The Wolf and the Watchman Quotes

“It is said that one often meets one’s fate on the path one has taken to avoid it.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“It takes two in order to tell a good lie; one to speak untruth and one to listen willingly!”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“hate requires fear”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“The name of the pub is the Perdition. A thick layer of soot coats the walls but anyone who strains a little can make out the mural. It is the dance of death. Peasants and burghers, noblemen and priests, join hands around a skeleton who is playing a fiddle as black as tar. The painting makes many ill at ease and the few customers can be easily counted until the hour is late and the level of intoxication has stripped all decorations of their relevance. The innkeeper Gedda has opposed all attempts at persuasion to whitewash his walls. The mural is painted by Hoffbro himself, he snarls, and a masterpiece at that.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Under the skin, broken blood vessels wallow like a pack of leeches.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“You can only see me because you yourself have just crossed to the other side, Johan Gustaf. Your worldly remains are lying down there on the dance floor, dead after an excess of wine and a candied almond in your windpipe.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Anna Stina wants to tell her not to take the bait, to keep her mouth shut in the hopes that he will get tired of his game. But she can do nothing. The Dragon smiles with confidence. ‘I can certainly take a couple of turns on the dance floor.’ Pettersson feigns admiration and turns to his colleague. ‘Isn’t that what I thought? I know my workhouse girls all right. Are you a skilled dancer, Miss Ersson, or do you lean on your partner like a sack of potatoes and get tired after a polonaise or two?’ The Dragon gives a spiteful laugh.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Welcome to our humble shed, my little chickens. Pettersson is my name and I am the custodian of this place along with my colleague, Hybinett. Your presence here has been requested in order to mend your sinful ways. Names?’ It is the young watchman who points and answers. ‘Anna Stina Knapp. Karin Ersson.’ Pettersson inspects them both. Anna Stina lowers her gaze in the way she has learned that such men prefer. The Dragon stares back at him with defiance. She is swaying on the spot in order to relieve her pressing needs. Pettersson points at her with a hand that is as large as a smoked ham.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“The room where he receives visitors is dimly lit, its walls clad in linen that have grown sooty and grimy the past decades. What was intended to create a serious and solemn impression has been lost amidst the clutter. Books and ledgers are stacked next to inkwells and clay pipes. Lysander receives her seated behind his desk while she stands on the floor in front of him.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“With spring comes warmer weather, and with warmer weather comes the fever. It”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“I pushed a twelve-shilling piece across the table, asked for Danziger beer, and asked the barmaid to keep an eye on my pitcher and refill it as soon as she saw the bottom.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“That evening, a Thursday, we made ourselves ready with powder in our hair and a new cravat each. We inspected each other critically and brushed stray hairs and flakes from collar and lapels, and then emptied the mattress of its treasure.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“My friend Rickard Sylvan and I have joined a group of young men whose fathers are all engaged in trade along the Quayside. These gentlemen have money in excess and since they seem to find the exploits of Sylvan and myself tremendously amusing, they are often tempted into generosity. Sylvan and I compete in who can stand the most of what is offered. The one who manages to stand on one leg for a whole minute is crowned the winner and given the title of the majesty of the night, with a soup terrine placed on his head. The gentlemen laugh until they weep.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Drops of opium in a mixture of alcohol, succinic acid and salt of hartshorn. He has had the tincture for a long time but has not yet availed himself of it. At the Bear they warned him not to exceed the recommended dose and said that it would dull not only his pain but also his senses. Tonight is the first time he is prepared to take the risk.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“a man whose nose has been made into a rotten crater by the French disease laughs so hard his snot goes flying.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Cardell wakes up in a cold sweat. The straw from the mattress is poking into his back and his body is itching from lice. On the other side of the wooden planks of the wall, a child is screaming and soon it is joined by a companion of the same age further down in the labyrinth of rooms. The alcohol from last night is still in his blood, when he celebrated his deductions regarding Stubby’s sedan chair.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Tell me, Mr Winge, does the expression homo homini lupus est mean anything to you?’ ‘Plautus wrote it during the Punic Wars: Like a wolf is man to other men.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“The whoring is a crying shame. The girls have hardly learned to stand on their own two legs before they know how to spread them. They start going door to door with fruit baskets and do all in their power to tempt God-fearing men to sin. And it wears on them, you know, it’s just a matter of time until they get the French disease, and no money for treatment remains after what little they’ve earned has been exchanged for drink. After a couple of years no reasonable person will even so much as look at them. No, those of us who are both wise and horny have to hurry before the bloom is off the rose.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“The atmosphere in the Flag, a cellar close to the shore of the bay, has grown lively. Two itinerant musicians, one with a hurdy-gurdy in his lap and the other with a fiddle by the hip, have both wanted to set up and play for the crowd this evening and have turned their initial conflict into a collaboration. The crowd is streaming in to hear them, and soon there are people are lined up all the way out to the stairs. Outside the air is raw. The evening fog is rising from the sea and groping its way towards the city.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Cecil Winge’s room is a grim place. Furniture that must have come with the rental agreement is arranged along the walls. Few of Winge’s personal possessions can be seen. Books are piled in a stack, and there is a trunk. A simple desk stands by the window to catch the light, and spread over its surface is what looks like a partially deconstructed watch. Heat from the hearth below rises through the gaps in the floor and is the only source of warmth as the tiled stove has not yet been lit.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“build but the illness has worn him down considerably. He’s pale but hides it well, almost never coughs in public, and when he does it is discreetly into a handkerchief, which is always a dark colour so as not to show the blood.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“A group of sailors presses in through the doors, all of them at once, arm in arm until the weakest have to break the chain and give way to the delighted mockery of the others.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Drinking buddies are bickering over their beer and aquavit.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Schwalbe lights two lanterns with a long match that he waves in the air to extinguish. On a nearby table, there is well-fed cat washing its face with a freshly licked paw. Schwalbe hands one lantern to Cardell, closes his door and skips haltingly out in front of them. On the other side of the yard is a low stone building. Schwalbe puts his hand to his mouth and makes a loud noise before he unlocks the door. ‘For the rats,’ he explains. ‘I prefer to frighten them than the other way around.’ Objects are”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“His clothes are very proper, although of an old-fashioned style: a black coat, slim about the waist, tails ribbed with inlays of horsehair and with a high collar. A discreetly embroidered waistcoat peeks out. Black velvet breeches with buckles at each knee. A white cravat, wrapped several times”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Cardell climbs down Miller’s Hill and spits a brown slug of tobacco into the gutter.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“poorhouse”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“ropemaker”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“Hamburg,”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman

“At the steps of the Hamburg they are served their last drink, after which the glass is carefully retrieved, etched with name and date, and added to the collection.”
― Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf and the Watchman