The Serious Game by Hjalmar Soderberg Eva Claeson

Author:Hjalmar Soderberg, Eva Claeson [Hjalmar Soderberg]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780714523408
Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd.
Published: 2012-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

There was wet snow falling that evening in December. It would take ten minutes to walk to the Opera. Should he take a cab? An unnecessary expense…

He walked, thinking about Märta Brehm. And about Dagmar.

Why shouldn’t I, for once in my life, allow myself a little love affair? After all, you only live once. Dagmar is perfectly fine, but it’s a little boring having the same woman day in, day out, night in, night out, year after year. We’ve been married for almost four years, and I have, literally, never been unfaithful. But…but I don’t love her! Why shouldn’t I, like others, have room for a love affair in my poor little life? I remember that once, when I was very young, I dreamed about establishing my name, becoming part of Swedish history. That sort of thing certainly doesn’t look very likely now. So, why shouldn’t I take satisfaction from what is offered? Nonsense. Dagmar is really good enough for me. She sees to it that the curtains of our home are a pure snow-white. I should do that too. And Miss Brehm…she wants her stories in the paper, and for that reason I got a kiss in advance thanks to Torsten Hedman’s absence in Greece – if he’d been here he would have received it…could the seed for a grande passion really exist in such a beginning? Well, he who lives will see… He could still feel her pointed little tongue moving like a flame…

From the pavement in front of the Opera House he could see, in the distance, dense crowds of people outside the news offices. He met an acquaintance, a journalist, and he stopped him and asked:

‘Is the King dead?

‘Not yet.’

He went into the Opera. He had calculated his time correctly: the first intermission was almost over when he entered the auditorium and sat down in his usual seat. The public had started to stream in. A short bald gentleman with his wife – a tall, slender and dark already slightly grizzled lady – pushed their way past him, to their parquet seats further in. Arvid had seen her before and knew her by name. She was the lady for whose sake Markel had once, before the turn of the century, spent some time in a mental hospital. He knew that she had seen something no other living human being had ever seen: she had seen Markel crying. In those days she was known as a ‘woman of easy virtue’.

The auditorium was now almost completely full.

All around him there was murmuring and talking: so and so is going to divorce his wife and marry so and so… Yes, it’s just about certain, I have it from the closest source…

To his right there were still two empty seats. Two ladies slid in at the last minute and sat down at the same moment the lights were turned down.

Lydia.

No? Oh, yes. It was Lydia who was sitting next to him. Very close to him. He had recognized her immediately. Their eyes found each other in the half-dark and made contact during a protracted second.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.