With a quiet pursing of the lips the old man emptied his cargo into the fish-well.
Next time there was a bream, a plump rascal.
Beyond the bridge railing and the stone barrier over by Gustavus Adolphus Place it was already black with people. A little boy in a blue embroidered blouse tried very cleverly to spit on Leonard’s hat. But Leonard began to find the folk up there altogether ephemeral, them and the whole muddle of palace, Parliament House, churches, theatres, prisons and banks which chance had collected along the river; the river which had run when there were only a few islands here inhabited by fishermen, and which would continue to run when all the splendor was dust again.
But Lundstrom, who grew cheerful with his good luck, began little by little to express his opinion about one thing and another. It may as well be said first as last that he regarded with slightly ironic disapproval a good deal of the bustle up there in the city. Ministerial crises, election campaigns, debates, law-suits, theatre intrigues, and things of that sort struck him as mere nonsense.
“Folks babble and gad about so they get tired and cross,” he said. “They ought to fish a little more than they do. All the ministers ought to come down here and pull the net a couple of times a week. And the party leaders and the soloists and the other star actors as well. That would make them really good. And if there wasn’t room for them all here, let the government hire a big boat and carry them all out to the coast. It’s right astonishing how folks can work things out when they are together in a boat. And likewise how it can thaw one’s head to sit and look at a dipsy. I don’t know how it is, but there’s surely something specially particular about water.
“Yes, I need only think about myself,” continued Lundstrom. “How should I have ever got straight without this here boat and net? It doesn’t help how quiet a man is; he gets stage fright sometimes just the same, in my opinion. First night is first night, and that’s just how it feels in the pit of the stomach many weeks ahead. The gentleman may imagine that it’s a job to turn a wild and desolate wood into a fine castle hall with roof chandeliers and a marble floor and pillars and pictures and chairs. And all that must be done in less time than the gentleman needs to empty a glass of punch. It was specially hard with that fellow Shakespeare, who was hard on account of all his scenes. Imagine if a piece of cliff scenery should come dancing down into the middle of a little petite French boudoir, as they call it. That would look fine! Aye, if a man went off and worried over all the misfortunes that could happen, it was a good thing to have fishing to turn to. Down here it was as if all a man’s troubles ran off him. Lord! a man would think, it isn’t the only thing in life if a piece of building should go wrong up in that play-box there. Yes, I’ve been in the theatre line over fifty years, I have. So a man has his memories. ‘A Traveling Troupe’ was a crazy piece, for there a man had to turn the wings hindside front, as the gentleman should know, so that only the gray cloth could be seen from the hall. I believe I know all the fine lines by heart from that day to this, and Hamlet too at a pinch. One time Yorick’s skull was to have been brought out. The public got impatient and began to cough and stamp. But we couldn’t raise the curtain for the church-yard scene, because Hamlet had to have the skull to make his speech about. There was the skull of a man who had killed his wife and child and one and a half bailiffs; we had got the loan of it from the Charles Institute. We hunted and hunted. At last I came upon the skull in a trunk. The actor who was playing Hamlet was so glad that he promised to give me a supper at Stromsholm. He kept his word, too: steak and vegetables and fizzy pearls. Afterwards it came out that somebody had hid the skull on purpose. It was somebody who wanted to have the rôle and was nearly bursting with jealousy. He certainly needed to get out and fish a little, eh?
“Well, that was Hamlet. Afterwards I went over to the opera. I didn’t regret it; music suited me better. That comes about as a man gets older, you see. A man gets tired of the many words. But with music one can think anything at all. I was with the opera upwards of twenty years, up to last Christmas—Aye, aye, a man gets old.... Well, so now I get to amuse myself with the boat here and tramping for the organ at Jacob’s Church. Yes, that affair of the organ tramping is a special particular story which we shan’t talk over now,” said Lundstrom, who seemed to touch with some shyness his transition to the churchly vocation.
Hereupon the old man again grasped his crank, and up came another splendid batch of fat breams. With friendly, approving comment he let them vanish into the well.
Look here, today is turning out better than I supposed, thought Leonard, who could hardly keep from rubbing his hands. My life and trade seem really prosperous from the frog’s-eye view of this old fisherman.
But Lundstrom cast a knowing, sidelong look at him.