The curtain rises to the sound of cheerful music, showing the king and his court in glittering array. Then there enters the pale youth in mourning garb and opposes his step-father. Ah! he has a step-father. "That is as bad as having a stepmother," thought John. "That's the man for me!" And then they try to oppress him and squeeze sympathy out of him for the tyrant. The youth's ego revolts, but his will is paralysed; he threatens, but he cannot strike.
Anyhow, he chastises his mother—a pity that it was not his step-father. But now he goes about with pangs of conscience. Good! Good! He is sick with too much thought, he gropes in his in-side, inspects his actions till they dissolve into nothing. And he loves another's betrothed; that resembles John's life completely. He begins to doubt whether he is an exception after all. That, then, is a common story in life! Very well! He did not need then to worry about himself, but he had lost his consciousness of originality. The conclusion, which had been mangled, was unimpressive, but was partly redeemed by the fine speech of Horatio. John did not observe the unpardonable mistake of the adapter in omitting the part of Fortinbras, but Horatio, who was intended to form a contrast to Hamlet, was no contrast. He is as great a coward as the latter, and says only "yes" and "no." Fortinbras was the man of action, the conqueror, the claimant to the throne, but he does not appear, and the play ends in gloom and desolation.
But it is fine to lament one's destiny, and to see it lamented. At first Hamlet was only the step-son; later on he becomes the introspective brooder, and lastly the son, the sacrifice to family tyranny. Schwarz had represented him as the visionary and idealist who could not reconcile himself to reality, and satisfied contemporary taste accordingly. A future matter-of-fact generation, to whom the romantic appears simply ridiculous, may very likely see the part of Hamlet, like that of Don Quixote, taken by a comic actor. Youths like Hamlet have been for a long time the subject of ridicule, for a new generation has secretly sprung up, a generation which thinks without seeing visions, and acts accordingly. The neutral territory of belles-lettres and the theatre, where morality has nothing to say, and the unrealities of the drama with its reconstruction of a better world than the present, were taken by John as something more than mere imagination. He confused poetry and reality, while he fancied that life outside his parent's house was ideal and that the future was a garden of Eden.
The prospect of soon going to the University of Upsala seemed to him like a flight into liberty. There one might be ill-dressed, poor, and still a student, i.e., a member of the higher classes; one could sing and drink, come home intoxicated, and fight with the police without losing one's reputation. That is an ideal land! How had he found that out? From the students' songs which he sang with his brother. But he did not know that these songs reflected the views of the aristocracy; that they were listened to, piece by piece, by princes and future kings; that the heroes of them were men of family. He did not consider that borrowing was not so dangerous, when there was a rich aunt in the background; that the examination was not so hard if one had a bishop for an uncle; and that the breaking of a window had not got to be too dearly paid for if one moved in good society. But, at any rate, his thoughts were busy with the future; his hopes revived, and the fatal twenty-fifth year did not loom so ominously before him.
About this time the volunteer movement was at its height. It was a happy idea which gave Sweden a larger army than she had hitherto had—40,000 men instead of 37,000. John went in for it energetically, wore a uniform, drilled, and learned to shoot. He came thereby into contact with young men of other classes of society. In his company there were apprentices, shop attendants, office clerks, and young artists who had not yet achieved fame. He liked them, but they remained distant. He sought to approach them, but they did not receive him. They had their own language, which he did not understand. Now he noticed how his education had separated him from the companions of his childhood. They took for granted that he was proud. But, as a matter of fact, he looked up to them in some things. They were frank, fearless, independent, and pecuniarily better circumstanced than himself, for they always had money.
Accompanying the troops on long marches had a soothing effect on him. He was not born to command, and obeyed gladly, if the person who commanded did not betray pride or imperiousness. He had no ambition to become a corporal, for then he would have had to think, and what was still worse, decide for others. He remained a slave by nature and inclination, but he was sensitive to the injustice of tyrants, and observed them narrowly.
At one important manoeuvre he could not help expostulating with regard to certain blunders committed, e.g., that the infantry of the guard should be ranged up at a landing-place against the cannon of the fleet which covered the barges on which they were standing. The cannon played about their ears from a short distance, but they remained unmoved. He expostulated and swore, but obeyed, for he had determined beforehand to do so.
On one occasion, while they were halting at Tyreso, he wrestled in sport with a comrade. The captain of the company stepped forward and forbade such rough play. John answered sharply that they were off duty, and that they were playing.
"Yes, but play may become earnest," said the captain.
"That depends on us," answered John, and obeyed. But he thought him fussy for interfering in such trifles, and believed that he noticed a certain dislike in his superior towards himself. The former was called "magister," because he wrote for the papers, but he was not even a student. "There it is," he thought, "he wants to humiliate me." And from that time he watched him closely. Their mutual antipathy lasted through their lives.