“Is that so?” Sanders protested.
“Yes, I’ve seen it. It’s hardly worth talking about, it’s hardly worth talking about. But I know, because I was there, under the red banners—trala—lala—back in those March days when the king tossed out the Radical government.”
He sat looking into space, but the others now had their eyes turned toward him. Suddenly he found the whole scene comical. An old man! Reminiscing about his experiences! And then, as if mimicking a Storm Petersen cartoon, he went on: “An old soldier—yes, yes—fought in the Boer War. A lot of nonsense!”
“No, go on. You wanted to say something.” It was Sanders who spoke.
“Oh, I really don’t care to talk about it. But as I was saying, I was there to help push through the police cordon in Amalienborg Plads and to shout ‘Long live the republic,’ in front of the palace. It was all a lot of foolishness. There was a man who climbed up a lamppost to make a revolutionary speech. ‘Comrades,’ he yelled, then got so enthusiastic that he flung both arms into the air, forgetting to hold onto the post, so that he just quietly slid to the ground—while a mighty roar of revolutionary laughter went up all around him.”
“But those were nothing but pranks, that time,” objected Sanders. “Tomfoolery in the streets.”
Jastrau shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe so. And incidentally, I heard the only shot that was fired. A blank cartridge—fired by an overzealous policeman. And I was at the demonstrations held at The Clamshell in front of the Town Hall. Oh, it was all very funny. There was a drunk who made a speech. Very picturesque. A somber crowd, light falling from the arc lamps. The chiaroscuro effect was very good. Revolutionary drama.” Again he lapsed into the Storm Petersen style: “Ha, ha! A drunk—Danton—completely blotto on a slug of apple juice. In his befuddlement he yelled, ‘Down with the election law—down with it! A Copenhagener, damn it, is worth no more than one-third of a West Coast Jutlander.’ Then he practically fell on his face amidst the spectators. They had to stretch him out on the pedestal, and there he lay with a couple of men sitting on him, while he shouted, ‘Long live the revolution!’ just like Steffensen here.”
The others laughed while Jastrau continued in a caustic tone that increasingly was tinged with wry humor:
“Yes—a regular street-corner parliament—a characteristic Copenhagen scene! They finally managed to subdue the drunk, but then the crowd demanded that he be heard. ‘Give us the West Jutlander,’ they yelled. ‘Up with the West Jutlander—he’s a good fellow!’ God, how idiotic it was. And then I remember saying good-bye to a friend of mine far out on Vesterbro—a fellow in the advertising department. It was late that night, and we said to each other, ‘Yes—tomorrow there’ll be a general strike,’ and we looked up at the street lights. Tomorrow they’d all be out, and we rather welcomed the idea. So what happened? Not a thing. Oh yes—there was a demonstration, with the City Council at the head of the parade. Up with the king—and genial greetings all around! And the newspapers that had threatened a general strike—well—”
“Yes, including Dagbladet,” Steffensen remarked in disgust.
“Yes,” Jastrau said wearily. “During those days the Radical Liberals received their death blow. And yet, they’re still around like ghosts. But what do you care about that?”
He got up, completely out of sorts.
“I don’t believe in any revolution here in this country,” he went on emphatically. “The Danes don’t have the guts for it. Phew! I’d like to write a book about the Danish national characteristics—deceptive blue eyes and blond unreliability.”
“Hey-hey!” exclaimed Johanne, so that Sanders and Steffensen had to laugh.
“It’s you he’s referring to,” Steffensen said to Johanne with a crude attempt at coquetry and an unctuous, unnatural expression of geniality. But Johanne purposely disregarded him.
“What is it you’re playing with, Oluf?” exclaimed Johanne.
“The man,” came the reply from the corner.
“Don’t you know that—”
“I told him he could have it,” Jastrau interrupted quietly.
Johanne gave him a harsh look and shook her head, as if he were an idiot.
“But I thought—” she said.
“So did I,” Jastrau responded ironically. Then the telephone rang.
Jastrau took the call. “Jastrau speaking. What’s that? But how in the world does Stefani know that? I wrote it yesterday and sent it right up to the composing room. No, I can’t do that. He deserves the going-over I gave him. Blasphemy—is that so? Is that what Editor Iversen thinks? Well, well! Yes—then let Eriksen write it, although I have no idea what Eriksen knows about literature. But let him do it anyhow. Yes—I’ll be over soon. Yes—yes—so long now.”
Indignantly he put the receiver back and began to pace the floor, while the others’ eyes followed him.
“How in the devil can Stefani know what I wrote in my review? I wrote it over at the paper last night and went right up to the composing room with it. And now Stefani has already been to see Iversen and is raising a rumpus.”
“He has a sharp nose,” said Steffensen, grinning.
“Yes—a charming fellow, your father,” Jastrau snarled. As he said it, he glanced at Steffensen and saw that his cheeks had grown pale and his expression hard. His lips were thrust forward menacingly as if they had been carved out of wood. His glance wandered distractedly from one to the other.
Was it a madman sitting over there on the sofa? Sanders and Johanne also stared at him and an awkward silence spread through the room in eerie, ever-widening waves. Jastrau remained standing without moving.
Finally, he managed to say very quietly and casually:
“I think I’d better go over and get it straight. You can come along and pick up the payment for the poem.”
“But, the police—” Johanne objected.
“Oh, now that this is election day there’s probably no danger,” said Sanders. “It’s probably best if we both go. Either the Social Democrats will win and we’ll get an amnesty or—well—. But it would have been annoying to have been picked up just before the election. And so now, frue, may we thank you for putting us up and say that we hope—and so on and so forth, and all that sort of thing.”
He arose and made her a chivalrous bow.
“There’s really nothing to thank us for,” said Johanne, extending her hand.
At the same moment, Steffensen reached for the cigar box and helped himself to five cigars.
Then they left.
5
A COLD wind was blowing and Jastrau pulled his coat collar up around his ears. But he felt restless and conscious of the quickened pulse brought on by night air and broad sidewalks. Glowing red and gaseous blue neon tubes flashed like signatures written with a single fiery stroke: Scala. Blue electric light bulbs flickered mysteriously like carriage lanterns half-hidden by foliage: Marble Garden. Names in yellow lights. An electric news bulletin coursed swiftly across the top of a building, a veil of mist dragging along behind each letter. Ahead of and behind him megaphones from the several newspaper offices bellowed the election results out over the streets so that the air seemed filled with voices. It was as if invisible giants as high as houses were shouting up at the façades of the buildings.
Over in the square swanned a dark mass of people, and the cars escaping from the closely packed throng ground their gears and picked up speed into Vesterbrogade as if lurching out of a mudhole. The beams of their headlights shot forward over the streetcar tracks, which were coated and glistening with gasoline. It was one of Copenhagen’s more brilliantly illuminated evenings.
Jastrau had gone out after all. He zigzagged his way through the horde of people on the sidewalk out onto the pavement and over to the flagstone area in the square. It had been painfully dull at home. It was true that they were now rid of their two self-invited guests. At the supper table, he and Johanne had sat opposite one another, each feeling lonely—he chagr
ined over the squabble he had gotten into at the office over the review of Stefani’s book, she distant and reserved, with nervous, perpendicular wrinkles creasing her forehead. That white forehead. Like an egg. Shadowy figures of men and women hurried past him. The evening glittered like black lacquer. He saw her pale forehead amidst the swarm of people. A white egg. He saw the whole scene clearly.
But in the square he got so enmeshed in the crush that he had to edge his way out.
Over his head a megaphone intoned some unintelligible sounds and ahead of him loomed Dagbladet’s corner building with all its windows pouring forth light.
Obviously there were many people up at the paper. He could make out shadowy figures behind the light-colored curtains that covered the lower half of the windows. They were very likely leaning on their elbows on the thick brass rods, looking out at the milling crowd. But the corner room was dark. In its window was a screen on which the election results were flashed from time to time. At the moment, it was blank—an empty gray panel.
Suddenly he heard loud laughter around him. “Skål!” someone shouted. “We want beer!” And Jastrau looked up at the corner window.
He saw a big shadowy hand grasping a large, dimly discernible object move across the right side of the screen. It came to rest there for a moment. The outline was foggy, but there was no mistaking it—the silhouette of a beer bottle. Only a glimpse of it, then it disappeared. The hand had abruptly jerked it away, and again the screen was blank.
“Aw—what a shame!” More laughter. “They need something to drown their disappointment,” someone behind him wisecracked.
“Are things going very badly for the Radicals?”* Jastrau asked the man beside him, as he slowly wormed his way between him and the next person.
“Yes—and how! The Socialists are winning,” the man said, trying to make room with his elbow. “It’s a tough proposition—trying to get through this jam.”
Finally Jastrau reached the sidewalk in front of Dagbladet and was able to breathe freely. Simultaneously, a car made its way with difficulty up to the curb and stopped before the entrance. A tall, smartly dressed man, wearing a voluminous light-colored coat with the collar drawn up around his ears so that only a billowing crown of white hair was visible, sprang out and disappeared through the revolving door. No more than a glimpse of the bareheaded figure was necessary. It was the eternally youthfully H. C. Stefani.
Jastrau stopped in his tracks. It was that review. What a lot of fuss had been stirred up because of it. That afternoon, when he and Steffensen had gone over to the paper together, the copy editor had bawled him out—yes, bawled him out! And it wasn’t like him to do such a thing. But how in the world had Stefani learned what was in the review? It had not been out of the building, but had been written in his office and taken at once to be set in type.
He had his suspicions. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to believe it. No—such a trick would be too petty, without purpose. Deep in thought, he went on through the revolving door.
“Hey—is that you, Jazz?”
Jastrau looked up, and there, halfway up the stairs and struggling with his overcoat, stood Eriksen, the little, broad-shouldered newspaperman. He had one arm stretched out behind him, trying to get it into the sleeve. “Phew! This is a mess!” he groaned, puffing so that a miasma of port wine and beer fumes descended around Jastrau, while he continued flapping the empty sleeve. “Let me get out of here. It’s unbearable up there, and I’ve just created a scandal.” And he screwed up his weather-beaten, ravaged features so that all the wrinkles and scars that testified to a misspent youth converged.
“You don’t mean to say it was you with that bottle,” said Jastrau.
“Yes.” And at the same time, in his befuddlement, as he tried to shake his head he began to cough.
“So now the whole town knows that you drink.”
“So what?” said Eriksen, laughing. But the tears rolled down his cheeks and his face was beet-red from his fit of coughing. “It’s about time I made it public myself.”
Finally the arm found its way into the sleeve, and the overcoat was on. He straightened up, threw out his chest, and flung a hand out in a sweeping gesture. “You see,” he said, “I made it.”
Once more he crumpled up with laughter and waved his hand as if brushing away the scandal. “But look, Jazz,” he went on in a more serious tone, “it’s a good thing I ran into you. I’ve been looking for you all evening. Oh, that business about the bottle! Are you sore? I tell you, I’ve been looking for you all evening.” He tried to grab Jastrau by the hand. “You aren’t sore at me because they gave me Stefani’s book, are you, Jazz?”
“No, no.” And Jastrau shut his eyes and closed off all his other senses in order to avoid the overpowering stench of wine and beer.
“No, I hope you’re not disturbed about it,” Eriksen went on, squeezing Jastrau’s hand. “Because you understand, don’t you? Yes, of course you do. But you don’t know Stefani. A brilliant man—in every respect. A pharmacist in Aarhus. Yes, I can tell you a lot of things you don’t know about him, and even though he’s written a rotten book—what of it? But even if that weren’t the case—well, I can tell you a good deal.”
“Have you been out to vote?” Jastrau asked ironically. “You smell like it.”
“Hee hee—yes. At the Bodega. I put a big cross after Sommer’s name—Sommer, the waiter.”
“Well, I think I’ll sneak upstairs.”
“Up there?” Eriksen inquired hoarsely, pointing to the upper floors.
“Yes. Up to the lecture room to listen to the election returns. Don’t you want to come along?”
“Pooh,” said Eriksen, snickering into the palm of his hand. “No, I’ve contributed enough to the spirit of election night. Hee hee—that business with the bottle. What do you think of that? Besides, it’s unbearable up there. Phooey! Every time a Conservative or a Social Democrat is elected there’s great rejoicing and hurrahs and hullabaloo, but if a Radical Liberal gets in then everybody holds his nose and says ‘Down with him!’ ”
Suddenly he grabbed Jastrau by the lapel of his jacket, drew him close, and whispered to him through a cloud of port-wine fumes.
“And this is supposed to be a Radical Liberal newspaper. Oof! It’s enough to make you get drunk and create a scandal. It makes the cold shivers run up my spine. Because it is a Radical Liberal paper, isn’t it?” He was getting more wrought up by the moment. “Well, it makes no difference to me. But just the same, I don’t like it. You can go up and listen for yourself. But look here”—and once again he squeezed Jastrau’s hand so hard that he felt the fingers crack—”you aren’t sore at me, are you, Jazz?”
“No, no.”
“After all, it’s your material, and so you understand.” Eriksen put his arms around him. “Look, old boy, I like you very much, even though you’re no great shakes. But see here—a bottle up there on the screen—how about that? Of all today’s bottles, that’s the one, isn’t it? Hee hee.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” replied Jastrau, tearing himself free.
Journalist Eriksen had another coughing spell, and Jastrau could hear him all the while as he discreetly retreated up the stairs.
The offices of Dagbladet were hardly recognizable. Doors were banging on every floor. The elevators hummed incessantly. The election-night mood had taken possession of the building and altered it. The stairways swarmed with people whom one seldom saw.
Through the windows of the vestibule where the night before he had stood with Arne Vuldum—he recalled their encounter grimly—he caught sight of one celebrity after another. A well-known actor’s swarthy face. A polar explorer with a beard like a Christmas elf. An art critic who looked as if he were neighing. A Radical Liberal politician’s cultivated profile. An actress with a chaste Madonna-like smile, a secondhand-book dealer who resembled a long loaf of French bread. They were either sitting around in the chairs or leaning against the big round table where one of the paper’s ill
ustrators had spread out a large roll of paper and with a crayon was lettering in the election returns, which several of the notables present were regarding with uneasy expressions.
Should he venture in among them? He invariably felt shy when the paper put on its big affairs. Then, however, he did go in, nodded and said hello to several people without really feeling at ease, and felt himself saved only when he caught sight of the copy editor, who stood in the doorway of his office, looking as if he had received unexpected guests. He had a face like a bank clerk’s, except that the lines in it were deeper and his eyes were exhausted from night work. A certain air of dignified weariness was his distinguishing characteristic.
Jastrau had very little contact with him. But they had quarreled that afternoon, and Jastrau was never able to rest easily until differences between himself and others were disposed of.
“Well, Ole Jastrau, have you been out and voted the right way?”
“I didn’t vote.”
“It’s strange about you, Ole Jastrau. You don’t really go along with the paper’s policies.”
Jastrau did not know why he never looked the copy editor directly in the eye.
“You don’t, Ole Jastrau. Otherwise, you would not have written the review of Stefani’s book the way you did.”
“He had it coming to him,” Jastrau replied curtly.
“Yes, but he’s one of our feature writers. Incidentally, he’s here tonight. And the book can’t be nearly as bad as you made it out to be. Vuldum says that the descriptions of the Syrian landscape—of the fig tree, for example—are as good as anything out of Johannes Jørgensen.”
“I didn’t think that Vuldum read Danish books,” Jastrau commented sharply.
“Look, there’s something else I wanted to see you about. Come in here for a moment.” The copy editor laid his hand on Jastrau’s shoulder and guided him into his office.
“Look at this,” he said, pulling out a drawer full of manuscripts and proof sheets. “Yes, Editor Iversen has suddenly ordered all proofs for the book page sent down here, and look at this poem that you sent up today and let the cashier’s office pay for. This poem—well, Editor Iversen doesn’t exactly think it’s a thing of beauty. Tell me, who is this Steffensen?”
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