A single big damn sickness

“A single big damn sickness” is Lacke’s description of Blackeberg as a place he can no longer bear to inhabit. Spoken amid his distress over Virginia, the phrase turns private despair into a judgment on the buildings, paths, and people around him: the sickness seems to belong to the whole environment, though he cannot identify its source.

The Outburst and Its Referent

Lacke’s words erupt during a conversation with Gosta. After an awkward joke about a group discount, Lacke tries to explain that he is upset by what has happened with Virginia. He straightens suddenly, slams his hand on the table, and declares, “I don’t want to be here anymore!” Gosta initially takes this as a wish to leave his home, but Lacke clarifies that he means Blackeberg and everything in it. The phrase therefore extends beyond one room or one relationship: he wants to escape the entire setting of his life.

Planned Harmony, Felt Wrongness

Lacke imagines that Blackeberg was designed to be harmonious, with the buildings arranged according to carefully measured angles. In his account, some mistake in the measurements or triangulation made the whole plan subtly wrong from the beginning, and the error only worsened. Yet he immediately qualifies this explanation: the problem is not really the angles. It is something harder to locate, “like a disease that’s in the … walls.” The shift from faulty geometry to illness gives the expression its force. What first sounds like a defect in design becomes an almost bodily contamination embedded in the place itself, beyond his ability to explain or repair.

Aftermath and Significance

The outburst briefly alters the room. Gosta jumps, and a cat slips under an armchair; after Gosta pours him another drink, Lacke leans back and feels a warm calm settle over him. The immediate ease does not resolve his rejection of Blackeberg, which remains the emotional center of the speech. His expression compresses an inarticulate aversion into an image of communal and architectural sickness: the neighborhood appears orderly by design, yet to Lacke its spaces carry an underlying wrongness that makes him feel he should not be there.