August Strindberg

“ It brightened Sten up to see the sparks dancing round the anvil, and the forge also diffused a cheerful glow. But the smith did not seem in a cheerful mood, for he broke off his work, sat down on a log of wood, and watched with gloomy looks the iron growing cold. Then as though stung by an evil conscience he went into the smithy and came out again with a piece of red-hot iron, but seemed to be still more depressed, for he laid the iron on the anvil, and then sat down and watched it as though he expected it to turn into horseshoes. ”

“ Better, he thought, any physical exertion than this eternal writing in which there was no progress and no end. He resigned his post. It was in the middle of a hot summer. He wandered up and down the streets without object and without hope. Lost in thoughts, he contemplated the houses and their signboards as though he expected to find there the answer to the riddle of his life. His gaze was arrested by a large horseshoe which hung on a pole; memories of a nag and a highway began to stir in his brain. Then he heard the blows of a hammer in the courtyard. ”

“ After a moment's reflection, she answered "To be a German is more than to be a Prussian—that is why the German Confederation was formed; to be a European is more than to be a German; to be a man is more than to be a European. You cannot change your nation, for all 'nations' are enemies, and one does not go over to the enemy unless one is a monarch like Bernadotte or a field-marshal like Von Moltke. The only thing left is to neutralise yourself. Let us become Swiss. Switzerland is not a nation." ”

“ Herr von Bleichroden answered excitedly, "A bad conscience after doing one's duty!"
"Yes," answered the priest, tying a wet handkerchief round the sick man's head. "Listen to me while you still can. It is now you who are condemned—to a worse lot than the —three! Listen to me carefully. I know the symptoms. You are on the edge of madness. You must try to think the matter out. Think hard, and you will find your brain get right again. Look at me, and follow my words if you can. You have become two persons. You regard one part of yourself as though it were a second or a third person. ”

“ But Abraham escaped with only a fright. That must be a God of hell, Who could be so inhuman. It must be a bad God Who preached love to men but Himself behaved like an executioner. He would go at once and seek Him; seek Him in His own house, speak with Him, and demand an explanation.
He left the garden and waded through the snow-drifts till he reached a little fir tree by the wood-shed, and laid hold of it. That was a Christmas-tree like one the children would have danced round had they lived. ”

“ The youths, girls, and women sat down in the Christmas straw round the fire to crack nuts and tell stories. Paul fetched a bottle of Spanish wine, with which to make himself and Peter jolly while they talked and played cards to while away the long winter evening. When they had filled their glasses and drunk to each other, Peter remarking that the wine was too sweet, Paul boldly seized the threads of the conversation in order to bring them into order and began: "Now, Brother Peter, if you want us to talk about a matter you know of, draw out the cork and let it flow." ”

“ Mats simply sat there staring up at the high houses and marvelling at the wonderful things which hung outside them: here were horseshoes and carriage-wheels; there were fiddles, lutes, trumpets; there clothes, sets of harness, and guns. The baker had hung up a large B-shaped biscuit, the carpenter a table, the butcher a sheep! "They must have very little room inside," he remarked to his father, when at the same moment a snow-ball flung from behind struck off his cap. Peter and Mats turned round and saw that the whole back part of the sledge was packed with boys. "Be off with you!" said Peter. ”

“ Go with my curse; break your legs on the high-road; die in a ditch; may the lightning strike you and robbers plunder you; may the ghosts of your dead relations haunt you; may incendiaries set your house on fire—for I excommunicate you from the society of all honourable men, as I excommunicate myself from the Holy Church! Get out!" The archdeacon did not remain long in the parsonage; nor did the priest, for his wife and children were waiting for him by the hill planted with birch trees on the way to the wood on the border of Vestmanland, where he was going to plant a settlement. ”

“ Does our Spanish friend still believe that wars are unavoidable? When our French friend smiles again, let him smile with the heart and not with the lips only. And you, my German pessimist friend, do you believe now that the franc-tireur question can be settled without franc-tireurs and fusillades, but also only in this way? And you, Russian gentlemen, whom I do not know personally, do you think your modern method of forestry by truncating trees is the only correct one? Do you not think it is better to go to the roots? It is certainly a safer and quieter way. ”

“ The butcher thought it was hypocrisy to pray for one's enemies, since it was one's duty to defend oneself against them. The shoemaker scented mischief in the prayer for harvest and said it was equivalent to praying for the downfall of one's fellowmen, as had just appeared in the case of Paul Hörning. The organ-grinder thought one ought not to pray for the Government, for the Government built prisons, and prisons were expensive and unnecessary; he could not understand what people wanted with them, since freedom was a man's inalienable right and highest, good. ”

“ Then the giantess seized with the tips of her nails the little blood-letter by its wings and held it against the light.
"What is that?" asked Sten, and made a movement.
The old woman was too deep in her contemplation to answer at once. At last she said, "Ob, it was a gnat!"
"Which has got noble blood in its vein," broke in Sten. "Now do you think, old woman, that it is better than the other gnats?"
"That one cannot exactly know," said the giantess, still examining her captive. "Blood is thicker than water. ”

“ I am now thirty-five," he added with caustic humour, and emptied his glass.
"Why don't you choose another occupation?" asked Sten in a friendly and child-like way.
"Choose? One doesn't choose, young sir. Society in the city is a building in which each man is a stone fitted into its place; if he moves, he disturbs the whole edifice. But society has committed an oversight by not forbidding men in my position to marry. For if the fathers cannot marry till they are thirty and die at thirty-six, the children must go under." ”

“ Paul Hörning got into a mess; he had to sell his chestnut horses and dismiss all his servants. So I lost my place and loafed about, and now I sit here. Such are the tricks of these rogues of peasants!"
Mats stared, and Peter was very sad.
"I am sorry to hear what you say," answered Peter, "but it is not my fault that God gives the harvest."
"Don't talk about it, for I won't listen. Isn't it your fault that you won't be content with what you have but sow such a hellish lot of corn that the corn-merchant is ruined. You should be content with what you have, then others too might be able to live. ”

“ They went along briskly, for the stallion was a good sledge-trotter, and it was not long before the North Bridge rumbled under the horse's hoofs. Mats was quite stupefied at the wonders which he saw—houses as large as mountains and standing so closely together!
"See!" he said, "what good neighbours they can be to each other, and we in the country can hardly keep the peace at a quarter of a mile's distance. And so many churches! How religious they are! And the town hall right in the middle where one can get justice the whole day long!"
Peter made a grimace, and answered nothing. ”

“ Von Bleichroden continued his letter.
"What strange people these Frenchmen are! The three franc-tireurs whom I have just mentioned, and who possibly (I say possibly for I still hope for the best) may be condemned to death in a few days, are just now playing billiards in the room next to mine and I hear their cues striking the balls. What happy contempt of the world! It is really splendid to go hence in such a mood; or rather, it shows that life is worth very little if one can part from it so easily—I mean when one has not such dear ties binding one to existence as I possess. ”

“ The table was laid for the whole of Christmas, and all the eatables in the house were set out on it: a whole boar's head grinned on a red painted wooden plate, surrounded by brawns, tongues, joints and briskets; there were butter-dishes and loaves, cakes and wafers; jugs of sweet-scented juniper-wood filled with foaming Christmas beer. ”

“ Then he went to sleep again thinking of the weighing-house and of a tender farewell to the velvet jacket, with a firm resolve to earn bread, first for one month, and then for two.
The beautiful month of May did not keep its promises; snow fell while the apple trees were in blossom, and the sun did not appear for fourteen days. For fourteen dreadful days had Sten, the last scion of the family of Ulffot at Wäringe, Hofsta and Löfsala, stood at his post in the draughty, unwarmed factory by the harbour. ”

“ The earth, with all the products that she bore, was already fully occupied, so that one of the lords of creation might lie on the ground and die of hunger under a fruit-bearing tree if he did not wish to be hung, while the birds of the air might eat their fill with impunity off the same tree. He wondered that men let squirrels and jays plunder hazel bushes, and preserve their freedom, while only in case of absolute need was a man allowed to save his life with a handful of nuts. ”

“ He saw how the baby oaks spread themselves out to bushes in order to kill the tender beech-seedlings which would never be more than seedlings; of a thousand beeches only one could get to the light and thereby become a giant, which should in its turn rob the rest of life. And the ruthless oak, which stretched out its gnarled, rough arms as though it wished to keep the whole sun for itself, had discovered how to wage an underground strife. ”

“ But Claus never carried the flag, because he was not the guild's flag-bearer, and because Sten recovered. One fine autumn day he was dismissed from the hospital and told that he was no longer ill, but that he would never be strong enough to work. Now he realised the whole terrible truth of what Claus had said: his education had robbed him of the means of earning a livelihood. It was in vain that he went about and sought a place in an already organised society; there was no place for drones in this hive. ”

“ When the gate closed, Sten felt that he was shut out from society once for all, and he rallied the small remainder of bodily and mental strength which he possessed, to form a resolution. But his will and thinking power bed collapsed. The twilight had fallen. He followed the descent of the steep street which led to the sea, as though he were obeying the law of gravitation. His feet led him into a narrow alley which was quite dark and filled with an overpowering stench from the offal which had been thrown away there ”

“ It was a fine warm autumn evening in Vevey in the year 1872. The clock in the little pension Le Cedre had given the signal for dinner by striking seven. Round the large dinner-table were assembled the inmates of the pension, who were all mutually acquainted and lived on terms of intimacy, as those do who meet in a neutral country.
Herr von Bleichroden and his wife had as their companions at the table the melancholy Frenchman whom we have already seen in the hospital church, an English, two Russians, a German and his wife, a Spanish family, and two Tyrolese ladies. ”

“ Sten wandered lonely among the festive groups, without the hope of meeting a friend. He felt thirsty after his bath but was ashamed to ask for anything, for he did want to drink alone. But as he walked he grew suddenly conscious that someone was looking at him. He turned round and saw a little yellow, dried-up, narrow-chested man who for want of a table had sat down by an upturned barrel and taken a smaller one for a seat. He had before him a stone jug filled with Rhenish wine and two small green wine-glasses. He was alone and only drank out of one glass.
"Will the young gentleman sit down?" ”

“ Although he did not think it reasonable that men should collect to enjoy themselves underground, when the earth itself was so spacious and beautiful, yet he felt bound to confess that the restaurant of the town hall presented an imposing appearance with its huge pillars which this evening were decked with garlands of fir twigs and bunches of liver-wort, anemones and cowslips. Enormous beer and wine barrels, arranged in rows, formed three great alleys running from the tap-room, which was adorned by a huge figure of Bacchus riding on a cask. ”

“ Look at this pear tree; it is a descendant from a pear tree at Santa Lucia in Spain, where it was cultivated for five hundred years. You think it is an excellent thing that it can bring forth fine fruits to please our palates? Nature does not think so, for she has produced the fruit for the sake of the pipe which continue the species. Look at this pear when I cat it in two! Do you see any pips? No! Over-cultivation has done away with them. Look at this apple which glows so magnificently with red and gold! ”

“ Let us go where the earth has yet no owner, where the freeborn man can pasture his flocks, where the sky itself waters the grass, and the sun entices it to grow. Your eyes, Olga, ask me whether I shall not miss the old home where my childhood passed? I had no childhood; no one bade me welcome when I came, and no one says farewell when I go. When I saw you, Olga, my childhood began, and where you are, there is my home."
In the evening the Trollhättor was again haunted, and an incendiary set fire to Christian's house. ”