Doctor Glas

by Hjalmar Söderberg

  I was in a state of terrible nervous tension just now, during my office hours. I thought he would come today; it seemed to me I could feel it in my bones . . . He didn’t come, but no matter; whenever he does, he won’t find me unprepared. What happened last Thursday will not be repeated.

  Now I’m going out to dinner. If only I were to run into Markel I could invite him to dinner at Hasselbacken. I want to talk and drink wine and observe people.

  Kristin already has dinner ready and will be furious, but I don’t care.

  (LATER)

  IT’S OVER; it’s done. I’ve done it.

  How strangely it came about. How peculiar the way fate arranged it for me. I’m almost tempted to believe in providence.

  I feel empty and light, like a blown-out egg. Just now, when I came through the parlor door and caught sight of myself in the mirror, the expression made me start: something empty, rubbed out, something indefinable that made me think of the watch without hands in my pocket. And I have to ask myself: what you did today—is that all there was inside you? Isn’t there anything left now?

  Nonsense. The feeling will pass. My head is a bit tired. I have a right to be tired.

  It’s seven-thirty; the sun has just set. It was a quarter past four when I left. Three hours, in other words . . . Three hours and a few minutes.

  . . . Well, I went out for dinner. I walked across the churchyard and through the gate; I stopped for a moment outside the watchmaker’s window, got a smiling, hunchbacked greeting from the man inside and greeted him back. I recall making the following observation: every time I see a hunchback, I commiserate and feel a little hunchbacked myself. It’s probably a residual effect of the empathy with misfortune drilled into me since childhood . . . Emerging on Drottning Street, I went into the Havana shop and bought a couple of good-sized Upmann cigars, then turned off to the left. When I came to Gustav Adolf’s Square I glanced in the window of Rydberg’s Restaurant, thinking Markel might be sitting there with an absinthe, as he often does, but I only saw Birck with a lemonade. He’s a dreary fellow, no one I wanted to have dinner with tete-à-tete . . . Outside the newspaper office I bought an Evening News and stuffed it in my pocket. There might be something new about the Dreyfus affair, I thought . . . But the whole time I was wondering how to find Markel. Calling his paper would do no good; he’s never there at this time of day; and while thinking this I went into a cigar shop and phoned. He had just left . . . At Jacob’s Square I could see Pastor Gregorius approaching me from far away. I was just pulling myself together to greet him when I realized it was someone else. There wasn’t even a passing resemblance.

  Ah, I thought, then I’ll meet him soon.

  For according to a widely accepted folk belief, which I dimly recalled my experience having confirmed on some occasion, mistaking a person this way is a sort of premonition. I even remembered that in a pseudo-scientific journal for “psychic investigation” I’d read a story about a man who after such a “sign” abruptly turned off on a side street to avoid an unpleasant encounter—and ran right into the person he was trying to avoid . . . But I didn’t believe that nonsense, and the whole time my thoughts were preoccupied by the chase for Markel. It occurred to me that once or twice at this time of day I’d met him by the water stand on the square; I went there. Naturally he wasn’t to be found, but I sat down anyway on one of the benches under the large trees by the church wall to drink a glass of Vichy while glancing through my Evening News. I’d scarcely opened it and turned my eyes to the usual bold-face headline—“The Dreyfus Affair”—before I heard heavy, crunching steps on the gravel, and Pastor Gregorius was standing before me.

  “Oh, good day, Doctor, good day! Do you mind if I join you? I thought I’d drink a small glass of Vichy before dinner. That can’t be bad for the heart, can it?”

  “Well, carbonation isn’t the best thing for you,” I replied, “but a small glass now and then can’t do much harm. How are you after your stay at the baths?”

  “Just fine. I think it has done me a world of good. I stopped by your office a few days ago, Doctor—I believe it was last Thursday—but I was too late. You’d already left.”

  I replied that I’m generally available half an hour or so after the end of office hours, but that day, unfortunately, I’d had to leave a bit earlier than usual. I told him to come tomorrow. He didn’t know if he had time, but he’d try.

  “Porla is a beautiful place,” he said.

  (Porla is very ugly. But as a city-dweller, Gregorius is accustomed to finding “the countryside” beautiful no matter what it looks like. Moreover, he’d paid good money and wanted to get the most possible for it, and so the place was beautiful.)

  “Yes,” I replied, “Porla is quite beautiful, though less so than many other places.”

  “Perhaps Ronneby is more beautiful,” he admitted. “But that’s such a long, expensive journey.”

  A half-grown girl served the water, two small quarter-liter bottles. Suddenly I had an inspiration. Since it had to happen anyway—why not here? Why not now? I looked around. No one was nearby at the moment. At a table far away three old gentlemen were sitting, one of whom, a retired captain, I knew, but they were conversing in loud voices, telling stories and laughing, and couldn’t hear what we said or see what we did. A little girl, dirty and barefoot, padded over to us selling flowers; we shook our heads and she vanished just as quietly. In front of us the expanse of gravel of the square was nearly empty at this late-afternoon hour. Every now and then, from the corner by the church, a pedestrian would cut across toward the avenue of trees to the east. A warm, late-summer sun made the worn yellow façade of the Royal Dramatic Theater seem golden through the lindens. The chief administrator of the theater was standing on the sidewalk talking to the director. In the distance they seemed like miniatures whose movements could be discerned and deciphered only if one knew who they were. The director was distinguished by his red fez, the administrator by his subtle hand gestures, which seemed to convey, “Good heavens, every matter has two sides!” I was convinced he was saying something like that: I could see the slight shrug of the shoulders, I thought I could hear the tone of voice. And I applied the words to myself and the present situation. Yes, every matter has two sides. But no matter how much a person is open to both possibilities, in the end only one can be chosen. And I’d made my choice long ago.

  I took the empty watch case with the pills out of my vest pocket, grasped a pill between thumb and forefinger, turned a bit to the side and pretended to swallow it. Then I took a sip from the glass of water as if to wash it down. Right away the pastor was interested:

  “You’re taking medicine, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “You’re not the only one with a bad heart. Mine isn’t as good as it should be, either. That’s because I smoke too much. If only I could quit smoking I wouldn’t need this stuff. It’s a quite new preparation, highly recommended by German professional journals, but I wanted to try it out myself before prescribing it to patients. I’ve been taking it for over a month now with excellent results. A pill just before dinner reduces heartburn, anxiety, and heart palpitations after the meal. May I offer you one?”

  I held out the container with the lid open and turned so he couldn’t see it was a watch case; that might have led to unnecessary questions and chatter.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I can give you a prescription for them tomorrow,” I added.

  He took a pill without further ado and swallowed it with a sip of water. I could feel my heart stand still. I stared straight ahead. The square was empty and dry as a desert. An imposing policeman strolled by, stopped, flicked a speck of dust from his well-brushed uniform and continued on his rounds. The sun, warm and golden, was still shining on the walls of the theater. The director now made a gesture he seldom uses, the Jewish gesture with upturned palms, the businessman’s gesture that means “I’m turning it inside out, I’m hiding nothing, my cards are on the table.” And the red fez bob
bed twice.

  “This water stand is old,” said the pastor. “It’s probably the oldest of its kind in Stockholm.”

  “Yes,” I replied without turning my head. “It’s old.”

  The bell of St. Jacob’s struck a quarter to five.

  I automatically took out my watch to check whether it kept proper time, but my hand was unsteady and trembling. I dropped the watch to the ground and the glass broke. When I bent over to pick it up, I could see a pill lying on the ground, the one I’d just pretended to take. I crushed it under my foot. At that moment I could hear the pastor’s glass of water topple over on the tray. I didn’t want to look that way, but I could see his arm fall down limply and his head drop onto his chest and his unseeing eyes open wide . . .

  It’s ridiculous, this is now the third time since I’ve returned that I’ve gotten up to check that my door is properly locked. What do I have to fear? Nothing. Not a thing. The matter was handled neatly and delicately, whatever else could be said about it. Chance came to my aid, too. It was a good thing I saw the pill on the ground and crushed it. If I hadn’t dropped my watch I probably wouldn’t have seen it, so it was a good thing I dropped my watch.

  The minister died of a heart attack; I wrote the certificate myself. He was overheated and out of breath from a walk in the hot summer weather; then he drank a large glass of Vichy far too quickly and without letting it go flat. I explained this to the imposing policeman, who had turned around and come back, and to the terrified serving girl and a few curious bystanders who had gathered around. I’d advised the pastor to let the water stand for a few minutes and go flat before he drank it, but he was thirsty and wouldn’t listen. “Yes,” said the constable, “when I walked by a moment ago I could see how quickly the old gentleman gulped down the water, and I thought to myself that it couldn’t be good for him . . .” Among the passers-by who stopped was a young minister who knew the deceased. He offered to inform Mrs. Gregorius as gently as possible.

  I have nothing to fear. Then why do I keep checking the door? Because I can sense the incredible atmospheric pressure of others’ opinions—the living, the dead, the as yet unborn—that have accumulated out there, threatening to blow open the door and crush me, pulverize me. That’s why I check the lock.

  . . . When I finally could get away from there, I climbed onto a streetcar, the first one that came by. It took me far out on Kungsholmen. I continued on foot all the way to the Traneberg bridge. We lived there once for a summer when I was four or five. That’s where I caught my first tiny perch, using a bent pin. I remembered the exact spot where I’d stood. I stood there for a long time now, breathing in the familiar smell of stagnant water and sun-dried tar. Now, too, swift little perch darted back and forth in the water. I remembered how greedily I’d looked at them back then and how fervently I wanted to catch them. And when I finally succeeded and a minuscule perch, barely three inches long, was wiggling on the hook, I let out a scream of delight and ran straight home to Mother with the little fish jerking and trembling in my clenched fist . . . I wanted us to eat it for dinner, but Mother gave it to the cat. And that was fun, too, watching him play with it and then hearing the bones crunch between his sharp teeth . . .

  On the way home I stopped off at Piperska Muren for dinner. I didn’t think I’d run into any acquaintances there, but two physicians sitting inside gestured for me to join them. I only drank a glass of beer and left.

  What should I do with these scraps of paper? Until now I’ve been putting them in the secret compartment of the chiffonier, but that’s not a good idea. Even a fairly unpracticed eye, looking at an old piece of furniture like this one, can tell at a glance that it must have a secret compartment and easily figure out where it is. And if something should happen after all, something unforeseen, and the house were searched, they’d be found there right away. But what should I do with them? I know: I have a lot of cartons on the bookcase, dummies shaped like books, filled with notes on scientific matters and other old papers, carefully organized with labels on the spines. I can put them in among the notes on gynecology. And I can mix them up with my older diary entries; I’ve kept a diary before, never regularly or for long, but periodically . . . Actually, for now it doesn’t really matter. I’ll always have time to burn them if need be.

  *

  It’s done, I’m free. Now I want to shake this off, want to think about other matters.

  Well—about what, then?

  I’m tired and empty. I feel completely empty. Like a blister I’ve popped with a pin.

  I’m hungry, that’s all. Kristin will have to warm up dinner and bring it in.

  AUGUST 23

  IT’S BEEN RAINING and windy all night. The first autumn storm. I lay awake listening as two branches of the large chestnut rubbed against each other outside my window. I remember that I got up and sat by the window for a while watching the ragged clouds chase each other. The glow from the gas lights gave them a dirty, brick-red, fiery hue. It seemed as if the church spire bowed in the storm. The clouds formed figures, turning into a wild hunt of filthy red devils, blowing horns and whistling and howling and tearing the rags from each others’ bodies in wanton perversity. And as I sat there I suddenly burst out laughing: I laughed at the storm. I was reacting like the Jew when lightning struck just as he was eating a pork chop: he thought it was because of the pork. I was thinking of myself and my situation and assumed the storm did the same. Finally I fell asleep on my chair. I awoke with a shiver; once in bed I couldn’t fall asleep again. And then finally a new day came.

  Now it’s a gray morning and the wind has died down, but it keeps on raining. And I have a terrible cold and have already used up three handkerchiefs.

  When I opened a newspaper while drinking my morning coffee I saw that Pastor Gregorius had died. Quite suddenly, of a heart attack, at the water stand in Kungsträdgården . . . One of our better-known physicians, who happened to be nearby, could only confirm that death had occurred . . . The deceased was one of the capital city’s most favored and popular preachers . . . A warm personality with an expansive heart . . . Fifty-eight years old . . . Mourned by his wife, née Waller, and his aged mother.

  Dear me, we all must die eventually. And his heart had been bad for some time.

  But to think his old mother was still alive. That I didn’t know. She must be ancient.

  . . . There’s something dismal and unpleasant about this room, at least on rainy days like this. Everything here is so old and dark and somewhat moth-eaten. But I’m not comfortable with new furniture. Still, I think I’ll have to get new curtains for the window—these are dark and heavy and keep out the light. One of them is also a bit singed at the hem from that night last summer when the lamp flared up and it caught fire.

  “That night last summer” . . . Let me think—how long ago can that be? —Two weeks. And to me it seems like an eternity.

  Who would have thought his old mother was still alive . . .

  How old would my mother be if she were still living? Oh, not very old, barely sixty.

  She would have white hair. Maybe she’d have a little trouble climbing hills and stairs. Her blue eyes, paler than anyone else’s, would be even paler now from age, and they would beam from under her white hair. She’d be pleased that things have gone so well for me, but even more she’d be sad that my brother Ernst in Australia never writes. Ernst never brought her anything but worry and sorrow, so she liked him best. But who knows—perhaps he’d have turned out differently if she had lived.

  She died too young, my mother.

  But it’s a good thing she’s dead.

  (LATER)

  JUST NOW, when I came home at dusk, I stopped at the parlor entrance as if frozen to the spot. On the table in front of the mirror was a bouquet of dark flowers in a vase. It was twilight. Their heavy fragrance filled the room.

  They were roses, dark red roses. A couple of them nearly black.

  I stood there completely still in the silent room that seemed to
expand in the twilight, scarcely daring to move or breathe. It felt like a dream. The flowers by the mirror—they were the dark flowers from my dream.

  For an instant I was frightened. I thought: this is a hallucination—I’m falling apart, the end is near. I didn’t dare go over and touch the flowers for fear of reaching out to grasp thin air. I went into my study. On the desk was a letter. I opened it with trembling hands, thinking there might be some connection to the flowers, but it was a dinner invitation. I read it and in reply wrote the word “Coming” on a visiting card. Then I went out into the parlor again. The flowers were still there. I rang for Kristin, but no one came—Kristin had gone out. There was no one in the apartment but me.

  My life is beginning to merge with my dreams. I no longer can tell life and dream apart. I know about that, I’ve read all about it in thick books: it’s the beginning of the end. But the end has to come sometime, and I’m not afraid of anything. More and more my life is turning into a dream. And perhaps it has never been anything else. Perhaps I’ve been dreaming the whole time, dreaming that I’m a physician whose name is Glas and that there was a pastor called Gregorius. And at any moment I may awaken as a street sweeper or a bishop or a school boy or a dog—who knows . . .