The Red Room - August Strindberg (best summer reads TXT) 📗

“About flints?”

“Yes, you know the Academy of Sciences! Close to the Museum, near the river. Well, then!”

“Oh, no, Mr. Smith! The Swedish Academy, in the Exchange.⁠ ⁠…”

“I see! The one with the tallow candles! Never mind; no man on earth can tell what purpose it serves! No, my dear sir, the essential thing is to have a name, a name like Tegnér, like Ohrenschlägel, like⁠—Yes! Our country has many great poets, but I can’t remember them just at the moment; but a name is necessary. Mr. Falk? H’m! Who knows Mr. Falk? I don’t, and I know many great poets. As I recently said to my friend Ibsen: ‘Now just you listen to me, Ibsen’⁠—I call him Ibsen, quite plainly⁠—‘just you listen to me, write something for my magazine. I’ll pay you whatever you ask!’ He wrote⁠—I paid⁠—but I got my money back.”

The annihilated young man longed to sink through the chinks in the floor when he realized that he was standing before a person who called Ibsen quite plainly “Ibsen.” He longed to recover his manuscript, and go his way, as the other young man had done, away, far away, until he came to running water. Smith guessed it.

“Well, I’ve no doubt you can write Swedish, sir. And you know our literature better than I do. Good! I have an idea. I am told of great, beautiful, spiritual writers who lived in the past, let’s say in the reign of Gustav Eriksson and his daughter Christina. Isn’t that so?”

“Gustavus Adolfus.”

“Gustavus Adolfus, so be it! I remember there was one with a great, a very great name; he wrote a fine work in verse, on ‘God’s Creation,’ I believe! His Christian name was Hokan!”

“You mean Haquin Spegel, Mr. Smith! ‘God’s Works and Rest.’ ”

“Ah, yes! Well, I’ve been thinking of publishing it. Our nation is yearning for religion these days; I’ve noticed that; and one must give the people something. I have given them a good deal of Hermann Francke and Arndt, but the great Foundation can sell more cheaply than I can, and now I want to bring out something good at a fair price. Will you take the matter in hand?”

“I don’t know where I come in, as it is but a question of a reprint,” answered Falk, not daring to refuse straight out.

“Dear me, what ignorance! You would do the editing and proofreading, of course. Are we agreed? You publish it, sir! What? Shall we draw up a little agreement? The work must appear in numbers. What? A little agreement. Just hand me pen and ink. Well?”

Falk obeyed; he was unable to offer resistance. Smith wrote and Falk signed.

“Well, so much for that! Now, there’s another thing! Give me that little book on the stand! The third shelf! There! Now look here! A brochure⁠—title: The Guardian Angel. Look at the vignette! An angel with an anchor and a ship⁠—it’s a schooner without any yards, I believe! The splendid influence of marine insurance on social life in general is well known. Everybody has at one time or other sent something more or less valuable across the sea in a ship. What? Well! Everybody doesn’t realize this. No! Consequently it is our duty to enlighten those who are ignorant; isn’t that so? Well! We know, you and I; therefore it is for us to enlighten those who don’t. This book maintains that everybody who sends things across the water should insure them. But this book is badly written. Well! We’ll write a better one. What? You’ll write me a novel of ten pages for my magazine Our Land, and I expect you to have sufficient gumption to introduce the name Triton⁠—which is the name of a new limited liability company, founded by my nephew, and we are told to help our neighbours⁠—twice, neither more nor less; but it must be done cleverly and so that it is not at all obvious. Do you follow me?”

Falk found the offer repulsive, although it contained nothing dishonest; however, it gave him a start with the influential man, straight away, without any effort on his part. He thanked Smith and accepted.

“You know the size? Sixteen inches to the page, altogether a hundred and sixty inches of eight lines each. Shall we write a little agreement?”

Smith drew up an agreement and Falk signed.

“Well, now! You know the history of Sweden? Go to the stand again⁠—you will find a cliché there, a wood block. To the right! That’s it! Can you tell me who the lady is meant for? She is supposed to be a queen.”

Falk, who saw nothing at first but a piece of black wood, finally made out some human features and declared that to the best of his belief it represented Ulrica Eleonora.

“Didn’t I say so? Hihihi! The block has been used for Elizabeth, Queen of England, in an American popular edition. I’ve bought it cheaply, with a lot of others. I’m going to use it for Ulrica Eleonora in my People’s Library. Our people are splendid; they are so ready to buy my books. Will you write the letterpress?”

Although Falk did not like the order, his super-sensitive conscience could find no wrong in the proposal.

“Well then! We’d better make out a little agreement. Sixteen pages octavo, at three inches, at twenty-four lines each. There!”

Falk, realizing that the audience was over, made a movement to recover his manuscript on which Smith had all along been sitting. But the latter would not give it up; he declared that he would read it, although it might take him some time.

“You’re a sensible man, sir, who knows the value of time,” he said. “I had a young fellow here just before you came in; he also brought me verses, a great poem, for which I have no use. I made him the same offers I just made to you, sir; do you know what he said? He told me to do something unmentionable. He did, indeed, and rushed out of the office. He’ll not live long, that young