Читать книгу Modern Swedish Masterpieces: Short Stories онлайн

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“Will it be good?” he asked, when the sitting was over.

“The gentleman will look like a bank director,” answered the photographer after he had glanced at the plate.

When he stood on the street again, he became conscious of his good intentions calling more strongly and clearly than before. He ought to go down to the city, look up a couple of God-fearing and kindly people to whom the prison director and the pastor had given him directions, get work, and procure himself a cheap lodging. But it was still early in the day, the clock-maker’s time-piece over there on the corner did not yet point quite to ten, the sun shone heart-warmingly in the blue heavens, and the air was mild and still. He could give himself a little time, he could go a piece toward Lilyholm out in the woods.

Yes, the woods—he had thought of them many times while he sat caged off there behind the grating.

He had grown up in a village on a wooded slope half a mile south of Stockholm. After he had been confirmed, he had been set as prentice to a pious little tailor in South Stockholm. The tailor was a Baptist; Bloom also became a Baptist and submitted to total immersion. But when he went to another tailor, who belonged to the national church and constantly misused the name of the Devil, his new faith gradually waned. He made new acquaintances and became the betrothed of a middle-aged serving-maid who had a bank-book and gave him money. In that way he grew accustomed to amusements, not great, but nevertheless more than are good for poor folks. On fine summer evenings he often sat in Mosebacke’s café or on the river terrace drinking punch, sometimes with his intended, but sometimes with a little dark-haired dressmaker, whom he had got to know at Tekla’s one afternoon when she had given a tea in the maid’s room. She was called Edith; she had thick dark hair and very red lips. She went for long periods without work, but always knew how to provide for herself notwithstanding. Bloom often wished that Tekla’s faithful love for him, together with her bank-book, might by some magic means be transferred to Edith. But Edith’s heart was inconstant and never to be relied upon, and the bank-book still remained Tekla’s. So, as the case was, he at least got a little enjoyment from the money of the one and the red lips of the other.