Papa is arrogant. I think he’s far too aware of the wrong he’s doing and has done to want to “raise” me to accept it as simply something every experienced adult can do without remorse or feelings of shame or guilt. Instead, he acts as if I’ll see that he, at least, isn’t bothered by it. And nowadays he doesn’t even make the slightest attempt to hide it when he visits her. He often goes so far as to extend her regards to me and facetiously says that she’s looking forward to seeing me again. So she thinks I’m sweet. Very sweet. And it’s just like her to use such a word, as if there weren’t any less vulgar words to flatter someone. Now, I know very well that it’s only flattery because not even Berit has ever told me that I’m especially handsome.
They also have other ways of trying to win me over. For instance, she apparently promised me free tickets to her theater, according to Papa, as if it’s really so great to go to such a tiny, dirty, and sordid place as the Lantern with its old, dreadful films. I do go there sometimes to look at the posters in order to see what they’re showing, but it would never occur to me to go in. In a way, that would be to admit that she and Papa, when all is said and done, probably aren’t so wrong for what they’re doing.
I’ll never admit that, no matter how much they try to tempt me. And I know the temptations can be both overpowering and multifarious, but I think that anyone who knows himself and constantly analyzes his own situation as well as his own actions cannot be coaxed into doing something that he doesn’t want to do. Analysis—that is, awareness—is a person’s most noble weapon against both the bad examples of others and the passions within himself. I’ve recently come to see what a particularly excellent tool analysis really is for someone who wants to keep himself pure and untainted—or, in other words, young. More than anything, my aim is to avoid the kind of “experience” described so fervently by the ones who have already lost their youth. It won’t change me no matter how many times Papa comes home humming at night or late in the evening after being with her, carrying on—while practically smacking his lips—about what an exquisite woman she is. I can see in his red, self-satisfied face why he finds her so enchanting, and I could tell him why if I wanted to: it’s because he sees in her the very irresponsibility and lack of sense of duty that he wished Mama had had.
I could also tell him what she’s really like, the woman he thinks brought “happiness” to him. Based on her only visit here or the few times I’ve coincidentally seen her leaving the cinema alone or walking with Papa down Ringvägen, where she apparently lives, I have a very distinct and reliable impression of her. With the help of these experiences, I’ve analyzed both her and her temperament, and I’ve come to the conclusion that she has to be utterly cold and truly indifferent to the suffering of others by nature. Otherwise, she could hardly harden herself to the point of disturbing my father on the day of my mother’s funeral.
In a sense, I can strangely understand why she’d make a certain impression on a man like Papa. After all, she’s exactly the kind of “experienced” woman he considers to be the highest conceivable form of human being. I really think she’s seen a little of everything. She isn’t exactly ugly, and even though her type doesn’t exercise the least bit of attraction on me, you could even go so far as to say that she’s rather pretty, or at least she used to be. Her real age can be detected behind the mask of youth she dons in her conscious moments. She has to be at least forty, and I’m positive she’ll start to look her age the day someone tells her that she looks as old as she really is. I don’t think anyone would ever notice how old she really is if she didn’t go to so much trouble to keep her face so young. And in the same way she tries to exaggerate any residue of beauty, she exhausts any likable features that, despite everything, she might have. For example, she has a very beautiful smile, but she ruins it by smiling too much; maybe it’s an occupational hazard, I don’t know. Her eyes aren’t ugly either, but she makes them ugly by the provocative way she likes to look at people. She has very nice legs, but, of course, she has to show the whole world by wearing short skirts that would better suit a young girl. Her voice is pretty soft, but when she talks, she tries at all costs to make it softer. As a result, she only sounds ingratiating and insincere. To take another example: she wears a perfume that smells very pleasant indeed, but by applying it excessively she only repels people with the overpowering fragrance as soon as they get near her.
Incidentally, something happened the other night that says more about her than any lengthy description. I was lying in Papa’s daybed and reading a very good novel by Stefan Zweig when the telephone rang. (Parenthetically, I can say that it’s naturally only when Papa’s home that I refuse to go into the other room. He’s the one I want to punish—not myself!) When I answered, it was Papa. He didn’t say where he was calling from, but I heard from the background noise that he must have been calling from a restaurant. By the way, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was the same restaurant where we had Mama’s memorial dinner. With his first word, I could tell he was drunk. I generally detest drunken people because they instantly lose any bit of innocence they may have had. Nowadays, I especially loathe Papa when he’s drunk because he refers to Mama as “Alma” in such an unbearably vulgar way, as if she were something we had lost on a walk or while moving. Then he said to me, There’s someone here who wants to talk to you, Bengt. I suspected who this person might be, but I was still inexplicably upset when I heard it was she. I was even more upset when I heard that she was drunk, too, not very drunk but enough to notice.
Still, I hadn’t expected this from her. That’s why what she said, which would have normally left me rather disinterested, made me furious. In fact, the words were probably pretty innocent. When will I get to see you again, Bengt? she asked. It was the tone she used and the way she pronounced the words that especially made me react so harshly. Apparently, it took everything within her to sound as kind and well meaning as possible, but since she was in no condition to control her voice, it turned out entirely mawkish and unnatural.
I don’t know what I said, and I was so upset that I didn’t even notice until later that she had addressed me so cheekily. But as soon as I hung up, I darted from the hall to the other room. Suddenly, the disgraceful image that I’d been trying for weeks to suppress from my consciousness thrust itself on me with such a terrible force that I simply knew I couldn’t go on without unleashing my rage. In that moment, I can assure you, she was lying in the daybed as she was that night I happened to walk in on them. So I pulled the cover off the daybed, and with a pillow in each hand I attacked her so violently that I tore one of the pillowcases. Afterward, I was completely worn out yet simultaneously satisfied that I had finally avenged the harm inflicted on me. Afterward, while resting in the daybed, I was still filled with the kind of joy that only purity can offer a person. I think that the greatest happiness in the world is to get revenge on the ones who are filthy. Purity is a terrible master, Bengt, but you’ll end up happy if you submit to it. Therefore, you must listen to it, obeying it always, even if your loyalty leaves you unbearably conflicted.