Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part II - IV
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178 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
when the collections were transferred from the old build-
ing to the new one I received a bonus of six hundred
crowns. This was good fortune indeed, and taken to-
gether with other favourable omens I began to think that
a relentless fate had tired of persecuting me.
The first and foremost magazine in Finland offered me
a post on the staff as reviewer at fifty crowns for each
article. The official Swedish Journal, published by the
Academy, gave me the much-coveted order to write the
reviews on art for thirty-five crowns the column. Besides
all this I was entrusted with the revision of the classics
which were being published at that time.
All this good fortune came to me in those two months,
the most fateful months of my whole life.
My short stories appeared almost immediately and were
a great success. I was hailed as a master of this particular
style ; it was said that the book was epoch-making in the
literature of Sweden, because it was the first to introduce
modern realism.
It was unspeakable happiness to me to lay at the feet
of my poor, adored Marie a name which, apart from the
titles of a royal secretary and assistant-librarian, was
beginning to be known, with every prospect of a brilliant
future.
Some day I should be able to give her a fresh start, to
re-open her theatrical career, which for the moment had
been interrupted by, perhaps, undeserved misfortune.
Fortune was smiling at us with a tear in the eye. . , .
The banns were published. I packed my belongings
and said good-bye to my attic, the witness of many joys
and sorrows. I marched into that prison which all fear,
but which, perhaps, we had less cause to dread than
others, since we had foreseen all dangers, removed all
stumbling blocks. . . . And yet . . .
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