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

but the miserable wirework which set these fine tangents in motion was invisible, for he was not like a common piano which requires a pedal. A high, rather narrow forehead with hollow temples, rose like a true Corinthian capital; black, untidy locks of hair climbed round it like wild creepers, from which small straight snakes darted, trying to reach the sockets of his eyes, but ever failing to do so. In calm moments his large, dark eyes looked gentle and sad, but there were times when they blazed and then the pupils looked like the muzzles of a revolver.

He took his seat at the table which the boy had prepared and looked sadly at the water bottle.

“Why do you always give me a bottle of water, Gustav?”

“So that you won’t be burned to death, sir.”

“What does it matter to you whether I am or not? Can’t I burn if I like?”

“Don’t be a nihilist today, sir.”

“Nihilist? Who talked to you of nihilists? When did you hear that word? Are you mad, boy? Speak!”

He rose to his feet and fired a few shots from his dark revolvers.

Fear and consternation at the expression in the actor’s face kept Gustav tongue tied.

“Answer, boy, when did you hear this word?”

“Mr. Montanus said it a few days ago, when he came here from his church,” answered the boy timidly.

“Montanus, indeed!” said the melancholy man, sitting down again. “Montanus is my man: he has a large understanding. I say, Gustav, what’s the name, I mean the nickname, by which these theatrical blackguards call me? Tell me! You needn’t be afraid.”

“I’d rather not, sir; it’s very ugly.”

“Why not if you can please me by doing so? Don’t you think I could do with a little cheering up? Do I look so frightfully gay? Out with it! What do they say when they ask you whether I have been here? Don’t they say: Has.⁠ ⁠…”

“The devil.⁠ ⁠…”

“Ah, the devil! They hate me, don’t they?”

“Yes, they do!”

“Good! But why? Have I done them any harm?”

“No, they can’t say that, sir.”

“No, I don’t think they can.”

“But they say that you ruin people, sir.”

“Ruin?”

“Yes, they say that you ruined me, sir, because I find that there’s nothing new in the world.”

“Hm! Hm! I suppose you tell them that their jokes are stale?”

“Yes; everything they say is stale; they are so stale themselves that they make me sick.”

“Indeed! And don’t you think that being a waiter is stale?”

“Yes, I do; life and death and everything is an old story⁠—no⁠—to be an actor would be something new.”

“No, my friend. That is the stalest of all stale stories. But shut up, now! I want to forget myself.”

He drank his absinthe and rested his head against the wall with its long, brown streak, the track on which the smoke of his cigar had ascended during the six long years he had been sitting there, smoking. The rays of the sun fell through the window, passing through the sieve of the great aspens outside, whose light foliage, dancing in the evening breeze, threw a tremulous net on the long wall. The shadow of the melancholy man’s head, with its untidy locks of hair, fell on the lowest corner of the net and looked very much like a huge spider.

Gustav had returned to the clock, where he sat plunged in nihilistic silence, watching the flies dancing round the hanging lamp.

“Gustav!” came a voice from the spider’s web.

“Yes sir!” was the prompt response from the clock.

“Are your parents still alive?”

“No, sir, you know they aren’t.”

“Good for you.”

A long pause.

“Gustav!”

“Yes sir!”

“Can you sleep at night?”

“What do you mean, sir?” answered Gustav blushing.

“What I say!”

“Of course I can! Why shouldn’t I?”

“Why do you want to be an actor?”

“I don’t know! I believe I should be happy!”

“Aren’t you happy now?”

“I don’t know! I don’t think so!”

“Has Mr. Rehnhjelm been here again?”

“No, sir, but he said he would come here to meet you about this time.”

A long pause; the door opened and a shadow fell into the spider’s net; it trembled, and the spider in the corner made a quick movement.

“Mr. Rehnhjelm?” said the melancholy head.

“Mr. Falander?”

“Glad to meet you! You came here before?”

“Yes; I arrived this afternoon and called at once. You’ll guess my purpose. I want to go on the stage.”

“Do you really? You amaze me!”

“Amaze you?”

“Yes! But why do you come to me first?”

“Because I know that you are one of our finest actors and because a mutual friend, Mr. Montanus, the sculptor, told me that you were in every way to be trusted.”

“Did he? Well, what can I do for you?”

“I want advice.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

“If I may act as host.⁠ ⁠…”

“I couldn’t think of such a thing.”

“Then as my own guest, if you don’t mind.”

“As you like! You want advice?⁠—Hm! Shall I give you my candid opinion? Yes, of course! Then listen to me, take what I’m going to say seriously, and never forget that I said such and such a thing on such and such an evening; I’ll be responsible for my words.”

“Give me your candid opinion! I’m prepared for anything.”

“Have you ordered your horses? No? Then do so and go home.”

“Do you think me incapable of becoming an actor?”

“By no means! I don’t think anybody in all the world incapable of that. On the contrary! Everybody has more or less talent for acting.”

“Very well then!”

“Oh! the reality is so different from your dream! You’re young, your blood flows quickly through your veins, a thousand pictures, bright and beautiful like the pictures in a fairy tale throng your brain; you want to bring them to the light, show them to the world and in doing so experience a great joy⁠—isn’t that so?”

“Yes, yes, you’re expressing my very thoughts!”

“I only supposed quite a common case⁠—I don’t suspect bad motives behind everything, although I have a bad opinion of most things! Well, then, this desire of yours is so strong, that you would rather suffer want, humiliate yourself, allow yourself to be sucked dry by vampires, lose your social reputation, become bankrupt, go to the dogs⁠—than