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

twenty fresh faces with sparkling eyes; twenty children who had never experienced the bitterest of all sorrows, the humiliations of poverty; they met his glance boldly and inquisitively, but he was embarrassed and had to pull himself together with an effort; before long, however, he was on friendly terms with Anna and Charlotte, Georgina and Lizzy and Harry; teaching was a pleasure. He made allowances, and let Louis XIV and Alexander be termed great men, like all others who had been successful; he permitted the French Revolution to be called a terrible event, during which the noble Louis XVI and the virtuous Marie Antoinette perished miserably, and so on.

When he entered the office of the Board of Purveyance of Hay for the Cavalry Regiments, he felt young and refreshed. He stayed till eleven reading the Conservative; then he went to the offices of the Committee on Brandy Distilleries, lunched, and wrote two letters, one to Borg and one to Struve.

On the stroke of one he was in the Department for Death Duties. Here he collated an assessment of property which brought him in a hundred crowns; he had time enough before dinner to read the proofs of the revised edition of the Forest Laws, which he was editing.

It struck three. Anybody crossing the Riddarhus Market at that time could have met on the bridge a young, important-looking man, with pockets bulging with manuscripts, and hands crossed on his back; he is strolling slowly along, accompanied by an elderly, lean, grey-haired man of fifty, the actuary of the dead. The estate of every citizen who dies has to be declared to him; according to the amount he takes his percentage; some say that this is his duty; others that he represents the Earth, and has to watch that the dead take nothing away with them, as everything is a loan⁠—without interest. In any case, he is a man more interested in the dead than the living, and therefore Falk likes his company; he, on the other hand, is attached to Falk because, like himself, he collects coins and autographs, and because he possesses that excellent quality, tolerance, which is rarely found in a young man.

The two friends enter the Restaurant Rosengren, where they are fairly certain not to meet young men and where they can discuss numismatics and autography. They take their coffee in the Café Rydberg and look at catalogues of coins until six. At six o’clock the official Post appears, and they read the promotions.

Each enjoys the other’s company, for they never quarrel. Falk is so free from fixed opinions that he is the most amiable man in the world, liked and appreciated by chiefs and colleagues.

Occasionally they dine in the Hamburg Exchange and take a liqueur or two at the Opera Restaurant, and to see them walking along arm in arm, at eleven o’clock, is really quite an edifying sight.

Moreover, Falk has become a regular guest at family dinners and suppers in houses into which Borg’s father has introduced him. The women find him interesting, although they do not know how to take him; he is always smiling and expert at sarcastic little pleasantries.

But when he is sick of family life and the social life, he visits the Red Room, and there he meets the redoubtable Borg, his admirer Isaac, his secret enemy and envier Struve, the man who never has any money, and the sarcastic Sellén, who is gradually preparing his second success, after all his imitators have accustomed the public to his manner.

Lundell, who, after the completion of his altarpiece, gave up painting sacred pictures and became a fat Epicurean, only comes to the Red Room when he has no money to pay for his dinner; he makes a living by portrait painting, a profession which brings him countless invitations to dinners and suppers; Lundell maintains that these invitations are essential for making character studies.

Olle, who is still employed by the stonemason, has become a gloomy misanthrope after his great failure as a politician and orator. He refuses “to impose on” his former friends and lives a solitary life.

Falk is in a boisterous, riotous mood whenever he visits the Red Room, and Borg is of opinion that he does him credit; he is a veritable sappeur to whom nothing is sacred⁠—except politics; this is a subject on which he never touches. But if, while he lets off his fireworks for the amusement of his friends, he should catch, through the dense tobacco smoke, a glimpse of the morose Olle on the other side of the room, his mood changes, he becomes gloomy like a night on the sea, and swallows large quantities of strong liquor, as if he wanted to extinguish a smouldering fire.

But Olle has not been seen for a long time.

XXVIII From Beyond the Grave

The snow was falling lightly and silently, clothing the street in pure white, as Falk and Sellén were walking to the infirmary in the southeastern suburb of Kingsholm, to call for Borg on their way to the Red Room.

“It’s strange that the first snow should create an almost solemn impression,” said Sellén. “The dirty ground is transformed to.⁠ ⁠…”

“Are you sentimental?” scoffed Falk.

“Oh, no! I was merely talking from the point of view of a landscape painter.”

They continued their way in silence, wading through the whirling snow.

“The Kingsholm with its infirmaries always strikes me as uncanny,” remarked Falk, after a pause.

“Are you sentimental?” scoffed Sellén.

“Not at all, but this part of the town always makes that impression on me.”

“Nonsense! It doesn’t make any impression at all; you imagine it does. Here we are, and Borg’s windows are lit up. Perhaps he’s got some nice corpses tonight.”

They were standing before the door of the institute. The huge building with its many dark windows glared at them as if it were inquiring what they wanted at that hour of the night. They passed the round flower bed, and entered the small