The Red Room quotes

“Don’t go! Sit down! Sit down!”

If a dog had been present it would have sat down at once.

“What’s written here? Read it! ‘I, Arvid Falk, acknowledge and testify—that—I—have received from my brother, Charles Nicholas Falk—who was appointed my guardian—my inheritance in full—amounting to—’ and so on.” He was ashamed to mention the sum.

The brother felt embarrassed; he could not understand it. To run away when he had been asked to lunch! To run away when he was not in the least angry with him! To run away!

No dog would have run away if a piece of meat had been thrown to him!

“He’s a queer chap!” he muttered, stamping the floor. Then he went to his desk, screwed up the seat of his chair as high as it would go and climbed up.

“No!” replied Olle, casting covetous looks at the wonderful book.

“Oh! to be a cow!” sighed Ygberg, crossing his hands on his chest and giving himself up to all-merciful sleep.

When his low breathing had become regular, the waking friend gently pulled the book from its hiding-place, without disturbing the sleeper; then he turned over and lying on his stomach he began to devour the precious contents, forgetting all about the Sauce-Pan and the Brass-Button.

This subtle hint at the numerous loans made by Falk to his friend, soothed the cough; it subsided and ensured a better reception to the last verse which was quite impudently dedicated to Levin, a tactlessness which again threatened to disturb the harmony.

Falk emptied his glass as if he were draining a cup filled to the brim with ingratitude.

“You’re not up to the mark, Nyström,” he said.

There they lay. Modesty did not forbid him to read them aloud himself; it would not have been for the first time; but it sounded better for another to read them. The poor dog bit his chain, but it held.

He was a sensitive man, this schoolmaster, but he had to be brutal if he did not want to relinquish the precious gift of life, and he had been very brutal.

The most private affairs were fully and openly discussed, everything in connection with the birth of the hero, his reception into the community, his education and upbringing were made fun of;

The anticipated reply came as in duty bound, accompanied by gay laughter: the watches were at the watchmaker’s. This put Falk into the best of tempers, which found expression in the not at all unexpected joke:

“The animals will be fed at eight.”

He sat down, poured out three liqueurs, took one and invited his friends to follow his example.

An unspeakably benevolent smile radiated from his bright, sunny countenance as he watched their zeal, and it was difficult to say what he enjoyed more, the fact of their having a good meal, or the fact of their being so hungry.

He sat there like a coachman on his box, clicking his tongue and cracking his whip at them.

“Eat, Nyström! You don’t know when you’ll get a meal next. Help yourself, Levin; you look as if you could do with a little flesh on your bones. Are you grinning at the oysters? Aren’t they good enough for a fellow like you?

When the birds had been carved, Charles Nicholas poured out the claret with a certain solemnity. The guests paused, anticipating a speech. The host raised his glass, smelt the bouquet of the wine and said with profound gravity:

“Your health, you hogs!”

Nyström responded by raising his glass and drinking; but Levin left his untouched, looking as if he were secretly sharpening a knife.

everybody, except he. He raged against God. But all at once a clear thought shot through his brain. He seized Ulrica Eleonora and the guardian angel, wrapped them in paper, wrote Smith’s name and address on the parcel, and handed the messenger his threepence halfpenny.

And with a sigh of relief he threw himself on his sofa and starved, with a heart bursting with pride.

“Do you pawn your winter overcoats?” he asked. “Do you get anything on them?”

“One gets something on everything⁠—on everything,” said Sellén, laying stress on everything; “the only thing needful is to have something.”

To Falk the room seemed to be turning round. He had to sit down. Then he pulled out his gold watch.

At noon the proposition to go into Committee on the motion was rejected; that was to say, there was no need for the country to go through the Committee-mill, the office-sieve, the Imperial chaff-cutter, the club-winnower and the newspaper-hubbub.

The country was saved. Poor country!

The ice was broken. Struve, who had the reputation of having written on every subject—except cufic coins—now wrote a brilliant critique of Sellén’s picture and signed it very characteristically “Dixi.”

The Grey Bonnet was saved; and so, of course, was Sellén; but the latter was of minor importance.

We know that he had not drawn the winner in a lottery, that he had not inherited a fortune, that he had not been “honourably mentioned,” that he had not won the sweet happiness which baffles description. What had happened then?

Something very commonplace: he had found work.

Sellén was the next to arrive. He wore a velvet jacket and patent-leather boots; he carried a rug, a field-glass on a strap, and a cane; a yellow silk handkerchief was knotted round his throat;

but he was afraid that his apprenticeship would be a long one, and he begged his friends not to lose patience with him if he tarried; he thanked Sellén for his friendship, which had taught him endurance and renunciation.

Sellén begged him not to talk nonsense; where was the merit of endurance when there was no other alternative? And where was the virtue in renouncing what one had no chance of obtaining?

But Olle smiled a kindly smile, and his shirt front swelled with pleasure, so that the red braces could be plainly seen;

his small feet were made for walking on the Brussels carpet of a Boardroom, and his carefully manicured hands were particularly suitable for very light work, such as the signing of his name, preferably on a printed circular.

In the days which are now called the good days, although in reality they were very bad ones for a good many people, the greatest discovery of a great century was made, namely, that one could live more cheaply and better on other people’s money than on the results of one’s own efforts.

Many, a great many, people had taken advantage of the discovery, and as no patent law protected it, it was not surprising that Levi should be anxious to profit by it, too, more particularly as he had no money himself and no inclination to work …

“

Bless me! You don’t know much about business, my boy! They are only wanted to subscribe, not to pay up!

And they receive their dividends for attending the meetings and being present at the directors’ dinners! Here we have two admirals; one of them has the Commander’s Ribbon of the Polar Star, and the other one has the Russian Order of Anna.

“

Money? What’s the use of money in company promoting?

Doesn’t the man who insures his goods pay us money? What? Or do we pay him? No! Well then, he pays with his premiums.”

“

Oh! Your husband has always had peculiar views,

” interposed Mrs. Homan.

“By no means! I don’t think anybody in all the world incapable of that. On the contrary!

Everybody has more or less talent for acting.

”

“

Do you think an immortal soul is content with happiness?

But why speak about it? Your resolution is irrevocable. My advice is superfluous. There is but one teacher: experience, and experience is as capricious, or as calculating, as a schoolmaster; some of the pupils are always praised; others are always beaten.

“

I am throwing away your crutches so that you may learn to walk without them.

But let me ask you to keep to the point.”

“

Parents always are. Why overrate my judgment? You should never exaggerate anything.

”

“As I do in your case! No, old chap, the trick doesn’t work in their case. I’ve tried it!

It’s hell to reckon with people with opinions.

”

he found a great deal of amusement in playing with his thoughts. As the management still remained invisible, he went on playing, and, before the lapse of five minutes, he had come to the following conclusion:

In a tragedy one weeps at just those things which in comedy make one laugh.

At this point his thoughts were arrested; the great actor-manager burst into the room, brushed past Rehnhjelm without apparently being aware of his presence and entered a room on the left, whither, a moment afterwards, the violent ringing of a bell summoned the porter.

“

The world is so full of lies, that nobody will believe a man when he speaks the truth.

”

“I must be off! I really only came to tell you that.”

Her voice softened; her eyelids dropped slowly, like the curtain after a death scene.

“It was kind of you to come and tell me that it’s all over,” said Falander.

“And the day will come when things will be worse; on that day we shall come down from the White Mountains with a great noise, like a waterfall, and ask for the return of our beds.

Ask? We shall take them!

And you shall lie on wooden benches, as I’ve had to do, and eat potatoes until your stomachs are as tight as a drum and you feel as if you had undergone the torture by water, as we. …”

“

Oh! How bitter the world is, how bitter!

” she sobbed. “It’s just as if an evil power were spying on us, finding out our wishes, merely to cross them; discerning our hopes, so as to shatter them; anticipating our thoughts so as to paralyse them.

If you want to escape self-immolation, a fate which in your fanaticism you are fast approaching, change your point of view as soon as possible. Take a bird’s-eye view of the world, and you will see how small and insignificant everything is.

Start with the conviction that the whole world is a rubbish heap; that men are the refuse, no better than eggshells, carrot stalks, cabbage leaves, rags;

then nothing will take you by surprise, you will never lose an illusion; but, on the contrary, you will be filled with a great joy whenever you come across a fine thought, a good action;

“Hold tight! Ease off! Let go!”

And the little nameless child was lowered three yards into the ground.

There was a pause; all heads were bowed and all eyes looking into the grave, as if they were waiting for something.

“

Nothing but empty words,

” interposed Borg. “The infidel dog prayed only for Israel; therefore the prayer couldn’t have been meant for the child.”

“I will overthrow all your false idols! How can you—as long as you look upon all paltry creations of man as great and splendid—strive after the eternal? If you see perfection and excellence in everything here below, how can you yearn for the really perfect?

Believe me, pessimism is the truest idealism!

It is a Christian doctrine too, if that will salve your conscience, for Christianity teaches us that the world is a vale of tears from which death will deliver us!”

“Isn’t this a state of mind much to be desired?

We do not yearn for happiness so much, as for the faculty of being able to smile at our ardent efforts.

I say ardent advisedly.”

“Oh, nonsense!

The woman who can’t isn’t born yet!

”

Falander made no reply. Agnes looked at him more keenly, and all at once became aware of his thoughts.

A fleeting expression of trouble passed across her face, as the surface of a pond is rippled by the breeze;

but she immediately regained her usual serenity, glanced at Rehnhjelm, realized the situation, and was prepared for anything.

Rehnhjelm had watched the scene speechlessly. He understood the meaning well enough, but he was unable to say a word; and he was so much under the girl’s spell, that he could not even feel angry with her.

He realized that he had been stabbed, but he had as yet not had time to feel the pain.

The girl’s impudence disconcerted Falander; he wanted time to recover; his moral execution had been a complete failure, and his coup de théâtre had been disastrous to himself.

“I must see her! I must ask her forgiveness! I love her in spite of it! In spite of it! Are you sure she isn’t hurt?

Oh! my God, that one can be so unhappy and yet not die!

”

“Oh! That isn’t half as bad as you think.

One compromises. We have no opinions.

”

“

I don’t spell, gentlemen, I discuss,

” said the joiner with blazing eyes. “I discuss, I say. If I had the gift of making speeches, I should show you that the strikers are right;

“

I wonder why one doesn’t kill oneself when one is so cold.

”

“

Because it would be wrong. I find it quite interesting to live, if only to see what will come of it all in the end.

”

“

You should be more grateful to Providence, Olle; one should always be grateful to Providence⁠—I don’t quite know why. But I suppose one should.

”

the miserable object looked like a creature whose wings had been clipped; a spirit standing in a bog on its head, digging for something; for pearls, for instance, or at any rate, for empty shells.

Then despair, like a tanner, seized him again with a long hook, and pushed him down into the vat, where he was to be prepared for the knife, which should scrape his skin off and make him like everybody else.

And he felt no remorse, no regret at a wasted life, but only despair at having to die in his youth, die the spiritual death, before he had had an opportunity of being of use in the world;

“

Who do you think has time for reading books? Isn’t it enough to write about them?

It’s quite sufficient to read the papers. Moreover, it’s our principle to slate everything.”

“Not at all! It brings all the author’s enemies and enviers on one’s side—and so one’s in the majority. Those who are neutral would rather see an author slated than praised.

To the nobody there is something edifying and comforting in the knowledge that the road to fame is beset with thorns.

Don’t you think so?”

“

The public does not want to have an opinion, it wants to satisfy its passions.

If I praise your enemy you writhe like a worm and tell me that I have no judgment; if I praise your friend, you tell me that I have.

“Now, lads, stop talking and write; afterwards you shall have coffee and liqueurs.”

And they wrote of human merit and human unworthiness and broke hearts as if they were breaking eggshells.

Falk felt an indescribable longing for fresh air; he opened the window which looked on the yard; it was dark and narrow like a tomb; all he could see was a small square of the sky if he bent his head far back.