He had thus taken the decisive step. To his father he had written a high-flown letter, and declared that he would either become something great in the career which he had now entered or would retire from it altogether; he had resolved not to go home till he had succeeded. The doctor was sorry but made no fuss, for he saw it was impossible to stop him. But he had other secret plans for saving him which he now began to set in motion. In the first place he induced John to translate one or two medical pamphlets for which he had found a publisher. Now he came with a proposal that they should together write articles for the Aftonbladet (Evening New's). John for his part had translated Schiller's essay, The Theatre Regarded as a Moral Institution, and as the subject of the theatre had now conic up in the Reichstag the doctor wrote an introduction to it in which he seriously expostulated with the Agrarian party on their indifference to culture. The whole article was inserted. Another day the doctor came with a member of the medical journal, the Lancet, which treated of the question whether women were fit for a medical career. Without hesitation and instinctively John decided against it. He had an indescribable reverence for women as woman, mother and wife, but as a matter of fact, society was founded upon the man regarded as provider for the family, and upon the woman as wife and mother; thus man had a full right to his work-market and all the duties involved in it. Every occupation taken from the man would mean a marriage less or one more overworked family-provider, for the impulse to marry was so strong in men that they would not cease to marry, however great the difficulties in which they might become involved. Moreover women had abundant opportunities of work; they could become servants, house-keepers, governesses, teachers, midwives, seamstresses, actresses, artists, authoresses, queens, empresses, besides wives and mothers. Many of these vocations were also open to the unmarried. Anything more than this was an encroachment on the man's territory. If the woman did that, the man should be free from the cares of providing for the family, and inquiries after paternity should not be made. But society would not consent to that. On the contrary it began to persecute the prostitutes by way of forcing men to marry. Once caught in the snares of the married women's property law, they would sink to the level of domestic slaves.
John instinctively took sides in this complicated problem, which was destined to take many years to solve, and wrote against the women's movement, which he saw would involve, if victorious, man's overthrow. The movement for the emancipation of women had during the fifties, assumed the wildest forms, and the war-cry, "No lords! No lords!" had shown the true nature of the movement, which had also been ridiculed by Rudolf Wall in his comedy, Miss Garibaldi. But while years went on, the women had worked in silence.
Great therefore was the surprise of the doctor and John when they found their article in the Aftonbladet so altered that it seemed in favour of the movement. "The editor is under the thumbs of women," said the doctor, and thereby the matter was explained.
Meanwhile John's theatrical career approached a crisis. He had been sent into a green room where brandy was drunk and everything was dirty, to put on his clothes with the supernumeraries. "They want to humiliate me," he thought, "but patience!"
Now he was simply appointed as supernumerary in one opera after the other. He declared that he feared neither the footlights nor the public after having preached in church, but it was no good. The worst was, having to lounge about at the rehearsals for hours together with nothing to do. If he read a book, he was told he had no interest in the play, and if he went away, an outcry was raised.
In the Theatrical Academy roles were merely learnt by heart. Children who had only gone through an elementary school, began to read Goethe's Faust, naturally without understanding anything of it. But curiously enough, their very boldness saved them; they got on so well that one was inclined to think there was no need for an actor to understand anything, if only he could say his piece fluently. After a few months John was sick of it all. It was all mechanical. The greatest actors were blasé and indifferent, never spoke of art, but only of engagements and honorariums. There was no trace of the gay life behind the scenes, of which so much had been written. They sat silent waiting for their turns to come; the dancers and actresses in their costumes, sewing and stitching. In the lobby the actors went about on tip-toe, looked at the clock and put on their false beards, without speaking a word.
One evening, when Maria Stuart was being acted, John sat alone in the lobby reading a paper. The actor Dahlqvist, who was taking the part of John Knox, came in. John, who cherished a deep admiration for the great actor, stood up and bowed. If he could only speak with such a man. He trembled at the very thought. Knox, with his venerable long white hair, his black dress, and his great eyes half-sunk in his powerful deeply-lined face, sat down at the table. He yawned. "What is the time?" he asked in a sepulchral tone. John answered that it was half-past ten, unbuttoning his Burgundian velvet jacket to look for the watch which was not there.
"The time is going devilish slow this evening," said Knox and yawned again. Then he began to retail bits of gossip. He was only a ruin of his former greatness when his acting of Karl Moor had cast all his rivals into the shade. He too had seen through everything and was weary of it all. And yet he had once thought so highly of his art.
Since John had now the right of free entrance into the theatre he tried to study acting from the auditorium. But behold! the illusion was gone! There was Mr. So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so, there was the background for Quentin Durward, there sat Högfelt, and there behind the scenes, stood Boberg. There was no further possibility of illusion.
He was sick of the wretched rôle which he had to repeat continually. But he also felt remorse and feared that he could not retire from the game honourably. At last he plucked up courage and demanded a leading part. The piece in which it occurred had already been performed fifty times, and the chief actors were tired of it, but they had to come. The rehearsal took place without costumes or scenery. John was accustomed to the declamatory manner usual then, and shouted like a preacher. It was a failure. After the rehearsal the head of the theatrical academy pronounced his verdict and advised John to enter it for a course of training, but he would not. He wept for rage, went home and took an opium pill which he had long kept by him, but without effect; then a friend took him out and he got intoxicated.