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

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.

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.

Sometimes the child went to the churchyard, where everything seemed 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."