Red Room By August Strindberg

The flax merchant, Charles Nicholas Falk—son of the late flax merchant, one of the fifty elders of the burgesses, captain of the infantry of militia, vestryman and member of the Board of Administration of the Stockholm Fire Insurance, Charles John Falk, and brother of the former assessor and present writer, Arvid Falk—had a business or, as his enemies preferred to call it, a shop in Long Street East, nearly opposite Pig Street, so that the young man who sat behind the counter, surreptitiously reading a novel, could see a piece of a steamer, the paddle-box perhaps, or the jib-boom, and the crown of a tree on Skeppsholm, with a patch of sky above it, whenever he raised his eyes from his book. The shop assistant, who answered to the not unusual name of Andersson, and he had learnt to answer to it, had just—it was early in the morning—opened the shop, hung up outside the door a flax tress, a fish and an eel basket, a bundle of fishing-rods, and a crawl of unstripped quills; this done, he had swept the shop, strewn the floor with sawdust, and sat down behind the counter. He had converted an empty candle-box into a kind of mouse-trap, which he set with a hooked stick; immediately on the appearance of his principal, or any of the latter's friends, the novel on which Andersson was intent dropped into the box. He did not seem afraid of customers; for one thing it was early in the morning and for another he was not used to very many customers. The business had been established in the days of the late King Frederick—Charles Nicholas Falk had inherited this statement from his father, to whom it had descended from his grandfather; it had flourished and earned a good deal of money until a few years ago; but the disastrous chamber-system killed trade, ruined all prospects, impeded all enterprise, and threatened all citizens with bankruptcy. So, at least, Falk said; others were inclined to believe that the business was mismanaged; to say nothing of the fact that a dangerous competitor had established himself close to the lock. Falk never talked of the decline of the business if he could help it, and he was shrewd enough carefully to choose occasion and audience whenever he touched upon that string. If an old business connexion expressed surprise, in a friendly way, at the reduced trade, he told him that his principal business was a wholesale trade in the provinces, and that he was looking upon the shop merely in the light of a sign-board; nobody doubted this, for he had, behind the shop, a small counting-house where he generally could be found when he was not in town or at the Exchange. But it was quite another tale if any of his acquaintances, such as the notary or the schoolmaster, for instance, expressed the same friendly uneasiness. Then he blamed the bad times, the result of the new chamber-system; this alone was to blame for the stagnation of trade. Andersson was disturbed in his reading by two or three boys who were standing in the doorway, asking the price of the fishing-rods. Looking out into the street he caught sight of our Mr. Arvid Falk. Falk had lent him the book, so that it could safely be left on the counter; and as his former playfellow entered the shop, he greeted him familiarly, with a knowing look. "Is he upstairs?" asked Falk, not without a certain uneasiness. "He's at breakfast," replied Andersson, pointing to the ceiling. A chair was pushed back on the floor above their heads. "He's got up from the table now, Mr. Arvid." Both young men seemed familiar with the noise and its purport. Heavy, creaking footsteps crossed the floor, apparently in all directions, and a subdued murmur penetrated through the ceiling to the listeners below. "Was he at home last night?" asked Falk. "No, he was out." "With friends or acquaintances?" "Acquaintances." "Did he come home late?" "Very late." "Do you think he'll be coming down soon, Andersson? I don't want to go upstairs on account of my sister-in-law."