strange. The vaults with the stone monuments bearing inscriptions and
carved figures, the grass on which one might not step, the trees with
leaves which one might not touch. One day his uncle plucked a leaf,
but the police were instantly on the spot. The great building in the
middle was unintelligible to him. People went in and out of it, and one
heard singing and music, ringing and chiming. It was mysterious. At the
east end was a window with a gilded eye. That was God's eye. He did not
understand that, but at any rate it was a large eye which must see far.
Under the window was a grated cellar-opening. His uncle pointed out to
him the polished coffins below. "Here," he said, "lives Clara the Nun."
Who was she? He did not know, but supposed it must be a ghost.
One day he stands in an enormous room and does not know where he is;
but it is beautiful, everything in white and gold. Music, as if from a
hundred pianos, sounds over his head, but he cannot see the instrument
or the person who plays it. There stand long rows of benches, and quite
in front is a picture, probably of some Bible story. Two white-winged
figures are kneeling, and near them are two large candlesticks. Those
are probably the angels with the two lights who go about our house.
The people on the benches are bowed down as though they were sleeping.
"Take your caps off," says his uncle, and holds his hat before his
face. The boys look round, and see close beside them a strange-looking
seat on which are two men in grey mantles and hoods. They have iron
chains on their hands and feet, and policemen stand by them.
"Those are thieves," whispers their uncle.
All this oppresses the boy with a sense of weirdness, strangeness, and
severity. His brothers also feel it, for they ask their uncle to go,
and he complies.
Strange! Such are the impressions made by that form of worship which
was intended to symbolise the simple truths of Christianity. But it was
not like the mild teaching of Christ. The sight of the thieves was the
worst--in iron chains, and such coats!
* * * * *
One day, when the sun shines warmly, there is a great stir in the
house. Articles of furniture are moved from their place, drawers are
emptied, clothes are thrown about everywhere. A morning or two after,
a waggon comes to take away the things, and so the journey begins.
Some of the family start in a boat from "the red shop," others go in
a cab. Near the harbour there is a smell of oil, tar, and coal smoke;
the freshly painted steamboats shine in gay colours and their flags
flutter in the breeze; drays rattle past the long row of lime-trees;
the yellow riding-school stands dusty and dirty near a woodshed. They
are going on the water, but first they go to see their father in his
office. John is astonished to find him looking cheerful and brisk,
joking with the sunburnt steamer captains and laughing in a friendly,
pleasant way. Indeed, he seems quite youthful, and has a bow and arrows
with which the captains amuse themselves by shooting at the window of
the riding-school. The office is small, but they can go behind the
green partition and drink a glass of porter behind a curtain. The
clerks are attentive and polite when his father speaks to them. John
had never before seen his father at work, but only known him in the
character of a tired, hungry provider for his family, who preferred to
live with nine persons in three rooms, than alone in two. He had only
seen his father at leisure, eating and reading the paper when he came
home in the evening, but never in his official capacity. He admired
him, but he felt that he feared him now less, and thought that some day
he might come to love him.
He fears the water, but before he knows where he is he finds himself
sitting in an oval room ornamented in white and gold, and containing
red satin sofas. Such a splendid room he has never seen before. But
everything rattles and shakes. He looks out of a little window, and
sees green banks, bluish-green waves, sloops carrying hay, and steamers
passing by. It is like a panorama or something seen at a theatre. On
the banks move small red and white houses, outside which stand green
trees with a sprinkling of snow upon them; larger green meadows rush
past with red cows standing in them, looking like Christmas toys. The
sun gets high, and now they reach trees with yellow foliage and brown
caterpillars, bridges with sailing-boats flying flags, cottages with
fowls pecking and dogs barking. The sun shines on rows of windows which
lie on the ground, and old men and women go about with water-cans and
rakes. Then appear green trees again bending over the water, and yellow
and white bath-houses; overhead a cannon-shot is fired; the rattling
and shaking cease; the banks stand still; above him he sees a stone
wall, men's coats and trousers and a multitude of boots. He is carried
up some steps which have a gilded rail, and sees a very large castle.
Somebody says, "Here the King lives."
It was the castle of Drottningholm--the most beautiful memory of his
childhood, even including the fairy-tale books.
Their things are unpacked in a little white house on a hill, and now
the children roll on the grass, on real green grass without dandelions,
like that in the Clara churchyard. It is so high and bright, and the
woods and fiords are green and blue in the distance.
The dust-bin is forgotten, the schoolroom with its foul atmosphere has
disappeared, the melancholy church-bells sound no more, and the graves
are far away. But in the evening a bell rings in a little belfry quite
near at hand. With astonishment he sees the modest little bell which
swings in the open air, and sends its sound far over the park and bay.
He thinks of the terrible deep-toned bell in the tower at home, which
seemed to him like a great black maw when he looked into it, as it
swung, from below. In the evening, when he is tired and has been washed
and put to bed, he hears how the silence seems to hum in his ears, and
waits in vain to hear the strokes and chiming of the bell in the tower.
The next morning he wakes to get up and play. He plays day after
day for a whole week. He is in nobody's way, and everything is so
peaceful. The little ones sleep in the nursery, and he is in the open
air all day long. His father does not appear; but on Saturday he comes
out from the town and pinches the boys' cheeks because they have grown
and become sunburnt. "He does not beat us now any more," thinks the
child; but he does not trace this to the simple fact that here outside
the city there is more room and the air is purer.
The slimmer passes gloriously, as enchanting as a fairy-tale; through
the poplar avenues run lackeys in silver-embroidered livery, on the
water float sky-blue dragon-ships with real princes and princesses,
on the roads roll golden chaises and purple-red coaches drawn by Arab
horses four-in-hand, and the whips are as long as the reins.
Then there is the King's castle with the polished floors, the gilt
furniture, marble-tiled stoves and pictures; the park with its
avenues like long lofty green churches, the fountains ornamented with
unintelligible figures from story-books; the summer-theatre that
remained a puzzle to the child, but was used as a maze; the Gothic
tower, always closed and mysterious, which had nothing else to do but
to echo back the sound of voices.
He is taken for a walk in the park by a cousin whom he calls "aunt."
She is a well-dressed maiden just grown up, and carries a parasol.
They come into a gloomy wood of sombre pines; here they wander for a
while, ever farther. Presently they hear a murmur of voices, music, and
the clatter of plates and forks; they find themselves before a little
castle; figures of dragons and snakes wind down from the roof-ridge,
other figures of old men with yellow oval faces, black slanting eyes
and pigtails, look from under them; letters which he cannot read, and
which are unlike any others he has seen, run along the eaves. But below
on the ground-floor of the castle royal personages sit at table by the
open windows and eat from silver dishes and drink wine.
"There sits the King," says his aunt.
The child becomes alarmed, and looks round to see whether he has not
trodden on the grass, or is not on the point of doing something wrong.
He believes that the handsome King, who looks friendly, sees right
through him, and he wants to go. But neither Oscar I. nor the French
field-marshals nor the Russian generals trouble themselves about him,
for they are just now discussing the Peace of Paris, which is to make
an end of the war in the East. On the other hand, police-guards,
looking like roused lions, are marching about, and of them he has
an unpleasant recollection. He needs only to see one, and he feels
immediately guilty and thinks of the fine of three rix-dollars and
sixteen skillings. However, he has caught a glimpse of the highest form
of authority--higher than that of his brother, his mother, his father,
the deputy-landlord, the landlord, the general with the plumed helmet,
and the police.
On another occasion, again with his aunt, he passes a little house
close to the castle. In a courtyard strewn with sand there stands a
man in a panama hat and a summer suit. He has a black beard and looks
strong. Round him there runs a black horse held by a long cord. The man
springs a rattle, cracks a whip, and fires shots.
"That is the Crown Prince," says his aunt.
He looked like any other man, and was dressed like his uncle Yanne.
Another time, in the park, deep in the shade of some trees, a mounted
officer meets them. He salutes the boy's aunt, makes his horse stop,
talks to her, and asks his name. The boy answers, but somewhat shyly.
The dark-visaged man with the kind eyes looks at him, and he hears a
loud peal of laughter. Then the rider disappears. It was the Crown
Prince again. The Crown Prince had spoken to him! He felt elevated, and
at the same time more sure of himself. The dangerous potentate had been
quite pleasant.
One day he learns that his father and aunt are old acquaintances of a
gentleman who lives in the great castle and wears a three-cornered hat
and a sabre. The castle thenceforward assumes a more friendly aspect.
He is also acquainted with people in it, for the Crown Prince has
spoken with him, and his father calls the chamberlain "thou." Now he
understands that the gorgeous lackeys are of inferior social rank to
him, especially when he hears that the cook goes for walks with one of
them in the evenings. He discovers that he is, at any rate, not on the
lowest stair in the social scale.
Before he has had time to realise it, the fairy-tale is over. The
dust-bin and the rats are again there, but the deputy-landlord does
not use his authority any more when John wants to dig up stones, for
John has spoken with the Crown Prince, and the family have been for a
summer holiday. The boy has seen the splendour of the upper classes in
the distance. He longs after it, as after a home, but the menial blood
he has from his mother rebels against it. From instinct he reveres the
upper classes, and thinks too much of them ever to be able to hope to
reach them. He feels that he belongs neither to them nor to the menial
class. That becomes one of the struggles in his life.
II
BREAKING-IN
The storm of poverty was now over. The members of the family who had
held together for mutual protection could now all go their own way. But
the overcrowding and unhappy circumstances of the family continued.
However, death weeded them out. Black papers which had contained sweets
distributed at the funeral were being continually gummed on the nursery
walls. The mother constantly went about in a jacket; all the cousins
and aunts had already been used up as sponsors, so that recourse had
now to be made to the clerks, ships' captains, and restaurant-keepers.
In spite of all, prosperity seemed gradually to return. Since there
was too little space, the family removed to one of the suburbs, and
took a six-roomed house in the Norrtullsgata. At the same time John
entered the Clara High School at the age of seven. It was a long way
for short legs to go four times a day, but his father wished that
the children should grow hardy. That was a laudable object, but so
much unnecessary expenditure of muscular energy should have been
compensated for by nourishing food. However, the household means did
not allow of that, and the monotonous exercise of walking and carrying
a heavy school-satchel provided no sufficient counterpoise to excessive
brain-work. There was, consequently, a loss of moral and physical
equilibrium and new struggles resulted. In winter the seven-year-old
boy and his brothers are waked up at 6 A.M. in pitch darkness. He has
not been thoroughly rested, but still carries the fever of sleep in
his limbs. His father, mother, younger brothers and sisters, and the
servants are still asleep. He washes himself in cold water, drinks a
cup of barley-coffee, eats a French roll, runs over the endings of the
Fourth Declension in _Rabe's Grammar_, repeats a piece of "Joseph sold
by his brethren," and memorises the Second Article with its explanation.
Then the books are thrust in the satchel and they start. In the street
it is still dark. Every other oil-lantern sways on the rope in the cold
wind, and the snow lies deep, not having been yet cleared away before
the houses. A little quarrel arises among the brothers about the rate
they are to march. Only the bakers' carts and the police are moving.
Near the Observatory the snow is so deep that their boots and trousers
get wet through. In Kungsbacken Street they meet a baker and buy their
breakfast, a French roll, which they usually eat on the way.
In Haymarket Street he parts from his brothers, who go to a private
school. When at last he reaches the corner of Berg Street the fatal
clock in the Clara Church strikes the hour. Fear lends wings to his
feet, his satchel bangs against his back, his temples beat, his brain
throbs. As he enters the churchyard gate he sees that the class-rooms
are empty; it is too late!
In the boy's case the duty of punctuality took the form of a given
promise, a _force majeure,_ a stringent necessity from which nothing
could release him. A ship-captain's bill of lading contains a clause
to the effect that he binds himself to deliver the goods uninjured by
such and such a date "if God wills." If God sends snow or storm, he is
released from his bond. But for the boy there are no such conditions
of exemption. He has neglected his duty, and will be punished: that is
all.
With a slow step he enters the hall. Only the school porter is there,
who laughs at him, and writes his name on the blackboard under the
heading "Late." A painful hour follows, and then loud cries are heard
in the lower school, and the blows of a cane fall thickly. It is the
headmaster, who has made an onslaught on the late-comers or takes his
exercise on them. John bursts into tears and trembles all over--not
from fear of pain but from a feeling of shame to think that he should
be fallen upon like an animal doomed to slaughter, or a criminal. Then
the door opens. He starts up, but it is only the chamber-maid who comes
in to trim the lamp.
"Good-day, John," she says. "You are too late; you are generally so
punctual. How is Hanna?"
John tells her that Hanna is well, and that the snow was very deep in
the Norrtullsgata.
"Good heavens! You have not come by Norrtullsgata?"
Then the headmaster opens the door and enters.
"Well, you!"
"You must not be angry with John, sir! He lives in Norrtullsgata."
"Silence, Karin!" says the headmaster, "and go.--Well," he continues:
"you live in the Norrtullsgata. That is certainly a good way. But still
you ought to look out for the time."
Then he turns and goes. John owed it to Karin that he escaped
a flogging, and to fate that Hanna had chanced to be Karin's
fellow-servant at the headmaster's. Personal influence had saved him
from an injustice.
And then the school and the teaching! Has not enough been written about
Latin and the cane? Perhaps! In later years he skipped all passages in
books which dealt with reminiscences of school life, and avoided all
books on that subject. When he grew up his worst nightmare, when he had
eaten something indigestible at night or had a specially troublesome
day, was to dream that he was back at school.
The relation between pupil and teacher is such, that the former gets
as one-sided a view of the latter as a child of its parent. The first
teacher John had looked like the ogre in the story of Tom Thumb. He
flogged continually, and said he would make the boys crawl on the floor
and "beat them to pulp" if they did their exercises badly.
He was not, however, really a bad fellow, and John and his
school-fellows presented him with an album when he left Stockholm.
Many thought well of him, and considered him a fine character. He ended
as a gentleman farmer and the hero of an Ostgothland idyll.
Another was regarded as a monster of malignity. He really seemed to
beat the boys because he liked it. He would commence his lesson by
saying, "Bring the cane," and then try to find as many as he could
who had an ill-prepared lesson. He finally committed suicide in
consequence of a scathing newspaper article. Half a year before that,
John, then a student, had met him in Uggelvikswald, and felt moved by
his old teacher's complaints over the ingratitude of the world. A year
previous he had received at Christmas time a box of stones, sent from
an old pupil in Australia. But the colleagues of the stern teacher
used to speak of him as a good-natured fool at whom they made jests.
So many points of view, so many differing judgments! But to this day
old boys of the Clara School cannot meet each other without expressing
their horror and indignation at his unmercifulness, although they all
acknowledge that he was an excellent teacher.
These men of the old school knew perhaps no better. They had themselves
been brought up on those lines, and we, who learn to understand
everything, are bound also to pardon everything.
This, however, did not prevent the first period of school life from
appearing to be a preparation for hell and not for life. The teachers
seemed to be there only to torment, not to punish; our school life
weighed upon us like an oppressive nightmare day and night; even having
learned our lessons well before we left home did not save us. Life
seemed a penal institution for crimes committed before we were born,
and therefore the boy always went about with a bad conscience.
But he learned some social lessons. The Clara School was a school for
the children of the better classes, for the people of the district
were well off. The boy wore leather breeches and greased leather boots
which smelt of train-oil and blacking. Therefore, those who had velvet
jackets did not like sitting near him. He also noticed that the poorly
dressed boys got more floggings than the well-dressed ones, and that
pretty boys were let off altogether. If he had at that time studied
psychology and æsthetics, he would have understood this, but he did not
then.
The examination day left a pleasant, unforgettable memory. The old
dingy rooms were freshly scoured, the boys wore their best clothes,
and the teachers frock-coats with white ties; the cane was put away,
all punishments were suspended. It was a day of festival and jubilee,
on which one could tread the floor of the torture-chambers without
trembling. The change of places in each class, however, which had
taken place in the morning, brought with it certain surprises, and
those who had been put lower made certain comparisons and observations
which did not always redound to the credit of the teacher. The school
testimonials were also rather hastily drawn up, as was natural. But
the holidays were at hand, and everything else was soon forgotten. At
the conclusion, in the lower schoolroom, the teachers received the
thanks of the Archbishop, and the pupils were reproved and warned.
The presence of the parents, especially the mothers, made the chilly
rooms seem warm, and a sigh involuntarily rose in the boys' hearts,
"Why cannot it be always like to-day?" To some extent the sigh has
been heard, and our present-day youth no longer look upon school as a
penal institute, even if they do not recognise much use in the various
branches of superfluous learning.
John was certainly not a shining light in the school, but neither was
he a mere good-for-nothing. On account of his precocity in learning he
had been allowed to enter the school before the regulation age, and
therefore he was always the youngest. Although his report justified his
promotion into a higher class, he was still kept a year in his present
one. This was a severe pull-back in his development; his impatient
spirit suffered from having to repeat old lessons for a whole year.
He certainly gained much spare time, but his appetite for learning
was dulled, and he felt himself neglected. At home and school alike
he was the youngest, but only in years; in intelligence he was older
than his school-fellows. His father seemed to have noticed his love
for learning, and to have thought of letting him become a student. He
heard him his lessons, for he himself had had an elementary education.
But when the eight-year-old boy once came to him with a Latin exercise,
and asked for help, his father was obliged to confess that he did not
know Latin. The boy felt his superiority in this point, and it is not
improbable that his father was conscious of it also. He removed John's
elder brother, who had entered the school at the same time, abruptly
from it, because the teacher one day had made the younger, as monitor,
hear the elder his lessons. This was stupid on the part of the
teacher, and it was wise of his father to prevent it.
His mother was proud of his learning, and boasted of it to her friends.
In the family the word "student" was often heard. At the students'
congress in the fifties, Stockholm was swarming with white caps.
"Think if you should wear a white cap some day," said his mother.
When the students' concerts took place, they talked about it for days
at a time. Acquaintances from Upsala sometimes came to Stockholm and
talked of the gay students' life there. A girl who had been in service
in Upsala called John "the student."
In the midst of his terribly mysterious school life, in which the
boy could discover no essential connection between Latin grammar and
real life, a new mysterious factor appeared for a short time and then
disappeared again. The nine-year-old daughter of the headmaster came to
the French lessons. She was purposely put on the last bench, in order
not to be seen, and to look round was held to be a great misdemeanour.
Her presence, however, was felt in the class-room. The boy, and
probably the whole class, fell in love. The lessons always went well
when she was present; their ambition was spurred, and none of them
wanted to be humiliated or flogged before her. She was, it is true,
ugly, but well dressed. Her gentle voice vibrated among the breaking
voices of the boys, and even the teacher had a smile on his severe face
when he spoke to her. How beautifully her name sounded when he called
it out--one Christian name among all the surnames.
John's love found expression in a silent melancholy. He never spoke to
her, and would never have dared to do it. He feared and longed for her.
But if anyone had asked him what he wanted from her, he could not have
told them. He wanted nothing from her. A kiss? No; in his family there
was no kissing. To hold her? No! Still less to possess her. Possess?
What should he do with her? He felt that he had a secret. This plagued
him so that he suffered under it, and his whole life was overclouded.
One day at home he seized a knife and said, "I will cut my throat." His
mother thought he was ill. He could not tell her. He was then about
nine years old.
Perhaps if there had been as many girls as boys in the school
present in all the classes, probably innocent friendships would
have been formed, the electricity would have been carried off, the
Madonna-worship brought within its proper limits, and wrong ideas of
woman would not have followed him and his companions through life.
* * * * *