The Red Room August Strindberg (best english novels to read txt) đ
- Author: August Strindberg
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âStuff! It isnât really as bad as all that?â
âIsnât it? Well, then I must speak more plainly. Iâll show you the inner working of one of the six departments for which I had put down. The first five I left at once for the very simple reason that there was no room for me. Whenever I went and asked whether there was anything for me to do, I was told No! And I never saw anybody doing anything. And that was in the busy departments, like the Committee on Brandy Distilleries, the Direct Taxation Office and The Board of Administration of Employeesâ Pensions. But when I noticed the swarming crowd of officials, the idea struck me that the department which had to pay out all the salaries must surely be very busy indeed. I therefore put my name down for the Board of Payment of Employeesâ Salaries.â
âAnd did you go there?â asked Struve, beginning to feel interested.
âYes. I shall never forget the great impression made on me by my visit to this thoroughly well-organized department. I went there at eleven oâclock one morning, because this is supposed to be the time when the offices open. In the waiting-room I found two young messengers sprawling on a table, on their stomachs, reading the Fatherland.â
âThe Fatherland?â
Struve, who had up to the present been feeding the sparrows with sugar, pricked up his ears.
âYes. I said âgood morning.â A feeble wriggling of the gentlemenâs backs indicated that they accepted my good morning without any decided displeasure; one of them even went to the length of waggling the heel of his right foot, which might have been intended as a substitute for a handshake. I asked whether either of the gentlemen were disengaged and could show me the offices. Both of them declared that they were unable to do so, because their orders were not to leave the waiting-room. I inquired whether there were any other messengers. Yes, there were others. But the chief messenger was away on a holiday; the first messenger was on leave; the second was not on duty; the third had gone to the post; the fourth was ill; the fifth had gone to fetch some drinking water; the sixth was in the yard âwhere he remained all day longâ; moreover, no official ever arrived before one oâclock. This was a hint to me that my early, inconvenient visit was not good form, and at the same time a reminder that the messengers, also, were government employees.
âBut when I stated that I was firmly resolved on seeing the offices, so as to gain an idea of the division of labour in so important and comprehensive a department, the younger of the two consented to come with me. When he opened the door I had a magnificent view of a suite of sixteen rooms of various sizes. There must be work here, I thought, congratulating myself on my happy idea of coming. The crackling of sixteen birchwood fires in sixteen tiled stoves interrupted in the pleasantest manner the solitude of the place.â
Struve, who had become more and more interested fumbled for a pencil between the material and lining of his waistcoat, and wrote â16â on his left cuff.
âââThis is the adjunctsâ room,â explained the messenger.
âââI see! Are there many adjuncts in this department?â I asked.
âââOh, yes! More than enough!â
âââWhat do they do all day long?â
âââOh! They write, of course, a little.â ââ âŠâ
âHe was speaking familiarly, so that I thought it time to interrupt him. After wandering through the copyistsâ, the notariesâ, the clerkâs, the controllerâs and his secretaryâs, the reviserâs and his secretaryâs, the public prosecutorâs, the registrar of the exchequerâs, the master of the rollsâ and the librarianâs, the treasurerâs, the cashierâs, the procuratorâs, the protonotaryâs, the keeper of the minutesâ, the actuaryâs, the keeper of the recordsâ, the secretaryâs, the first clerkâs, and the head of the departmentâs rooms, we came to a door which bore in gilt letters the words: âThe President.â I was going to open the door but the messenger stopped me; genuinely uneasy, he seized my arm and whispered: âShsh!ââ ââIs he asleep?â I asked, my thoughts busy with an old rumour. âFor Godâs sake, be quiet! No one may enter here unless the president rings the bell.â âDoes he often ring?â âNo, Iâve never heard him ringing in my time, and Iâve been here twelve months.â He was again inclined to be familiar, so I said no more.
âAbout noon the adjuncts began to arrive, and to my amazement I found in them nothing but old friends from the Committee on Brandy Distilleries, and the Board of Administration of Employeesâ Pensions. My amazement grew when the registrar from the Inland Revenue Office strolled into the actuaryâs room, and made himself as comfortable in his easy-chair as he used to do in the Inland Revenue Office.
âI took one of the young men aside and asked him whether it would not be advisable for me to call on the president. âShsh!â was his mysterious reply, while he took me into room No. 8. Again this mysterious shsh!
âThe room which we had just entered was quite as dark as the rest of them, but it was much dirtier. The horsehair stuffing was bursting through the leather covering of the furniture; thick dust lay on the writing-table; by the side of an inkstand, in which the ink had dried long ago, lay an unused stick of sealing-wax with the former ownerâs name marked on it in Anglo-Saxon letters; in addition there was a pair of paper shears whose blades were held together by rust; a date rack which had not been turned since midsummer five years ago; a State directory five years old; a sheet of blotting-paper with Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar written all over it, a hundred times at least, alternating with as many Father Noahs.
âââThis is the office of the Master of the Rolls; we shall be
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