of snow, he recapitulated all that had happened in the vestry. The
minister had asked him whether he had sinned? No, he had not. Did he
have dreams? Yes! He was told that dreams were equally sinful, because
they proved that the heart was wicked, and God looked at the heart.
“He trieth the heart and reins, and on the last day he will judge
every one of us for every sinful thought, and dreams are thoughts.
Christ has said: Give me your heart, my son! Go to Him! Pray, pray,
pray! Whatsoever is chaste, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is
lovely--that is He. The alpha and the omega, life and happiness.
Chasten the flesh and be strong in prayer. Go in the name of the Lord
and sin no more!”
He felt indignant, but he was also crushed. In vain did he struggle to
throw off his depression, he had not been taught sufficient common-sense
at school to use it as a weapon against this Jesuitical sophistry. It
was true, his knowledge of psychology enabled him to modify the statement
that dreams are thoughts; dreams are fancies, he mused, creations of the
imagination; but God has no regard for words! Logic taught him that there
was something unnatural in his premature desires. He could not marry at
the age of sixteen, since he was unable to support a wife; but why he was
unable to support a wife, although he felt himself to be a man, was a
problem which he could not solve. However anxious he might be to get
married, the laws of society which are made by the upper classes and
protected by bayonets, would prevent him. Consequently nature must have
been sinned against in some way, for a man was mature long before he was
able to earn a living. It must be degeneracy. His imagination must be
degenerate; it was for him to purify it by prayer and sacrifice.
When he arrived home, he found his father and sisters at supper. He
was ashamed to sit down with them, for he felt degraded. His father
asked him, as usual, whether the date of the confirmation had been
fixed. Theodore did not know. He touched no food, pretending that he
was not well; the truth was that he did not dare to eat any supper. He
went into his bedroom and read an essay by Schartau which the minister
had lent him. The subject was the vanity of reason. And here, just
here, where all his hopes of arriving at a clear understanding were
centred, the light failed. Reason which he had dared to hope would
some day guide him out of the darkness into the light, reason, too,
was sin; the greatest of all sins, for it questioned God’s very
existence, tried to understand what was not meant to be understood.
Why _it_ was not meant to be understood, was not explained; probably
it was because if _it_ had been understood the fraud would have been
discovered.
He rebelled no longer, but surrendered himself. Before going to bed he
read two _Morning Voices_ from Arndt, recited the Creed, the Lord’s
Prayer and the Blessing. He felt very hungry; a fact which he realised
with a certain spiteful pleasure, for it seemed to him that his enemy
was suffering.
With these thoughts he fell asleep. He awoke in the middle of the
night. He had dreamt of a champagne supper in the company of a girl.
And the whole terrible evening arose fresh in his memory.
He leapt out of bed with a bound, threw his sheets and blankets on the
floor and lay down to sleep on the bare mattress, covering himself
with nothing but a thin coverlet. He was cold and hungry, but he must
subdue the devil. Again he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, with additions
of his own. By and by his thoughts grew confused, the strained
expression of his features relaxed, a smile softened the expression of
his mouth; lovely figures appeared before him, serene and smiling, he
heard subdued voices, half-stifled laughter, a few bars from a waltz,
saw sparkling glasses and frank and merry faces with candid eyes,
which met his own unabashed; suddenly a curtain was parted in the
middle; a charming little face peeped through the red silk draperies,
with smiling lips and dancing eyes; the slender throat is bare, the
beautiful sloping shoulders look as if they had been modelled by a
caressing hand; she holds out her arms and he draws her to his
thumping heart.
The clock was striking three. Again he had been worsted in the fight.
Determined to win, he picked up the mattress and threw it out of the
bed. Then he knelt on the cold floor and fervently prayed to God for
strength, for he felt that he was indeed wrestling with the devil.
When he had finished his prayer he lay down on the bare frame, and
with a feeling of satisfaction felt the ropes and belting cutting into
his arms and shins.
He awoke in the morning in a high fever.
He was laid up for six weeks. When he arose from his bed of sickness,
he felt better than he had ever felt before. The rest, the good food
and the medicine had increased his strength, and the struggle was now
twice as hard. But he continued to struggle.
His confirmation took place in the spring. The moving scene in which
the lower classes promise on oath never to interfere with these things
which the upper classes consider their privilege, made a lasting
impression on him. It didn’t trouble him that the minister offered him
wine bought from the wine-merchant Högstedt at sixty-five öre the
pint, and wafers from Lettstroem, the baker, at one crown a pound, as
the flesh and blood of the great agitator Jesus of Nazareth, who was
done to death nineteen hundred years ago. He didn’t think about it,
for one didn’t think in those days, one had emotions.
A year after his confirmation he passed his final examination. The
smart little college cap was a source of great pleasure to him;
without being actually conscious of it, he felt that he, as a member
of the upper classes, had received a charter. They were not a little
proud of their knowledge, too, these young men, for the masters had
pronounced them “mature.” The conceited youths! If at least they had
mastered all the nonsense of which they boasted! If anybody had
listened to their conversation at the banquet given in their honour,
it would have been a revelation to him. They declared openly that they
had not acquired five per cent. of the knowledge which ought to have
been in their possession; they assured everybody who had ears to
listen that it was a miracle that they had passed; the uninitiated
would not have believed a word of it. And some of the young masters,
now that the barrier between pupil and teacher was removed, and
simulation was no longer necessary, swore solemnly, with half-intoxicated
gestures, that there was not a single master in the whole school who
would not have been plucked. A sober person could not help drawing the
conclusion that the examination was like a line which could be drawn at
will between upper and lower classes; and then he saw in the miracle
nothing but a gigantic fraud.
It was one of the masters who, sipping a glass of punch, maintained
that only an idiot could imagine that a human brain could remember at
the same time: the three thousand dates mentioned in history; the
names of the five thousand towns situated in all parts of the world;
the names of six hundred plants and seven hundred animals; the bones
in the human body, the stones which form the crust of the earth, all
theological disputes, one thousand French words, one thousand English,
one thousand German, one thousand Latin, one thousand Greek, half a
million rules and exceptions to the rules: five hundred mathematical,
physical, geometrical, chemical formulas. He was willing to prove that
in order to be capable of such a feat the brain would have to be as
large as the cupola of the Observatory at Upsala. Humboldt, he went on
to say, finally forgot his tables, and the professor of astronomy at
Lund had been unable to divide two whole numbers of six figures each.
The newly-fledged under-graduates imagined that they knew six
languages, and yet they knew no more than five thousand words at most
of the twenty thousand which composed their mother tongue. And hadn’t
he seen how they cheated? Oh! he knew all their tricks! He had seen
the dates written on their finger nails; he had watched them
consulting books under cover of their desks, he had heard them
whispering to one another! But, he concluded, what is one to do?
Unless one closes an eye to these things, the supply of students is
bound to come to an end. During the summer Theodore remained at home,
spending much of his time in the garden. He brooded over the problem
of his future; what profession was he to choose? He had gained so much
insight into the methods of the huge Jesuitical community which, under
the name of the upper classes, constituted society, that he felt
dissatisfied with the world and decided to enter the Church to save
himself from despair. And yet the world beckoned to him. It lay before
him, fair and bright, and his young, fermenting blood yearned for
life. He spent himself in the struggle and his idleness added to his
torments.
Theodore’s increasing melancholy and waning health began to alarm his
father. He had no doubt about the cause, but he could not bring
himself to talk to his son on such a delicate subject.
One Sunday afternoon the Professor’s brother who was an officer in the
Pioneers, called. They were sitting in the garden, sipping their coffee.
“Have you noticed the change in Theodore?” asked the Professor.
“Yes, his time has come,” answered the Captain.
“I believe it has come long ago.”
“I wish you’d talk to him, I can’t do it.”
“If I were a bachelor, I should play the part of the uncle,” said the
Captain; “as it is, I’ll ask Gustav to do it. The boy must see something
of life, or he’ll go wrong. Hot stuff these Wennerstroems, what?”
“Yes,” said the Professor, “I was a man at fifteen, but I had a
school-friend who was never confirmed because he was a father at
thirteen.”
“Look at Gustav! Isn’t he a fine fellow? I’m hanged if he isn’t as
broad across the back as an old captain! He’s a handful!”
“Yes,” answered the Professor, “he costs me a lot, but after all, I’d
rather pay than see the boy running any risks. I wish you’d ask Gustav
to take Theodore about with him a little, just to rouse him.”
“Oh! with pleasure!” answered the Captain.
And so the matter was settled.
One evening in July, when the summer is in its prime and all the
blossoms which the spring has fertilised ripen into fruit, Theodore
was sitting in his bed-room, waiting. He had pinned a text against his
wall. “Come to Jesus,” it said, and it was intended as a hint to the
lieutenant not to argue with him when he occasionally came home from
barracks for a few minutes. Gustav was of a lively disposition, “a
handful,” as his uncle had said. He wasted no time in brooding. He had
promised to call for Theodore at seven o’clock; they were going to
make arrangements for the celebration of the professor’s birthday.
Theodore’s secret plan was to convert his brother, and Gustav’s
equally secret intention was to make his younger brother take a more
reasonable view of life.
Punctually at seven o’clock, a cab stopped before the house, (the
lieutenant invariably arrived in a cab) and immediately after Theodore
heard the ringing of his spurs and the rattling of his sword on the
stairs.
“Good evening, you old mole,” said the elder brother with a laugh. He
was the picture of health and youth. His highly-polished Hessian boots
revealed a pair of fine legs, his tunic outlined the loins of a
cart-horse; the golden bandolier of his cartridge box made his chest
appear broader and his sword-belt showed off a pair of enormous thighs.
He glanced at the text and grinned, but said nothing.
“Come along, old man, let’s be off to Bellevue! We’ll call on the
gardener there and make arrangements for the old man’s birthday. Put
on your hat, and come, old chap!”
Theodore tried to think of an excuse, but the brother took him by the
arm, put a hat on his head, back to front, pushed a cigarette between
his lips and opened the door. Theodore felt like a fish out of water,
but he went with his brother.
“To Bellevue!” said the lieutenant to the cab-driver, “and mind you
make your thoroughbreds fly!”
Theodore could not help being amused. It would never have occurred to
him to address an elderly married man, like the cabman, with so much
familiarity.
On the way the lieutenant talked of everything under the sun and stared
at every pretty girl they passed.
They met a funeral procession on its return from the cemetery.
“Did you notice that devilish pretty girl in the last coach?” asked
Gustav.
Theodore had not seen her and did not want to see her.
They passed an omnibus full of girls of the barmaid type. The
lieutenant stood up, unconcernedly, in the public thoroughfare, and
kissed his hands to them. He really behaved like a madman.
The business at Bellevue was soon settled. On their return the
cab-driver drove them, without waiting for an order, to “The Equerry,”
a restaurant where Gustav was evidently well-known.
“Let’s go and have something to eat,” said the lieutenant, pushing his
brother out of the cab.
Theodore was fascinated. He was no abstainer and saw nothing wrong in
entering a public-house, although it never occurred to him to do so.
He followed, though not without a slight feeling of uneasiness.
They were received in the hall by two girls. “Good evening, little
doves,” said the lieutenant, and kissed them both on the lips. “Let me
introduce you to my learned brother; he’s very young and innocent, not
at all like me; what do you say, Jossa?”
The girls looked shyly at Theodore, who did not know which way to turn.
His brother’s language appeared to him unutterably impudent.
On their way upstairs they met a dark-haired little girl, who had
evidently been crying; she looked quiet and modest and made a good
impression on Theodore.
The lieutenant did not kiss her, but he pulled out his handkerchief
and dried her eyes. Then he ordered an extravagant supper.
They were in a bright and pretty room, hung with mirrors and
containing a piano, a perfect room for banquetting. The lieutenant
opened the piano with his sword, and before Theodore knew where he
was, he was sitting on the music-stool, and his hands were resting on
the keyboard.
“Play us a waltz,” commanded the lieutenant, and Theodore played a
waltz. The lieutenant took off his sword and danced with Jossa;
Theodore heard his spurs knocking against the legs of the chairs and
tables. Then he threw himself on the sofa and shouted:
“Come here, ye slaves, and fan me!”
Theodore began to play softly and presently he was absorbed in the
music of Gounod’s _Faust_. He did not dare to turn round.
“Go and kiss him,” whispered the brother.
But the girls felt shy. They were almost afraid of him and his
melancholy music.
The boldest of them, however, went up to the piano.
“You are playing from the Freischütz, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No,” said Theodore, politely, “I’m playing Gounod’s _Faust_.”
“Your brother looks frightfully respectable,” said the little dark
one, whose name was Rieke; “he’s different to you, you old villain.”
“Oh! well, he’s going into the Church,” whispered the lieutenant.
These words made a great impression on the girls, and henceforth they
only kissed the lieutenant when Theodore’s back was turned, and looked
at Theodore shyly and apprehensively, like fowls at a chained mastiff.
Supper appeared, a great number of courses. There were eighteen dishes,
not counting the hot ones.
Gustav poured out the liqueurs.
“Your health, you old hypocrite!” he laughed.
Theodore swallowed the liqueur. A delicious warmth ran through his
limbs, a thin, warm veil fell over his eyes, he felt ravenous like a
starving beast. What a banquet it was! The fresh salmon with its
peculiar flavour, and the dill with its narcotic aroma; the radishes
which seem to scrape the throat and call for beer; the small
beef-steaks and sweet Portuguese onions, which made him think of
dancing girls; the fried lobster which smelt of the sea; the chicken
stuffed with parsley which reminded him of the gardener, and the first
gerkins with their poisonous flavour of verdigris which made such a
jolly, crackling sound between his crunching teeth. The porter flowed
through his veins like hot streams of lava; they drank champagne after
the strawberries; a waitress brought the foaming drink which bubbled
in the glasses like a fountain. They poured out a glass for her. And
then they talked of all sorts of things.
Theodore sat there like a tree in which the sap is rising. He had
eaten a good supper and felt as if a whole volcano was seething in his
inside. New thoughts, new emotions, new ideas, new points of view
fluttered round his brow like butterflies. He went to the piano and
played, he himself knew not what. The ivory keys under his hands were
like a heap of bones from which his spirit drew life and melody.
He did not know how long he had been playing, but when he turned,
round he saw his brother entering the room. He looked like a god,
radiating life and strength. Behind him came Rieke with a bowl of
punch, and immediately after all the girls came upstairs. The
lieutenant drank to each one of them separately; Theodore found that
everything was as it should be and finally became so bold that he
kissed Rieke on the shoulder. But she looked annoyed and drew away
from him, and he felt ashamed.
When Theodore found himself alone in his room, he had a feeling as if
the whole world were turned upside down. He tore the text from the
wall, not because he no longer believed in Jesus, but because its
being pinned against the wall struck him as a species of bragging. He
was amazed to find that religion sat on him as loosely as a Sunday
suit, and he asked himself whether it was not unseemly to go about
during the whole week in Sunday clothes. After all he was but an
ordinary, commonplace person with whom he was well content, and he
came to the conclusion that he had a better chance of living in peace
with himself if he lived a simple, unpretentious, unassuming life.
He slept soundly during the night, undisturbed by dreams.
When he arose on the following morning, his pale cheeks looked fuller
and there was a new gladness in his heart. He went out for a walk and
suddenly found himself in the country. The thought struck him that he
might go to the restaurant and look up the girls. He went into the
large room; there he found Rieke and Jossa alone, in morning dresses,
snubbing gooseberries. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting
at the table beside them with a pair of scissors in his hand, helping
them. They talked of Theodore’s brother and the pleasant evening they
had spent together. Not a single loose remark was made. They were just
like a happy family; surely he had fallen in good hands, he was among
friends.
When they had finished with the gooseberries, he ordered coffee and
invited the girls to share it with him. Later on the proprietress came
and read the paper to them. He felt at home.
He repeated his visit. One afternoon he went upstairs, to look for
Rieke. She was sewing a seam. Theodore asked her whether he was in her
way. “Not at all,” she replied, “on the contrary.” They talked of his
brother who was away at camp, and would be away for another two
months. Presently he ordered some punch and their intimacy grew.
On another occasion Theodore met her in the Park. She was gathering
flowers. They both sat down in the grass. She was wearing a light
summer dress, the material of which was so thin that it plainly
revealed her slight girlish figure. He put his arms round her waist
and kissed her. She returned his kisses and he drew her to him in a
passionate embrace; but she tore herself away and told him gravely
that if he did not behave himself she would never meet him again.
They went on meeting one another for two months. Theodore had fallen
in love with her. He had long and serious conversations with her on
the most sacred duties of life, on love, on religion, on everything,
and between-whiles he spoke to her of his passion. But she invariably
confounded him with his own arguments. Then he felt ashamed of having
harboured base thoughts of so innocent a girl, and finally his passion
was transformed into admiration for this poor little thing, who had
managed to keep herself unspotted in the midst of temptation.
He had given up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to
take the doctor’s degree and--who knows--perhaps marry Rieke. He read
poetry to her while she did needlework. She let him kiss her as much
as he liked, she allowed him to fondle and caress her; but that was
the limit.
At last his brother returned from camp. He immediately ordered a
banquet at “The Equerry”; Theodore was invited. But he was made to
play all the time. He was in the middle of a waltz, to which nobody
danced, when he happened to look round; he was alone. He rose and went
into the corridor, passed a long row of doors, and at last came to a
bed-room. There he saw a sight which made him turn round, seize his
hat and disappear into the darkness.
It was dawn when he reached his own bed-room, alone, annihilated,
robbed of his faith in life, in love, and, of course, in women, for to
him there was but one woman in the world, and that was Rieke from “The
Equerry.” On the fifteenth of September he went to Upsala to study
theology.
* * * * *
The years passed. His sound common-sense was slowly extinguished by
all the nonsense with which he had to fill his brain daily and hourly.
But at night he was powerless to resist. Nature burst her bonds and
took by force what rebellious man denied her. He lost his health; all
his skull bones were visible in his haggard face, his complexion was
sallow and his skin looked damp and clammy; ugly pimples appeared
between the scanty locks of his beard. His eyes were without lustre,
his hands so emaciated that the joints seemed to poke through the
skin. He looked like the illustration to an essay on human vice, and
yet he lived a perfectly pure life.
One day the professor of Christian Ethics, a married man with very
strict ideas on morality, called on him and asked him pointblank
whether he had anything on his conscience; if so, he advised him to
make a clean breast of it. Theodore answered that he had nothing to
confess, but that he was unhappy. Thereupon the professor exhorted him
to watch and pray and be strong.
His brother had written him a long letter, begging him not to take a
certain stupid matter too much to heart. He told him that it was absurd
to take a girl seriously. His philosophy, and he had always found it
answering admirably, was to pay debts incurred and go; to play while
one was young, for the gravity of life made itself felt quite soon enough.
Marriage was nothing but a civil institution for the protection of the
children. There was plenty of time for it.
Theodore replied at some length in a letter imbued with true Christian
sentiment, which the lieutenant left unanswered.
After passing his first examination in the spring, Theodore was
obliged to spend a summer at Sköfde, in order to undergo the cold
water cure. In the autumn he returned to Upsala. His newly-regained
strength was merely so much fresh fuel to the fire.
Matters grew worse and worse. His hair had grown so thin that the
scalp was plainly visible. He walked with dragging footsteps and
whenever his fellow students met him in the street, they cut him as if
he were possessed of all the vices. He noticed it and shunned them in
his turn. He only left his rooms in the evening. He did not dare to go
to bed at night. The iron which he had taken to excess, had ruined his
digestion, and in the following summer the doctors sent him to
Karlsbad.
On his return to Upsala, in the autumn, a rumour got abroad, an ugly
rumour, which hung over the town like a black cloud. It was as if a
drain had been left open and men were suddenly reminded that the town,
that splendid creation of civilisation, was built over a sea of
corruption, which might at any moment burst its bonds and poison the
inhabitants. It was said that Theodore Wennerstroem, in a paroxysm of
passion had assaulted one of his friends, and the rumour did not lie.
His father went to Upsala and had an interview with the Dean of the
Theological Faculty. The professor of pathology was present. What was
to be done? The doctor remained silent. They pressed him for his
opinion.
“Since you ask me,” he said, “I must give you an answer; but you know
as well as I do that there is but one remedy.”
“And that is?” asked the theologian.
“Need you ask?” replied the doctor.
“Yes,” said the theologian, who was a married man. “Surely, nature
does not require immorality from a man?”
The father said that he quite understood the case, but that he was
afraid of making recommendations to his son, on account of the risks
the latter would run.
“If he can’t take care of himself he must be a fool,” said the doctor.
The Dean requested them to continue such an agitating conversation in
a more suitable place.... He himself had nothing more to add.