"I require you to ask permission of me as long as you eat my bread."
"Ask permission! What nonsense!"
John departed, borrowed three hundred kronas from a friendly tradesman, and then with three of his club associates went to one of the islands near Stockholm, where they hired rooms in a fisher's house at a rent of thirty kronas per month. No one tried to stop him, and probably this crisis was occasioned by the fact that John was exercising a perceptible influence on his father, brothers and sisters in matters concerning domestic arrangements. The mistress of the house feared that the power would be taken out of her hands.
He spent the summer in strenuously working for his examination, for he had now no hope of receiving further supplies from home. It was a healthy and ascetic life with innocent amusements. He went about in dressing-gown, drawers and sea-boots, and the toilette of his companions was still more scanty. They bathed, sailed, fenced, and John gave himself over increasingly to a process of decivilisation. There were almost always spirituous liquors on the table, and John feared them, for they made him mad. But to this asceticism and industry succeeded a desire to make converts of others, and a great amount of self-satisfaction. The latter is always the case, whether the ascetic feels that in this respect he is better than others, or whether he makes the sacrifice in order to feel himself better. Therefore he preached to one brother who drank, and moralised over the others who did not work, but went to Dalarö to dance or to feast. Kierkegaard's influence was strong upon him; he wished to be moral, and thundered against æstheticism.
He now studied philology, and went through Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe. The last he hated because he was an æsthete. Behind all, like a dark background, was the breach with his father. After their life together during the last winter, he saw him as it were transfigured, justified him with respect to all that had happened in the past, and had forgotten all the petty troubles of his childhood. He missed most of all his brothers and sisters, especially his sisters whom he had really learnt to know. Toiling with a lexicon and investigating roots of words had become painful to him, but he enjoyed this pain, and disciplined his imagination by hard work, looking upon it as his professional duty.
Towards the end of the summer he was wild and shy. The clothes, winch he rummaged out again, were too tight, his collar, which he had not worn for months, tormented him as though it had been of iron, and his shoes pinched him. Everything seemed to him constrained, conventional and unnatural. Once he had been enticed to an evening party at Dalarö but had immediately returned. He was shy and could not bear frivolity and laughter. This time it was not the consciousness of belonging to the lower classes, for he had ceased to regard himself as one of them. Meanwhile the ascetic life he had been leading increased his will-power and his activity. When the next term at Upsala commenced, he took his travelling-bag and journeyed thither, without having more than a krona to call his own, and without knowing where he would find a room and something to eat. On his arrival he took up his quarters with Rejd, and set about working. The first evening, feeling half famished, he looked up Is, who had remained the whole summer alone in Upsala and seemed more melancholy than usual. His appearance was that of a shadow, and solitude had made him still more morbid. He went out with John and invited him to supper at a restaurant. He spoke in his usual style and mangled his prey, who, on the other hand, defended himself, struck back, and attacked the æsthete. Is contemplated his hungry companion while he ate, and intoxicated himself with the brandy-bottle. He adopted a maternal air and offered to lend John money. The latter was touched, thanked him, and borrowed about ten kronas, for, since he believed he had a future before him, he borrowed without fear. Finally Is became drunk and raved. He changed his attitude, called John an egoist, and reproached him for having taken the ten kronas.
To be suspected of egotism was the worst thing John knew, for Christ had taught him that the "ego" must be crucified. His individuality had grown since it had been freed from pressure and attained publicity. Conspicuous persons obtain a greater individuality through the attention they receive, or they attract attention for the simple reason that they have a greater individuality. John felt that he was working in the right way for his future; he pressed forward with energy and will and the help of many friends, but not as a charlatan or schemer. But Is's accusation struck him in the face, as it must all men who have an "ego." He wished to return the money, but Is drew himself up proudly, played the "gentleman" and continued to romance. It struck John that this idealist was a mean fellow who behaved in this fantastic way in order to conceal his vexation at the temporary loss of the ten kronas.
Now the students returned for the term, and all of them with money. John wandered about with his travelling-bag and his books, and discovered how soon a welcome is worn out when one lies upon somebody else's sofa. He borrowed money to hire a room with. It was a real rats' nest with a camp-bed without sheets or cushions. No candlestick, nothing. But he lay in bed in his under-clothes and read by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle. His friends here and there provided him with meals. But then came the winter. He used to go out after dark and buy a quantity of wood, which he carried home in his bag. A scientific friend taught him how to make a charcoal fire. Moreover, the shaft of a chimney passed through his room and was warm every washing-day. He stood beside it with his hands behind him and read out of a book which he had placed on the chest of drawers, dragging the latter close to him. In the meantime his drama had been played and coldly received. The subject-matter was religious. It dealt with heathendom and Christendom, the former being defended as an epoch-making movement, not as a creed. Christ was placed on one side and the only true God exalted. The drama also contained a domestic struggle, and, after the fashion of the time, women were extolled at the expense of the men. In one passage the author expressed his opinion as to the position of a poet in life. "Are you a man, Orm?" asks the duke. "I am only a poet," answers Orm. "Therefore you will never become anything," is the rejoinder.
In fact, John believed now that the poet's life was a shadow existence, that he had no individuality, but only lived in that of others. But is it then so certain that the poet possesses no individuality because he has more than one? Perhaps he is richer because he possesses more than the others. And why is it better to have only one "ego," since in any case a single "ego" is not more one's own than many "egos," seeing that even one "ego" is a compound product derived from parents, educators, social intercourse and books? Perhaps it is for this reason that society, like a machine, demands that the single "egos" shall act each like a wheel, screw, or separate piece of the machine in a limited automatic way. But the poet is more than a piece of a machine, since he is a whole machine in himself.
In the drama John had incorporated himself in five persons;—in the Jarl, who is at war with his contemporaries; in the Poet, who looks over things and looks through them; in the Mother, who is angry and revengeful but whose thirst for vengeance is counteracted by her sympathy; in the Daughter, who for the sake of her faith breaks with her father; in the Lover, whose love is ill-starred. John understood the motives of all the dramatis personae; and spoke from their varying points of view. But a drama written for the average man who has ready-made views on all subjects, must at least take sides with one of its characters in order to win the excitable and partisan public. John could not do this, because he believed in no absolute right or wrong, for the simple reason that all these ideas are relative. One may be right as regards the future, and wrong as regards the present; one may be wrong in one year and right in the next; a father may justify his son while the mother condemns him; a daughter is right in loving the man she loves, but in her father's view she is wrong in loving a heathen. There comes in doubt: Why do men hate and despise the doubter? Because doubt is the seed of development and progress, and the average man hates development because it disturbs his quiet. Only the stupid man is certain; only the ignorant one thinks he has found the truth. Doubt undermines energy, they say. But it is better to act without considering the consequences. The animal and the savage act blindly, obeying desire and impulse; in that they resemble our "men of action"!