“Dr. Glas” Soderberg in a summary
The novel is written in the form of a diary of the licentiate of medicine Tyuko Gabriel Glass. In his thirty-three years he never knew a woman. He does not hide that far from everything tells about himself, however he does not make a fool of himself, believing the diary of his thoughts and feelings. A diary for him is a convenient and non-binding form of detached introspection, an occupation that helps fill the emotional void and forget about loneliness. He does not have any personal life, but in his professional life he was disillusioned for a long time, although in his youth the choice of a doctor’s profession was dictated to him by ambitious dreams and the desire to become a “friend of mankind.”
Since childhood, accustomed myself to discipline and self-restraint. The voice achieves brilliant results in school and university. Sensuality awakens in him rather slowly, and the young man early develops the habit of reflecting all his thoughts and deeds. However,
Pastor Gregory is one of those people who are particularly hated by Dr. Glaucus. He is fifty-six years old, but he is married to a young and beautiful woman. Unexpectedly for the Voice of the Fru Helga, Gregorius comes to his reception and confesses that she has a lover, and her husband is deeply disgusted. She no longer has anyone to turn to for help, and she pleads with Glas to convince her husband, who wants a child, not to force her to fulfill her conjugal duty, on the pretext that she is sick and needs treatment. The voice, enraged by the very word “duty”, this time decides to help a woman to whom she feels sincere sympathy. In a conversation with the pastor, Glas advises him to refrain from intimate relations with his wife, as her fragile health needs careful attitude. However, the pastor still harbors affinity with her, and one day Helga again comes to the reception to the Voice and says that her husband took her by force. When a pastor complains of a Voice in his heart, he uses this pretext and categorically forbids Gregorius from intimacy with his wife. However, Glas understands that nothing will be achieved by this. Gradually, he comes to the idea that Helga can really help him only if he relieves her of her hated husband. The voice understands that, secretly from itself, Helga has long been in love, and for the sake of her happiness he decides to kill the pastor. Subjecting scrupulous analysis of the motive of the act, which he is about to commit. Glas comes to the conclusion that the murder of Gregorius is the very “Delo” for which he is ready to put everything at stake. Using the opportunity, Glas under the guise of a new cure for heartaches gives the pastor a drink of cyanide cyanide,
Crime comes to the Voice from his hands, but in his heart reigns discord. At night, fear begins to haunt him, and in the daytime he gives himself up to agonizing reflections. He committed a crime, but nothing has changed in his life: the same spleen, the same cynicism and contempt for people and for himself. However, the Voice does not feel guilty because it comes to the conviction that he, the murderer, knows only certain facts and circumstances of the pastor’s death, but in essence, he knows no more than others: death, like life, was and remains incomprehensible, It is shrouded in mystery, everything is subject to the law of inevitability and the chain of causality is lost in the darkness. After visiting the funeral mass, Glas goes to the Finnish bath, meets friends there and goes with them to the restaurant. He feels refreshed and rejuvenated, he seems to have recovered from a serious illness: all that has happened seems to him an obsession. But his elated mood is again replaced by despondency and anguish when he learns that Klas Recke, Helgi’s lover, is going to marry Freken Levinson, who, after the death of her father, the stockbroker, inherited half a million. The voice sincerely regrets Helga, who has gained freedom, but will soon lose her lover.
Gradually, Glas comes to the idea that one should not try to understand life at all: the most important thing is not to ask, not to solve riddles and not to think! But his thoughts are confused, and he falls into desperate despair. The pastor begins to appear to him in a dream, which aggravates the already difficult state of mind of the doctor. Soon he finds out about Claus Recke’s engagement with Freken Levinson. The voice is tormented by the pains of unrequited love, but does not dare to go to Helga and ask her for help, as she once addressed him. Autumn comes, Glas realizes that he can not understand anything, not change anything in his destiny. He reconciles with her inescapable mystery and watches indifferently how life passes by.
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