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

salad oil, vinegar, a spoonful of cream, some white pepper⁠—oh, yes, I see now, it’s no good. Do you want something more substantial?”

“Try and find toad-in-the-hole. It’s my favourite dish.”

“I can’t go on reading.”

“Do!”

“No, leave me alone!”

They were silent. The candle went out and it was quite dark.

“Good night, Olle; wrap yourself well up, or you’ll be cold.”

“What with?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t we having a jolly time?”

“I wonder why one doesn’t kill oneself when one is so cold.”

“Because it would be wrong. I find it quite interesting to live, if only to see what will come of it all in the end.”

“Are your parents alive, Sellén?”

“No; I’m illegitimate. Yours?”

“Yes; but it comes to the same thing.”

“You should be more grateful to Providence, Olle; one should always be grateful to Providence⁠—I don’t quite know why. But I suppose one should.”

Again there was silence. The next time it was Olle who broke it.

“Are you asleep?”

“No; I’m thinking of the statue of Gustavus Adolphus; would you believe me when I.⁠ ⁠…”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Cold? It’s quite warm here.”

“My right foot is frozen.”

“Pull the paint box over you, and tuck the brushes round your sides, then you’ll be warmer.”

“Do you think anybody in the world is as badly off as we are?”

“Badly off? Do you call us badly off when we have a roof over our heads? Some of the professors at the Academy, men who wear three-cornered hats and swords now, were much worse off than we are. Professor Lundström slept during nearly the whole of April in the theatre in the Hop garden. There was style in that! He had the whole of the left stage-box, and he maintains that after one o’clock there wasn’t a single stall vacant; there was always a good house in the winter and a bad one in the summer. Good night, I’m going to sleep now.”

Sellén snored. But Olle rose and paced the room, up and down, until the dawn broke in the east; then day took pity on him and gave him the peace which night had denied him.

XXV Checkmate

The winter passed; slowly for the sufferers, more quickly for those who were less unhappy. Spring came with its disappointed hopes of sun and verdure, and in its turn made room for the summer which was but a short introduction to the autumn.

On a May morning Arvid Falk, now a member of the permanent staff of the Workman’s Flag, was strolling along the quay, watching the vessels loading and discharging their cargoes. He looked less well-groomed than in days gone by; his black hair was longer than fashion decreed, and he wore a beard à la Henri IV, which gave his thin face an almost savage expression. An ominous fire burned in his eyes, a fire denoting the fanatic or the drunkard.

He seemed to be endeavouring to make a choice among the vessels, but was unable to come to a decision. After hesitating for a considerable time, he accosted one of the sailors, who was wheeling a barrow full of goods on to a brig. He courteously raised his hat.

“Can you tell me the destination of this ship?” he asked timidly, imagining that he was speaking in a bold voice.

“Ship? I see no ship?”

The bystanders laughed.

“But if you want to know where this brig’s bound for, go and read that bill over there!”

Falk was disconcerted, but he forced himself to say, angrily:

“Can’t you give a civil reply to a civil question?”

“Go to hell, and don’t stand there swearing at a fellow!⁠—’tention!”

The conversation broke off, and Falk made up his mind. He retraced his footsteps, passed through a narrow street, crossed a marketplace, and turned the first corner. Before the door of a dirty-looking house he stopped. Again he hesitated; he could never overcome his besetting sin of indecision.

A small, ragged boy with a squint came running along, his hands full of proofs in long strips; as he was going to pass Falk, the latter stopped him.

“Is the editor upstairs?” he asked.

“Yes, he’s been here since seven,” replied the boy, breathlessly.

“Has he asked for me?”

“Yes, more than once.”

“Is he in a bad temper?”

“He always is.”

The boy shot upstairs like an arrow. Falk, following on his heels, entered the editorial office. It was a hole with two windows looking on a dark street; before each of the windows stood a plain deal table, covered with paper, pens, newspapers, scissors and a gum bottle.

One of the tables was occupied by his old friend Ygberg, dressed in a ragged black coat, engaged in reading proofs. At the other table, which was Falk’s, sat a man in shirt sleeves, his head covered by a black silk cap of the kind affected by the communards. His face was covered by a red beard, and his thickset figure with its clumsy outlines betrayed the man of the people.

As Falk entered, the communard’s legs kicked the table violently: he turned up his shirtsleeves, displaying blue tattoo marks representing an anchor and an Anglo-Saxon R, seized a pair of scissors, savagely stabbed the front page of a morning paper, cut out a paragraph, and said, rudely, with his back to Falk:

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been ill,” replied Falk, defiantly, as he thought, but humbly as Ygberg told him afterwards.

“It’s a lie! You’ve been drinking! I saw you at a café last night.⁠ ⁠…”

“Surely I can go where I please.”

“You can do what you like; but you’ve got to be here at the stroke of the clock, according to our agreement. It’s a quarter past eight. I am well aware that gentlemen who have been to college, where they imagine they learn a lot, have no idea of method and manners. Don’t you call it ill-bred to be late at your work? Aren’t you behaving like a boor when you compel your employer to do your work? What? It’s the world turned upside down! The employee treats the master⁠—the employer, if you like⁠—as if he were a dog, and capital