Henrik: My greatest failing is that I’m confused.
Anna: Surely that’s not a failing.
Henrik: Yes, that’s just what it is.
Anna: What do you mean?
Henrik: I’m confused. Understand nothing. I just do what other people tell me. I don’t think I’m particularly bright. If I read a complicated text, I find it difficult to understand what it means. I have so many feelings. That also confuses me. I’ve nearly always got a guilty conscience, but mostly don’t know why.
Anna: That sounds difficult.
Sorrow and uneasiness. What kind of strange game is this? Why are we going on like this? Why don’t we kiss each other? Today’s a celebration, isn’t it? They sit in silence and avoid each other’s eyes.
Henrik: Now we’re both miserable.
Anna: Yes.
Henrik: It’s loneliness that frightens us. If we’re together, we find the courage to understand and forgive our own and each other’s failings. One should be careful not to start at the wrong end.
Anna: Shall we kiss each other now, so that we’re happy again?
Henrik: Wait a while. I’ve something important I must tell you. No, don’t laugh, Anna. It’s necessary that I tell you that . . .
Anna: Oh, I’m sick of all these stupidities!
She places herself opposite him, takes his head in her hands, turns his face upward, leans over him, and kisses him ardently. Henrik lets out a moan; her fragrance, her skin, the small, strong hands holding him fast, the hair welling over her shoulder.
He grasps her around the waist and presses her to him, his forehead against her breast. She doesn’t let go of his head, and they stagger, joined together. They stay like that a long time, not daring or able to free themselves from the embrace. What will really happen after this? What will happen to us?
Anna:. . . I suppose we’re engaged now.
She frees herself and pulls her chair up next to his. They are sitting opposite each other, but now the table is no longer between them and they are holding each other’s hands. They are disturbed and try to subdue their breathing and their hearts. Henrik is also in great distress. He ought to say what he must say, but he can’t. She senses something is wrong and searches his face.
Anna (smiles): . . . now we’re engaged, Henrik.
Henrik: No.
Anna (laughs): Oh, aren’t we engaged?
Henrik: I knew from the very beginning it would be wrong. I must go away. We’ll never see each other again.
Anna: You have someone else.
(Henrik nods.)
Anna’s face turns ashen, and she puts her forefinger to her lips, imposing silence on them. Then she quickly runs her left hand over Henrik’s forehead and lets it rest on his shoulder for a brief moment. Then she goes around the table and sits at the short end behind Henrik’s back. She stays there, biting a nail, not knowing what to say.
Henrik: We’ve been living together for almost two years. She was as lonely as I was. She likes me. She’s helped me many times. We’ve got on well together. We’re engaged.
Anna: You’ve nothing to reproach yourself for. Not really. You might possibly have said something last night, but everything was so unreal then. I understand that you said nothing. What about our beautiful future now? What do you really want?
Henrik: I want to live with you. But I didn’t know that yesterday. Everything has changed — like this!
He gestures with his hand, which then falls heavily and disconsolately onto the table. Then he turns to her and shakes his head.
Anna: So you mean you’re thinking of abandoning — whatever her name is — whoever she is?
Henrik (pauses): If you want to know, her name is Frida. She’s a few years older than me. She’s also from the north. She works at the Gillet Hotel.
Anna: What does she do?
Henrik (angry): She’s a waitress.
Anna (chilly): Oh — a waitress.
Henrik: Is there anything wrong with being a waitress?
Anna: No, of course not.
Henrik: You must have forgotten to name one of your more serious failings. You are clearly conceited. You thought up this business of our future together. Not me. I have always been prepared to live in reality. And my reality is gray. And dull. Ugly. (Gets up.) Do you know what I’m going to do now? Well, I’m going home to Frida. I’ll go home to her and ask her forgiveness for my stupid and foolish betrayal. I’ll tell her what I said and what you said and what we did and then I’ll ask her forgiveness.
Anna: I’m cold.
Henrik is not listening. He goes out.
In the hall he bumps into Ernst, who has just come through the door and is taking off his raincoat. Henrik mumbles something and tries to get past, but is grabbed.
Ernst: Hey, hey, hey, what’s all this?
Henrik: Let me go. I really want to leave and never come back again.
Ernst (imitates): “ . . . want to leave and never come back again.” What are you talking about? Is this a Schubert romance?
Henrik: It was stupid from the start. Please let go of me.
Ernst: And what have you done with Anna?
Henrik: I suppose she’s still in there.
Ernst: Quarreling already. You don’t waste much time. But Anna’s an impatient girl. She likes to get on with things.
He presses Henrik down onto the white-painted wood box in the hall and stands over by the glass doors so Henrik can’t possibly escape. At that moment, Anna emerges. When she sees her brother, she stops abruptly and slaps her thigh with her hand. Then she turns roughly to the window.
Ernst: What the hell’s going on?
Henrik: I really do beg of you to let me go. The next step will be to punch you in the jaw.
Anna (calls): Just let him go.
Ernst: Don’t disappear, Henrik. We can have dinner at Cold Märta’s at five, can’t we? What about it?
Henrik: I don’t know. There’s no point.
He has his pack in his arms and takes his student cap down from the hat shelf. Ernst opens the hall door, and Henrik disappears down the stairs, taking great strides. Ernst closes the door and slowly goes in to his sister. She is still standing by the window, showing all the signs of anger and pain.
Ernst: Anna, my cranberry heart, how have you brought all this about?
Anna turns to Ernst and puts her arms around his neck, then cries very dramatically and possibly enjoyably for a few seconds. Then she falls silent and blows her nose on the proffered handkerchief.
Anna: I’m sure I love him.
Ernst: And he?
Anna: I’m sure he loves me.
Ernst: Why are you blubbering then? Listen, Anna.
Anna: It hurts so.
Ernst sits down on a chair and takes his sister on his lap, and there they sit in tender intimacy without saying another word. The rain stops, and the sun draws hard white squares and rectangles on the protective curtain over the windows. The whole room appears to be floating.
Henrik does as he said, and makes his way to the Gillet Hotel, trudging up the six flights and banging on Frida’s door. After a while she opens up, drowsy with sleep and wearing a capacious flannel nightgown with a stocking wrapped around her neck. Her nose is red and her eyes are glazed. She stares at Henrik as if he were not real. Despite this, she steps aside and lets him in.
Frida: Are you in town?
Henrik: Are you ill?
Frida: I’ve got a terrible cold and a sore throat and temperature. So I had to go home at half past nine last night. I almost fainted. Would you like some coffee? I was just thinking of making something hot.
Henrik: No, thank you.
Frida: How nice of you to come and surprise me. I would never have expected that. Thanks for your nice letter, by the way. I was just going to answer it, but there’s so little time and I’m not much good at writing.
Behind a screen is the room’s only luxury article, a small gas stove with a weak, sooty flame. Frida makes coffee and s
preads sandwiches. Despite his feeble protests, Henrik allows himself to be waited on. Frida patters about, barefoot and fussing, then finally sits down on the bed, pulls the quilt around her, and blows on the hot coffee, which she sucks through a sugar lump. She suddenly looks carefully at Henrik, who is sitting on the only chair in the room and has put his cup of coffee on the bedside table.
Frida: Are you ill, too? You don’t look well yourself.
Henrik: It’s nothing.
Frida: How can you say anything so silly? As if I couldn’t see that something’s up.
Henrik: I suppose I’m miserable.
Frida: Oh, that, of course. Is there something you want to tell me? I can feel there is.
Henrik: No.
Frida: I can see there is.
Henrik:. . . no.
Frida: Come here and I’ll give you a hug.
She puts her cup and sandwich down and pulls him to her. He is not unwilling.
Frida: Are you afraid of catching my cold?
Henrik:. . . no.
Frida: Get undressed and come to bed.
She gets briskly off the bed and pulls down the ragged blind. Then she unwinds the stocking around her neck and swiftly does her hair in front of the blotchy mirror above the commode. Before she creeps back into bed, she pulls off her nightgown. Underneath she is wearing a short tricot vest and a pair of fairly long-legged underpants. She slithers out of the pants but keeps on the vest.
II
The atmosphere in the Åkerbloms’ summer residence, with its magnificent view over the river and the bluish mountains, is oppressive, not to say brooding. No happy cries from the bathing place, no croquet balls rolling across the terrace lawn, no piano music, no glasses of fruit juice, or novels in hammocks. Everyone is keeping quiet, listening for the voices from the traffic superintendent’s study. Nothing can be heard properly, except an occasional word here and there, or perhaps a loud, emphatic sentence. Otherwise mumbling and silence.
Papa Johan is sitting at his desk, smoking an almost extinguished pipe, which he now and again tries to light. Mrs. Karin is seated on the green sofa beneath Ottilia Adelborg’s painting entitled Departure to the Outfield. She is pale with fury. Her daughter, no less furious, is standing in the middle of the floor, her face a bright red. Ernst has taken up a strategic position by the door.
Karin: Charlotte telephoned yesterday evening and assured me you and Ernst had a male guest. She was very upset and said she had heard talking from the maid’s room all night. Is that true?
Anna: Yes. (Angry.)
Johan: Watch your tongue when you’re speaking to your mother.
Anna: Mama should watch her tongue when she speaks to me. I am in fact grown up now.
Karin (coldly): As long as you eat our bread and live with us, you are our daughter and must abide by the family rules.
Anna: I won’t abide Mama and Papa treating me like a child.
Johan: If you behave like a child, you’ll be treated like a child. (Clears his throat.)
Karin: Don’t you understand what a scandal you are bringing down on our heads?
Anna: Aunt Charlotte is a telltale old bitch, and I’m glad she’s got something to dish up at her next coffee party.
Johan: Ernst, you’re not saying anything?
Ernst: What can I say? Anna and Mama keep quacking away at each other like a couple of angry ducks. You can’t get a word in . . .
Johan: Was it you who invited this youth back home?
Anna (angry): No, just imagine, I was the one who had the audacity to be so bold.
Johan: I was asking Ernst.
Ernst: I invited him.
Karin: But Ernst, how could you be so stupid!
Ernst: He’s a good friend of both of ours. You know him, anyhow. He came to dinner with us one Sunday.
Karin: What’s his name? A young man who accepts an invitation to stay overnight in a home where the parents are absent must be either arrogant or badly brought up.
Anna: Mama, you really are being utterly absurd.
Karin: But I know nothing. Perhaps you two have a bag of secrets and carry on all the time behind my back.
Anna: Considering the fuss you’re making, it wouldn’t be surprising if we did keep our secrets to ourselves.
Karin: Johan! You must tell your daughter to behave properly. I have been very patient with you and your spoiled ways. Now I see the results.
Anna: It’s not my fault I’ve been spoiled.
Johan: No, you’re right there, my girl. It’s been mostly my fault, and your mother has warned me about it on several occasions. Now I see that we must deal with you more harshly. (Clears his throat, twice.)
Anna (laughs): Spank me and send me to bed without dinner?
Johan (trying hard to remain serious): Don’t be silly, Anna. This is no joking matter. What’s the boy’s name?
Anna: His name is Henrik Bergman. He’s studying theology and is going to be a priest. And I love him and actually intend to marry him.
Now it is truly silent in the traffic superintendent’s study; in fact throughout this lovely summer residence, and far beyond it as well.
Karin: Oh, yes. Really Yes. Well now. Really.
Johan: Well, that’s quite clear then.
Anna: You won’t be able to stop me.
Johan: My dear daughter, I fear that to some extent you have misjudged your situation. You don’t in fact come of age for another whole year, and until then, legally and morally, you are under your parents’ jurisdiction.
Karin (angrily): Is that boy going to be a priest! Who hasn’t the wits to respect a young woman’s honor. You went into his room at night. Wasn’t it his voice and yours that wretched Charlotte heard through the wall? It was you and him?
Anna: Yes, so what? We were talking about our engagement.
Karin: Maybe you slept with him in the bed?
Anna: No, I didn’t. But if he’d asked me to, I would have.
Johan (darkly): That’s quite enough!
Anna: Mama asked me, and I answered her.
Johan: Where was Ernst?
Ernst: I was asleep. I knew nothing about all this.
Karin: And if you get pregnant?
Anna (with a smile): Difficult at that distance.
Karin: Johan! Did you hear!
Johan (sorrowfully): Yes, yes, I heard. I heard all right. I heard (.Clears his throat again.)
Karin: I really don’t know what we shall do.
Ernst: May I suggest something?
Johan (frowning): Go ahead.
Ernst: I suggest that my honored parents don’t do anything at all. What’s happened is just thoughtlessness on Anna’s and my part. We’ve made fools of ourselves, quite simply. We’re certainly prepared to apologize to you both for the unpleasantness and anxiety our thoughtlessness has caused you. Aren’t we, Anna?
Anna: What?
Ernst: Apologize to Mama and Papa.
Anna: I’ll really have to think about that.
Ernst: While you’re thinking about it, I suggest that Anna writes a nice formal letter to the boy. Mama then adds a few benevolent lines inviting him here for a week.
Karin: Never! That scoundrel and seducer.
Anna (flaring up again): If anyone’s a seducer in this place, it’s me! Don’t forget that, honored parents! And if you start being difficult, then I really will seduce him and get pregnant. Then whatever happens, you’ll have to marry me off to the child’s father.
Karin: I think you underestimate your parents’ determination, my dear Anna.
Anna: Your determination, you mean. Papa and I have always agreed.
Johan (slightly embarrassed): Yes, yes, of course, my child. Of course. Hm!
Karin: On second thought, I think Ernst’s suggestion is a sensible one. We’ll invite the oaf here and take a closer look at him.
Anna: Poor Henrik. That would be frightful.
Ernst: I will look after him.
Karin: What do you say; Johan?
Johan: Me? Nothing. What have you done with Torsten Bohlin, by the way? Is he out now?
Anna: Oh, him! He was only a sort of playmate.
Johan: Oh, I see, yes. And to think I was jealous of that stroppy little professor-to-be.
Karin: Don’t talk nonsense, Johan.
Johan: No, no, all right, I’ll keep quiet. I’m asked a question and answer it, then get scolded. (Laughs quietly.)
Karin: Please, Johan, do try to be serious for a little while longer. If I . . . I mean we . . . invite this young man here, Ernst, would you mind making it quite plain to him that he is not to come with any ideas of an engagement in mind?
Ernst: That I can guarantee.
Anna: I don’t guarantee anything.
Karin: Nobody asked you! Shall we join the others now? They must be wondering. It’s ten past five, and dinner is waiting.
Märta’s dining rooms are inside the courtyard and two floors up in a shabby block on the corner of Dragarbrunnsgatan and Bävern Alley, and consist of three greasy, dirty-brown rooms, quite spacious, with connecting hallways. The cramped, dark kitchen is on the other side of the hall, which is a long, dark passage with no daylight, at the end of which is a badly ventilated toilet. The sun never penetrates these premises, not even in high summer. When the tiled stoves and the coal stove are out, a tomblike chill smelling of mold reigns in Märta’s dining rooms, from which comes the name Cold Märta. Miss Märta herself and her two helpers reside in a narrow passage and two cubbyholes beyond the kitchen.
There are some good things to say about this eating place for students, alcoholic telegraph clerks, and incurable bachelors. Märta’s food, though not all that great, is certainly plentiful. If required, it is possible to have, in secret, a schnapps before and a brandy after the meal. As medicine. Credit is also generous, not to say intrepid. The establishment is run good-heartedly on infinitesimal margins. There are better (much better) but also worse places in this city of learning. The Friday meatloaf is the tour de force of the house, though when it reappears in disguise on Tuesdays, it is as dicey as Russian roulette.
It is now the middle of August, about half past five in the afternoon. The dining rooms are almost empty. Beef stew and thickened fruit syrup are on the menu, served together with home-brewed, very weak beer. Outside it is still high summer and a general strike is underway. Inside it’s dusk, ingrained cooking smells, indeterminate scents from the toilet, and pent-up dissolution.
The Best Intentions Page 8
