They were received in the hall by two girls. "Good evening, little doves," said the lieutenant, and kissed them both on the lips. "Let me introduce you to my learned brother; he"s very young and innocent, not at all like me; what do you say, Jossa?"
The girls looked shyly at Theodore, who did not know which way to turn.
His brother"s language appeared to him unutterably impudent.
On their way upstairs they met a dark-haired little girl, who had evidently been crying; she looked quiet and modest and made a good impression on Theodore.
The lieutenant did not kiss her, but he pulled out his handkerchief and dried her eyes. Then he ordered an extravagant supper.
They were in a bright and pretty room, hung with mirrors and containing a piano, a perfect room for banquetting. The lieutenant opened the piano with his sword, and before Theodore knew where he was, he was sitting on the music-stool, and his hands were resting on the keyboard.
"Play us a waltz," commanded the lieutenant, and Theodore played a waltz. The lieutenant took off his sword and danced with Jossa; Theodore heard his spurs knocking against the legs of the chairs and tables. Then he threw himself on the sofa and shouted:
"Come here, ye slaves, and fan me!"
Theodore began to play softly and presently he was absorbed in the music of Gounod"s _Faust_. He did not dare to turn round.
"Go and kiss him," whispered the brother.
But the girls felt shy. They were almost afraid of him and his melancholy music.
The boldest of them, however, went up to the piano.
"You are playing from the Freischutz, aren"t you?" she asked.
"No," said Theodore, politely, "I"m playing Gounod"s _Faust_."
"Your brother looks frightfully respectable," said the little dark one, whose name was Rieke; "he"s different to you, you old villain."
"Oh! well, he"s going into the Church," whispered the lieutenant.
These words made a great impression on the girls, and henceforth they only kissed the lieutenant when Theodore"s back was turned, and looked at Theodore shyly and apprehensively, like fowls at a chained mastiff.
Supper appeared, a great number of courses. There were eighteen dishes, not counting the hot ones.
Gustav poured out the liqueurs.
"Your health, you old hypocrite!" he laughed.
Theodore swallowed the liqueur. A delicious warmth ran through his limbs, a thin, warm veil fell over his eyes, he felt ravenous like a starving beast. What a banquet it was! The fresh salmon with its peculiar flavour, and the dill with its narcotic aroma; the radishes which seem to sc.r.a.pe the throat and call for beer; the small beef-steaks and sweet Portuguese onions, which made him think of dancing girls; the fried lobster which smelt of the sea; the chicken stuffed with parsley which reminded him of the gardener, and the first gerkins with their poisonous flavour of verdigris which made such a jolly, crackling sound between his crunching teeth. The porter flowed through his veins like hot streams of lava; they drank champagne after the strawberries; a waitress brought the foaming drink which bubbled in the gla.s.ses like a fountain. They poured out a gla.s.s for her. And then they talked of all sorts of things.
Theodore sat there like a tree in which the sap is rising. He had eaten a good supper and felt as if a whole volcano was seething in his inside. New thoughts, new emotions, new ideas, new points of view fluttered round his brow like b.u.t.terflies. He went to the piano and played, he himself knew not what. The ivory keys under his hands were like a heap of bones from which his spirit drew life and melody.
He did not know how long he had been playing, but when he turned, round he saw his brother entering the room. He looked like a G.o.d, radiating life and strength. Behind him came Rieke with a bowl of punch, and immediately after all the girls came upstairs. The lieutenant drank to each one of them separately; Theodore found that everything was as it should be and finally became so bold that he kissed Rieke on the shoulder. But she looked annoyed and drew away from him, and he felt ashamed.
When Theodore found himself alone in his room, he had a feeling as if the whole world were turned upside down. He tore the text from the wall, not because he no longer believed in Jesus, but because its being pinned against the wall struck him as a species of bragging. He was amazed to find that religion sat on him as loosely as a Sunday suit, and he asked himself whether it was not unseemly to go about during the whole week in Sunday clothes. After all he was but an ordinary, commonplace person with whom he was well content, and he came to the conclusion that he had a better chance of living in peace with himself if he lived a simple, unpretentious, una.s.suming life.
He slept soundly during the night, undisturbed by dreams.
When he arose on the following morning, his pale cheeks looked fuller and there was a new gladness in his heart. He went out for a walk and suddenly found himself in the country. The thought struck him that he might go to the restaurant and look up the girls. He went into the large room; there he found Rieke and Jossa alone, in morning dresses, snubbing gooseberries. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sitting at the table beside them with a pair of scissors in his hand, helping them. They talked of Theodore"s brother and the pleasant evening they had spent together. Not a single loose remark was made. They were just like a happy family; surely he had fallen in good hands, he was among friends.
When they had finished with the gooseberries, he ordered coffee and invited the girls to share it with him. Later on the proprietress came and read the paper to them. He felt at home.
He repeated his visit. One afternoon he went upstairs, to look for Rieke. She was sewing a seam. Theodore asked her whether he was in her way. "Not at all," she replied, "on the contrary." They talked of his brother who was away at camp, and would be away for another two months. Presently he ordered some punch and their intimacy grew.
On another occasion Theodore met her in the Park. She was gathering flowers. They both sat down in the gra.s.s. She was wearing a light summer dress, the material of which was so thin that it plainly revealed her slight girlish figure. He put his arms round her waist and kissed her. She returned his kisses and he drew her to him in a pa.s.sionate embrace; but she tore herself away and told him gravely that if he did not behave himself she would never meet him again.
They went on meeting one another for two months. Theodore had fallen in love with her. He had long and serious conversations with her on the most sacred duties of life, on love, on religion, on everything, and between-whiles he spoke to her of his pa.s.sion. But she invariably confounded him with his own arguments. Then he felt ashamed of having harboured base thoughts of so innocent a girl, and finally his pa.s.sion was transformed into admiration for this poor little thing, who had managed to keep herself unspotted in the midst of temptation.
He had given up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to take the doctor"s degree and--who knows--perhaps marry Rieke. He read poetry to her while she did needlework. She let him kiss her as much as he liked, she allowed him to fondle and caress her; but that was the limit.
At last his brother returned from camp. He immediately ordered a banquet at "The Equerry"; Theodore was invited. But he was made to play all the time. He was in the middle of a waltz, to which n.o.body danced, when he happened to look round; he was alone. He rose and went into the corridor, pa.s.sed a long row of doors, and at last came to a bed-room. There he saw a sight which made him turn round, seize his hat and disappear into the darkness.
It was dawn when he reached his own bed-room, alone, annihilated, robbed of his faith in life, in love, and, of course, in women, for to him there was but one woman in the world, and that was Rieke from "The Equerry." On the fifteenth of September he went to Upsala to study theology.
The years pa.s.sed. His sound common-sense was slowly extinguished by all the nonsense with which he had to fill his brain daily and hourly.
But at night he was powerless to resist. Nature burst her bonds and took by force what rebellious man denied her. He lost his health; all his skull bones were visible in his haggard face, his complexion was sallow and his skin looked damp and clammy; ugly pimples appeared between the scanty locks of his beard. His eyes were without l.u.s.tre, his hands so emaciated that the joints seemed to poke through the skin. He looked like the ill.u.s.tration to an essay on human vice, and yet he lived a perfectly pure life.
One day the professor of Christian Ethics, a married man with very strict ideas on morality, called on him and asked him pointblank whether he had anything on his conscience; if so, he advised him to make a clean breast of it. Theodore answered that he had nothing to confess, but that he was unhappy. Thereupon the professor exhorted him to watch and pray and be strong.
His brother had written him a long letter, begging him not to take a certain stupid matter too much to heart. He told him that it was absurd to take a girl seriously. His philosophy, and he had always found it answering admirably, was to pay debts incurred and go; to play while one was young, for the gravity of life made itself felt quite soon enough.
Marriage was nothing but a civil inst.i.tution for the protection of the children. There was plenty of time for it.
Theodore replied at some length in a letter imbued with true Christian sentiment, which the lieutenant left unanswered.
After pa.s.sing his first examination in the spring, Theodore was obliged to spend a summer at Skofde, in order to undergo the cold water cure. In the autumn he returned to Upsala. His newly-regained strength was merely so much fresh fuel to the fire.
Matters grew worse and worse. His hair had grown so thin that the scalp was plainly visible. He walked with dragging footsteps and whenever his fellow students met him in the street, they cut him as if he were possessed of all the vices. He noticed it and shunned them in his turn. He only left his rooms in the evening. He did not dare to go to bed at night. The iron which he had taken to excess, had ruined his digestion, and in the following summer the doctors sent him to Karlsbad.
On his return to Upsala, in the autumn, a rumour got abroad, an ugly rumour, which hung over the town like a black cloud. It was as if a drain had been left open and men were suddenly reminded that the town, that splendid creation of civilisation, was built over a sea of corruption, which might at any moment burst its bonds and poison the inhabitants. It was said that Theodore Wennerstroem, in a paroxysm of pa.s.sion had a.s.saulted one of his friends, and the rumour did not lie.
His father went to Upsala and had an interview with the Dean of the Theological Faculty. The professor of pathology was present. What was to be done? The doctor remained silent. They pressed him for his opinion.
"Since you ask me," he said, "I must give you an answer; but you know as well as I do that there is but one remedy."
"And that is?" asked the theologian.
"Need you ask?" replied the doctor.
"Yes," said the theologian, who was a married man. "Surely, nature does not require immorality from a man?"
The father said that he quite understood the case, but that he was afraid of making recommendations to his son, on account of the risks the latter would run.
"If he can"t take care of himself he must be a fool," said the doctor.
The Dean requested them to continue such an agitating conversation in a more suitable place.... He himself had nothing more to add.
This ended the matter.