Читать книгу The Confession of a Fool - August Strindberg - Страница 9

I occupied in those days a fairly large attic with two windows which looked on the new harbour, the bay and the rocky heights of the southern suburbs. Before the windows, on the roof, I had managed to create a garden of tiny dimensions. Bengal roses, azaleas and geraniums provided me in their turn with flowers for the secret cult of my Madonna with the child. It had become a daily habit with me to pull down the blinds towards the evening, arrange my flower-pots in a semicircle, and place the picture of the Baroness, with the lamplight full on it, amongst them. She was represented on this portrait as a young mother, with somewhat severe, but deliciously pure features, her delicate head crowned with a wealth of golden hair. She wore a light dress which reached up to her chin and was finished off with a pleated frill; her little daughter, dressed in white, was standing on a table by the side of her, gazing at the beholder with pensive eyes. How many letters "to my friends" had I not written before this portrait and sent off on the following morning addressed to the Baron! These letters were at that time the only channel into which I could pour my literary aspirations, and my inmost soul was laid bare in them.