THE ARTISTS' COLONY
It was between eight and nine o'clock on the same beautiful May
morning. Arvid Falk, after the scene with his brother, was strolling
through the streets, dissatisfied with himself, his brother, and the
whole world. He would have preferred to see the sky overcast, to be in
bad company. He did not believe that he was a blackguard, but he was
disappointed with the part he had played; he was accustomed to be
severe on himself, and it had always been drummed into him that his
brother was a kind of stepfather to whom he owed great respect, not to
say reverence. But he was worried and depressed by other thoughts as
well. He had neither money nor prospect of work. The last contingency
was, perhaps, the worse of the two, for to him, with his exuberant
imagination, idleness was a dangerous enemy.
Brooding over these disagreeable facts, he had reached Little Garden
Street; he sauntered along, on the left pavement, passed the Dramatic
Theatre, and soon reached High Street North. He walked on aimlessly;
the pavement became uneven; wooden cottages took the place of the stone
houses; badly dressed men and women were throwing suspicious glances at
the well-dressed stranger who was visiting their quarter at such an
early hour; famished dogs growled threateningly at him. He hastened
past groups of gunners, labourers, brewers' men, laundresses, and
apprentices, and finally came to Great Hop-Garden Street. He entered
the Hop-Garden. The cows belonging to the Inspector-General of
Ordnance were grazing in the fields; the old, bare apple trees were
making the first efforts to put forth buds; but the lime trees were
already in leaf and squirrels were playing up and down the branches. He
passed the merry-go-round and came to the avenue leading to the
theatre; here he met some truant schoolboys engaged in a game of
buttons; a little further a painter's apprentice was lying in the grass
on his back staring at the clouds through the dome of foliage; he was
whistling carelessly, indifferent to the fact that master and men were
waiting for him, while flies and other insects drowned themselves in
his paint-pots.
Falk had walked to the top of the hill and had come to the duck-pond;
he stood still for a while, studying the metamorphoses of the frogs;
watching the leeches; catching a water-spider. Then he began to throw
stones. The exercise brought his blood into circulation; he felt
rejuvenated, a schoolboy playing truant, free, defiantly free! It was
freedom bought by great self-sacrifice. The thought of being able to
commune with nature freely and at will, made him glad; he understood
nature better than men who had only ill-treated and slandered him; his
unrest disappeared; he rose and continued his way further into the
country.
Walking through the Cross, he came into Hop-Garden Street North. Some
of the boards were missing in the fence facing him, and there was a
very plainly marked footpath on the other side. He crept through the
hole, disturbing an old woman who was gathering nettles, crossed the
large tobacco field where a colony of villas has now sprung up, and
found himself at the gate of "Lill-Jans."
There was no doubt of its being spring in the little settlement,
consisting of three cottages snugly nestling among elders and apple
trees, and sheltered from the north wind by the pine-wood on the other
side of the High Road. The visitor was regaled with a perfect little
idyll. A cock, perched on the shafts of a watercart, was basking in
the sun and catching flies, the bees hung in a cloud round the
bee-hives, the gardener was kneeling by the hot-beds, sorting radishes;
the warblers and brand-tails were singing in the gooseberry bushes,
while lightly clad children chased the fowls bent on examining the
germinative capacity of various newly sown seeds. A brilliant blue sky
spanned the scene and the dark forest framed the background.
Two men were sitting close to the hot-beds, in the shelter of the
fence. One of them, wearing a tall, black hat and a threadbare, black
suit, had a long, narrow, pale face, and looked like a clergyman. With
his stout but deformed body, drooping eyelids, and Mongolian moustache,
the other one belonged to the type of civilized peasant. He was very
badly dressed and might have been many things: a vagabond, an artisan,
or an artist; he looked seedy, but seedy in an original way.
The lean man, who obviously felt chilly, although he sat right in the
sun, was reading to his friend from a book; the latter looked as though
he had tried all the climates of the earth and was able to stand them
all equally well.
As Falk entered the garden gate from the high road, he could distinctly
hear the reader's words through the fence, and he thought it no breach
of confidence to stand still for a while and listen.
The lean man was reading in a dry, monotonous voice, a voice without
resonance, and his stout friend every now and then acknowledged his
appreciation by a snort which changed occasionally into a grunt and
became a splutter whenever the words of wisdom to which he was
listening surpassed ordinary human understanding.
"'The highest principles are, as already stated, three; one, absolutely
unconditioned, and two, relatively unconditioned ones. _Pro primo_: the
absolutely first, purely unconditioned principle, would express the
action underlying all consciousness and without which consciousness
cannot exist. This principle is the identity A--A. It endures and
cannot be disposed of by thought when all empirical definitions of
consciousness are prescinded. It is the original fact of consciousness
and must therefore, of necessity, be acknowledged. Moreover, it is not
conditioned like every other empirical fact, but as consequence and
substance of a voluntary act entirely unconditioned.'"
"Do you follow, Olle?" asked the reader, interrupting himself.
"It's amazing! It is not conditioned like every other empirical fact.
Oh! What a man! Go on! Go on!"
"'If it is maintained,'" continued the reader, "'that this proposition
without any further proof be true....'"
"Oh! I say! What a rascal! without any further proof be true," repeated
the grateful listener, bent on dissipating all suspicion that he had
not grasped what had been read, "without any _further_ reason, how
subtle, how subtle of him to say that instead of simply saying 'without
any reason.'"
"Am I to continue? Or do you intend to go on interrupting me?" asked
the offended reader.
"I won't interrupt again. Go on! Go on!"
"Well, now he draws the conclusion (really excellent): 'If one ascribes
to oneself the ability to state a proposition----'"
Olle snorted.
"'One does not propose thereby A (capital A), but merely that A--A, if
and in so far as A exists at all. It is not a question of the essence
of an assertion but only of its form. The proposition A--A is therefore
conditioned (hypothetically) as far as its essence is concerned, and
unconditioned only as far as its form goes.'
"Have you noticed the capital A?"
Falk had heard enough; this was the terribly profound philosophy of
Upsala, which had strayed to Stockholm to conquer and subdue the
coarse instincts of the capital. He looked at the fowls to see whether
they had not tumbled off their roosts; at the parsley whether it had
not stopped growing while made to listen to the profoundest wisdom ever
proclaimed by human voice at Lill-Jans; he was surprised to find that
the sky had not fallen after witnessing such a feat of mental strength.
At the same time his base human nature clamoured for attention: his
throat was parched, and he decided to ask for a glass of water at one
of the cottages.
Turning back he strolled towards the hut on the right-hand side of the
road, coming from town. The door leading into a large room--once a
bakery--from an entrance-hall the size of a travelling trunk, stood
open. The room contained a bed-sofa, a broken chair, an easel, and two
men. One of them, wearing only a shirt and a pair of trousers kept up
by a leather belt, was standing before the easel. He looked like a
journeyman, but he was an artist making a sketch for an altar-piece.
The other man was a youth with clear-cut features and, considering his
environment, well-made clothes. He had taken off his coat, turned back
his shirt and was serving as the artist's model. His handsome, noble
face showed traces of a night of dissipation, and every now and then he
dozed, each time reprimanded by the master who seemed to have taken him
under his protection. As Falk was entering the room he heard the burden
of one of these reprimands:
"That you should make such a hog of yourself and spend the night
drinking with that loafer Sellen, and now be standing here wasting your
time instead of being at the Commercial School! The right shoulder a
little higher, please; that's better! Is it true that you've spent all
the money for your rent and daren't go home? Have you nothing left? Not
one farthing?"
"I still have some, but it won't go far." The young man pulled a scrap
of paper out of his trousers pocket, and straightening it out, produced
two notes for a crown each.
"Give them to me, I'll take care of them for you," exclaimed the
master, seizing them with fatherly solicitude.
Falk, who had vainly tried to attract their attention, thought it best
to depart as quietly as he had come. Once more passing the manure heap
and the two philosophers, he turned to the left. He had not gone far
when he caught sight of a young man who had put up his easel at the
edge of a little bog planted with alder trees, close to the wood. He
had a graceful, slight, almost elegant figure, and a thin, dark face.
He seemed to scintillate life as he stood before his easel, working at
a fine picture. He had taken off his coat and hat and appeared to be in
excellent health and spirits; alternately talking to himself and
whistling or humming snatches of song.
When Falk was near enough to have him in profile he turned round.
"Sellen! Good morning, old chap!"
"Falk! Fancy meeting you out here in the wood! What the deuce does it,
mean? Oughtn't you to be at your office at this time of day?"
"No! But are you living out here?"
"Yes; I came here on the first of April with some pals. Found life in
town too expensive--and, moreover, landlords are so particular."
A sly smile played about one of the corners of his mouth and his brown
eyes flashed.
"I see," Falk began again; "then perhaps you know the two individuals
who were sitting by the hot-beds just now, reading?"
"The philosophers? Of course, I do! The tall one is an assistant at the
Public Sales Office at a salary of eighty crowns per annum, and the
short one, Olle Montanus, ought to be at home at his sculpture--but
since he and Ygberg have taken up philosophy, he has left off working
and is fast going down hill. He has discovered that there is something
sensual in art."
"What's he living on?"
"On nothing at all! Occasionally he sits to the practical Lundell and
then he gets a piece of black pudding. This lasts him for about a day.
In the winter Lundell lets him lie on his floor; 'he helps to warm the
room,' he says, and wood is very dear; it was very cold here in April."
"How can he be a model? He looks such a God-help-me sort of chap."
"He poses for one of the thieves in Lundell's "Descent from the Cross,"
the one whose bones are already broken; the poor devil's suffering from
hip disease; he does splendidly when he leans across the back of a
chair; sometimes the artist makes him turn his back to him; then he
represents the other thief."
"But why doesn't he work himself? Has he no talent?"
"Olle Montanus, my dear fellow, is a genius, but he won't work. He's a
philosopher and would have become a great man if he could have gone to
college. It's really extraordinary to listen to him and Ygberg talking
philosophy; it's true, Ygberg has read more, but in spite of that
Montanus, with his subtle brain, succeeds in cornering him every now
and again; then Ygberg goes away and reads some more, but he never
lends the book to Montanus."
"I see! And you like Ygberg's philosophy?" asked Falk.
"Oh! It's subtle, wonderfully subtle! You like Fichte, don't you? I
say! What a man!"
"Who were the two individuals in the cottage?" asked Falk, who did not
like Fichte.
"Oh. You saw them too? One of them was the practical Lundell, a painter
of figures, or rather, sacred subjects; the other one was my friend
Rehnhjelm."
He pronounced the last few words with the utmost indifference, so as
to heighten their effect as much as possible.
"Rehnhjelm?"
"Yes; a very nice fellow."
"He was acting as Lundell's model."
"Was he? That's like Lundell! He knows how to make use of people; he is
extraordinarily practical. But come along, let's worry him; it's the
only fun I have out here. Then, perhaps, you'll hear Montanus speaking,
and that's really worth while."
Less for the sake of hearing Montanus speaking than for the sake of
obtaining a glass of water, Falk followed Sellen, helping him to carry
easel and paintbox.
The scene in the cottage was slightly changed; the model was now
sitting on the broken chair, and Montanus and Ygberg on the bed-sofa.
Lundell was standing at his easel, smoking; his seedy friends watched
him and his old, snoring cherry-wood pipe; the very presence of a pipe
and tobacco raised their spirits.
Falk was introduced and immediately Lundell monopolized him, asking him
for his opinion of the picture he was painting. It was a Rubens, at
least as far as the subject went, though anything but a Rubens in
colour and drawing. Thereupon Lundell dilated on the hard times and
difficulties of an artist, severely criticized the Academy, and
censured the Government for neglecting native art. He was engaged in
sketching an altar-piece, although he was convinced that it would be
refused, for nobody could succeed without intrigues and connexions. And
he scrutinized Falk's clothes, wondering whether _he_ might be a useful
connexion.
Falk's appearance had produced a different effect on the two
philosophers. They scented a man of letters in him, and hated him
because he might rob them of the reputation they enjoyed in the small
circle. They exchanged significant glances, immediately understood by
Sellen, who found it impossible to resist the temptation of showing off
his friends in their glory, and, if possible, bring about an
encounter. He soon found an apple of discord, aimed, threw, and hit.
"What do you say to Lundell's picture, Ygberg?"
Ygberg, not expecting to be called upon to speak so soon, had to
consider his answer for a few seconds. Then he made his reply, raising
his voice, while Olle rubbed his back to make him hold himself
straight.
"A work of art may, in my opinion, be divided into two categories:
subject and form. With regard to the subject in this work of art there
is no denying that it is profound and universally human; the motive,
properly speaking, is in itself fertile, and contains all the
potentialities of artistic work. With regard to the form which of
itself shall _de facto_ manifest the idea, that is to say the absolute
identity, the being, the ego--I cannot help saying that I find it less
adequate."
Lundell was obviously flattered. Olle smiled his sunniest smile as if
he were contemplating the heavenly hosts; the model was asleep and
Sellen found that Ygberg had scored a complete success. All eyes were
turned on Falk who was compelled to take up the gauntlet, for no one
doubted that Ygberg's criticism was a challenge.
Falk was both amused and annoyed. He was searching the limbo of memory
for philosophical air-guns, when he caught sight of Olle Montanus,
whose convulsed face betrayed his desire to speak. Falk loaded his gun
at random with Aristotle and fired.
"What do you mean by adequate? I cannot recollect that Aristotle made
use of that word in his Metaphysics."
Absolute silence fell on the room; everybody felt that a fight between
the artist's colony and the University of Upsala was imminent. The
interval was longer than was desirable, for Ygberg was unacquainted
with Aristotle and would have died sooner than have admitted it. As he
was not quick at repartee, he failed to discover the breach which Falk
had left open; but Olle did, caught Aristotle with both hands and flung
him back at his opponent.
"Although I'm not a learned man, I venture to question whether you, Mr.
Falk, have upset your opponent's argument? In my opinion _adequate_ may
be used and accepted as a definition in a logical conclusion, in spite
of Aristotle not having mentioned the word in his Metaphysics. Am I
right, gentlemen? I don't know, I'm not a learned man and Mr. Falk has
made a study of these things."
He had spoken with half-closed eyelids; now he closed them entirely and
looked impudently shy.
There was a general murmur of "Olle is right."
Falk realized that this was a matter to be handled without mittens, if
the honour of Upsala was to be safeguarded; he made a pass with the
philosophical pack of cards and threw up an ace.
"Mr. Montanus has denied the antecedent or said simply: _nego majorem!_
Very well! I, on my part, declare that he has been guilty of a
_posterius prius_; when he found himself on the horns of a dilemma he
went astray and made a syllogism after _ferioque_ instead of _barbara_.
He has forgotten the golden rule: _Caesare camestres festino baroco
secundo_; and therefore his conclusion became weakened. Am I right
gentlemen?"
"Quite right, absolutely right," replied everybody, except the two
philosophers who had never held a book of logic in their hands.
Ygberg looked as if he had bitten on a nail, and Olle grinned as if a
handful of snuff had been thrown into his eyes; but his native
shrewdness had discovered the tactical method of his opponent. He
resolved not to stick to the point, but to talk of something else. He
brought out everything he had learned and everything he had heard,
beginning with the Criticism of Fichte's Philosophy to which Falk had
been listening a little while ago from behind the fence. The
discussion went on until the morning was nearly spent.
In the meantime Lundell went on painting, his foul pipe snoring loudly.
The model had fallen asleep on the broken chair, his head sinking
deeper and deeper until, about noon, it hung between his knees; a
mathematician could have calculated the time when it would reach the
centre of the earth.
Sellen was sitting at the open window enjoying himself; but poor Falk,
who had been under the impression that this terrible philosophy was a
thing of the past, was compelled to continue throwing fistfuls of
philosophic snuff into the eyes of his antagonists. The torture would
never have come to an end if the model's centre of gravity had not
gradually shifted to one of the most delicate parts of the chair; it
gave way and the Baron fell on the floor. Lundell seized the
opportunity to inveigh against the vice of drunkenness and its
miserable consequences for the victim as well as for others; by others
he meant, of course, himself.
Falk, anxious to come to the assistance of the embarrassed youth,
eagerly asked a question bound to be of general interest.
"Where are the gentlemen going to dine?"
The room grew silent, so silent that the buzzing of the flies was
plainly audible; Falk was quite unconscious of the fact that he had
stepped on five corns at one and the same moment. It was Lundell who
broke the silence. He and Rehnhjelm were going to dine at the
"Sauce-Pan," their usual restaurant, for they had credit there; Sellen
objected to the place because he did not like the cooking, and had not
yet decided on another establishment; he looked at the model with an
anxious, inquiring glance. Ygberg and Montanus were too "busy" and "not
going to cut up their working-day" by "dressing and going up to town."
They were going to get something out here, but they did not say what.
A general dressing began, principally consisting of a wash at the old
garden-pump. Sellen, who was a dandy, had hidden a parcel wrapped in a
newspaper underneath the bed-sofa, from which he produced collar, cuffs
and shirt-front, made of paper. He knelt for a long time before the
pump, gazing into the trough, while he put on a brownish-green tie, a
present from a lady, and arranged his hair in a particular style.
When he had rubbed his shoes with a bur leaf, brushed his hat with his
coat sleeve, put a grape-hyacinth in his buttonhole and seized his
cinnamon cane, he was ready to go. To his question whether Rehnhjelm
would be ready soon, Lundell replied that he would be hours yet, as he
required his assistance in drawing; Lundell always devoted the time
from twelve to two to drawing. Rehnhjelm submitted and obeyed, although
he found it hard to part with Sellen, of whom he was fond, and stay
with Lundell whom he disliked.
"We shall meet to-night at the Red Room," said Sellen, comforting him,
and all agreed, even the philosophers and the moral Lundell.
On their way to town Sellen initiated his friend Falk into some of the
secrets of the colonists. As for himself, he had broken with the
Academy, because his views on art differed from theirs; he knew that he
had talent and would eventually be successful, although success might
be long in coming. It was, of course, frightfully difficult to make a
name without the Royal Medal. There were also natural obstacles in his
way. He was a native of the barren coast of Halland and loved grandeur
and simplicity; but critics and public demanded detail and trifles;
therefore his pictures did not sell; he could have painted what
everybody else painted, but he scorned to do so.
Lundell, on the other hand, was a practical man--Sellen always
pronounced the word _practical_ with a certain contempt--he painted to
please the public. He never suffered from indisposition; it was true
he had left the Academy, but for secret, practical reasons; moreover,
in spite of his assertion, he had not broken with it entirely. He made
a good income out of his illustrations for magazines and, although he
had little talent, he was bound to make his fortune some day, not only
because of the number of his connexions, but also because of his
intrigues. It was Montanus who had put him up to those; he was the
originator of more than one plan which Lundell had successfully carried
out. Montanus was a genius, although he was terribly unpractical.
Rehnhjelm was a native of Norrland. His father had been a wealthy man;
he had owned a large estate which was now the property of his former
inspector. The old aristocrat was comparatively poor; he hoped that his
son would learn a lesson from the past, take an inspector's post and
eventually restore the family to its former position by the acquisition
of a new estate. Buoyed up with this hope, he had sent him to the
Commercial School to study agricultural book-keeping, an accomplishment
which the youth detested. He was a good fellow but a little weak, and
allowing himself to be influenced by Lundell, who did not scorn to take
the fee for his preaching and patronage in natura.
In the meantime Lundell and the Baron had started work; the Baron was
drawing, while the master lay on the sofa, supervising the work, in
other words, smoking.
"If you'll put your back into your work, you shall come to dinner with
me at the 'Brass-Button,'" promised Lundell, feeling rich with the two
crowns which he had saved from destruction.
Ygberg and Montanus had sauntered up the wooded eminence, intending to
sleep away the dinner hour; Olle beamed after his victories, but Ygberg
was depressed; his pupil had surpassed him. Moreover, his feet were
cold and he was unusually hungry, for the eager discussion of dinner
had awakened in him slumbering feelings successfully suppressed for
the last twelve months. They threw themselves under a pine tree;
Ygberg hid the precious, carefully wrapped up book, which he always
refused to lend to Olle, under his head, and stretched himself
full-length on the ground; he looked deadly pale, cold and calm like a
corpse which has abandoned all hope of resurrection. He watched some
little birds above his head picking at the pine seed and letting the
husks fall down on him; he watched a cow, the picture of robust health,
grazing among the alders; he saw the smoke rising from the gardener's
kitchen chimney.
"Are you hungry, Olle?" he asked in a feeble voice.
"No!" replied Olle, casting covetous looks at the wonderful book.
"Oh! to be a cow!" sighed Ygberg, crossing his hands on his chest and
giving himself up to all-merciful sleep.
When his low breathing had become regular, the waking friend gently
pulled the book from its hiding-place, without disturbing the sleeper;
then he turned over and lying on his stomach he began to devour the
precious contents, forgetting all about the "Sauce-Pan" and the
"Brass-Button."