The Red Room. August Strindberg

he had risen early he was at his writing-table at nine o'clock. He filled a large pipe, took two sheets of paper, wiped his steel nibs and tried to recall all he knew about Ulrica Eleonora. He looked her up in Ekelund and Fryxell. There was a great deal under the heading Ulrica Eleonora, but very little about her personally. At half-past nine he had exhausted the subject. He had written down her birthplace, and the place where she died, when she came to the throne, when she abdicated, the names of her parents and the name of her husband. It was a commonplace excerpt from a church register—and filled three pages, leaving thirteen to be covered. He smoked two or three pipes and dragged the inkstand with his pen, as if he were fishing for the Midgard serpent, but he brought up nothing. He was bound to say something about her personally, sketch her character; he felt as if he were sitting in judgment on her. Should he praise or revile her? As it was a matter of complete indifference to him, his mind was still not made up when it struck eleven. He reviled her—and came to the end of the fourth page, leaving twelve to be accounted for. He was at his wits' end. He wanted to say something about her rule, but as she had not ruled, there was nothing to be said. He wrote about her Council—one page—leaving eleven; he whitewashed Görtz—another—leaving ten. He had not yet filled half the required space. He hated the woman! More pipes! Fresh steel nibs! He went back to remoter days, passing them in review, and being now in a thoroughly bad temper, he overthrew his old idol, Charles XII, and hurled him in the dust; it was done in a few words, and only added one more page to his pile. There still remained nine. He anticipated events and criticised Frederick I. Half a page! He glanced at the paper with unhappy eyes; he glimpsed half-way house, but could not reach it. He had written seven and a half small pages; Ekelund had only managed one and a half.

      He flung the wood-block on the floor, kicked it underneath his writing-table, crawled after it, dusted it and put it in its former place. It was torture! His soul was as dry as the block. He tried to work himself up to views which he did not hold; he tried to awaken some sort of emotion in his heart for the dead queen, but her plain, dull features, cut into the wood, made no more impression on him than he on the block. He realized his incapacity and felt despondent, degraded. And this was the career of his choice, the one he had preferred to all others. With a strong appeal to his reason, he turned to the guardian angel.

      The brochure was originally written for a German society, the "Nereus," and the argument was as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Castle had emigrated to America, where they acquired a large estate. To make the story possible, they had sold their land, and, very unpractically, invested the total amount realized in costly furniture and objects of art. As the story required that everything should be completely lost and nothing whatever saved from the shipwreck, they sent off the whole lot in advance by the Washington, a first-class steamer, copper bottomed, with watertight bulkheads, and insured with the great German Marine Insurance Company for £60,000. Mr. and Mrs. Castle and the children followed on the Bolivar, the finest boat of the White Star Line, insured with the great Marine Insurance Company "Nereus" (Capital $10,000,000), and safely arrived at Liverpool. They left Liverpool and all went well until they came to Skagen Point. During the whole voyage the weather had, of course, been magnificent; the sky was clear and radiant, but at the dangerous Skagen Point a storm overtook them; the steamer was wrecked; the parents, whose lives were insured, were drowned, thereby guaranteeing to the children, who were saved, £1500. The latter, rejoicing at their parents' foresight, arrived at Hamburg in good spirits, eager to take possession of the insurance money and the property which they had inherited from their parents. Imagine their consternation when they were told that the Washington had been wrecked a fortnight before their arrival on Dogger Bank; their whole fortune, which had been left uninsured, was lost. All that remained was the life insurance money. They hurried to the Company's agents. A fresh disaster! They were told that their parents had not paid the last premium which—oh, fateful blow!—had been due on the day preceding their death. The distressed children bitterly mourned their parents, who had worked so hard for them. They embraced each other with tears and made a solemn vow that henceforth all their possessions should be insured, and that they would never neglect paying their life insurance premiums.

      This story was to be localized, adapted to a Swedish environment and made into a readable novelette; and with this he was to make his début in the literary world. The devil of pride whispered to him not to be a blackguard and to leave the business alone, but this voice was silenced by another, which came from the region of his empty stomach, and was accompanied by a gnawing, stinging sensation. He drank a glass of water and smoked another pipe. But his discomfort increased. His thoughts became more gloomy; he found his room uncomfortable, the morning dull and monotonous; he was tired and despondent; everything seemed repulsive; his ideas were spiritless and revolved round nothing but unpleasant subjects; and still his discomfort grew. He wondered whether he was hungry? It was one o'clock. He never dined before three. He anxiously examined his purse. Threepence halfpenny! For the first time in his life he would have to go without dinner! This was a trouble hitherto unknown to him. But with threepence halfpenny there was no necessity to starve. He could send for bread and beer. No! That would not do; it was infra dig. Go to a dairy? No! Borrow? Impossible! He knew nobody who would lend. No sooner had he realized this than hunger began to rage in him like a wild beast let loose, biting him, tearing him and chasing him round the room. He smoked pipe after pipe to stupefy the monster; in vain.

      A rolling of drums from the barracks yard told him that the guardsmen were lining up with their copper vessels to receive their dinner; every chimney was smoking; the dinner bell went in the dockyard; a hissing sound came from his neighbour's, the policemen's kitchen; the smell of roast meat penetrated through the chinks of the door; he heard the rattling of knives and plates in the adjacent room, and the children saying grace. The paviours in the street below were taking their after-dinner nap with their heads on their empty food baskets. The whole town was dining; everybody, except he. He raged against God. But all at once a clear thought shot through his brain. He seized Ulrica Eleonora and the guardian angel, wrapped them in paper, wrote Smith's name and address on the parcel, and handed the messenger his threepence halfpenny. And with a sigh of relief he threw himself on his sofa and starved, with a heart bursting with pride.