“Ha!” said Jastrau, laughing. “He’s Stefani’s son.”
The copy editor laid the poem back on the desk and looked up at Jastrau in surprise.
“But it’s signed Steffensen.”
“Oh, that’s because he hates his father. He doesn’t even want to use his name.”
The copy editor smiled.
“Yes, but how are our readers going to know that? Of course, his name has to be Stefani. Otherwise we’re not interested in printing the poem.”
“Lord knows if he’ll go along with that,” Jastrau said hesitatingly.
“Of course he will. You’ll see to it. And then one of these days we’ll send it up to be set. I can find a place for it in the main section. But you’ll take care of that matter of the name, won’t you, Ole Jastrau?”
He picked up the pen from his desk, crossed out the name “Steffensen” with one swift stroke, and wrote in “Stefani.”
“Editor Iversen will certainly be interested to hear about this,” he added, nodding enthusiastically. “But, as I was saying, you’re not really in contact with the paper, Ole Jastrau, not yet. You should, of course, have voted today, and voted Radical.”
“Is Dagbladet a Radical paper, then?” Jastrau asked ironically.
The copy editor did not answer. He began to cross out the headline on an article that lay on the desk before him. “This doesn’t sound right,” he said, as if to himself. Jastrau recognized it as the signal for him to leave.
So Editor Iversen had asked to have all the proofs for his book page sent down for inspection. Was this not humiliating? Did it not indicate a lack of confidence in him as an editor? It was all that was needed to make his position as literary editor shaky. All it took to pull the rug out from under him was for a literary quack like Stefani to come storming in to the old man in the corner office.
He remained standing irresolutely in the vestibule among the celebrities, who were becoming boisterous. It seemed to him that they all wore big heavy overcoats. He fervently hoped that none of them would speak to him. If he had not at some time or other offended one of them, then he had touched a sore spot of one of his friends, or ruffled the prejudices of a third, and they would gladly see him humiliated. Yes, it was humiliating—this business of ordering the proofs down for scrutiny. A photograph of Bjørnson hung on the wall. He was sure that it was only because they were not contemporaries that he had never had any differences with him.
“Well, I must say you look mighty arrogant, Herr Jastrau,” a voice near him said. It was his affable colleague Otto Kryger, the business editor, who suddenly stood next to him. His hawk-like nose and wide sensitive lips made him look a little like an Indian. His blue-black hair and low forehead might well have been topped by a feathered bonnet. But he was too puny.
“No I don’t,” Jastrau replied crossly, like an offended schoolboy.
“Maybe you’re only feeling blue. But you certainly have reason to feel that way if you take the Radical view of things.”
Jastrau looked dully into the dark twinkling eyes and felt no desire to make an ironical reply, although that was the accepted manner of repartee among Dagbladet’s staff.
“I didn’t vote at all,” he said languidly.
“So that’s the view you take of things. Then, of course, you have to act accordingly,” said Otto Kryger. Jastrau could not understand his unaccustomed friendliness.
“I voted Conservative,” added Kryger in a subdued tone with a touch of mischievousness in it.
Jastrau shook his head and smiled. His expression could be interpreted as one of hopelessness.
“Yes, it’s too crazy for words,” Kryger went on. “But come along with me. I’d like to have a little talk with you. First I have to go in and see if there’s anything for me on my desk.”
Taken by surprise, Jastrau let himself be taken in tow. Moreover, he had just then seen a well-known Ph.D. stick his bald oblong head in through the doorway and then step into the vestibule. Jastrau remembered something about a subordinate clause in one of his reviews a few months earlier—a sliver up under the fellow’s fingernail, so to speak—so he thought it just as well to go along with Kryger into the editorial room which the staff had dubbed the Peristyle.
But what could Kryger want with him? They seldom talked to each other, and their relationship had always been extremely formal.
The Peristyle, which like the other rooms in the editorial department was decorated in yellow, had received its antiquated name because of a square pillar or column that stood in the middle of the room. Around it had been built a large table on which always lay a clutter of the day’s Copenhagen newspapers, as well as those from the provinces. And on the pillar were lettered the names of all those who had worked for Dagbladet at least twenty-five years. Tradition’s venerable pillar surrounded by the last twenty-four-hours’ news. Now and then a quip was made about it.
“Wait here for just a minute,” said Kryger, disappearing into his room.
Jastrau sat down on the edge of a low cabinet and began studying the personal notices posted on a black bulletin board. A missing fountain pen—well, well. A note of thanks from a co-worker who had just been feted on his fiftieth birthday: “Please accept my—” and so on. And then—ha ha—a couple of clippings from Dagbladet with sections that had been heavily underlined. One of them which began with “I”—underscored in red—went on to exhibit a profusion of “I’s” and a veritable blood bath of red pencil marks. The other was a fragment of an article on a philosophical theme with a badly mangled sentence in it. Two manifestations of the newsmen’s reciprocal application of lynch law in the punishment of that gravest of all crimes, the writing of wretched Danish.
For the moment the room was rather quiet. But overhead there was a tramping of feet. That was up in the lecture room. And from the throng out in the square came a roar like that of heavy surf. Now and then one of the workers would go dashing by.
“Did you vote Radical?” Jastrau amused himself by asking one of them. The answer was a noncommittal mutter. There was nothing interesting about this election.
Only when the reporter who covered the parliament came rushing in, with his troubled features prominently displayed, was there a subdued explosion.
“Yes. What else was I supposed to do?” he replied testily.
“Ha ha,” laughed Jastrau. “Listen to this, Herr Kryger,” he continued as Kryger came back from his errand, “I’ve finally found a true Radical Liberal.”
The legislative reporter did not let himself be detained, but he could not avoid hearing Kryger’s sarcastic remark.
“Yes, and he’s all that’s left of the Radical Liberal youth movement.” Kryger sat down on the low cabinet beside Jastrau.
“As a matter of fact, I thought you too were naive.”
“Why so?” Jastrau asked in surprise.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kryger replied as he settled down in chummy fashion next to Jastrau. “Incidentally, won’t you have a cigar? Here, allow me. But it seems to me that your literary criticism gives some indication of it.”
He cast a sidelong glance at Jastrau.
“Of my being a Radical Liberal? No, but do you know what? I’ve just stirred up a rumpus with one of my reviews. It was labeled blasphemous.”
“Well then, you can see for yourself I was right. That’s radicalism in the good old-fashioned sense of the word—anti-religious, anti-nationalist. I thought as much.”
“That kind of radicalism is dead,” Jastrau answered spitefully. Kryger slapped him genially on the shoulder.
“Then we’re in agreement.”
“No,” replied Jastrau, moving a little away from Kryger. He was dumbfounded at the fellow slapping him on the back that way, and he was growing suspicious.
After this ironic disengagement, they both remained silent for a little while. Kryger carefully clipped off the tip of his cigar, lit it just as painstakingly, and flicked out the match.
“By the way, do you
think your name will ever adorn that pillar?” he asked, swinging his foot out elegantly toward the column of names. He was wearing patent leather shoes.
“No. And neither will yours. Haven’t you noticed, incidentally, that the majority of them are names of typographers or other anonymous Joes? There are very few journalists represented there—people who write what they think.”
“Yes, one can’t help but see that,” Kryger said with a smile. “And so you don’t think you’ll make it. I’m inclined to agree with you. As for me, it goes without saying that I won’t.”
“If you did, it would be an insult to the paper.” Jastrau had to edge away because the neat little man was crowding so close to him.
“Why so?”
“Your articles on business, of course. They’re so conservative, so very conservative.”
“I find it impossible to go along with you there,” Kryger replied. Now his wide lips had come very close, and his teeth gleamed as if he were going to bite but was hiding the inclination to do so with a smile. “My articles are based on common sense,” he went on. “Isn’t that what you base your reviews on?”
“Yes, but a better kind of common sense than yours.”
“Well then, man, you’ll end up on the pillar after all.”
“No, never,” Jastrau said with contempt. He laughed loud and scornfully, but he felt as if all his strength were being drained out of him.
Kryger, on the other hand, tilted his head to one side and looked fondly at his quarry.
“I don’t quite understand you,” he purred on in a teasing manner. “After all, what you’re writing about is nothing but art, and that’s a field in which you have quite a lot of latitude. The sort of thing you do demands very little responsibility.”
“Really?” said Jastrau abstractedly as he stared into the distance. This fastidious little man, who could become so savage and who was edging up so close to him, what was in the back of his mind? Did he not have the same distorted twist to his mouth, the mask-like expression, that so many of those up here in the editorial offices went around with and that was so appalling when one became aware of it? Jastrau passed the palm of his hand over his face as if to get rid of the impression. But it remained with him. It was his tendency to see others in terms of caricature that sometimes unnerved him. He did not want to go away now in such a frame of mind.
“Anyhow, that’s the way it seems to me.” What difference did it make how it seemed to Kryger? Once again, like so many times before, an atmosphere of unreality pervaded the Peristyle. Kryger continued to regard him with a searching look. These yellow walls—a color that ate into your consciousness! Weren’t the walls really transparent? Would they not flutter aside like a flimsy veil in another second—just one more second? Or had he been smoking too much?
Kryger thought Jastrau had been offended.
“Now don’t take me too seriously. What does it matter to the public what you think about high finance? You’re a lucky fellow. Yes, take my word for it, you’ll end up with your name on that pillar.”
But Jastrau only looked down at his vest, upon which the ashes from his cigar were dropping. Now, again, he felt unsure of himself. Ashes falling on his vest—just as if he were a helpless old man.
“Now I don’t want you to think that I have a low opinion of art. But I’ve never been able to understand what it has to do with a newspaper.” Kryger kept slashing away at him, attacking from unpredictable directions. What was he trying to do?
“We have to make use of whatever talents we have,” Jastrau protested, staring vacantly out into the room.
“Yes, and go right on using them so that the newspapers can keep up their intellectual pretensions. That’s it. But take Dagbladet, for example. A long time ago it swung over from being a political organ to being a nonpolitical enterprise. I’m not thinking about tonight. Tonight we’re all concerned with politics. But otherwise—otherwise it’s simply a business enterprise.”
“Yes, a business enterprise that deals in opinions,” Jastrau interposed for the sake of saying something. Opinions! Something as nebulous as opinions. But why did people, too, become like shadows—ghosts—when they sold their opinions? They were all like ghosts up here, all dealing in nebulosities.
“No,” objected Kryger—this ghost sitting next to him. Couldn’t he understand that it was impossible for him to make contact with Jastrau?
“No,” Kryger went on, “it’s a business from which people can buy the opinions that they don’t know they had beforehand. Isn’t that more nearly correct?”
“Oh, it drives me nuts to think about it!” Jastrau exclaimed. He could no longer stand it. Was it the central heating that thinned his blood to a degree that made him see visions? He didn’t know. But he did know that in this atmosphere, where it seemed that shapes and colors were about to dissolve, it struck him that all his colleagues’ eyes were like pools of glue. Oh, these journalists—these journalists! His ghostly comrades. And then to top it off, Journalist Bruun came strutting by in his conspicuous light suit and riding boots.
“How did you vote, Bruun?” Jastrau called out to him.
“I voted for the future, my friends,” Bruun replied with a haughty gesture. A hard look came over his face when he saw Kryger.
“You wouldn’t be one of the sixteen Communists who voted in Vanløse, would you?” Kryger asked hostilely.
“That’s a good bit of news. I wouldn’t have thought there were that many reasonable people in Vanløse.”
Disregarding his answer, Kryger fired another question at him.
“Why aren’t you wearing your red star tonight? Or is it hidden behind the lapel of your coat?”
“The stars aren’t shining in Denmark—not yet,” Bruun said haughtily to conceal his irritation as he turned to go. But he had taken only a few steps before he exclaimed, “But they will be some day, believe me!” And when he had proceeded into the hallway he turned suddenly and shouted, “And just in case you should have any more crazy questions, Herr Kryger, I’d prefer to have you send them to me in a letter.”
Finally they saw him disappear, his hindquarters swaying dramatically with every step.
“My God,” sighed Kryger, leaning back against the wall, “we certainly have a well-assorted stock-in-trade here in this shop. We even keep that sort of opinion on the shelves.”
“One can tell that you’re in the business end of it,” Jastrau said sarcastically.
But Kryger was almost vehement. His dark eyes were flashing intensely.
“It’s impossible not to look at things from the economic standpoint, my artistic friend,” he said sharply. “Either you’re red or you’re black. There are no other colors. And that pillar there is nothing but a travesty—a memorial column erected in honor of those whose coloration was a mixture.”
Jastrau did him the favor of laughing. But inwardly he was boiling. It was election night. Overhead there was a noisy shuffling of feet. A farcical performance in which the guests of a Radical Liberal newspaper rejoiced when a Social Democrat was elected. From out in the square the noise continued. An election in which the people shouted in glee at the shifting names on the screen in the corner window. One could just as well have amused them by putting a pair of hands together and moving the fingers so that a shadow picture of a horse, an elephant, an eagle, a man—or one of Eriksen’s beer bottles—appeared on the screen.
“Of course, you believe in art for art’s sake,” Kryger went on, and Jastrau nodded a listless affirmative.
“That’s so nice and safe.” Now what was he getting at? “It’s a fine, capitalistic point of view. You can produce brilliant poems, exciting novels, travel sketches, and romantic plays when you adopt such a point of view. Then why don’t you do it? It’s a wonderfully irresponsible basis on which to work.” Jastrau made a wry face and threw up his arms. “No, don’t misunderstand me, Herr Jastrau. I think that art for art’s sake is an excellent conservative point of view—”
“
Conservative?” exclaimed Jastrau in amazement, momentarily aroused from his lethargy.
Kryger nodded. “Yes—and entirely safe.” His smile was now impertinent.
“Are you serious?” Jastrau snapped.
“What else is your viewpoint as a critic?”
Would he never let up? Jastrau hated to be made the subject of debate. He wanted to take a poke at this polished little conservative runt who was baiting him by turning communistic arguments against him. “No, don’t misunderstand me,” Kryger repeated. Misunderstand him? Fiddlesticks!
“No, God help me!” Jastrau burst out.
“Disinterestedness. Isn’t that what it’s called?” said Kryger, smiling still more brazenly. “But of course, it’s not a viewpoint at all. It’s an expedient. Like art for art’s sake. But I suppose a critic on a paper that vacillates between a political policy and what’s good for its business has to resort to it.” Then he went on very gently, as if slowly sticking a dagger into Jastrau’s middle: “I guess you’re not so naive as I thought. It’s a good opportunistic attitude. You just don’t make the most of it.”
Jastrau sprang down from the cabinet in a rage.
“What the hell are you—”
“Please now, don’t misunderstand me,” Kryger said in a mild tone of voice and raised his hand reassuringly. “I’m only sitting here and drawing conclusions.”
“You mean I’m a phoney?”
“I mean you’re a respectable bourgeois—just like me and every other reasonable person. You just don’t realize it yourself.”
“You’re crazy!” exclaimed Jastrau furiously. “Bourgeois? Me? I don’t want to talk to you any more. But a work of art can be art—Hell, what am I saying? I mean a piece of work can be art and be either conservative or communistic.”
“Yes, considered from the professional angle. But that’s not a point of view.”
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