Married Part 9

In the meantime he had lost all inclination to try the other restaurants; he pa.s.sed the Tivoli and went further into the heart of the park. Young men and women were dancing on the gra.s.s to the strains of a violin: a little further off a whole family was camping under an old oak; the head of the family was kneeling down, in his shirt sleeves, with bare head, a gla.s.s of beer in one hand, a sandwich in the other; his fat, jolly, clean-shaven face beamed with pleasure and good-nature as he invited his guests, who were evidently his wife, parents-in-law, brothers, shop-a.s.sistants and servants, to eat, drink and be merry, for to-day was Midsummer day, all day long. And the jovial fellow made such droll remarks that the whole party writhed on the gra.s.s with amus.e.m.e.nt. After the pancake had been produced and eaten with the fingers, and the port bottle been round, the senior shop-a.s.sistant made a speech which was at once so moving and so witty that the ladies at one moment pressed their handkerchiefs to their eyes, while the head of the family bit his lips, and at the next interrupted the speaker with loud laughter and cheers.

The schoolmaster's mood became more and more morose, but instead of going away he sat down on a stone under a pinetree and watched "the animals."

When the speech was finished and father and mother had been toasted with cheers and a flourish of trumpets, executed on a concertina, accompanied by the rattling of all cups and saucers that happened to be empty, the party rose to play "Third Man," while mother and mother-in-law attended to the babies.

"Just like the beasts in the field," thought the schoolmaster, turning away, for all that was natural was ugly in his eyes, and only that which was unnatural could lay any claim to beauty in his opinion, except, of course, the paintings of "well-known" masters in the National Museum.

He watched the young men taking off their coats, the young girls slipping off their cuffs and hanging them on the blackthorn bushes; then they took up their positions and the game began.

The girls picked up their skirts and threw up their legs so that their garters, made of blue and red braid such as the grocers sell for tying up pots, were plainly visible, and whenever the cavalier caught his lady, he took her in his arms and swung her round so that her skirts flew; and young and old shrieked so with laughter that the park re-echoed.

"Is this innocence or corruption?" wondered the schoolmaster.

But evidently the party did not know what the learned word "corruption"

meant, and that was the reason why they were so merry.

By the time they were tired of playing "Third Man" tea was ready. The schoolmaster was puzzled to know where the cavaliers had learnt their fine manners, for they moved about on all fours to offer the girls sugar and cake; and the straps of their waistcoats stood out like handles.

"The males showing off before the females!" thought the schoolmaster.

"They don't know what they are in for."

He noticed how the head of the family, the jolly fellow, waited on father and mother-in-law, wife, shop-a.s.sistants and servant girls: and whenever one of them begged him to help himself first, he invariably answered that there was plenty of time for that.

He watched the father-in-law peeling a willow branch to make a flute for the little boy; he watched the mother-in-law wash up as if she had been one of the servants. And he thought that there was something strange about selfishness, since it could be so cleverly disguised that it looked as if no one gave more than he received; for it must be selfishness, it couldn't be anything else.

They played at forfeits and redeemed every forfeit with kisses, true, genuine, resounding kisses on the lips; and when the jolly book-keeper was made to kiss the old oak-tree, his conduct was too absurd for anything; he embraced and caressed the gnarled trunk as if it had been a girl whom he had met secretly; everybody shouted with laughter, for all knew how to do it, although none of them would have liked to be caught doing it.

The schoolmaster who had begun by watching the spectacle with critical eyes, fell more and more under the spell of it; he almost believed himself to be one of the party. He smiled at the sallies of the shop-a.s.sistants, and before an hour was gone the head of the family had won his whole sympathy. No one could deny that the man was a comedian of the first rank. He could play "Skin-the-cat"; he could "walk backwards," "lie" on the tree-trunks, swallow coins, eat fire, and imitate all sorts of birds. And when he extracted a saffron cake from the dress of one of the girls and made it disappear in his right ear, the schoolmaster laughed until his empty inside ached.

Then the dancing began. The schoolmaster had read in Rabe's grammar: Nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, and had always looked upon dancing as a species of insanity. True, he had watched puppies and calves dancing when they felt frisky, but he did not believe that Cicero's maxim applied to the animal world, and he was in the habit of drawing a sharp line between men and animals. Now, as he sat watching these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty, moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf.

He spent three hours musing and watching, then he rose. He found it almost difficult to tear himself away; it was just as if he were leaving a merry party to which he had been invited; but his mood had changed; he felt more reconciled. He was at peace with the world and pleasantly tired, as if he had been enjoying himself.

It was evening. Smart carriages pa.s.sed him, the lady-occupants lolling on the back seats and looking in their long, white theatre wraps like corpses in their shrouds; it was fashionable then to look as if one had been exhumed. The schoolmaster, whose thoughts were running in another direction, was sure that the ladies must be bored to death and felt no trace of envy. Below the dusty highroad, far out on the sea, the steamers with their flags and bra.s.s bands were returning from their pleasure trips; cheers, strains of music and s.n.a.t.c.hes of song were wafted by the sea breezes to the mountains and the Deer Park.

The schoolmaster had never felt so lonely in his life as he did this evening in the moving throng. He fancied that everybody was looking at him compa.s.sionately as he made his solitary way through the crowd, and almost gave way to self-pity. He would have liked to talk to the first comer, for the mere pleasure of hearing his voice, for in his loneliness he felt as if he were walking by the side of a stranger. And now his conscience smote him. He remembered the waiter Gustav, who had been unable to hide his pleasure at meeting him. Now he had arrived at a point when he would have given worlds if anybody had met him and shown any pleasure at the fact. But n.o.body came.

Yes, somebody did, after all. As he was sitting by himself on the steamer, a setter, who had lost his master, came to him and put its head on his knee. The schoolmaster was not particularly fond of dogs, but he allowed it to stay; he felt it pressing its soft warm body against his leg, he saw the eyes of the forsaken brute looking at him in dumb appeal, as if it were asking him to find its master.

But as soon as they landed, the setter ran away. "It needed me no longer," thought the schoolmaster, and he walked home and went to bed.

These trifling incidents of Midsummer day had robbed the schoolmaster of his a.s.surance. They taught him that all foresight, all precautions, all the clever calculations in the world availed nothing. He felt a certain instability in his surroundings. Even the public house, his home, was not to be counted on. It might be closed any day. Moreover, a certain reserve on the part of Gustav troubled him. The waiter was as civil as before, more attentive even, but his friendship was gone; he had lost confidence. It afforded the schoolmaster food for thought, and whenever a tough piece of meat, or too small a dish of potatoes was set before him he thought:

"Haha! He's paying me out!"

It was a bad summer for the schoolmaster: the second violin was out of town and the book-seller frequented "Mosesheight," a garden restaurant in his own district, situated on a hill.

On an evening in autumn the bookseller and the second violin were sitting at their favourite table, drinking a gla.s.s of punch, when the schoolmaster entered, carrying under his arm a parcel which he carefully hid in an empty hamper in a cupboard used for all sorts of lumber. He was ill-tempered and unusually irritable.

"Well, old boy," the bookseller began for the hundredth time, "and when are you going to be married?"

"Confound your 'when are you going to be married!' As if a man hadn't enough trouble without it! Why don't you get married yourself?"

growled the schoolmaster.

"Oh! because I have my old Stafva," answered the bookseller, who always had a number of stereotyped answers in readiness.

"I was married very happily," said the Pole, "but my wife is dead, now, ugh!"

"Is she?" mimicked the schoolmaster; "and the gentleman is a widower?

How am I to reconcile these facts?"

The Pole nodded, for he did not in the least understand what the schoolmaster was driving at.

The latter felt bored by his friends; their topic of conversation was always the same; he knew their replies by heart.

Presently he went into the corridor for a few moments to fetch his cigar-case which he had left in the pocket of his overcoat. The bookseller instantly raided the cupboard and returned with the mysterious parcel. As it was not sealed, he opened it quickly; it contained a beautiful American sleeping-suit; he hung it carefully over the back of the schoolmaster's chair.

"Ugh!" said the Pole, grinning, as if he were looking at something unsightly.

The proprietor of the restaurant who loved a practical joke, bent over the counter, laughing loudly; the waiter stood rooted to the spot, and one of the cooks peeped through the door which communicated with the kitchen.

When the schoolmaster came back and realised the trick played on him, he grew pale with anger; he immediately suspected the bookseller; but when his eyes fell on Gustav who was standing in a corner of the room, laughing, his old obsession returned to him: "He's paying me out!"

Without a word he seized his property, threw a few coins on the counter and left the restaurant.

Henceforth the schoolmaster avoided Rejner's. The bookseller had heard that he dined at a restaurant in his own district. This was true. But he was very discontented! The food was not actually bad, but it was not cooked to his liking. The waiters were not attentive. He often thought of returning to Rejner's, but his pride would not let him. He had been turned out of his home; in five minutes a bond of many years'

standing had been severed.

A short time after fate struck him a fresh blow. Miss Augusta had inherited a little fortune in the provinces and had decided to leave Stockholm on the first of October. The schoolmaster had to look out for new lodgings.

But he had been spoilt, and there was no pleasing him. He changed his room every month. There was nothing wrong with the rooms, but they were not like his old room. It had become such a habit with him to walk through certain streets, that he often found himself before his old front door before he realised his mistake. He was like a lost child.

Eventually he went to live in a boarding house, a solution which he had always loathed and dreaded. And then his friends lost sight of him altogether.

One evening, as the Pole was sitting alone over his grog, smoking, drinking, and nodding with the capacity of the oriental to lapse into complete stupor, the bookseller burst in on him like a thunderstorm, flung his hat on the table, and shouted:

"Confound him! Has anybody ever heard anything like it?"

The Pole roused himself from his brandy-and-tobacco Nirvana, and rolled his eyes.

"I say, confound it! Has anybody ever heard anything like it? He's going to be married!"

"Who's going to be married?" asked the Pole, startled by the bookseller's violence and emphatic language.

"Schoolmaster Blom!"

The bookseller expected a gla.s.s of grog in exchange for his news. The proprietor left the counter and came to their table to listen.

"Has she any money?" he asked acutely.