The volunteer movement was in the first place the result of the Danish-German War, and, though transitory, was in some degree advantageous. It kept the young men occupied, and did away, to a certain extent, with the military prestige of the army, as the lower classes discovered that soldiering was not such a difficult matter after all. The insight thus gained caused a widespread resistance to the introduction of the Prussian system of compulsory service which was much mooted at the time, since Oscar II., when visiting Berlin, had expressed to the Emperor William his hope that Swedish and Prussian troops would once more be brothers-in-arms.
[1] See Encyclopedia Britannica, art. "Sweden."
[2] In 1910 Strindberg wrote: "I keep my Bible Christianity for private use, to tame my somewhat barbarised nature—barbarised by the veterinary philosophy of Darwinism, in which, as a student. I was educated."—Tal till Svenska nationen.
[IX]
WITH STRANGERS
One of his bold dreams had been fulfilled: he had found a situation for the summer. Why had he not found one sooner? He had not dared to hope for it, and, therefore, had never sought it, from fear of meeting with a refusal. A disappointed hope was the worst thing he could imagine. But now, all at once, Fortune shook her cornucopia over him; the post he had obtained was in the finest situation that he knew—the Stockholm archipelago—on the most beautiful of all the islands, Sotaskär. He now liked aristocrats. His step-mother's ill-treatment of him, his relations' perpetual watching to discover arrogance in him, where there was only superiority of intelligence, generosity, and self-sacrifice, the attempts of his volunteer comrades to oppress him, had driven him out of the class to which he naturally belonged. He did not think or feel any more as they did; he had another religion, and another view of life. The well-regulated behaviour and confident bearing of his aristocratic friends satisfied his æsthetic sense; his education had brought him nearer to them, and alienated him from the lower classes. The aristocrats seemed to him less proud than the middle class. They did not oppress, but prized culture and talent; they were democratic in their behaviour towards him, for they treated him as an equal, whereas his own relatives regarded him as a subordinate and inferior. Fritz, for example, who was the son of a miller in the country, visited at the house of a lord-in-waiting, and played in a comedy with his sons before the director of the Theatre Royal, who offered him an engagement. No one asked whose son he was. But when Fritz came to a dance at John's house, he was carefully inspected behind and before, and great satisfaction was caused when some relative imparted the information that his father had once been a miller's servant.
John had become aristocratic in his views, without, however, ceasing to sympathise with the lower classes, and since about the year 1865 the nobility were fairly liberal in politics, condescending and popular for the time, he let himself be duped.
Fritz began to give him instructions how he should behave. One should not be cringing, he said, but be yielding; should not say all that one thought, for no one wished to know that; it was good if one could say polite things, without indulging in too gross flattery; one should converse, but not argue, above all things not dispute, for one never got the best of it. Fritz was certainly a wise youth. John thought the advice terribly hard, but stored it up in his mind. What he wanted to get was a salary, and perhaps the chance of a tour abroad to Rome or Paris with his pupils; that was the most he hoped for from his noble friends, and what he intended to aim at.
One Sunday he visited the wife of the baron, his future employer, as she was in the town. She seemed like the portrait of a mediæval lady; she had an aquiline nose, great brown eyes, and curled hair, which hung over her temples. She was somewhat sentimental, talked in a drawling manner, and with a nasal twang. John did not think her aristocratic, and the house was a poorer one than his own home, but they had, besides, an estate and a castle. However, she pleased him, for she had a certain resemblance to his mother. She examined him, talked with him, and let her ball of wool fall. John sprang up and gave it to her, with a self-satisfied air which seemed to say, "I can do that, for I have often picked up ladies' handkerchiefs." Her opinion of him after the examination was a favourable one, and he was engaged. On the morning of the day on which they were to leave the city he called again. The royal secretary, for so the gentleman of the house was called, was standing in his shirt-sleeves before the mirror and tying his cravat. He looked proud and melancholy, and his greeting was curt and cold. John took a seat uninvited, and tried to commence a conversation, but was not particularly successful in keeping it up, especially as the secretary turned his back to him, and gave only short answers.