In Midsummer Days and Other Tales by August Strindberg

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And the early summer came and everything grew green. The conductor
had dined at the restaurant "Hazelmount," and had drunk a bottle of
Burgundy with his dinner, and therefore he slept long and soundly,
especially as the theatre was closed on that day.

He slept well, but while he slept it grew so warm in the room that
he woke up two or three times, or, at any rate, he thought he did.
Once he fancied that his wall-paper was on fire, but that was probably
the effect of the Burgundy; another time he felt as if something
hot had touched his face, but that was certainly the Burgundy; and
so he turned over and fell asleep again.

At half-past nine he got up, dressed, and went into the sitting-room
to refresh himself with a glass of milk which always stood ready
for him in the morning.

It was anything but cool in the sitting-room this morning; it
was almost warm, too warm. And the cold milk was not cold; it was
lukewarm, unpleasantly lukewarm.

The conductor was not a hot-tempered man, but he liked order and
method in everything. Therefore he rang for old Louisa, and since
he made his first fifty remonstrances always in a very mild tone,
he spoke kindly but firmly to her, as she put her head through the
door.

"Louisa," he said, "you have given me lukewarm milk."

"Oh! no, sir," replied Louisa, "it was quite cold, it must have
got warm in standing."

"Then you must have had a fire in the room; it's very warm here
this morning."

No, Louisa had not had a fire; and she retired into the kitchen,
very much hurt.

He forgave her for the milk. But a look round the sitting-room
made him feel very depressed. I must tell you that he had built a
little private altar in a corner, near the piano, which consisted
of a small table with two silver candlesticks, a large photograph
of a young woman, and a tall, gold-edged champagne glass. This
glass--it was the glass he had used on his wedding-day, and he was
a widower now--always contained a red rose in memory of and as an
offering to her who once had been the sunshine of his life. Whether
it was summer or winter, there was always a rose; and in the winter
time it lasted a whole week, that is to say if he trimmed the stem
occasionally and put a little salt into the water. Now, he had put
a fresh rose into the glass only last night, and to-day it was faded,
shrivelled up, dead, with its head drooping. This was a bad omen.
He knew what sensitive creatures flowers are, and had noticed that
they thrive with some people and not with others. He remembered how
sometimes, in his wife's lifetime, her rose, which always stood on
her little work-table, had faded and died quite unexpectedly. And
he had also noticed that this always happened when _his sun_ was
hiding behind a cloud, which after a while would dissolve in large
drops to the accompaniment of a low rumbling. Roses must have peace
and kind words; they can't bear harsh voices. They love music, and
sometimes he would play to the roses and they opened their buds
and smiled.

Now Louisa was a hard woman, and often muttered and growled to
herself when she turned out the room. There were days when she was
in a very bad temper, so that the milk curdled in the kitchen, and
the whole dinner tasted of discord, which the conductor noticed
at once; for he was himself like a delicate instrument, whose soul
responded to moods and influences which other people did not feel.

He concluded that Louisa had killed the rose; perhaps if she had
scolded the poor thing, or knocked the glass, or breathed on the
flower angrily, a treatment which it could not bear. Therefore he
rang again; and when Louisa put in her head, he said, not unkindly,
but more firmly than before:

"What have you done to my rose, Louisa?"

"Nothing, sir!"

"Nothing? Do you think the flower died without a very good reason?
You can see for yourself that there is no water in the glass! You
must have poured it away!"

As Louisa had done no such thing, she went into the kitchen and began
to cry, for it is disagreeable to be blamed when one is innocent.

Conductor Crossberg, who could not bear to see people crying, said
no more, but in the evening he bought a new rose, one which had
only just been cut, and, of course, was not wired, for his wife
had always had an objection to wired flowers.

And then he went to bed and fell asleep. And again he fancied in
his sleep that the wall-paper was on fire, and that his pillow was
very hot; but he went on sleeping.

On the following morning, when he came into the sitting-room, to
say his morning prayers before the little altar--alas! there lay
his rose, all the pink petals scattered by the side of the stem.
He was just stretching out his hand to touch the bell, when he saw
the photograph of his beloved, half rolled up, lying by the side
of the champagne glass. Louisa could not have done that!

"She, who was my all, my conscience and my muse," he thought in his
childlike mind, "she is dissatisfied and angry with me; what have
I done?"

Well, when he put this question to his conscience, he found, as
usual, more than one little fault, and he resolved to eradicate
his faults, gradually, of course.

Then he had the portrait framed and a glass shade put over the rose,
hoping that now things would be all right, but secretly fearing
that they would not.

After that he went on a week's journey; he returned home late at
night and went straight to bed. He woke up once, imagining that
the hanging lamp was burning.

When he entered the sitting-room late on the following morning, it
was downright hot there, and everything looked frightfully shabby.
The blinds were faded; the cover on the piano had lost its bright
colours; the bound volumes of music looked as if they were deformed;
the oil in the hanging-lame had evaporated and hung in a trembling
drop under the ornament, where the flies used to dance; the water
in the water-bottle was warm.

But the saddest thing of all was that her portrait, too, was faded,
as faded as autumn leaves. He was very unhappy, and whenever he
was very unhappy he went to the piano, or took up his violin, as
the case might be . ...

This time he sat down at the piano, with a vague notion of
playing the sonata in E minor, Grieg's, of course, which had been
her favourite, and was the best and finest, in his opinion, after
Beethoven's sonata in D minor; not because E comes after D, but
because it was so.

But the piano was very refractory to-day. It was out of tune, and
made all sorts of difficulties, so that he began to believe that
his eyes and fingers were in a bad temper. But it was not their
fault. The piano, quite simply, was out of tune, although a very
clever tuner had only just tuned it. It was like a piano bewitched,
enchanted.

He seized his violin; he had to tune it, of course. But when he
wanted to tighten the E string, the screw refused to work. It had
dried up; and when the conductor tried to use force, the string
snapped with a sharp sound, and rolled itself up like a dried
eel-skin.

It was bewitched!

But the fact that her photograph had faded was really the worst
blow, and therefore he threw a veil over the altar.

In doing this, he threw a veil over all that was most beautiful
in his life; and he became depressed, began to mope, and stopped
going out in the evening.

It would be Midsummer soon. The nights were shorter than the days,
but since the Venetian blinds kept his bedroom dark, the conductor
did not notice it.

At last, one night--it was Midsummer night--he awoke, because the
clock in the sitting-room struck thirteen. There was something
uncanny about this, firstly, because thirteen is an unlucky number,
and secondly, because no well-behaved clock can strike thirteen.
He did not fall asleep again, but he lay in his bed, listening.
There was a peculiar ticking noise in the sitting-room, and then
a loud bang, as if a piece of furniture had cracked. Directly
afterwards he heard stealthy footsteps, and then the clock began
to strike again; and it struck and struck, fifty times--a hundred
times. It really was uncanny!

And now a luminous tuft shot into his bedroom and threw a figure
on the wall, a strange figure, something like a fylfot, and it came
from the sitting-room. There was a light, then, in the sitting-room?
But who had lit it? And there was a tinkling of glasses, just as
if guests were there; champagne glasses of cut-crystal; but not a
word was uttered. And now he heard more sounds, sounds of canvas
being furled, or clothes passed through a mangle, or something of
that sort.

The conductor felt compelled to get up and look, and he went,
commending his soul into the hands of the Almighty.

Well, first of all he saw Louisa's print-dress disappearing through
the kitchen door; then he saw blinds, but blinds which had been
pulled up; he saw the dining-table covered with flowers, arranged
in glasses; as many flowers as there had been on his wedding-day
when he had brought his bride home.

And behold! The sun, the sun shone right into his face, shone on
blue fjords and distant woods; it was the sun which had illuminated
the sitting-room and played all the little tricks. He blessed the
sun which had been up so early in the morning and made a game of
the sluggard. And he blessed the memory of her whom he called the
sun of his life. It was not a new name, but he could not think of
a better one, and as it was, it was good enough.

And on his altar stood a rose, quite fresh, as fresh as _she_ had
been before the never-ending work had tired her. Tired her! Yes,
she had not been one of the strong ones; and life with its blows
and knocks had been too brutal for her! He had not forgotten how,
after a day's cleaning or ironing, she would throw herself on the
sofa and say in a complaining little voice, "I am so tired!" Poor
little thing, this earth had not been her home, she had only played
once, on tour, as it were, and then had gone far away.

"She lacked sunshine," the doctor had said, for at that time they
couldn't afford sun, because rooms on the sunny side are so expensive.

But now he had sun without having known it; he stood right in the
sunlight, but it was too late. Midsummer was past, and soon the
sun would disappear again, stay away for a year and then come back.
Things are very strange in this world!

THE PILOT'S TROUBLES

The pilot cutter lay outside, beyond the last beacon fire on the
headland; the winter sun had set long ago and the sea ran high; it
was the real sea with real huge breakers. Suddenly the first mate
signalled: "Sailing ship to windward."

Far out at sea, a long way off the harbour, a brig was visible; she
had backed her sails and hoisted the pilot's flag; she was asking
to be taken into port.

"Look out!" shouted the master-pilot, who was standing at the helm.
"We'll have a job in this sea, but we must try and get hold of her
in tacking, and you, Victor, throw yourself into her rigging as
soon as you get the chance ... bring the boat round! Now! Clear!"

The cutter turned and steered a course to the brig which lay outside,
pitching.

"Queer that she should have furled all her canvas. ... Can any
one see a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either!
Look out, Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood
waiting on the gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of
a big wave, he leapt into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter
sheered off, tacked, and made for the harbour.

Victor sat in the rigging, half-way between deck and cross-trees,
trying to recover his breath before descending on deck. As soon as
he came down he went to the helm, which was quite the right thing
for him to do. Imagine how shocked he was when he found it deserted!
He shouted "Ho there!" but received no reply.

"They're all inside, drinking," he thought, peering through the
cabin windows. No, not a soul! He crossed over to the kitchen,
examined the quarterdeck,--not a living being anywhere. Then he
realised that he was on a deserted ship; he concluded that she had
sprung a leak and was sinking.

He tried to discover the whereabouts of the cutter, but she had
disappeared in the darkness.

It was quite impossible for him to make port. To set the sails,
haul in the brails and bowlines, and at the same time stand at the
helm, was more than any sailor could manage.

There was nothing to b0e done, then, but let the vessel drift,
although he was aware of the fact that she was drifting out to sea.

It would not be true to say that he was pleased, but a pilot is
prepared for anything, and the thought that he might possibly meet
a sailing ship by and by, reassured him. But it was necessary to
show a light and signal.

He made his way towards the kitchen, intending to look for matches
and a lantern. Although the sea was very rough, he noticed that
the ship did not move, a fact which astonished him very much. But
when he came to the mainmast, he was even more astonished to find
himself walking on a parqueted floor, partly covered by a strip
of carpet of a small blue and white checked pattern. He walked and
walked, but still the carpet stretched before him, and still he
came no nearer to the kitchen. It was certainly uncanny, but it
was also amusing, for it was a new experience.

He was a long way off the end of the carpet yet, when he found
himself at the entrance to a passage with brilliantly illuminated
shops on either side. On his right stood a weighing machine and
an automatic figure. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped on the
little platform of the weighing machine and slipped a penny in the
slot. As he was quite sure that he weighed eleven stone, he could
not help smiling when the indicator registered only one. Either
the machine has gone wrong, he thought, or I have been transported
to some other planet, ten times larger, or ten times smaller than
the earth; he had been a pupil at the School of Navigation, you
see, and knew something of astronomy.

He jumped off and turned to the automatic figure, eager to find
out what it contained; his penny had hardly dropped when a little
flap opened and a large, white envelope, sealed with a big, red seal,
fell out. He couldn't make out the letters on the seal, but that
was neither here nor there, as he did not know who his correspondent
was.

He tore open the envelope and read ... first of all the signature,
just as everybody else does. The letter began ... but I'll tell
you that later on; it's sufficient for you to know now that he read
it three times and then put it into his breast-pocket with a very
thoughtful mien; a very thoughtful mien.

Then he penetrated into the heart of the passage, all the time
keeping carefully in the centre of the carpet. There were all sorts
of shops, but not a single human being, either before or behind
the counters. When he had walked a little way, he stopped before a
big shop window, behind which a great number of shells and snails
were exhibited. As the door stood open, he went in. The walls of
the shop were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and filled
with snails collected from all the oceans of the world. Nobody was
in the shop, but a ring of tobacco smoke hung in the air, which
looked as if somebody had only just blown it. Victor, who was a
bright lad, put his finger through it. "Hurrah!" he laughed, "now
I'm engaged to Miss Tobacco!"

A queer sound, like the ticking of a clock, fell on his ear, but
there was no clock anywhere, and presently he discovered that the
sound came from a bunch of keys. One of the keys had apparently
just been put into the cash-box, and the other keys swung to and
fro with the regular movement of a pendulum. This went on for quite
a little while. Then there was silence once more, and when it was
as still as still could be, a low whistling sound, like the wind
blowing through the rigging of a ship, or steam escaping through
a narrow tube, could be heard. The sound was made by the snails;
but as they were of different sizes, each one of them whistled in
a different key; it sounded like a whole orchestra of whistlers.
Victor, who was born on a Thursday, and therefore understood the
birds' language, pricked up his ears and tried to catch what they
were whistling. It was not long before he understood what they were
saying.

"I have the prettiest name," said one of them, "for I am called
Strombus pespelicanus!"

"I'm much the best looking," said the purple-snail, whose name was
Murex and something else quaint.

"But I've the best voice," said the tiger-shell; it is called
tiger-shell because it looks like a panther.

"Oh! tut, tut!" said the common garden-snail, "I'm more in demand
than any other snail in the world; you'll find me all over the
flower-beds in the summer, and in the winter I lie in the wood-shed
in a cabbage tub. They call me uninteresting, but they can't do
without me."

"What dreadful creatures they are," thought Victor, "they think
of nothing but blowing their own trumpets"; and to while away the
time he took up a book which lay on the counter. As he had learned
to use his eyes, he saw at a glance that it opened at page 240 and
that chapter 51 began at the top of the left-hand side, and had
for a motto a verse written by Coleridge, the gist of which struck
him like a flash of lightning. With burning cheeks and bated breath
he read ... I'll tell you what he read later on, but I may admit
at once that it had nothing whatever to do with snails.

Victor liked the shop and sat down at a little distance from
the cash-box, the immediate vicinity of which is never without a
certain risk. He began to ponder over all the queer animals which
went down to the sea as he did; he was sure that they could not
find it too warm at the bottom of the sea and yet they perspired;
and whenever they perspired chalk, it immediately became a new
house. They wriggled like worms, some to the right and some to the
left; it was clear that they had to wriggle in some direction and,
of course, they could not all turn to the same side.

All at once a voice came from the other side of the green curtain
which separated the shop from the back parlour.

"Yes, we know all that," shouted the voice, "but what we don't
know is this: the cockle of the ear belongs to the species of the
Helix, and the little bones near the drum are exactly like the
animal in Limnaeus stagnalis, and that's printed in a book."

Victor, who realised at once that the voice belonged to a thought-reader,
shouted back brutally, but without showing the least surprise:--

"We know all that, but why we should have a Helix in our ears is
as unknown to the book as to the dealer in snails--"

"I'm not a dealer in snails," bellowed the voice behind the curtain.

"What are you, then?" Victor bellowed back.

"I'm ... a troll!"

At the same moment the curtains were drawn aside a little, and
a head appeared in the opening of so terrifying an aspect, that
anybody but Victor would have taken to his heels. But he, who
knew exactly how to treat a troll, looked steadily at the glowing
pipe-bowl; for that is exactly what the troll looked like as he
stood blowing rings through the parted curtains. When the smoke
rings had floated within his reach, he caught them with his fingers
and threw them back.

"I see you can play quoits," snarled the troll.

"A little bit," answered Victor.

"And you aren't afraid?"

"A sailor must never be afraid of anything; if he is, the girls
won't like him."

And as he was tired of the snails, Victor seized the opportunity
to beat a retreat without appearing to run away. He left the shop,
walking backwards, for he knew that a man must never show his back
to the enemy, because his back is far more sensitive than ever his
face could be.

And on he went on the blue and white carpet. The passage was not
a straight one, but wound and curved so that it was impossible to
see the end of it; and still there were new shops, and still no
people and no shop proprietors. But Victor, taught by his experience,
understood that they were all in the back parlours.

At last he came to a scent shop, which smelt of all the flowers of
wood and meadow; he thought of his sweetheart and decided to go in
and buy her a bottle of Eau-de-Cologne.

No sooner thought than done. The shop was very much like the snail
shop, but the scent of the flowers was so overpowering that it made
his head ache, and he had to sit down on a chair. A strong smell
of almonds caused a buzzing in his cars, but left a pleasant taste
in his mouth, like cherry-wine. Victor, never at a loss, felt in
his pocket for his little brass box, that had a tiny mirror on the
inside of the lid, and put a piece of chewing tobacco in his mouth;
this cleared his brain and cured his headache. Then he rapped on
the counter and shouted:--

"Hallo! Any one there?"

There was no answer. "I'd better go into the back parlour," he
thought, "and do my shopping there." He took a little run, put his
right hand on the counter and cleared it at a bound. Then he pushed
the curtains aside and peeped into the room. A sight met his eyes
which completely dazzled him. An orange tree, laden with blossoms
and fruit, stood on a long table covered with a Persian rug, and
its shining leaves looked like the leaves of a camellia. There
were rows of cut-crystal glasses filled with all the most beautiful
scented flowers of the whole world, such as jasmine, tuberoses,
violets, lilies of the valley, roses, and lavender. On one end
of the table, half hidden by the orange tree, he saw two delicate
white hands and a pair of slender wrists under turned-up sleeves,
busy with a small distilling apparatus, made of silver. He did not
see the lady's face, and she, too, did not appear to see him. But
when he noticed that her dress was green and yellow, he knew at once
that she was a sorceress, for the caterpillar of the hawk-moth is
green and yellow, and it, too, knows how to bewitch the eye. The
lower end of its body looks as if it were its head and has a horn
like a unicorn, so that it frightens away its enemies with its
mock face, while it feeds in peace with that part of its body which
looks like its hind quarter.

"I know that I'll have a bit of a tussle with her," thought Victor,
"but I'd better let her begin!" He was quite right, because if one
wants to make people talk, one has but to remain silent oneself.

"Are you the gentleman who is looking for a summer resort?" asked
the lady, coming towards him.

"That's me!" said Victor, merely in order to say something, for
he had never thought of looking for a summer resort in the winter
time.

The lady seemed embarrassed, but she was as beautiful as sin, and
cast a bewitching glance at the pilot.

"It's no use trying to bewitch me, for I am engaged to a very nice
girl," he said, staring between her second and third finger in the
manner of a witch, when she wants to charm the judge.

The lady was young and beautiful from the waist upwards, but below
the waist she seemed very old; it was just as if she had been
patched together of two pieces which didn't match.

"Well, show me the summer resort," said the pilot.

"If you please, sir," replied the lady, opening a door in the
background.

They went out and at once found themselves in a wood, consisting
entirely of oak trees.

"We'll only just have to cross the wood, and we'll be there," said
the lady, beckoning to the pilot to go on, for she did not want to
show him her back.

"I shouldn't wonder if there were a bull somewhere about," said
the pilot, who had all his wits about him.

"Surely you aren't afraid of a bull?" replied the lady.

"We'll see," answered the pilot.

They walked across stony hillocks, tree-roots, moors and fells,
clearings and deep recesses, but Victor could not help turning
round every now and then to see whether she was following him, for
he could not hear her footsteps. And even when he had turned round
and had her right before his eyes he had to look very hard, for
her green and yellow dress made her almost invisible.

At last they came to an open space, and when Victor had reached
the centre of the clearing, there was the bull; it was just as if
it had stood there all the time waiting for him. It was jet black,
with a white star in the middle of its forehead, and the corners
of its eyes were blood-red.

Escape was impossible; there was nothing for it but to fight. Victor
glanced at the ground and behold! there lay a stout cudgel, newly
cut. He seized it and took up his position.

"You or I!" he shouted. "Come on! One--two--three!" The fight
began. The bull backed like a steam-boat, smoke came through its
nostrils, it moved its tail like a propeller, and then came on at
full speed.

The cudgel flashed through the air and with a sound like a shot hit
the bull right between the eyes. Victor sprang aside, and the bull
dashed past him. Then everything seemed to change, and Victor,
terrified, saw the monster make for the border of the wood, from
whence his sweetheart, in a light summer dress, emerged to meet
him.

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