RECOVERY
It was autumn again. On a clear November morning Arvid Falk was walking
from his elegantly furnished rooms in Great Street to ... man's
Boarding School near Charles XII Market, where he had an appointment as
master of the Swedish language and history.
During the autumn months he had made his way back into civilized
society, a proceeding which had brought home to him the fact that he
had become a perfect savage during his wanderings. He had discarded his
disreputable hat and bought a high one which he found difficult, at
first, to keep on his head; he had bought gloves, but in his savagery
he had replied "fifteen" when the shopgirl asked for his size, and
blushed when his reply brought a smile to the face of every girl in the
shop.
The fashion had changed, since he had last bought clothes; as he was
walking through the streets, he looked upon himself as a dandy, and
every now and then examined his reflexion in the shop windows, to see
whether his garments set well.
Now he was strolling up and down the pavement before the Dramatic
Theatre and waiting for the clock on St. James' Church to strike nine;
he felt uneasy and embarrassed, as if he were a schoolboy going to
school himself; the pavement was so short, and as again and again he
retraced his footsteps he compared himself to a dog on a chain.
For a moment he had a wild thought of taking a wider range, a very much
wider range, for if he went straight on, he would come to Lill-Jans,
and he remembered the spring morning when that very pavement had led
him away from society, which he detested, into liberty, nature,
and--slavery.
It struck nine. He stood in the corridor; the schoolroom doors were
closed; in the twilight he saw a long row of children's garments
hanging against the wall: hats, boas, bonnets, wraps, gloves, and muffs
were lying on tables and window sills, and whole regiments of button
boots and overshoes stood on the floor. But there was no smell of damp
clothes and wet leather as in the halls of the Parliamentary Buildings
and in the Working-men's Union "Phoenix," or--he became conscious of a
faint odour of newly mown hay--it seemed to come from a little muff
lined with blue silk and trimmed with tassels, which looked like a
white kitten with black dots. He could not resist taking it in his hand
and smelling the perfume--new-mown hay--when the front door opened and
a little girl of about ten came in accompanied by a maid.
She looked at the master with big fearless eyes, and dropped a
coquettish little curtsey; the almost embarrassed master replied with a
bow which made the little beauty smile--and the maid, too. She was
late; but she was quite unconcerned and allowed her maid to take off
her outdoor garments and overshoes as calmly as if she had come to a
dance.
From the class-room came a sound which made his heart beat--what was
it? Ah! The organ--the old organ! a legion of children's voices were
singing "Jesus, at the day's beginning...." He felt ill at ease, and
forced himself to fix his mind on Borg and Isaac in order to control
his feelings.
But matters went from bad to worse: "Our Father, which art in
Heaven...." The old prayer--it was long ago....
The silence was so profound that he could hear the raising of all the
little heads and the rustling of collars and pinafores; the doors were
thrown open; he looked at a huge, moving flower-bed composed of little
girls between eight and fourteen. He felt self-conscious like a thief
caught in the act, when the old headmistress shook hands with him; the
flowers waved to and fro, and there was much excited whispering and
exchanging of significant glances.
He sat down at the end of a long table, surrounded by twenty fresh
faces with sparkling eyes; twenty children who had never experienced
the bitterest of all sorrows, the humiliations of poverty; they met his
glance boldly and inquisitively, but he was embarrassed and had to pull
himself together with an effort; before long, however, he was on
friendly terms with Anna and Charlotte, Georgina and Lizzy and Harry;
teaching was a pleasure. He made allowances, and let Louis XIV and
Alexander be termed great men, like all others who had been successful;
he permitted the French Revolution to be called a terrible event,
during which the noble Louis XVI and the virtuous Marie Antoinette
perished miserably, and so on.
When he entered the office of the Board of Purveyance of Hay for the
Cavalry Regiments, he felt young and refreshed. He stayed till eleven
reading the _Conservative_; then he went to the offices of the
Committee on Brandy Distilleries, lunched, and wrote two letters, one
to Borg and one to Struve.
On the stroke of one he was in the Department for Death Duties. Here he
collated an assessment of property which brought him in a hundred
crowns; he had time enough before dinner to read the proofs of the
revised edition of the Forest Laws, which he was editing.
It struck three. Anybody crossing the Riddarhus Market at that time
could have met on the bridge a young, important-looking man, with
pockets bulging with manuscripts, and hands crossed on his back; he is
strolling slowly along, accompanied by an elderly, lean, grey-haired
man of fifty, the actuary of the dead. The estate of every citizen who
dies has to be declared to him; according to the amount he takes his
percentage; some say that this is his duty; others that he represents
the Earth, and has to watch that the dead take nothing away with them,
as everything is a loan--without interest. In any case, he is a man
more interested in the dead than the living, and therefore Falk likes
his company; he, on the other hand, is attached to Falk because, like
himself, he collects coins and autographs, and because he possesses
that excellent quality, tolerance, which is rarely found in a young
man.
The two friends enter the Restaurant Rosengren, where they are fairly
certain not to meet young men and where they can discuss numismatics
and autography. They take their coffee in the Cafe Rydberg and look at
catalogues of coins until six. At six o'clock the official _Post_
appears, and they read the promotions.
Each enjoys the other's company, for they never quarrel. Falk is so
free from fixed opinions that he is the most amiable man in the world,
liked and appreciated by chiefs and colleagues.
Occasionally they dine in the Hamburg Exchange and take a liqueur or
two at the Opera Restaurant, and to see them walking along arm in arm,
at eleven o'clock, is really quite an edifying sight.
Moreover, Falk has become a regular guest at family dinners and suppers
in houses into which Borg's father has introduced him. The women find
him interesting, although they do not know how to take him; he is
always smiling and expert at sarcastic little pleasantries.
But when he is sick of family life and the social life, he visits the
Red Room, and there he meets the redoubtable Borg, his admirer Isaac,
his secret enemy and envier Struve, the man who never has any money,
and the sarcastic Sellen, who is gradually preparing his second
success, after all his imitators have accustomed the public to his
manner.
Lundell, who, after the completion of his altar-piece, gave up painting
sacred pictures and became a fat Epicurean, only comes to the Red Room
when he has no money to pay for his dinner; he makes a living by
portrait painting, a profession which brings him countless invitations
to dinners and suppers; Lundell maintains that these invitations are
essential for making character studies.
Olle, who is still employed by the stonemason, has become a gloomy
misanthrope after his great failure as a politician and orator. He
refuses "to impose on" his former friends and lives a solitary life.
Falk is in a boisterous, riotous mood whenever he visits the Red Room,
and Borg is of opinion that he does him credit; he is a veritable
_sappeur_ to whom nothing is sacred--except politics; this is a subject
on which he never touches. But if, while he lets off his fireworks for
the amusement of his friends, he should catch, through the dense
tobacco smoke, a glimpse of the morose Olle on the other side of the
room, his mood changes, he becomes gloomy like a night on the sea, and
swallows large quantities of strong liquor, as if he wanted to
extinguish a smouldering fire.
But Olle has not been seen for a long time.