The Son of a Servant. August Strindberg
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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