Zones of the Spirit: A Book of ThoughtsStrindberg, August
Religion
Zones of the Spirit: A Book of Thoughts
Strindberg, August
Swedish literature
=Peaches and Turnips.=--The teacher continued: "At the same time
a similar death happened. Another of the 'Black Flags' departed under
peculiar circumstances two days after the first. I had known this man
during the period in which the ape-king ruled. We did not like each
other, but like condemned criminals were compelled to keep together.
Our friendship was only the reverse-side of a hatred; his hideous
appearance frightened me; his profession was equally repulsive, but
brought in much money. He wrote according to the taste of the time, and
lived in the false idea that he was 'illuminated' and liberal-minded.
When his father died, the son expressed his regret that 'his father
had recovered the faith of his childhood.' What happened then? The son
who lived in faith in wickedness and ugliness, began to develop this
faith in a peculiar way. He had in his writings shown a predilection
for turnips; in his latter days he inoculated peaches with turnip-juice
in order to make the southern fruit partake of the beautiful flavour
of the latter. The same perverse taste was evident in his last book;
there his sympathy is decidedly on the side of the 'blacks.' He ended
in an asylum. He could not be saved, for he did not know how to seek
the Saviour. So he died. I had just regretted not having sent some
flowers to his grave, when I saw in an obituary notice that the dead
man had vented a noisome lie against me, which a bosom friend of his
now repeats in print. In the same notice the world is threatened with
his posthumous writings. When they come out, I will buy a flower and
hold it under my nose, while I breathe a sigh of gratitude to him,
who restored to me the faith of my childhood and saved me from the
mad-house."
=The Web of Lies.=--The pupil said: "I am eight-and-fifty years
old; have lied less than others; and have therefore always believed
what others said. When, in my old age, I sit together with friends
of my youth and make comparisons, I find that my whole life is a web
of lies. Last night I sat with such a friend, and had a protracted
talk of the following intelligent kind. I said, 'When the Prince of
X. married....' 'Married! He isn't married.' 'Isn't he? Is that a lie
too?' 'He has never been married.' 'Now during twenty years I have
spread it abroad that he was married, and a whole story has been built
on this lie, which I was about to relate, but now I must drop it.'
"Here is another lie! During thirty years I have told people that Dr.
H. was present when the Malunger murderer was executed. He had falsely
informed me that, as a medical student, he had received a commission to
examine the head after it had been cut off. He gave me such interesting
details on the subject that I was accustomed to describe them in
company. What a liar he was!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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