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

to turn out. He has great schemes, and he may be on his feet any day; then it will be a good thing to have him for a friend.”

“You don’t say so! What great work is he going to accomplish? I can quite believe that Olle will become a great man, although not a great sculptor. But where the devil is he? Do you think he’s spending the money?”

“Possibly, possibly! He’s had nothing for a long time and perhaps the temptation was too strong,” answered Lundell, tightening his belt by two holes, and wondering what he would do in Olle’s place.

“Well, he’s only human, and charity begins at home,” said Sellén, who knew perfectly well what he would have done under the circumstances. “But I can’t wait any longer. I must have paint, even if I have to steal it. I’ll go and see Falk.”

“Are you going to squeeze more out of that poor chap? You robbed him yesterday for your frame. And it wasn’t a small sum you borrowed.”

“My dear fellow! I am compelled to cast all feelings of shame to the winds; there’s no help for it. One has to put up with a good deal. However, Falk is a greathearted fellow who understands that a man may suddenly find himself in Queer Street. Anyhow, I’m going. If Olle returns in the meantime, tell him he’s a blockhead. So long! Come to the Red Room and we’ll see whether our master will be graciously pleased to give us something to eat before the sun sets. Lock the door, when you leave, and push the key underneath the mat. Bye-bye!”

He went, and before long he stood before Falk’s door in Count Magni Street. He knocked, but received no reply. He opened the door and went in. Falk, who had probably had uneasy dreams, awakened from his sleep, jumped up and stared at Sellén without recognizing him.

“Good evening, old chap,” said Sellén.

“Oh! It’s you. I must have had a strange dream. Good evening! Sit down and smoke a pipe! Is it evening already?”

Sellén thought he knew the symptoms, but he pretended to notice nothing.

“You didn’t go to the Brass-Button today?” he remarked.

“No,” replied Falk, confused; “I wasn’t there, I was at Iduna.”

He really did not know whether he had dreamt it or whether he had actually been there; but he was glad that he had said it, for he was ashamed of his position.

“Perfectly right, old chap,” commented Sellén; “the cooking at the Brass-Button is beneath criticism.”

“It is, indeed,” agreed Falk; “the soup’s damned bad.”

“And the old headwaiter is always on the spot, counting the rolls and butter, the rascal!”

The words “rolls and butter” awakened Falk to consciousness; he did not feel hungry, only a little shaky and faint. But he did not like the subject of conversation and changed it.

“Well, will your picture be ready for tomorrow?” he asked.

“No, unfortunately, it won’t.”

“What’s the matter now?”

“I can’t possibly finish it.”

“You can’t? Why aren’t you at home working?”

“The old, old story, my dear fellow! I have no paint! No paint!”

“But there’s a remedy for that! Or haven’t you any money?”

“If I had I should be all right.”

“And I haven’t any either! What’s to be done?”

Sellén dropped his eyes until his glance reached the height of Falk’s waistcoat pocket, into which a heavy gold chain was creeping; not that Sellén believed it to be gold, good, stamped gold. He could not have understood the recklessness of carrying so much money outside one’s waistcoat. But his thoughts were following a definite course, and he continued:

“If at least I had something to pawn! But we carelessly pledged our winter overcoats on the first sunny day in April.”

Falk blushed. He had never done such a thing.

“Do you pawn your winter overcoats?” he asked. “Do you get anything on them?”

“One gets something on everything⁠—on everything,” said Sellén, laying stress on everything; “the only thing needful is to have something.”

To Falk the room seemed to be turning round. He had to sit down. Then he pulled out his gold watch.

“How much, do you think, should I get on this watch and chain?”

Sellén seized the future pledges and looked at them with the eye of a connoisseur.

“Is it gold?” he asked faintly.

“It is gold.”

“Stamped?”

“Stamped.”

“The chain, too?”

“The chain, too.”

“A hundred crowns,” declared Sellén, shaking his hand so that the gold chain rattled. “But it’s a pity! You shouldn’t pawn your things for my sake.”

“Then for my own,” said Falk, anxious to avoid the semblance of an unselfishness which he did not feel. “I want money, too. If you’ll turn them into cash, you’ll do me a service.”

“All right then,” said Sellén, resolved not to embarrass his friend by asking indelicate questions. “I’ll pawn them! Pull yourself together, old chap! Life is hard at times, I don’t deny it; but we go through with it.”

He patted Falk’s shoulder with a cordiality which did not often pierce the scorn with which he had enveloped himself.

They went out together.

By the time they had concluded the business it was seven o’clock. They bought the paint and repaired to the Red Room.

Berns’ Salon had just begun to play its civilizing part in the life of Stockholm by putting an end to the unhealthy café-chantants life which had flourished⁠—or raged⁠—in the sixties, and from the capital had spread over the whole country. Here, every evening after seven, crowds of young people met who lived in that abnormal transition stage which begins on leaving the parental roof and ends with the foundation of a new home and family; here were numbers of young men who had escaped from the solitude of their room or attic to find light and warmth and a fellow-creature to talk to. The proprietor had made more than one attempt to amuse his patrons by pantomimic, gymnastic, ballet, and other performances; but he had been plainly shown that his guests were not in search of amusement, but in quest of peace; what was wanted was a consulting-room, where one was