The Son of a Servant. August Strindberg
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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