BE AT A AGRE L L

Aesthetic Experience as Offence

in Early Swedish Wor king-Class Nar rative

This paper deals with the phenomenon of aesthetic experience as effected in
Swedish working-class prose of the early 1900s; and my focus will be on a
crime motif within this field, namely murder. By way of two examples I will
elucidate a narrative technique that presents the criminal from within his own
perspective, at the same time as the narrator is speaking. This means that, in one
and the same narrative utterance. the criminal`s mind is given Iull expression.
and yet the narrator`s mediating presence marks a distance. This technique oI
socalled narrated monologue or erlebte Rede is freqeuent in the modern
novel ever since Flaubert;
1
but my examples will demonstrate how the tech-
nique is used as a textual strategy that combines Sentimentality and Grue-
someness in one and the same passage; and I will reflect on how this in-
tertwining may affect the crime motif and the attitude of the implied reader.
2

The chosen examples are taken from the works of Maria Sandel and Dan An-
dersson, working-class authors of the second decade of the 1900s. The reason
for this choice is that working-class fiction, written from a proletarian point of
view, was a new kind of literature that gave way to low, indecent and gruesome
motifs, not only from within the sites of heavy bodily work in factories, char-
coal stacks, and sawmills, but also from the predicament of the unemployed, the
Lumpenproletariat and the criminality that often grew out of those poor con-
ditions. Because of the underdog point of view, the narrative attitude tends to a
certain ambivalence : on the one hand the criminal act is blamed; but on the
other hand the criminal`s perspective is allowed to unIold Ireely. This way. the
criminal hero is depicted as an understandable human being, however gruesome
his (or her!) crime. Thereby it is implicated that, as a human being, even the
criminal is worthy of empathy, compassion, and mercy. At this point a delicate
balance is required: the narrative position may be on the verge of collapsing into

1
See COHN: Transparent Minds, p. 99-140.
2
See ISER: The Act of Reading, p. 34: The concept of the implied reader is therefore a
textual structure anticipating the presence of a recipient without necessarily defining
him: this concept prestructures the role to be assumed by each recipient, and this holds
true even when texts deliberately appear to ignore their possible recipient or actively ex-
clude him. Thus the concept of the implied reader designates a network of response-
inviting structures, which impel the reader to grasp the text.
In: Wennerscheid, Sophie (ed.): Sentimentalitt und Grausamkeit.
Emotion und sthetische Erfahrung in der skandinavischen und
deutschen Literatur der Moderne. Mnster: LIT Verlag 2011,s. 212227
[Korrekturversion]
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 93


authorial sentimentality, and yet a purely intermediary role giving way to the
criminal hero`s perspective is the most effective. To this narrative dilemma
the technique of narrated monologue is the solution, and part of my task here is
to discuss how Dan Andersson and Maria Sandel make use of it.

I The socio-cultural context
In the early 1900s the many processes of modernisation reached their peak, such
as: industrialization, urbanization, proletarization, secularization, democratiza-
tion, commercialization, and massmedialization. The transformations involved
changed the class-structure and caused new needs, new ways of life, new iden-
tities, and not least new literatures. As a result of the democratization of the
parnasse
3
not only the new working class fiction emerged, but also a new
bourgeois realist novel: it dealt with commercial life, business, bankruptcy,
swindle, and other materialistic items, pertaining to the current situation of the
rapidly expanding but also materially vulnerable bourgeoisie.
4
These new
literatures were but two sides of the same coin, the modern capitalist society.
Thus, the old agrarian Sweden was rapidly transforming into a modern indus-
trial society;
5
and because industrialization needed centralized working-sites
preferrably in big factories urbanization was the result.
6
This meant prole-
tarization of the small farmers and crofters in the countryside; it also meant un-
employment among the already proletarianized farm workers. In short, old-
fashioned cultivation techniques, bad yields, and overpopulation, forced rural
people to move into the cities, so as to work in the factories for a living. This is
the world and the context oI Maria Sandel`s narrative: the situation oI the urban
factory-workers and their families, especially the women.

3
See THORELL: Den svenska parnassens demokratisering.
4
See e.g. SUNDSTRM: Martin Koch, p. 8-15.
5
The number of people employed in Swedish industry increased from 25.808 in 1858 to
238.181 in 1896-1900, and in 1912 to 310.437 (Bidrag til Sveriges Officiella Statistik,
p. 14, and Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 66. The total population in 1850 was
3.482.541 persons, and in 1912 as many as 5.604.192 (Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige
1914, p. 3).
6
In 1850 the total population was 3.482.541 people, whereof 9% lived in the cities; in
1912 the total population had increased to 5.604.192 people, whereof 26% lived in the
cities (Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 3).
94 BEATA AGRELL

However, moving into the cities was not the only solution for a poor manual
worker those days. Quite a few of them emigrated, mostly to the USA.
7
Others
chose the ambulant way of seasonal employment: they went into forest work,
timber floating, saw mills, charcoal mining, and railway work, moving from site
to site as employment was offered. Still others managed to remain in distant
woodlands seemingly unaffected by Modernity, but in fact slowly submitted
to the same process. This is the world and context oI Dan Andersson`s literary
work both his poetry and his narrative.
The necessity to survive in these new circumstances, adjusted to urbanization
and the capitalist market, caused a rapid change of mentality, but not always for
the better: starvation wages and massive unemployment forced many workers
male or female into criminality, prostitution, and infanticide. Others suc-
cumbed to tuberculosis, deficiency diseases, or accidents at the working sites.
Among women, the after-effects of the abuse battering of women and illegal
abortion were frequent. To all this the new working-class fiction of the time
bears ample testimony, as can be seen in for instance Martin Koch and Gustav
Hedenvind-Eriksson the two gateposts of Swedish working-class fiction
as well as in Dan Andersson and Maria Sandel.
Crime motifs were in fact frequent in all kinds of literature those days. The in-
terest in criminality was inherited from the school of naturalism of the late
1800s, but it was updated with contemporary research in criminal psychology
and psychoanalysis. The forensic psychologist Andreas Bjerre published books
and articles on criminal mentality, based on interviews with thieves and mur-
derers in prison;
8
he even was the adviser of authors dealing with crime motifs,
among others Martin Koch, a friend and collegue of Dan Andersson.
9
The inte-
rest in crime fiction was also met by the new massmedial publishing industries
newspaper serials, booklets, and cheap editions with best-selling titles, for
instance with the detective Nick Carter as the hero. In the years around 1907 to

7
In the years 1901-1912 the emigrants from Sweden were 295.781 people (Statistisk
rsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 41), i.e. more people than any Swedish city except Stock-
holm held by that time (Stockholm had 350.955 inhabitants) (Statistisk rsbok fr
Sverige 1914, p. 7). For emigration and Swedish literature see further WENDELIUS: Bil-
den av Amerika i svensk prosafktion 1890-1914.
8
BJERRE: Bidrag till mordets psykologi: kriminalpsykologiska studier.
9
See ENGBLOM: Martin Kochs roman Guds vackra vrld, pp. 57-69.
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 95


1909 this hero and his shabby surroundings caused a virtual moral panic,
10
en-
rolling the whole cultural establishment of Sweden in a fight against the so-
called dirty literature. Since those books were cheap even the poor working
class families could afford to buy and worse! read them. Criminality was
seen as an innate trait of the growing working-class that was now dangerously
organizing itself in illegal strikes and trade unions, threatening with socialism,
revolution and the like.
11
Most frightening were the general strikes in 1902 and
1909 that paralysed the nation and manifested the power of a united working-
class. The Nick Carter-literature would encourage these evil tendencies, and so
the dirty literature and the working-class were made interacting scape-goats in a
time of great anxiety and confusion.
12


II Maria Sandels Hexdansen
Most proIound and provoking was the treatment oI crime issues in Sandel`s
story collection Hexdansen [The Witch Dance] (1919). Here the reading process
is complicated by fundamental ambivalences in the narrative stance, encom-
passing the whole ethical (and unethical) scale. The stories deal with the deepest
misery oI the working classes. spiritual as well as material. As in Martin Koch`s
Guds vackra vrld [Gods Beautiful World] (1916), the characters are chosen
from the unemployed or the lowly proletariat, and the petty criminals that these
socially outcast positions both generate and are generated from. Among these
criminals are also unmarried mothers. who induce illegal abortion or even
commit infanticide a typical situation of many working-class women, inclu-
ding the married ones.
The long title story Hexdansen deals with the miserable fortunes of a family
Nerman (literally Down-Man): the Iather Jon an unemployed alcoholic, and

10
Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten deals with this campaign with reference to what
the British sociologist Stanley Cohen has called a moral panic that is trigged by an
exaggerated and perverted massmedia description of the spark that set it all off. In Co-
hens interactive perspective the social deviation is the result of the social measures
against it, rather than the cause of those measures. See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter
drevs p flykten, p. 129f.
11
Bothius emphasizes that the increasing fear of the entire working class was the most
important driving force behind the conservative fight against the dirt: they feared that
the Nick Carter-literature would increase the alleged crudity and lawlessness among the
workers as well as their interest in the Socialist agitation, which was the dirtiest ima-
ginable. See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, p. 251.
12
BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, p. 247f.
96 BEATA AGRELL

the mother Ida a worn-out housewife, cleaning woman and servant of her un-
grateful and lazy family. The five surviving children Helge, Gotthard, Brita,
Alice and Lilly step into their careers respectively as a thief, a pimp, a prosti-
tute, a suicide, and an infanticide respectively. As a family they are kept toge-
ther only out of necessity, not of love or sympathy; and however strong their
class-consciousness, the ethics of class-solidarity is totally missing. On the con-
trary, they despise their conscientious class-mates as much as the capitalist
usurpers, and their only wish is to get into the position of usurpers themselves.
The only exception to this bottomless asociality is the daughter Alice, who tries
to keep the few jobs she is given, but always fails, significantly enough because
she is prudent, shy, and weak. Since her family only scorns her failures, she is
Iinally Iorced into suicide. These are the Iacts. but the narrator`s telling them is
remarkable.
The narrator`s stance at first is quite explicitly condemnatory: the first chapter,
presenting the Nerman family, is entitled Ogrs [Weed], and a summary of
the conditions reads like this:
Det var ofta ont om mat hos familjen, men alltid verfld p vgg-
lss, stridigheter, pantsedlar och uppdragna lkorkar. Ej heller p
lump brukade det vara brist, ty avlagda klder sknktes rikligen av
dem, som anvnde fru Nerman till hjlp.
[The family often was short of food, but bedbugs, fights, pawn
tickets and pulled-up beer corks were abundant. Neither were they
usually short of rags, because cast-off clothes were plentifully do-
nated by people using Mrs Nerman as a helper.] (p.10)
This working-class family does not live up to the current concept of sktsamhet
[conscientiousness], so essential to the efforts of the labour movement to
change the bourgeois apprehension of the working class as a barbarous crowd.
13

Yet the narrator`s stance is ambivalent. On the one hand she acts as a moral
judge, eager to separate good from evil; but on the other hand, as a narrator she
gradually seems to share the perspective of the character she is criticizing. This
means that the moral limits she tries to draw are continually blurred or at least
problematized; and thus even an explicitly uttered moral sentence will somehow
be suspended.
14


13
See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, pp. 127, 261-264, 265, 268-270.
14
A certain moral ambivalence in Sandel`s narrative instance is pointed out also by
other scholars, most importantly by Forselius, discussing sexual morality; see e.g.
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 97


The problematization of moral limits is especially challenging in the depiction
of how the Nerman daughter Lilly strangles her newborn baby. On the one
hand, this is the culmination of the narrative of the growth of an evil person
Lilly is set forth as a deterrent example. On the other hand, the internal focali-
zation here Iorces the reader to take Lilly`s stance. sharing her evil perspec-
tive. The narrator, in her own voice, clearly condemns Lilly. Already as a child
she is said to betray an evil character: Lilly var en rosenkindad lva, vars tro-
hjrtade himmelsbl blick ej frrdde ett grand av all den orenlighet som hennes
redan tidigt frgiftade barnasjl dolde. [Lilly was a rosy-cheeked fairy, whose
true-hearted sky-blue eyes did not betray a trifle of all the filth that her already
poisoned child-soul disguised] (p. 17). As a young woman Lilly is only inte-
rested in entertainment, her looks, and climbing the social ladder through a
class-crossing marriage. This is a dream of a worldly salvation from the hell of
working-class life, but it is also an ambition that makes her ruthless. When it
collides with her hectic life of pleasure, she always finds a way out by lying and
stealing. When finally she finds a proper man to marry, thus beginning to
realize her class-journey, she also discovers that she is pregnant with another
man`s child. She does not know who this other man is. but she knows that who-
ever he may be, he would neither acknowledge his paternity nor help her in any
way (p. 70). So she hides her pregnancy painfully aided by stays and corsets
and prepares for a secret delivery in a cellar. When the labour starts, she con-
trols herself, pleads an important invitation, gathers the prepared things, sneaks
away to the cellar, lies down among rats in the mud, and gives birth to the child.
She strangles the baby, falls asleep, wakes up, leaves the cellar and continues
her life just as it was before.
This is roughly the story, and as such it is quite unambiguous as for the moral
message: this woman is destined for evil, even considered the tough circum-
stances. Yet the discourse is diIIerent: the narrator creeps into Lilly`s wretched
mind and displays her perverted modes of thought as quite sensible and even
natural. This is how Lilly`s entrance into the cellar is described:
Prnget, dr hon slutligen stannade, var s smalt, att hennes ut-
sprrade knn nstan berrde vggarna. Hon slngde av sig ytter-
klderna och drp fast tv ljus vid var sin stenskrva p marken
framfr sig. De gula lgorna lyste stilla under hennes perioder av

FORSELIUS: Upptcktsresan, pp. 97f., 101. My contribution is to extend that observation
to the moral field as a whole. Cf. the Sandel-analysis in AGRELL: In Search of Legi-
timacy.
98 BEATA AGRELL

utmattning, men fladdrade som vid dans kring gran, d marterna
riste hennes kropp.
Halvt ifrn sig av plgor och ngslan hon hade aldrig frestllt
sig saken s svr mrkte hon ej, att det ena ljuset slocknade. Kort
efter slt sig gravmrker om henne, och ofrberedd blev hon vild
av ddsfruktan. Hon strtade upp. Ut ! Vad som hlst blott icke
frgs hr under jorden, i ensamhet. Tumlande omkring sig, skra-
pade hon huden av sina hnder mot de vldiga, fuktdrypande sten-
blocken, trarna strmmade och hon blade till himlen om hjlp.
verallt murar, var fanns utgngen. Men ter mste hon ned p
marken, ansatt av vrkarna. Hon vltrade sig, och nu tiggde hon
icke lngre om vernaturligt bistnd utan ropade frtvivlat: Mamma,
mamma.
Det lt som om hundar skllt ini kllargngen, nr ekot svarade.
[The nook where she finally stayed was so narrow that her spread-
out knees almost touched the walls. She threw off her outdoor
clothes and fastened two dripping candles on one stone chip each
in front of her. The yellow flames quietly shone during her periods
of exhaustion, but flickered as when dancing around a Christmas
tree when the torments shook her body.
Half frantic with torment and anguish she had never imagined the
matter to be so difficult she did not notice that one of the candles
went out. Shortly thereafter, the darkness of the grave closed her
in, and being unprepared she went wild with a fear of death. She
lunged to her feet. Out! Anything but to perish underground in
loneliness. Collapsing, she grazed the skin off her hands against the
huge, damp stone blocks, her tears streaming, and she howled to
heaven for help. Everywhere, ledges where was the way out.
But again she was forced down to the ground, assailed by labour
pains. She rolled about and, no longer begging for supernatural
help. despairingly cried: Mummy. mummy.
It sounded like dogs barking in the cellar gallery, when the echo
answered.] (p. 88)
As can be seen, the narrator here switches to erlebte Rede, which means that the
reader is confronted with the scene from within the character, although the nar-
rator is speaking.
15
However evil Lilly is otherwise depicted, this time her fear,
anguish and pain are focused upon not as somebody else`s out there. but as

15
See COHN: Transparent Minds, p. 100.
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 99


the reader`s own Ieelings.
16
This is because there is no other position in the text
prepared for the reader. Pure observation is thus made impossible; instead the
narrative gives way to fear and pity in fact, the Aristotelian virtues of a well-
made tragedy.
This Aristotelian tendency is reinIorced by the depiction oI the delivery and
the murder:
Gud, ngot att hlla fast vid! Hennes fingrar borrade sig i markens
modd. Skrande jmmer. Sist ett lngdraget tjut, som uppslukades
av mrkret och utspyddes i gapen runtom. Ett gonblick och den
nyfdde hlsade livet med friska lungors styrka . De sm lgorna,
som nyss hotat att slockna fr kvalens kastbyar, tindrade nu milt p
ett litet huvud med hr som en krans av svart dun kring nacken.
Lillys utmattning vervanns snabbt av hennes jrnvilja. Saxen.
, den fanns inte hon trevade med sklvande hnder i vskan, i
paketet, omkring sig. Frgves. En glasskrva d, vad som helst
skarpt . Stickor, rutten potatis, trassel, men ngot fr ndamlet
dugligt nej. D anvnde hon samma medel som djuren
tnderna.
En domning smg sig ter ver henne, hon gav vika, strckte ut
sig, men den nyfddes skrik rev upp henne. Och hatet krkte
hennes fingrar om barnets strupe, pressade dem kvvande tungt
ver den lilla sklvande munnen.
Kort efter slocknade ljusen nedbrunna. D lg den nyblivna
modern frsnkt i lugn, strkande smn.

16
See e.g. the reader response documented in Linda berg`s article: Man sger sig:
Hon var ett skarn, en dlig kvinna p alla vis. Hon ddade sitt barn. Hon knde inga
samvetskval, ingen tvekan, och dock ryser man av medlidande med flickan, som i sin
omedvetna ondska hur kunde hon vara annat n ond med den far hon hade och den
uppfostran hon ftt? r s orimligt tapper? Som biter samman tnderna av kvalen och
missrkningarna och gr sin vg fram hnsynsls, utan knsla och vekhet, med otrolig
mlmedvetenhet och kraft. Hon r briljant skildrad den onda, som ej vet om sin
ondska. [You tell yourself: She was a shame, a bad woman in all respects. She killed
her child. She felt no qualms of conscience, no hesitation, and yet you shudder with
compassion for this girl, who in her unconscious wickedness how could she be but
wicked with such a father and such an education? is so unreasonably brave?
Clenching her teeth with suffering and disappointment, ruthlessly going her own way,
no emotion or weakness, in unbelievable purposefulness and power. She is brilliantly
depicted the wicked one who does not know her wickedness.] (BERG: Maria
Sandel.)
100 BEATA AGRELL

[Oh God, something to keep hold on! Her fingers burrowed into
the mud of the ground. Piercing groaning. Finally a protracted
howl that was engulfed by the darkness and spewed into the gaps
around. A moment, and the newborn child greeted life with the full
strength oI healthy lungs. The little Ilames. a moment ago
threatening to go out for the gusts of torment, now were twinkling
on a little head with hairs like a garland of black down around its
neck. Lilly`s exhaustion soon was overcome by her iron will. The
scissors. Oh. they were not to be Iound she groped with
shivering hands in her purse, in the package, around her. In vain. A
Iragment oI glass. then. anything sharp. Splinters. rotten potatoes.
cotton waste, but something suitable to its purpose no. Then she
used the same means as the animals her teeth.
A numbness stole upon her, she yielded, stretched out, but the new-
born child`s crying Iorced her to her Ieet. And hatred crooked her
Iingers around the child`s throat. pressing them. heavily suI-
focating, over its little shivering mouth.
Shortly afterwards, the burnt-down candles went out. By then the
recent mother had sunk into a calm, strengthening sleep.] (p. 89f.)
In these passages the focalization shifts between extra and intradiegetic posi-
tions. The woman`s pain and anguish. and her desperate efforts to manage, are
depicted from within at the same time as the narrator comments upon them
from without, from the perspectives of the child and the moral society. The
harshest condemnation is implied in the analogy of the mother with an animal.
Yet this is what it all is about, deep down at the bottom of fleshly existence,
where survival of the fittest is the one and only law. From that point of view,
the moral law seems an extravagance for the happy few. Certainly, this is part
of the irony alluded to in the title of this chapter: Det heliga moderskapet
[The Holy Motherhood]. And this very irony as well as the moral ambigu-
ity of the narrative as a whole was offensive then, as it probably still is.
The story is gruesome, as is the narrative; and the textual strategy is didactic,
exemplary, and deterrent. Yet there is room not only for fear but also compas-
sion, that is, a somewhat Aristotelian katharsis is prepared, as in an exemplary
tragedy
17
only this heroine is not a character better than in actual life, but
worse. In spite of her low social position she is not depicted as comic which

17
The task of the tragedy is to create a purification of emotion, that is through pity and
fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions (ARISTOTLE: On the Art of Poe-
try, ch. VI.)
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 101


was the Aristotelian (and Classicist) rule for low characters. Neither is she typi-
fied as a monster: she is depicted as an evil and tragic human being. Sandel`s
narrative here is gruesome and emotionally loaded, but it leaves no room for
sloppy sentimentality.

III Dan Anderssons murder-narrative
Compared to Sandel. Dan Andersson`s narrative is soIt and sometimes poetic.
but also impartial and even matter-of-fact; and so are also the murder-narratives
that I will dwell upon here. In 1913, before he had even published a book, he
wrote two short stories, based on an authentic murder case in his home province
oI Dalarna. in the deep socalled Iinnish woodland oI the middle west oI Swe-
den.
18
In June 1913 a widow was shot and then raped by a shoemaker of the
village, also a previous convict and outcast. The gruesome drama was widely
exposed in the local newspaper. The hunt for the murderer was followed day by
day, like a serial story with cliff hangers and all. Thus, the newspaper reports
were transformed into some Nick Carter-literature for real, or as a reality game.
Dan Andersson himself took part in this game by writing a story on the theme,
reusing the facts and details of the newspaper, and finally publishing the story
in the same newspaper that he had plundered.
19
Yet, his story was not of the
same kind as the non-fiction newspaper-articles, and so his participating in the
game turned into a critical dialog. The narrator depicts the murder and the
necrofilian rape in all the gruesome details; but his project is not to judge the
murderer, but to understand him and to render him understandable.
The title of the newspaper story was Ddsjakten [The Death Hunt], but that
name was a redactional change; the manuscript reads Ddsdansen [The
Dance of Death], and this difference is significant. The dance-title alludes not
only to the well-known clich of the danse macabre with Death, but also to the
fact that the murderer Johan was a much sought after fiddler, like Dan An-
dersson himself, and the core figure of his poetry and fiction. Although Johan is
a despised outcast his capacity as a fiddler brings him into social events like
family feasts and Saturday dances; but even then he is scorned and treated like

18
These woods were called finnish because in the 16th century they were offered as
potentially cultivable to the poor peasants living in Finland, at that time a Swedish pro-
vince; and so a great number of finns emigrated to the northwest of Dalarna, and also to
Vrmland. Dan Anderssons own ancestors were such emigrants. See UHLIN: Dan
Andersson, chapter I.
19
ANDERSSON: Ddsjakten.
102 BEATA AGRELL

trash. Men han talade sllan, the narrator says, skte aldrig frsvara sig med
ord mot deras ofrskmdheter. Tyst och sluten gned han sin fiol, tyst och sluten
gick han sin vg nr dansgillet slutade [But he seldom spoke and he did not
try to defend himself in words against their insults. Silent and reserved he
scraped his fiddle, silent and reserved he went his way when the dance feast was
over] (p. 212).
Thus. Iiddling seems to be Johans` only means oI expression. but it is hardly
suited for channelling his burning passions, threatening to burst from his inside:
han var galen i kvinnor [he was crazy about women], the narrator informs
us, but alla kvinnor skydde honom som pesten [all women shun him like the
plague], not the least because of the rumours describing him as a sexually
perverted (p. 212). Sexuality in fact was his main problem, according to the
narrator, but fundamentally there was nothing perverted about it: sexuality for
Johan was a serious passion, and therefore he could not understand the
ambigous social conventions associated with sexual behaviour. He was unable
to play these games of flirting and provoking sexual urges that were not to be
fulfilled. So when he realized that a girl he wanted hade lekt med honom och
med den helvetets brand, som brnde i hans inre [had played with him and
the hellish fire burning him from within] (p. 213) he turned violent, and even
murderous.
The story ends with the murderers voluntary death as he puts himself in the
way of the train rather than being captured. But in the real world the story was
open-ended: the real murderer was never found; he just disappeared. This fact is
incorporated in Dan Andersson`s second unpublished version of the story,
named Kvinnohat [Hatred of Women], almost contemporaneous with
Ddsdansen. But the context of publication is not a newspaper but a short
story collection refused and only posthumously published. The manuscript
was ambigously named Sorgmarschen [The Funeral March, The March of
Sorrow, or of Grieving, or Mourning]. Because of the more generous
context of a book, Kvinnohat expands the motives of fiddling and passion,
and this time the narrative starts in a rural dance party, although den rtta
spelmannen [the proper fiddler] (p. 61) has not arrived. The wanted fiddler
of course is Johan, but at his arrival he refuses to play; he has not even brought
his fiddle. Instead he hides in a dark corner where he cannot be seen, but he
himself can see what is going on on the dance floor. And he studies the sexual
game:
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 103


[hur] de ungdomliga, fylliga och liuskldda Ilickkropparna |.|
bjde och strckte sig med elastiska, spnstiga rrelser, hur de
eldigt lto sig tryckas mot breda gossebrst i vita skjortveck, hur
ansiktena blossade och hur de lto sig kyssas mitt under dansen,
bara man kom bort till det mrkaste hrnet
||how| the young. mellow and light bodies oI the girls |.| bent
and stretched with elastic and vigorous movements, how ardently
they let themselves be pressed against the broad breasts with tucks
oI white shirts oI the boys. how the girls` Iaces glowed. and how
they let themselves be kissed in the middle of the dance, if only
they would reach the darkest corner ] (p. 63)
Sexuality is the secret undercurrent of the dance; everybody knows that, but no-
one admits it; and that double standard of morality Johan cannot understand.
The girls are afraid of his silence they felt hans fullstndigt djuriska natur
[his entirely animal nature (p. 63), the narrator tells us. But Johan himself
observes the same nature in all the dancers; the only difference is that his own
inability of conventional flirtation betrays the instincts that the others manage to
hide by Iollowing the rules oI the game. Johan`s conclusion is that |m|nni-
skorna |.| voro lttsinniga. men srskilt kvinnorna. och det var endast pur
elakhet att de undveko honom. [all human beings are wanton, but women in
particular, and their avoiding him was nothing but meanness] (p. 66). At this
point the narrator`s voice intersects with Johan`s perspective in an eIIort to
make the man in the murderer understandable:
Nr han tnkte ver detta frsvann all lust fr rligt arbete. Han
hade ju ingen att leva fr varfr skulle han d arbeta? Kanske om
han sjlv ftt leva livet fullt vid en kvinnas sida, kanske han d
arbetat ocks. Som det nu var kunde han ej ens sga att han hade
sig sjlv att leva och arbeta fr, ty sitt eget liv levde han ju bara till
hlften, och det ouppfyllda frstrde hans liv och drmmar,
suddade ut allt det bsta inom honom och gjorde av den fordige
mannen en lat lymmel, vars hela tankeverksamhet koncentrerade
sig p kvinnor. Och under allt detta brann hatet med riklig gld,
kom lusten till handling att kmpa en frtvivlad strid mot frnuftet
och brnde aska av hans inre.
[When he thought about all this all his bent for honest work disap-
peared. He had no-one to live for why, then, should he work?
Perhaps, if he had been allowed to live out his life with a woman at
his side, he might have worked. But in his present situation he did
not even have himself to live and work for, for he lived his own
104 BEATA AGRELL

life only by halves, and the unfulfilled part destroyed his life and
his dreams; it erased what was good in him and rendered the taci-
turn man a lazy rascal, whose entire mental activity concentrated
on women. And underneath hatred was burning with an abundant
glow; it induced his bent for action to a desperate struggle against
his reason, and it burned his inner man to ashes.] (p. 67)
His needs are as emotional as physical, but he does not know any difference be-
tween passions. The narrator rightly depicts his physical need with a compas-
sion that otherwise is reserved for the purely spiritual sufferings of more
honorable heroes:
Inte ens i drmmen fick han ngon hel frnimmelse, ty han
vaknade alltid innan han ftt akten fullbordad. D brukade han
springa upp och g av och an p golvet i stum frtvivlan, fr att i
nsta minut kasta sig ned framstupa ver bdden och i frtvivlad
kvinnohunger rycka och slita i tcket, liksom vore detta en varelse
som orsakat hans smrta.
[Not even in his dreams was he given a full satisfaction, for he al-
ways woke up before the act was fulfilled. Then he would get up,
walking back and forth over the floor in mute despair, but in the
next moment he would throw himself headlong down onto his bed,
and in his desperate hunger for women he would pull and tear the
quilt as if it was a creature that had caused his pain.] (p.75)
When finally the murder is committed, and the murderer drags the body into the
woods, the scene is depicted in all gruesome detail; and now the narrative is
ruthless:
Utan att ge sig tid att se efter om hon levde kastade han sig, likt en
schakal, ver den blodiga kroppen och pressade sin egen kropp
mot den. Nr han steg upp sg han, att han vldfrt sig mot ett lik,
och d sprang han drifrn med gevret nnu i handen och med
klderna rda av Lisas blod.
[Without giving himself the time to find out if she was alive he fell
upon her bloodstained body like a jackal, pressing his own body
against it. When he rose he saw that he had raped a corpse, and
then he run away, his gun in his hand and his clothes red from
Lisa`s blood.| (p. 79)
The murderer Johan was never caught, and the closing section of the narrative
speculates on his unknown destiny. Perhaps would he give himself up later on?
That would cost him his life as a free man. But how free had he been? Had he
Aesthetic Experience as Offence 105


not been enslaved by passions that had made his free life a torment? Such un-
spoken questions give way to the narrator`s meditation on suicide as a release:
Men kanske han sover p bottnen av en enslig skogstjrn, med de
svala vgorna till tcke bland nckrosstnglar och rrvass, med av
ddens kyla slckta passioner och slocknad lust. Och ingen vet vad
som r bst.
[But maybe he is asleep on the bottom of a lonely woodland mere,
the cool waves his cover among water lilies and reed, his passions
extinguished by the chill of death, and his urge turned off. And no-
body knows what is the best.] (p. 80)
How is this passage to be characterized? Empathic? Compassionate? Or senti-
mental.? Perhaps all three alternatives are valid. But what is most interesting
is this emotional interaction between the narrator and his hero, displayed before
the reader: the narrator creates his character by narrating him, but he is also
affected by his creation.
20
The figure of the narrator is created as well, namely
by the author. But the author also creates the textual strategies that pave the way
for the reader and a complex aesthetic experience. These strategies make possi-
ble the emotional address of the text: gruesomeness and sentimentality, fear and
pity maybe transformed into a meditation on loving your neighbour.

20
Cf. the dialogicity between author/narrator and hero described in BAKHTIN: Problems
oI Dostoevsky`s Poetics, chapter 2.
106 BEATA AGRELL

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