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when I had left Sweden many years ago. I
knew he had been sent down from the University
and had gone from bad to worse. Suddenly I
also remembered having heard that he had taken
to the stage, of course it must be my ill starred
old friend who was the Hamlet of to-night! I
sent my card to his room, he came like a shot
overjoyed to see me after a lapse of so many years.
My friend told me a distressing story. After a
disastrous series of performances to empty houses
in Malmö the company, decimated to one third of
its members, had reached Lund the evening before
for a last desperate battle against fate. Most
of their costumes and portable belongings, the
jewels of the queen mother, the crown of the
king, Hamlet’s own sword which he was to run
through Polonius, even Yorick’s skull had been
seized by the creditors in Malmö. The king had
got a sharp attack of sciatica and could neither
walk nor sit on his throne, Ophelia had a fearful
cold, the Ghost had got drunk at the farewell
supper in Malmö and missed the train. He
himself was in magnificent form, Hamlet was his
finest creation—it might have been expressly
written for him. But how could he alone carry
the immense burden of the five-act tragedy on
his shoulders! All the tickets for the
performance to-night were sold out, if they should have
to return the money, complete collapse was
inevitable. Perhaps I could lend him two hundred
kronor for old friendship’s sake?
I rose to the occasion. I summoned a meeting
of the leading stars of the company, instilled new
blood into their dejected hearts with several
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