as if he were expecting visitors. On one of the tables, in the background, from which a spectator could view the whole long room, he placed matches, a bottle of absinthe and two glasses, a liqueur glass and a tumbler; then he fetched a bottle of water from the pump and put it on the table by the side of the inflammables. When everything was ready, he paced up and down the room, occasionally striking quite unexpected attitudes, as if he were imitating somebody. Now he stood with arms folded across his chest, his head bowed, staring fiercely at the faded paper on the old walls; now he stood with legs crossed, the knuckles of his right hand touching the edge of the table holding in his left a lorgnette, made of a piece of wire from a beer bottle through which he sarcastically scanned the mouldings on the ceiling.

The door flew open, and a man of thirty-five entered with assurance, as if he were coming into his own house. His beardless face had the sharply cut features which are the result of much exercise of the facial muscles, characteristic of actors and one other class. Every muscle and ligament was plainly visible under the skin with its bluish shadows on upper lip and chin,