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

to be remembered. Olle is very much changed. He has drifted into a new kind of philosophy, which tears down everything and turns all things upside down. It sounds very jolly and sometimes seems true, but it must be a dangerous doctrine if carried out.

“I believe he owes these ideas to one of the actors here, an intelligent and well-informed man, who lives a very immoral life; I like and hate him at the same time. He is a queer chap, fundamentally good, noble and generous; a man who will sacrifice himself for his friends. I cannot fix on any special vice, but he is immoral, and a man without morality is a blackguard⁠—don’t you think so?

“I must stop, my angel, my good spirit is coming. There is a happy hour in store for me; all evil spirits will flee, and I shall be a better man.

“Remember me to Falk and tell him to think of me when life is hard on him.

“Your friend R.”

“Well, what do you think of that?”

“It’s the old story of the struggle of the wild beasts. I’ll tell you what, Ygberg, I believe one has to be very unscrupulous if one wants to get on in the world.”

“Try it! You may not find it so easy!”

“Are you still doing business with Smith?”

“No, unfortunately not! And you?”

“I’ve seen him on the subject of my poems. He has bought them, ten crowns the folio, and he can now murder me in the same way as the wheelwright is murdering Rehnhjelm. And I’m afraid something of the sort is going to happen, for I haven’t heard a word about them. He was so exceedingly friendly that I expect the worst. If only I knew what’s going on! But what’s the matter with you? You’re as white as a sheet.”

“The truth is,” replied Ygberg, clutching the railings, “all I’ve had to eat these last two days has been five lumps of sugar. I’m afraid I’m going to faint.”

“If food will set you right, I can help you; fortunately I have some money.”

“Of course it will set me right,” whispered Ygberg faintly.

But it was not so. When they were sitting in the dining-room and food was served to them, Ygberg grew worse, and Falk had to take him to his room, which fortunately was not very far off.

The house was an old, one-story house built of wood; it had climbed on to a rock and looked as if it suffered from hip-disease. It was spotted like a leper; a long time ago it was going to be painted, but when the old paint had been burned off, nothing more was done to it; it looked in every respect miserable, and it was hard to believe the legend of the sign of the Fire Insurance Office, rusting on the wall, namely, that a phœnix should rise from the ashes.

At the base of the house grew dandelions, nettles, and roadweed, the faithful companions of poverty; sparrows were bathing in the scorching sand and scattering it about; pale-faced children with big stomachs, looking as if they were being brought up on ninety percent of water, were making dandelion chains and trying to embitter their sad lives by annoying and insulting each other.

Falk and Ygberg climbed a rotten, creaking staircase and came to a large room. It was divided into three parts by chalk lines. The first and second divisions served a joiner and a cobbler as workshops; the third was exclusively devoted to the more intimate pursuits of family life.

Whenever the children screamed, which happened once in every quarter of an hour, the joiner flew into a rage and burst out scolding and swearing; the cobbler remonstrated with quotations from the Bible. The joiner’s nerves were so shattered by these constant screams, the unceasing punishments and scoldings, that five minutes after partaking of the snuff of reconciliation offered by the cobbler, he flew into a fresh temper in spite of his firm resolve to be patient. Consequently he was nearly all day long in a red-hot fury. But the worst passages were when he asked the woman, “why these infernal females need bring so many children into the world;” then the woman in question came on the tapis and his antagonist gave him as good as he brought.

Falk and Ygberg had to pass this room to gain the latter’s garret, and although both of them went on tiptoe, they wakened two of the children; immediately the mother began humming a lullaby, thereby interrupting a discussion between cobbler and joiner; naturally the latter nearly had a fit.

“Hold your tongue, woman!”

“Hold your tongue yourself! Can’t you let the children sleep?”

“To hell with the children! Are they my children? Am I to suffer for other people’s immorality? Am I an immoral man? What? Have I any children? Hold your tongue, I say, or I’ll throw my plane at your head.”

“I say, master, master!” began the cobbler; “you shouldn’t talk like that of the children; God sends the little ones into the world.”

“That’s a lie, cobbler! The devil sends them! The devil! And then the dissolute parents blame God! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

“Master, master! You shouldn’t use such language! Scripture tells us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children.”

“Oh, indeed! They have them in the kingdom of heaven, have they?”

“How dare you talk like that!” shrilled the furious mother. “If you ever have any children of your own, I shall pray that they may be lame and diseased; I shall pray that they shall be blind and deaf and dumb; I shall pray that they shall be sent to the reformatory and end on the gallows; see if I won’t.”

“Do so for all I care, you good-for-nothing hussy! I’m not going to bring children into the world to see them living a dog’s life. You ought to be sent to the House of Correction, for bringing the poor things into all this misery. You are married, you say? Well!