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

his shoulders rounded, as if he were rehearsing a part. When he thought he knew it, he stopped short before his brother, gazed into his eyes with a long, glinting, deceitful look, intended to express both confidence and sorrow, and said, in a voice meant to sound as if it came from the family grave in the churchyard of St. Clara’s:

“You’re not straight, Arvid; you’re not straight.”

Who, with the exception of Andersson, who was standing behind the door, listening, would not have been touched by those words, spoken by a brother to a brother, fraught with the deepest brotherly sorrow? Even Arvid, accustomed from his childhood to believe all men perfect and himself alone unworthy, wondered for a moment whether he was straight or not? And as his education, by efficacious means, had provided him with a highly sensitive conscience, he found that he really had not been quite straight, or at least quite frank, when he asked his brother the not-altogether candid question as to whether he wasn’t a scoundrel.

“I’ve come to the conclusion,” he said, “that you cheated me out of a part of my inheritance; I’ve calculated that you charged too much for your inferior board and your cast-off clothes; I know that I didn’t spend all my fortune during my terrible college days, and I believe that you owe me a fairly big sum; I want it now, and I request you to hand it over to me.”

A smile illuminated the brother’s fair face, and with an expression so calm and a gesture so steady, that he might have been rehearsing them for years, so as to be in readiness when his cue was given to him, he put his hand in his trousers pocket, rattled his bunch of keys before taking it out, threw it up and dexterously caught it again, and walked solemnly to his safe. He opened it more quickly than he intended and, perhaps, than the sacredness of the spot justified, took out a paper lying ready to his hand and evidently also waiting for its cue, and handed it to his brother.

“Did you write this? Answer me! Did you write it?”

“Yes!”

Arvid rose and turned towards the door.

“Don’t go! Sit down! Sit down!”

If a dog had been present it would have sat down at once.

“What’s written here? Read it! ‘I, Arvid Falk, acknowledge and testify⁠—that⁠—I⁠—have received from my brother, Charles Nicholas Falk⁠—who was appointed my guardian⁠—my inheritance in full⁠—amounting to⁠—’ and so on.” He was ashamed to mention the sum.

“You have acknowledged and testified a fact which you did not believe. Is that straight? No, answer my question! Is that straight? No! Therefore you have borne false witness. Ergo⁠—you’re a blackguard! Yes, that’s what you are! Am I right?”

The part was too excellent and the triumph too great to be enjoyed without an audience. The innocently accused must have witnesses. He opened the door leading into the shop.

“Andersson!” he shouted, “answer this question! Listen to me! If I bear false witness, am I a blackguard or not?”

“Of course, you are a blackguard, sir!” Andersson answered unhesitatingly and with warmth.

“Do you hear? He says I’m a blackguard⁠—if I put my signature to a false receipt. What did I say? You’re not straight, Arvid, you are not straight. Good-natured people often are blackguards; you have always been good-natured and yielding, but I’ve always been aware that in your secret heart you harboured very different thoughts; you’re a blackguard! Your father always said so; I say ‘said,’ for he always said what he thought, and he was a straight man, Arvid, and that⁠—you⁠—are⁠—not! And you may be sure that if he were still alive he would say with grief and pain: ‘You’re not straight, Arvid, you⁠—are⁠—not⁠—straight!’ ”

He did a few more diagonal lines and it sounded as if he were applauding the scene with his feet; he rattled his bunch of keys as if he were giving the signal for the curtain to rise. His closing remarks had been so rounded off that the smallest addition would have spoilt the whole. In spite of the heavy charge which he had actually expected for years⁠—for he had always believed his brother to be acting a part⁠—he was very glad that it was over, happily over, well and cleverly over, so that he felt almost gay and even a little grateful. Moreover he had had a splendid chance of venting the wrath which had been kindled upstairs, in his family, on someone; to vent it on Andersson had lost its charm; and he knew better than to vent it on his wife.

Arvid was silent; the education he had received had so intimidated him that he always believed himself to be in the wrong; since his childhood the great words “upright, honest, sincere, true,” had daily and hourly been drummed into his ears, so that they stood before him like a judge, continuously saying: “Guilty.⁠ ⁠…” For a moment he thought that he must have been mistaken in his calculations, that his brother must be innocent and he himself a scoundrel; but immediately after he realized that his brother was a cheat, deceiving him by a simple lawyer’s trick. He felt prompted to run away, fearful of being drawn into a quarrel, to run away without making his request number two, and confessing that he was on the point of changing his profession.

There was a long pause. Charles Nicholas had plenty of time to recapitulate his triumph in his memory. That little word “blackguard” had done his tongue good. It had been as pleasant as if he had said “Get out!” And the opening of the door, Andersson’s reply, and the production of the paper, everything had passed off splendidly; he had not forgotten the bunch of keys on his night-table; he had turned the key in the lock without any difficulty; his proof was binding as a rope, the conclusion he had drawn had been the baited hook by which the fish had been caught.

He had regained his good temper;