The Confession of a Fool. August Strindberg
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for him and for me, and before an even less auspicious audience.
Half-an-hour later the Baron called for me at the library. I took him through the passages in the basement, overcrowded with cupboards and shelves, into the manuscript room. He looked cheerful, and at once communicated to me the contents of a letter he had received from his wife. All was going on well. She had enclosed a note for me. I devoured it with my eyes, trying hard to hide my excitement. She thanked me frankly and graciously for having looked after "her old man"; she said she had felt flattered by my evident grief at parting, and added that she was staying with my "guardian angel," to whom she was getting more and more attached. She expressed great admiration for her character, and, in conclusion, held out hopes of a happy ending. That was all.
So she was in love with me, this "guardian angel" of mine! This monster! The very thought of her now filled me with horror. I was compelled to act the part of a lover against my will; I was condemned to play an abominable farce, perhaps all my life long. The truth of the old adage that one cannot play with fire without burning one's fingers came home to me with terrible force. Caught in my own trap, I pictured to myself in my wrath the detestable creature who had forced herself upon me: she had the eyes of a Mongolian, a sallow face, red arms. With angry satisfaction I recalled her seductive ways, her suspicious behaviour, which more than once had set my friends wondering what species of woman it was with whom I was seen so constantly walking about the parks and suburbs.
The remembrance of her tricks, her attentions, her flattering tongue, gave me a kind of vicious pleasure. I remembered a way she had of pulling out her watch and showing a little bit of dainty underclothing. I remembered a certain Sunday in the Park. We were strolling along the broad avenues when she all at once proposed that we should walk through the shrubbery. Her proposal irritated me, for the shrubbery had an evil reputation, but she answered all my objections with a short "Bother propriety!"
She wanted to gather anemones under the hazel bushes. She left me standing in the avenue and disappeared behind the shrubs. I followed, confused. She sat down in a sheltered spot under an alder tree, spreading out her skirts and showing off her feet, which were small but disfigured by bunions. An uncomfortable silence fell between us. I thought of the old maids of Corinth. … She looked at me with an expression of childlike innocence … she was safe from me, her very plainness saved her, and, moreover, I took no pleasure in easy conquests.
Every one of these details, which I had always put away from me as odious, came into my mind and oppressed me, now that there seemed a prospect of winning her. I prayed fervently for the comedian's success.
But I had to be patient and hide my feelings.
While I was reading his wife's note, the Baron sat down at the table, which was littered with old books and documents. He was playing with his carved ivory baton, absent-mindedly, as if he were conscious of his inferiority in literary matters. He defeated all my attempts to interest him in my work with an indifferent, "Yes, yes, very interesting!"
Abashed by the evidences of his rank, his neckpiece, the sash, the brilliant uniform, I endeavoured to readjust the balance by showing off my knowledge. But I only succeeded in making him feel uncomfortable.
The sword versus the pen! Down with the aristocrat, up with the commoner! Did the woman, when later on she chose the father of her children from the aristocracy of the brain, see the future, clairvoyantly, without being conscious of it?
In spite of his constant efforts to treat me as his equal, the Baron, without admitting it even to himself, was always constrained in my presence. At times he paid due deference to my superior knowledge, tacitly acknowledging his inferiority to me in certain respects; at other times he would ride the high horse; then a word from the Baroness was sufficient to bring him to his senses. In his wife's eyes the inherited coat of arms counted for very little, and the dusty coat of the man of letters completely eclipsed the full-dress uniform of the captain. Had he not been himself aware of this when he donned a painter's blouse and entered the studio at Düsseldorf as the least of all the pupils? In all probability he had, but still there always remained a certain refinement, an inherited tradition, and he was by no means free from the jealous hatred which exists between students and officers.
For the moment I was necessary to him, as I shared his sorrow, and therefore he invited me to dine with him.
After the coffee he suggested that we should both write to the Baroness. He brought me paper and pen, and compelled me to write to her, against my will; I racked my brain for platitudes under which to hide the thoughts of my heart.
When I had finished my letter I handed it to the Baron and asked him to read it.
"I never read other people's letters," he answered, with hypocritical pride.
"And I never write to another man's wife without that man's full knowledge of the correspondence."
He glanced at my letter, and, with an enigmatical smile, enclosed it in his own.
I saw nothing of him during the rest of the week, until I met him one evening at a street corner. He seemed very pleased to see me, and we went into a café to have a chat.
He had just returned from the country, where he had spent a few days with his wife's cousin. Without ever having met that charming person, I was easily able to draw a mental picture of her from the traces of her influence on the Baron's character. He had lost his haughtiness and his melancholy. There was a gay, somewhat dissipated look on his face, and he enriched his vocabulary by a few expressions of doubtful taste; even the tone of his voice was altered.
"A weak mind," I said to myself, "swayed by every emotion; a blank slate on which the lightest of women may write sense or folly, according to her sweet will."
He behaved like the hero in comic opera; he joked, told funny tales and was in boisterous spirits. His charm was gone with his uniform; and when, after supper, slightly intoxicated, he suggested that we should call on certain female friends of his, I thought him positively repulsive. With the exception of the neckpiece, the sash and the uniform, he really possessed no attractions whatever.
When his intoxication had reached its climax, he lost all sense of shame and began to discuss the secrets of his married life. I interrupted him indignantly and proposed that we should go home. He assured me that his wife allowed him full license during her absence. At first I thought this more than human, but later on it confirmed the opinion I had formed of the Baroness's naturally frigid temperament. We parted very early, and I returned to my room, my brain on fire with the indiscreet disclosure which I had been made to listen to.
This woman, although apparently in love with her husband, after a union of three years not only permitted him every freedom, but did so without claiming the same right for herself. It was strange, unnatural, like love without jealousy, light without shade. No! it was impossible; there must be another cause. He had told me the Baroness was naturally cold. That, too, seemed strange. Or was she really an embodiment of the virgin mother, such as I had already dimly divined? And was not chastity, purity of the soul, so closely linked to refinement of manners, a characteristic, an attribute of a superior race? I had not been deceived, then, in my youthful meditations when a young girl roused my admiration without in the least exciting my senses. Beautiful childish dreams! Charming ignorance of woman, that problem unspeakably more complex than a bachelor ever dreams of!
At last the Baroness returned, radiant with health; the memories awakened by meeting again the friends of her girlhood seemed to have rejuvenated her.
"Here is the dove with the olive branch," she said, handing me a letter from my so-called sweetheart.
With anything but genuine enjoyment I waded through the presumptuous twaddle, the effusions of a heartless blue-stocking, anxious to win independence by marriage—any marriage, and while I was reading I made up my mind to put an end to the matter.
"Do you know for certain," I asked the Baroness, "whether the lady is engaged to the singer or not?"
"Yes and no."
"Has she given him her word?"
"No."
"Does