MODERN
SWEDISH MASTERPIECES
MODERN
SWEDISH MASTERPIECES
SHORT STORIES SELECTED AND TRANSLATED
BY
CHARLES WHARTON STORK
TRANSLATOR OF “ANTHOLOGY OF SWEDISH LYRICS,” “SELECTED POEMS
BY GUSTAF FRÖDING,” ETC.
Editor of Contemporary Verse
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
{iv}
Copyright, 1923
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
{v}
TO
THORSTEN LAURIN
Friend of Artists
Patron of the Arts
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The special thanks of the translator are due to theAmerican-Scandinavian Foundation of New York City for permission toinclude the stories by Verner von Heidenstam from the two volumes ofThe Charles Men, as well as for stories by Söderberg and Siwertz whichappeared in the American Scandinavian Review.
Three stories by Söderberg were published in Hearst’s Magazine, andothers in The Freeman, The Bookman, World Fiction and The Wave.Hallström’s “Out of the Dark” appeared in The Double Dealer. We gladlyacknowledge our debt to the proprietors of these magazines for allowingus to reprint from their pages.
Our chief debt is, however, to the original authors and to A. Bonnierand Co., Stockholm, for the right to translate these specimens ofSwedish genius into another language.
PREFACE
It is curious that, despite the rapid growth of interest in Scandinavianliterature through the English-speaking world, there has been up to nowno book to represent one of the most brilliant fields of achievement,the Swedish short story. The work of Selma Lagerlof is well known and avolume of Per Hallström has appeared recently, but no attempt has beenmade to represent a group of the leading masters. The presentcollection, whatever its failings, will at least indicate the power andvariety of the Scandinavian genius in a new and important phase of itsexpression.
The four authors here included are all living and active, from which itmay be rightly inferred that the Swedish short story is of recentdevelopment. Verner von Heidenstam, born in 1859, winner of the NobelPrize for Literature in 1916, has an international reputation but is notas yet widely known in America. The stories here selected are from hishistorical novel, The Charles Men, set in the time of Charles XII; forthough the book has a clear unity, the separate chapters can beunderstood perfectly by themselves. Per{x} Hallström, somewhat younger, isranked even higher by Swedish c