STORIES***


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THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT AND OTHER STORIES

by

AUGUST STRINDBERG

Translated by Claud Field







London
T. Werner Laurie Limited
8 Essex Street, Strand
1915




     August Strindberg. Born at Stockholm, January 22, 1849;
     died there, May 14, 1912. A Swedish dramatist and novelist,
     a leader of modern Swedish literature. Among his plays
     are "Master Olof" (1872), "Gilletshemlighet" (1880),
     "Fadren" (1887), "Froken Julie" (1888), "Glaubiger"
     (1889), "Till Damaskus" (1808), and a series of historical
     dramas including "Gustavas Wasa," "Erik XIV.," "Gustavas
     Adolphus," and "Carol XII." He wrote also "Roda rummet"
     (1879), "Det nya riket" (1882), which provoked so much
     criticism that the author left Sweden for a number of
     years; "Svenska folket HELG OCH SOKEN" (1882), "GIFTAS"
     (1884), "DIE BEICHTE EINES THOREN" (1893), "INFERNO"
     (1897), written after one of his periodical attacks of
     insanity; "EINSAM" (1903), an autobiographical novel; "DIE
     GOTISCHEN ZIMMER" (1904), and many other volumes. He has
     been called "the Shakspere of Sweden."

                       --_The Century Cyclopaedia of Names_.




CONTENTS



    THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT
    OVER-REFINEMENT
    "UNWELCOME"
    HIGHER AIMS
    PAUL AND PETER
    A FUNERAL
    THE LAST SHOT




THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT




CHAPTER I


It was fourteen days after Sedan, in the middle of September, 1870. A
former clerk in the Prussian Geological Survey, later a lieutenant in
the reserve, named Von Bleichroden, sat in his shirt-sleeves before a
writing-table in the Cafe du Cercle, the best inn of the little town
Marlotte. He had thrown his military coat with its stiff collar over
the back of a chair, and there it hung limp, and collapsed like a
corpse, with its empty arms seeming to clutch at the legs of the chair
to keep itself from falling headlong. Round the body of the coat one
saw the mark of the sword-belt, and the left coat-tail was rubbed quite
smooth by the sheath. The back of the coat was as dusty as a high-road,
and the lieutenant-geologist might have studied the tertiary deposits
of the district on the edges of his much-worn trousers. When the
orderlies came into the room with their dirty boots, he could till by
the traces they left on the floor whether they had been walking over
Eocene or Pleiocene formations. He was really more a geologist than a
soldier, but for the present he was a letter-writer. He had pushed his
spectacles up to his forehead, sat with his pen at rest, and looked out
of the window.

The garden lay in all its autumn glory before him, and the branches of
the apple and pear trees bent with a load of the most splendid fruit to
the ground. Orange-red pumpkins sunned themselves close beside prickly
grey-green artichokes; fiery-red tomatoes clambered up sticks near
wool-white cauliflowers; sun-flowers as large as a plate were turning
their yellow disks towards the west