Therefore I cannot regard Falk's condition as melancholy; it was the outcome of his temperament (heart you would say) plus the circumstances which his temperament had created.
But he was certainly "down" when I found him. I took him on board our cutter and he remained passive. But just as we had pushed off, he turned round and saw Beda standing on the shore, beckoning to him; I can't think how she got there. On seeing her, our man went clear out of his mind. Put me ashore! he screamed, threatening to jump overboard. I seized him by the arms, pushed him into the cabin and locked the door.
As we passed Vaxholm, I posted two letters; one to the editor of the Workman's Flag, begging him to excuse Falk's absence, and the other to his landlady, asking her to send him his clothes.
In the meantime he had calmed down, and when he beheld the sea and the skerries, he became sentimental and talked a great deal of nonsense: he had lost all hope of ever seeing God's (?) green earth again, he said, and so on.
But presently he began to suffer from something like qualms of conscience. He maintained that he had no right to be happy and take a holiday when there were so many unhappy people in the world; he imagined that he was neglecting his duty towards the scoundrel who edits the Workman's Flag, and begged us to row him back. When I talked to him of the terrible time he had just gone through, he replied that it was the duty of all men to work and suffer for one another. This view had almost become a religion with him, but I have cured him of it with soda water and salt baths. He was completely broken, and I had great difficulty in patching him up, for it was hard to say where the physical trouble ended and the psychical began.
I must say that in a certain respect he excites my astonishment—I won't say admiration, for I never admire anybody. He seems to suffer from an extraordinary mania which makes him act in direct contradiction to his own interest. He might have been in a splendid position, if he had not thrown up his career in the Civil Service, particularly as his brother would, in that case have helped him with a sum of money. Instead of that he cast his reputation to the winds and slaved for a brutal plebeian; and all for the sake of his ideals! It is most extraordinary!
But he seems to be mending at last, more particularly after a lesson he had here. Can you believe it, he called the fishermen "sir," and took off his hat to them. In addition he indulged in cordial chats with the natives, in order to find out "how these people lived." The result was that the fishermen pricked up their ears, and one of them asked me one day whether "this Falk" paid for his own board, or whether the doctor (I) paid for him? I told Falk about it and it depressed him; he is always despondent, whenever he is robbed of a delusion. A few days later he talked to our landlord on the subject of universal suffrage; later on our landlord asked me whether Falk was in poor circumstances.
During the first few days he ran up and down the shore like a madman. Often he swam far out into the fjörd, as if he never meant to return again. As I always looked upon suicide as the sacred right of every individual, I did not interfere.
Isaac told me that Falk had opened his heart to him on the subject of the girl Beda; she seems to have made an awful fool of him.
A propos of Isaac! He is one of the shrewdest fellows I ever met. He has, after one month's study, mastered the Latin grammar, and he reads his Cæsar as we read the Grey Bonnet; and what's more, he knows all about it, which we never did. His brain is receptive, that is to say, capable of assimilating knowledge, and in addition to this it is practical; this combination has produced many a genius, in spite of gross stupidity in many other respects. Every now and then he indulges his business instincts; the other day he gave us a brilliant example of his talent in that direction.