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

“No, no, nothing of the sort,” said Olle. “He’s a friend, and he’ll do all he can for you.”

“I see! That alters the matter. But I don’t trust those gentlemen; one of them lived with us, that is to say, we lived in the same house, in the White Mountains; he was the landlord’s agent⁠—Struve was the rascal’s name.”

There was a rap with the hammer. The chair was taken by an elderly man, Wheelwright Löfgren, alderman and holder of the medal Litteris et artibus. He had held many offices and acquired a great deal of dramatic routine. A certain venerability, capable of quelling storms and silencing noisy meetings, characterized him. His broad face, ornamented by side-whiskers and a pair of spectacles, was framed by a judge’s wig.

The secretary who sat at his side was one of the supernumeraries of the great Board of Functionaries; he wore eyeglasses and expressed with a peasant’s grin his dissatisfaction with everything that was said.

The front bench was filled by the most aristocratic members of the Union: officers, government officials, wholesale merchants; they supported all loyal resolutions, and with their superior parliamentary skill voted against every attempt at reform.

The secretary read the minutes, which the front bench approved.

Next the first item of the agenda was read:

“The Preparatory Committee would suggest that the working men’s union Star of the North should express the dissatisfaction which every right-thinking citizen must feel in regard to the unlawful movements which under the name of strikes are spreading nearly all over Europe.”

“Is this the pleasure of the Union?”

“Yes, yes!” shouted the front bench.

“Mr. President!” called out the joiner from the White Mountains.

“Who is making so much noise at the back?” asked the chairman, looking over his spectacles with a face which suggested that he would presently have recourse to the cane.

“Nobody is making any noise; I am asking for permission to speak.”

“Who is I?”

“Master-joiner Eriksson.”

“Are you a master? Since when?”

“I am a journeyman out of my time; I have never had the means to be made free of the city, but I am every bit as skilful as any other master and I work on my own account.”

“I request the journeyman-joiner Eriksson to sit down and stop interfering. Is it the pleasure of the Union to reply to the question in the affirmative?”

“Mr. Chairman!”

“What is the matter?”

“I ask permission to speak! Let me speak!” bellowed Eriksson.

There was a murmur on the back benches: “Eriksson’s turn to speak.”

“Journeyman Eriksson⁠—do you spell your name with an x or a z?” asked the chairman, prompted by the secretary.

The front bench shook with laughter.

“I don’t spell, gentlemen, I discuss,” said the joiner with blazing eyes. “I discuss, I say. If I had the gift of making speeches, I should show you that the strikers are right; for if masters and principals grow fat because they have nothing to do but to fawn and cringe at levees, and similar ceremonies, the working man must pay the piper with his sweat. We know why you won’t pay us just wages; it’s because we should get the Parliamentary vote, and that’s what you are afraid of.⁠ ⁠…”

“Mr. Chairman!”

“Captain von Sporn!”

“Mr. Chairman, gentlemen! It is much to be regretted that at a meeting of this Union, which has a reputation for dignified conduct (last displayed at the Royal wedding), people without the smallest trace of Parliamentary tact should be permitted to compromise a respectable society by a shameless and reckless contempt of all seemliness. Believe me, gentlemen, such a thing could never have happened in a country where from early youth military discipline.⁠ ⁠…”

“Conscription,” said Eriksson to Olle.

“… had been the rule; where the habit of controlling oneself and others had been acquired! I believe I am expressing the general feeling of the meeting when I say that I hope that such a distressing scene may never again occur amongst us. I say us⁠—for I, too, am a working man⁠—we all are in the sight of the Eternal⁠—and I say it as a member of this Union. The day would be a day of mourning when I should find myself compelled to withdraw the words which I recently uttered at another meeting (it was at the meeting of the National League of Promoters of Conscription), the words: ‘I have a high opinion of the Swedish working man.’ ”

“Hear, hear! Hear, hear!”

“Does the meeting accept the suggestion of the Preparatory Committee?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Second item: At the instigation of several members of the Union, the Preparatory Committee submit to the meeting the proposal to collect a sum, not exceeding three thousand crowns, as a testimonial to the Duke of Dalsland at his forthcoming confirmation. The gift is to be an expression of the gratitude of the working man to the Royal Family and, more especially, of his disapproval of those working men’s disturbances which under the name of ‘Commune’ devastated the French capital.”

“Mr. Chairman!”

“Doctor Haberfeld!”

“No, it’s I, Eriksson; I ask permission to say a few words.”

“Oh! Well! Eriksson has permission to speak.”

“I merely want to point out that not the working men, but officials, lawyers, officers⁠—conscripts⁠—and journalists were to blame for the Commune at Paris. If I had the gift of making speeches, I should ask those gentlemen to express their ideas in an album of confessions.”

“Does the meeting agree to the proposal?”

“Yes, yes!”

And the clerks began to write and to check and to chatter, exactly as they had done at the Parliamentary meetings.

“Are things always managed in this way?” asked Falk.

“Don’t you think it amusing, sir?” said Eriksson. “It’s enough to turn one’s hair grey. I call it corruption and treachery. Nothing but meanness and selfishness. There isn’t a man amongst them who has the cause really at heart. And therefore the things which must happen will happen.”

“What things?”

“We’ll see!” said the joiner, taking Olle’s hand. “Are you ready? Hold your own ground, you’ll be sharply criticized.”

Olle nodded slyly.

“Stonemason, journeyman, Olle Montanus has announced a lecture on Sweden; the subject is a big one. But if he will promise not to exceed