Torbjörnsson’s main source of revenue during the time he was in Lund was from the sale of the small pamphlets he wrote and had printed himself. There were many titles and probably no definitive list exists – it is likely that many titles were also invented by others and attributed to Torbjörnsson – but among those usually mentioned are
•The cult of Venus on the streets of Lund •The tumbling stumbling and fumbling drunkard or the humbled inn-keeper •The impudent kitchen-maid or a curse on the very notion of lye fish •The eternally vengeful minuetting distributive baton of justice to the ultimate dog-like delight of all the boar-pigs
It was even possible to subscribe to works he would sooner or later complete. Among these – perhaps unfinished – works, the following deserve a special mention
•The learned misers – or – the inveterate fox-like asses of miserliness and heartlessness in a perhaps abused discourse of erudition – piety – statesmanship – and finance –knitted together, if not patched together into the armour of a brave knight •The hack – or – a heart like a hyena, like an ostrich, like a scorpion, and a head like a smelt, like a pug, like a spruce shoot – or – like a false hallmark, a misleading hourglass, a treacherous set of grocer’s scales.
Or why not...
•Shut up, know your place!
Torbjörnsson appears for the last time in the student directories 17 years after his matriculation, in 1874, after which he left to seek his fortune outside the University town. He continued to take his pamphlets with him, but now expanded his sources of revenue by holding so-called “declamatory soirées”, in which he recited various texts aloud – often impressively long – from memory, followed by a lecture chosen freely by the audience, and a “public defence of a doctoral thesis” about one of the subjects.
At the start of his lecture tour in 1874, Torbjörnsson recited three works by Esaias Tegnér; “Speech at the jubilee party in 1817”, “Svea” and “Charles XII”, but towards the end, this “Sacri Ministerii Candidatus atque Liber Studiosus, Lundensis, Gothoburgensis, that is Candidate to the Sacred Ministry and Free Student, i.e. student, of the Gothenburg County Association at the Royal Carolingian University of Lund” had increased his repertoire to nine numbers, including “Bishop Agardh’s brilliantly witty and famous speech on Woman” and “The Marseillaise interpreted by Karl Vilhelm Strandberg”. How these lectures were received by the audience we do not know, but a farmer at a cattle market in Halland is alleged to have said, after hearing Torbjörnsson speak, that
“Torbjörnsson is going to be one hell of a good priest one day!”. Surely a student of theology could not hope for a better endorsement!
One could imagine that Erik August’s saga ended there, but true to his habit Torbjörnsson’s story contains some further surprising twists. Towards the end of his life, this eternal student indeed made a complete about-turn and became a salaried speaker at a Good Templars’ lodge in Gothenburg (and, one can therefore assume, a teetotaller!). How this transformation came about one would very much like to know, but the sources are silent on this particular matter. What we do know, however, is that Torbjörnsson was not silent even at the moment of his death; he died, as student nation genealogist Carl Sjöström put it, “in the waiting room of Gothenburg train station, on a Good Templars’ excursion, on 4 March 1886”.
This article would not really be complete without a photograph of Torbjörnsson, but the author is not in possession of one unfortunately, despite diligent searching. Nonetheless, the following illustrative description can replace a photograph to some extent. If nothing else, it provides a good picture of how this wonderful eternal student, book peddler, speaker and pamphletist appeared in the 1870s:
"An old, grey, slouchy storm over a bald pate; piercing eyes, behind glinting spectacles, which hang over a bright red nose; a cynical beard, thin lips, which are in constant motion and close with a sound not unlike that of a laundry paddle; large blue-striped wool scarf, twisted twice around the neck; wearing three overcoats, of which the outermost one is of grey velvet; equally thick around the waist; with two heavy leather bags, containing brochures, academic statutes and various foodstuffs; trousers of indeterminate colour, their bottoms stuck into a pair of seven-league boots: a cudgel in the right hand."
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