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

in everything⁠—be it ever so banal⁠—began a sentimental conversation with Marie, which she greatly enjoyed, for she appreciated the honour of being treated like a human being. As usual the talk drifted to her story and the motives which had shaped her career. She did not lay stress on her first slip, “that was hardly worth speaking about”; but all the blacker was her account of the time she had spent as a servant, leading the life of a slave, made miserable by the whims and scoldings of an indolent mistress, a life of never-ending toil. No, the free life she was leading now was far preferable.

“But when you are tired of it?”

“Then I shall marry Vestergren.”

“Does he want you?”

“He’s looking forward to the day; moreover, I am going to open a little shop with the money I have saved. But so many have asked me that question: ‘Have you got any cigars?’ ”

“Oh, yes; here you are! But do you mind my talking about it?”

He took the album and pointed out the student⁠—it is always a student, with a white handkerchief round his neck, a white student’s hat on his knees, and a gauche manner, who plays Mephisto.

“Who is this?”

“He was a nice fellow.”

“The seducer? What?”

“Oh! let it alone! I was every bit as much to blame, and it is always so, my dear; both are to blame! Look, this is my baby. The Lord took it, and I dare say it was for the best. But now let’s talk about something else. Who is that gay dog whom Albert has brought here tonight? The one closest to the stove, by the side of the tall one, whose head reaches up to the chimney?”

Olle, very much flattered by her attention, patted his wavy hair which, after the many libations, was beginning to stand up again.

“That is assistant preacher Monsson,” said Lundell.

“Ugh! A clergyman! I might have known it from the cunning look in his eyes. Do you know that a clergyman came here last week? Come here, Monsson, and let me look at you!”

Olle descended from his seat where he and Ygberg had been criticizing Kant’s Categorical Imperative. He was so accustomed to exciting the curiosity of the sex that he immediately felt younger; he lurched towards the lady whom he had already ogled and found charming. Twirling his moustache, he asked in an affected voice, with a bow which he had not learned at a dancing class:

“Do you really think, miss, that I look like a clergyman?”

“No, I see now that you have a moustache; your clothes are too clean for an artisan⁠—may I see your hand⁠—oh! you are a smith!”

Olle was deeply hurt.

“Am I so very ugly, miss?” he asked pathetically.

Marie examined him for a moment.

“You are very plain,” she said, “but you look nice.”

“Oh, dear lady, if you only knew how you are hurting me! I have never yet found a woman ready to love me, and yet I have met so many who found happiness although they were plainer than I am. But woman is a cursed riddle, which nobody can solve; I detest her.”

“That’s right, Olle,” came a voice from the chimney, where Ygberg’s head was; “that’s all right.”

Olle was going back to the stove, but he had touched on a topic which interested Marie too much to allow it to drop; he had played on a string the sound of which she knew. She sat down by his side and soon they were deep in a long-winded and grave discussion⁠—on love and women.

Rehnhjelm, who during the whole evening had been more quiet and restrained than usual, and of whom nobody could make anything, suddenly revived and was now sitting in the corner of the sofa near Falk. Obviously something was troubling him, something which he could not make up his mind to mention. He seized his beer-glass, rapped on the table as if he wanted to make a speech, and when those nearest to him looked up ready to listen to him, he said in a tremulous and indifferent voice:

“Gentlemen, you think I am a beast, I know; Falk, I know you think me a fool, but you shall see, friends⁠—the devil take me, you shall see!”

He raised his voice and put his beer-glass down with such determination that it broke in pieces, after which he sank back on the sofa and fell asleep.

This scene, although not an uncommon one, had attracted Marie’s attention. She dropped the conversation with Olle, who, moreover, had begun to stray from the purely abstract point of the question and rose.

“Oh! what a pretty boy!” she exclaimed. “How does he come to be with you? Poor little chap! How sleepy he is! I hadn’t seen him before.”

She pushed a cushion under his head and covered him with a shawl.

“How small his hands are! Far smaller than yours, you country louts! And what a face! How innocent he looks! Albert, did you make him drink so much?”

Whether it had been Lundell or another was a matter of no importance now; the man was drunk. But it also was a fact that he did not need any urging to drink. He was consumed by a constant longing to still an inner restlessness which seemed to drive him away from his work.

The remarks made by his pretty friend had not perturbed Lundell; but now his increasing intoxication excited his religious feelings, which had been blunted by a luxurious supper. And as the intoxication began to be general, he felt it incumbent on him to remind his companions of the significance of the day and the impending leave-taking. He rose, filled his glass, steadied himself against the chest of drawers and claimed the attention of the party.

“Gentlemen,”⁠—he remembered Magdalene’s presence⁠—“and ladies! We have eaten and drunk tonight with⁠—to come to the point⁠—an intent which, if we set aside the material which is nothing but the low, sensual animal component of our nature⁠—that in a moment like this when the hour of parting is