On the Seaboard: A Novel of the Baltic Islands

by August Strindberg

Thereupon he went up to his room.

When he was alone and had collected his thoughts, he was obliged to acknowledge that his last act had been dictated by lower motives, as his sexual impulses had prevailed to such a high degree that he had been fooled into an act contrary to the law, for one could not speak of pity, for people who were comparatively well off, as they were owners of houses, fishing grounds, boats and implements valued at many hundreds of dollars, also owners of seal rookeries and bird islets, and, besides, paid taxes on capital and a few small places that they rented out. The false idea that a woman had vanquished him, however, did not hold a place in his thoughts, for he knew very well, conscious as he was in all points that he had fallen by his own propensity or interest to gain something from this woman. But before the throng of people his authority was ended, his reputation shaken and hereafter there would not be an old woman or a boy but felt themselves above him. This, to be sure, might be immaterial for it made no difference to him whether he had power or not over these poor wretches. What seemed worse to him was that this woman whom he now felt he must be bound to in order to be happy, should from the first moment inure herself in the belief that she had gained a conquest of him and thus the equilibrium in a future union would be disturbed.

He had had many fancies for and engagements with women before, but his distinct consciousness of man's superiority over the intermediate form between man and child, which is called woman, had made it impossible for him to conceal it long, and therefore his engagements had had but short duration. He would be loved by a woman, who should look up to him as the stronger, he would be the adored, not the adorer, he would be the main trunk on which the frail shoot should be grafted, but he was born at a period which was full of spiritual pestilence, when womankind was devastated by an epidemic mania for greatness, produced by degenerated, sickly men, and by political pygmies, who were in need of the masses to vote. Therefore he had been obliged to live alone. Well he knew that in love, man must give, must let himself be fooled and that the only way to approach a woman was on all fours. And he had crawled at intervals, and as long as he crawled everything had gone well, but when he had finally straightened up, that was the end of it, always with a multitude of reproaches that he had been false, that he had dissembled submission, that he had never loved, and so on.

Moreover, as a possessor of the highest intellectual enjoyments, and feeling himself an exceptional being, he had not harbored a lively desire after the lower affections, never desired to be the supporter of a parasite, never longed to feed competitors, and his stronger self had rebelled against being the instrument of propagation for a woman's lineage, the rôle he had seen most men of his age play.

But now he stood in just such a dilemma again, to assimilate a woman by allowing himself to be assimilated. To dissemble or let his exterior express what he did not feel, he could not, but he had a great ability for adapting himself to his associations, and comprehending other people's way of thinking and suffering, for he had never found in the lives of others anything but past stages that he himself had lived through, and consequently he had only to draw from memory or experience, letting go his hold, and diminishing the tension onward. He had always found pleasure in woman's company as a rest and diversion on exactly the same ground and from the same reason that keeping company with children makes one grow younger and is a strengthening amusement, when it is not continued too long or becomes an effort.

Now he had felt the desire growing in him to own this woman, but notwithstanding he was an investigator and knew that man was a mammal, it was perfectly clear to him that human love had developed as everything else, and has taken up the elements of a higher spiritual quality without leaving the sensual foundation. He knew precisely how much of unsound heavenliness sneaked in with the reaction of Christianity against the purely brutish, should be eliminated, and he did not believe in a primness which conceded matters that could not be shown, just as little as he admitted that the only purpose of the conjugal state was the bedfellowship. He wished for an intimate, complete union as to body and soul, where he as the stronger acid would neutralize the passive base, but not as in chemistry form a new neutral body, but, on the contrary, would leave a surplus of free acid, which would always give the union its character and lie in readiness to neutralize any attempt of the combination to liberate itself, for human love was not a chemical union, but a physical and organic, which resembled the former in certain respects without being identical with the same. He did not expect any augmentation of his own self, no addition to his strength, only an increase of his vitality, and instead of searching for a support he offered himself as a support to learn his strength and feel the enjoyment of measuring out his power, strewing with open hands his soul without being weakened thereby or made destitute.

During these thoughts he glanced out of the window and saw at once what he sought, for the young girl was standing on the door stoop receiving hand shakings from women and men, patting the children on their heads and seemed overcome by feelings, which so much public sympathy had aroused.

"What a peculiar sympathy for criminals," thought the commissioner; "what a love for the mentally poor! And how well they understood each other's propensities, which they boasted of as feelings and which they believed to be something more than clear, mature thoughts."

The whole scene was such a tangle of absurdities, that it could not be cleared, reflecting the chaotic in the first weak attempt at reasoning, by these brains and spinal cords.

There stood she who had fooled him into violating the law, and received worship like an angel. Even now if his violation of the law was from their point of view a fine noble action, then he who gave pardon instead of justice ought to have the thanks. The opinion of the horde was that he should not, for they well knew that the motive for his action was not kindness towards them, but perhaps tender feelings for a young girl, gallantry, or the hope of winning her. Yes, but the motive for her appearance might then be to gain the good will of the crowd, to become beloved and popular, and receive hand shakes; the horde here played the same role as the society of the ballroom, the promenaders on the street or in the square. And she had fooled him through personal contact, innocently, perhaps, possibly with calculations, probably half of each, to commit a weak action, for which she was worshiped.