The Son of a Servant. August Strindberg
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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