Stig Dagerman - A Burnt Child

Beloved!

I’ve done what we’ve agreed upon, and I’ll be coming to the island soon. I didn’t enjoy doing it, but I knew I had no other choice. It was harder to forge the draft papers than I thought. In fact, making your telegram was much easier. Of course, I just took an old one and found a new envelope and stamp; the hardest part was changing the date. I didn’t need to go to so much trouble, after all, because Knut hardly looked at it. He just found it a bit strange that I was being called up for military service now, but he was convinced when I reminded him of the four weeks that I got off last year for my studies. I can assure you that it’s quite painful to have to deceive him like this. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever forged anything, and I’ll never become a great forger—this much is certain. My conscience is much too delicate for that. And as soon as the draft papers served their purpose, I burned them up and blew the ashes out the window. It wasn’t until then that I started to feel a little better.

But I won’t truly be at peace until I’m with you again. If I only had the words to convey to you the indescribable peace you give me, what you mean to me, and the infinite significance you have added to my life!! For the first time in my life, I understand what it means to really love someone. This means that I can never be truly alone because you are constantly in my thoughts. Whatever I do and wherever I am, you are always there. If you only knew how happy this makes me, and how happy I can make others because of it.

As you know, Berit has returned. As we agreed, I see her fairly often—much more than before. Our relationship is much better now than it has ever been. I no longer get annoyed with her bad habits, and since I no longer need to feel myself bound to her, I don’t feel the need to hurt her like I did before. This has been quite good for her, in fact. She doesn’t constantly burst into tears, and she seldom has headaches. Of course, she thinks I love her like never before, and why shouldn’t I let her believe it? If you can make someone glad and happy by simply refraining from confessing every single thing you think or do, then I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. To downright lie is an entirely different matter. But it won’t hurt her in the least if she doesn’t know. If anyone should be hurt, it should be me, but I’m intelligent enough to be able to differentiate between real duplicity, which aims to harm people, and a smart moderation of the so-called truth, whose only goal is to make life easier for everyone involved.

You will forgive me if this becomes a longer, and as you will probably notice, more philosophical letter than the ones you’re otherwise used to, but the fact is that I feel the steps I’m taking are important enough to me that I really have to analyze my situation thoroughly, so that we can both spend the time we have together in peace and quiet. You see, there’s nothing more dangerous than not knowing what you are doing. Most people don’t, and that’s why it’s often a dreadful shock for them when they are one day forced to define their actions. In their subsequent fear from this shock, they lose any chance of seeing reality as it really is, and instead they see a grotesque distortion. This is precisely why it’s so important to be clearly aware, at every moment of your life, of what your actions imply and the consequences they can have. This is why I also devote myself with almost scientific fervor to analyzing our mutual actions. To deceive others isn’t pretty, but to deceive yourself is dangerous.

I’ve thought a lot about what you said since the last time we saw each other, especially when you asked whether I know what I am doing. Of course, I know; otherwise, I couldn’t do it. You can only do such a thing when you know exactly what you’re getting into. In reality, there’s nothing better than being aware of your own actions because, then, there’s almost nothing that you can’t do—I mean without regretting it afterward and becoming miserable. What we are doing is something everyone does, but most do it without really knowing it because they cannot face it. Alma did it, and Knut has done it several times. Berit probably hasn’t done it yet, but she will eventually, of course. I’m sure that most people regret it afterward and become afraid. But I will never regret it. Besides, I love you too much, and I’m much too aware of what I am doing. We who know what we’re doing are like chess players. We don’t ask the pawns where we should move them. We don’t even have respect for the queens.

You also said that you’re ashamed sometimes. I don’t understand why. We two have nothing to be ashamed of. Anyone who loves as we do is pure, and, until now, I didn’t know what purity was. It is to be so absorbed in a feeling that it burns away all doubts, all cowardice, and all cares within you. You become whole and strong, and you go straight to the goal without hesitation. You become brave, too. To be pure is to be able to sacrifice everything but the one thing you’re living for. I’m prepared to do that, so there’s no need to be ashamed. People like Knut, on the other hand, do need to feel ashamed. What do you think he would sacrifice for his love for you? Nothing! Not one workday, not a single wholehearted act of ruthlessness. And do you think Alma was any less small-minded, or purer? She didn’t even dare to love enough to let her lover come back, not even enough to lie to me.

I don’t want to be petty like them, so petty that everything I touch turns just as small and paltry. I’ve detested them my whole life for it, because they didn’t dare to be pure, because they weren’t daring enough to do anything truly beautiful. When I look at Knut’s life, I’m afraid. I don’t want to degrade him in front of you, but I have to say that it would kill me if I had to live a life like his. What do you think it means for him to live? Nothing but to wake up in the morning, read the paper, drink a cup of coffee, go to work, repair a chair, eat breakfast, repair a table, go home, buy a newspaper, eat dinner, take a nap, listen to the radio, go to the bathroom, tell a story (preferably a filthy one), go out—to the cinema, a bed, or a café and watch a film, undress a woman, or drink a beer—go home, get undressed, snore, wake up again, drink a cup of coffee, read the paper, and go to work. The worst part isn’t that he thinks this is living; the worst part of his life is that he’s satisfied with it. Most appalling is that he thinks this is how it should be, and he can’t understand anyone who thinks differently. Whenever he doesn’t understand something, he says, I’m sorry; I’m just a simple carpenter. And he’s forced to accept that I study literary history and Scandinavian languages. He accepts it not because it makes me intellectually richer, but because he thinks it will give me the chance to live an easier life than he had. Easier but not different. Essentially, he wants to provide me with exactly the same life. Only I should have more expensive underwear, wake up a couple hours later, read a different paper, sit at an instructor’s desk instead of stand at a workbench, eat a better breakfast, eat a more expensive dinner, go to the opera instead of the cinema, have four rooms instead of two, maids and a gramophone. Can’t you see how that disgusts me? My whole life I have searched, more or less consciously, for a way to support myself in a way that is different from his—one that is purer, more reckless, and more exciting. One that demands more, that burns more dangerously, that affords everything but the easy life.

It’s important for me to say this, but above all it’s important for me to say this to you. Why? Because it’s through you that I have the chance to live purely. Now I want to sacrifice everything: my studies, my mourning for Mama, my father’s trust, and my fiancée’s devotion for the only thing I consider worth living for: my love for you.