The Best Intentions Read Online Free PDF Page A

expensive lace blouse, a broad belt around her narrow waist, and a long tailored skirt in light woolen material. She is wearing no jewelry except a pair of light diamond earrings. Her boots are fashionably high heeled.
    That’s what she looks like — Anna, my mother, whose name was really Karin. I neither want to nor am able to explain why I have this need to mix up and change names: my father’s name was Erik, and my maternal grandmother’s was Anna. Oh, well, perhaps it’s all part of the game — and a game it is.
    Anna: Are you asleep, Papa?
    Johan Åkerblom: Of course. I’m asleep and dreaming I’m asleep. AndI’m dreaming I’m sitting in my study asleep. Then the door opens and in comes the most beautiful — the most loving — the most affectionate of them all. And she comes over to me and blows on me with her gentle breath and says, Are you asleep, Papa? Then I dream I’m thinking: this must be what it’s like to wake up in paradise.
    Anna: You should take your glasses off when you’re resting, Papa. Otherwise they might fall on the floor and break.
    Johan Åkerblom : You’re just as would-be-wise as your mother. You should know by now that with me everything is intentional and well thought out. If I push my glasses up onto my forehead when I take my little midday rest, that gives the impression of a creative state with my eyes closed. No one —except you — may surprise Johan Åkerblom with dropped jaw and open mouth.
    Anna: Oh, no. You were sleeping correctly and upright and under control. As always.
    Johan Åkerblom : Well, what do you want, dear heart?
    Anna: Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. May I have a sip of your absinthe, by the way? They say it’s so depraved. Just think how Christian Krohg and all those brilliant Norwegians went mad about absinthe. (Takes a sip.) If you’re going to drink absinthe, then I suppose you have to be just a little depraved to be capable of drinking absinthe. Sit still now, Papa, and I’ll fix your hair so you look nice.
    Anna disappears into an inner room and comes back at once with a hairbrush and comb.
    Johan Åkerblom : Weren’t we going to have a guest to dinner? Wasn’t Ernst . . . ?
    Anna: It’s a friend of Ernst’s. They sing in the Academic Choir together. Ernst says he’s studying theology.
    Johan Åkerblom : What? Is he going to be a minister? Does our Ernst mix with an apprentice priest — the end of the world must be nigh!
    Anna: Don’t be silly, Papa. Ernst says this boy — I’ve forgotten his name — is awfully nice, rather shy but awfully nice. He’s also said to be terribly poor. But handsome.
    Johan Åkerblom: Oh, yes, yes, now I understand this unexpected interest in your brother’s latest friend.
    Anna: Papa, you’re being silly again. I’m going to marry my brother Ernst. He is the Only One for me.
    Johan Åkerblom: But what about me?
    Anna: Oh, you, too, Papa of course! Hasn’t Mama told you to trim those tufts of hair in your ears? How can anyone hear with so much hair in his ears?
    Johan Åkerblom : They’re particularly fine, so-called hearing hairs, and no one may touch them! With my hearing hairs, I have a very special kind of hearing, which tells me what people are thinking. Most people say one thing and think another. I hear that immediately with my hearing hairs.
    Anna: Can you say what I’m thinking at this moment?
    Johan Åkerblom : You’re too close. Too much strain on my hearing hairs. Stand over there in that ray of sunlight; then I’ll tell you at once what you’re thinking.
    Anna ( laughing ): Well, Papa!
    Johan Åkerblom : You’re very pleased with yourself. And you’re also very pleased your father loves you.
    As the clock on the cathedral, the clock in the dining room, the clock in the drawing room, and the introspective clock in the study all