THE SON OF A SERVANT
BY
AUGUST STRINDBERG
AUTHOR OF "THE INFERNO," "ZONES OF THE SPIRIT," ETC.
TRANSLATED BY CLAUD FIELD
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
HENRY VACHER-BURCH
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1913
CONTENTS
I. Fear and Hunger
II. Breaking-In
III. Away from Home
IV. Intercourse with the Lower Classes
V. Contact with the Upper Classes
VI. The School of the Cross
VII. First Love
VIII. The Spring Thaw
IX. With Strangers
X. Character and Destiny
AUGUST STRINDBERG AS NOVELIST
_From the Publication of "The Son of a Servant" to "The Inferno"_
(1886-1896)
A celebrated statesman is said to have described the biography of a
cardinal as being like the Judgment Day. In reading August Strindberg's
autobiographical writings, as, for example, his _Inferno_, and the book
for which this study is a preface, we must remember that he portrays
his own Judgment Day. And as his works have come but lately before the
great British public, it may be well to consider what attitude should
be adopted towards the amazing candour of his self-revelation. In most
provinces of life other than the comprehension of our fellows, the art
of understanding is making great progress. We comprehend new phenomena
without the old strain upon our capacity for readjusting our point of
view. But do we equally well understand our fellow-being whose way of
life is not ours? We are patient towards new phases of philosophy,
new discoveries in science, new sociological facts, observed in other
lands; but in considering an abnormal type of man or woman, hasty
judgment or a too contracted outlook is still liable to cloud the
judgment.
Now, it is obvious that if we would understand any worker who has
accomplished what his contemporaries could only attempt to do, we
must have a sufficiently wide knowledge of his work. Neither the
inconsequent gossip attaching to such a personality, nor the chance
perusal of a problem-play, affords an adequate basis for arriving at
a true estimate of the man. Few writers demand, to the same degree as
August Strindberg, those graces of judgment, patience, and reverence.
And for this reason first of all: most of us live sheltered lives. They
are few who stand in the heart of the storm made by Europe's progress.
Especially is this true in Southern Europe, where tradition holds its
secular sway, where such a moulding energy as constitutional practice
exerts its influence over social life, where the aims and ends of human
attainment are defined and sanctioned by a consciousness developing
with the advancement of civilisation. There is often engendered under
such conditions a nervous impatience towards those who, judged from
behind the sheltered walls of orthodoxy, are more or less exposed to
the criticism of their fellows. The fault lies in yielding to this
impatience. The proof that August Strindberg was of the few who must
stand in the open, and suffer the full force of all the winds that
blow, cannot now be attempted. Our sole aim must be to enable the
reader of _The Son of a Servant_ to take up a sympathetic standpoint.
This book forms _part_ of the autobiography of a most gifted man,
through whose life the fierce winds of Europe's opinions blew into
various expression.
The second reason for the exercise of impartiality, is that
Strindberg's recent death has led to the circulation through Europe of
certain phrases which are liable to displace the balance of judgment
in reviewing his life and work. There are passages in his writings,
and phases of his autobiography, that raise questions of Abnormal
Psychology. Hence pathological terms are used to represent the whole
man and his work. Again, from the jargon of a prevalent Nietzschianism
a doctrine at once like and unlike the teaching of that solitary
thinker descriptions of the Superman are borrowed, and with these
Strindberg is labelled. Or again, certain incidents in his domestic
affairs are seized upon to prove him a decadent libertine. The facts of
this book, _The Son of a Servant_, are true: Strindberg lived them. His
_Inferno_, in like manner, is a transcript of a period of his life. And
if these books are read as they should be read, they are neither more
nor less than the records of the progress of a most gifted life along
the Dolorous Way.
The present volume is the record of the early years of Strindberg's
life, and the story is incomparably told. For the sympathetic reader it
will represent the history of a temperament to which the world could
not come in easy fashion, and for which circumstances had contrived a
world where it would encounter at each step tremendous difficulties.
We find in Strindberg the consciousness of vast powers thwarted by
neglect, by misunderstanding, and by the shackles of an ignominious
parentage. He sets out on life as a viking, sailing the trackless seas
that beat upon the shores of unknown lands, where he must take the
sword to establish his rights of venture, and write fresh pages in some
Heimskringla of a later age.
A calm reading of the book may induce us to suggest that this is often
the fate of genius. The man of great endowments is made to walk where
hardship lies on every side. And though a recognition of the hardness
of the way is something, it must be borne in mind that while some are
able to pass along it in serenity, others face it in tears, and others
again in terrible revolt. Revolt was the only possible attitude for the
Son of a Servant.
How true this is may be realised by recalling the fact that towards
the end of the same year in which _The Son of a Servant_ appeared,
viz., 1886, our author published the second part of a series of stories
entitled _Marriage_, in which that relationship is subjected to
criticism more intense than is to be found in any of the many volumes
devoted to this subject in a generation eminently given to this form
of criticism. Side by side with this fact should be set the contents
of one such story from his pen. Here he has etched, with acid that
bites deeper than that of the worker in metal, the story of a woman's
pettiness and inhumanity towards the husband who loves her. By his
art her weakness is made to dominate every detail of the domestic
_ménage_, and what was once a woman now appears to be the spirit of
neglect, whose habitation is garnished with dust and dead flowers.
Her great weakness calls to the man's pity, and we are told how, into
this disorder, he brings the joy of Christmastide, and the whispered
words of life, like a wind from some flower-clad hill. The natural
conclusion, as regards both his autobiographical works and his volume
of stories, is this: that Strindberg finds the Ideal to be a scourge,
and not a Pegasus. And this is a distinction that sharply divides man
from man, whether endowed for the attainment of saintship, for the
apprehension of the vision, or with powers that enable him to wander
far over the worlds of thought.
Had Strindberg intended to produce some more finished work to qualify
the opinion concerning his pessimism, he could have done no better
than write the novel that comes next in the order of his works, _Hemso
Folk_, which was given to the world in the year 1887. It is the first
of his novels to draw on the natural beauties of the rocky coast and
many tiny islands which make up the splendour of the Fjord whose
crown is Stockholm, and which, continuing north and south, provide
fascinating retreats, still unspoilt and unexplored by the commercial
agent. It may be noticed here that this northern Land of Faery has
not long since found its way into English literature through a story
by Mr. Algernon Blackwood, in his interesting volume, _John Silence_.
The adequate description of this region was reserved for August
Strindberg, and among his prose writings there are none to compare with
those that have been inspired by the islands and coast he delighted
in. Among them, _Hemso Folk_ ranks first. In this work he shows his
mastery, not of self-portraiture, but of the portraiture of other men,
and his characters are painted with a mastery of subject and material
which in a sister art would cause one to think of Velasquez. Against
a background of sea and sky stand the figures of a schoolmaster and
a priest--the portraits of both depicted with the highest art,--and
throughout the book may be heard the authentic speech of the soul of
Strindberg's North. He may truly be claimed to be most Swedish here;
but he may also with equal truth be claimed to be most universal, since
_Hemso Folk_ is true for all time, and in all places.
In the following year (1888) was published another volume of tales by
Strindberg, entitled _Life on the Skerries_, and again the sea, and
the sun, and the life of men who commune with the great waters are the
sources of his virile inspiration. Other novels of a like kind were
written later, but at this hour of his life he yielded to the command
of the idea--a voice which called him more strongly than did the
magnificence of Nature, whose painter he could be when he had respite
from the whirlwind.
_Tschandala_, his next book, was the fruit of a holiday in the country.
This novel was written to show a man of uncommon powers of mind in the
toils of inferior folk--the proletariat of soul bent on the ruin of
the elect in soul. Poverty keeps him in chains. He is forced to deal
with neighbours of varying degrees of degradation. A landlady deceives
her husband for the sake of a vagrant lover. This person attempts to
subordinate the uncommon man; who, however, discovers that he can be
dominated through his superstitious fears. He is enticed one night
into a field, where the projections from a lantern, imagined as
supernatural beings, so play upon his fears that he dies from fright.
In this book we evidently have the experimental upsurging of his
imagination: supposing himself the victim of a sordid environment,
he can see with unveiled eyes what might happen to him. Realistic in
his apprehension of outward details, he sees the idea in its vaguest
proportions. This creates, this informs his pictures of Nature; this
also makes his heaven and hell. Inasmuch as a similar method is used
by certain modern novelists, the curious phrase "a novel of ideas" has
been coined. As though it were a surprising feature to find an idea
expressed in novels! And not rarely such works are said to be lacking
in warmth, because they are too full of thought.
After _Tschandala_ come two or three novels of distinctly controversial
character--books of especial value in essaying an understanding of
Strindberg's mind. The pressure of ideas from many quarters of Europe
was again upon him, and caused him to undertake long and desperate
pilgrimages. _In the Offing_ and _To Damascus_ are the suggestive
titles of these books. Seeing, however, that a detailed sketch of the
evolution of Strindberg's opinions is not at this moment practicable,
we merely mention these works, and the years 1890 and 1892.
Meanwhile our author has passed through two intervals in his life of a
more peaceful character than was usually his lot. The first of these
was spent among his favourite scenes in the vicinity of the Gulf of
Bothnia, where he lived like a hermit, writing poetry and painting
pictures. He might have become a painter of some note, had it not come
so natural to him to use the pen. At any rate, during the time that he
wielded the brush he put on canvas the scenes which he succeeded in
reproducing so marvellously in his written works. The other period of
respite was during a visit to Ola Hansson, a Swedish writer of rare
distinction, then living near Berlin. The author of _Sensitiva Amorosa_
was the antithesis of Strindberg. A consummate artist, with a wife of
remarkable intellectual power, the two enfolded him in their peace, and
he was able to give full expression to his creative faculty.
Strindberg now enters upon the period which culminates in the writing
of _The Inferno_. From the peace of Ola Hansson's home he set out
on his wedding tour, and during the early part of it came over to
England. In a remarkable communication to a Danish man of letters,
Strindberg answers many questions concerning his personal tastes, among
them several regarding his English predilections. We may imagine them
present to him as he looks upon the sleeping city from London Bridge,
in the greyness of a Sunday morning, after a journey from Gravesend.
His favourite English writer is Dickens, and of his works the most
admired is _Little Dorrit_. A novel written in the period described in
_The Son of a Servant_, and which first brought him fame, was inspired
by the reading of _David Copperfield_! His favourite painter is Turner.
These little sidelights upon the personality of the man are very
interesting, throwing into relief as they do the view of him adopted by
the writer of the foregoing pages. London, however, he disliked, and a
crisis in health compelled him to leave for Paris, from which moment
begins his journey through the "Inferno."
A play of Strindberg's has been performed in Paris--the height of his
ambition. Once attained, it was no longer to be desired; accordingly,
he turned from the theatre to Science. He takes from their hiding-place
some chemical apparatus he had purchased long before. Drawing the
blinds of his room he bums pure sulphur until he believes that he has
discovered in it the presence of carbon. His sentences are written
in terse, swift style. A page or two of the book is turned over, and
we find his pen obeying the impulse of his penetrating sight....
Separation from his wife; the bells of Christmas; his visit to a
hospital, and the people he sees there, begin to occupy him. Gratitude
to the nursing sister, and the reaching forward of his mind into the
realm of the alchemical significance of his chemical studies, arouse
in him a spirit of mystical asceticism. Pages of _The Inferno_ might
be cited to show their resemblance to documents which have come to us
from the Egyptian desert, or from the narrow cell of a recluse. Theirs
is the search for a spiritual union: his is the quest of a negation
of self, that his science might be without fault. A notion of destiny
is grafted upon his mysticism of science. He wants to be led, as did
the ascetic, though for him the goal is lore hidden from mortal eyes.
He now happens upon confirmation of his scientific curiosity, in
the writings of an older chemist. Then he meets with Balzac's novel
_Séraphita_, and a new ecstasy is added to his outreaching towards the
knowledge he aspires to. Vivid temptations assail him; he materialises
as objective personalities the powers that appear to place obstacles
in the way of his researches. Again we observe the same phenomena as
in the soul of the monk, yet always with this difference: Strindberg
is the monk of science. Curious little experiences--that others would
brush into that great dust-bin, Chance--are examined with a rare
simplicity to see if they may hold significance for the order of his
life. These details accumulate as we turn the pages of _The Inferno_,
and force one to the conclusion that they are akin to the material
which we have only lately begun to study as phenomena peculiar to the
psychology of the religious life. Their summary inclusion under the
heading of "Abnormal Psychology" will, however, lead to a shallow
interpretation of Strindberg. The voluntary isolation of himself from
the relations of life and the world plays havoc with his health. Soon
he is established under a doctor's care in a little southern Swedish
town, with its memories of smugglers and pirates; and he immediately
likens the doctor's house to a Buddhist cloister. The combination is
typically Strindbergian! He begins to be haunted with the terrible
suspicion that he is being plotted against. Nature is exacting heavy
dues from his overwrought system. After thirty days' treatment he
leaves the establishment with the reflection that whom the Lord loveth
he chasteneth.
Dante wrote his Divine Comedy; Strindberg his Mortal Comedy. There are
three great stages in each, and the literary vehicle of their perilous
journeyings is aptly chosen. Readers of the wonderful Florentine will
recall the familiar words:
"Surge ai mortali per diverse foci
la lucerna de mondo."[1]
And they have found deeper content in Strindberg's self-discoveries.
The first part of his _Inferno_ tells of his Purgatory; the second
part closes with the poignant question, Whither? If, for a moment,
we step beyond the period of his life with which this study deals,
we shall find him telling of his Paradise in a mystery-play entitled
_Advent_, where he, too, had a starry vision of "un simplice lume,"
a simple flame that ingathers the many and scattered gleams of the
universe's revelation. His guide through Hell is Swedenborg. Once more
the note is that of the anchorite; for at the outset of his acceptance
of Swedenborg's guidance he is tempted to believe that even his guide's
spiritual teaching may weaken his belief in a God who chastens. He
desires to deny himself the gratification of the sight of his little
daughter, because he appears to consider her prattle, that breaks
into the web of his contemplation, to be the instrument of a strange
power. From step to step he goes until his faith is childlike as a
peasant's. How he is hurled again into the depths of his own Hell, the
closing pages of his book will tell us. Whatever views the reader may
hold, it seems impossible that he should see in this Mortal Comedy the
utterances of deranged genius. Rather will his charity of judgment have
led him to a better understanding of one who listened to the winds that
blow through Europe, and was buffeted by their violence.
We may close this brief study by asking the question: What, then,
is Strindberg's legacy for the advancement of Art, as found in this
decade of his life? It will surely be seen that Strindberg's realism
is of a peculiarly personal kind. Whatever his sympathy with Zola
may have been, or Zola's with him, Strindberg has never confounded
journalism with Art. He has also recognised in his novels that there
is a difference between the function of the camera and the eye of the
artist. More than this--and it is important if Strindberg is to be
understood--his realism has always been subservient to the idea. And
it is this power that has essentially rendered Strindberg's realism
peculiarly personal; that is to say, incapable of being copied or
forming a school. It can only be used by such as he who, standing
in the maelstrom of ideas, is fashioned and attuned by the whirling
storms, as they strive for complete expression. Not always, however,
is he subservient to their dominion. Sometimes cast down from the high
places whence the multitudinous voice can be heard, he may say and do
that which raises fierce criticism. A patient study of Strindberg will
lay bare such matters; but their discovery must not blind our eyes
to the truth that these are moments of insensitiveness towards, or
rejection of, the majestic power which is ceaselessly sculpturing our
highest Western civilisation.
HENRY VACHER-BURCH.
[1] "There riseth up to mortals through diverse trials the light of the
world."
The Son of a Servant
I
FEAR AND HUNGER
In the third story of a large house near the Clara Church in
Stockholm, the son of the shipping agent and the servant-maid awoke
to self-consciousness. The child's first impressions were, as he
remembered afterwards, fear and hunger. He feared the darkness and
blows, he feared to fall, to knock himself against something, or to
go in the streets. He feared the fists of his brothers, the roughness
of the servant-girl, the scolding of his grandmother, the rod of
his mother, and his father's cane. He was afraid of the general's
man-servant, who lived on the ground-floor, with his skull-cap and
large hedge-scissors; he feared the landlord's deputy, when he played
in the courtyard with the dust-bin; he feared the landlord, who was
a magistrate. Above him loomed a hierarchy of authorities wielding
various rights, from the right of seniority of his brothers to the
supreme tribunal of his father. And yet above his father was the
deputy-landlord, who always threatened him with the landlord. This last
was generally invisible, because he lived in the country, and perhaps,
for that reason, was the most feared of all. But again, above all, even
above the man-servant with the skull-cap, was the general, especially
when he sallied forth in uniform wearing his plumed three-cornered hat.
The child did not know what a king looked like, but he knew that the
general went to the King. The servant-maids also used to tell stories
of the King, and showed the child his picture. His mother generally
prayed to God in the evening, but the child could form no distinct idea
of God, except that He must certainly be higher than the King.
This tendency to fear was probably not the child's own peculiarity,
but due to the troubles which his parents had undergone shortly before
his birth. And the troubles had been great. Three children had been
born before their marriage and John soon after it. Probably his birth
had not been desired, as his father had gone bankrupt just before, so
that he came to the light in a now pillaged house, in which was only a
bed, a table, and a couple of chairs. About the same time his father's
brother had died in a state of enmity with him, because his father
would not give up his wife, but, on the contrary, made the tie stronger
by marriage. His father was of a reserved nature, which perhaps
betokened a strong will. He was an aristocrat by birth and education.
There was an old genealogical table which traced his descent to a noble
family of the sixteenth century. His paternal ancestors were pastors
from Zemtland, of Norwegian, possibly Finnish blood. It had become
mixed by emigration. His mother was of German birth, and belonged to a
carpenter's family. His father was a grocer in Stockholm, a captain of
volunteers, a freemason, and adherent of Karl Johann.
John's mother was a poor tailor's daughter, sent into domestic service
by her step-father. She had become a waitress when John's father met
her. She was democratic by instinct, but she looked up to her husband,
because he was of "good family," and she loved him; but whether as
deliverer, as husband, or as family-provider, one does not know, and it
is difficult to decide.
He addressed his man-servant and maid as "thou," and she called him
"sir." In spite of his come-down in the world, he did not join the
party of malcontents, but fortified himself with religious resignation,
saying, "It is God's will," and lived a lonely life at home. But he
still cherished the hope of being able to raise himself again.
He was, however, fundamentally an aristocrat, even in his habits. His
face was of an aristocratic type, beardless, thin-skinned, with hair
like Louis Philippe. He wore glasses, always dressed elegantly, and
liked clean linen. The man-servant who cleaned his boots had to wear
gloves when doing so, because his hands were too dirty to be put into
them.
John's mother remained a democrat at heart. Her dress was always simple
but clean. She wished the children to be clean and tidy, nothing more.
She lived on intimate terms with the servants, and punished a child,
who had been rude to one of them, upon the bare accusation, without
investigation or inquiry. She was always kind to the poor, and however
scanty the fare might be at home, a beggar was never sent empty away.
Her old nurses, four in number, often came to see her, and were
received as old friends. The storm of financial trouble had raged
severely over the whole family, and its scattered members had crept
together like frightened poultry, friends and foes alike, for they felt
that they needed one another for mutual protection. An aunt rented two
rooms in the house. She was the widow of a famous English discoverer
and manufacturer, who had been ruined. She received a pension,
on which she lived with two well-educated daughters. She was an
aristocrat, having formerly possessed a splendid house, and conversed
with celebrities. She loved her brother, though disapproving of his
marriage, and had taken care of his children when the storm broke.
She wore a lace cap, and the children kissed her hand. She taught
them to sit straight on their chairs, to greet people politely, and
to express themselves properly. Her room had traces of bygone luxury,
and contained gifts from many rich friends. It had cushioned rose-wood
furniture with embroidered covers in the English style. It was adorned
with the picture of her deceased husband dressed as a member of the
Academy of Sciences and wearing the order of Gustavus Vasa. On the
wall there hung a large oil-painting of her father in the uniform of a
major of volunteers. This man the children always regarded as a king,
for he wore many orders, which later on they knew were freemasonry
insignia. The aunt drank tea and read English books. Another room was
occupied by John's mother's brother, a small trader in the New Market,
as well as by a cousin, the son of the deceased uncle, a student in the
Technological Institute.
In the nursery lived the grandmother. She was a stem old lady who
mended hose and blouses, taught the ABC, rocked the cradle, and pulled
hair. She was religious, and went to early service in the Clara Church.
In the winter she carried a lantern, for there were no gas-lamps at
that time. She kept in her own place, and probably loved neither her
son-in-law nor his sister. They were too polite for her. He treated her
with respect, but not with love.
John's father and mother, with seven children and two servants,
occupied three rooms. The furniture mostly consisted of tables and
beds. Children lay on the ironing boards and the chairs, children in
the cradles and the beds. The father had no room for himself, although
he was constantly at home. He never accepted an invitation from his
many business friends, because he could not return it. He never went to
the restaurant or the theatre. He had a wound which he concealed and
wished to heal. His recreation was the piano. One of the nieces came
every other evening and then Haydn's symphonies were played _à quatre
mains_, later on Mozart, but never anything modern. Afterwards he had
also another recreation as circumstances permitted. He cultivated
flowers in window-boxes, but only pelargoniums. Why pelargoniums? When
John had grown older and his mother was dead, he fancied he always saw
her standing by one. She was pale, she had had twelve confinements and
suffered from lung-complaint. Her face was like the transparent white
leaves of the pelargonium with its crimson veins, which grow darker
towards the pistil, where they seemed to form an almost black eye, like
hers.
The father appeared only at meal-times. He was melancholy, weary,
strict, serious, but not hard. He seemed severer than he really was,
because on his return home he always had to settle a number of things
which he could not judge properly. Besides, his name was always used to
frighten the children. "I will tell papa that," signified a thrashing.
It was not exactly a pleasant rôle which fell to his share. Towards
the mother he was always gentle. He kissed her after every meal and
thanked her for the food. This accustomed the children, unjustly
enough, to regard her as the giver of all that was good, and the father
as the dispenser of all that was evil. They feared him. When the cry
"Father is coming!" was heard, all the children ran and hid themselves,
or rushed to the nursery to be combed and washed. At the table there
was deathly silence, and the father spoke only a little.
The mother had a nervous temperament. She used to become easily
excited, but soon quieted down again. She was relatively content with
her life, for she had risen in the social scale, and had improved her
position and that of her mother and brother. She drank her coffee in
bed in the mornings, and had her nurses, two servants, and her mother
to help her. Probably she did not over-exert herself.
But for the children she played the part of Providence itself. She cut
overgrown nails, tied up injured fingers, always comforted, quieted,
and soothed when the father punished, although she was the official
accuser. The children did not like her when she "sneaked," and she
did not win their respect. She could be unjust, violent, and punish
unseasonably on the bare accusation of a servant; but the children
received food and comfort from her, therefore they loved her. The
father, on the other hand, always remained a stranger, and was regarded
rather as a foe than a friend.
That is the thankless position of the father in the family--the
provider for all, and the enemy of all. If he came home tired, hungry,
and ill-humoured, found the floor only just scoured and the food
ill-cooked, and ventured a remark, he received a curt reply. He lived
in his own house as if on sufferance, and the children hid away from
him. He was less content than his wife, for he had come down in the
world, and was obliged to do without things to which he had formerly
been accustomed. And he was not pleased when he saw those to whom he
had given life and food discontented.
But the family is a very imperfect arrangement. It is properly an
institution for eating, washing, and ironing, and a very uneconomical
one. It consists chiefly of preparations for meals, market-shopping,
anxieties about bills, washing, ironing, starching, and scouring. Such
a lot of bustle for so few persons! The keeper of a restaurant, who
serves hundreds, hardly does more.
The education consisted of scolding, hair-pulling, and exhortations to
obedience. The child heard only of his duties, nothing of his rights.
Everyone else's wishes carried weight; his were suppressed. He could
begin nothing without doing wrong, go nowhere without being in the way,
utter no word without disturbing someone. At last he did not dare to
move. His highest duty and virtue was to sit on a chair and be quiet.
It was always dinned into him that he had no will of his own, and so
the foundation of a weak character was laid.
Later on the cry was, "What will people say?" And thus his will was
broken, so that he could never be true to himself, but was forced to
depend on the wavering opinions of others, except on the few occasions
when he felt his energetic soul work independently of his will.
The child was very sensitive. He wept so often that he received a
special nickname for doing so. He felt the least remark keenly, and
was in perpetual anxiety lest he should do something wrong. He was
very awake to injustice, and while he had a high ideal for himself,
he narrowly watched the failings of his brothers. When they were
unpunished, he felt deeply injured; when they were undeservedly
rewarded, his sense of justice suffered. He was accordingly considered
envious. He then complained to his mother. Sometimes she took his part,
but generally she told him not to judge so severely. But they judged
him severely, and demanded that he should judge himself severely.
Therefore he withdrew into himself and became bitter. His reserve and
shyness grew on him. He hid himself if he received a word of praise,
and took a pleasure in being overlooked. He began to be critical and to
take a pleasure in self-torture; he was melancholy and boisterous by
turns.
His eldest brother was hysterical; if he became vexed during some game,
he often had attacks of choking with convulsive laughter. This brother
was the mother's favourite, and the second one the father's. In all
families there are favourites; it is a fact that one child wins more
sympathy than another. John was no one's favourite. He was aware of
this, and it troubled him. But the grandmother saw it, and took his
part; he read the ABC with her and helped her to rock the cradle. But
he was not content with this love; he wanted to win his mother; he
tried to flatter her, but did it clumsily and was repulsed.
Strict discipline prevailed in the house; falsehood and disobedience
were severely punished. Little children often tell falsehoods because
of defective memories. A child is asked, "Did you do it?" It happened
only two hours ago, and his memory does not reach back so far. Since
the act appeared an indifferent matter to the child, he paid it no
attention. Therefore little children can lie unconsciously, and this
fact should be remembered. They also easily lie out of self-defence;
they know that a "no" can free them from punishment, and a "yes"
bring a thrashing. They can also lie in order to win an advantage.
The earliest discovery of an awakening consciousness is that a
well-directed "yes" or "no" is profitable to it. The ugliest feature
of childish untruthfulness is when they accuse one another. They know
that a misdeed must be visited by punishing someone or other, and a
scapegoat has to be found. That is a great mistake in education. Such
punishment is pure revenge, and in such cases is itself a new wrong.
The certainty that every misdeed will be punished makes the child
afraid of being accused of it, and John was in a perpetual state of
anxiety lest some such act should be discovered.
One day, during the mid-day meal, his father examined his sister's
wine-flask. It was empty.
"Who has drunk the wine?" he asked, looking round the circle. No one
answered, but John blushed.
"It is you, then," said his father.
John, who had never noticed where the wine-flask was hidden, burst into
tears and sobbed, "I didn't drink the wine."
"Then you lie too. When dinner is over, you will get something."
The thought of what he would get when dinner was over, as well as the
continued remarks about "John's secretiveness," caused his tears to
flow without pause. They rose from the table.
"Come here," said his father, and went into the bedroom. His mother
followed. "Ask father for forgiveness," she said. His father had taken
out the stick from behind the looking-glass.
"Dear papa, forgive me!" the innocent child exclaimed. But now it was
too late. He had confessed the theft, and his mother assisted at the
execution. He howled from rage and pain, but chiefly from a sense of
humiliation. "Ask papa now for forgiveness," said his mother.
The child looked at her and despised her. He felt lonely, deserted
by her to whom he had always fled to find comfort and compassion, but
so seldom justice. "Dear papa, forgive," he said, with compressed and
lying lips.
And then he stole out into the kitchen to Louise the nursery-maid, who
used to comb and wash him, and sobbed his grief out in her apron.
"What have you done, John?" she asked sympathetically.
"Nothing," he answered. "I have done nothing."
The mother came out.
"What does John say?" she asked Louise. "He says that he didn't do it."
"Is he lying still?"
And John was fetched in again to be tortured into the admission of what
he had never done.
Splendid, moral institution! Sacred family! Divinely appointed,
unassailable, where citizens are to be educated in truth and virtue!
Thou art supposed to be the home of the virtues, where innocent
children are tortured into their first falsehood, where wills are
broken by tyranny, and self-respect killed by narrow egoism. Family!
thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for
comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for
children.
After this John lived in perpetual disquiet. He dared not confide in
his mother, or Louise, still less his brothers, and least of all his
father. Enemies everywhere! God he knew only through hymns. He was an
atheist, as children are, but in the dark, like savages and animals, he
feared evil spirits.
"Who drank the wine?" he asked himself; who was the guilty one for whom
he suffered? New impressions and anxieties caused him to forget the
question, but the unjust treatment remained in his memory. He had lost
the confidence of his parents, the regard of his brothers and sisters,
the favour of his aunt; his grandmother said nothing. Perhaps she
inferred his innocence on other grounds, for she did not scold him, and
was silent. She had nothing to say. He felt himself disgraced--punished
for lying, which was so abominated in the household, and for theft,
a word which could not be mentioned, deprived of household rights,
suspected and despised by his brothers because he had been caught. All
these consequences, which were painful and real for him, sprang out of
something which never existed--his guilt.
* * * * *
It was not actual poverty which reigned in the house, but there was
overcrowding. Baptisms, and burials followed each other in rapid
succession. Sometimes there were two baptisms without a burial
between them. The food was carefully distributed, and was not exactly
nourishing. They had meat only on Sundays, but John grew sturdy and
was tall for his age. He used now to be sent to play in the "court," a
well-like, stone-paved area in which the sun never shone. The dust-bin
which resembled an old bureau with a flap-cover and a coating of tar,
but burst, stood on four legs by the wall. Here slop-pails were emptied
and rubbish thrown, and through the cracks a black stream flowed over
the court. Great rats lurked under the dust-bin and looked out now
and then, scurrying off to hide themselves in the cellar. Woodsheds
and closets lined one side of the court. Here there was dampness,
darkness, and an evil smell. John's first attempt to scrape out the
sand between the great paving-stones was frustrated by the irascible
landlord's deputy. The latter had a son with whom John played, but
never felt safe. The boy was inferior to him in physical strength and
intelligence, but when disputes arose he used to appeal to his father.
His superiority consisted in having an authority behind him.
The baron on the ground-floor had a staircase with iron banisters. John
liked playing on it, but all attempts to climb on the balustrade were
hindered by the servant who rushed out.
He was strictly forbidden to go out in the street. But when he looked
through the doorway, and saw the churchyard gate, he heard the children
playing there. He had no longing to be with them, for he feared
children; looking down the street, he saw the Clara lake and the
drawbridges. That looked novel and mysterious, but he feared the water.
On quiet winter evenings he had heard cries for help from drowning
people. These, indeed, were often heard. As they were sitting by the
lamp in the nursery, one of the servant-maids would say, "Hush!" and
all would listen while long, continuous cries would be heard.... "Now
someone is drowning," one of the girls said. They listened till all was
still, and then told stories of others who had been drowned.
The nursery looked towards the courtyard, and through the window one
saw a zinc roof and a pair of attics in which stood a quantity of old
disused furniture and other household stuff. This furniture, without
any people to use it, had a weird effect. The servants said that the
attics were haunted. What "haunted" meant they could not exactly say,
only that it had something to do with dead men going about. Thus are
we all brought up by the lower classes. It is an involuntary revenge
which they take by inoculating our children with superstitions which
we have cast aside. Perhaps this is what hinders development so much,
while it somewhat obliterates the distinction between the classes.
Why does a mother let this most important duty slip from her hands--a
mother who is supported by the father in order that she may educate her
children? John's mother only occasionally said his evening prayer with
him; generally it was the maidservant. The latter had taught him an old
Catholic prayer which ran as follows:
"Through our house an angel goes,
In each hand a light he shows."
The other rooms looked out on the Clara churchyard. Above the
lime-trees the nave of the church rose like a mountain, and on the
mountain sat the giant with a copper hat, who kept up a never-ceasing
clamour in order to announce the flight of time. He sounded the quarter
hours in soprano, and the hours in bass. He rang for early morning
prayer with a tinkling sound, for matins at eight o'clock and vespers
at seven. He rang thrice during the forenoon, and four times during
the afternoon. He chimed all the hours from ten till four at night; he
tolled in the middle of the week at funerals, and often, at the time I
speak of, during the cholera epidemic. On Sundays he rang so much that
the whole family was nearly reduced to tears, and no one could hear
what the other said. The chiming at night, when John lay awake, was
weird; but worst of all was the ringing of an alarm when a fire broke
out. When he heard the deep solemn boom in the middle of the night for
the first time he shuddered feverishly and wept. On such occasions
the household always awoke, and whisperings were heard: "There is a
fire!"--"Where?" They counted the strokes, and then went to sleep
again; but he kept awake and wept. Then his mother came upstairs,
tucked him up, and said: "Don't be afraid; God protects unfortunate
people!" He had never thought that of God before. In the morning the
servant-girls read in the papers that there had been a fire in Soder,
and that two people had been killed. "It was God's will," said the
mother.
His first awakening to consciousness was mixed with the pealing,
chiming, and tolling of bells. All his first thoughts and impressions
were accompanied by the ringing for funerals, and the first years of
his life were counted out by strokes of the quarter. The effect on him
was certainly not cheerful, even if it did not decidedly tell on his
nervous system. But who can say? The first years are as important as
the nine months which precede them.
The recollections of childhood show how the senses first partly awaken
and receive the most vivid impressions, how the feelings are moved by
the lightest breath, how the faculty of observation first fastens on
the most striking outward appearances and, later, on moral relations
and qualities, justice and injustice, power and pity.
These memories lie in confusion, unformed and undefined, like pictures
in a thaumatrope. But when it is made to revolve, they melt together
and form a picture, significant or insignificant as the case may be.
One day the child sees splendid pictures of emperors and kings in blue
and red uniforms, which the servant-girls hang up in the nursery. He
sees another representing a building which flies in the air and is
full of Turks. Another time he hears someone read in a newspaper how,
in a distant land, they are firing cannon at towns and villages, and
remembers many details--for instance, his mother weeping at hearing
of poor fishermen driven out of their burning cottages with their
children. These pictures and descriptions referred to Czar Nicholas and
Napoleon III., the storming of Sebastopol, and the bombardment of the
coast of Finland. On another occasion his father spends the whole day
at home. All the tumblers in the house are placed on the window-ledges.
They are filled with sand in which candles are inserted and lit at
night. All the rooms are warm and bright. It is bright too in the Clara
school-house and in the church and the vicarage; the church is full of
music. These are the illuminations to celebrate the recovery of King
Oscar.
One day there is a great noise in the kitchen. The bell is rung and his
mother called. There stands a man in uniform with a book in his hand
and writes. The cook weeps, his mother supplicates and speaks loud, but
the man with the helmet speaks still louder. It is the policeman! The
cry goes all over the house, and all day long they talk of the police.
His father is summoned to the police-station. Will he be arrested? No;
but he has to pay three rix-dollars and sixteen skillings, because the
cook had emptied a utensil in the gutter in the daytime.
One afternoon he sees them lighting the lamps in the street. A cousin
draws his attention to the fact that they have no oil and no wicks, but
only a metal burner. They are the first gas-lamps.
For many nights he lies in bed, without getting up by day. He is tired
and sleepy. A harsh-voiced man comes to the bed, and says that he must
not lay his hands outside the coverlet. They give him evil-tasting
stuff with a spoon; he eats nothing. There is whispering in the room,
and his mother weeps. Then he sits again at the window in the bedroom.
Bells are tolling the whole day long. Green biers are carried over the
churchyard. Sometimes a dark mass of people stand round a black chest.
Gravediggers with their spades keep coming and going. He has to wear a
copper plate suspended by a blue silk ribbon on his breast, and chew
all day at a root. That is the cholera epidemic of 1854.
One day he goes a long way with one of the servants--so far that he
becomes homesick and cries for his mother. The servant takes him into
a house; they sit in a dark kitchen near a green water-butt. He thinks
he will never see his home again. But they still go on, past ships and
barges, past a gloomy brick house with long high walls behind which
prisoners sit. He sees a new church, a new alley lined with trees, a
dusty high-road along whose edges dandelions grow. Now the servant
carries him. At last they come to a great stone building hard by which
is a yellow wooden house with a cross, surrounded by a large garden.
They see limping, mournful-looking people dressed in white. They reach
a great hall where are nothing but beds painted brown, with old women
in them. The walls are whitewashed, the old women are white, and the
beds are white. There is a very bad smell. They pass by a row of beds,
and in the middle of the room stop at a bed on the right side. In it
lies a woman younger than the rest with black curly hair confined by
a night-cap. She lies half on her back; her face is emaciated, and
she wears a white cloth over her head and ears. Her thin hands are
wrapped up in white bandages and her arms shake ceaselessly so that her
knuckles knock against each other. When she sees the child, her arms
and knees tremble violently, and she bursts into tears. She kisses his
head, but the boy does not feel comfortable. He is shy, and not far
from crying himself. "Don't you know Christina again?" she says; but he
does not. Then she dries her eyes and describes her sufferings to the
servant, who is taking eatables out of a basket.
The old women in white now begin to talk in an undertone, and Christina
begs the servant not to show what she has in the basket, for they are
so envious. Accordingly the servant pushes surreptitiously a yellow
rix-dollar into the psalm-book on the table. The child finds the whole
thing tedious. His heart says nothing to him; it does not tell him that
he has drunk this woman's milk, which really belonged to another; it
does not tell him that he had slept his best sleep on that shrunken
bosom, that those shaking arms had cradled, carried, and dandled him;
his heart says nothing, for the heart is only a muscle, which pumps
blood indifferent as to the source it springs from. But after receiving
her last fervent kisses, after bowing to the old women and the nurse,
and breathing freely in the courtyard after inhaling the close air
of the sick-ward, he becomes somehow conscious of a debt, which can
only be paid by perpetual gratitude, a few eatables, and a rix-dollar
slipped into a psalm-book, and he feels ashamed at being glad to get
away from the brown-painted beds of the sufferers.
It was his wet-nurse, who subsequently lay for fifteen years in the
same bed, suffering from fits of cramp and wasting disease, till she
died. Then he received his portrait in a schoolboy's cap, sent back by
the directors of the Sabbatsberg infirmary, where it had hung for many
years. During that time the growing youth had only once a year given
her an hour of indescribable joy, and himself one of some uneasiness
of conscience, by going to see her. Although he had received from her
inflammation in his blood, and cramp in his nerves, still he felt he
owed her a debt, a representative debt. It was not a personal one, for
she had only given him what she had been obliged to sell. The fact that
she had been compelled to sell it was the sin of society, and as a
member of society he felt himself in a certain degree guilty.