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

probably end in Socialism. There is a talk of increasing the number of the districts to forty-eight, and the Ministerial career is the one which offers the best chances of promotion, more especially as a man need not even have passed the examination of an elementary schoolteacher. I met a schoolfriend the other day who is already a pensioned Cabinet Minister; he told me that it was far easier to become a Minister than a secretary of one of the departments; they say the work is very much like the work of a man who signs guarantees⁠—it is only a matter of a signature now and then! It doesn’t matter so much about the payment, there is always a second guarantor.

The Press⁠—well, you know the Press. Roughly speaking it is just business, that is to say, it always adopts the opinion of the majority, and the majority, or, in other words, the greater number of subscribers, is reactionary. One day I asked a Liberal journalist how it was that he wrote in such laudatory terms about you, of whom he knew nothing. He said it was because public opinion, i.e. the largest number of subscribers, was on your side.

“But supposing public opinion turned against him?” I asked.

“Then, of course,” he said, “I shall turn against him too.”

You will understand that under these circumstances the whole generation which grew up after 1865, and which is not represented in Parliament, is in despair; and therefore they are either Nihilists⁠—in other words, they don’t care a d⁠⸺ for anything⁠—or they find their advantage in turning Conservative. To be a Liberal in these days is the devil’s own job.

The financial position is depressed. The supply of bills, mine at least, reduced; no bank will look at the safest bills, even if they are signed by two doctors.

The Triton went into liquidation, as you know. Directors and liquidators took over the printed shares, but the shareholders and depositors received a number of lithographed ones from the well-known society at Norrköping, which alone managed to weather this period of frauds and swindles. I met a widow who had a handful of papers connected with a marble quarry; they were large, beautiful sheets, printed in red and blue, on which 1000 Cr., 1000 Cr., was engraved; and below the figures, just as if they were standing security, appeared the names of well-known persons; three of them, at least, are knights of the Order of the Seraphim.

Nicholas Falk, the friend and brother, sick of his private money-lending business, because it detracted from the full value of his civic authority, which is far from being the case when the business is a public one, decided to combine with a few experts(?) and found a bank. The novel feature of the undertaking was expressed as follows:

“As experience⁠—truly a melancholy experience” (Levin is the author, as you may guess) “has proved that deposit receipts are not in themselves a sufficient guarantee for the return of deposits⁠—that is deposited money⁠—we, the undersigned, actuated by unselfish zeal for the welfare of home industry, and desirous of giving greater security to the well-to-do public, have founded a bank, under the title of ‘Deposit Guarantee Society Limited.’ The novel and safe feature of the enterprise⁠—and not everything new is safe⁠—consists in the fact that the depositors instead of receiving deposit receipts, are given securities to the full value of the deposited sums, etc. etc.”

They do a brisk business, and you may imagine what sort of securities they issue instead of deposit receipts.

Levin. Falk, with his keen eye for business, recognized at once the great advantage to be reaped from the services of a man with Levin’s experience and colossal knowledge of people, acquired through his money-lending business. But to train him for all eventualities, and make him familiar with all the byways of the business, he felled him to the ground with his promissory note, and forced him into bankruptcy. Having done so, he appeared in the role of his saviour and made him his confidential clerk with the title of secretary. And now Levin is installed in a little private office; but on no account is he permitted to show his face in the bank.

Isaac Levi is employed in the same bank as cashier. He passed his examinations (with Latin, Greek and Hebrew) first class in all subjects. The Grey Bonnet, of course, reported his achievements. Now he is reading for the law, and doing a little business on his own account. He is like the eel; he has nine lives and lives on nothing. He takes no alcohol; he does not smoke; I don’t know whether he has any vices, but he is formidable. He has an ironmongers shop at Hernösand, a tobacconists at Helsingförs, and a fancy goods shop at Södertelje; in addition he owns a few cottages at Stockholm, S. People say he is the coming man; I say the man has come.

After the winding-up of the Triton, his brother retired with a considerable fortune, I am told, and is now doing business privately. I heard that he proposed buying the forest monastery near Upsala, and rebuilding it in a new style invented by his uncle of the Academy of Arts. But his offer was refused. Levi, very much offended, sent a notice to the Grey Bonnet under the heading: “Persecution of the Jews in the Nineteenth Century.” It won him the lively sympathy of the whole cultured public; the affair would win him a seat in Parliament if he cared for that distinction. A vote of thanks was presented to him by his coreligionists⁠—(as if Levi had any religion) which was printed in the Grey Bonnet. They thanked him for standing up for the rights of the Jews (to buy the forest monastery). The address was handed to him at a banquet, to which also a great many Swedes (I always refer the Jewish question to its rightful domain, the ethnographical one) had been bidden,