His death left a great void in his home. His old father said to me one
day:
"Strange how one ends as one begins! I have written no verses since my
early youth, and now I have written a poem on my grief for Ludvig. I
will read it to you."
There was an Art and Industrial Exhibition in Stockholm, that Summer,
which C.N. David was anxious to see. As he did not care to go alone, he
took me in his son's place. It was my first journey to a foreign
capital, and as such both enjoyable and profitable. I no longer, it is
true, had the same intense boyish impressionability as when I was in
Sweden for the first time, seven years before. The most trifling thing
then had been an experience. In Göteborg I had stayed with a friend of
my mother's, whose twelve-year-old daughter, Bluma Alida, a wondrously
charming little maiden, had jokingly been destined by the two mothers
for my bride from the child's very birth. And at that time I had
assimilated every impression of people or scenery with a voracious
appetite which rendered these impressions ineffaceable all my life
long. That Summer month, my fancy had transformed every meeting with a
young girl into an adventure and fixed every landscape on my mental
retina with an affection such as the landscape painter generally only
feels for a place where he is specially at home. Then I had shared for
a whole month Göteborg family and social life. Now I was merely
travelling as a tourist, and as the companion of a highly respected old
man.
I was less entranced at Stockholm by the Industrial Exhibition than by
the National Museum and the Royal Theatre, where the lovely Hyasser
captivated me by her beauty and the keen energy of her acting. I became
exceedingly fond of Stockholm, this most beautifully situated of the
Northern capitals, and saw, with reverence, the places associated with
the name of Bellman. I also accompanied my old friend to Ulriksdal,
where the Swedish Queen Dowager expected him in audience. More than an
hour before we reached the Castle he threw away his cigar.
"I am an old courtier," he remarked. He had always been intimately
associated with the Danish Royal family; for a long time the Crown
Prince used to go regularly to his flat in Queen's Crossway Street, to
be instructed by him in political economy. He was consequently used to
Court ceremonial.
Beautiful were those Summer days, lovely the light nights in Stockholm.
One recollection from these weeks is associated with a night when the
sky was overcast. I had wandered round the town, before retiring to
rest, and somewhere, in a large square, slipping my hand in my pocket,
and feeling it full of bits of paper, could not remember how they got
there, and threw them away. When I was nearly back at the hotel it
flashed upon me that it had been small Swedish notes--all the money
that I had changed for my stay in Stockholm--that I had been carrying
loose in my pocket and had so thoughtlessly thrown away. With a great
deal of trouble, I found the square again, but of course not a sign of
the riches that in unpardonable forgetfulness I had scattered to the
winds. I was obliged to borrow six Rigsdaler (a sum of a little over
thirteen shillings) from my old protector. That my requirements were
modest is proved by the fact that this sum sufficed.
The Danish Ambassador was absent from Stockholm just at this time, and
the Chargé d'Affaires at the Legation had to receive the Danish
ex-Minister in his stead. He was very attentive to us, and took the
travellers everywhere where C.N. David wished his arrival to be made
known. He himself, however, was a most unfortunate specimen of Danish
diplomacy, a man disintegrated by hideous debauchery, of coarse
conversation, and disposition so brutal that he kicked little children
aside with his foot when they got in front of him in the street.
Abnormities of too great irregularity brought about, not long
afterwards, his dismissal and his banishment to a little Danish island.
This man gave a large dinner-party in honour of the Danish ex-Minister,
to which, amongst others, all the Swedish and Norwegian Ministers in
Stockholm were invited. It was held at Hasselbakken, [Footnote: a
favourite outdoor pleasure resort at Stockholm.] and the arrangements
were magnificent. But what highly astonished me, and was in reality
most out of keeping in such a circle, was the tone that the
conversation at table gradually assumed, and especially the obscenity
of the subjects of conversation. It was not, however, the Ministers and
Diplomats present, but a Danish roué, a professor of Physics, who gave
this turn to the talk. He related anecdotes that would have made a
sailor blush. Neither Count Manderström, nor any of the other
Ministers, neither Malmgren, nor the dignified and handsome Norwegian
Minister Bretteville, seemed to be offended. Manderström's expression,
however, changed very noticeably when the professor ventured to make
some pointed insinuations regarding the Swedish attitude, and his
personal attitude in particular, previous to the Dano-German war and
during its course. He suddenly pretended not to understand, and changed
the subject of conversation.
It produced an extremely painful impression upon me that not only the
Danish Chargé d'Affaires, but apparently several of these fine
gentlemen, had determined on the additional amusement of making me
drunk. Everybody at table vied one with the other to drink my health,
and they informed me that etiquette demanded I should each time empty
my glass to the bottom; the contrary would be a breach of good form. As
I very quickly saw through their intention, I escaped from the
difficulty by asking the waiter to bring me a very small glass. By
emptying this I could, without my manners being affected, hold my own
against them all.
But,--almost for the first time in my life,--when the company rose from
table I felt that I had been in exceedingly bad company, and a disgust
for the nominally highest circles, who were so little capable of acting
in accordance with the reputation they enjoyed, and the polish imputed
to them, remained with me for many years to come.