“Oh, so it’s you, Sanders,” observed Jastrau stiffly. There was no cordiality in his tone. What did this Communist whippersnapper want with him?
“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t be glad to see me,” said Sanders. “But that makes no difference, because it’s we who want to visit you, and you’ll just have to put up with it.” He spoke with an affected air of cynicism, but his melodious voice made his words seem both earnest and agreeable.
“See, it’s just as I told you,” he added, addressing his companion, who hunched his shoulders even higher and let out a snort that sounded as if he were gloating over something.
“I thought you were safely behind bars,” Jastrau said. Then, to match Sanders’s cynical banter, he went on, “So I figured that for the time being we’d be rid of you. But now I suppose I’ll have to ask you in.”
“Thanks. That’s not a comradely way to talk, but we’ll accept the invitation. After all, that’s why we came. But you mustn’t let us inconvenience you. I imagine you have a lot to do,” Sanders said in his winning tone. “No doubt you have to slave in true bourgeois fashion.” Now there was gentle irony in his voice, and then the tone shifted suddenly to one of heartfelt sympathy: “Of course they underpay you over at that lying sheet you work for, don’t they?”
Jastrau felt himself hemmed in by all of Sanders’s subtleties of manner and intonation. One moment the fellow was haughty and condescending, the next he seemed to shrivel up and become a cringing suppliant. And in the process he hardly batted an eye.
“Let’s not talk about that. Come on inside,” replied Jastrau.
“I suppose it’s customary, for all I know, to introduce people to each other in a bourgeois household. At least so I’ve been told. Well, this is Stefan Steffensen, the only poet we’ve had in Scandinavia since Sigbjørn Obstfelder. And this is Ole Jastrau, Stefan. You know—Jastrau, the fellow you’ve heard about, the reviewer for that lying sheet over there—the renegade, the traitor. But excuse me, Ole, this isn’t the way a guest should behave—”
But Jastrau was already responding with a low, ironical bow. He kept his eyes half-closed because this gave him a feeling that he was enveloping himself in a fog. With a sweeping gesture he invited them in.
Sanders accepted the invitation and walked into the living room, polite and smiling, as if expecting to meet the lady of the house. After him came Stefan Steffensen, taking long, swinging strides without regard to the dimensions of the room.
Then, while Sanders stood over near the doorway to the dining room with a genial smile on his full lips, as if on the lookout for the household’s feminine spirit, Steffensen swung one foot forward in such an exasperated manner that a long shoelace came undone and whipped through the air. Thoughtlessly, he planted his foot on the seat of one of the rococo chairs as if it had been a sawhorse and proceeded to tie the shoelace in such a painstaking manner that the old chair creaked.
Jastrau cast a nervous sidelong glance at him and had a mind to get furious. Stefan Steffensen! So this was he—the poet who wrote for the Young Communist League’s little organ, The Hammer. There was something childlike about his oval face, but his prominent lips were set in an expression of what appeared to be inexplicable wrath.
“You’re a pig to have along in a drawing room.” The words came from Bernhard Sanders.
To Jastrau everything seemed hazy. What was going on? Had they come to scoff at him, to behave as they had done a fortnight ago when they had tried to paste vituperative placards up on Dagbladet’s big windows? In among the bourgeoisie and create a panic—was that the idea? No, he was still too nervous to make things out clearly, and he merely stood there, self-conscious and caught off guard in his own living room.
Meanwhile Steffensen went about making himself as much at home as possible. With unerring aim, he sent his cap whirling through the air so that it landed on one of the rococo chairs, then flung himself heavily down on the other one and crossed his legs, disregarding entirely the smudge his shoe had left on the upholstery. His hair hung down over his brow in slovenly fashion, and his forehead was so high and sallow that when seen through the wisps of hair the effect was distinctly unpleasant. There was, indeed, something inhuman about it.
Then came a commotion, and with it a sense of relief. It was Oluf who suddenly appeared in the doorway to the dining room, his belly jutting out and his yellow hair surrounding his head like a halo. A communicative little smile played about his long upper lip so that it quivered slightly.
“Hello, men,” he shrilled. Two big quivering tears shone uneasily in his eyes as he fearlessly approached Sanders. Sanders bowed very low to the red-eyed young gentleman who bore his last tears with an air of nonchalant dignity and who was more of a host than his father. Oluf gave a deep snuffle, as if his lungs had finally composed themselves, and his smile broke out into a breathless laugh.
Was it to amuse the boy that Bernhard Sanders sat down on the edge of the couch and threw open his smart raglan topcoat? A long Russian blouse fastened with a belt came into view, and at the sight of the belt buckle a gleam of curiosity lit up the boy’s eyes. The blouse was not very clean, nor were Sanders’s cheeks free of dark stubble. This was remarkable in a man as concerned about his clothes as Sanders.
“What sort of a getup is it you’re wearing anyway, Sanders?” Jastrau asked, slightly irritated.
“Oh, a raglan and sunglasses.”
“No, I mean that Russian outfit you’ve got on underneath.”
Sanders gave him a look of scorn.
“After all, there’s nothing strange about that. It’s simple and very practical. In ten years we’ll all be wearing them—you too. But the raglan coat—that’s my disguise.”
“Well, paradoxes are something we see plenty of.”
“No, no, Ole,” Sanders replied sharply. “I wear the coat and the sunglasses so the police won’t recognize me. I stand to get a month for this last example of disorderly conduct. There are a few such charges against me, I might add.”
“You mean this business of selling The Hammer on the streets?” Sanders nodded.
“Have you read The Hammer?”
“No.”
“Then you ought to. It’s among us that things are happening.”
Jastrau smiled vaguely at his remarks. But Sanders continued:
“I stand to get a month in the clink, because we don’t pay fines, as a matter of principle. But now we know for sure—we have connections—that we’ll get an amnesty immediately if the Social Democrats win. It’s as good as promised us.”
Sanders spoke with political overtones. And Jastrau guessed what he was getting at. This was the reason they had come. But then they were interrupted by Oluf, who had surrendered to the curiosity that shone in his eyes. He wanted to get close to Sanders and stand between his knees. It had to do with the belt buckle.
“This is a nice boy,” said Sanders with some feeling.
“Yes. He and I get along very well together,” said Jastrau, smiling.
“But where is your wife?” Sanders turned his head as if once more trying to peek into the dining room.
“She should be here soon,” Jastrau replied coldly. There was a note of intimacy in Sanders’s tone that offended him. Discussion meetings. Long conversations in the university lunchroom. Calling each other “du.”* Five years ago. Did this mean that they knew each other?
“I think I’ll take off my coat. It’s so warm here,” said Sanders.
Jastrau smiled wearily.
“Yes, you might as well,” he answered. “I suppose you’ll stay here until the election is over tomorrow. It would be annoying to get picked up by the police tonight.”
Sanders had stood up and was removing his coat.
“It’s wonderful now and then to meet people who understand, isn’t it, Stefan?”
“Yes,” replied Stefan, as if he had just awakened. The chair creaked under his weight. “A crummy chair,” he grumbled.
Sanders laughed across the r
oom to Jastrau and shook his head knowingly as if to say that Steffensen was impossible. But his eyes glistened with malicious pleasure.
“Yes, I had an idea that I understood the purpose of your visit,” Jastrau said ironically. “It means that you’re going to spend the night here.”
“He’s very gifted,” said Sanders to Steffensen.
“He was once,” muttered Steffensen. Then he cleared his throat and began to recite in a fanatical and youthfully enthusiastic tone that had a unique quality of rough charm about it:
“Mother, Madonna, and comrade in battle,
Beloved woman and happy warrior,
Mother of revolutions.”
He intoned the words crudely, apropos of nothing and without looking at Jastrau, who cringed at hearing quoted the words of “Proletarian Woman,” one of his youthful revolutionary poems.
Sanders smiled maliciously.
Jastrau made a wry face. “Oh, that!” he said.
“Yes, it’s your own youth that’s kicking you in the behind, and it kicks hard,” said Sanders. “And we don’t have the least sympathy for you. All I can say to you is that ‘Proletarian Woman’ is a good poem, and the only thing the matter with it is that you wrote it.”
“I’m glad that you appreciate something about me,” replied Jastrau.
Oluf had strutted across the room to where Steffensen was sitting and was staring at him with interest.
“Sing some more,” he shrilled. “Oh please, sing some more.”
Sanders laughed loudly. Steffensen, on the other hand, regarded the boy with a foreboding look and moved his big feet as if fearful of coming in contact with him. With what seemed to be instinctive understanding, the boy turned his back and walked over to Sanders again. The belt buckle shone.
Steffensen shifted uneasily, and the chair creaked again.
“And so you want to stay here,” began Jastrau. “God knows what Johanne will say to that.”
The chair kept creaking. It was as if Steffensen were unable to get settled in it.
“Oh, women always have a touch of romanticism,” Sanders replied confidently. “They get a thrill—goose pimples from head to toe—when they can associate with jailbirds without any danger to themselves.” He savored his words. “You get sex appeal by being revolutionary. Oh, she’ll very likely be shocked at first, but then—Well, you know what I mean, Ole, from the standpoint of sexual psychology. Besides, Stefan and I are quite harmless—almost housebroken.”
“But damn it all, I wouldn’t mind if I had another chair,” snapped Steffensen. “You come and sit here, Bernhard. You have a better ass for this kind of a chair than I do.”
“Why do you have such chairs, anyhow?” asked Sanders, executing a few elaborate dance steps as he changed places with Steffensen. Oluf trotted trustfully along behind him.
“Well, they reminded me of the chairs in my toy theater.” Jastrau smiled self-consciously. “You know, the king’s palace in ‘The Tinder Box,’ and ‘Clumsy Hans.’ I believe that’s why I bought them. So you see—”
It sounded like an apology.
Sanders’s eyes flashed spitefully. They were like the bloodshot eyes of a gypsy.
“I see,” he sneered indignantly. “Yes, and you’d probably also go to war because you once played with tin soldiers. And I bet you’ve already corrupted this little fellow here—your son—by giving him tin soldiers. Isn’t that right? You have fine soldiers, haven’t you—what’s your name?” he asked, addressing the boy, who stood between his knees. It was the belt buckle that fascinated him.
“Oyuf,” replied the boy without looking up. He was not going to be distracted.
“Oyuf! Listen, Oluf—you should always talk properly to children, you know—listen Oluf—they are fine soldiers that you have, aren’t they?”
Oluf looked up at him without answering. He had no toy soldiers, nor did he understand what the strange man was talking about. Jastrau smiled maliciously.
But Sanders was not to be stopped by such a setback. His voice grew louder and more ominous, embellished with righteous indignation, until it took on an entirely uncalled-for tone of prophetic wrath: “There’s nothing so irrational as the bourgeois mind. I tell you, I could take every piece of furniture in this apartment and use it as an example of how fundamentally sentimental you are—just like all the others. And what does this sentimentality cover? At worst nothing but cowardice. No, there’s nothing else hidden behind your confusion. And just look at that fetish! What business does that have being here?”
“Why? What’s the matter with that?” muttered Steffensen, who had picked it up and now sat twirling it between his hands as if it were a roll of putty. With a rounded hand he felt of the shape of the head.
“Well, what’s it doing here among these rococo chairs, that Christian VIII sofa, and those Christian IX pictures on the wall?”
The pictures, which were commonplace enough, had come from Jastrau’s home.
“All pieced together from God knows where! A present from Aunt Bine! Something to remember grandmother by! One thing and another. Picked up in an antique shop! All pretension and sentimentality. Not even honest poverty. Why, a worker’s home is—”
Just then Jastrau caught sight of the boy, who had retreated away from the vociferous Sanders and stood leaning against the door and staring at him with an angry gleam in his eyes. More the master of the house than his father.
He had enough gumption to defend his home, while his father—
“So you’re going to stay here tonight!” Jastrau exclaimed, rising to his feet.
Sanders stopped talking and looked up in surprise. Steffensen set the fetish back in place.
“Yes,” growled Steffensen.
“That’s the idea,” replied Sanders, smiling and keeping his voice well modulated.
“And that makes you my guests.”
“Exactly.”
“Well then, damn it, you’ll have to take things as you find them. Now go hang up your things in the hall and leave me alone to do some reading. I have some reviews to do. I can’t neglect my work.”
“All right, we’ll keep quiet,” said Sanders diplomatically, getting up to hang his topcoat in the corridor. “You can take a joke, can’t you, Ole?”
Jastrau did not reply.
“Of course, I’m serious about what I said,” Sanders went on when he returned. “But partly I was just ribbing you. I don’t tell everyone what I really think, you know.”
“I suppose I should feel complimented,” Jastrau said sarcastically. Steffensen let out a rude, forced guffaw.
An endless stream of scorn and sarcasm from these two youngsters. Jastrau felt that they were mocking him as if he were a defenseless old man. They were too rough for him, this pair—so aggressive that the room seemed crammed with people. When would he ever find a little peace? He should at least get one book read and reviewed today. And then, all those other books!
“Well, now wait just a minute,” he said nervously. It was invariably that way—after a brief spell of rage he always relented.
Then the telephone rang.
“One of you take it and say I’ve gone out,” he said. “It’ll be the truth, because I’m going out to the kitchen to get a bottle of port.”
“An intelligent man,” said Steffensen, leaning forward obligingly to pick up the receiver.
Jastrau went into the kitchen and got down on his knees in front of the cabinet. The bottles stood on the lower shelf. From inside the living room he heard Steffensen’s voice. Someone had called the wrong number. Finally he found the bottle he was looking for—a fifth of ruby Burmester. It was the kind with the black label and the yellow seal in the lower corner. The sight of the label alone was enough to make him feel better, and he set the bottle gently on the kitchen table.
“I want to carry.”
It was Oluf’s curly head popping up at the level of his jacket pocket. He wanted to make himself useful.
“No. This is nothing f
or little boys. You might break it.”
He brought out three green glasses, held them up to the light to see if they were clean, then went in to join the others. Oluf trotted along at his heels.
Already, now that he hugged the bottle close against his chest, he felt a warm sense of reassurance. It was as if he suddenly found himself at home—he who felt like a stranger everywhere, here among his own furniture, here with his own son, yes, even with the things he wrote. But now everything around him seemed clearer, more sharply delineated. The furniture had more definite lines. He could even see his guests more clearly, more objectively. They were now individuals in their own right, persons with whom he could associate; before they had been parts of his own ego, evil spirits within him, hallucinations he could not get rid of, persecutors.
Nevertheless, he was not transformed into the master of the house; it was not a role for which he had any talent. As he placed the bottle and the three green glasses on the black tabletop and moved the telephone over onto the windowsill, he was more the boon companion who had been lucky enough to pull a coup, and his smile was at once cunning and tinged with consciousness of triumph.
“No thanks. I don’t drink,” Sanders protested. But he drew up his chair in a gesture of sociability.
“Aren’t you drinking either?” asked Jastrau, feeling annoyed.
“Sure,” said Steffensen, smacking his lips. “I’ll drink,” he added, putting an accent on the word “drink” that made it sound reprehensible.
“Oh, come on, Sanders. Have one glass with us.” Jastrau was chagrined. “This is good port.”
“Yes, but I’m not drinking, you see. It isn’t because I don’t like it, but when you take a socialistic view of things, the way I do, then—”
“You’ve never been a souse,” Jastrau objected.
Sanders drew himself up, and his voice quivered with scorn: “There you go again with the old individualistic rubbish, as if the only reason a person should quit drinking is to keep himself from going to the dogs. But, you see, I’m a Communist. I feel a sense of responsibility for others besides myself. I feel a responsibility toward society, the new society, and—”
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