CORRESPONDENCE
CANDIDATE BORG _to_ JOURNALIST STRUVE
NAeMDOe, _June_ 18--
OLD SCANDAL-MONGER!--As I am convinced that neither you nor Levin have
paid off your instalments of the loan made by the Shoemakers' Bank, I
am sending you herewith a promissory note, so that you may raise a new
loan from the Architects' Bank. If there is anything over after the
instalments have been paid up, we will divide it equally amongst us.
Please send me my share by steamer to Dalaroe, where I will call for it.
I have now had Falk under treatment for a month, and I believe he is on
the road to recovery.
You will remember that after Olle's famous lecture he left us abruptly
and, instead of making use of his brother and his brother's connexions,
went on the staff of the _Workman's Flag_, where he was ill-treated for
fifty crowns a month. But the wind of freedom which blew there must
have had a demoralizing effect on him, for he became morose and
neglected his appearance. With the help of the girl Beda I kept my eye
on him, and when I considered him ripe for a rupture with the
communards, I went and fetched him away.
I found him in a low public-house called "The Star," in the company of
two scandal writers with whom he was drinking brandy--I believe they
were writing at the same time. He was in a melancholy condition, as you
would say.
As you know, I regard mankind with calm indifference; men are to me
geological preparations, minerals; some crystallize under one
condition, others under another; it all depends on certain laws or
circumstances which should leave us completely unmoved. I don't weep
over the lime-spar, because it is not as hard as a rock-crystal.
Therefore I cannot regard Falk's condition as melancholy; it was the
outcome of his temperament (heart you would say) plus the circumstances
which his temperament had created.
But he was certainly "down" when I found him. I took him on board our
cutter and he remained passive. But just as we had pushed off, he
turned round and saw Beda standing on the shore, beckoning to him; I
can't think how she got there. On seeing her, our man went clear out of
his mind. Put me ashore! he screamed, threatening to jump overboard. I
seized him by the arms, pushed him into the cabin and locked the door.
As we passed Vaxholm, I posted two letters; one to the editor of the
_Workman's Flag_, begging him to excuse Falk's absence, and the other
to his landlady, asking her to send him his clothes.
In the meantime he had calmed down, and when he beheld the sea and the
skerries, he became sentimental and talked a great deal of nonsense: he
had lost all hope of ever seeing God's (?) green earth again, he said,
and so on.
But presently he began to suffer from something like qualms of
conscience. He maintained that he had no right to be happy and take a
holiday when there were so many unhappy people in the world; he
imagined that he was neglecting his duty towards the scoundrel who
edits the _Workman's Flag_, and begged us to row him back. When I
talked to him of the terrible time he had just gone through, he replied
that it was the duty of all men to work and suffer for one another.
This view had almost become a religion with him, but I have cured him
of it with soda water and salt baths. He was completely broken, and I
had great difficulty in patching him up, for it was hard to say where
the physical trouble ended and the psychical began.
I must say that in a certain respect he excites my astonishment--I
won't say admiration, for I never admire anybody. He seems to suffer
from an extraordinary mania which makes him act in direct contradiction
to his own interest. He might have been in a splendid position, if he
had not thrown up his career in the Civil Service, particularly as his
brother would, in that case have helped him with a sum of money.
Instead of that he cast his reputation to the winds and slaved for a
brutal plebeian; and all for the sake of his ideals! It is most
extraordinary!
But he seems to be mending at last, more particularly after a lesson he
had here. Can you believe it, he called the fishermen "sir," and took
off his hat to them. In addition he indulged in cordial chats with the
natives, in order to find out "how these people lived." The result was
that the fishermen pricked up their ears, and one of them asked me one
day whether "this Falk" paid for his own board, or whether the doctor
(I) paid for him? I told Falk about it and it depressed him; he is
always despondent, whenever he is robbed of a delusion. A few days
later he talked to our landlord on the subject of universal suffrage;
later on our landlord asked me whether Falk was in poor circumstances.
During the first few days he ran up and down the shore like a madman.
Often he swam far out into the fjoerd, as if he never meant to return
again. As I always looked upon suicide as the sacred right of every
individual, I did not interfere.
Isaac told me that Falk had opened his heart to him on the subject of
the girl Beda; she seems to have made an awful fool of him.
A propos of Isaac! He is one of the shrewdest fellows I ever met. He
has, after one month's study, mastered the Latin grammar, and he reads
his Caesar as we read the _Grey Bonnet_; and what's more, he knows all
about it, which we never did. His brain is receptive, that is to say,
capable of assimilating knowledge, and in addition to this it is
practical; this combination has produced many a genius, in spite of
gross stupidity in many other respects. Every now and then he indulges
his business instincts; the other day he gave us a brilliant example of
his talent in that direction.
I know nothing about his financial position--for in that respect he is
very reticent--but a little while ago he had to pay a few hundred
crowns. He was very fidgety, and as he did not want to apply to his
brother (of the "Triton") with whom he is not on friendly terms, he
asked me to lend him the sum. I was not in a position to do so.
Thereupon he sat down, took a sheet of note-paper, wrote a letter and
sent it off by special messenger. For a few days nothing happened.
In front of our cottage grew a pretty little oakwood which shaded us
from the sun and sheltered us from the strong sea breezes. I don't know
much about trees and things pertaining to nature, but I love to sit in
the shade when the days are hot. One morning, on pulling up my blind, I
was dumbfounded; I was looking at the open fjoerd and a yacht riding at
anchor about a cable-length from the shore. Every tree had gone, and
Isaac was sitting on a stump reading Euclid and counting the trunks as
they were being carried on board the yacht.
I wakened Falk; he was furious and had a quarrel with Isaac who made a
thousand crowns on the deal. Our landlord received two hundred, all he
had asked for. I could have killed Isaac, not because he had had the
trees cut down, but because I had not thought of it first.
Falk said it was unpatriotic, but Isaac swears that the removal of the
"rubbish" has improved the view; he declares that he will take a boat
next week and visit the neighbouring islets with the same object.
Our landlord's wife cried all day long, but her husband went to Dalaroe
to buy her a new dress; he remained away for two whole days, and when
he returned at last, he was drunk; there was nothing in the boat, and
when his wife asked for the new dress, the fisherman confessed that he
had forgotten all about it.
Enough for the present. Write soon and tell me a few new scandals, and
be careful how you manipulate the loan.
Your deadly enemy and security,
H. B.
P.S. I read in the papers that a Civil Service Bank is about to be
established. Who is going to put money into it? Keep an eye on it, so
that we can place a bill there when the time comes.
Please put the following paragraph into the _Grey Bonnet_; it will
affect my medical degree.
Scientific Discovery: Cand. Med. Henrik Borg, one of our younger
distinguished medical men has, while engaged in zootomic research on
the skerries near Stockholm, discovered a new species of the family
Clypeaster, to which he has given the very pertinent name of
_maritimus_. Its characteristics may be described as follows: Cutaneous
laminae in five porous ambulacral shields and five interambulacral
shields, with warts instead of pricks. The animal has excited much
interest in the scientific world.
* * * * *
ARVID FALK _to_ BEDA PETTERSON
NAMDO, _August_ 18--
As I walk along the seashore and see the roadweed growing in sand and
pebbles, I think of you blossoming for a whole winter in an inn of old
Stockholm.
I know nothing more delightful than to lie full length on a cliff and
feel the fragments of gneiss tickling my ribs while I gaze seaward. It
makes me feel proud, and I imagine that I am Prometheus, while the
vulture--that is you--has to lie in a feather bed in Sandberg Street
and swallow mercury.
Seaweed is of no use while it grows at the bottom of the sea; but when
it decays on the shore it smells of iodine which is a cure for love,
and bromide, which is a cure for insanity.
There was no hell until Paradise was quite complete, that is to say
until woman was created (chestnut!).
Far away, by the open sea, there lives a pair of eider ducks, in an old
quarter cask. If one considers that the stretched out wings of the
eider measure two feet, it seems a miracle--and love is a miracle. The
whole world is too small for me.
* * * * *
BEDA PETTERSON _to_ MR. FALK
STOCKHOLM, _August_ 18--
DEAR FRENT,--i have just receeved your letter, but i cannot say that i
have understood it, i see you think that i am in Sandberg Street, but
that is a grate lie and i can undertand why that blackgard says i am,
it is a grate lie and i sware that i love you as much as befor, i often
long to see you but it canot be yet.
Your fathfull Beda.
P. S. Dear Arvid, if you could lent me 30 crowns till the 15th, i sware
i will pay it back on the 15th becos i shall receeve money then, i have
been so ill and i am often so sad that i wish i was dead. The barmaid
in the cafe was a horrid creechur who was jelous becaus of the stout
Berglund and that is why i left. All they say of me is lies i hope you
are well and dont forget your
The same.
You can send the money to Hulda in the Cafe then i shall get it.
* * * * *
CANDIDATE BORG _to_ JOURNALIST STRUVE
NAeMDOe, _August_ 18--
CONSERVATIVE BLACKGUARD,--You must have embezzled the money, for
instead of receiving cash, I received a request for payment from the
Shoemakers' Bank. Do you imagine a man has a right to steal because he
has a wife and children? Render an account at once, else I shall come
up to town and make a row.
I have read the paragraph, which, of course, was not without errors. It
said zoologic instead of zootomic, and Crypeaster instead of
Clypeaster. Nevertheless, I hope it will serve its purpose.
Falk went mad after receiving a letter in a feminine handwriting a day
or two ago. One minute he was climbing trees, at the next he was diving
to the bottom of the sea. I expect it was the crisis--I'll talk to him
like a father a little later on.
Isaac has sold his yacht without asking my permission, and for this
reason we are, at the moment, enemies. He is at present reading the
second book of Livy and founding a Fishing Company.
He has bought a stroemming-net, a seal-gun, twenty-five pipe stems, a
salmon line, two bass-nets, a shed for drag-nets and a--church. The
latter seems incredible, but it is quite true. I admit it was scorched
a little by the Russians in 1719, but the walls are still standing. The
parish possesses a new one which serves the ordinary purpose; the old
one was used as a parochial store-room. Isaac is thinking of making the
Academy a present of it, in the hope of receiving the order of Vasa.
The latter has been given for less. Isaac's uncle, who is an innkeeper,
received it for treating the deaf and dumb to bread and butter and beer
when they used the riding-ground in the autumn. He did it for six
years. Then he received his reward. Now he takes no more notice of the
deaf and dumb, which proves how fatal the order of Vasa may be under
certain circumstances.
Unless I drown the rascal Isaac, he won't rest until he has bought all
Sweden.
Pull yourself together and behave like an honourable man, or I shall
bear down upon you like Jehu, and then you'll be lost.
H. B.
P.S. When you write the notice relating to the distinguished strangers
at Dalaroe, mention me and Falk, but ignore Isaac; his presence
irritates me--he went and sold his yacht.
Send me some blank bills (blue ones, sola-bills) when you send the
money.
* * * * *
CANDIDATE BORG _to_ JOURNALIST STRUVE
NAeMDOe, _September_ 18--
MAN OF HONOUR!--Money arrived! Seems to have been exchanged, for the
Architects' Bank always pays in Scanian bills of fifty. However, never
mind!
Falk is well; he has passed the crisis like a man; he has regained his
self-confidence--a most important quality as far as worldly success
goes, but a quality which, according to statistics is considerably
weakened in children who lose their mothers at an early age. I gave him
a prescription which he promised to try all the more readily as the
same idea had occurred to him. He will return to his former profession,
but without accepting his brother's help--his last act of folly of
which I do not approve--re-enter society, register his name with the
rest of the cattle, become respectable, make himself a social position,
and hold his tongue until his word bears weight.
The latter is absolutely necessary, if he is to remain alive; he has a
tendency to insanity, and is bound to lose his reason unless he forgets
all about these ideas which I really cannot understand; and I don't
believe that he himself could define what it is he wants.
He has begun the cure and I am amazed at his progress. I'm sure he'll
end as a member of the Royal Household.
That is what I believed until a few days ago when he read in a paper an
account of the Commune at Paris. He at once had a relapse and took to
climbing trees again. He got over it, though, and now he does not dare
to look at a paper. But he never says a word. Beware of the man when
his apprenticeship is over.
Isaac is now learning Greek. He considers the text-books too stupid and
too long; therefore he takes them to pieces, cuts out the most
important bits and pastes them into an account book which he has
arranged like a summary for his forthcoming examinations.
Unfortunately, his increasing knowledge of the classics makes him
impudent and disagreeable. So, for instance, he dared to contradict the
pastor the other day while playing a game of draughts with him, and
maintain that the Jews had invented Christianity and that all those
baptized were really Jews. Latin and Greek have ruined him! I am afraid
that I have nursed a dragon in my hairy bosom; if this is so, then the
seed of the woman must bruise the serpent's head.
H. B.
P.S. Falk has shaved his American beard and no longer raises his hat to
the fishermen.
You'll not hear from me again from Naemdoe. We are returning to town on
Monday.