[II]
BREAKING-IN
The storm of poverty was now over. The members of the family who had held together for mutual protection could now all go their own way. But the overcrowding and unhappy circumstances of the family continued. However, death weeded them out. Black papers which had contained sweets distributed at the funeral were being continually gummed on the nursery walls. The mother constantly went about in a jacket; all the cousins and aunts had already been used up as sponsors, so that recourse had now to be made to the clerks, ships' captains, and restaurant-keepers.
In spite of all, prosperity seemed gradually to return. Since there was too little space, the family removed to one of the suburbs, and took a six-roomed house in the Norrtullsgata. At the same time John entered the Clara High School at the age of seven. It was a long way for short legs to go four times a day, but his father wished that the children should grow hardy. That was a laudable object, but so much unnecessary expenditure of muscular energy should have been compensated for by nourishing food. However, the household means did not allow of that, and the monotonous exercise of walking and carrying a heavy school-satchel provided no sufficient counterpoise to excessive brain-work. There was, consequently, a loss of moral and physical equilibrium and new struggles resulted. In winter the seven-year-old boy and his brothers are waked up at 6 A.M. in pitch darkness. He has not been thoroughly rested, but still carries the fever of sleep in his limbs. His father, mother, younger brothers and sisters, and the servants are still asleep. He washes himself in cold water, drinks a cup of barley-coffee, eats a French roll, runs over the endings of the Fourth Declension in Rabe's Grammar, repeats a piece of "Joseph sold by his brethren," and memorises the Second Article with its explanation.
Then the books are thrust in the satchel and they start. In the street it is still dark. Every other oil-lantern sways on the rope in the cold wind, and the snow lies deep, not having been yet cleared away before the houses. A little quarrel arises among the brothers about the rate they are to march. Only the bakers' carts and the police are moving. Near the Observatory the snow is so deep that their boots and trousers get wet through. In Kungsbacken Street they meet a baker and buy their breakfast, a French roll, which they usually eat on the way.
In Haymarket Street he parts from his brothers, who go to a private school. When at last he reaches the corner of Berg Street the fatal clock in the Clara Church strikes the hour. Fear lends wings to his feet, his satchel bangs against his back, his temples beat, his brain throbs. As he enters the churchyard gate he sees that the class-rooms are empty; it is too late!
In the boy's case the duty of punctuality took the form of a given promise, a force majeure, a stringent necessity from which nothing could release him. A ship-captain's bill of lading contains a clause to the effect that he binds himself to deliver the goods uninjured by such and such a date "if God wills." If God sends snow or storm, he is released from his bond. But for the boy there are no such conditions of exemption. He has neglected his duty, and will be punished: that is all.
With a slow step he enters the hall. Only the school porter is there, who laughs at him, and writes his name on the blackboard under the heading "Late." A painful hour follows, and then loud cries are heard in the lower school, and the blows of a cane fall thickly. It is the headmaster, who has made an onslaught on the late-comers or takes his exercise on them. John bursts into tears and trembles all over—not from fear of pain but from a feeling of shame to think that he should be fallen upon like an animal doomed to slaughter, or a criminal. Then the door opens. He starts up, but it is only the chamber-maid who comes in to trim the lamp.
"Good-day, John," she says. "You are too late; you are generally so punctual. How is Hanna?"
John tells her that Hanna is well, and that the snow was very deep in the Norrtullsgata.