Doctor Glas

by Hjalmar Söderberg

  I’d asked Markel to phone ahead and reserve a table at the edge of the veranda—he has more authority there than I do. We passed the time with a shot of akvavit, a couple of sardines and some olives while deciding on the menu: potage à la chasseur, fillet of sole, quail, fruit. Chablis; Mumm extra dry; Manzanilla.

  “You weren’t at the Rubins’ last Thursday?” asked Markel. “The hostess missed you a great deal. She said you have such a pleasant way of keeping quiet.”

  “I had a cold, it was completely out of the question. Stayed home and played solitaire all morning, and at dinnertime went to bed. Who was there?”

  “A whole menagerie. Birck among others. He’s managed to get rid of his tapeworm. Rubin explained how that came about: some time ago Birck swore a solemn vow to quit his government job and focus exclusively on literature. And when the tapeworm got wind of this, the intelligent creature likewise swore a solemn vow and took off for greener pastures.”

  “Well, is he serious about it? Birck, I mean?”

  “No. He’ll content himself with having taken a stand and stay with the Customs Authority. And now, of course, he wants it to seem as if it was just a ruse . . .”

  I thought I caught a glimpse of Klas Recke’s face over at a table far away. It really was he. He was in a party of four with another man and two ladies. I didn’t know any of them.

  “Who is Recke with over there?” I asked Markel.

  He turned around, but couldn’t catch sight of either Recke or his companions. The noise around us rose, competing with the orchestra, which was playing the Boulanger March. Markel’s face grew dark. He’s a passionate supporter of Dreyfus and regarded this musical piece as an anti-Dreyfus demonstration arranged by a coterie of lieutenants.

  “Klas Recke?” he resumed. “I don’t see him. But no doubt he’s here cozying up to his future in-laws. It will soon be clear sailing for him, I think. A girl with money has cast her eyes on him—very beautiful eyes, by the way. But speaking of beautiful eyes, my dinner partner at the Rubins was the young Miss Mertens. A charming girl, quite enchanting. I’ve never met her there before. I don’t recall how it came up, but I happened to mention you, and as soon as it was clear to her that we were close friends she talked of nothing but you and asked me all sorts of questions I couldn’t answer . . . Then all of a sudden she stopped and blushed out to the tips of her ears. The only reasonable explanation is that she’s in love with you.”

  “Your conclusions are a bit hasty,” I interjected.

  But I was thinking about what he said about Recke. I didn’t know what to believe: Markel talks a lot of nonsense that’s just hot air—it’s a weakness of his. And I didn’t want to ask. But he kept on talking about Miss Mertens, and with such enthusiasm that I felt inclined to tease him:

  “Clearly you’re in love with her yourself, your heart’s on your sleeve! Take her, my dear Markel—I won’t be a dangerous rival. I’m easily shoved aside.”

  He shook his head. He was somber and pale.

  “I’m out of the reckoning,” he responded.

  I said nothing, and we fell silent. The waiter poured the champagne with the solemnity of a temple attendant. The orchestra started playing the prelude from Lohengrin. The clouds from earlier in the day had blown away and were clustered in rosy bands at the horizon, but above us the sky had deepened into an endless dark blue, blue like this wonderful blue music. I listened to it and forgot myself. My thoughts and preoccupations of the last few weeks and the action to which they had led seemed to float away into the distant blue as if they already were gone, as if they were unreal, something separate and apart that would never trouble me again. I felt that I would never again will such a thing or commit such an act. Was it all an illusion? But still, I’d acted according to my best judgment. I’d weighed and tested, for and against. I’d gotten to the bottom of the matter. Was that an illusion? It didn’t matter. The music now came to the mysterious leitmotif: “Thou shalt not ask!” And in this mystical series of notes and these four words it seemed to me I could find the sudden revelation of an ancient and hidden wisdom. “Thou shalt not ask!” Don’t get to the bottom of things: if you do, you yourself will founder. Don’t seek the truth: you won’t find it and will lose yourself. “Thou shalt not ask!” The amount of truth that is beneficial will come to you with no effort; it’s mixed with delusions and lies, but that’s for the sake of your health—in pure form it would burn your insides. Don’t try to cleanse your soul of lies—many other things will be lost, too, things you haven’t considered. You’ll lose your bearings and everything that’s dear to you. “Thou shalt not ask!”

  “When appealing to Parliament to subsidize the opera,” Markel said, “one always has to point out that music has ‘an ennobling effect.’ I myself wrote some such nonsense in an editorial a year or so ago. There’s actually some truth to it, though it’s expressed in translation to make it comprehensible for our legislators. In the original language it would be, ‘Music stimulates and strengthens, intensifies and confirms: confirms the saint in his innocence, the warrior in his courage, the debaucher in his vice.’ Bishop Ambrosius forbade chromatic progressions in church music because in his personal experience they awakened impure thoughts. In the 1730s there was a pastor in Halle who found clear confirmation of the Augsburg Confession in the music of Handel. I own the book. And a good Wagnerian can base an entire philosophy of life on a motif from Parsifal.”

  We’d reached the coffee. I handed Markel my cigar case. He took a cigar and examined it closely.

  “This cigar has a serious look about it,” he said. “It’s definitely the real thing. In fact I’ve been somewhat anxious about the cigar question. As a physician I’m sure you know that the best cigars are the worst for you. So I was worried you’d give me some damned wretched stogie.”

  “My dear friend,” I replied, “from a health standpoint this entire meal is a mockery of good sense. And as for the cigar, it’s a product of the esoteric branch of the tobacco industry. It appeals to the elite.”

  The crowd around us had thinned out, the electric lights were turned up, and outside it was beginning to grow dark.

  “Ah,” Markel said suddenly, “now I can see Recke, in the mirror. And indeed, just as I suspected, he’s in the company of that young lady. I don’t know the others in the party.”

  “Well, and who is she?”

  “Miss Lewinson, the daughter of the stockbroker who died a year or so ago . . . She has half a million.”

  “And you think he’s marrying for money?”

  “By no means, of course not. Klas Recke is a gentleman. You can be sure he’ll see to it that first he falls passionately in love with her and then marries for love. He’ll manage that so well that the money will virtually take him by surprise.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “I’ve met her a few times. She’s very attractive, but her nose is just a bit too sharp, and her intellect, too, for that matter. A young lady who with uncompromising integrity tacks between Spencer and Nietzsche and says, ‘Here and there that one’s correct, but here and there the other one is right on target’—she disturbs me a bit, but not in the right way . . . What did you say?”

  I hadn’t said a thing. I sat lost in thought, and possibly my lips had moved with my thoughts, perhaps I’d mumbled something to myself without noticing . . . I could see her before me, the one who is constantly on my mind. I could see her walking back and forth in the twilight on an empty street, waiting for someone who never came. And I mumbled to myself, “Dearest, this is your dilemma. This you must get through by yourself. In this matter I can’t help you, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Here you must be strong.” And I also thought, “It’s a good thing you’re free and on your own. It will make it easier for you to get through this.”

  “No, Glas, this won’t do at all,” said Markel with a worried expression. “How long do you expect us to sit here without a drop of whisky?”

  I rang for the wait
er and ordered whisky and a couple of throws, since it was beginning to grow chilly. Recke and his party left, passing by our table without noticing us. He didn’t notice anything at all. He was walking with the deliberate step of a man who has set his sights on a particular goal. A chair was in his path; he didn’t see it and knocked it over. The place had emptied out around us. The wind in the trees brought a touch of autumn. The twilight deepened and grew impenetrable. And with our throws draped over us like red capes, we stayed there for a long time, talking about matters both trivial and elevated, and Markel said things that were far too true to be captured in writing on paper and that I’ve forgotten.

  AUGUST 27

  YET ANOTHER DAY has passed; night is here again, and I’m sitting at my window.

  Oh, my dear one, left alone!

  Do you already know? Are you suffering? Do you stare with waking eyes into the night? Are you in anguish, tossing in your bed?

  Are you weeping? Or have you run out of tears?

  But perhaps he’ll fool her as long as possible. He’s considerate. He takes into consideration that she’s mourning her husband. He hasn’t let her suspect anything yet. She’s sleeping soundly, completely unaware.

  *

  My dear, you must be strong when it comes. You must get over it. You’ll see that much in life still awaits you.

  You must be strong.

  SEPTEMBER 4

  THE DAYS COME AND GO, one like the other.

  And promiscuity, I note, still flourishes. Today, for a change, it was a man who wanted me to rescue his fiancée from her predicament. He brought up old memories and Headmaster Snuffy from the school out in Ladugårdslandet.

  I was implacable. I recited my oath as a physician. That impressed him to such a degree that he offered me two hundred crowns in cash and an IOU for the same amount, plus his unswerving friendship for life. This was almost touching; he didn’t seem very well off.

  I threw him out.

  SEPTEMBER 7

  FROM DARKNESS to darkness.

  Life, I don’t understand you. Sometimes I feel a spiritual vertigo, a whispering and murmuring that warns me I’ve gone astray. I felt that way just now, when I took out my report of the court proceedings: those diary pages when I questioned both the voices within me, the one who willed it and the one who didn’t. I read through it again and again, and no matter what, it seemed to me that the voice I finally obeyed was the one that rang true and the other one sounded hollow. The other voice may have been the wiser one, but I’d have lost the last shred of respect for myself if I’d obeyed it.

  And yet—yet—

  I’ve started dreaming about the pastor. That was predictable, of course, and that’s why it surprises me. I thought I’d be spared simply because I’d predicted it.

  *

  I gather King Herod didn’t like it when prophets went around awakening the dead. In other respects he held them in high regard, but this aspect of their activity he found distasteful . . .

  *

  Life, I don’t understand you. But I don’t claim it’s your fault. I consider it more likely I’m a bad son than that you’re an inadequate mother.

  And I’m finally beginning to suspect that perhaps we’re not meant to understand life. All these furious attempts to explain and understand, this ongoing quest for the truth, may be a dead end. We bless the sun because we live the exact distance from it that is beneficial. A few million miles closer or farther away and we would burn or freeze to death. What if the truth is like the sun?

  The old Finnish myth says that he who sees the face of God must die. And Oedipus—he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and became the most wretched of men.

  Don’t try to solve riddles! Don’t inquire! Don’t think! Thought is a corrosive acid. At first you think it will only corrode what’s rotten and diseased and should be removed. But thought doesn’t proceed that way: it corrodes arbitrarily! It begins with the spoils you toss to it willingly and gladly, but don’t think it will rest content with this. It won’t end until the last thing you hold dear has been gnawed to pieces.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought so much; instead I should have continued my studies. “The sciences are beneficial because they prevent human beings from thinking.” A scientist said that. Perhaps I should also have lived a full life, as they say, or lived it up, as they also say. I should have gone skiing and played soccer and had a happy, healthy time of it with women and friends. I should have married and had children, creating responsibilities for myself. These are things to cling to that sustain you. Perhaps it was a mistake that I didn’t involve myself in politics and show up at voting rallies. Our country has claims on us, too. Well, perhaps there’s still time for that . . .

  The first commandment: Thou shalt not understand overmuch. But the person who understands that commandment has already understood overmuch.

  I’m dizzy—everything’s going round in circles.

  From darkness to darkness.

  SEPTEMBER 9

  I NEVER SEE HER.

  I often walk out onto Ship’s Isle, solely because that’s where I spoke to her last. This evening I stood up on the hill by the church, watching the sunset. It struck me how beautiful Stockholm is. I hadn’t thought much about that before. The newspapers are always going on about how beautiful Stockholm is, so one doesn’t pay much attention.

  SEPTEMBER 20

  AT A DINNER PARTY at Mrs. P.’s today Recke’s imminent engagement was mentioned as if it were common knowledge.

  . . . I’ve become more and more impossible socially. I forget to respond when people talk to me. Often I don’t hear what they say. I wonder if I’m starting to go deaf?

  And all these masks! All of them wear masks. And what’s more, it’s their greatest virtue. I wouldn’t want to see them unmasked. I wouldn’t want to appear unmasked myself, either. Not to them!

  But to whom?

  I left as soon as I could. Walking home I felt chilly; the nights have suddenly grown cold. I think there’s a harsh winter ahead.

  As I walked I thought of her. I remembered the first time she came to me, asking for my help. How she suddenly bared herself and laid open her secret even though it wasn’t necessary. How her cheeks burned then! And I remember telling her that things like that should be kept secret, and that she said, “I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know who I am.” What if I were to turn to her now, in my need, as she turned to me? Go to her and say, “I can’t endure being the only one who knows who I am, wearing a mask in front of everyone, constantly! I have to reveal myself to someone, one person must know who I am . . .”

  Oh, it would only drive both of us insane.

  I wandered randomly through the streets. I came to the building where she lives. There was a light in one of her windows. No shades had been drawn; she doesn’t need any. On the opposite side of the street are just large vacant lots filled with lumber and such; no one can look in. I couldn’t see anything, either—no dark figure, no arm or hand moving, just the yellow light of the lamp on the muslin curtain. I thought: what can she be doing now, what occupies her? Reading a book or sitting with her head in her hands thinking, or fixing her hair for the night . . . Oh, if only I were there, if only I could be there with her . . . Lie there watching her, waiting while she fixes her hair in front of the mirror and slowly loosens her clothes . . . But not as a beginning, not for the first time, but as part of a long-standing, pleasant routine. Everything that begins also comes to an end. This would have neither beginning nor end.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, motionless as a statue. An uneven bank of clouds, dimly lit by the moon, passed over my head like a distant landscape. I was cold. The street was empty. A street-walker appeared out of the darkness and came toward me. Halfway past she stopped, turned around, and looked at me with hungry eyes. I shook my head; then she left and vanished into the darkness.

  Suddenly I heard a key turn in the lock of the door; it opened and a dark figure slipped out . . . Was
it really she . . .? Leaving in the middle of the night without putting out the lamp . . .? What could this be? I felt my heart freeze. I wanted to see where she went. Slowly I followed her.

  She only went to the mailbox on the corner, tossed a letter into it, and quickly hurried back. I could see her face under a street light—it was white as a sheet.

  I don’t know whether she saw me.

  *

  Never will she be mine. I never made her cheek blush, nor was I the one who’d made it turn so pale. And never will she, with anguished heart, cross the street at night with a letter addressed to me.

  Life has passed me by.

  OCTOBER 7

  AUTUMN RAVAGES my trees. The chestnut outside the window is already bare and black. The clouds pass over the rooftops in heavy clusters and I never see the sun.

  I’ve put up new curtains in my study: plain white. When I awakened this morning at first I thought it had snowed; the light in the room was exactly the same as after the first snowfall. I thought I could smell the newly fallen snow.

  And soon the snow will come. I can feel it in the air.

  It will be welcome. Let it come. Let it fall.

  NOTES

  Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin (1739–1791), Russian statesman and field marshal, was a favorite of Catherine the Great (1762–1796). In 1787, when Catherine sailed down the Dneipir to inspect development in newly colonized areas of southern Russia, where Potemkin was Governor General, he built sham villages—a sort of extended theater set—along the riverbanks to impress her.