THE WINDING UP
(1872)
At the beginning of the spring term, John took up his quarters with an
elder comrade in order to continue his studies. But when he had again
the old books before him which he had already studied so long, he felt
a distaste for them. His brain was full of impressions, of collected
literary material, and refused to take in any more; his imagination
and thought were busily at work and would not let memory be alone
active; he had fits of doubt and apathy and often remained the whole
day lying on the sofa. Then the desire would sometimes awake to be
altogether free and to plunge into the life of activity. But the royal
stipend held him fast in fetters and imposed on him obligations. Having
received it, he was bound to go on studying for his doctor's degree,
the course of reading for which he had half completed. So he applied
himself to philosophy, but when he read the history of it, he found all
systems equally valid or invalid, and his mind resisted all new ideas.
In the literary club there was disunion and lethargy. All their
youthful poems had been read and no one produced any more, so that
they only met together to drink punch. Is had exposed himself, and
after a scene with another member, he had been thrown out. He drew his
knife and got well thrashed. He saved himself from worse by affecting
to treat the affair as a joke, and was now a mere laughing-stock, since
it had been discovered that his wisdom consisted in quotations from the
students' periodicals which the others had not had the wit to utilise.
At the beginning of term an Æsthetic Society had been founded by the
professor of Æsthetics, and this made their own literary society, the
"Runa," superfluous.
At one of the meetings of the former, John's discontent with classical
authorities broke out. He had been drinking that evening and was
half-intoxicated. In conversation with the professor dangerous ground
was touched upon and John was enticed so far out of his reserve as to
declare Dante without significance for humanity and overestimated. John
had plenty of reasons to allege for his opinion, but could not express
them to advantage when the professor set upon him, and the whole
company gathered round the disputants, who were squeezed into a corner
by the stove. He wanted in the first place to say that the construction
of the _Divine Comedy_ was not original, but a very ordinary form which
had already been employed shortly before in the _Vision of Albericus_.
Furthermore his opinion was that in this poem Dante did not reflect
the culture and thoughts of his period, because he was so uncultured
that he did not even know Greek. He was not a philosopher, for he
hampered thought by the fetters of revelation, and therefore he was no
precursor of the Renaissance or the Reformation. He was no patriot, for
he venerated the German empire as established by God. He was at most a
local patriot of Florence. Nor was he a democrat, for he always dreamt
of a union of the empire and the papacy. He did not attack the papacy,
but only individual popes who lived immoral lives, as he himself
had done in his youth. He was a monk, a truly idiotic child of his
age, for he sent unbaptised children to hell. He was a narrow-minded
royalist who put Brutus next to Satan in the deepest hell. He was
entirely wanting in the power of selfcriticism;--while he reckons
ingratitude to friends and betrayal of one's fatherland among the worst
of crimes, he places his own friend and teacher, Brunetto Latini, in
hell, and supports the German Emperor, Henry VII, against his native
city Florence. He had bad literary taste, for he reckoned as the six
greatest poets of the world Homer, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, Virgil and
himself. How could modern critics who were so severe on all scandalous
literature praise Dante, who in his poem cast dishonour on so many
contemporary persons and families? He even scolds his own dear native
city, exclaiming when he finds five nobly-born Florentines in Hell:
"Rejoice! O Florence! for thy name is not only great over land and
sea, but also in hell. Five of thy citizens are in thieves' company;
my cheeks blush at the sight of them. But one thing I know; punishment
will light upon thee, Florence, and may it happen soon!"
As is usual in such debates, the attacked and the attacker often
changed their ground. John wished to prove to the professor that from
his point of view the _Commedia_ was a political pamphlet, but then
the professor veered round, adopted the enemy's point of view and said
that _he_ should value it as such. Whereupon John answered that it was
exactly as such that he designated it, but not as a magnificent poem
of everlasting value, which the professor had declared it to be in his
lectures. Again the professor changed his ground, and said that the
poem should be judged by the standard of the period at which it was
composed.
"Exactly so," answered John, "but you have judged it by the standard
of our time and all succeeding times, and therefore you are wrong. But
even with regard to its own time the work is not an epoch-making one;
it is not in advance of its period, but belongs strictly to it, or
rather lags behind it. It is a linguistic monument for Italy, nothing
more, and should never be read in a Swedish university, because the
language is antiquated, and finally because it is too insignificant to
be regarded as a link in the development of culture."
The result of the controversy was that John was regarded as shameless
and half-cracked.
After this explosion he was exhausted and incapable of work. The whole
of the life in a town where he did not feel at home was distasteful
to him. His companions advised him to take a thorough rest, for he
had worked too hard, and so, as a matter of fact, he had. Various
schemes again presented themselves to his mind, but without result.
The grey dirty town vexed him, the scenery around depressed him; he
lay on a sofa and looked at the illustrations in a German newspaper.
Views of foreign scenery had the same effect as music on his mind and
he felt a longing to see green trees and blue seas; he wished to go
into the country but it was still only February, the sky was as grey
as sack-cloth, the streets and roads were muddy. When he felt most
depressed, he went to his friend the natural science student. It
refreshed him to see his herbarium and microscope, his aquarium and
physiological preparations. Most of all he found a pleasure in the
society of the quiet, peaceable atheist, who let the world go its way,
for he knew that he worked better for the future, in his small measure,
than the poet with his excitable outbreaks. He had a little of the
artist left in him and painted in oils. To think that he could call up
as if by enchantment a green landscape amid the mists of this wintry
spring and hang it on his wall!
"Is painting difficult?" he asked his friend.
"No, indeed! It is easier than drawing. Try it!"
John, who had already, with the greatest calm, composed a song with a
guitar-accompaniment, thought it not impossible for him to paint, and
he borrowed an easel, colours, and a paint-brush. Then he went home
and shut himself up in his room. From an illustrated paper he copied a
picture of a ruined castle. When he saw the clear blue of the sky he
felt sentimental, and when he had conjured up green bushes and grass
he felt unspeakably happy as though he had eaten haschish. His first
effort was successful. But now he wished to copy a painting. That was
harder. Everything was green and brown. He could not make his colours
harmonise with the original and felt in despair.
One day when he had shut himself up he heard a visitor talking with his
friend in the next room. They whispered as though they were near a sick
person. "Now he is actually painting," said his friend in a depressed
tone.
What did that mean? Did they consider him cracked? Yes. He began to
think about himself, and like all brooders came to the conclusion that
he was cracked. What was to be done? If they shut him up, he would
certainly go quite mad. "Better anticipate them," he thought, and as he
had heard of private asylums in the country, where the patients could
walk about and work in the garden, he wrote to the director of one of
them. After some time he received a friendly answer advising him to be
quiet. His correspondent had received information about John through
his friend and understood his state of mind. He told him it was only a
crisis which all sensitive natures must pass through, etc.
_That_ danger, then, was over. But he wished to get out into active
life when ever it might be.
One day he heard that a travelling theatrical company had come to the
town. He wrote a letter to the manager and solicited an engagement,
but he received no answer and did not call on the manager. Thus he
was tossed to and fro, till at last fate intervened and set him
free. Three months had passed and he had received no money from the
court-treasurer. His companions advised him to write and make a polite
inquiry. In reply he was told that it had never been his Majesty's
intention to pay him a regular pension, but only a single donation.
However, in consideration of his needy circumstances, by way of
exception, he had made him a grant of 200 kronas, which would shortly
be sent.
John at first felt glad, for he was free, but afterwards the turn which
affairs had taken made him uneasy, for the papers had stated that
he was the king's stipendiary, and the king had really promised him
a stipend during the year that he must read for his degree. Besides
this the court-marshal had given him a sort of half promise for the
future which could hardly be considered as adequately fulfilled by
a donation of 200 kronas. Different opinions were expressed on the
matter. Some thought that the king had forgotten, others that the state
of his finances did not allow of a further gift, or that his good
wishes exceeded his powers. No one expressed disapproval, and John was
secretly glad, had he not felt a certain disgrace in the withdrawal
of the stipend, so that he might be suspected of having groundlessly
boasted of it. Those who believed that John was in disfavour at court
ascribed this to the fact that he had omitted to wait upon the king
in person when he was in Stockholm at Christmas and the New Year.
Others attributed it to the fact that he had not formally presented
his tragedy, _Sinking Hellas_, but had simply sent it to the palace,
instead of going with it, which his sense of independence forbade
him to do. Ten years later he heard quite a new explanation of this
disfavour. He was said to have composed a lampoon on the king. But this
was a pure legend, probably the only one of its obscure fabricator
which would reach posterity. Anyhow facts remained as they were and
his resolve was quickly taken. He would go to Stockholm and become
a literary man, an author if possible, should he prove to possess
sufficient capacity for that calling.
The student who shared his room undertook to pay his return journey,
and alleged as a pretext that John must wait some time in Stockholm
lest the landlord should be uneasy. Meanwhile he could collect enough
money to pay the rent which was due at the end of the term.
His friends gave John a farewell feast and John thanked them,
acknowledging the obligations which each owes to those he meets in
social intercourse. Every personality is not developed simply out
of itself, but derives something from each with whom it comes in
contact, just as the bee gathering her honey from a million flowers,
appropriates it and gives it out as her own.
Thus he stepped into life, abandoning dreams and the past to live in
reality and the present. But he was ill-prepared and the university is
not the proper school for life. He felt also that the decisive hour had
come. In a clumsy speech he called the feast a "svensexa," _i.e_. a
farewell supper for a bachelor on the eve of his marriage, for he was
now to be a man and leave boyhood behind; he was to become a member of
society, a useful citizen and eat his own bread.
So he believed at the time, but he soon discovered that his education
had unfitted him for society, and as he did not wish to be an outlaw
the doubt awoke in him whether society, of which after all school and
university were a part, was not to blame for his education, and whether
it had not serious defects which needed a remedy.