Bergman Genius
20 Pages 5031 Words
or between the two.
“Both mother and father were artictically gifted. Mother could-should- have been
a tragedian, Father a poet. Two incompatible temperaments! Two desperately
unhappy, imperfect human beings, either of whom, alone or with some other
partner, could have perhaps been brought to some marvelous fruition; but whose
talents were stunted, etiolated, watered down, and crushed by the mutually
destructive lifestyle they created for themselvesE.
Should it ever cross my mind to send a folk song to the printer’s, I should
should first have to explain to the gentle reader how my father’s days usually
started in a state of incomprehensible gaiety. Splashing, whistling, jubilantly
singing fragments of the seasons chorales. A rose from Jesse’s rod has blossomed
or Now in the lovely summer time as the case may be, he’d take an ice cold
shower, shave, and brush his teeth with the same frenzy as other men in quite
different social circles pass the early morning hours enjoying their wives or
mistresses. Probably in comparison it isn’t outrageous as it may seem.
Because year in and year out poor father; clergyman of the State of the
Lutheran Church he was, lived on a minimum exotic subsistence level.
But Mother she suffered from insomnia. After spending half the night
indulging one of her few vices-reading-and having managed during
with the aid of sleeping tablets to scrape together a few hours sleep;
she’d come stumbling down in to breakfast only half awake and in a
state of extreme nervous irritability, there to find her freshly washed,
matitundally cheerful husband standing hungry as a hunter behind
his chair at the breakfast table, gold watch in hand and waiting for
porridge to be served up, followed by hash of ham and fried potatoes
with fried eggs and pickled beetroot etc., to say nothing of Laela’s
witches bre wknow...