but first they go to see their father in his office. John is astonished to find him looking cheerful and brisk, joking with the sunburnt steamer captains and laughing in a friendly, pleasant way. Indeed, he seems quite youthful, and has a bow and arrows with which the captains amuse themselves by shooting at the window of the riding-school. The office is small, but they can go behind the green partition and drink a glass of porter behind a curtain. The clerks are attentive and polite when his father speaks to them. John had never before seen his father at work, but only known him in the character of a tired, hungry provider for his family, who preferred to live with nine persons in three rooms, than alone in two. He had only seen his father at leisure, eating and reading the paper when he came home in the evening, but never in his official capacity. He admired him, but he felt that he feared him now less, and thought that some day he might come to love him.
He fears the water, but before he knows where he is he finds himself sitting in an oval room ornamented in white and gold, and containing red satin sofas. Such a splendid room he has never seen before. But everything rattles and shakes. He looks out of a little window, and sees green banks, bluish-green waves, sloops carrying hay, and steamers passing by. It is like a panorama or something seen at a theatre. On the banks move small red and white houses, outside which stand green trees with a sprinkling of snow upon them; larger green meadows rush past with red cows standing in them, looking like Christmas toys. The sun gets high, and now they reach trees with yellow foliage and brown caterpillars, bridges with sailing-boats flying flags, cottages with fowls pecking and dogs barking. The sun shines on rows of windows which lie on the ground, and old men and women go about with water-cans and rakes. Then appear green trees again bending over the water, and yellow and white bath-houses; overhead a cannon-shot is fired; the rattling and shaking cease; the banks stand still; above him he sees a stone wall, men's coats and trousers and a multitude of boots. He is carried up some steps which have a gilded rail, and sees a very large castle. Somebody says, "Here the King lives."
It was the castle of Drottningholm—the most beautiful memory of his childhood, even including the fairy-tale books.
Their things are unpacked in a little white house on a hill, and now the children roll on the grass, on real green grass without dandelions, like that in the Clara churchyard. It is so high and bright, and the woods and fiords are green and blue in the distance.
The dust-bin is forgotten, the schoolroom with its foul atmosphere has disappeared, the melancholy church-bells sound no more, and the graves are far away. But in the evening a bell rings in a little belfry quite near at hand. With astonishment he sees the modest little bell which swings in the open air, and sends its sound far over the park and bay. He thinks of the terrible deep-toned bell in the tower at home, which seemed to him like a great black maw when he looked into it, as it swung, from below. In the evening, when he is tired and has been washed and put to bed, he hears how the silence seems to hum in his ears, and waits in vain to hear the strokes and chiming of the bell in the tower.
The next morning he wakes to get up and play. He plays day after day for a whole week. He is in nobody's way, and everything is so peaceful. The little ones sleep in the nursery, and he is in the open air all day long. His father does not appear; but on Saturday he comes out from the town and pinches the boys' cheeks because they have grown and become sunburnt. "He does not beat us now any more," thinks the child; but he does not trace this to the simple fact that here outside the city there is more room and the air is purer.
The slimmer passes gloriously, as enchanting as a fairy-tale; through the poplar avenues run lackeys in silver-embroidered livery, on the water float sky-blue dragon-ships with real princes and princesses, on the roads roll golden chaises and purple-red coaches drawn by Arab horses four-in-hand, and the whips are as long as the reins.
Then there is the King's castle with the polished floors, the gilt furniture, marble-tiled stoves and pictures; the park with its avenues like long lofty green churches, the fountains ornamented with unintelligible figures from story-books; the summer-theatre that remained a puzzle to the child, but was used as a maze; the Gothic tower, always closed and mysterious, which had nothing else to do but to echo back the sound of voices.
He is taken for a walk in the park by a cousin whom he calls "aunt." She is a well-dressed maiden just grown up, and carries a parasol. They come into a gloomy wood of sombre pines; here they wander for a while, ever farther. Presently they hear a murmur of voices, music, and the clatter of plates and forks; they find themselves before a little castle; figures of dragons and snakes wind down from the roof-ridge, other figures of old men with yellow oval faces, black slanting eyes and pigtails, look from under them; letters which he cannot read, and which are unlike any others he has seen, run along the eaves. But below on the ground-floor of the castle royal personages sit at table by the open windows and eat from silver dishes and drink wine.
"There sits the King," says his aunt.
The child becomes alarmed, and looks round to see whether he has not trodden on the grass, or is not on the point of doing something wrong. He believes that the handsome King, who looks friendly, sees right through him, and he wants to go. But neither Oscar I. nor the French field-marshals nor the Russian generals trouble themselves about him, for they are just now discussing the Peace of Paris, which is to make an end of the war in the East. On the other hand, police-guards, looking like roused lions, are marching about, and of them he has an unpleasant recollection. He needs only to see one, and he feels immediately guilty and thinks of the fine of three rix-dollars and sixteen skillings. However, he has caught a glimpse of the highest form of authority—higher than that of his brother, his mother, his father, the deputy-landlord, the landlord, the general with the plumed helmet, and the police.
On another occasion, again with his aunt, he passes a little house close to the castle. In a courtyard strewn with sand there stands a man in a panama hat and a summer suit. He has a black beard and looks strong. Round him there runs a black horse held by a long cord. The man springs a rattle, cracks a whip, and fires shots.
"That is the Crown Prince," says his aunt.
He looked like any other man, and was dressed like his uncle Yanne.
Another time, in the park, deep in the shade of some trees, a mounted officer meets them. He salutes the boy's aunt, makes his horse stop, talks to her, and asks his name. The boy answers, but somewhat shyly. The dark-visaged man with the kind eyes looks at him, and he hears a loud peal of laughter. Then the rider disappears. It was the Crown Prince again. The Crown Prince had spoken to him! He felt elevated, and at the same time more sure of himself. The dangerous potentate had been quite pleasant.
One day he learns that his father and aunt are old acquaintances of a gentleman who lives in the great castle and wears a three-cornered hat and a sabre. The castle thenceforward assumes a more friendly aspect. He is also acquainted with people in it, for the Crown Prince has spoken with him, and his father calls the chamberlain "thou." Now he understands that the gorgeous lackeys are of inferior social rank to him, especially when he hears that the cook goes for walks with one of them in the evenings. He discovers that he is, at any rate, not on the lowest stair in the social scale.
Before he has had time to realise it, the fairy-tale is over. The dust-bin and the rats are again there, but the deputy-landlord does not use his authority any more when John wants to dig up stones, for John has spoken with the Crown Prince, and the family have been for a summer holiday. The boy has seen the splendour of the upper classes in the distance. He longs after it, as after a home, but the menial blood he has from his mother rebels against it. From instinct he reveres the upper classes, and thinks too much of them ever to be able to hope to reach them. He feels that he belongs neither to them nor to the menial class. That becomes one of the struggles in his life.
II
BREAKING-IN
