The Son of a Servant

by August Strindberg

"He is my father."

"Good heavens! is it possible? He is an old friend of mine from my youthful days, when I was pilot on the Strengnas."

John did not believe his ears. The baron had been pilot on a steamer! Yes, indeed, he had. But he wished to hear about his friend Oscar. John looked around him, and asked himself if this really was the baron. The baroness now appeared; she was as simple and friendly as the baron. The bell rang for dinner. "Now we will get something to drink," said the baron. "Come along."

John at first made a vain attempt to put on his frock-coat behind a door in the hall, but finally succeeded, as the baroness had said that he ought to wear it. Then they entered the dining-hall. Yes, that was a real castle; the floor was paved with stone, the ceiling was of carved wood; the window-niches were so deep that they seemed to form little rooms; the fire place could hold a barrow-load of wood; there was a three-footed piano, and the walls were covered with dark paintings.

John felt quite at home during dinner. In the afternoon he played with the baron, and drank toddy. All the courteous usages he had expected were in evidence, and he was well pleased with the day when it was over. As he went down the long avenue, he turned round and contemplated the castle. It looked now less stately and almost poverty stricken. It pleased him all the better, though it had been more romantic to look at it as a fairy-tale castle from the other shore. Now he had nothing more to which he could look up. But he himself, on the other hand, was no more below. Perhaps, after all, it is better to have something to which one can look up.

When he came home, he was examined by the baroness. "How did he like the baron?" John answered that he was pleasant and condescending. He was also prudent enough to say nothing of the baron's friendship with his father. "They will learn it anyhow," he thought. Meanwhile he already felt more at home, and was no more so timid. One day he borrowed a horse, but he rode it so roughly that he was not allowed to borrow one again. Then he hired one from a peasant. It looked so fine to sit high on a horse and gallop; he felt his strength grow at the same time.

His illusions were dispelled, but to feel on the same level with those about him, without wishing to pull anyone down, that had something soothing about it. He wrote a boasting letter to his brother at home, but received an answer calculated to set him down. Since he was quite alone, and had no one with whom he could talk, he wrote letters in diary-form to his friend Fritz. The latter had obtained a post with a merchant by the Mälar Lake, where there were young girls, music, and good eating. John sometimes wished to be in his place. In his diary-letter he tried to idealise the realities around him, and succeeded in arousing his friend's envy.

The story of the baron's acquaintance with John's father spread, and the baroness felt herself bound to speak ill of her brother. John had, nevertheless, intelligence enough to perceive that here there was something to do with the tragedy of an estate in tail. Since he had nothing to do with the matter, he took no trouble to inquire into it.

During a visit which John paid to the pastor's house, the assistant pastor happened to hear of his idea of being a pastor himself. Since the senior pastor, on account of old age and weakness, no longer preached, his assistant was John's only acquaintance. The assistant found the work heavy, so he was very glad to come across young students who wished to make their debuts as preachers. He asked John whether he would preach. Upon John's objecting that he was not a student yet, he answered, "No matter." John said he would consider.

The assistant did not let him consider long. He said that many students and collegians had preached here before, and that the church had a certain fame since the actor Knut Almlöf had preached here in his youth. John had seen him act as Menelaus in The Beautiful Helen, and admired him. He consented to his friend's request, began to search for a text, borrowed some homilies, and promised to have his trial sermon ready by Friday. So, then, only a year after his Confirmation, he would preach in the pulpit, and the baron and the ladies and gentlemen would sit as devout hearers! So soon at the goal, without a clerical examination—yes, even without his final college examination! They would lend him a gown and bands; he would pray the Lord's Prayer and read the Commandments! His head began to swell, and he walked home feeling a foot taller, with the full consciousness that he was no longer a boy.