A Burnt Child: A Novel

A Letter in March from Himself to Himself

50 A Letter in March from Himself to Himself Dear Bengt! It’s been a while since I last wrote to you. Some important things have happened since then. The most important thing is that I have seriously decided to stop attending lectures and seminars, though I’ll still take the exam in April. I plan to study at home. That way I’ll save time, and I can be home in the evenings. It’s nice being at home, and in the end I think Papa will come to think so, too. I haven’t told him about my decision, and since I’m still going to take the exam, I won’t have to. And whenever he asks, How was your day today? I usually always say, Fine, thanks; it went really well. There’s no use saying that it wasn’t good or that I missed a question since I was never there in the first place. Besides, if I were to say something like that, it wouldn’t make it any less of a lie. It would just upset him, and I don’t want to do that. In fact, it’s the same reason why I don’t tell him that I’m home all day when he thinks I’m in class. In the evenings, I sometimes tell him little details about tests or lectures. 51 A Letter in March I intentionally talk about things I know he’ll appreciate. For example, that a professor came to class in a top hat and business suit because he had been at a funeral the day before and still thought he was wearing his tailcoat. He finds such stories amusing, and he still thinks professors have to be old and absentminded. When he’s in a good mood he gives me money. Of course, it annoyed me at first, but then I realized I have to take it. Otherwise, he might start to suspect something, and I don’t want that to happen. And since I’m going to take the exam in April anyway, it doesn’t matter whether or not I accept these little rewards. After all, it’s just as much work, if not more, to study at home as it is to sit around in a lecture hall. Besides, I like putting Papa in a good mood. It makes us both happy. On Thursday, I sat around for half a day coming up with a great story about a professor, and I told him all about it when he came home. He hasn’t laughed like that in a long time. And why shouldn’t I make someone happy if I can? Yes, you might be right when you say that it’s not particularly nice to lie, but I think a lie should be judged by what a person hopes to gain from it. For example, if you lie to gain any kind of personal advantage, then I consider that an immoral way to use a lie. But if you lie to make someone happy, then I can see no reason why the lie can’t be justified. I also think a lot depends on the person who is lying. Isn’t it a different matter altogether when a corrupt person lies from when a good person lies? An honorable person can do things that other people cannot do. If a sluggard wastes his time roaming the streets and looking for girls while his parents think he’s really busy studying diligently, then it’s a completely different situation when a responsible person hides a temporary postponement from his father (which, all things considered, isn’t even a postponement). And I have always been responsible. You can’t deny that, Bengt! I was raised to be responsible, you know that. You also know how Mama was and that she had a bad childhood. Since 52 A Letter in March her mother was gravely ill and her father was dead, she was shuffled from one poor relative to the next throughout her youth. She used to say that her childhood was a carousel, not a nice one like we have here in the cities, but a poor, run-down carousel, one that is sent out to the most impoverished and distant places. So revolved her childhood. This also explained why she didn’t have a typical education. She had to...