The Son of a Servant

by August Strindberg

The year of the Reform Bill,[1] 1865, approached. The teacher of history, a man of kindliness and fine feeling, and an aristocrat of high birth, tried to interest the pupils in the subject. The class had divided into opposite parties, and the son of a speaker in the Upper House, a Count S., universally popular, was the chief of the opposition against reform. He was sprung from an old German family of knightly descent; was poor, and lived on familiar terms with his classmates, but had a keen consciousness of his high birth. Battles more in sport than in earnest took place in the class, and tables and forms were thrown about indiscriminately.

The Reform Bill passed. Count S. remained away from the class. The history teacher spoke with emotion of the sacrifice which the nobility had laid upon the altar of the fatherland by renouncing their privileges. The good man did not know yet that privileges are not rights, but advantages which have been seized and which can be recovered like other property, even by illegal means.

The teacher bade the class to be modest over their victory and not to insult the defeated party. The young count on his return to the class was received with elaborate courtesy, but his feelings so overcame him at the sight of the involuntary elevation of so many pupils of humble birth, that he burst into tears and had to leave the class again.

John understood nothing of politics. As a topic of general interest, they were naturally banished from family discussions, where only topics of private interest were regarded, and that in a very one-sided way. Sons were so brought up that they might remain sons their whole lives long, without any regard to the fact that some day they might be fathers. But John already possessed the lower-class instinct which told him, with regard to the Reform Bill, that now an injustice had been done away with, and that the higher scale had been lowered, in order that it might be easier for the lower one to rise to the same level. He was, as might be expected, a liberal, but since the king was a liberal, he was also a royalist.

Parallel with the strong reactionary stream of pietism ran that of the new rationalism, but in the opposite direction. Christianity, which, at the close of the preceding century, had been declared to be mythical, was again received into favour, and as it enjoyed State protection, the liberals could not prevent themselves being reinoculated by its teaching. But in 1835 Strauss's Life of Christ had made a new breach, and even in Sweden fresh water trickled into the stagnant streams. The book was made the subject of legal action, but upon it as a foundation the whole work of the new reformation was built up by self-appointed reformers, as is always the case.

Pastor Cramer had the honour of being the first. As early as 1859 he published his Farewell to the Church, a popular but scientific criticism of the New Testament. He set the seal of sincerity on his belief by seceding from the State Church and resigning his office. His book produced a great effect, and although Ingell's writings had more vogue among the theologians, they did not reach the younger generation. In the same year appeared Rydberg's The Last Athenian. The influence of this book was hindered by the fact that it was hailed as a literary success, and transplanted to the neutral territory of belles-lettres. Ryllberg's The Bible Doctrine of Christ made a deeper impression. Renan's Life of Jesus in Ignell's translation had taken young and old by storm, and was read in the schools along with Cramer, which was not the case with The Bible Doctrine of Christ. And by Boström's attack on the Doctrine of Hell (1864), the door was opened to rationalism or "free-thought," as it was called. Boström's really insignificant work had a great effect, because of his fame as a Professor at Upsala and former teacher in the Royal Family. The courageous man risked his reputation, a risk which no one incurred after him, when it was no longer considered an honour to be a free-thinker or to labour for the freedom and the right of thinking.

In short, everything was in train, and it needed only a breath to blow down John's faith like a house of cards. A young engineer crossed his path. He was a lodger in the house of John's female friend. He watched John a long while before he made any approaches. John felt respect for him, for he had a good head, and was also somewhat jealous. John's friend prepared him for the acquaintance he was likely to make, and at the same time warned him. She said the engineer was an interesting man of great ability, but dangerous. It was not long before John met him. He hailed from Wermland, was strongly built, with coarse, honest features, and a childlike laugh, when he did laugh, which occurred rarely. They were soon on familiar terms. The first evening only a slight skirmish took place on the question of faith and knowledge. "Faith must kill reason," said John (echoing Krummacher). "No," replied his friend. "Reason is a divine gift, which raises man above the brutes. Shall man lower himself to the level of the brutes by throwing away this divine gift?"

"There are things," said John (echoing Norbeck), "which we can very well believe, without demanding a proof for them. We believe the calendar, for example, without possessing a scientific knowledge of the movement of the planets."

"Yes," answered his friend, "we believe it, because our reason does not revolt against it."

"But," said John, "in Galileo's time they revolted against the idea that the earth revolves round the sun. 'He is possessed by a spirit of contradiction,' they said, 'and wishes to be thought original.'"