The skirt of Rehnhjelm's coat must have caught on a nail, for he turned on the threshold to see what the last words looked like; but he saw only the red gums, which had the appearance of an instrument of torture, and the bloodshot eyes; he felt no desire to ask for an explanation, but went straight to the vaults of the town hall to have some dinner and meet Falander.
Falander was sitting at one of the tables, calm and indifferent, as if he were prepared for the worst. He was not surprised to hear that Rehnhjelm had been engaged, although this news considerably increased his gloom.
"And what did you think of the manager?" he asked.
"I wanted to box his ears, but I hadn't the courage."
"Nor has the management, and therefore he rules autocratically—brutality always rules! Perhaps you know that he is a playwright as well as all the rest?"
"I've heard about it."
"He writes a sort of historical play which is always successful. The reason is that he writes parts instead of creating characters; he manipulates the applause at the exits and trades on so-called patriotism. His characters never talk, they quarrel; men and women, old and young, all of them; for this reason his popular piece, The Sons of King Gustavus, is rightly called a historical quarrel in five acts; it contains no action, nothing but quarrels: family rows, street brawls, scenes in Parliament, and so on. Questions are answered by sly cuts, which do not provoke scenes, but the most terrible scuffles. There is no dialogue, nothing but squabbling, in which the characters insult each other, and the highest dramatic effect is attained by blows. The critics call his characterisation great. What has he made of Gustavus Vasa in the play I just mentioned? A broad-shouldered, long-bearded, bragging, untenable fellow of enormous strength; at the meeting of Parliament at Västeros, he breaks a table with his fist, and at Vadstena he kicks a door panel to pieces. On one occasion however the critics said there was no meaning in his plays; it made him angry, and he resolved to write comedies with plenty of meaning. He had a boy at school—the blackguard's married—who had been playing pranks and got a thrashing. Immediately his father wrote a comedy in which he drew the masters and exposed the inhuman treatment boys receive at school in these days. On another occasion he was criticized by an honest reviewer, and immediately he wrote a comedy, libelling the liberal journalists of the town. But I'll say no more about him!"
"Why does he hate you?"
"Because I said, at a rehearsal, Don Pasquale, in spite of his maintaining that the proper pronunciation was Pascal. Result: I was ordered, on penalty of a fine, to pronounce the word in his way. It was immaterial to him, he said, how the rest of the world pronounced the word, at X-köping it was to be pronounced Pascal, because it was his wish."
"Where does he come from? What was he before?"