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ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES
Translated by
H. P. Paull
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Soup from a Sausage Skewer
“Soup from a Sausage Skewer”
What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels
What the Second Mouse Had to Tell
What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to Tell
How It Was Prepared
“Soup from a Sausage Skewer”
WE had such an excellent dinner yesterday,” said an old mouse of
the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast.
“I sat number twenty-one below the mouse-king, which was not a
bad place. Shall I tell you what we had? Everything was first
rate. Mouldy bread, tallow candle, and sausage. And then, when
we had finished that course, the same came on all over again; it
was as good as two feasts. We were very sociable, and there was
as much joking and fun as if we had been all of one family
circle. Nothing was left but the sausage skewers, and this
formed a subject of conversation, till at last it turned to the
proverb, ‘Soup from sausage skins;’ or, as the people in the
neighboring country call it, ‘Soup from a sausage skewer.’ Every
one had heard the proverb, but no one had ever tasted the soup,
much less prepared it. A capital toast was drunk to the inventor
of the soup, and some one said he ought to be made a relieving
officer to the poor. Was not that witty? Then the old mouse-king
rose and promised that the young lady-mouse who should learn how
best to prepare this much-admired and savory soup should be his
queen, and a year and a day should be allowed for the purpose.”
“That was not at all a bad proposal,” said the other mouse;
“but how is the soup made?”
“Ah, that is more than I can tell you. All the young lady
mice were asking the same question. They wished very much to be
queen, but they did not want to take the trouble of going out
into the world to learn how to make soup, which was absolutely
necessary to be done first. But it is not every one who would
care to leave her family, or her happy corner by the fire-side
at home, even to be made queen. It is not always easy to find
bacon and cheese-rind in foreign lands every day, and it is not
pleasant to have to endure hunger, and be perhaps, after all,
eaten up alive by the cat.”
Most probably some such thoughts as these discouraged the
majority from going out into the world to collect the required
information. Only four mice gave notice that they were ready to
set out on the journey. They were young and lively, but poor.
Each of them wished to visit one of the four divisions of the
world, so that it might be seen which was the most favored by
fortune. Every one took a sausage skewer as a traveller’s staff,
and to remind them of the object of their journey. They left
home early in May, and none of them returned till the first of
May in the following year, and then only three of them. Nothing
was seen or heard of the fourth, although the day of decision
was close at hand. “Ah, yes, there is always some trouble mixed
up with the greatest pleasure,” said the mouse-king; but he gave
orders that all the mice within a circle of many miles should be
invited at once. They were to assemble in the kitchen, and the
three travelled mice were to stand in a row before them, while a
sausage skewer, covered with crape, was to be stuck up instead
of the missing mouse. No one dared to express an opinion until
the king spoke, and desired one of them to go on with her story.
And now we shall hear what she said.
What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels
HEN I first went out into the world,” said the little mouse, “I
fancied, as so many of my age do, that I already knew
everything, but it was not so. It takes years to acquire great
knowledge. I went at once to sea in a ship bound for the north.
I had been told that the ship’s cook must know how to prepare
every dish at sea, and it is easy enough to do that with plenty
of sides of bacon, and large tubs of salt meat and mouldy flour.
There I found plenty of delicate food, but no opportunity for
learning how to make soup from a sausage skewer. We sailed on
for many days and nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and we did
not escape without a wetting. As soon as we arrived at the port
to which the ship was bound, I left it, and went on shore at a
place far towards the north. It is a wonderful thing to leave
your own little corner at home, to hide yourself in a ship where
there are sure to be some nice snug corners for shelter, then
suddenly to find yourself thousands of miles away in a foreign
land. I saw large pathless forests of pine and birch trees,
which smelt so strong that I sneezed and thought of sausage.
There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a
distance, but were quite clear when I came close to them. Large
swans were floating upon them, and I thought at first they were
only foam, they lay so still; but when I saw them walk and fly,
I knew what they were directly. They belong to the goose
species, one can see that by their walk. No one can attempt to
disguise family descent. I kept with my own kind, and associated
with the forest and field mice, who, however, knew very little,
especially about what I wanted to know, and which had actually
made me travel abroad. The idea that soup could be made from a
sausage skewer was to them such an out-of-the-way, unlikely
thought, that it was repeated from one to another through the
whole forest. They declared that the problem would never be
solved, that the thing was an impossibility. How little I
thought that in this place, on the very first night, I should be
initiated into the manner of its preparation.
“It was the height of summer, which the mice told me was the
reason that the forest smelt so strong, and that the herbs were
so fragrant, and the lakes with the white swimming swans so
dark, and yet so clear. On the margin of the wood, near to three
or four houses, a pole, as large as the mainmast of a ship, had
been erected, and from the summit hung wreaths of flowers and
fluttering ribbons; it was the Maypole. Lads and lasses danced
round the pole, and tried to outdo the violins of the musicians
with their singing. They were as merry as ever at sunset and in
the moonlight, but I took no part in the merry-making. What has
a little mouse to do with a Maypole dance? I sat in the soft
moss, and held my sausage skewer tight. The moon threw its beams
particularly on one spot where stood a tree covered with
exceedingly fine moss. I may almost venture to say that it was
as fine and soft as the fur of the mouse-king, but it was green,
which is a color very agreeable to the eye. All at once I saw
the most charming little people marching towards me. They did
not reach higher than my knee; they looked like human beings,
but were better proportioned, and they called themselves elves.
Their clothes were very delicate and fine, for they were made of
the leaves of flowers, trimmed with the wings of flies and
gnats, which had not a bad effect. By their manner, it appeared
as if they were seeking for something. I knew not what, till at
last one of them espied me and came towards me, and the foremost
pointed to my sausage skewer, and said, ‘There, that is just
what we want; see, it is pointed at the top; is it not capital?’
and the longer he looked at my pilgrim’s staff, the more
delighted he became. ‘I will lend it to you,’ said I, ‘but not
to keep.’
“‘Oh no, we won’t keep it!’ they all cried; and then they
seized the skewer, which I gave up to them, and danced with it
to the spot where the delicate moss grew, and set it up in the
middle of the green. They wanted a maypole, and the one they now
had seemed cut out on purpose for them. Then they decorated it
so beautifully that it was quite dazzling to look at. Little
spiders spun golden threads around it, and then it was hung with
fluttering veils and flags so delicately white that they
glittered like snow in the moonshine. After that they took
colors from the butterfly’s wing, and sprinkled them over the
white drapery which gleamed as if covered with flowers and
diamonds, so that I could not recognize my sausage skewer at
all. Such a maypole had never been seen in all the world as
this. Then came a great company of real elves. Nothing could be
finer than their clothes, and they invited me to be present at
the feast; but I was to keep at a certain distance, because I
was too large for them. Then commenced such music that it
sounded like a thousand glass bells, and was so full and strong
that I thought it must be the song of the swans. I fancied also
that I heard the voices of the cuckoo and the black-bird, and it
seemed at last as if the whole forest sent forth glorious
melodies—the voices of children, the tinkling of bells, and the
songs of the birds; and all this wonderful melody came from the
elfin maypole. My sausage peg was a complete peal of bells. I
could scarcely believe that so much could have been produced
from it, till I remembered into what hands it had fallen. I was
so much affected that I wept tears such as a little mouse can
weep, but they were tears of joy. The night was far too short
for me; there are no long nights there in summer, as we often
have in this part of the world. When the morning dawned, and the
gentle breeze rippled the glassy mirror of the forest lake, all
the delicate veils and flags fluttered away into thin air; the
waving garlands of the spider’s web, the hanging bridges and
galleries, or whatever else they may be called, vanished away as
if they had never been. Six elves brought me back my sausage
skewer, and at the same time asked me to make any request, which
they would grant if in their power; so I begged them, if they
could, to tell me how to make soup from a sausage skewer.
“‘How do we make it?’ said the chief of the elves with a
smile. ‘Why you have just seen it; you scarcely knew your
sausage skewer again, I am sure.’
“They think themselves very wise, thought I to myself. Then I
told them all about it, and why I had travelled so far, and also
what promise had been made at home to the one who should
discover the method of preparing this soup. ‘What use will it
be,’ I asked, ‘to the mouse-king or to our whole mighty kingdom
that I have seen all these beautiful things? I cannot shake the
sausage peg and say, Look, here is the skewer, and now the soup
will come. That would only produce a dish to be served when
people were keeping a fast.’
“Then the elf dipped his finger into the cup of a violet, and
said to me, ‘Look here, I will anoint your pilgrim’s staff, so
that when you return to your own home and enter the king’s
castle, you have only to touch the king with your staff, and
violets will spring forth and cover the whole of it, even in the
coldest winter time; so I think I have given you really
something to carry home, and a little more than something.’”
But before the little mouse explained what this something
more was, she stretched her staff out to the king, and as it
touched him the most beautiful bunch of violets sprang forth and
filled the place with perfume. The smell was so powerful that
the mouse-king ordered the mice who stood nearest the chimney to
thrust their tails into the fire, that there might be a smell of
burning, for the perfume of the violets was overpowering, and
not the sort of scent that every one liked.
“But what was the something more of which you spoke just
now?” asked the mouse-king.
“Why,” answered the little mouse, “I think it is what they
call ‘effect;’” and thereupon she turned the staff round, and
behold not a single flower was to be seen upon it! She now only
held the naked skewer, and lifted it up as a conductor lifts his
baton at a concert. “Violets, the elf told me,” continued the
mouse, “are for the sight, the smell, and the touch; so we have
only now to produce the effect of hearing and tasting;” and
then, as the little mouse beat time with her staff, there came
sounds of music, not such music as was heard in the forest, at
the elfin feast, but such as is often heard in the kitchen—the
sounds of boiling and roasting. It came quite suddenly, like
wind rushing through the chimneys, and seemed as if every pot
and kettle were boiling over. The fire-shovel clattered down on
the brass fender; and then, quite as suddenly, all was
still,—nothing could be heard but the light, vapory song of the
tea-kettle, which was quite wonderful to hear, for no one could
rightly distinguish whether the kettle was just beginning to
boil or going to stop. And the little pot steamed, and the great
pot simmered, but without any regard for each; indeed there
seemed no sense in the pots at all. And as the little mouse
waved her baton still more wildly, the pots foamed and threw up
bubbles, and boiled over; while again the wind roared and
whistled through the chimney, and at last there was such a
terrible hubbub, that the little mouse let her stick fall.
“That is a strange sort of soup,” said the mouse-king; “shall
we not now hear about the preparation?”
“That is all,” answered the little mouse, with a bow.
“That all!” said the mouse-king; “then we shall be glad to
hear what information the next may have to give us.”
What the Second Mouse Had to Tell
WAS born in the library, at a castle,” said the second mouse.
“Very few members of our family ever had the good fortune to get
into the dining-room, much less the store-room. On my journey,
and here to-day, are the only times I have ever seen a kitchen.
We were often obliged to suffer hunger in the library, but then
we gained a great deal of knowledge. The rumor reached us of the
royal prize offered to those who should be able to make soup
from a sausage skewer. Then my old grandmother sought out a
manuscript which, however, she could not read, but had heard it
read, and in it was written, ‘Those who are poets can make soup
of sausage skewers.’ She then asked me if I was a poet. I felt
myself quite innocent of any such pretensions. Then she said I
must go out and make myself a poet. I asked again what I should
be required to do, for it seemed to me quite as difficult as to
find out how to make soup of a sausage skewer. My grandmother
had heard a great deal of reading in her day, and she told me
three principal qualifications were necessary—understanding,
imagination, and feeling. ‘If you can manage to acquire these
three, you will be a poet, and the sausage-skewer soup will be
quite easy to you.’
“So I went forth into the world, and turned my steps towards
the west, that I might become a poet. Understanding is the most
important matter in everything. I knew that, for the two other
qualifications are not thought much of; so I went first to seek
for understanding. Where was I to find it? ‘Go to the ant and
learn wisdom,’ said the great Jewish king. I knew that from
living in a library. So I went straight on till I came to the
first great ant-hill, and then I set myself to watch, that I
might become wise. The ants are a very respectable people, they
are wisdom itself. All they do is like the working of a sum in
arithmetic, which comes right. ‘To work and to lay eggs,’ say
they, ‘and to provide for posterity, is to live out your time
properly;’ and that they truly do. They are divided into the
clean and the dirty ants, their rank is pointed out by a number,
and the ant-queen is number ONE; and her opinion is the only
correct one on everything; she seems to have the whole wisdom of
the world in her, which was just the important matter I wished
to acquire. She said a great deal which was no doubt very
clever; yet to me it sounded like nonsense. She said the
ant-hill was the loftiest thing in the world, and yet close to
the mound stood a tall tree, which no one could deny was
loftier, much loftier, but no mention was made of the tree. One
evening an ant lost herself on this tree; she had crept up the
stem, not nearly to the top, but higher than any ant had ever
ventured; and when at last she returned home she said that she
had found something in her travels much higher than the
ant-hill. The rest of the ants considered this an insult to the
whole community; so she was condemned to wear a muzzle and to
live in perpetual solitude. A short time afterwards another ant
got on the tree, and made the same journey and the same
discovery, but she spoke of it cautiously and indefinitely, and
as she was one of the superior ants and very much respected,
they believed her, and when she died they erected an eggshell as
a monument to her memory, for they cultivated a great respect
for science. I saw,” said the little mouse, “that the ants were
always running to and fro with her burdens on their backs. Once
I saw one of them drop her load; she gave herself a great deal
of trouble in trying to raise it again, but she could not
succeed. Then two others came up and tried with all their
strength to help her, till they nearly dropped their own burdens
in doing so; then they were obliged to stop for a moment in
their help, for every one must think of himself first. And the
ant-queen remarked that their conduct that day showed that they
possessed kind hearts and good understanding. ‘These two
qualities,’ she continued, ‘place us ants in the highest degree
above all other reasonable beings. Understanding must therefore
be seen among us in the most prominent manner, and my wisdom is
greater than all.’ And so saying she raised herself on her two
hind legs, that no one else might be mistaken for her. I could
not therefore make an error, so I ate her up. We are to go to
the ants to learn wisdom, and I had got the queen.
“I now turned and went nearer to the lofty tree already
mentioned, which was an oak. It had a tall trunk with a
wide-spreading top, and was very old. I knew that a living being
dwelt here, a dryad as she is called, who is born with the tree
and dies with it. I had heard this in the library, and here was
just such a tree, and in it an oak-maiden. She uttered a
terrible scream when she caught sight of me so near to her; like
many women, she was very much afraid of mice. And she had more
real cause for fear than they have, for I might have gnawed
through the tree on which her life depended. I spoke to her in a
kind and friendly manner, and begged her to take courage. At
last she took me up in her delicate hand, and then I told her
what had brought me out into the world, and she promised me that
perhaps on that very evening she should be able to obtain for me
one of the two treasures for which I was seeking. She told me
that Phantaesus was her very dear friend, that he was as
beautiful as the god of love, that he remained often for many
hours with her under the leafy boughs of the tree which then
rustled and waved more than ever over them both. He called her
his dryad, she said, and the tree his tree; for the grand old
oak, with its gnarled trunk, was just to his taste. The root,
spreading deep into the earth, the top rising high in the fresh
air, knew the value of the drifted snow, the keen wind, and the
warm sunshine, as it ought to be known. ‘Yes,’ continued the
dryad, ‘the birds sing up above in the branches, and talk to
each other about the beautiful fields they have visited in
foreign lands; and on one of the withered boughs a stork has
built his nest,—it is beautifully arranged, and besides it is
pleasant to hear a little about the land of the pyramids. All
this pleases Phantaesus, but it is not enough for him; I am
obliged to relate to him of my life in the woods; and to go back
to my childhood, when I was little, and the tree so small and
delicate that a stinging-nettle could overshadow it, and I have
to tell everything that has happened since then till now that
the tree is so large and strong. Sit you down now under the
green bindwood and pay attention, when Phantaesus comes I will
find an opportunity to lay hold of his wing and to pull out one
of the little feathers. That feather you shall have; a better
was never given to any poet, it will be quite enough for you.’
“And when Phantaesus came the feather was plucked, and,” said
the little mouse, “I seized and put it in water, and kept it
there till it was quite soft. It was very heavy and
indigestible, but I managed to nibble it up at last. It is not
so easy to nibble one’s self into a poet, there are so many
things to get through. Now, however, I had two of them,
understanding and imagination; and through these I knew that the
third was to be found in the library. A great man has said and
written that there are novels whose sole and only use appeared
to be that they might relieve mankind of overflowing tears—a
kind of sponge, in fact, for sucking up feelings and emotions. I
remembered a few of these books, they had always appeared
tempting to the appetite; they had been much read, and were so
greasy, that they must have absorbed no end of emotions in
themselves. I retraced my steps to the library, and literally
devoured a whole novel, that is, properly speaking, the interior
or soft part of it; the crust, or binding, I left. When I had
digested not only this, but a second, I felt a stirring within
me; then I ate a small piece of a third romance, and felt myself
a poet. I said it to myself, and told others the same. I had
head-ache and back-ache, and I cannot tell what aches besides. I
thought over all the stories that may be said to be connected
with sausage pegs, and all that has ever been written about
skewers, and sticks, and staves, and splinters came to my
thoughts; the ant-queen must have had a wonderfully clear
understanding. I remembered the man who placed a white stick in
his mouth by which he could make himself and the stick
invisible. I thought of sticks as hobby-horses, staves of music
or rhyme, of breaking a stick over a man’s back, and heaven
knows how many more phrases of the same sort relating to sticks,
staves, and skewers. All my thoughts rein on skewers, sticks of
wood, and staves; and as I am, at last, a poet, and I have
worked terribly hard to make myself one, I can of course make
poetry on anything. I shall therefore be able to wait upon you
every day in the week with a poetical history of a skewer. And
that is my soup.”
“In that case,” said the mouse-king, “we will hear what the
third mouse has to say.”
“Squeak, squeak,” cried a little mouse at the kitchen door;
it was the fourth, and not the third, of the four who were
contending for the prize, one whom the rest supposed to be dead.
She shot in like an arrow, and overturned the sausage peg that
had been covered with crape. She had been running day and night.
She had watched an opportunity to get into a goods train, and
had travelled by the railway; and yet she had arrived almost too
late. She pressed forward, looking very much ruffled. She had
lost her sausage skewer, but not her voice; for she began to
speak at once as if they only waited for her, and would hear her
only, and as if nothing else in the world was of the least
consequence. She spoke out so clearly and plainly, and she had
come in so suddenly, that no one had time to stop her or to say
a word while she was speaking. And now let us hear what she
said.
What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to
Tell
STARTED off at once to the largest town,” said she, “but the
name of it has escaped me. I have a very bad memory for names. I
was carried from the railway, with some forfeited goods, to the
jail, and on arriving I made my escape, and ran into the house
of the turnkey. The turnkey was speaking of his prisoners,
especially of one who had uttered thoughtless words. These words
had given rise to other words, and at length they were written
down and registered: ‘The whole affair is like making soup of
sausage skewers,’ said he, ‘but the soup may cost him his neck.’
“Now this raised in me an interest for the prisoner,”
continued the little mouse, “and I watched my opportunity, and
slipped into his apartment, for there is a mouse-hole to be
found behind every closed door. The prisoner looked pale; he had
a great beard and large, sparkling eyes. There was a lamp
burning, but the walls were so black that they only looked the
blacker for it. The prisoner scratched pictures and verses with
white chalk on the black walls, but I did not read the verses. I
think he found his confinement wearisome, so that I was a
welcome guest. He enticed me with bread-crumbs, with whistling,
and with gentle words, and seemed so friendly towards me, that
by degrees I gained confidence in him, and we became friends; he
divided his bread and water with me, gave me cheese and sausage,
and I really began to love him. Altogether, I must own that it
was a very pleasant intimacy. He let me run about on his hand,
and on his arm, and into his sleeve; and I even crept into his
beard, and he called me his little friend. I forgot what I had
come out into the world for; forgot my sausage skewer which I
had laid in a crack in the floor—it is lying there still. I
wished to stay with him always where I was, for I knew that if I
went away the poor prisoner would have no one to be his friend,
which is a sad thing. I stayed, but he did not. He spoke to me
so mournfully for the last time, gave me double as much bread
and cheese as usual, and kissed his hand to me. Then he went
away, and never came back. I know nothing more of his history.
“The jailer took possession of me now. He said something
about soup from a sausage skewer, but I could not trust him. He
took me in his hand certainly, but it was to place me in a cage
like a tread-mill. Oh how dreadful it was! I had to run round
and round without getting any farther in advance, and only to
make everybody laugh. The jailer’s grand-daughter was a charming
little thing. She had curly hair like the brightest gold, merry
eyes, and such a smiling mouth.
“‘You poor little mouse,’ said she, one day as she peeped
into my cage, ‘I will set you free.’ She then drew forth the
iron fastening, and I sprang out on the window-sill, and from
thence to the roof. Free! free! that was all I could think of;
not of the object of my journey. It grew dark, and as night was
coming on I found a lodging in an old tower, where dwelt a
watchman and an owl. I had no confidence in either of them,
least of all in the owl, which is like a cat, and has a great
failing, for she eats mice. One may however be mistaken
sometimes; and so was I, for this was a respectable and
well-educated old owl, who knew more than the watchman, and even
as much as I did myself. The young owls made a great fuss about
everything, but the only rough words she would say to them were,
‘You had better go and make some soup from sausage skewers.’ She
was very indulgent and loving to her children. Her conduct gave
me such confidence in her, that from the crack where I sat I
called out ‘squeak.’ This confidence of mine pleased her so much
that she assured me she would take me under her own protection,
and that not a creature should do me harm. The fact was, she
wickedly meant to keep me in reserve for her own eating in
winter, when food would be scarce. Yet she was a very clever
lady-owl; she explained to me that the watchman could only hoot
with the horn that hung loose at his side; and then she said he
is so terribly proud of it, that he imagines himself an owl in
the tower;—wants to do great things, but only succeeds in small;
all soup on a sausage skewer. Then I begged the owl to give me
the recipe for this soup. ‘Soup from a sausage skewer,’ said
she, ‘is only a proverb amongst mankind, and may be understood
in many ways. Each believes his own way the best, and after all,
the proverb signifies nothing.’ ‘Nothing!’ I exclaimed. I was
quite struck. Truth is not always agreeable, but truth is above
everything else, as the old owl said. I thought over all this,
and saw quite plainly that if truth was really so far above
everything else, it must be much more valuable than soup from a
sausage skewer. So I hastened to get away, that I might be home
in time, and bring what was highest and best, and above
everything—namely, the truth. The mice are an enlightened
people, and the mouse-king is above them all. He is therefore
capable of making me queen for the sake of truth.”
“Your truth is a falsehood,” said the mouse who had not yet
spoken; “I can prepare the soup, and I mean to do so.”
How It Was Prepared
DID not travel,” said the third mouse; “I stayed in this
country: that was the right way. One gains nothing by
travelling—everything can be acquired here quite as easily; so I
stayed at home. I have not obtained what I know from
supernatural beings. I have neither swallowed it, nor learnt it
from conversing with owls. I have got it all from my reflections
and thoughts. Will you now set the kettle on the fire—so? Now
pour the water in—quite full—up to the brim; place it on the
fire; make up a good blaze; keep it burning, that the water may
boil; it must boil over and over. There, now I throw in the
skewer. Will the mouse-king be pleased now to dip his tail into
the boiling water, and stir it round with the tail. The longer
the king stirs it, the stronger the soup will become. Nothing
more is necessary, only to stir it.”
“Can no one else do this?” asked the king.
“No,” said the mouse; “only in the tail of the mouse-king is
this power contained.”
And the water boiled and bubbled, as the mouse-king stood
close beside the kettle. It seemed rather a dangerous
performance; but he turned round, and put out his tail, as mice
do in a dairy, when they wish to skim the cream from a pan of
milk with their tails and afterwards lick it off. But the
mouse-king’s tail had only just touched the hot steam, when he
sprang away from the chimney in a great hurry, exclaiming, “Oh,
certainly, by all means, you must be my queen; and we will let
the soup question rest till our golden wedding, fifty years
hence; so that the poor in my kingdom, who are then to have
plenty of food, will have something to look forward to for a
long time, with great joy.”
And very soon the wedding took place. But many of the mice,
as they were returning home, said that the soup could not be
properly called “soup from a sausage skewer,” but “soup from a
mouse’s tail.” They acknowledged also that some of the stories
were very well told; but that the whole could have been managed
differently. “I should have told it so—and so—and so.” These
were the critics who are always so clever afterwards.
When this story was circulated all over the world, the
opinions upon it were divided; but the story remained the same.
And, after all, the best way in everything you undertake, great
as well as small, is to expect no thanks for anything you may
do, even when it refers to “soup from a sausage skewer.”
|
The Old Bachelor’s Nightcap
THERE is a street in Copenhagen with a very strange name. It is
called “Hysken” street. Where the name came from, and what it
means is very uncertain. It is said to be German, but that is
unjust to the Germans, for it would then be called “Hauschen,”
not “Hysken.” “Hauschen,” means a little house; and for many
years it consisted only of a few small houses, which were
scarcely larger than the wooden booths we see in the
market-places at fair time. They were perhaps a little higher,
and had windows; but the panes consisted of horn or
bladder-skins, for glass was then too dear to have glazed
windows in every house. This was a long time ago, so long indeed
that our grandfathers, and even great-grandfathers, would speak
of those days as “olden times;” indeed, many centuries have
passed since then.
The rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck, who carried on trade
in Copenhagen, did not reside in the town themselves, but sent
their clerks, who dwelt in the wooden booths in the Hauschen
street, and sold beer and spices. The German beer was very good,
and there were many sorts—from Bremen, Prussia, and
Brunswick—and quantities of all sorts of spices, saffron,
aniseed, ginger, and especially pepper; indeed, pepper was
almost the chief article sold here; so it happened at last that
the German clerks in Denmark got their nickname of “pepper
gentry.” It had been made a condition with these clerks that
they should not marry; so that those who lived to be old had to
take care of themselves, to attend to their own comforts, and
even to light their own fires, when they had any to light. Many
of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with strange thoughts
and eccentric habits. From this, all unmarried men, who have
attained a certain age, are called, in Denmark, “pepper gentry;”
and this must be remembered by all those who wish to understand
the story. These “pepper gentlemen,” or, as they are called in
England, “old bachelors,” are often made a butt of ridicule;
they are told to put on their nightcaps, draw them over their
eyes, and go to sleep. The boys in Denmark make a song of it,
thus:—
“Poor old bachelor, cut your wood,
Such a nightcap was never seen;
Who would think it was ever clean?
Go to sleep, it will do you good.”
So they sing about the “pepper gentleman;” so do they make sport
of the poor old bachelor and his nightcap, and all because they
really know nothing of either. It is a cap that no one need wish
for, or laugh at. And why not? Well, we shall hear in the story.
In olden times, Hauschen Street was not paved, and passengers
would stumble out of one hole into another, as they generally do
in unfrequented highways; and the street was so narrow, and the
booths leaning against each other were so close together, that
in the summer time a sail would be stretched across the street
from one booth to another opposite. At these times the odor of
the pepper, saffron, and ginger became more powerful than ever.
Behind the counter, as a rule, there were no young men. The
clerks were almost all old boys; but they did not dress as we
are accustomed to see old men represented, wearing wigs,
nightcaps, and knee-breeches, and with coat and waistcoat
buttoned up to the chin. We have seen the portraits of our
great-grandfathers dressed in this way; but the “pepper
gentlemen” had no money to spare to have their portraits taken,
though one of them would have made a very interesting picture
for us now, if taken as he appeared standing behind his counter,
or going to church, or on holidays. On these occasions, they
wore high-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, and sometimes a younger
clerk would stick a feather in his. The woollen shirt was
concealed by a broad, linen collar; the close jacket was
buttoned up to the chin, and the cloak hung loosely over it; the
trousers were tucked into the broad, tipped shoes, for the
clerks wore no stockings. They generally stuck a table-knife and
spoon in their girdles, as well as a larger knife, as a
protection to themselves; and such a weapon was often very
necessary.
After this fashion was Anthony dressed on holidays and
festivals, excepting that, instead of a high-crowned hat, he
wore a kind of bonnet, and under it a knitted cap, a regular
nightcap, to which he was so accustomed that it was always on
his head; he had two, nightcaps I mean, not heads. Anthony was
one of the oldest of the clerks, and just the subject for a
painter. He was as thin as a lath, wrinkled round the mouth and
eyes, had long, bony fingers, bushy, gray eyebrows, and over his
left eye hung a thick tuft of hair, which did not look handsome,
but made his appearance very remarkable. People knew that he
came from Bremen; it was not exactly his home, although his
master resided there. His ancestors were from Thuringia, and had
lived in the town of Eisenach, close by Wartburg. Old Anthony
seldom spoke of this place, but he thought of it all the more.
The old clerks of Hauschen Street very seldom met together;
each one remained in his own booth, which was closed early
enough in the evening, and then it looked dark and dismal out in
the street. Only a faint glimmer of light struggled through the
horn panes in the little window on the roof, while within sat
the old clerk, generally on his bed, singing his evening hymn in
a low voice; or he would be moving about in his booth till late
in the night, busily employed in many things. It certainly was
not a very lively existence. To be a stranger in a strange land
is a bitter lot; no one notices you unless you happen to stand
in their way. Often, when it was dark night outside, with rain
or snow falling, the place looked quite deserted and gloomy.
There were no lamps in the street, excepting a very small one,
which hung at one end of the street, before a picture of the
Virgin, which had been painted on the wall. The dashing of the
water against the bulwarks of a neighboring castle could plainly
be heard. Such evenings are long and dreary, unless people can
find something to do; and so Anthony found it. There were not
always things to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bags to be
made, nor the scales to be polished. So Anthony invented
employment; he mended his clothes and patched his boots, and
when he at last went to bed,—his nightcap, which he had worn
from habit, still remained on his head; he had only to pull it
down a little farther over his forehead. Very soon, however, it
would be pushed up again to see if the light was properly put
out; he would touch it, press the wick together, and at last
pull his nightcap over his eyes and lie down again on the other
side. But often there would arise in his mind a doubt as to
whether every coal had been quite put out in the little fire-pan
in the shop below. If even a tiny spark had remained it might
set fire to something, and cause great damage. Then he would
rise from his bed, creep down the ladder—for it could scarcely
be called a flight of stairs—and when he reached the fire-pan
not a spark could be seen; so he had just to go back again to
bed. But often, when he had got half way back, he would fancy
the iron shutters of the door were not properly fastened, and
his thin legs would carry him down again. And when at last he
crept into bed, he would be so cold that his teeth chattered in
his head. He would draw the coverlet closer round him, pull his
nightcap over his eyes, and try to turn his thoughts from trade,
and from the labors of the day, to olden times. But this was
scarcely an agreeable entertainment; for thoughts of olden
memories raise the curtains from the past, and sometimes pierce
the heart with painful recollections till the agony brings tears
to the waking eyes. And so it was with Anthony; often the
scalding tears, like pearly drops, would fall from his eyes to
the coverlet and roll on the floor with a sound as if one of his
heartstrings had broken. Sometimes, with a lurid flame, memory
would light up a picture of life which had never faded from his
heart. If he dried his eyes with his nightcap, then the tear and
the picture would be crushed; but the source of the tears
remained and welled up again in his heart. The pictures did not
follow one another in order, as the circumstances they
represented had occurred; very often the most painful would come
together, and when those came which were most full of joy, they
had always the deepest shadow thrown upon them.
The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged by every one to
be very beautiful, but more beautiful still in the eyes of old
Anthony were the beech woods in the neighborhood of Wartburg.
More grand and venerable to him seemed the old oaks around the
proud baronial castle, where the creeping plants hung over the
stony summits of the rocks; sweeter was the perfume there of the
apple-blossom than in all the land of Denmark. How vividly were
represented to him, in a glittering tear that rolled down his
cheek, two children at play—a boy and a girl. The boy had rosy
cheeks, golden ringlets, and clear, blue eyes; he was the son of
Anthony, a rich merchant; it was himself. The little girl had
brown eyes and black hair, and was clever and courageous; she
was the mayor’s daughter, Molly. The children were playing with
an apple; they shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in
it. Then they cut it in two, and each of them took half. They
also divided the pips and ate all but one, which the little girl
proposed should be placed in the ground.
“You will see what will come out,” she said; “something you
don’t expect. A whole apple-tree will come out, but not
directly.” Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and
were soon both very busy and eager about it. The boy made a hole
in the earth with his finger, and the little girl placed the pip
in the hole, and then they both covered it over with earth.
“Now you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has
taken root,” said Molly; “no one ever should do that. I did so
with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were
growing. I didn’t know any better then, and the flowers all
died.”
Little Anthony kept the flower-pot, and every morning during
the whole winter he looked at it, but there was nothing to be
seen but black earth. At last, however, the spring came, and the
sun shone warm again, and then two little green leaves sprouted
forth in the pot.
“They are Molly and me,” said the boy. “How wonderful they
are, and so beautiful!”
Very soon a third leaf made its appearance.
“Who does that stand for?” thought he, and then came another
and another. Day after day, and week after week, till the plant
became quite a tree. And all this about the two children was
mirrored to old Anthony in a single tear, which could soon be
wiped away and disappear, but might come again from its source
in the heart of the old man.
In the neighborhood of Eisenach stretches a ridge of stony
mountains, one of which has a rounded outline, and shows itself
above the rest without tree, bush, or grass on its barren
summits. It is called the “Venus Mountain,” and the story goes
that the “Lady Venus,” one of the heathen goddesses, keeps house
there. She is also called “Lady Halle,” as every child round
Eisenach well knows. She it was who enticed the noble knight,
Tannhauser, the minstrel, from the circle of singers at Wartburg
into her mountain.
Little Molly and Anthony often stood by this mountain, and
one day Molly said, “Do you dare to knock and say, ‘Lady Halle,
Lady Halle, open the door: Tannhauser is here!’” But Anthony did
not dare. Molly, however, did, though she only said the words,
“Lady Halle, Lady Halle,” loudly and distinctly; the rest she
muttered so much under her breath that Anthony felt certain she
had really said nothing; and yet she looked quite bold and
saucy, just as she did sometimes when she was in the garden with
a number of other little girls; they would all stand round him
together, and want to kiss him, because he did not like to be
kissed, and pushed them away. Then Molly was the only one who
dared to resist him. “I may kiss him,” she would say proudly, as
she threw her arms round his neck; she was vain of her power
over Anthony, for he would submit quietly and think nothing of
it. Molly was very charming, but rather bold; and how she did
tease!
They said Lady Halle was beautiful, but her beauty was that
of a tempting fiend. Saint Elizabeth, the tutelar saint of the
land, the pious princess of Thuringia, whose good deeds have
been immortalized in so many places through stories and legends,
had greater beauty and more real grace. Her picture hung in the
chapel, surrounded by silver lamps; but it did not in the least
resemble Molly.
The apple-tree, which the two children had planted, grew year
after year, till it became so large that it had to be
transplanted into the garden, where the dew fell and the sun
shone warmly. And there it increased in strength so much as to
be able to withstand the cold of winter; and after passing
through the severe weather, it seemed to put forth its blossoms
in spring for very joy that the cold season had gone. In autumn
it produced two apples, one for Molly and one for Anthony; it
could not well do less. The tree after this grew very rapidly,
and Molly grew with the tree. She was as fresh as an
apple-blossom, but Anthony was not to behold this flower for
long. All things change; Molly’s father left his old home, and
Molly went with him far away. In our time, it would be only a
journey of a few hours, but then it took more than a day and a
night to travel so far eastward from Eisenbach to a town still
called Weimar, on the borders of Thuringia. And Molly and
Anthony both wept, but these tears all flowed together into one
tear which had the rosy shimmer of joy. Molly had told him that
she loved him—loved him more than all the splendors of Weimar.
One, two, three years went by, and during the whole time he
received only two letters. One came by the carrier, and the
other a traveller brought. The way was very long and difficult,
with many turnings and windings through towns and villages. How
often had Anthony and Molly heard the story of Tristan and
Isolda, and Anthony had thought the story applied to him,
although Tristan means born in sorrow, which Anthony certainly
was not; nor was it likely he would ever say of Molly as Tristan
said of Isolda, “She has forgotten me.” But in truth, Isolda had
not forgotten him, her faithful friend; and when both were laid
in their graves, one, on each side of the church, the
linden-trees that grew by each grave spread over the roof, and,
bending towards each other, mingled their blossoms together.
Anthony thought it a very beautiful but mournful story; yet he
never feared anything so sad would happen to him and Molly, as
he passed the spot, whistling the air of a song, composed by the
minstrel Walter, called the “Willow bird,” beginning—
“Under the linden-trees,
Out on the heath.”
One stanza pleased him exceedingly—
“Through the forest, and in the vale,
Sweetly warbles the nightingale.
This song was often in his mouth, and he sung or whistled it on
a moonlight night, when he rode on horseback along the deep,
hollow way, on his road to Weimar, to visit Molly. He wished to
arrive unexpectedly, and so indeed he did. He was received with
a hearty welcome, and introduced to plenty of grand and pleasant
company, where overflowing winecups were passed about. A pretty
room and a good bed were provided for him, and yet his reception
was not what he had expected and dreamed it would be. He could
not comprehend his own feelings nor the feelings of others; but
it is easily understood how a person can be admitted into a
house or a family without becoming one of them. We converse in
company with those we meet, as we converse with our
fellow-travellers in a stage-coach, on a journey; we know
nothing of them, and perhaps all the while we are incommoding
one another, and each is wishing himself or his neighbor away.
Something of this kind Anthony felt when Molly talked to him of
old times.
“I am a straightforward girl,” she said, “and I will tell you
myself how it is. There have been great changes since we were
children together; everything is different, both inwardly and
outwardly. We cannot control our wills, nor the feelings of our
hearts, by the force of custom. Anthony, I would not, for the
world, make an enemy of you when I am far away. Believe me, I
entertain for you the kindest wishes in my heart; but to feel
for you what I now know can be felt for another man, can never
be. You must try and reconcile yourself to this. Farewell,
Anthony.”
Anthony also said, “Farewell.” Not a tear came into his eye;
he felt he was no longer Molly’s friend. Hot iron and cold iron
alike take the skin from our lips, and we feel the same
sensation if we kiss either; and Anthony’s kiss was now the kiss
of hatred, as it had once been the kiss of love. Within
four-and-twenty hours Anthony was back again to Eisenach, though
the horse that he rode was entirely ruined.
“What matters it?” said he; “I am ruined also. I will destroy
everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady Halle, or Lady
Venus, the heathen woman. I will break down the apple-tree, and
tear it up by the roots; never more shall it blossom or bear
fruit.”
The apple-tree was not broken down; for Anthony himself was
struck with a fever, which caused him to break down, and
confined him to his bed. But something occurred to raise him up
again. What was it? A medicine was offered to him, which he was
obliged to take: a bitter remedy, at which the sick body and the
oppressed spirit alike shuddered. Anthony’s father lost all his
property, and, from being known as one of the richest merchants,
he became very poor. Dark days, heavy trials, with poverty at
the door, came rolling into the house upon them like the waves
of the sea. Sorrow and suffering deprived Anthony’s father of
his strength, so that he had something else to think of besides
nursing his love-sorrows and his anger against Molly. He had to
take his father’s place, to give orders, to act with energy, to
help, and, at last, to go out into the world and earn his bread.
Anthony went to Bremen, and there he learnt what poverty and
hard living really were. These things often harden the
character, but sometimes soften the heart, even too much.
How different the world, and the people in it, appeared to
Anthony now, to what he had thought in his childhood! What to
him were the minstrel’s songs? An echo of the past, sounds long
vanished. At times he would think in this way; yet again and
again the songs would sound in his soul, and his heart become
gentle and pious.
“God’s will is the best,” he would then say. “It was well
that I was not allowed to keep my power over Molly’s heart, and
that she did not remain true to me. How I should have felt it
now, when fortune has deserted me! She left me before she knew
of the change in my circumstances, or had a thought of what was
before me. That is a merciful providence for me. All has
happened for the best. She could not help it, and yet I have
been so bitter, and in such enmity against her.”
Years passed by: Anthony’s father died, and strangers lived
in the old house. He had seen it once again since then. His rich
master sent him journeys on business, and on one occasion his
way led him to his native town of Eisenach. The old Wartburg
castle stood unchanged on the rock where the monk and the nun
were hewn out of the stone. The great oaks formed an outline to
the scene which he so well remembered in his childhood. The
Venus mountain stood out gray and bare, overshadowing the valley
beneath. He would have been glad to call out “Lady Halle, Lady
Halle, unlock the mountain. I would fain remain here always in
my native soil.” That was a sinful thought, and he offered a
prayer to drive it away. Then a little bird in the thicket sang
out clearly, and old Anthony thought of the minstrel’s song. How
much came back to his remembrance as he looked through the tears
once more on his native town! The old house was still standing
as in olden times, but the garden had been greatly altered; a
pathway led through a portion of the ground, and outside the
garden, and beyond the path, stood the old apple-tree, which he
had not broken down, although he talked of doing so in his
trouble. The sun still threw its rays upon the tree, and the
refreshing dew fell upon it as of old; and it was so overloaded
with fruit that the branches bent towards the earth with the
weight. “That flourishes still,” said he, as he gazed. One of
the branches of the tree had, however, been broken: mischievous
hands must have done this in passing, for the tree now stood in
a public thoroughfare. “The blossoms are often plucked,” said
Anthony; “the fruit is stolen and the branches broken without a
thankful thought of their profusion and beauty. It might be said
of a tree, as it has been said of some men—it was not predicted
at his cradle that he should come to this. How brightly began
the history of this tree, and what is it now? Forsaken and
forgotten, in a garden by a hedge in a field, and close to a
public road. There it stands, unsheltered, plundered, and
broken. It certainly has not yet withered; but in the course of
years the number of blossoms from time to time will grow less,
and at last it was cease altogether to bear fruit; and then its
history will be over.”
Such were Anthony’s thoughts as he stood under the tree, and
during many a long night as he lay in his lonely chamber in the
wooden house in Hauschen Street, Copenhagen, in the foreign land
to which the rich merchant of Bremen, his employer, had sent him
on condition that he should never marry. “Marry! ha, ha!” and he
laughed bitterly to himself at the thought.
Winter one year set in early, and it was freezing hard.
Without, a snowstorm made every one remain at home who could do
so. Thus it happened that Anthony’s neighbors, who lived
opposite to him, did not notice that his house remained unopened
for two days, and that he had not showed himself during that
time, for who would go out in such weather unless he were
obliged to do so. They were gray, gloomy days, and in the house
whose windows were not glass, twilight and dark nights reigned
in turns. During these two days old Anthony had not left his
bed, he had not the strength to do so. The bitter weather had
for some time affected his limbs. There lay the old bachelor,
forsaken by all, and unable to help himself. He could scarcely
reach the water jug that he had placed by his bed, and the last
drop was gone. It was not fever, nor sickness, but old age, that
had laid him low. In the little corner, where his bed lay, he
was over-shadowed as it were by perpetual night. A little
spider, which he could however not see, busily and cheerfully
spun its web above him, so that there should be a kind of little
banner waving over the old man, when his eyes closed. The time
passed slowly and painfully. He had no tears to shed, and he
felt no pain; no thought of Molly came into his mind. He felt as
if the world was now nothing to him, as if he were lying beyond
it, with no one to think of him. Now and then he felt slight
sensations of hunger and thirst; but no one came to him, no one
tended him. He thought of all those who had once suffered from
starvation, of Saint Elizabeth, who once wandered on the earth,
the saint of his home and his childhood, the noble Duchess of
Thuringia, that highly esteemed lady who visited the poorest
villages, bringing hope and relief to the sick inmates. The
recollection of her pious deeds was as light to the soul of poor
Anthony. He thought of her as she went about speaking words of
comfort, binding up the wounds of the afflicted and feeding the
hungry, although often blamed for it by her stern husband. He
remembered a story told of her, that on one occasion, when she
was carrying a basket full of wine and provisions, her husband,
who had watched her footsteps, stepped forward and asked her
angrily what she carried in her basket, whereupon, with fear and
trembling, she answered, “Roses, which I have plucked from the
garden.” Then he tore away the cloth which covered the basket,
and what could equal the surprise of the pious woman, to find
that by a miracle, everything in her basket—the wine, the bread—
had all been changed into roses.
In this way the memory of the kind lady dwelt in the calm
mind of Anthony. She was as a living reality in his little
dwelling in the Danish land. He uncovered his face that he might
look into her gentle eyes, while everything around him changed
from its look of poverty and want, to a bright rose tint. The
fragrance of roses spread through the room, mingled with the
sweet smell of apples. He saw the branches of an apple-tree
spreading above him. It was the tree which he and Molly had
planted together. The fragrant leaves of the tree fell upon him
and cooled his burning brow; upon his parched lips they seemed
like refreshing bread and wine; and as they rested on his
breast, a peaceful calm stole over him, and he felt inclined to
sleep. “I shall sleep now,” he whispered to himself. “Sleep will
do me good. In the morning I shall be upon my feet again, strong
and well. Glorious! wonderful! That apple-tree, planted in love,
now appears before me in heavenly beauty.” And he slept.
The following day, the third day during which his house had
been closed, the snow-storm ceased. Then his opposite neighbor
stepped over to the house in which old Anthony lived, for he had
not yet showed himself. There he lay stretched on his bed, dead,
with his old nightcap tightly clasped in his two hands. The
nightcap, however, was not placed on his head in his coffin; he
had a clean white one on then. Where now were the tears he had
shed? What had become of those wonderful pearls? They were in
the nightcap still. Such tears as these cannot be washed out,
even when the nightcap is forgotten. The old thoughts and dreams
of a bachelor’s nightcap still remain. Never wish for such a
nightcap. It would make your forehead hot, cause your pulse to
beat with agitation, and conjure up dreams which would appear
realities.
The first who wore old Anthony’s cap felt the truth of this,
though it was half a century afterwards. That man was the mayor
himself, who had already made a comfortable home for his wife
and eleven children, by his industry. The moment he put the cap
on he dreamed of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and of dark
days. “Hallo! how the nightcap burns!” he exclaimed, as he tore
it from his bead. Then a pearl rolled out, and then another, and
another, and they glittered and sounded as they fell. “What can
this be? Is it paralysis, or something dazzling my eyes?” They
were the tears which old Anthony had shed half a century before.
To every one who afterwards put this cap on his head, came
visions and dreams which agitated him not a little. His own
history was changed into that of Anthony till it became quite a
story, and many stories might be made by others, so we will
leave them to relate their own. We have told the first; and our
last word is, don’t wish for a “bachelor’s nightcap.”
|
Something
I
MEAN to be somebody, and do something useful in the world,” said
the eldest of five brothers. “I don’t care how humble my
position is, so that I can only do some good, which will be
something. I intend to be a brickmaker; bricks are always
wanted, and I shall be really doing something.”
“Your ‘something’ is not enough for me,” said the second
brother; “what you talk of doing is nothing at all, it is
journeyman’s work, or might even be done by a machine. No! I
should prefer to be a builder at once, there is something real
in that. A man gains a position, he becomes a citizen, has his
own sign, his own house of call for his workmen: so I shall be a
builder. If all goes well, in time I shall become a master, and
have my own journeymen, and my wife will be treated as a
master’s wife. This is what I call something.”
“I call it all nothing,” said the third; “not in reality any
position. There are many in a town far above a master builder in
position. You may be an upright man, but even as a master you
will only be ranked among common men. I know better what to do
than that. I will be an architect, which will place me among
those who possess riches and intellect, and who speculate in
art. I shall certainly have to rise by my own endeavors from a
bricklayer’s laborer, or as a carpenter’s apprentice—a lad
wearing a paper cap, although I now wear a silk hat. I shall
have to fetch beer and spirits for the journeymen, and they will
call me ‘thou,’ which will be an insult. I shall endure it,
however, for I shall look upon it all as a mere representation,
a masquerade, a mummery, which to-morrow, that is, when I myself
as a journeyman, shall have served my time, will vanish, and I
shall go my way, and all that has passed will be nothing to me.
Then I shall enter the academy, and get instructed in drawing,
and be called an architect. I may even attain to rank, and have
something placed before or after my name, and I shall build as
others have done before me. By this there will be always
‘something’ to make me remembered, and is not that worth living
for?”
“Not in my opinion,” said the fourth; “I will never follow
the lead of others, and only imitate what they have done. I will
be a genius, and become greater than all of you together. I will
create a new style of building, and introduce a plan for
erecting houses suitable to the climate, with material easily
obtained in the country, and thus suit national feeling and the
developments of the age, besides building a storey for my own
genius.”
“But supposing the climate and the material are not good for
much,” said the fifth brother, “that would be very unfortunate
for you, and have an influence over your experiments.
Nationality may assert itself until it becomes affectation, and
the developments of a century may run wild, as youth often does.
I see clearly that none of you will ever really be anything
worth notice, however you may now fancy it. But do as you like,
I shall not imitate you. I mean to keep clear of all these
things, and criticize what you do. In every action something
imperfect may be discovered, something not right, which I shall
make it my business to find out and expose; that will be
something, I fancy.” And he kept his word, and became a critic.
People said of this fifth brother, “There is something very
precise about him; he has a good head-piece, but he does
nothing.” And on that very account they thought he must be
something.
Now, you see, this is a little history which will never end;
as long as the world exists, there will always be men like these
five brothers. And what became of them? Were they each nothing
or something? You shall hear; it is quite a history.
The eldest brother, he who fabricated bricks, soon discovered
that each brick, when finished, brought him in a small coin, if
only a copper one; and many copper pieces, if placed one upon
another, can be changed into a shining shilling; and at whatever
door a person knocks, who has a number of these in his hands,
whether it be the baker’s, the butcher’s, or the tailor’s, the
door flies open, and he can get all he wants. So you see the
value of bricks. Some of the bricks, however, crumbled to
pieces, or were broken, but the elder brother found a use for
even these.
On the high bank of earth, which formed a dyke on the
sea-coast, a poor woman named Margaret wished to build herself a
house, so all the imperfect bricks were given to her, and a few
whole ones with them; for the eldest brother was a kind-hearted
man, although he never achieved anything higher than making
bricks. The poor woman built herself a little house—it was small
and narrow, and the window was quite crooked, the door too low,
and the straw roof might have been better thatched. But still it
was a shelter, and from within you could look far over the sea,
which dashed wildly against the sea-wall on which the little
house was built. The salt waves sprinkled their white foam over
it, but it stood firm, and remained long after he who had given
the bricks to build it was dead and buried.
The second brother of course knew better how to build than
poor Margaret, for he served an apprenticeship to learn it. When
his time was up, he packed up his knapsack, and went on his
travels, singing the journeyman’s song,—
“While young, I can wander without a care,
And build new houses everywhere;
Fair and bright are my dreams of home,
Always thought of wherever I roam.
Hurrah for a workman’s life of glee!
There’s a loved one at home who thinks of me;
Home and friends I can ne’er forget,
And I mean to be a master yet.”
And that is what he did. On his return home, he became a master
builder,—built one house after another in the town, till they
formed quite a street, which, when finished, became really an
ornament to the town. These houses built a house for him in
return, which was to be his own. But how can houses build a
house? If the houses were asked, they could not answer; but the
people would understand, and say, “Certainly the street built
his house for him.” It was not very large, and the floor was of
lime; but when he danced with his bride on the lime-covered
floor, it was to him white and shining, and from every stone in
the wall flowers seemed to spring forth and decorate the room as
with the richest tapestry. It was really a pretty house, and in
it were a happy pair. The flag of the corporation fluttered
before it, and the journeymen and apprentices shouted “Hurrah.”
He had gained his position, he had made himself something, and
at last he died, which was “something” too.
Now we come to the architect, the third brother, who had been
first a carpenter’s apprentice, had worn a cap, and served as an
errand boy, but afterwards went to the academy, and risen to be
an architect, a high and noble gentleman. Ah yes, the houses of
the new street, which the brother who was a master builder
erected, may have built his house for him, but the street
received its name from the architect, and the handsomest house
in the street became his property. That was something, and he
was “something,” for he had a list of titles before and after
his name. His children were called “wellborn,” and when he died,
his widow was treated as a lady of position, and that was
“something.” His name remained always written at the corner of
the street, and lived in every one’s mouth as its name. Yes,
this also was “something.”
And what about the genius of the family—the fourth
brother—who wanted to invent something new and original? He
tried to build a lofty storey himself, but it fell to pieces,
and he fell with it and broke his neck. However, he had a
splendid funeral, with the city flags and music in the
procession; flowers were strewn on the pavement, and three
orations were spoken over his grave, each one longer than the
other. He would have liked this very much during his life, as
well as the poems about him in the papers, for he liked nothing
so well as to be talked of. A monument was also erected over his
grave. It was only another storey over him, but that was
“something,” Now he was dead, like the three other brothers.
The youngest—the critic—outlived them all, which was quite
right for him. It gave him the opportunity of having the last
word, which to him was of great importance. People always said
he had a good head-piece. At last his hour came, and he died,
and arrived at the gates of heaven. Souls always enter these
gates in pairs; so he found himself standing and waiting for
admission with another; and who should it be but old dame
Margaret, from the house on the dyke! “It is evidently for the
sake of contrast that I and this wretched soul should arrive
here exactly at the same time,” said the critic. “Pray who are
you, my good woman?” said he; “do you want to get in here too?”
And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought
it must be St. Peter himself who spoke to her. “I am a poor old
woman,” she said, “without my family. I am old Margaret, that
lived in the house on the dyke.”
“Well, and what have you done—what great deed have you
performed down below?”
“I have done nothing at all in the world that could give me a
claim to have these doors open for me,” she said. “It would be
only through mercy that I can be allowed to slip in through the
gate.”
“In what manner did you leave the world?” he asked, just for
the sake of saying something; for it made him feel very weary to
stand there and wait.
“How I left the world?” she replied; “why, I can scarcely
tell you. During the last years of my life I was sick and
miserable, and I was unable to bear creeping out of bed suddenly
into the frost and cold. Last winter was a hard winter, but I
have got over it all now. There were a few mild days, as your
honor, no doubt, knows. The ice lay thickly on the lake, as far
one could see. The people came from the town, and walked upon
it, and they say there were dancing and skating upon it, I
believe, and a great feasting. The sound of beautiful music came
into my poor little room where I lay. Towards evening, when the
moon rose beautifully, though not yet in her full splendor, I
glanced from my bed over the wide sea; and there, just where the
sea and sky met, rose a curious white cloud. I lay looking at
the cloud till I observed a little black spot in the middle of
it, which gradually grew larger and larger, and then I knew what
it meant—I am old and experienced; and although this token is
not often seen, I knew it, and a shuddering seized me. Twice in
my life had I seen this same thing, and I knew that there would
be an awful storm, with a spring tide, which would overwhelm the
poor people who were now out on the ice, drinking, dancing, and
making merry. Young and old, the whole city, were there; who was
to warn them, if no one noticed the sign, or knew what it meant
as I did? I was so alarmed, that I felt more strength and life
than I had done for some time. I got out of bed, and reached the
window; I could not crawl any farther from weakness and
exhaustion; but I managed to open the window. I saw the people
outside running and jumping about on the ice; I saw the
beautiful flags waving in the wind; I heard the boys shouting,
‘Hurrah!’ and the lads and lasses singing, and everything full
of merriment and joy. But there was the white cloud with the
black spot hanging over them. I cried out as loudly as I could,
but no one heard me; I was too far off from the people. Soon
would the storm burst, the ice break, and all who were on it be
irretrievably lost. They could not hear me, and to go to them
was quite out of my power. Oh, if I could only get them safe on
land! Then came the thought, as if from heaven, that I would
rather set fire to my bed, and let the house be burnt down, than
that so many people should perish miserably. I got a light, and
in a few moments the red flames leaped up as a beacon to them. I
escaped fortunately as far as the threshold of the door; but
there I fell down and remained: I could go no farther. The
flames rushed out towards me, flickered on the window, and rose
high above the roof. The people on the ice became aware of the
fire, and ran as fast as possible to help a poor sick woman,
who, as they thought, was being burnt to death. There was not
one who did not run. I heard them coming, and I also at the same
time was conscious of a rush of air and a sound like the roar of
heavy artillery. The spring flood was lifting the ice covering,
which brake into a thousand pieces. But the people had reached
the sea-wall, where the sparks were flying round. I had saved
them all; but I suppose I could not survive the cold and fright;
so I came up here to the gates of paradise. I am told they are
open to poor creatures such as I am, and I have now no house
left on earth; but I do not think that will give me a claim to
be admitted here.”
Then the gates were opened, and an angel led the old woman
in. She had dropped one little straw out of her straw bed, when
she set it on fire to save the lives of so many. It had been
changed into the purest gold—into gold that constantly grew and
expanded into flowers and fruit of immortal beauty.
“See,” said the angel, pointing to the wonderful straw, “this
is what the poor woman has brought. What dost thou bring? I know
thou hast accomplished nothing, not even made a single brick.
Even if thou couldst return, and at least produce so much, very
likely, when made, the brick would be useless, unless done with
a good will, which is always something. But thou canst not
return to earth, and I can do nothing for thee.”
Then the poor soul, the old mother who had lived in the house
on the dyke, pleaded for him. She said, “His brother made all
the stone and bricks, and sent them to me to build my poor
little dwelling, which was a great deal to do for a poor woman
like me. Could not all these bricks and pieces be as a wall of
stone to prevail for him? It is an act of mercy; he is wanting
it now; and here is the very fountain of mercy.”
“Then,” said the angel, “thy brother, he who has been looked
upon as the meanest of you all, he whose honest deeds to thee
appeared so humble,—it is he who has sent you this heavenly
gift. Thou shalt not be turned away. Thou shalt have permission
to stand without the gate and reflect, and repent of thy life on
earth; but thou shalt not be admitted here until thou hast
performed one good deed of repentance, which will indeed for
thee be something.”
“I could have expressed that better,” thought the critic; but
he did not say it aloud, which for him was SOMETHING, after all.
|
The Last Dream of the Old Oak
IN the forest, high up on the steep shore, and not far from the
open seacoast, stood a very old oak-tree. It was just three
hundred and sixty-five years old, but that long time was to the
tree as the same number of days might be to us; we wake by day
and sleep by night, and then we have our dreams. It is different
with the tree; it is obliged to keep awake through three seasons
of the year, and does not get any sleep till winter comes.
Winter is its time for rest; its night after the long day of
spring, summer, and autumn. On many a warm summer, the Ephemera,
the flies that exist for only a day, had fluttered about the old
oak, enjoyed life and felt happy and if, for a moment, one of
the tiny creatures rested on one of his large fresh leaves, the
tree would always say, “Poor little creature! your whole life
consists only of a single day. How very short. It must be quite
melancholy.”
“Melancholy! what do you mean?” the little creature would
always reply. “Everything around me is so wonderfully bright and
warm, and beautiful, that it makes me joyous.”
“But only for one day, and then it is all over.”
“Over!” repeated the fly; “what is the meaning of all over?
Are you all over too?”
“No; I shall very likely live for thousands of your days, and
my day is whole seasons long; indeed it is so long that you
could never reckon it out.”
“No? then I don’t understand you. You may have thousands of
my days, but I have thousands of moments in which I can be merry
and happy. Does all the beauty of the world cease when you die?”
“No,” replied the tree; “it will certainly last much longer,—
infinitely longer than I can even think of.” “Well, then,” said
the little fly, “we have the same time to live; only we reckon
differently.” And the little creature danced and floated in the
air, rejoicing in her delicate wings of gauze and velvet,
rejoicing in the balmy breezes, laden with the fragrance of
clover-fields and wild roses, elder-blossoms and honeysuckle,
from the garden hedges, wild thyme, primroses, and mint, and the
scent of all these was so strong that the perfume almost
intoxicated the little fly. The long and beautiful day had been
so full of joy and sweet delights, that when the sun sank low it
felt tired of all its happiness and enjoyment. Its wings could
sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down upon
the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little head as well
as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly. The fly was
dead.
“Poor little Ephemera!” said the oak; “what a terribly short
life!” And so, on every summer day the dance was repeated, the
same questions asked, and the same answers given. The same thing
was continued through many generations of Ephemera; all of them
felt equally merry and equally happy.
The oak remained awake through the morning of spring, the
noon of summer, and the evening of autumn; its time of rest, its
night drew nigh—winter was coming. Already the storms were
singing, “Good-night, good-night.” Here fell a leaf and there
fell a leaf. “We will rock you and lull you. Go to sleep, go to
sleep. We will sing you to sleep, and shake you to sleep, and it
will do your old twigs good; they will even crackle with
pleasure. Sleep sweetly, sleep sweetly, it is your
three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth night. Correctly speaking, you are
but a youngster in the world. Sleep sweetly, the clouds will
drop snow upon you, which will be quite a cover-lid, warm and
sheltering to your feet. Sweet sleep to you, and pleasant
dreams.” And there stood the oak, stripped of all its leaves,
left to rest during the whole of a long winter, and to dream
many dreams of events that had happened in its life, as in the
dreams of men. The great tree had once been small; indeed, in
its cradle it had been an acorn. According to human computation,
it was now in the fourth century of its existence. It was the
largest and best tree in the forest. Its summit towered above
all the other trees, and could be seen far out at sea, so that
it served as a landmark to the sailors. It had no idea how many
eyes looked eagerly for it. In its topmost branches the
wood-pigeon built her nest, and the cuckoo carried out his usual
vocal performances, and his well-known notes echoed amid the
boughs; and in autumn, when the leaves looked like beaten copper
plates, the birds of passage would come and rest upon the
branches before taking their flight across the sea. But now it
was winter, the tree stood leafless, so that every one could see
how crooked and bent were the branches that sprang forth from
the trunk. Crows and rooks came by turns and sat on them, and
talked of the hard times which were beginning, and how difficult
it was in winter to obtain food.
It was just about holy Christmas time that the tree dreamed a
dream. The tree had, doubtless, a kind of feeling that the
festive time had arrived, and in his dream fancied he heard the
bells ringing from all the churches round, and yet it seemed to
him to be a beautiful summer’s day, mild and warm. His mighty
summits was crowned with spreading fresh green foliage; the
sunbeams played among the leaves and branches, and the air was
full of fragrance from herb and blossom; painted butterflies
chased each other; the summer flies danced around him, as if the
world had been created merely for them to dance and be merry in.
All that had happened to the tree during every year of his life
seemed to pass before him, as in a festive procession. He saw
the knights of olden times and noble ladies ride by through the
wood on their gallant steeds, with plumes waving in their hats,
and falcons on their wrists. The hunting horn sounded, and the
dogs barked. He saw hostile warriors, in colored dresses and
glittering armor, with spear and halberd, pitching their tents,
and anon striking them. The watchfires again blazed, and men
sang and slept under the hospitable shelter of the tree. He saw
lovers meet in quiet happiness near him in the moonshine, and
carve the initials of their names in the grayish-green bark on
his trunk. Once, but long years had intervened since then,
guitars and Eolian harps had been hung on his boughs by merry
travellers; now they seemed to hang there again, and he could
hear their marvellous tones. The wood-pigeons cooed as if to
explain the feelings of the tree, and the cuckoo called out to
tell him how many summer days he had yet to live. Then it seemed
as if new life was thrilling through every fibre of root and
stem and leaf, rising even to the highest branches. The tree
felt itself stretching and spreading out, while through the root
beneath the earth ran the warm vigor of life. As he grew higher
and still higher, with increased strength, his topmost boughs
became broader and fuller; and in proportion to his growth, so
was his self-satisfaction increased, and with it arose a joyous
longing to grow higher and higher, to reach even to the warm,
bright sun itself. Already had his topmost branches pierced the
clouds, which floated beneath them like troops of birds of
passage, or large white swans; every leaf seemed gifted with
sight, as if it possessed eyes to see. The stars became visible
in broad daylight, large and sparkling, like clear and gentle
eyes. They recalled to the memory the well-known look in the
eyes of a child, or in the eyes of lovers who had once met
beneath the branches of the old oak. These were wonderful and
happy moments for the old tree, full of peace and joy; and yet,
amidst all this happiness, the tree felt a yearning, longing
desire that all the other trees, bushes, herbs, and flowers
beneath him, might be able also to rise higher, as he had done,
and to see all this splendor, and experience the same happiness.
The grand, majestic oak could not be quite happy in the midst of
his enjoyment, while all the rest, both great and small, were
not with him. And this feeling of yearning trembled through
every branch, through every leaf, as warmly and fervently as if
they had been the fibres of a human heart. The summit of the
tree waved to and fro, and bent downwards as if in his silent
longing he sought for something. Then there came to him the
fragrance of thyme, followed by the more powerful scent of
honeysuckle and violets; and he fancied he heard the note of the
cuckoo. At length his longing was satisfied. Up through the
clouds came the green summits of the forest trees, and beneath
him, the oak saw them rising, and growing higher and higher.
Bush and herb shot upward, and some even tore themselves up by
the roots to rise more quickly. The birch-tree was the quickest
of all. Like a lightning flash the slender stem shot upwards in
a zigzag line, the branches spreading around it like green gauze
and banners. Every native of the wood, even to the brown and
feathery rushes, grew with the rest, while the birds ascended
with the melody of song. On a blade of grass, that fluttered in
the air like a long, green ribbon, sat a grasshopper, cleaning
his wings with his legs. May beetles hummed, the bees murmured,
the birds sang, each in his own way; the air was filled with the
sounds of song and gladness.
“But where is the little blue flower that grows by the
water?” asked the oak, “and the purple bell-flower, and the
daisy?” You see the oak wanted to have them all with him.
“Here we are, we are here,” sounded in voice and song.
“But the beautiful thyme of last summer, where is that? and
the lilies-of-the-valley, which last year covered the earth with
their bloom? and the wild apple-tree with its lovely blossoms,
and all the glory of the wood, which has flourished year after
year? even what may have but now sprouted forth could be with us
here.”
“We are here, we are here,” sounded voices higher in the air,
as if they had flown there beforehand.
“Why this is beautiful, too beautiful to be believed,” said
the oak in a joyful tone. “I have them all here, both great and
small; not one has been forgotten. Can such happiness be
imagined?” It seemed almost impossible.
“In heaven with the Eternal God, it can be imagined, and it
is possible,” sounded the reply through the air.
And the old tree, as it still grew upwards and onwards, felt
that his roots were loosening themselves from the earth.
“It is right so, it is best,” said the tree, “no fetters hold
me now. I can fly up to the very highest point in light and
glory. And all I love are with me, both small and great. All—all
are here.”
Such was the dream of the old oak: and while he dreamed, a
mighty storm came rushing over land and sea, at the holy
Christmas time. The sea rolled in great billows towards the
shore. There was a cracking and crushing heard in the tree. The
root was torn from the ground just at the moment when in his
dream he fancied it was being loosened from the earth. He
fell—his three hundred and sixty-five years were passed as the
single day of the Ephemera. On the morning of Christmas-day,
when the sun rose, the storm had ceased. From all the churches
sounded the festive bells, and from every hearth, even of the
smallest hut, rose the smoke into the blue sky, like the smoke
from the festive thank-offerings on the Druids’ altars. The sea
gradually became calm, and on board a great ship that had
withstood the tempest during the night, all the flags were
displayed, as a token of joy and festivity. “The tree is down!
The old oak,—our landmark on the coast!” exclaimed the sailors.
“It must have fallen in the storm of last night. Who can replace
it? Alas! no one.” This was a funeral oration over the old tree;
short, but well-meant. There it lay stretched on the
snow-covered shore, and over it sounded the notes of a song from
the ship—a song of Christmas joy, and of the redemption of the
soul of man, and of eternal life through Christ’s atoning blood.
“Sing aloud on the happy morn,
All is fulfilled, for Christ is born;
With songs of joy let us loudly sing,
‘Hallelujahs to Christ our King.’”
Thus sounded the old Christmas carol, and every one on board the
ship felt his thoughts elevated, through the song and the
prayer, even as the old tree had felt lifted up in its last, its
beautiful dream on that Christmas morn.
|
The Marsh King’s Daughter
THE storks relate to their little ones a great many stories, and
they are all about moors and reed banks, and suited to their age
and capacity. The youngest of them are quite satisfied with
“kribble, krabble,” or such nonsense, and think it very grand;
but the elder ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at
least something about their own family.
We are only acquainted with one of the two longest and oldest
stories which the storks relate—it is about Moses, who was
exposed by his mother on the banks of the Nile, and was found by
the king’s daughter, who gave him a good education, and he
afterwards became a great man; but where he was buried is still
unknown.
Every one knows this story, but not the second; very likely
because it is quite an inland story. It has been repeated from
mouth to mouth, from one stork-mamma to another, for thousands
of years; and each has told it better than the last; and now we
mean to tell it better than all.
The first stork pair who related it lived at the time it
happened, and had their summer residence on the rafters of the
Viking’s1 house, which stood near the wild moorlands of
Wendsyssell; that is, to speak more correctly, the great
moorheath, high up in the north of Jutland, by the Skjagen peak.
This wilderness is still an immense wild heath of marshy ground,
about which we can read in the “Official Directory.” It is said
that in olden times the place was a lake, the ground of which
had heaved up from beneath, and now the moorland extends for
miles in every direction, and is surrounded by damp meadows,
trembling, undulating swamps, and marshy ground covered with
turf, on which grow bilberry bushes and stunted trees. Mists are
almost always hovering over this region, which, seventy years
ago, was overrun with wolves. It may well be called the Wild
Moor; and one can easily imagine, with such a wild expanse of
marsh and lake, how lonely and dreary it must have been a
thousand years ago. Many things may be noticed now that existed
then. The reeds grow to the same height, and bear the same kind
of long, purple-brown leaves, with their feathery tips. There
still stands the birch, with its white bark and its delicate,
loosely hanging leaves; and with regard to the living beings who
frequented this spot, the fly still wears a gauzy dress of the
same cut, and the favorite colors of the stork are white, with
black and red for stockings. The people, certainly, in those
days, wore very different dresses to those they now wear, but if
any of them, be he huntsman or squire, master or servant,
ventured on the wavering, undulating, marshy ground of the moor,
they met with the same fate a thousand years ago as they would
now. The wanderer sank, and went down to the Marsh King, as he
is named, who rules in the great moorland empire beneath. They
also called him “Gunkel King,” but we like the name of “Marsh
King” better, and we will give him that name as the storks do.
Very little is known of the Marsh King’s rule, but that,
perhaps, is a good thing.
In the neighborhood of the moorlands, and not far from the
great arm of the North Sea and the Cattegat which is called the
Lumfjorden, lay the castle of the Viking, with its water-tight
stone cellars, its tower, and its three projecting storeys. On
the ridge of the roof the stork had built his nest, and there
the stork-mamma sat on her eggs and felt sure her hatching would
come to something.
One evening, stork-papa stayed out rather late, and when he
came home he seemed quite busy, bustling, and important. “I have
something very dreadful to tell you,” said he to the
stork-mamma.
“Keep it to yourself then,” she replied. “Remember that I am
hatching eggs; it may agitate me, and will affect them.”
“You must know it at once,” said he. “The daughter of our
host in Egypt has arrived here. She has ventured to take this
journey, and now she is lost.”
“She who sprung from the race of the fairies, is it?” cried
the mother stork. “Oh, tell me all about it; you know I cannot
bear to be kept waiting at a time when I am hatching eggs.”
“Well, you see, mother,” he replied, “she believed what the
doctors said, and what I have heard you state also, that the
moor-flowers which grow about here would heal her sick father;
and she has flown to the north in swan’s plumage, in company
with some other swan-princesses, who come to these parts every
year to renew their youth. She came, and where is she now!”
“You enter into particulars too much,” said the mamma stork,
“and the eggs may take cold; I cannot bear such suspense as
this.”
“Well,” said he, “I have kept watch; and this evening I went
among the rushes where I thought the marshy ground would bear
me, and while I was there three swans came. Something in their
manner of flying seemed to say to me, ‘Look carefully now; there
is one not all swan, only swan’s feathers.’ You know, mother,
you have the same intuitive feeling that I have; you know
whether a thing is right or not immediately.”
“Yes, of course,” said she; “but tell me about the princess;
I am tired of hearing about the swan’s feathers.”
“Well, you know that in the middle of the moor there is
something like a lake,” said the stork-papa. “You can see the
edge of it if you raise yourself a little. Just there, by the
reeds and the green banks, lay the trunk of an elder-tree; upon
this the three swans stood flapping their wings, and looking
about them; one of them threw off her plumage, and I immediately
recognized her as one of the princesses of our home in Egypt.
There she sat, without any covering but her long, black hair. I
heard her tell the two others to take great care of the swan’s
plumage, while she dipped down into the water to pluck the
flowers which she fancied she saw there. The others nodded, and
picked up the feather dress, and took possession of it. I wonder
what will become of it? thought I, and she most likely asked
herself the same question. If so, she received an answer, a very
practical one; for the two swans rose up and flew away with her
swan’s plumage. ‘Dive down now!’ they cried; ‘thou shalt never
more fly in the swan’s plumage, thou shalt never again see
Egypt; here, on the moor, thou wilt remain.’ So saying, they
tore the swan’s plumage into a thousand pieces, the feathers
drifted about like a snow-shower, and then the two deceitful
princesses flew away.”
“Why, that is terrible,” said the stork-mamma; “I feel as if
I could hardly bear to hear any more, but you must tell me what
happened next.”
“The princess wept and lamented aloud; her tears moistened
the elder stump, which was really not an elder stump but the
Marsh King himself, he who in marshy ground lives and rules. I
saw myself how the stump of the tree turned round, and was a
tree no more, while long, clammy branches like arms, were
extended from it. Then the poor child was terribly frightened,
and started up to run away. She hastened to cross the green,
slimy ground; but it will not bear any weight, much less hers.
She quickly sank, and the elder stump dived immediately after
her; in fact, it was he who drew her down. Great black bubbles
rose up out of the moor-slime, and with these every trace of the
two vanished. And now the princess is buried in the wild marsh,
she will never now carry flowers to Egypt to cure her father. It
would have broken your heart, mother, had you seen it.”
“You ought not to have told me,” said she, “at such a time as
this; the eggs might suffer. But I think the princess will soon
find help; some one will rise up to help her. Ah! if it had been
you or I, or one of our people, it would have been all over with
us.”
“I mean to go every day,” said he, “to see if anything comes
to pass;” and so he did.
A long time went by, but at last he saw a green stalk
shooting up out of the deep, marshy ground. As it reached the
surface of the marsh, a leaf spread out, and unfolded itself
broader and broader, and close to it came forth a bud.
One morning, when the stork-papa was flying over the stem, he
saw that the power of the sun’s rays had caused the bud to open,
and in the cup of the flower lay a charming child—a little
maiden, looking as if she had just come out of a bath. The
little one was so like the Egyptian princess, that the stork, at
the first moment, thought it must be the princess herself, but
after a little reflection he decided that it was much more
likely to be the daughter of the princess and the Marsh King;
and this explained also her being placed in the cup of a
water-lily. “But she cannot be left to lie here,” thought the
stork, “and in my nest there are already so many. But stay, I
have thought of something: the wife of the Viking has no
children, and how often she has wished for a little one. People
always say the stork brings the little ones; I will do so in
earnest this time. I shall fly with the child to the Viking’s
wife; what rejoicing there will be!”
And then the stork lifted the little girl out of the
flower-cup, flew to the castle, picked a hole with his beak in
the bladder-covered, window, and laid the beautiful child in the
bosom of the Viking’s wife. Then he flew back quickly to the
stork-mamma and told her what he had seen and done; and the
little storks listened to it all, for they were then quite old
enough to do so. “So you see,” he continued, “that the princess
is not dead, for she must have sent her little one up here; and
now I have found a home for her.”
“Ah, I said it would be so from the first,” replied the
stork-mamma; “but now think a little of your own family. Our
travelling time draws near, and I sometimes feel a little
irritation already under the wings. The cuckoos and the
nightingale are already gone, and I heard the quails say they
should go too as soon as the wind was favorable. Our youngsters
will go through all the manoeuvres at the review very well, or I
am much mistaken in them.”
The Viking’s wife was above measure delighted when she awoke
the next morning and found the beautiful little child lying in
her bosom. She kissed it and caressed it; but it cried terribly,
and struck out with its arms and legs, and did not seem to be
pleased at all. At last it cried itself to sleep; and as it lay
there so still and quiet, it was a most beautiful sight to see.
The Viking’s wife was so delighted, that body and soul were full
of joy. Her heart felt so light within her, that it seemed as if
her husband and his soldiers, who were absent, must come home as
suddenly and unexpectedly as the little child had done. She and
her whole household therefore busied themselves in preparing
everything for the reception of her lord. The long, colored
tapestry, on which she and her maidens had worked pictures of
their idols, Odin, Thor, and Friga, was hung up. The slaves
polished the old shields that served as ornaments; cushions were
placed on the seats, and dry wood laid on the fireplaces in the
centre of the hall, so that the flames might be fanned up at a
moment’s notice. The Viking’s wife herself assisted in the work,
so that at night she felt very tired, and quickly fell into a
sound sleep. When she awoke, just before morning, she was
terribly alarmed to find that the infant had vanished. She
sprang from her couch, lighted a pine-chip, and searched all
round the room, when, at last, in that part of the bed where her
feet had been, lay, not the child, but a great, ugly frog. She
was quite disgusted at this sight, and seized a heavy stick to
kill the frog; but the creature looked at her with such strange,
mournful eyes, that she was unable to strike the blow. Once more
she searched round the room; then she started at hearing the
frog utter a low, painful croak. She sprang from the couch and
opened the window hastily; at the same moment the sun rose, and
threw its beams through the window, till it rested on the couch
where the great frog lay. Suddenly it appeared as if the frog’s
broad mouth contracted, and became small and red. The limbs
moved and stretched out and extended themselves till they took a
beautiful shape; and behold there was the pretty child lying
before her, and the ugly frog was gone. “How is this?” she
cried, “have I had a wicked dream? Is it not my own lovely
cherub that lies there.” Then she kissed it and fondled it; but
the child struggled and fought, and bit as if she had been a
little wild cat.
The Viking did not return on that day, nor the next; he was,
however, on the way home; but the wind, so favorable to the
storks, was against him; for it blew towards the south. A wind
in favor of one is often against another.
After two or three days had passed, it became clear to the
Viking’s wife how matters stood with the child; it was under the
influence of a powerful sorcerer. By day it was charming in
appearance as an angel of light, but with a temper wicked and
wild; while at night, in the form of an ugly frog, it was quiet
and mournful, with eyes full of sorrow. Here were two natures,
changing inwardly and outwardly with the absence and return of
sunlight. And so it happened that by day the child, with the
actual form of its mother, possessed the fierce disposition of
its father; at night, on the contrary, its outward appearance
plainly showed its descent on the father’s side, while inwardly
it had the heart and mind of its mother. Who would be able to
loosen this wicked charm which the sorcerer had worked upon it?
The wife of the Viking lived in constant pain and sorrow about
it. Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could not
explain to her husband the circumstances in which it was placed.
He was expected to return shortly; and were she to tell him, he
would very likely, as was the custom at that time, expose the
poor child in the public highway, and let any one take it away
who would. The good wife of the Viking could not let that
happen, and she therefore resolved that the Viking should never
see the child excepting by daylight.
One morning there sounded a rushing of storks’ wings over the
roof. More than a hundred pair of storks had rested there during
the night, to recover themselves after their excursion; and now
they soared aloft, and prepared for the journey southward.
“All the husbands are here, and ready!” they cried; “wives
and children also!”
“How light we are!” screamed the young storks in chorus.
“Something pleasant seems creeping over us, even down to our
toes, as if we were full of live frogs. Ah, how delightful it is
to travel into foreign lands!”
“Hold yourselves properly in the line with us,” cried papa
and mamma. “Do not use your beaks so much; it tries the lungs.”
And then the storks flew away.
About the same time sounded the clang of the warriors’
trumpets across the heath. The Viking had landed with his men.
They were returning home, richly laden with spoil from the
Gallic coast, where the people, as did also the inhabitants of
Britain, often cried in alarm, “Deliver us from the wild
northmen.”
Life and noisy pleasure came with them into the castle of the
Viking on the moorland. A great cask of mead was drawn into the
hall, piles of wood blazed, cattle were slain and served up,
that they might feast in reality, The priest who offered the
sacrifice sprinkled the devoted parishioners with the warm
blood; the fire crackled, and the smoke rolled along beneath the
roof; the soot fell upon them from the beams; but they were used
to all these things. Guests were invited, and received handsome
presents. All wrongs and unfaithfulness were forgotten. They
drank deeply, and threw in each other’s faces the bones that
were left, which was looked upon as a sign of good feeling
amongst them. A bard, who was a kind of musician as well as
warrior, and who had been with the Viking in his expedition, and
knew what to sing about, gave them one of his best songs, in
which they heard all their warlike deeds praised, and every
wonderful action brought forward with honor. Every verse ended
with this refrain,—
“Gold and possessions will flee away,
Friends and foes must die one day;
Every man on earth must die,
But a famous name will never die.”
And with that they beat upon their shields, and hammered upon
the table with knives and bones, in a most outrageous manner.
The Viking’s wife sat upon a raised cross seat in the open hall.
She wore a silk dress, golden bracelets, and large amber beads.
She was in costly attire, and the bard named her in his song,
and spoke of the rich treasure of gold which she had brought to
her husband. Her husband had already seen the wonderfully
beautiful child in the daytime, and was delighted with her
beauty; even her wild ways pleased him. He said the little
maiden would grow up to be a heroine, with the strong will and
determination of a man. She would never wink her eyes, even if,
in joke, an expert hand should attempt to cut off her eye-brows
with a sharp sword.
The full cask of mead soon became empty, and a fresh one was
brought in; for these were people who liked plenty to eat and
drink. The old proverb, which every one knows, says that “the
cattle know when to leave their pasture, but a foolish man knows
not the measure of his own appetite.” Yes, they all knew this;
but men may know what is right, and yet often do wrong. They
also knew “that even the welcome guest becomes wearisome when he
sits too long in the house.” But there they remained; for pork
and mead are good things. And so at the Viking’s house they
stayed, and enjoyed themselves; and at night the bondmen slept
in the ashes, and dipped their fingers in the fat, and licked
them. Oh, it was a delightful time!
Once more in the same year the Viking went forth, though the
storms of autumn had already commenced to roar. He went with his
warriors to the coast of Britain; he said that it was but an
excursion of pleasure across the water, so his wife remained at
home with the little girl. After a while, it is quite certain
the foster-mother began to love the poor frog, with its gentle
eyes and its deep sighs, even better than the little beauty who
bit and fought with all around her.
The heavy, damp mists of autumn, which destroy the leaves of
the wood, had already fallen upon forest and heath. Feathers of
plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick
showers, and winter was coming. The sparrows took possession of
the stork’s nest, and conversed about the absent owners in their
own fashion; and they, the stork pair and all their young ones,
where were they staying now? The storks might have been found in
the land of Egypt, where the sun’s rays shone forth bright and
warm, as it does here at midsummer. Tamarinds and acacias were
in full bloom all over the country, the crescent of Mahomet
glittered brightly from the cupolas of the mosques, and on the
slender pinnacles sat many of the storks, resting after their
long journey. Swarms of them took divided possession of the
nests—nests which lay close to each other between the venerable
columns, and crowded the arches of temples in forgotten cities.
The date and the palm lifted themselves as a screen or as a
sun-shade over them. The gray pyramids looked like broken
shadows in the clear air and the far-off desert, where the
ostrich wheels his rapid flight, and the lion, with his subtle
eyes, gazes at the marble sphinx which lies half buried in sand.
The waters of the Nile had retreated, and the whole bed of the
river was covered with frogs, which was a most acceptable
prospect for the stork families. The young storks thought their
eyes deceived them, everything around appeared so beautiful.
“It is always like this here, and this is how we live in our
warm country,” said the stork-mamma; and the thought made the
young ones almost beside themselves with pleasure.
“Is there anything more to see?” they asked; “are we going
farther into the country?”
“There is nothing further for us to see,” answered the
stork-mamma. “Beyond this delightful region there are immense
forests, where the branches of the trees entwine round each
other, while prickly, creeping plants cover the paths, and only
an elephant could force a passage for himself with his great
feet. The snakes are too large, and the lizards too lively for
us to catch. Then there is the desert; if you went there, your
eyes would soon be full of sand with the lightest breeze, and if
it should blow great guns, you would most likely find yourself
in a sand-drift. Here is the best place for you, where there are
frogs and locusts; here I shall remain, and so must you.” And so
they stayed.
The parents sat in the nest on the slender minaret, and
rested, yet still were busily employed in cleaning and smoothing
their feathers, and in sharpening their beaks against their red
stockings; then they would stretch out their necks, salute each
other, and gravely raise their heads with the high-polished
forehead, and soft, smooth feathers, while their brown eyes
shone with intelligence. The female young ones strutted about
amid the moist rushes, glancing at the other young storks and
making acquaintances, and swallowing a frog at every third step,
or tossing a little snake about with their beaks, in a way they
considered very becoming, and besides it tasted very good. The
young male storks soon began to quarrel; they struck at each
other with their wings, and pecked with their beaks till the
blood came. And in this manner many of the young ladies and
gentlemen were betrothed to each other: it was, of course, what
they wanted, and indeed what they lived for. Then they returned
to a nest, and there the quarrelling began afresh; for in hot
countries people are almost all violent and passionate. But for
all that it was pleasant, especially for the old people, who
watched them with great joy: all that their young ones did
suited them. Every day here there was sunshine, plenty to eat,
and nothing to think of but pleasure. But in the rich castle of
their Egyptian host, as they called him, pleasure was not to be
found. The rich and mighty lord of the castle lay on his couch,
in the midst of the great hall, with its many colored walls
looking like the centre of a great tulip; but he was stiff and
powerless in all his limbs, and lay stretched out like a mummy.
His family and servants stood round him; he was not dead,
although he could scarcely be said to live. The healing
moor-flower from the north, which was to have been found and
brought to him by her who loved him so well, had not arrived.
His young and beautiful daughter who, in swan’s plumage, had
flown over land and seas to the distant north, had never
returned. She is dead, so the two swan-maidens had said when
they came home; and they made up quite a story about her, and
this is what they told,—
“We three flew away together through the air,” said they: “a
hunter caught sight of us, and shot at us with an arrow. The
arrow struck our young friend and sister, and slowly singing her
farewell song she sank down, a dying swan, into the forest lake.
On the shores of the lake, under a spreading birch-tree, we laid
her in the cold earth. We had our revenge; we bound fire under
the wings of a swallow, who had a nest on the thatched roof of
the huntsman. The house took fire, and burst into flames; the
hunter was burnt with the house, and the light was reflected
over the sea as far as the spreading birch, beneath which we
laid her sleeping dust. She will never return to the land of
Egypt.” And then they both wept. And stork-papa, who heard the
story, snapped with his beak so that it might be heard a long
way off.
“Deceit and lies!” cried he; “I should like to run my beak
deep into their chests.”
“And perhaps break it off,” said the mamma stork, “then what
a sight you would be. Think first of yourself, and then of your
family; all others are nothing to us.”
“Yes, I know,” said the stork-papa; “but to-morrow I can
easily place myself on the edge of the open cupola, when the
learned and wise men assemble to consult on the state of the
sick man; perhaps they may come a little nearer to the truth.”
And the learned and wise men assembled together, and talked a
great deal on every point; but the stork could make no sense out
of anything they said; neither were there any good results from
their consultations, either for the sick man, or for his
daughter in the marshy heath. When we listen to what people say
in this world, we shall hear a great deal; but it is an
advantage to know what has been said and done before, when we
listen to a conversation. The stork did, and we know at least as
much as he, the stork.
“Love is a life-giver. The highest love produces the highest
life. Only through love can the sick man be cured.” This had
been said by many, and even the learned men acknowledged that it
was a wise saying.
“What a beautiful thought!” exclaimed the papa stork
immediately.
“I don’t quite understand it,” said the mamma stork, when her
husband repeated it; “however, it is not my fault, but the fault
of the thought; whatever it may be, I have something else to
think of.”
Now the learned men had spoken also of love between this one
and that one; of the difference of the love which we have for
our neighbor, to the love that exists between parents and
children; of the love of the plant for the light, and how the
germ springs forth when the sunbeam kisses the ground. All these
things were so elaborately and learnedly explained, that it was
impossible for stork-papa to follow it, much less to talk about
it. His thoughts on the subject quite weighed him down; he stood
the whole of the following day on one leg, with half-shut eyes,
thinking deeply. So much learning was quite a heavy weight for
him to carry. One thing, however, the papa stork could
understand. Every one, high and low, had from their inmost
hearts expressed their opinion that it was a great misfortune
for so many thousands of people—the whole country indeed—to have
this man so sick, with no hopes of his recovery. And what joy
and blessing it would spread around if he could by any means be
cured! But where bloomed the flower that could bring him health?
They had searched for it everywhere; in learned writings, in the
shining stars, in the weather and wind. Inquiries had been made
in every by-way that could be thought of, until at last the wise
and learned men has asserted, as we have been already told, that
“love, the life-giver, could alone give new life to a father;”
and in saying this, they had overdone it, and said more than
they understood themselves. They repeated it, and wrote it down
as a recipe, “Love is a life-giver.” But how could such a recipe
be prepared—that was a difficulty they could not overcome. At
last it was decided that help could only come from the princess
herself, whose whole soul was wrapped up in her father,
especially as a plan had been adopted by her to enable her to
obtain a remedy.
More than a year had passed since the princess had set out at
night, when the light of the young moon was soon lost beneath
the horizon. She had gone to the marble sphinx in the desert,
shaking the sand from her sandals, and then passed through the
long passage, which leads to the centre of one of the great
pyramids, where the mighty kings of antiquity, surrounded with
pomp and splendor, lie veiled in the form of mummies. She had
been told by the wise men, that if she laid her head on the
breast of one of them, from the head she would learn where to
find life and recovery for her father. She had performed all
this, and in a dream had learnt that she must bring home to her
father the lotus flower, which grows in the deep sea, near the
moors and heath in the Danish land. The very place and situation
had been pointed out to her, and she was told that the flower
would restore her father to health and strength. And, therefore,
she had gone forth from the land of Egypt, flying over to the
open marsh and the wild moor in the plumage of a swan.
The papa and mamma storks knew all this, and we also know it
now. We know, too, that the Marsh King has drawn her down to
himself, and that to the loved ones at home she is forever dead.
One of the wisest of them said, as the stork-mamma also said,
“That in some way she would, after all, manage to succeed;” and
so at last they comforted themselves with this hope, and would
wait patiently; in fact, they could do nothing better.
“I should like to get away the swan’s feathers from those two
treacherous princesses,” said the papa stork; “then, at least,
they would not be able to fly over again to the wild moor, and
do more wickedness. I can hide the two suits of feathers over
yonder, till we find some use for them.”
“But where will you put them?” asked the mamma stork.
“In our nest on the moor. I and the young ones will carry
them by turns during our flight across; and as we return, should
they prove too heavy for us, we shall be sure to find plenty of
places on the way in which we can conceal them till our next
journey. Certainly one suit of swan’s feathers would be enough
for the princess, but two are always better. In those northern
countries no one can have too many travelling wrappers.”
“No one will thank you for it,” said stork-mamma; “but you
are master; and, excepting at breeding time, I have nothing to
say.”
In the Viking’s castle on the wild moor, to which the storks
directed their flight in the following spring, the little maiden
still remained. They had named her Helga, which was rather too
soft a name for a child with a temper like hers, although her
form was still beautiful. Every month this temper showed itself
in sharper outlines; and in the course of years, while the
storks still made the same journeys in autumn to the hill, and
in spring to the moors, the child grew to be almost a woman, and
before any one seemed aware of it, she was a wonderfully
beautiful maiden of sixteen. The casket was splendid, but the
contents were worthless. She was, indeed, wild and savage even
in those hard, uncultivated times. It was a pleasure to her to
splash about with her white hands in the warm blood of the horse
which had been slain for sacrifice. In one of her wild moods she
bit off the head of the black cock, which the priest was about
to slay for the sacrifice. To her foster-father she said one
day, “If thine enemy were to pull down thine house about thy
ears, and thou shouldest be sleeping in unconscious security, I
would not wake thee; even if I had the power I would never do
it, for my ears still tingle with the blow that thou gavest me
years ago. I have never forgotten it.” But the Viking treated
her words as a joke; he was, like every one else, bewitched with
her beauty, and knew nothing of the change in the form and
temper of Helga at night. Without a saddle, she would sit on a
horse as if she were a part of it, while it rushed along at full
speed; nor would she spring from its back, even when it
quarrelled with other horses and bit them. She would often leap
from the high shore into the sea with all her clothes on, and
swim to meet the Viking, when his boat was steering home towards
the shore. She once cut off a long lock of her beautiful hair,
and twisted it into a string for her bow. “If a thing is to be
done well,” said she, “I must do it myself.”
The Viking’s wife was, for the time in which she lived, a
woman of strong character and will; but, compared to her
daughter, she was a gentle, timid woman, and she knew that a
wicked sorcerer had the terrible child in his power. It was
sometimes as if Helga acted from sheer wickedness; for often
when her mother stood on the threshold of the door, or stepped
into the yard, she would seat herself on the brink of the well,
wave her arms and legs in the air, and suddenly fall right in.
Here she was able, from her frog nature, to dip and dive about
in the water of the deep well, until at last she would climb
forth like a cat, and come back into the hall dripping with
water, so that the green leaves that were strewed on the floor
were whirled round, and carried away by the streams that flowed
from her.
But there was one time of the day which placed a check upon
Helga. It was the evening twilight; when this hour arrived she
became quiet and thoughtful, and allowed herself to be advised
and led; then also a secret feeling seemed to draw her towards
her mother. And as usual, when the sun set, and the
transformation took place, both in body and mind, inwards and
outwards, she would remain quiet and mournful, with her form
shrunk together in the shape of a frog. Her body was much larger
than those animals ever are, and on this account it was much
more hideous in appearance; for she looked like a wretched
dwarf, with a frog’s head, and webbed fingers. Her eyes had a
most piteous expression; she was without a voice, excepting a
hollow, croaking sound, like the smothered sobs of a dreaming
child.
Then the Viking’s wife took her on her lap, and forgot the
ugly form, as she looked into the mournful eyes, and often said,
“I could wish that thou wouldst always remain my dumb frog
child, for thou art too terrible when thou art clothed in a form
of beauty.” And the Viking woman wrote Runic characters against
sorcery and spells of sickness, and threw them over the wretched
child; but they did no good.
“One can scarcely believe that she was ever small enough to
lie in the cup of the water-lily,” said the papa stork; “and now
she is grown up, and the image of her Egyptian mother,
especially about the eyes. Ah, we shall never see her again;
perhaps she has not discovered how to help herself, as you and
the wise men said she would. Year after year have I flown across
and across the moor, but there was no sign of her being still
alive. Yes, and I may as well tell you that you that each year,
when I arrived a few days before you to repair the nest, and put
everything in its place, I have spent a whole night flying here
and there over the marshy lake, as if I had been an owl or a
bat, but all to no purpose. The two suit of swan’s plumage,
which I and the young ones dragged over here from the land of
the Nile, are of no use; trouble enough it was to us to bring
them here in three journeys, and now they are lying at the
bottom of the nest; and if a fire should happen to break out,
and the wooden house be burnt down, they would be destroyed.”
“And our good nest would be destroyed, too,” said the mamma
stork; “but you think less of that than of your plumage stuff
and your moor-princess. Go and stay with her in the marsh if you
like. You are a bad father to your own children, as I have told
you already, when I hatched my first brood. I only hope neither
we nor our children may have an arrow sent through our wings,
owing to that wild girl. Helga does not know in the least what
she is about. We have lived in this house longer than she has,
she should think of that, and we have never forgotten our duty.
We have paid every year our toll of a feather, an egg, and a
young one, as it is only right we should do. You don’t suppose I
can wander about the court-yard, or go everywhere as I used to
do in old times. I can do it in Egypt, where I can be a
companion of the people, without forgetting myself. But here I
cannot go and peep into the pots and kettles as I do there. No,
I can only sit up here and feel angry with that girl, the little
wretch; and I am angry with you, too; you should have left her
lying in the water lily, then no one would have known anything
about her.”
“You are far better than your conversation,” said the papa
stork; “I know you better than you know yourself.” And with that
he gave a hop, and flapped his wings twice, proudly; then he
stretched his neck and flew, or rather soared away, without
moving his outspread wings. He went on for some distance, and
then he gave a great flap with his wings and flew on his course
at a rapid rate, his head and neck bending proudly before him,
while the sun’s rays fell on his glossy plumage.
“He is the handsomest of them all,” said the mamma stork, as
she watched him; “but I won’t tell him so.”
Early in the autumn, the Viking again returned home laden
with spoil, and bringing prisoners with him. Among them was a
young Christian priest, one of those who contemned the gods of
the north. Often lately there had been, both in hall and
chamber, a talk of the new faith which was spreading far and
wide in the south, and which, through the means of the holy
Ansgarius, had already reached as far as Hedeby on the Schlei.
Even Helga had heard of this belief in the teachings of One who
was named Christ, and who for the love of mankind, and for their
redemption, had given up His life. But to her all this had, as
it were, gone in one ear and out the other. It seemed that she
only understood the meaning of the word “love,” when in the form
of a miserable frog she crouched together in the corner of the
sleeping chamber; but the Viking’s wife had listened to the
wonderful story, and had felt herself strangely moved by it.
On their return, after this voyage, the men spoke of the
beautiful temples built of polished stone, which had been raised
for the public worship of this holy love. Some vessels,
curiously formed of massive gold, had been brought home among
the booty. There was a peculiar fragrance about them all, for
they were incense vessels, which had been swung before the
altars in the temples by the Christian priests. In the deep
stony cellars of the castle, the young Christian priest was
immured, and his hands and feet tied together with strips of
bark. The Viking’s wife considered him as beautiful as Baldur,
and his distress raised her pity; but Helga said he ought to
have ropes fastened to his heels, and be tied to the tails of
wild animals.
“I would let the dogs loose after him” she said; “over the
moor and across the heath. Hurrah! that would be a spectacle for
the gods, and better still to follow in its course.”
But the Viking would not allow him to die such a death as
that, especially as he was the disowned and despiser of the high
gods. In a few days, he had decided to have him offered as a
sacrifice on the blood-stone in the grove. For the first time, a
man was to be sacrificed here. Helga begged to be allowed to
sprinkle the assembled people with the blood of the priest. She
sharpened her glittering knife; and when one of the great,
savage dogs, who were running about the Viking’s castle in great
numbers, sprang towards her, she thrust the knife into his side,
merely, as she said, to prove its sharpness.
The Viking’s wife looked at the wild, badly disposed girl,
with great sorrow; and when night came on, and her daughter’s
beautiful form and disposition were changed, she spoke in
eloquent words to Helga of the sorrow and deep grief that was in
her heart. The ugly frog, in its monstrous shape, stood before
her, and raised its brown mournful eyes to her face, listening
to her words, and seeming to understand them with the
intelligence of a human being.
“Never once to my lord and husband has a word passed my lips
of what I have to suffer through you; my heart is full of grief
about you,” said the Viking’s wife. “The love of a mother is
greater and more powerful than I ever imagined. But love never
entered thy heart; it is cold and clammy, like the plants on the
moor.”
Then the miserable form trembled; it was as if these words
had touched an invisible bond between body and soul, for great
tears stood in the eyes.
“A bitter time will come for thee at last,” continued the
Viking’s wife; “and it will be terrible for me too. It had been
better for thee if thou hadst been left on the high-road, with
the cold night wind to lull thee to sleep.” And the Viking’s
wife shed bitter tears, and went away in anger and sorrow,
passing under the partition of furs, which hung loose over the
beam and divided the hall.
The shrivelled frog still sat in the corner alone. Deep
silence reigned around. At intervals, a half-stifled sigh was
heard from its inmost soul; it was the soul of Helga. It seemed
in pain, as if a new life were arising in her heart. Then she
took a step forward and listened; then stepped again forward,
and seized with her clumsy hands the heavy bar which was laid
across the door. Gently, and with much trouble, she pushed back
the bar, as silently lifted the latch, and then took up the
glimmering lamp which stood in the ante-chamber of the hall. It
seemed as if a stronger will than her own gave her strength. She
removed the iron bolt from the closed cellar-door, and slipped
in to the prisoner. He was slumbering. She touched him with her
cold, moist hand, and as he awoke and caught sight of the
hideous form, he shuddered as if he beheld a wicked apparition.
She drew her knife, cut through the bonds which confined his
hands and feet, and beckoned to him to follow her. He uttered
some holy names and made the sign of the cross, while the form
remained motionless by his side.
“Who art thou?” he asked, “whose outward appearance is that
of an animal, while thou willingly performest acts of mercy?”
The frog-figure beckoned to him to follow her, and led him
through a long gallery concealed by hanging drapery to the
stables, and then pointed to a horse. He mounted upon it, and
she sprang up also before him, and held tightly by the animal’s
mane. The prisoner understood her, and they rode on at a rapid
trot, by a road which he would never have found by himself,
across the open heath. He forgot her ugly form, and only thought
how the mercy and loving-kindness of the Almighty was acting
through this hideous apparition. As he offered pious prayers and
sang holy songs of praise, she trembled. Was it the effect of
prayer and praise that caused this? or, was she shuddering in
the cold morning air at the thought of approaching twilight?
What were her feelings? She raised herself up, and wanted to
stop the horse and spring off, but the Christian priest held her
back with all his might, and then sang a pious song, as if this
could loosen the wicked charm that had changed her into the
semblance of a frog.
And the horse galloped on more wildly than before. The sky
painted itself red, the first sunbeam pierced through the
clouds, and in the clear flood of sunlight the frog became
changed. It was Helga again, young and beautiful, but with a
wicked demoniac spirit. He held now a beautiful young woman in
his arms, and he was horrified at the sight. He stopped the
horse, and sprang from its back. He imagined that some new
sorcery was at work. But Helga also leaped from the horse and
stood on the ground. The child’s short garment reached only to
her knee. She snatched the sharp knife from her girdle, and
rushed like lightning at the astonished priest. “Let me get at
thee!” she cried; “let me get at thee, that I may plunge this
knife into thy body. Thou art pale as ashes, thou beardless
slave.” She pressed in upon him. They struggled with each other
in heavy combat, but it was as if an invisible power had been
given to the Christian in the struggle. He held her fast, and
the old oak under which they stood seemed to help him, for the
loosened roots on the ground became entangled in the maiden’s
feet, and held them fast. Close by rose a bubbling spring, and
he sprinkled Helga’s face and neck with the water, commanded the
unclean spirit to come forth, and pronounced upon her a
Christian blessing. But the water of faith has no power unless
the well-spring of faith flows within. And yet even here its
power was shown; something more than the mere strength of a man
opposed itself, through his means, against the evil which
struggled within her. His holy action seemed to overpower her.
She dropped her arms, glanced at him with pale cheeks and looks
of amazement. He appeared to her a mighty magician skilled in
secret arts; his language was the darkest magic to her, and the
movements of his hands in the air were as the secret signs of a
magician’s wand. She would not have blinked had he waved over
her head a sharp knife or a glittering axe; but she shrunk from
him as he signed her with the sign of the cross on her forehead
and breast, and sat before him like a tame bird, with her head
bowed down. Then he spoke to her, in gentle words, of the deed
of love she had performed for him during the night, when she had
come to him in the form of an ugly frog, to loosen his bonds,
and to lead him forth to life and light; and he told her that
she was bound in closer fetters than he had been, and that she
could recover also life and light by his means. He would take
her to Hedeby2 to St. Ansgarius, and there, in that Christian
town, the spell of the sorcerer would be removed. But he would
not let her sit before him on the horse, though of her own free
will she wished to do so. “Thou must sit behind me, not before
me,” said he. “Thy magic beauty has a magic power which comes
from an evil origin, and I fear it; still I am sure to overcome
through my faith in Christ.” Then he knelt down, and prayed with
pious fervor. It was as if the quiet woodland were a holy church
consecrated by his worship. The birds sang as if they were also
of this new congregation; and the fragrance of the wild flowers
was as the ambrosial perfume of incense; while, above all,
sounded the words of Scripture, “A light to them that sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide their feet into
the way of peace.” And he spoke these words with the deep
longing of his whole nature.
Meanwhile, the horse that had carried them in wild career
stood quietly by, plucking at the tall bramble-bushes, till the
ripe young berries fell down upon Helga’s hands, as if inviting
her to eat. Patiently she allowed herself to be lifted on the
horse, and sat there like a somnambulist—as one who walked in
his sleep. The Christian bound two branches together with bark,
in the form of a cross, and held it on high as they rode through
the forest. The way gradually grew thicker of brushwood, as they
rode along, till at last it became a trackless wilderness.
Bushes of the wild sloe here and there blocked up the path, so
that they had to ride over them. The bubbling spring formed not
a stream, but a marsh, round which also they were obliged to
guide the horse; still there were strength and refreshment in
the cool forest breeze, and no trifling power in the gentle
words spoken in faith and Christian love by the young priest,
whose inmost heart yearned to lead this poor lost one into the
way of light and life. It is said that rain-drops can make a
hollow in the hardest stone, and the waves of the sea can smooth
and round the rough edges of the rocks; so did the dew of mercy
fall upon Helga, softening what was hard, and smoothing what was
rough in her character. These effects did not yet appear; she
was not herself aware of them; neither does the seed in the lap
of earth know, when the refreshing dew and the warm sunbeams
fall upon it, that it contains within itself power by which it
will flourish and bloom. The song of the mother sinks into the
heart of the child, and the little one prattles the words after
her, without understanding their meaning; but after a time the
thoughts expand, and what has been heard in childhood seems to
the mind clear and bright. So now the “Word,” which is
all-powerful to create, was working in the heart of Helga.
They rode forth from the thick forest, crossed the heath, and
again entered a pathless wood. Here, towards evening, they met
with robbers.
“Where hast thou stolen that beauteous maiden?” cried the
robbers, seizing the horse by the bridle, and dragging the two
riders from its back.
The priest had nothing to defend himself with, but the knife
he had taken from Helga, and with this he struck out right and
left. One of the robbers raised his axe against him; but the
young priest sprang on one side, and avoided the blow, which
fell with great force on the horse’s neck, so that the blood
gushed forth, and the animal sunk to the ground. Then Helga
seemed suddenly to awake from her long, deep reverie; she threw
herself hastily upon the dying animal. The priest placed himself
before her, to defend and shelter her; but one of the robbers
swung his iron axe against the Christian’s head with such force
that it was dashed to pieces, the blood and brains were
scattered about, and he fell dead upon the ground. Then the
robbers seized beautiful Helga by her white arms and slender
waist; but at that moment the sun went down, and as its last ray
disappeared, she was changed into the form of a frog. A greenish
white mouth spread half over her face; her arms became thin and
slimy; while broad hands, with webbed fingers, spread themselves
out like fans. Then the robbers, in terror, let her go, and she
stood among them, a hideous monster; and as is the nature of
frogs to do, she hopped up as high as her own size, and
disappeared in the thicket. Then the robbers knew that this must
be the work of an evil spirit or some secret sorcery, and, in a
terrible fright, they ran hastily from the spot.
The full moon had already risen, and was shining in all her
radiant splendor over the earth, when from the thicket, in the
form of a frog, crept poor Helga. She stood still by the corpse
of the Christian priest, and the carcase of the dead horse. She
looked at them with eyes that seemed to weep, and from the
frog’s head came forth a croaking sound, as when a child bursts
into tears. She threw herself first upon one, and then upon the
other; brought water in her hand, which, from being webbed, was
large and hollow, and poured it over them; but they were dead,
and dead they would remain. She understood that at last. Soon
wild animals would come and tear their dead bodies; but no, that
must not happen. Then she dug up the earth, as deep as she was
able, that she might prepare a grave for them. She had nothing
but a branch of a tree and her two hands, between the fingers of
which the webbed skin stretched, and they were torn by the work,
while the blood ran down her hands. She saw at last that her
work would be useless, more than she could accomplish; so she
fetched more water, and washed the face of the dead, and then
covered it with fresh green leaves; she also brought large
boughs and spread over him, and scattered dried leaves between
the branches. Then she brought the heaviest stones that she
could carry, and laid them over the dead body, filling up the
crevices with moss, till she thought she had fenced in his
resting-place strongly enough. The difficult task had employed
her the whole night; and as the sun broke forth, there stood the
beautiful Helga in all her loveliness, with her bleeding hands,
and, for the first time, with tears on her maiden cheeks. It
was, in this transformation, as if two natures were striving
together within her; her whole frame trembled, and she looked
around her as if she had just awoke from a painful dream. She
leaned for support against the trunk of a slender tree, and at
last climbed to the topmost branches, like a cat, and seated
herself firmly upon them. She remained there the whole day,
sitting alone, like a frightened squirrel, in the silent
solitude of the wood, where the rest and stillness is as the
calm of death.
Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several
ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures
moving quickly to and fro. In the air, danced myriads of gnats,
swarm upon swarm, troops of buzzing flies, ladybirds,
dragon-flies with golden wings, and other little winged
creatures. The worm crawled forth from the moist ground, and the
moles crept out; but, excepting these, all around had the
stillness of death: but when people say this, they do not quite
understand themselves what they mean. None noticed Helga but a
flock of magpies, which flew chattering round the top of the
tree on which she sat. These birds hopped close to her on the
branches with bold curiosity. A glance from her eyes was a
signal to frighten them away, and they were not clever enough to
find out who she was; indeed she hardly knew herself.
When the sun was near setting, and the evening’s twilight
about to commence, the approaching transformation aroused her to
fresh exertion. She let herself down gently from the tree, and,
as the last sunbeam vanished, she stood again in the wrinkled
form of a frog, with the torn, webbed skin on her hands, but her
eyes now gleamed with more radiant beauty than they had ever
possessed in her most beautiful form of loveliness; they were
now pure, mild maidenly eyes that shone forth in the face of a
frog. They showed the existence of deep feeling and a human
heart, and the beauteous eyes overflowed with tears, weeping
precious drops that lightened the heart.
On the raised mound which she had made as a grave for the
dead priest, she found the cross made of the branches of a tree,
the last work of him who now lay dead and cold beneath it. A
sudden thought came to Helga, and she lifted up the cross and
planted it upon the grave, between the stones that covered him
and the dead horse. The sad recollection brought the tears to
her eyes, and in this gentle spirit she traced the same sign in
the sand round the grave; and as she formed, with both her
hands, the sign of the cross, the web skin fell from them like a
torn glove. She washed her hands in the water of the spring, and
gazed with astonishment at their delicate whiteness. Again she
made the holy sign in the air, between herself and the dead man;
her lips trembled, her tongue moved, and the name which she in
her ride through the forest had so often heard spoken, rose to
her lips, and she uttered the words, “Jesus Christ.” Then the
frog skin fell from her; she was once more a lovely maiden. Her
head bent wearily, her tired limbs required rest, and then she
slept.
Her sleep, however, was short. Towards midnight, she awoke;
before her stood the dead horse, prancing and full of life,
which shone forth from his eyes and from his wounded neck. Close
by his side appeared the murdered Christian priest, more
beautiful than Baldur, as the Viking’s wife had said; but now he
came as if in a flame of fire. Such gravity, such stern justice,
such a piercing glance shone from his large, gentle eyes, that
it seemed to penetrate into every corner of her heart. Beautiful
Helga trembled at the look, and her memory returned with a power
as if it had been the day of judgment. Every good deed that had
been done for her, every loving word that had been said, were
vividly before her mind. She understood now that love had kept
her here during the day of her trial; while the creature formed
of dust and clay, soul and spirit, had wrestled and struggled
with evil. She acknowledged that she had only followed the
impulses of an evil disposition, that she had done nothing to
cure herself; everything had been given her, and all had
happened as it were by the ordination of Providence. She bowed
herself humbly, confessed her great imperfections in the sight
of Him who can read every fault of the heart, and then the
priest spoke. “Daughter of the moorland, thou hast come from the
swamp and the marshy earth, but from this thou shalt arise. The
sunlight shining into thy inmost soul proves the origin from
which thou hast really sprung, and has restored the body to its
natural form. I am come to thee from the land of the dead, and
thou also must pass through the valley to reach the holy
mountains where mercy and perfection dwell. I cannot lead thee
to Hedeby that thou mayst receive Christian baptism, for first
thou must remove the thick veil with which the waters of the
moorland are shrouded, and bring forth from its depths the
living author of thy being and thy life. Till this is done, thou
canst not receive consecration.”
Then he lifted her on the horse and gave her a golden censer,
similar to those she had already seen at the Viking’s house. A
sweet perfume arose from it, while the open wound in the
forehead of the slain priest, shone with the rays of a diamond.
He took the cross from the grave, and held it aloft, and now
they rode through the air over the rustling trees, over the
hills where warriors lay buried each by his dead war-horse; and
the brazen monumental figures rose up and galloped forth, and
stationed themselves on the summits of the hills. The golden
crescent on their foreheads, fastened with golden knots,
glittered in the moonlight, and their mantles floated in the
wind. The dragon, that guards buried treasure, lifted his head
and gazed after them. The goblins and the satyrs peeped out from
beneath the hills, and flitted to and fro in the fields, waving
blue, red, and green torches, like the glowing sparks in burning
paper. Over woodland and heath, flood and fen, they flew on,
till they reached the wild moor, over which they hovered in
broad circles. The Christian priest held the cross aloft, and it
glittered like gold, while from his lips sounded pious prayers.
Beautiful Helga’s voice joined with his in the hymns he sung, as
a child joins in her mother’s song. She swung the censer, and a
wonderful fragrance of incense arose from it; so powerful, that
the reeds and rushes of the moor burst forth into blossom. Each
germ came forth from the deep ground: all that had life raised
itself. Blooming water-lilies spread themselves forth like a
carpet of wrought flowers, and upon them lay a slumbering woman,
young and beautiful. Helga fancied that it was her own image she
saw reflected in the still water. But it was her mother she
beheld, the wife of the Marsh King, the princess from the land
of the Nile.
The dead Christian priest desired that the sleeping woman
should be lifted on the horse, but the horse sank beneath the
load, as if he had been a funeral pall fluttering in the wind.
But the sign of the cross made the airy phantom strong, and then
the three rode away from the marsh to firm ground.
At the same moment the cock crew in the Viking’s castle, and
the dream figures dissolved and floated away in the air, but
mother and daughter stood opposite to each other.
“Am I looking at my own image in the deep water?” said the
mother.
“Is it myself that I see represented on a white shield?”
cried the daughter.
Then they came nearer to each other in a fond embrace. The
mother’s heart beat quickly, and she understood the quickened
pulses. “My child!” she exclaimed, “the flower of my heart—my
lotus flower of the deep water!” and she embraced her child
again and wept, and the tears were as a baptism of new life and
love for Helga. “In swan’s plumage I came here,” said the
mother, “and here I threw off my feather dress. Then I sank down
through the wavering ground, deep into the marsh beneath, which
closed like a wall around me; I found myself after a while in
fresher water; still a power drew me down deeper and deeper. I
felt the weight of sleep upon my eyelids. Then I slept, and
dreams hovered round me. It seemed to me as if I were again in
the pyramids of Egypt, and yet the waving elder trunk that had
frightened me on the moor stood ever before me. I observed the
clefts and wrinkles in the stem; they shone forth in strange
colors, and took the form of hieroglyphics. It was the mummy
case on which I gazed. At last it burst, and forth stepped the
thousand years’ old king, the mummy form, black as pitch, black
as the shining wood-snail, or the slimy mud of the swamp.
Whether it was really the mummy or the Marsh King I know not. He
seized me in his arms, and I felt as if I must die. When I
recovered myself, I found in my bosom a little bird, flapping
its wings, twittering and fluttering. The bird flew away from my
bosom, upwards towards the dark, heavy canopy above me, but a
long, green band kept it fastened to me. I heard and understood
the tenor of its longings. Freedom! sunlight! to my father! Then
I thought of my father, and the sunny land of my birth, my life,
and my love. Then I loosened the band, and let the bird fly away
to its home—to a father. Since that hour I have ceased to dream;
my sleep has been long and heavy, till in this very hour,
harmony and fragrance awoke me, and set me free.”
The green band which fastened the wings of the bird to the
mother’s heart, where did it flutter now? whither had it been
wafted? The stork only had seen it. The band was the green
stalk, the cup of the flower the cradle in which lay the child,
that now in blooming beauty had been folded to the mother’s
heart.
And while the two were resting in each other’s arms, the old
stork flew round and round them in narrowing circles, till at
length he flew away swiftly to his nest, and fetched away the
two suits of swan’s feathers, which he had preserved there for
many years. Then he returned to the mother and daughter, and
threw the swan’s plumage over them; the feathers immediately
closed around them, and they rose up from the earth in the form
of two white swans.
“And now we can converse with pleasure,” said the stork-papa;
“we can understand one another, although the beaks of birds are
so different in shape. It is very fortunate that you came
to-night. To-morrow we should have been gone. The mother, myself
and the little ones, we’re about to fly to the south. Look at me
now: I am an old friend from the Nile, and a mother’s heart
contains more than her beak. She always said that the princess
would know how to help herself. I and the young ones carried the
swan’s feathers over here, and I am glad of it now, and how
lucky it is that I am here still. When the day dawns we shall
start with a great company of other storks. We’ll fly first, and
you can follow in our track, so that you cannot miss your way. I
and the young ones will have an eye upon you.”
“And the lotus-flower which I was to take with me,” said the
Egyptian princess, “is flying here by my side, clothed in swan’s
feathers. The flower of my heart will travel with me; and so the
riddle is solved. Now for home! now for home!”
But Helga said she could not leave the Danish land without
once more seeing her foster-mother, the loving wife of the
Viking. Each pleasing recollection, each kind word, every tear
from the heart which her foster-mother had wept for her, rose in
her mind, and at that moment she felt as if she loved this
mother the best.
“Yes, we must go to the Viking’s castle,” said the stork;
“mother and the young ones are waiting for me there. How they
will open their eyes and flap their wings! My wife, you see,
does not say much; she is short and abrupt in her manner; but
she means well, for all that. I will flap my wings at once, that
they may hear us coming.” Then stork-papa flapped his wings in
first-rate style, and he and the swans flew away to the Viking’s
castle.
In the castle, every one was in a deep sleep. It had been
late in the evening before the Viking’s wife retired to rest.
She was anxious about Helga, who, three days before, had
vanished with the Christian priest. Helga must have helped him
in his flight, for it was her horse that was missed from the
stable; but by what power had all this been accomplished? The
Viking’s wife thought of it with wonder, thought on the miracles
which they said could be performed by those who believed in the
Christian faith, and followed its teachings. These passing
thoughts formed themselves into a vivid dream, and it seemed to
her that she was still lying awake on her couch, while without
darkness reigned. A storm arose; she heard the lake dashing and
rolling from east and west, like the waves of the North Sea or
the Cattegat. The monstrous snake which, it is said, surrounds
the earth in the depths of the ocean, was trembling in spasmodic
convulsions. The night of the fall of the gods was come,
“Ragnorock,” as the heathens call the judgment-day, when
everything shall pass away, even the high gods themselves. The
war trumpet sounded; riding upon the rainbow, came the gods,
clad in steel, to fight their last battle on the last
battle-field. Before them flew the winged vampires, and the dead
warriors closed up the train. The whole firmament was ablaze
with the northern lights, and yet the darkness triumphed. It was
a terrible hour. And, close to the terrified woman, Helga seemed
to be seated on the floor, in the hideous form of a frog, yet
trembling, and clinging to her foster-mother, who took her on
her lap, and lovingly caressed her, hideous and frog-like as she
was. The air was filled with the clashing of arms and the
hissing of arrows, as if a storm of hail was descending upon the
earth. It seemed to her the hour when earth and sky would burst
asunder, and all things be swallowed up in Saturn’s fiery lake;
but she knew that a new heaven and a new earth would arise, and
that corn-fields would wave where now the lake rolled over
desolate sands, and the ineffable God reign. Then she saw rising
from the region of the dead, Baldur the gentle, the loving, and
as the Viking’s wife gazed upon him, she recognized his
countenance. It was the captive Christian priest. “White
Christian!” she exclaimed aloud, and with the words, she pressed
a kiss on the forehead of the hideous frog-child. Then the
frog-skin fell off, and Helga stood before her in all her
beauty, more lovely and gentle-looking, and with eyes beaming
with love. She kissed the hands of her foster-mother, blessed
her for all her fostering love and care during the days of her
trial and misery, for the thoughts she had suggested and awoke
in her heart, and for naming the Name which she now repeated.
Then beautiful Helga rose as a mighty swan, and spread her wings
with the rushing sound of troops of birds of passage flying
through the air.
Then the Viking’s wife awoke, but she still heard the rushing
sound without. She knew it was the time for the storks to
depart, and that it must be their wings which she heard. She
felt she should like to see them once more, and bid them
farewell. She rose from her couch, stepped out on the threshold,
and beheld, on the ridge of the roof, a party of storks ranged
side by side. Troops of the birds were flying in circles over
the castle and the highest trees; but just before her, as she
stood on the threshold and close to the well where Helga had so
often sat and alarmed her with her wildness, now stood two
swans, gazing at her with intelligent eyes. Then she remembered
her dream, which still appeared to her as a reality. She thought
of Helga in the form of a swan. She thought of a Christian
priest, and suddenly a wonderful joy arose in her heart. The
swans flapped their wings and arched their necks as if to offer
her a greeting, and the Viking’s wife spread out her arms
towards them, as if she accepted it, and smiled through her
tears. She was roused from deep thought by a rustling of wings
and snapping of beaks; all the storks arose, and started on
their journey towards the south.
“We will not wait for the swans,” said the mamma stork; “if
they want to go with us, let them come now; we can’t sit here
till the plovers start. It is a fine thing after all to travel
in families, not like the finches and the partridges. There the
male and the female birds fly in separate flocks, which, to
speak candidly, I consider very unbecoming.”
“What are those swans flapping their wings for?”
“Well, every one flies in his own fashion,” said the papa
stork. “The swans fly in an oblique line; the cranes, in the
form of a triangle; and the plovers, in a curved line like a
snake.”
“Don’t talk about snakes while we are flying up here,” said
stork-mamma. “It puts ideas into the children’s heads that can
not be realized.”
“Are those the high mountains I have heard spoken of?” asked
Helga, in the swan’s plumage.
“They are storm-clouds driving along beneath us,” replied her
mother.
“What are yonder white clouds that rise so high?” again
inquired Helga.
“Those are mountains covered with perpetual snows, that you
see yonder,” said her mother. And then they flew across the Alps
towards the blue Mediterranean.
“Africa’s land! Egyptia’s strand!” sang the daughter of the
Nile, in her swan’s plumage, as from the upper air she caught
sight of her native land, a narrow, golden, wavy strip on the
shores of the Nile; the other birds espied it also and hastened
their flight.
“I can smell the Nile mud and the wet frogs,” said the
stork-mamma, “and I begin to feel quite hungry. Yes, now you
shall taste something nice, and you will see the marabout bird,
and the ibis, and the crane. They all belong to our family, but
they are not nearly so handsome as we are. They give themselves
great airs, especially the ibis. The Egyptians have spoilt him.
They make a mummy of him, and stuff him with spices. I would
rather be stuffed with live frogs, and so would you, and so you
shall. Better have something in your inside while you are alive,
than to be made a parade of after you are dead. That is my
opinion, and I am always right.”
“The storks are come,” was said in the great house on the
banks of the Nile, where the lord lay in the hall on his downy
cushions, covered with a leopard skin, scarcely alive, yet not
dead, waiting and hoping for the lotus-flower from the deep
moorland in the far north. Relatives and servants were standing
by his couch, when the two beautiful swans who had come with the
storks flew into the hall. They threw off their soft white
plumage, and two lovely female forms approached the pale, sick
old man, and threw back their long hair, and when Helga bent
over her grandfather, redness came back to his cheeks, his eyes
brightened, and life returned to his benumbed limbs. The old man
rose up with health and energy renewed; daughter and grandchild
welcomed him as joyfully as if with a morning greeting after a
long and troubled dream.
Joy reigned through the whole house, as well as in the
stork’s nest; although there the chief cause was really the good
food, especially the quantities of frogs, which seemed to spring
out of the ground in swarms.
Then the learned men hastened to note down, in flying
characters, the story of the two princesses, and spoke of the
arrival of the health-giving flower as a mighty event, which had
been a blessing to the house and the land. Meanwhile, the
stork-papa told the story to his family in his own way; but not
till they had eaten and were satisfied; otherwise they would
have had something else to do than to listen to stories.
“Well,” said the stork-mamma, when she had heard it, “you
will be made something of at last; I suppose they can do nothing
less.”
“What could I be made?” said stork-papa; “what have I done?—
just nothing.”
“You have done more than all the rest,” she replied. “But for
you and the youngsters the two young princesses would never have
seen Egypt again, and the recovery of the old man would not have
been effected. You will become something. They must certainly
give you a doctor’s hood, and our young ones will inherit it,
and their children after them, and so on. You already look like
an Egyptian doctor, at least in my eyes.”
“I cannot quite remember the words I heard when I listened on
the roof,” said stork-papa, while relating the story to his
family; “all I know is, that what the wise men said was so
complicated and so learned, that they received not only rank,
but presents; even the head cook at the great house was honored
with a mark of distinction, most likely for the soup.”
“And what did you receive?” said the stork-mamma. “They
certainly ought not to forget the most important person in the
affair, as you really are. The learned men have done nothing at
all but use their tongues. Surely they will not overlook you.”
Late in the night, while the gentle sleep of peace rested on
the now happy house, there was still one watcher. It was not
stork-papa, who, although he stood on guard on one leg, could
sleep soundly. Helga alone was awake. She leaned over the
balcony, gazing at the sparkling stars that shone clearer and
brighter in the pure air than they had done in the north, and
yet they were the same stars. She thought of the Viking’s wife
in the wild moorland, of the gentle eyes of her foster-mother,
and of the tears she had shed over the poor frog-child that now
lived in splendor and starry beauty by the waters of the Nile,
with air balmy and sweet as spring. She thought of the love that
dwelt in the breast of the heathen woman, love that had been
shown to a wretched creature, hateful as a human being, and
hideous when in the form of an animal. She looked at the
glittering stars, and thought of the radiance that had shone
forth on the forehead of the dead man, as she had fled with him
over the woodland and moor. Tones were awakened in her memory;
words which she had heard him speak as they rode onward, when
she was carried, wondering and trembling, through the air; words
from the great Fountain of love, the highest love that embraces
all the human race. What had not been won and achieved by this
love?
Day and night beautiful Helga was absorbed in the
contemplation of the great amount of her happiness, and lost
herself in the contemplation, like a child who turns hurriedly
from the giver to examine the beautiful gifts. She was
over-powered with her good fortune, which seemed always
increasing, and therefore what might it become in the future?
Had she not been brought by a wonderful miracle to all this joy
and happiness? And in these thoughts she indulged, until at last
she thought no more of the Giver. It was the over-abundance of
youthful spirits unfolding its wings for a daring flight. Her
eyes sparkled with energy, when suddenly arose a loud noise in
the court below, and the daring thought vanished. She looked
down, and saw two large ostriches running round quickly in
narrow circles; she had never seen these creatures
before,—great, coarse, clumsy-looking birds with curious wings
that looked as if they had been clipped, and the birds
themselves had the appearance of having been roughly used. She
inquired about them, and for the first time heard the legend
which the Egyptians relate respecting the ostrich.
Once, say they, the ostriches were a beautiful and glorious
race of birds, with large, strong wings. One evening the other
large birds of the forest said to the ostrich, “Brother, shall
we fly to the river to-morrow morning to drink, God willing?”
and the ostrich answered, “I will.”
With the break of day, therefore, they commenced their
flight; first rising high in the air, towards the sun, which is
the eye of God; still higher and higher the ostrich flew, far
above the other birds, proudly approaching the light, trusting
in its own strength, and thinking not of the Giver, or saying,
“if God will.” When suddenly the avenging angel drew back the
veil from the flaming ocean of sunlight, and in a moment the
wings of the proud bird were scorched and shrivelled, and they
sunk miserably to the earth. Since that time the ostrich and his
race have never been able to rise in the air; they can only fly
terror-stricken along the ground, or run round and round in
narrow circles. It is a warning to mankind, that in all our
thoughts and schemes, and in every action we undertake, we
should say, “if God will.”
Then Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and seriously, and
looked at the circling ostrich, as with timid fear and simple
pleasure it glanced at its own great shadow on the sunlit walls.
And the story of the ostrich sunk deeply into the heart and mind
of Helga: a life of happiness, both in the present and in the
future, seemed secure for her, and what was yet to come might be
the best of all, God willing.
Early in the spring, when the storks were again about to
journey northward, beautiful Helga took off her golden
bracelets, scratched her name on them, and beckoned to the
stork-father. He came to her, and she placed the golden circlet
round his neck, and begged him to deliver it safely to the
Viking’s wife, so that she might know that her foster-daughter
still lived, was happy, and had not forgotten her.
“It is rather heavy to carry,” thought stork-papa, when he
had it on his neck; “but gold and honor are not to be flung into
the street. The stork brings good fortune—they’ll be obliged to
acknowledge that at last.”
“You lay gold, and I lay eggs,” said stork-mamma; “with you
it is only once in a way, I lay eggs every year But no one
appreciates what we do; I call it very mortifying.”
“But then we have a consciousness of our own worth, mother,”
replied stork-papa.
“What good will that do you?” retorted stork-mamma; “it will
neither bring you a fair wind, nor a good meal.”
“The little nightingale, who is singing yonder in the
tamarind grove, will soon be going north, too.” Helga said she
had often heard her singing on the wild moor, so she determined
to send a message by her. While flying in the swan’s plumage she
had learnt the bird language; she had often conversed with the
stork and the swallow, and she knew that the nightingale would
understand. So she begged the nightingale to fly to the
beechwood, on the peninsula of Jutland, where a mound of stone
and twigs had been raised to form the grave, and she begged the
nightingale to persuade all the other little birds to build
their nests round the place, so that evermore should resound
over that grave music and song. And the nightingale flew away,
and time flew away also.
In the autumn, an eagle, standing upon a pyramid, saw a
stately train of richly laden camels, and men attired in armor
on foaming Arabian steeds, whose glossy skins shone like silver,
their nostrils were pink, and their thick, flowing manes hung
almost to their slender legs. A royal prince of Arabia, handsome
as a prince should be, and accompanied by distinguished guests,
was on his way to the stately house, on the roof of which the
storks’ empty nests might be seen. They were away now in the far
north, but expected to return very soon. And, indeed, they
returned on a day that was rich in joy and gladness.
A marriage was being celebrated, in which the beautiful
Helga, glittering in silk and jewels, was the bride, and the
bridegroom the young Arab prince. Bride and bridegroom sat at
the upper end of the table, between the bride’s mother and
grandfather. But her gaze was not on the bridegroom, with his
manly, sunburnt face, round which curled a black beard, and
whose dark fiery eyes were fixed upon her; but away from him, at
a twinkling star, that shone down upon her from the sky. Then
was heard the sound of rushing wings beating the air. The storks
were coming home; and the old stork pair, although tired with
the journey and requiring rest, did not fail to fly down at once
to the balustrades of the verandah, for they knew already what
feast was being celebrated. They had heard of it on the borders
of the land, and also that Helga had caused their figures to be
represented on the walls, for they belonged to her history.
“I call that very sensible and pretty,” said stork-papa.
“Yes, but it is very little,” said mamma stork; “they could
not possibly have done less.”
But, when Helga saw them, she rose and went out into the
verandah to stroke the backs of the storks. The old stork pair
bowed their heads, and curved their necks, and even the youngest
among the young ones felt honored by this reception.
Helga continued to gaze upon the glittering star, which
seemed to glow brighter and purer in its light; then between
herself and the star floated a form, purer than the air, and
visible through it. It floated quite near to her, and she saw
that it was the dead Christian priest, who also was coming to
her wedding feast—coming from the heavenly kingdom.
“The glory and brightness, yonder, outshines all that is
known on earth,” said he.
Then Helga the fair prayed more gently, and more earnestly,
than she had ever prayed in her life before, that she might be
permitted to gaze, if only for a single moment, at the glory and
brightness of the heavenly kingdom. Then she felt herself lifted
up, as it were, above the earth, through a sea of sound and
thought; not only around her, but within her, was there light
and song, such as words cannot express.
“Now we must return;” he said; “you will be missed.”
“Only one more look,” she begged; “but one short moment
more.”
“We must return to earth; the guests will have all departed.
Only one more look!—the last!”
Then Helga stood again in the verandah. But the marriage
lamps in the festive hall had been all extinguished, and the
torches outside had vanished. The storks were gone; not a guest
could be seen; no bridegroom—all in those few short moments
seemed to have died. Then a great dread fell upon her. She
stepped from the verandah through the empty hall into the next
chamber, where slept strange warriors. She opened a side door,
which once led into her own apartment, but now, as she passed
through, she found herself suddenly in a garden which she had
never before seen here, the sky blushed red, it was the dawn of
morning. Three minutes only in heaven, and a whole night on
earth had passed away! Then she saw the storks, and called to
them in their own language.
Then stork-papa turned his head towards here, listened to her
words, and drew near. “You speak our language,” said he, “what
do you wish? Why do you appear,—you—a strange woman?”
“It is I—it is Helga! Dost thou not know me? Three minutes
ago we were speaking together yonder in the verandah.”
“That is a mistake,” said the stork, “you must have dreamed
all this.”
“No, no,” she exclaimed. Then she reminded him of the
Viking’s castle, of the great lake, and of the journey across
the ocean.
Then stork-papa winked his eyes, and said, “Why that’s an old
story which happened in the time of my grandfather. There
certainly was a princess of that kind here in Egypt once, who
came from the Danish land, but she vanished on the evening of
her wedding day, many hundred years ago, and never came back.
You may read about it yourself yonder, on a monument in the
garden. There you will find swans and storks sculptured, and on
the top is a figure of the princess Helga, in marble.”
And so it was; Helga understood it all now, and sank on her
knees. The sun burst forth in all its glory, and, as in olden
times, the form of the frog vanished in his beams, and the
beautiful form stood forth in all its loveliness; so now, bathed
in light, rose a beautiful form, purer, clearer than air—a ray
of brightness—from the Source of light Himself. The body
crumbled into dust, and a faded lotus-flower lay on the spot on
which Helga had stood.
“Now that is a new ending to the story,” said stork-papa; “I
really never expected it would end in this way, but it seems a
very good ending.”
“And what will the young ones say to it, I wonder?” said
stork-mamma.
“Ah, that is a very important question,” replied the stork.
|
The Philosopher’s Stone
FAR away towards the east, in India, which seemed in those days
the world’s end, stood the Tree of the Sun; a noble tree, such
as we have never seen, and perhaps never may see.
The summit of this tree spread itself for miles like an
entire forest, each of its smaller branches forming a complete
tree. Palms, beech-trees, pines, plane-trees, and various other
kinds, which are found in all parts of the world, were here like
small branches, shooting forth from the great tree; while the
larger boughs, with their knots and curves, formed valleys and
hills, clothed with velvety green and covered with flowers.
Everywhere it was like a blooming meadow or a lovely garden.
Here were birds from all quarters of the world assembled
together; birds from the primeval forests of America, from the
rose gardens of Damascus, and from the deserts of Africa, in
which the elephant and the lion may boast of being the only
rulers. Birds from the Polar regions came flying here, and of
course the stork and the swallow were not absent. But the birds
were not the only living creatures. There were stags, squirrels,
antelopes, and hundreds of other beautiful and light-footed
animals here found a home.
The summit of the tree was a wide-spreading garden, and in
the midst of it, where the green boughs formed a kind of hill,
stood a castle of crystal, with a view from it towards every
quarter of heaven. Each tower was erected in the form of a lily,
and within the stern was a winding staircase, through which one
could ascend to the top and step out upon the leaves as upon
balconies. The calyx of the flower itself formed a most
beautiful, glittering, circular hall, above which no other roof
arose than the blue firmament and the sun and stars.
Just as much splendor, but of another kind, appeared below,
in the wide halls of the castle. Here, on the walls, were
reflected pictures of the world, which represented numerous and
varied scenes of everything that took place daily, so that it
was useless to read the newspapers, and indeed there were none
to be obtained in this spot. All was to be seen in living
pictures by those who wished it, but all would have been too
much for even the wisest man, and this man dwelt here. His name
is very difficult; you would not be able to pronounce it, so it
may be omitted. He knew everything that a man on earth can know
or imagine. Every invention already in existence or yet to be,
was known to him, and much more; still everything on earth has a
limit. The wise king Solomon was not half so wise as this man.
He could govern the powers of nature and held sway over potent
spirits; even Death itself was obliged to give him every morning
a list of those who were to die during the day. And King Solomon
himself had to die at last, and this fact it was which so often
occupied the thoughts of this great man in the castle on the
Tree of the Sun. He knew that he also, however high he might
tower above other men in wisdom, must one day die. He knew that
his children would fade away like the leaves of the forest and
become dust. He saw the human race wither and fall like leaves
from the tree; he saw new men come to fill their places, but the
leaves that fell off never sprouted forth again; they crumbled
to dust or were absorbed into other plants.
“What happens to man,” asked the wise man of himself, “when
touched by the angel of death? What can death be? The body
decays, and the soul. Yes; what is the soul, and whither does it
go?”
“To eternal life,” says the comforting voice of religion.
“But what is this change? Where and how shall we exist?”
“Above; in heaven,” answers the pious man; “it is there we
hope to go.”
“Above!” repeated the wise man, fixing his eyes upon the moon
and stars above him. He saw that to this earthly sphere above
and below were constantly changing places, and that the position
varied according to the spot on which a man found himself. He
knew, also, that even if he ascended to the top of the highest
mountain which rears its lofty summit on this earth, the air,
which to us seems clear and transparent, would there be dark and
cloudy; the sun would have a coppery glow and send forth no
rays, and our earth would lie beneath him wrapped in an
orange-colored mist. How narrow are the limits which confine the
bodily sight, and how little can be seen by the eye of the soul.
How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so
important to us all.
In the most secret chamber of the castle lay the greatest
treasure on earth—the Book of Truth. The wise man had read it
through page after page. Every man may read in this book, but
only in fragments. To many eyes the characters seem so mixed in
confusion that the words cannot be distinguished. On certain
pages the writing often appears so pale or so blurred that the
page becomes a blank. The wiser a man becomes, the more he will
read, and those who are wisest read most.
The wise man knew how to unite the sunlight and the moonlight
with the light of reason and the hidden powers of nature; and
through this stronger light, many things in the pages were made
clear to him. But in the portion of the book entitled “Life
after Death” not a single point could he see distinctly. This
pained him. Should he never be able here on earth to obtain a
light by which everything written in the Book of Truth should
become clear to him? Like the wise King Solomon, he understood
the language of animals, and could interpret their talk into
song; but that made him none the wiser. He found out the nature
of plants and metals, and their power in curing diseases and
arresting death, but none to destroy death itself. In all
created things within his reach he sought the light that should
shine upon the certainty of an eternal life, but he found it
not. The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were
to him as blank paper. Christianity placed before him in the
Bible a promise of eternal life, but he wanted to read it in his
book, in which nothing on the subject appeared to be written.
He had five children; four sons, educated as the children of
such a wise father should be, and a daughter, fair, gentle, and
intelligent, but she was blind; yet this deprivation appeared as
nothing to her; her father and brothers were outward eyes to
her, and a vivid imagination made everything clear to her mental
sight. The sons had never gone farther from the castle than the
branches of the trees extended, and the sister had scarcely ever
left home. They were happy children in that home of their
childhood, the beautiful and fragrant Tree of the Sun. Like all
children, they loved to hear stories related to them, and their
father told them many things which other children would not have
understood; but these were as clever as most grownup people are
among us. He explained to them what they saw in the pictures of
life on the castle walls—the doings of man, and the progress of
events in all the lands of the earth; and the sons often
expressed a wish that they could be present, and take a part in
these great deeds. Then their father told them that in the world
there was nothing but toil and difficulty: that it was not quite
what it appeared to them, as they looked upon it in their
beautiful home. He spoke to them of the true, the beautiful, and
the good, and told them that these three held together in the
world, and by that union they became crystallized into a
precious jewel, clearer than a diamond of the first water—a
jewel, whose splendor had a value even in the sight of God, in
whose brightness all things are dim. This jewel was called the
philosopher’s stone. He told them that, by searching, man could
attain to a knowledge of the existence of God, and that it was
in the power of every man to discover the certainty that such a
jewel as the philosopher’s stone really existed. This
information would have been beyond the perception of other
children; but these children understood, and others will learn
to comprehend its meaning after a time. They questioned their
father about the true, the beautiful, and the good, and he
explained it to them in many ways. He told them that God, when
He made man out of the dust of the earth, touched His work five
times, leaving five intense feelings, which we call the five
senses. Through these, the true, the beautiful, and the good are
seen, understood, and perceived, and through these they are
valued, protected, and encouraged. Five senses have been given
mentally and corporeally, inwardly and outwardly, to body and
soul.
The children thought deeply on all these things, and
meditated upon them day and night. Then the eldest of the
brothers dreamt a splendid dream. Strange to say, not only the
second brother but also the third and fourth brothers all dreamt
exactly the same thing; namely, that each went out into the
world to find the philosopher’s stone. Each dreamt that he found
it, and that, as he rode back on his swift horse, in the morning
dawn, over the velvety green meadows, to his home in the castle
of his father, that the stone gleamed from his forehead like a
beaming light; and threw such a bright radiance upon the pages
of the Book of Truth that every word was illuminated which spoke
of the life beyond the grave. But the sister had no dream of
going out into the wide world; it never entered her mind. Her
world was her father’s house.
“I shall ride forth into the wide world,” said the eldest
brother. “I must try what life is like there, as I mix with men.
I will practise only the good and true; with these I will
protect the beautiful. Much shall be changed for the better
while I am there.”
Now these thoughts were great and daring, as our thoughts
generally are at home, before we have gone out into the world,
and encountered its storms and tempests, its thorns and its
thistles. In him, and in all his brothers, the five senses were
highly cultivated, inwardly and outwardly; but each of them had
one sense which in keenness and development surpassed the other
four. In the case of the eldest, this pre-eminent sense was
sight, which he hoped would be of special service. He had eyes
for all times and all people; eyes that could discover in the
depths of the earth hidden treasures, and look into the hearts
of men, as through a pane of glass; he could read more than is
often seen on the cheek that blushes or grows pale, in the eye
that droops or smiles. Stags and antelopes accompanied him to
the western boundary of his home, and there he found the wild
swans. These he followed, and found himself far away in the
north, far from the land of his father, which extended eastward
to the ends of the earth. How he opened his eyes with
astonishment! How many things were to be seen here! and so
different to the mere representation of pictures such as those
in his father’s house. At first he nearly lost his eyes in
astonishment at the rubbish and mockery brought forward to
represent the beautiful; but he kept his eyes, and soon found
full employment for them. He wished to go thoroughly and
honestly to work in his endeavor to understand the true, the
beautiful, and the good. But how were they represented in the
world? He observed that the wreath which rightly belonged to the
beautiful was often given the hideous; that the good was often
passed by unnoticed, while mediocrity was applauded, when it
should have been hissed. People look at the dress, not at the
wearer; thought more of a name than of doing their duty; and
trusted more to reputation than to real service. It was
everywhere the same.
“I see I must make a regular attack on these things,” said
he; and he accordingly did not spare them. But while looking for
the truth, came the evil one, the father of lies, to intercept
him. Gladly would the fiend have plucked out the eyes of this
Seer, but that would have been a too straightforward path for
him; he works more cunningly. He allowed the young man to seek
for, and discover, the beautiful and the good; but while he was
contemplating them, the evil spirit blew one mote after another
into each of his eyes; and such a proceeding would injure the
strongest sight. Then he blew upon the motes, and they became
beams, so that the clearness of his sight was gone, and the Seer
was like a blind man in the world, and had no longer any faith
in it. He had lost his good opinion of the world, as well as of
himself; and when a man gives up the world, and himself too, it
is all over with him.
“All over,” said the wild swan, who flew across the sea to
the east.
“All over,” twittered the swallows, who were also flying
eastward towards the Tree of the Sun. It was no good news which
they carried home.
“I think the Seer has been badly served,” said the second
brother, “but the Hearer may be more successful.”
This one possessed the sense of hearing to a very high
degree: so acute was this sense, that it was said he could hear
the grass grow. He took a fond leave of all at home, and rode
away, provided with good abilities and good intentions. The
swallows escorted him, and he followed the swans till he found
himself out in the world, and far away from home. But he soon
discovered that one may have too much of a good thing. His
hearing was too fine. He not only heard the grass grow, but
could hear every man’s heart beat, whether in sorrow or in joy.
The whole world was to him like a clockmaker’s great workshop,
in which all the clocks were going “tick, tick,” and all the
turret clocks striking “ding, dong.” It was unbearable. For a
long time his ears endured it, but at last all the noise and
tumult became too much for one man to bear.
There were rascally boys of sixty years old—for years do not
alone make a man—who raised a tumult, which might have made the
Hearer laugh, but for the applause which followed, echoing
through every street and house, and was even heard in country
roads. Falsehood thrust itself forward and played the hypocrite;
the bells on the fool’s cap jingled, and declared they were
church-bells, and the noise became so bad for the Hearer that he
thrust his fingers into his ears. Still, he could hear false
notes and bad singing, gossip and idle words, scandal and
slander, groaning and moaning, without and within. “Heaven help
us!” He thrust his fingers farther and farther into his ears,
till at last the drums burst. And now he could hear nothing more
of the true, the beautiful, and the good; for his hearing was to
have been the means by which he hoped to acquire his knowledge.
He became silent and suspicious, and at last trusted no one, not
even himself, and no longer hoping to find and bring home the
costly jewel, he gave it up, and gave himself up too, which was
worse than all.
The birds in their flight towards the east, carried the
tidings, and the news reached the castle in the Tree of the Sun.
“I will try now,” said the third brother; “I have a keen
nose.” Now that was not a very elegant expression, but it was
his way, and we must take him as he was. He had a cheerful
temper, and was, besides, a real poet; he could make many things
appear poetical, by the way in which he spoke of them, and ideas
struck him long before they occurred to the minds of others. “I
can smell,” he would say; and he attributed to the sense of
smelling, which he possessed in a high degree, a great power in
the region of the beautiful. “I can smell,” he would say, “and
many places are fragrant or beautiful according to the taste of
the frequenters. One man feels at home in the atmosphere of the
tavern, among the flaring tallow candles, and when the smell of
spirits mingles with the fumes of bad tobacco. Another prefers
sitting amidst the overpowering scent of jasmine, or perfuming
himself with scented olive oil. This man seeks the fresh sea
breeze, while that one climbs the lofty mountain-top, to look
down upon the busy life in miniature beneath him.”
As he spoke in this way, it seemed as if he had already been
out in the world, as if he had already known and associated with
man. But this experience was intuitive—it was the poetry within
him, a gift from Heaven bestowed on him in his cradle. He bade
farewell to his parental roof in the Tree of the Sun, and
departed on foot, from the pleasant scenes that surrounded his
home. Arrived at its confines, he mounted on the back of an
ostrich, which runs faster than a horse, and afterwards, when he
fell in with the wild swans, he swung himself on the strongest
of them, for he loved change, and away he flew over the sea to
distant lands, where there were great forests, deep lakes, lofty
mountains, and proud cities. Wherever he came it seemed as if
sunshine travelled with him across the fields, for every flower,
every bush, exhaled a renewed fragrance, as if conscious that a
friend and protector was near; one who understood them, and knew
their value. The stunted rose-bush shot forth twigs, unfolded
its leaves, and bore the most beautiful roses; every one could
see it, and even the black, slimy wood-snail noticed its beauty.
“I will give my seal to the flower,” said the snail, “I have
trailed my slime upon it, I can do no more.”
“Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world,” said
the poet. And he made a song upon it, and sung it after his own
fashion, but nobody listened. Then he gave a drummer twopence
and a peacock’s feather, and composed a song for the drum, and
the drummer beat it through the streets of the town, and when
the people heard it they said, “That is a capital tune.” The
poet wrote many songs about the true, the beautiful, and the
good. His songs were listened to in the tavern, where the tallow
candles flared, in the fresh clover field, in the forest, and on
the high-seas; and it appeared as if this brother was to be more
fortunate than the other two.
But the evil spirit was angry at this, so he set to work with
soot and incense, which he can mix so artfully as to confuse an
angel, and how much more easily a poor poet. The evil one knew
how to manage such people. He so completely surrounded the poet
with incense that the man lost his head, forgot his mission and
his home, and at last lost himself and vanished in smoke.
But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for
three days they sang not one song. The black wood-snail became
blacker still; not for grief, but for envy. “They should have
offered me incense,” he said, “for it was I who gave him the
idea of the most famous of his songs—the drum song of ’The Way
of the World;’ and it was I who spat at the rose; I can bring a
witness to that fact.”
But no tidings of all this reached the poet’s home in India.
The birds had all been silent for three days, and when the time
of mourning was over, so deep had been their grief, that they
had forgotten for whom they wept. Such is the way of the world.
“Now I must go out into the world, and disappear like the
rest,” said the fourth brother. He was as good-tempered as the
third, but no poet, though he could be witty.
The two eldest had filled the castle with joyfulness, and now
the last brightness was going away. Sight and hearing have
always been considered two of the chief senses among men, and
those which they wish to keep bright; the other senses are
looked upon as of less importance.
But the younger son had a different opinion; he had
cultivated his taste in every way, and taste is very powerful.
It rules over what goes into the mouth, as well as over all
which is presented to the mind; and, consequently, this brother
took upon himself to taste everything stored up in bottles or
jars; this he called the rough part of his work. Every man’s
mind was to him as a vessel in which something was concocting;
every land a kind of mental kitchen. “There are no delicacies
here,” he said; so he wished to go out into the world to find
something delicate to suit his taste. “Perhaps fortune may be
more favorable to me than it was to my brothers. I shall start
on my travels, but what conveyance shall I choose? Are air
balloons invented yet?” he asked of his father, who knew of all
inventions that had been made, or would be made.
Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor
railways.
“Good,” said he; “then I shall choose an air balloon; my
father knows how they are to be made and guided. Nobody has
invented one yet, and the people will believe that it is an
aerial phantom. When I have done with the balloon I shall burn
it, and for this purpose, you must give me a few pieces of
another invention, which will come next; I mean a few chemical
matches.”
He obtained what he wanted, and flew away. The birds
accompanied him farther than they had the other brothers. They
were curious to know how this flight would end. Many more of
them came swooping down; they thought it must be some new bird,
and he soon had a goodly company of followers. They came in
clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was with
the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.
And now he was out in the wide world. The balloon descended
over one of the greatest cities, and the aeronaut took up his
station at the highest point, on the church steeple. The balloon
rose again into the air, which it ought not to have done; what
became of it is not known, neither is it of any consequence, for
balloons had not then been invented.
There he sat on the church steeple. The birds no longer
hovered over him; they had got tired of him, and he was tired of
them. All the chimneys in the town were smoking.
“There are altars erected to my honor,” said the wind, who
wished to say something agreeable to him as he sat there boldly
looking down upon the people in the street. There was one
stepping along, proud of his purse; another, of the key he
carried behind him, though he had nothing to lock up; another
took a pride in his moth-eaten coat; and another, in his
mortified body. “Vanity, all vanity!” he exclaimed. “I must go
down there by-and-by, and touch and taste; but I shall sit here
a little while longer, for the wind blows pleasantly at my back.
I shall remain here as long as the wind blows, and enjoy a
little rest. It is comfortable to sleep late in the morning when
one had a great deal to do,” said the sluggard; “so I shall stop
here as long as the wind blows, for it pleases me.”
And there he stayed. But as he was sitting on the
weather-cock of the steeple, which kept turning round and round
with him, he was under the false impression that the same wind
still blew, and that he could stay where he was without expense.
But in India, in the castle on the Tree of the Sun, all was
solitary and still, since the brothers had gone away one after
the other.
“Nothing goes well with them,” said the father; “they will
never bring the glittering jewel home, it is not made for me;
they are all dead and gone.” Then he bent down over the Book of
Truth, and gazed on the page on which he should have read of the
life after death, but for him there was nothing to be read or
learned upon it.
His blind daughter was his consolation and joy; she clung to
him with sincere affection, and for the sake of his happiness
and peace she wished the costly jewel could be found and brought
home.
With longing tenderness she thought of her brothers. Where
were they? Where did they live? How she wished she might dream
of them; but it was strange that not even in dreams could she be
brought near to them. But at last one night she dreamt that she
heard the voices of her brothers calling to her from the distant
world, and she could not refrain herself, but went out to them,
and yet it seemed in her dream that she still remained in her
father’s house. She did not see her brothers, but she felt as it
were a fire burning in her hand, which, however, did not hurt
her, for it was the jewel she was bringing to her father. When
she awoke she thought for a moment that she still held the
stone, but she only grasped the knob of her distaff.
During the long evenings she had spun constantly, and round
the distaff were woven threads finer than the web of a spider;
human eyes could never have distinguished these threads when
separated from each other. But she had wetted them with her
tears, and the twist was as strong as a cable. She rose with the
impression that her dream must be a reality, and her resolution
was taken.
It was still night, and her father slept; she pressed a kiss
upon his hand, and then took her distaff and fastened the end of
the thread to her father’s house. But for this, blind as she
was, she would never have found her way home again; to this
thread she must hold fast, and trust not to others or even to
herself. From the Tree of the Sun she broke four leaves; which
she gave up to the wind and the weather, that they might be
carried to her brothers as letters and a greeting, in case she
did not meet them in the wide world. Poor blind child, what
would become of her in those distant regions? But she had the
invisible thread, to which she could hold fast; and she
possessed a gift which all the others lacked. This was a
determination to throw herself entirely into whatever she
undertook, and it made her feel as if she had eyes even at the
tips of her fingers, and could hear down into her very heart.
Quietly she went forth into the noisy, bustling, wonderful
world, and wherever she went the skies grew bright, and she felt
the warm sunbeam, and a rainbow above in the blue heavens seemed
to span the dark world. She heard the song of the birds, and
smelt the scent of the orange groves and apple orchards so
strongly that she seemed to taste it. Soft tones and charming
songs reached her ear, as well as harsh sounds and rough
words—thoughts and opinions in strange contradiction to each
other. Into the deepest recesses of her heart penetrated the
echoes of human thoughts and feelings. Now she heard the
following words sadly sung,—
“Life is a shadow that flits away
In a night of darkness and woe.”
But then would follow brighter thoughts:
“Life has the rose’s sweet perfume
With sunshine, light, and joy.”
And if one stanza sounded painfully—
“Each mortal thinks of himself alone,
Is a truth, alas, too clearly known;”
Then, on the other hand, came the answer—
“Love, like a mighty flowing stream,
Fills every heart with its radiant gleam.”
She heard, indeed, such words as these—
“In the pretty turmoil here below,
All is a vain and paltry show.”
Then came also words of comfort—
“Great and good are the actions done
By many whose worth is never known.”
And if sometimes the mocking strain reached her—
“Why not join in the jesting cry
That contemns all gifts from the throne on high?”
In the blind girl’s heart a stronger voice repeated—
“To trust in thyself and God is best,
In His holy will forever to rest.”
But the evil spirit could not see this and remain contented. He
has more cleverness than ten thousand men, and he found means to
compass his end. He betook himself to the marsh, and collected a
few little bubbles of stagnant water. Then he uttered over them
the echoes of lying words that they might become strong. He
mixed up together songs of praise with lying epitaphs, as many
as he could find, boiled them in tears shed by envy; put upon
them rouge, which he had scraped from faded cheeks, and from
these he produced a maiden, in form and appearance like the
blind girl, the angel of completeness, as men called her. The
evil one’s plot was successful. The world knew not which was the
true, and indeed how should the world know?
“To trust in thyself and God is best,
In his Holy will forever to rest.”
So sung the blind girl in full faith. She had entrusted the four
green leaves from the Tree of the Sun to the winds, as letters
of greeting to her brothers, and she had full confidence that
the leaves would reach them. She fully believed that the jewel
which outshines all the glories of the world would yet be found,
and that upon the forehead of humanity it would glitter even in
the castle of her father. “Even in my father’s house,” she
repeated. “Yes, the place in which this jewel is to be found is
earth, and I shall bring more than the promise of it with me. I
feel it glow and swell more and more in my closed hand. Every
grain of truth which the keen wind carried up and whirled
towards me I caught and treasured. I allowed it to be penetrated
with the fragrance of the beautiful, of which there is so much
in the world, even for the blind. I took the beatings of a heart
engaged in a good action, and added them to my treasure. All
that I can bring is but dust; still, it is a part of the jewel
we seek, and there is plenty, my hand is quite full of it.”
She soon found herself again at home; carried thither in a
flight of thought, never having loosened her hold of the
invisible thread fastened to her father’s house. As she
stretched out her hand to her father, the powers of evil dashed
with the fury of a hurricane over the Tree of the Sun; a blast
of wind rushed through the open doors, and into the sanctuary,
where lay the Book of Truth.
“It will be blown to dust by the wind,” said the father, as
he seized the open hand she held towards him.
“No,” she replied, with quiet confidence, “it is
indestructible. I feel its beam warming my very soul.”
Then her father observed that a dazzling flame gleamed from
the white page on which the shining dust had passed from her
hand. It was there to prove the certainty of eternal life, and
on the book glowed one shining word, and only one, the word
BELIEVE. And soon the four brothers were again with the father
and daughter. When the green leaf from home fell on the bosom of
each, a longing had seized them to return. They had arrived,
accompanied by the birds of passage, the stag, the antelope, and
all the creatures of the forest who wished to take part in their
joy.
We have often seen, when a sunbeam burst through a crack in
the door into a dusty room, how a whirling column of dust seems
to circle round. But this was not poor, insignificant, common
dust, which the blind girl had brought; even the rainbow’s
colors are dim when compared with the beauty which shone from
the page on which it had fallen. The beaming word BELIEVE, from
every grain of truth, had the brightness of the beautiful and
the good, more bright than the mighty pillar of flame that led
Moses and the children of Israel to the land of Canaan, and from
the word BELIEVE arose the bridge of hope, reaching even to the
unmeasurable Love in the realms of the infinite.
|
The Story of the Wind
NEAR the shores of the great Belt, which is one of the straits
that connect the Cattegat with the Baltic, stands an old mansion
with thick red walls. I know every stone of it,” says the Wind.
“I saw it when it was part of the castle of Marck Stig on the
promontory. But the castle was obliged to be pulled down, and
the stone was used again for the walls of a new mansion on
another spot—the baronial residence of Borreby, which still
stands near the coast. I knew them well, those noble lords and
ladies, the successive generations that dwelt there; and now I’m
going to tell you of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. How proud
was his bearing, for he was of royal blood, and could boast of
more noble deeds than merely hunting the stag and emptying the
wine-cup. His rule was despotic: ‘It shall be,’ he was
accustomed to say. His wife, in garments embroidered with gold,
stepped proudly over the polished marble floors. The tapestries
were gorgeous, and the furniture of costly and artistic taste.
She had brought gold and plate with her into the house. The
cellars were full of wine. Black, fiery horses, neighed in the
stables. There was a look of wealth about the house of Borreby
at that time. They had three children, daughters, fair and
delicate maidens—Ida, Joanna, and Anna Dorothea; I have never
forgotten their names. They were a rich, noble family, born in
affluence and nurtured in luxury.
“Whir-r-r, whir-r-r!” roared the Wind, and went on, “I did
not see in this house, as in other great houses, the high-born
lady sitting among her women, turning the spinning-wheel. She
could sweep the sounding chords of the guitar, and sing to the
music, not always Danish melodies, but the songs of a strange
land. It was ‘Live and let live,’ here. Stranger guests came
from far and near, music sounded, goblets clashed, and I,” said
the Wind, “was not able to drown the noise. Ostentation, pride,
splendor, and display ruled, but not the fear of the Lord.
”It was on the evening of the first day of May,” the Wind
continued, “I came from the west, and had seen the ships
overpowered with the waves, when all on board persisted or were
cast shipwrecked on the coast of Jutland. I had hurried across
the heath and over Jutland’s wood-girt eastern coast, and over
the island of Funen, and then I drove across the great belt,
sighing and moaning. At length I lay down to rest on the shores
of Zeeland, near to the great house of Borreby, where the
splendid forest of oaks still flourished. The young men of the
neighborhood were collecting branches and brushwood under the
oak-trees. The largest and dryest they could find they carried
into the village, and piled them up in a heap and set them on
fire. Then the men and maidens danced, and sung in a circle
round the blazing pile. I lay quite quiet,” said the Wind, “but
I silently touched a branch which had been brought by one of the
handsomest of the young men, and the wood blazed up brightly,
blazed brighter than all the rest. Then he was chosen as the
chief, and received the name of the Shepherd; and might choose
his lamb from among the maidens. There was greater mirth and
rejoicing than I had ever heard in the halls of the rich
baronial house. Then the noble lady drove by towards the baron’s
mansion with her three daughters, in a gilded carriage drawn by
six horses. The daughters were young and beautiful—three
charming blossoms—a rose, a lily, and a white hyacinth. The
mother was a proud tulip, and never acknowledged the salutations
of any of the men or maidens who paused in their sport to do her
honor. The gracious lady seemed like a flower that was rather
stiff in the stalk. Rose, lily, and hyacinth—yes, I saw them all
three. Whose little lambs will they one day become? thought I;
their shepherd will be a gallant knight, perhaps a prince. The
carriage rolled on, and the peasants resumed their dancing. They
drove about the summer through all the villages near. But one
night, when I rose again, the high-born lady lay down to rise
again no more; that thing came to her which comes to us all, in
which there is nothing new. Waldemar Daa remained for a time
silent and thoughtful. ‘The loftiest tree may be bowed without
being broken,’ said a voice within him. His daughters wept; all
the people in the mansion wiped their eyes, but Lady Daa had
driven away, and I drove away too,” said the Wind. “Whir-r-r,
whir-r-r-!
“I returned again; I often returned and passed over the
island of Funen and the shores of the Belt. Then I rested by
Borreby, near the glorious wood, where the heron made his nest,
the haunt of the wood-pigeons, the blue-birds, and the black
stork. It was yet spring, some were sitting on their eggs,
others had already hatched their young broods; but how they
fluttered about and cried out when the axe sounded through the
forest, blow upon blow! The trees of the forest were doomed.
Waldemar Daa wanted to build a noble ship, a man-of-war, a
three-decker, which the king would be sure to buy; and these,
the trees of the wood, the landmark of the seamen, the refuge of
the birds, must be felled. The hawk started up and flew away,
for its nest was destroyed; the heron and all the birds of the
forest became homeless, and flew about in fear and anger. I
could well understand how they felt. Crows and ravens croaked,
as if in scorn, while the trees were cracking and falling around
them. Far in the interior of the wood, where a noisy swarm of
laborers were working, stood Waldemar Daa and his three
daughters, and all were laughing at the wild cries of the birds,
excepting one, the youngest, Anna Dorothea, who felt grieved to
the heart; and when they made preparations to fell a tree that
was almost dead, and on whose naked branches the black stork had
built her nest, she saw the poor little things stretching out
their necks, and she begged for mercy for them, with the tears
in her eyes. So the tree with the black stork’s nest was left
standing; the tree itself, however, was not worth much to speak
of. Then there was a great deal of hewing and sawing, and at
last the three-decker was built. The builder was a man of low
origin, but possessing great pride; his eyes and forehead spoke
of large intellect, and Waldemar Daa was fond of listening to
him, and so was Waldemar’s daughter Ida, the eldest, now about
fifteen years old; and while he was building the ship for the
father, he was building for himself a castle in the air, in
which he and Ida were to live when they were married. This might
have happened, indeed, if there had been a real castle, with
stone walls, ramparts, and a moat. But in spite of his clever
head, the builder was still but a poor, inferior bird; and how
can a sparrow expect to be admitted into the society of
peacocks?
“I passed on in my course,” said the Wind, “and he passed
away also. He was not allowed to remain, and little Ida got over
it, because she was obliged to do so. Proud, black horses, worth
looking at, were neighing in the stable. And they were locked
up; for the admiral, who had been sent by the king to inspect
the new ship, and make arrangements for its purchase, was loud
in admiration of these beautiful horses. I heard it all,” said
the Wind, “for I accompanied the gentlemen through the open door
of the stable, and strewed stalks of straw, like bars of gold,
at their feet. Waldemar Daa wanted gold, and the admiral wished
for the proud black horses; therefore he praised them so much.
But the hint was not taken, and consequently the ship was not
bought. It remained on the shore covered with boards,—a Noah’s
ark that never got to the water—Whir-r-r-r—and that was a pity.
“In the winter, when the fields were covered with snow, and
the water filled with large blocks of ice which I had blown up
to the coast,” continued the Wind, “great flocks of crows and
ravens, dark and black as they usually are, came and alighted on
the lonely, deserted ship. Then they croaked in harsh accents of
the forest that now existed no more, of the many pretty birds’
nests destroyed and the little ones left without a home; and all
for the sake of that great bit of lumber, that proud ship, that
never sailed forth. I made the snowflakes whirl till the snow
lay like a great lake round the ship, and drifted over it. I let
it hear my voice, that it might know what the storm has to say.
Certainly I did my part towards teaching it seamanship.
“That winter passed away, and another winter and summer both
passed, as they are still passing away, even as I pass away. The
snow drifts onwards, the apple-blossoms are scattered, the
leaves fall,—everything passes away, and men are passing away
too. But the great man’s daughters are still young, and little
Ida is a rose as fair to look upon as on the day when the
shipbuilder first saw her. I often tumbled her long, brown hair,
while she stood in the garden by the apple-tree, musing, and not
heeding how I strewed the blossoms on her hair, and dishevelled
it; or sometimes, while she stood gazing at the red sun and the
golden sky through the opening branches of the dark, thick
foliage of the garden trees. Her sister Joanna was bright and
slender as a lily; she had a tall and lofty carriage and figure,
though, like her mother, rather stiff in back. She was very fond
of walking through the great hall, where hung the portraits of
her ancestors. The women were represented in dresses of velvet
and silk, with tiny little hats, embroidered with pearls, on
their braided hair. They were all handsome women. The gentlemen
appeared clad in steel, or in rich cloaks lined with squirrel’s
fur; they wore little ruffs, and swords at their sides. Where
would Joanna’s place be on that wall some day? and how would he
look,—her noble lord and husband? This is what she thought of,
and often spoke of in a low voice to herself. I heard it as I
swept into the long hall, and turned round to come out again.
Anna Dorothea, the pale hyacinth, a child of fourteen, was quiet
and thoughtful; her large, deep, blue eyes had a dreamy look,
but a childlike smile still played round her mouth. I was not
able to blow it away, neither did I wish to do so. We have met
in the garden, in the hollow lane, in the field and meadow,
where she gathered herbs and flowers which she knew would be
useful to her father in preparing the drugs and mixtures he was
always concocting. Waldemar Daa was arrogant and proud, but he
was also a learned man, and knew a great deal. It was no secret,
and many opinions were expressed on what he did. In his
fireplace there was a fire, even in summer time. He would lock
himself in his room, and for days the fire would be kept
burning; but he did not talk much of what he was doing. The
secret powers of nature are generally discovered in solitude,
and did he not soon expect to find out the art of making the
greatest of all good things—the art of making gold? So he fondly
hoped; therefore the chimney smoked and the fire crackled so
constantly. Yes, I was there too,” said the Wind. “‘Leave it
alone,’ I sang down the chimney; ‘leave it alone, it will all
end in smoke, air, coals, and ashes, and you will burn your
fingers.’ But Waldemar Daa did not leave it alone, and all he
possessed vanished like smoke blown by me. The splendid black
horses, where are they? What became of the cows in the field,
the old gold and silver vessels in cupboards and chests, and
even the house and home itself? It was easy to melt all these
away in the gold-making crucible, and yet obtain no gold. And so
it was. Empty are the barns and store-rooms, the cellars and
cupboards; the servants decreased in number, and the mice
multiplied. First one window became broken, and then another, so
that I could get in at other places besides the door. ‘Where the
chimney smokes, the meal is being cooked,’ says the proverb; but
here a chimney smoked that devoured all the meals for the sake
of gold. I blew round the courtyard,” said the Wind, “like a
watchman blowing his home, but no watchman was there. I twirled
the weather-cock round on the summit of the tower, and it
creaked like the snoring of a warder, but no warder was there;
nothing but mice and rats. Poverty laid the table-cloth; poverty
sat in the wardrobe and in the larder. The door fell off its
hinges, cracks and fissures made their appearance everywhere; so
that I could go in and out at pleasure, and that is how I know
all about it. Amid smoke and ashes, sorrow, and sleepless
nights, the hair and beard of the master of the house turned
gray, and deep furrows showed themselves around his temples; his
skin turned pale and yellow, while his eyes still looked eagerly
for gold, the longed-for gold, and the result of his labor was
debt instead of gain. I blew the smoke and ashes into his face
and beard; I moaned through the broken window-panes, and the
yawning clefts in the walls; I blew into the chests and drawers
belonging to his daughters, wherein lay the clothes that had
become faded and threadbare, from being worn over and over
again. Such a song had not been sung, at the children’s cradle
as I sung now. The lordly life had changed to a life of penury.
I was the only one who rejoiced aloud in that castle,” said the
Wind. “At last I snowed them up, and they say snow keeps people
warm. It was good for them, for they had no wood, and the
forest, from which they might have obtained it, had been cut
down. The frost was very bitter, and I rushed through loop-holes
and passages, over gables and roofs with keen and cutting
swiftness. The three high-born daughters were lying in bed
because of the cold, and their father crouching beneath his
leather coverlet. Nothing to eat, nothing to burn, no fire on
the hearth! Here was a life for high-born people! ‘Give it up,
give it up!’ But my Lord Daa would not do that. ‘After winter,
spring will come,’ he said, ‘after want, good times. We must not
lose patience, we must learn to wait. Now my horses and lands
are all mortgaged, it is indeed high time; but gold will come at
last—at Easter.’
“I heard him as he thus spoke; he was looking at a spider’s
web, and he continued, ‘Thou cunning little weaver, thou dost
teach me perseverance. Let any one tear thy web, and thou wilt
begin again and repair it. Let it be entirely destroyed, thou
wilt resolutely begin to make another till it is completed. So
ought we to do, if we wish to succeed at last.’
“It was the morning of Easter-day. The bells sounded from the
neighboring church, and the sun seemed to rejoice in the sky.
The master of the castle had watched through the night, in
feverish excitement, and had been melting and cooling,
distilling and mixing. I heard him sighing like a soul in
despair; I heard him praying, and I noticed how he held his
breath. The lamp burnt out, but he did not observe it. I blew up
the fire in the coals on the hearth, and it threw a red glow on
his ghastly white face, lighting it up with a glare, while his
sunken eyes looked out wildly from their cavernous depths, and
appeared to grow larger and more prominent, as if they would
burst from their sockets. ‘Look at the alchymic glass,’ he
cried; ‘something glows in the crucible, pure and heavy.’ He
lifted it with a trembling hand, and exclaimed in a voice of
agitation, ‘Gold! gold!’ He was quite giddy, I could have blown
him down,” said the Wind; “but I only fanned the glowing coals,
and accompanied him through the door to the room where his
daughter sat shivering. His coat was powdered with ashes, and
there were ashes in his beard and in his tangled hair. He stood
erect, and held high in the air the brittle glass that contained
his costly treasure. ‘Found! found! Gold! gold!’ he shouted,
again holding the glass aloft, that it might flash in the
sunshine; but his hand trembled, and the alchymic glass fell
from it, clattering to the ground, and brake in a thousand
pieces. The last bubble of his happiness had burst, with a whiz
and a whir, and I rushed away from the gold-maker’s house.
“Late in the autumn, when the days were short, and the mist
sprinkled cold drops on the berries and the leafless branches, I
came back in fresh spirits, rushed through the air, swept the
sky clear, and snapped off the dry twigs, which is certainly no
great labor to do, yet it must be done. There was another kind
of sweeping taking place at Waldemar Daa’s, in the castle of
Borreby. His enemy, Owe Ramel, of Basnas, was there, with the
mortgage of the house and everything it contained, in his
pocket. I rattled the broken windows, beat against the old
rotten doors, and whistled through cracks and crevices, so that
Mr. Owe Ramel did not much like to remain there. Ida and Anna
Dorothea wept bitterly, Joanna stood, pale and proud, biting her
lips till the blood came; but what could that avail? Owe Ramel
offered Waldemar Daa permission to remain in the house till the
end of his life. No one thanked him for the offer, and I saw the
ruined old gentleman lift his head, and throw it back more
proudly than ever. Then I rushed against the house and the old
lime-trees with such force, that one of the thickest branches, a
decayed one, was broken off, and the branch fell at the
entrance, and remained there. It might have been used as a
broom, if any one had wanted to sweep the place out, and a grand
sweeping-out there really was; I thought it would be so. It was
hard for any one to preserve composure on such a day; but these
people had strong wills, as unbending as their hard fortune.
There was nothing they could call their own, excepting the
clothes they wore. Yes, there was one thing more, an alchymist’s
glass, a new one, which had been lately bought, and filled with
what could be gathered from the ground of the treasure which had
promised so much but failed in keeping its promise. Waldemar Daa
hid the glass in his bosom, and, taking his stick in his hand,
the once rich gentleman passed with his daughters out of the
house of Borreby. I blew coldly upon his flustered cheeks, I
stroked his gray beard and his long white hair, and I sang as
well as I was able, ‘Whir-r-r, whir-r-r. Gone away! Gone away!’
Ida walked on one side of the old man, and Anna Dorothea on the
other; Joanna turned round, as they left the entrance. Why?
Fortune would not turn because she turned. She looked at the
stone in the walls which had once formed part of the castle of
Marck Stig, and perhaps she thought of his daughters and of the
old song,—
‘The eldest and youngest, hand-in-hand,
Went forth alone to a distant land’.
These were only two; here there were three, and their father
with them also. They walked along the high-road, where once they
had driven in their splendid carriage; they went forth with
their father as beggars. They wandered across an open field to a
mud hut, which they rented for a dollar and a half a year, a new
home, with bare walls and empty cupboards. Crows and magpies
fluttered about them, and cried, as if in contempt, ‘Caw, caw,
turned out of our nest—caw, caw,’ as they had done in the wood
at Borreby, when the trees were felled. Daa and his daughters
could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown
the noise; what use was it that they should listen? So they went
to live in the mud hut in the open field, and I wandered away,
over moor and meadow, through bare bushes and leafless forests,
to the open sea, to the broad shores in other lands, ‘Whir-r-r,
whir-r-r! Away, away!’ year after year.”
And what became of Waldemar Daa and his daughters? Listen; the
Wind will tell us:
“The last I saw of them was the pale hyacinth, Anna Dorothea.
She was old and bent then; for fifty years had passed and she
had outlived them all. She could relate the history. Yonder, on
the heath, near the town of Wiborg, in Jutland, stood the fine
new house of the canon. It was built of red brick, with
projecting gables. It was inhabited, for the smoke curled up
thickly from the chimneys. The canon’s gentle lady and her
beautiful daughters sat in the bay-window, and looked over the
hawthorn hedge of the garden towards the brown heath. What were
they looking at? Their glances fell upon a stork’s nest, which
was built upon an old tumbledown hut. The roof, as far as one
existed at all, was covered with moss and lichen. The stork’s
nest covered the greater part of it, and that alone was in a
good condition; for it was kept in order by the stork himself.
That is a house to be looked at, and not to be touched,” said
the Wind. “For the sake of the stork’s nest it had been allowed
to remain, although it is a blot on the landscape. They did not
like to drive the stork away; therefore the old shed was left
standing, and the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay.
She had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance
her reward for having once interceded for the preservation of
the nest of its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that
time she, the poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in
a rich garden. She remembered that time well; for it was Anna
Dorothea.
“‘O-h, o-h,’ she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning
of the wind among the reeds and rushes. ‘O-h, o-h,’ she would
say, ‘no bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa. The poor
school-boys did not even sing a psalm when the former lord of
Borreby was laid in the earth to rest. O-h, everything has an
end, even misery. Sister Ida became the wife of a peasant; that
was the hardest trial which befell our father, that the husband
of his own daughter should be a miserable serf, whom his owner
could place for punishment on the wooden horse. I suppose he is
under the ground now; and Ida—alas! alas! it is not ended yet;
miserable that I am! Kind Heaven, grant me that I may die.’
“That was Anna Dorothea’s prayer in the wretched hut that was
left standing for the sake of the stork. I took pity on the
proudest of the sisters,” said the Wind. “Her courage was like
that of a man; and in man’s clothes she served as a sailor on
board ship. She was of few words, and of a dark countenance; but
she did not know how to climb, so I blew her overboard before
any one found out that she was a woman; and, in my opinion, that
was well done,” said the Wind.
On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa
imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the
tones of a psalm under the stork’s nest, and within the
crumbling walls. It was Anna Dorothea’s last song. There was no
window in the hut, only a hole in the wall; and the sun rose
like a globe of burnished gold, and looked through. With what
splendor he filled that dismal dwelling! Her eyes were glazing,
and her heart breaking; but so it would have been, even had the
sun not shone that morning on Anna Dorothea. The stork’s nest
had secured her a home till her death. I sung over her grave; I
sung at her father’s grave. I know where it lies, and where her
grave is too, but nobody else knows it.
“New times now; all is changed. The old high-road is lost
amid cultivated fields; the new one now winds along over covered
graves; and soon the railway will come, with its train of
carriages, and rush over graves where lie those whose very names
are forgoten. All passed away, passed away!
“This is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it
better, any of you, if you know how,” said the Wind; and he
rushed away, and was gone.
|
The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf
THERE was once a girl who trod on a loaf to avoid soiling her
shoes, and the misfortunes that happened to her in consequence
are well known. Her name was Inge; she was a poor child, but
proud and presuming, and with a bad and cruel disposition. When
quite a little child she would delight in catching flies, and
tearing off their wings, so as to make creeping things of them.
When older, she would take cockchafers and beetles, and stick
pins through them. Then she pushed a green leaf, or a little
scrap of paper towards their feet, and when the poor creatures
would seize it and hold it fast, and turn over and over in their
struggles to get free from the pin, she would say, “The
cockchafer is reading; see how he turns over the leaf.” She grew
worse instead of better with years, and, unfortunately, she was
pretty, which caused her to be excused, when she should have
been sharply reproved.
“Your headstrong will requires severity to conquer it,” her
mother often said to her. “As a little child you used to trample
on my apron, but one day I fear you will trample on my heart.”
And, alas! this fear was realized.
Inge was taken to the house of some rich people, who lived at
a distance, and who treated her as their own child, and dressed
her so fine that her pride and arrogance increased.
When she had been there about a year, her patroness said to
her, “You ought to go, for once, and see your parents, Inge.”
So Inge started to go and visit her parents; but she only
wanted to show herself in her native place, that the people
might see how fine she was. She reached the entrance of the
village, and saw the young laboring men and maidens standing
together chatting, and her own mother amongst them. Inge’s
mother was sitting on a stone to rest, with a fagot of sticks
lying before her, which she had picked up in the wood. Then Inge
turned back; she who was so finely dressed she felt ashamed of
her mother, a poorly clad woman, who picked up wood in the
forest. She did not turn back out of pity for her mother’s
poverty, but from pride.
Another half-year went by, and her mistress said, “you ought
to go home again, and visit your parents, Inge, and I will give
you a large wheaten loaf to take to them, they will be glad to
see you, I am sure.”
So Inge put on her best clothes, and her new shoes, drew her
dress up around her, and set out, stepping very carefully, that
she might be clean and neat about the feet, and there was
nothing wrong in doing so. But when she came to the place where
the footpath led across the moor, she found small pools of
water, and a great deal of mud, so she threw the loaf into the
mud, and trod upon it, that she might pass without wetting her
feet. But as she stood with one foot on the loaf and the other
lifted up to step forward, the loaf began to sink under her,
lower and lower, till she disappeared altogether, and only a few
bubbles on the surface of the muddy pool remained to show where
she had sunk. And this is the story.
But where did Inge go? She sank into the ground, and went
down to the Marsh Woman, who is always brewing there.
The Marsh Woman is related to the elf maidens, who are
well-known, for songs are sung and pictures painted about them.
But of the Marsh Woman nothing is known, excepting that when a
mist arises from the meadows, in summer time, it is because she
is brewing beneath them. To the Marsh Woman’s brewery Inge sunk
down to a place which no one can endure for long. A heap of mud
is a palace compared with the Marsh Woman’s brewery; and as Inge
fell she shuddered in every limb, and soon became cold and stiff
as marble. Her foot was still fastened to the loaf, which bowed
her down as a golden ear of corn bends the stem.
An evil spirit soon took possession of Inge, and carried her
to a still worse place, in which she saw crowds of unhappy
people, waiting in a state of agony for the gates of mercy to be
opened to them, and in every heart was a miserable and eternal
feeling of unrest. It would take too much time to describe the
various tortures these people suffered, but Inge’s punishment
consisted in standing there as a statue, with her foot fastened
to the loaf. She could move her eyes about, and see all the
misery around her, but she could not turn her head; and when she
saw the people looking at her she thought they were admiring her
pretty face and fine clothes, for she was still vain and proud.
But she had forgotten how soiled her clothes had become while in
the Marsh Woman’s brewery, and that they were covered with mud;
a snake had also fastened itself in her hair, and hung down her
back, while from each fold in her dress a great toad peeped out
and croaked like an asthmatic poodle. Worse than all was the
terrible hunger that tormented her, and she could not stoop to
break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood. No; her back
was too stiff, and her whole body like a pillar of stone. And
then came creeping over her face and eyes flies without wings;
she winked and blinked, but they could not fly away, for their
wings had been pulled off; this, added to the hunger she felt,
was horrible torture.
“If this lasts much longer,” she said, “I shall not be able
to bear it.” But it did last, and she had to bear it, without
being able to help herself.
A tear, followed by many scalding tears, fell upon her head,
and rolled over her face and neck, down to the loaf on which she
stood. Who could be weeping for Inge? She had a mother in the
world still, and the tears of sorrow which a mother sheds for
her child will always find their way to the child’s heart, but
they often increase the torment instead of being a relief. And
Inge could hear all that was said about her in the world she had
left, and every one seemed cruel to her. The sin she had
committed in treading on the loaf was known on earth, for she
had been seen by the cowherd from the hill, when she was
crossing the marsh and had disappeared.
When her mother wept and exclaimed, “Ah, Inge! what grief
thou hast caused thy mother” she would say, “Oh that I had never
been born! My mother’s tears are useless now.”
And then the words of the kind people who had adopted her
came to her ears, when they said, “Inge was a sinful girl, who
did not value the gifts of God, but trampled them under her
feet.”
“Ah,” thought Inge, “they should have punished me, and driven
all my naughty tempers out of me.”
A song was made about “The girl who trod on a loaf to keep
her shoes from being soiled,” and this song was sung everywhere.
The story of her sin was also told to the little children, and
they called her “wicked Inge,” and said she was so naughty that
she ought to be punished. Inge heard all this, and her heart
became hardened and full of bitterness.
But one day, while hunger and grief were gnawing in her
hollow frame, she heard a little, innocent child, while
listening to the tale of the vain, haughty Inge, burst into
tears and exclaim, “But will she never come up again?”
And she heard the reply, “No, she will never come up again.”
“But if she were to say she was sorry, and ask pardon, and
promise never to do so again?” asked the little one.
“Yes, then she might come; but she will not beg pardon,” was
the answer.
“Oh, I wish she would!” said the child, who was quite unhappy
about it. “I should be so glad. I would give up my doll and all
my playthings, if she could only come here again. Poor Inge! it
is so dreadful for her.”
These pitying words penetrated to Inge’s inmost heart, and
seemed to do her good. It was the first time any one had said,
“Poor Inge!” without saying something about her faults. A little
innocent child was weeping, and praying for mercy for her. It
made her feel quite strange, and she would gladly have wept
herself, and it added to her torment to find she could not do
so. And while she thus suffered in a place where nothing
changed, years passed away on earth, and she heard her name less
frequently mentioned. But one day a sigh reached her ear, and
the words, “Inge! Inge! what a grief thou hast been to me! I
said it would be so.” It was the last sigh of her dying mother.
After this, Inge heard her kind mistress say, “Ah, poor Inge!
shall I ever see thee again? Perhaps I may, for we know not what
may happen in the future.” But Inge knew right well that her
mistress would never come to that dreadful place.
Time-passed—a long bitter time—then Inge heard her name
pronounced once more, and saw what seemed two bright stars
shining above her. They were two gentle eyes closing on earth.
Many years had passed since the little girl had lamented and
wept about “poor Inge.” That child was now an old woman, whom
God was taking to Himself. In the last hour of existence the
events of a whole life often appear before us; and this hour the
old woman remembered how, when a child, she had shed tears over
the story of Inge, and she prayed for her now. As the eyes of
the old woman closed to earth, the eyes of the soul opened upon
the hidden things of eternity, and then she, in whose last
thoughts Inge had been so vividly present, saw how deeply the
poor girl had sunk. She burst into tears at the sight, and in
heaven, as she had done when a little child on earth, she wept
and prayed for poor Inge. Her tears and her prayers echoed
through the dark void that surrounded the tormented captive
soul, and the unexpected mercy was obtained for it through an
angel’s tears. As in thought Inge seemed to act over again every
sin she had committed on earth, she trembled, and tears she had
never yet been able to weep rushed to her eyes. It seemed
impossible that the gates of mercy could ever be opened to her;
but while she acknowledged this in deep penitence, a beam of
radiant light shot suddenly into the depths upon her. More
powerful than the sunbeam that dissolves the man of snow which
the children have raised, more quickly than the snowflake melts
and becomes a drop of water on the warm lips of a child, was the
stony form of Inge changed, and as a little bird she soared,
with the speed of lightning, upward to the world of mortals. A
bird that felt timid and shy to all things around it, that
seemed to shrink with shame from meeting any living creature,
and hurriedly sought to conceal itself in a dark corner of an
old ruined wall; there it sat cowering and unable to utter a
sound, for it was voiceless. Yet how quickly the little bird
discovered the beauty of everything around it. The sweet, fresh
air; the soft radiance of the moon, as its light spread over the
earth; the fragrance which exhaled from bush and tree, made it
feel happy as it sat there clothed in its fresh, bright plumage.
All creation seemed to speak of beneficence and love. The bird
wanted to give utterance to thoughts that stirred in his breast,
as the cuckoo and the nightingale in the spring, but it could
not. Yet in heaven can be heard the song of praise, even from a
worm; and the notes trembling in the breast of the bird were as
audible to Heaven even as the psalms of David before they had
fashioned themselves into words and song.
Christmas-time drew near, and a peasant who dwelt close by
the old wall stuck up a pole with some ears of corn fastened to
the top, that the birds of heaven might have feast, and rejoice
in the happy, blessed time. And on Christmas morning the sun
arose and shone upon the ears of corn, which were quickly
surrounded by a number of twittering birds. Then, from a hole in
the wall, gushed forth in song the swelling thoughts of the bird
as he issued from his hiding place to perform his first good
deed on earth,—and in heaven it was well known who that bird
was.
The winter was very hard; the ponds were covered with ice,
and there was very little food for either the beasts of the
field or the birds of the air. Our little bird flew away into
the public roads, and found here and there, in the ruts of the
sledges, a grain of corn, and at the halting places some crumbs.
Of these he ate only a few, but he called around him the other
birds and the hungry sparrows, that they too might have food. He
flew into the towns, and looked about, and wherever a kind hand
had strewed bread on the window-sill for the birds, he only ate
a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest to the rest of the
other birds. In the course of the winter the bird had in this
way collected many crumbs and given them to other birds, till
they equalled the weight of the loaf on which Inge had trod to
keep her shoes clean; and when the last bread-crumb had been
found and given, the gray wings of the bird became white, and
spread themselves out for flight.
“See, yonder is a sea-gull!” cried the children, when they
saw the white bird, as it dived into the sea, and rose again
into the clear sunlight, white and glittering. But no one could
tell whither it went then although some declared it flew
straight to the sun.
|
Ole the Tower-Keeper
First Visit
Second Visit
Third Visit
IN the world it’s always going up and down; and now I can’t go up
any higher!” So said Ole the tower-keeper. “Most people have to
try both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all
get to be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a
height.”
Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper,
a strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out
everything that came into his head, and who for all that had
many a serious thought deep in his heart. Yes, he was the child
of respectable people, and there were even some who said that he
was the son of a privy councillor, or that he might have been.
He had studied, too, and had been assistant teacher and deputy
clerk; but of what service was all that to him? In those days he
lived in the clerk’s house, and was to have everything in the
house—to be at free quarters, as the saying is; but he was
still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. He wanted to have
his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could only
afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. One
spoke of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking
became the black cause of enmity between them, and at last they
parted.
This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely,
patent blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly, he
at last drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the
church tower is the only place in a great city where hermitage,
office and bread can be found together. So he betook himself up
thither, and smoked his pipe as he made his solitary rounds. He
looked upward and downward, and had his own thoughts, and told
in his own way of what he read in books and in himself. I often
lent him books—good books; and you may know by the company he
keeps. He loved neither the English governess novels nor the
French ones, which he called a mixture of empty wind and
raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and descriptions of the
wonders of, the world. I visited him at least once a year,
generally directly after New Year’s day, and then he always
spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into
his head.
I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will
reproduce his own words whenever I can remember them.
First Visit
MONG the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which had
greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological book,
containing an account of the boulders.
“Yes, they’re rare old fellows, those boulders!” he said;
“and to think that we should pass them without noticing them!
And over the street pavement, the paving stones, those fragments
of the oldest remains of antiquity, one walks without ever
thinking about them. I have done the very thing myself. But now
I look respectfully at every paving-stone. Many thanks for the
book! It has filled me with thought, and has made me long to
read more on the subject. The romance of the earth is, after
all, the most wonderful of all romances. It’s a pity one can’t
read the first volume of it, because it is written in a language
that we don’t understand. One must read in the different strata,
in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a
romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in
it. We grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but
the ball keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the
clod on which we move about, holds, and does not let us through.
And then it’s a story that has been acting for thousands upon
thousands of years and is still going on. My best thanks for the
book about the boulders. Those are fellows indeed! They could
tell us something worth hearing, if they only knew how to talk.
It’s really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing,
especially when a man is as highly placed as I am. And then to
think that we all, even with patent lacquer, are nothing more
than insects of a moment on that ant-hill the earth, though we
may be insects with stars and garters, places and offices! One
feels quite a novice beside these venerable million-year-old
boulders. On last New Year’s eve I was reading the book, and had
lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my usual New
Year’s diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amager. Ah, you don’t
know what that is!
“The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough
known—that journey is taken on St. John’s eve, to the Brocken;
but we have a wild journey, also which is national and modern,
and that is the journey to Amager on the night of the New Year.
All indifferent poets and poetesses, musicians, newspaper
writers, and artistic notabilities,—I mean those who are no
good,—ride in the New Year’s night through the air to Amager.
They sit backwards on their painting brushes or quill pens, for
steel pens won’t bear them—they’re too stiff. As I told you, I
see that every New Year’s night, and could mention the majority
of the riders by name, but I should not like to draw their
enmity upon myself, for they don’t like people to talk about
their ride to Amager on quill pens. I’ve a kind of niece, who is
a fishwife, and who, as she tells me, supplies three respectable
newspapers with the terms of abuse and vituperation they use,
and she has herself been at Amager as an invited guest; but she
was carried out thither, for she does not own a quill pen, nor
can she ride. She has told me all about it. Half of what she
said is not true, but the other half gives us information
enough. When she was out there, the festivities began with a
song; each of the guests had written his own song, and each one
sang his own song, for he thought that the best, and it was all
one, all the same melody. Then those came marching up, in little
bands, who are only busy with their mouths. There were ringing
bells that rang alternately; and then came the little drummers
that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and acquaintance
was made with those who write without putting their names, which
here means as much as using grease instead of patent blacking;
and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy was
worst off, for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then,
too, there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns
over the dust-bin, and calls it ‘good, very good, remarkably
good.’ And in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the
mere meeting of these folks, there shot up out of the great
dirt-heap at Amager a stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great
mushroom, a perfect roof, which formed a sort of warehouse for
the worthy company, for in it hung everything they had given to
the world during the Old Year. Out of the tree poured sparks
like flames of fire; these were the ideas and thoughts, borrowed
from others, which they had used, and which now got free and
rushed away like so many fireworks. They played at ‘the stick
burns,’ and the young poets played at ‘heart-burns,’ and the
witlings played off their jests, and the jests rolled away with
a thundering sound, as if empty pots were being shattered
against doors. ‘It was very amusing!’ my niece said; in fact,
she said many things that were very malicious but very amusing,
but I won’t mention them, for a man must be good-natured, and
not a carping critic. But you will easily perceive that when a
man once knows the rights of the journey to Amager, as I know
them, it’s quite natural that on the New Year’s night one should
look out to see the wild chase go by. If in the New Year I miss
certain persons who used to be there, I am sure to notice others
who are new arrivals; but this year I omitted taking my look at
the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back through
millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in the
north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before Noah’s
ark was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom of the
sea, and re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that peered
forth from the flood and said, ‘This shall be Zealand!’ I saw
them become the dwelling-place of birds that are unknown to us,
and then become the seat of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing,
until with their axes they cut their Runic signs into a few of
these stones, which then came into the calendar of time. But as
for me, I had gone quite beyond all lapse of time, and had
become a cipher and a nothing. Then three or four beautiful
falling stars came down, which cleared the air, and gave my
thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star is, do
you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I have
my own ideas about shooting stars, as the common people in many
parts call them, and my idea is this: How often are silent
thanksgivings offered up for one who has done a good and noble
action! The thanks are often speechless, but they are not lost
for all that. I think these thanks are caught up, and the
sunbeams bring the silent, hidden thankfulness over the head of
the benefactor; and if it be a whole people that has been
expressing its gratitude through a long lapse of time, the
thankfulness appears as a nosegay of flowers, and at length
falls in the form of a shooting star over the good man’s grave.
I am always very much pleased when I see a shooting star,
especially in the New Year’s night, and then find out for whom
the gift of gratitude was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell
in the southwest, as a tribute of thanksgiving to many—many!
‘For whom was that star intended?’ thought I. It fell, no doubt,
on the hill by the Bay of Flensborg, where the Dannebrog waves
over the graves of Schleppegrell, Læsløe, and their comrades.
One star also fell in the midst of the land, fell upon Sorø, a
flower on the grave of Holberg, the thanks of the year from a
great many —thanks for his charming plays!
“It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a shooting
star falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none will fall—no
sunbeam brings thanks to me, for here there is nothing worthy of
thanks. I shall not get the patent lacquer,” said Ole, “for my
fate on earth is only grease, after all.”
Second Visit
T was New Year’s day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of
the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year
into the New—from one grave into the other, as he said. And he
told me a story about the glasses, and this story had a very
deep meaning. It was this:
“When on the New Year’s night the clock strikes twelve, the
people at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands,
and drain these glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They
begin the year with the glass in their hands; that is a good
beginning for drunkards. They begin the New Year by going to
bed, and that’s a good beginning for drones. Sleep is sure to
play a great part in the New Year, and the glass likewise. Do
you know what dwells in the glass?” asked Ole. “I will tell you.
There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then pleasure, then
the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and the
bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the
glasses—of course I count the different degrees in the glasses
for different people.
“You see, the first glass, that’s the glass of health, and in
that the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam
in the ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in
the arbor of health.
“If you take the second glass—from this a little bird soars
upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may
listen to his song, and perhaps join in ‘Fair is life! no
downcast looks! Take courage, and march onward!’
“Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who
cannot certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin
blood in his veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin—not
wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off
tricks upon you. He’ll sit at your ear and whisper merry
thoughts to you; he’ll creep into your heart and warm you, so
that you grow very merry, and become a wit, so far as the wits
of the others can judge.
“In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In
that glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go
beyond that sign.
“Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you
will feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a
different way. Out of the glass there will spring with a bang
Prince Carnival, nine times and extravagantly merry. He’ll draw
you away with him; you’ll forget your dignity, if you have any,
and you’ll forget more than you should or ought to forget. All
is dance, song and sound: the masks will carry you away with
them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in silk and satin, will
come with loose hair and alluring charms; but tear yourself away
if you can!
“The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the
form of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating
man, who thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in
everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He has a
lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies you home.
There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed to choose
one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly chose
drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which led him
to commit all the other six. The man’s blood is mingled with
that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that the germ
of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a
strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up
into a tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people
have no choice but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new
form.
“That’s the history of the glasses,” said the tower-keeper
Ole, “and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I
give it you with both!”
Third Visit1
N this occasion I chose the general “moving-day” for my visit to
Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the
streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and
remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in
which one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two
children playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were
playing at “going to bed,” for the occasion seemed especially
favorable for this sport. They crept under the straw, and drew
an old bit of ragged curtain over themselves by way of coverlet.
“It was splendid!” they said; but it was a little too strong for
me, and besides, I was obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.
“It’s moving-day to day,” he said; “streets and houses are
like a dust-bin—a large dust-bin; but I’m content with a
cartload. I may get something good out of that, and I really did
get something good out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was
going up the street; it was rough weather, wet and dirty—the
right kind of weather to catch cold in. The dustman was there
with his cart, which was full, and looked like a sample of
streets on moving-day. At the back of the cart stood a fir tree,
quite green still, and with tinsel on its twigs; it had been
used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out into the
street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his cart.
It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful—all
depends on what you think of when you see it; and I thought
about it, and thought this and that of many things that were in
the cart: or I might have done so, and that comes to the same
thing. There was an old lady’s glove, too: I wonder what that
was thinking of? Shall I tell you? The glove was lying there,
pointing with its little finger at the tree. ‘I’m sorry for the
tree,’ it thought; ‘and I was also at the feast, where the
chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to speak, a ball night—a
pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory keeps dwelling upon
that, and I have really nothing else to live for!’ This is what
the glove thought, or what it might have thought. ‘That’s a
stupid affair with yonder fir tree,’ said the potsherds. You
see, potsherds think everything is stupid. ‘When one is in the
dust-cart,’ they said, ‘one ought not to give one’s self airs
and wear tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world—far
more useful than such a green stick.’ This was a view that might
be taken, and I don’t think it quite a peculiar one; but for all
that, the fir tree looked very well: it was like a little poetry
in the dust-heap; and truly there is dust enough in the streets
on moving-day. The way is difficult and troublesome then, and I
feel obliged to run away out of the confusion; or, if I am on
the tower, I stay there and look down, and it is amusing enough.
“There are the good people below, playing at ‘changing
houses.’ They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels,
and the household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them.
All the little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the
real cares and sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling
into the new; and what gain is there for them or for us in the
whole affair? Yes, there was written long ago the good old
maxim: ‘Think on the great moving-day of death!’ That is a
serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to you that I
should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,
Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer,
and he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the
savings bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our
life, the great and the little alike, we put into this savings
bank; and when Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step
in, and drive with him into the land of eternity, then on the
frontier he gives us our service-book as a pass. As a provision
for the journey, he takes this or that good deed we have done,
and lets it accompany us; and this may be very pleasant or very
terrific. Nobody has ever escaped the omnibus journey. There is
certainly a talk about one who was not allowed to go—they call
him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride behind the omnibus. If he
had been allowed to get in, he would have escaped the clutches
of the poets.
“Just cast your mind’s eye into that great omnibus. The
society is mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit
side by side. They must go without their property and money;
they have only the service-book and the gift out of the savings
bank with them. But which of our deeds is selected and given to
us? Perhaps quite a little one, one that we have forgotten, but
which has been recorded—small as a pea, but the pea can send out
a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who sat on a low stool in the
corner, and was jeered at and flouted, will perhaps have his
worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the stool may
become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as a
throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who
always lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure,
that he might forget the wild things he had done here, will have
his barrel given to him on the journey, and will have to drink
from it as they go on; and the drink is bright and clear, so
that the thoughts remain pure, and all good and noble feelings
are awakened, and he sees and feels what in life he could not or
would not see; and then he has within him the punishment, the
gnawing worm, which will not die through time incalculable. If
on the glasses there stood written ‘oblivion,’ on the barrel
‘remembrance’ is inscribed.
“When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think
at last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus
of death, and wonder, which of the hero’s deeds Death took out
of the savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the
journey into eternity. There was once a French king—I have
forgotten his name, for the names of good people are sometimes
forgotten, even by me, but it will come back some day;—there was
a king who, during a famine, became the benefactor of his
people; and the people raised up to his memory a monument of
snow, with the inscription, ‘Quicker than this melts didst thou
bring help!’ I fancy that Death, looking back upon the monument,
gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a snow-flake that
never melts, and this flake floated over his royal head, like a
white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too, there was
Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what is
bad—a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one
could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable
executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had
the innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other
eight years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm
blood of their father spurted over them, and then he had them
sent to the Bastille, and shut up in iron cages, where not even
a coverlet was given them to protect them from the cold. And
King Louis sent the executioner to them every week, and had a
tooth pulled out of the head of each, that they might not be too
comfortable; and the elder of the boys said, ‘My mother would
die of grief if she knew that my younger brother had to suffer
so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my teeth, and spare him.’
The tears came into the hangman’s eyes, but the king’s will was
stronger than the tears; and every week two little teeth were
brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and he
had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the
savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with
him on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly
before him like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and
they bite him, the innocent children’s teeth.
“Yes, that’s a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great
moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That’s just the
serious part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus
may draw up. Which of our deeds will Death take out of the
savings bank, and give to us as provision? Let us think of the
moving-day that is not marked in the calendar.”
|
Anne Lisbeth
ANNE LISBETH was a beautiful young woman, with a red and white
complexion, glittering white teeth, and clear soft eyes; and her
footstep was light in the dance, but her mind was lighter still.
She had a little child, not at all pretty; so he was put out to
be nursed by a laborer’s wife, and his mother went to the
count’s castle. She sat in splendid rooms, richly decorated with
silk and velvet; not a breath of air was allowed to blow upon
her, and no one was allowed to speak to her harshly, for she was
nurse to the count’s child. He was fair and delicate as a
prince, and beautiful as an angel; and how she loved this child!
Her own boy was provided for by being at the laborer’s where the
mouth watered more frequently than the pot boiled, and where in
general no one was at home to take care of the child. Then he
would cry, but what nobody knows nobody cares for; so he would
cry till he was tired, and then fall asleep; and while we are
asleep we can feel neither hunger nor thirst. Ah, yes; sleep is
a capital invention.
As years went on, Anne Lisbeth’s child grew apace like weeds,
although they said his growth had been stunted. He had become
quite a member of the family in which he dwelt; they received
money to keep him, so that his mother got rid of him altogether.
She had become quite a lady; she had a comfortable home of her
own in the town; and out of doors, when she went for a walk, she
wore a bonnet; but she never walked out to see the laborer: that
was too far from the town, and, indeed, she had nothing to go
for, the boy now belonged to these laboring people. He had food,
and he could also do something towards earning his living; he
took care of Mary’s red cow, for he knew how to tend cattle and
make himself useful.
The great dog by the yard gate of a nobleman’s mansion sits
proudly on the top of his kennel when the sun shines, and barks
at every one that passes; but if it rains, he creeps into his
house, and there he is warm and dry. Anne Lisbeth’s boy also sat
in the sunshine on the top of the fence, cutting out a little
toy. If it was spring-time, he knew of three strawberry-plants
in blossom, which would certainly bear fruit. This was his most
hopeful thought, though it often came to nothing. And he had to
sit out in the rain in the worst weather, and get wet to the
skin, and let the cold wind dry the clothes on his back
afterwards. If he went near the farmyard belonging to the count,
he was pushed and knocked about, for the men and the maids said
he was so horrible ugly; but he was used to all this, for nobody
loved him. This was how the world treated Anne Lisbeth’s boy,
and how could it be otherwise. It was his fate to be beloved by
no one. Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at last cast
him adrift. He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat at the
helm, while the skipper sat over the grog-can. He was dirty and
ugly, half-frozen and half-starved; he always looked as if he
never had enough to eat, which was really the case.
Late in the autumn, when the weather was rough, windy, and
wet, and the cold penetrated through the thickest clothing,
especially at sea, a wretched boat went out to sea with only two
men on board, or, more correctly, a man and a half, for it was
the skipper and his boy. There had only been a kind of twilight
all day, and it soon grew quite dark, and so bitterly cold, that
the skipper took a dram to warm him. The bottle was old, and the
glass too. It was perfect in the upper part, but the foot was
broken off, and it had therefore been fixed upon a little carved
block of wood, painted blue. A dram is a great comfort, and two
are better still, thought the skipper, while the boy sat at the
helm, which he held fast in his hard seamed hands. He was ugly,
and his hair was matted, and he looked crippled and stunted;
they called him the field-laborer’s boy, though in the church
register he was entered as Anne Lisbeth’s son. The wind cut
through the rigging, and the boat cut through the sea. The
sails, filled by the wind, swelled out and carried them along in
wild career. It was wet and rough above and below, and might
still be worse. Hold! what is that? What has struck the boat?
Was it a waterspout, or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them?
“Heaven help us!” cried the boy at the helm, as the boat
heeled over and lay on its beam ends. It had struck on a rock,
which rose from the depths of the sea, and sank at once, like an
old shoe in a puddle. “It sank at once with mouse and man,” as
the saying is. There might have been mice on board, but only one
man and a half, the skipper and the laborer’s boy. No one saw it
but the skimming sea-gulls and the fishes beneath the water; and
even they did not see it properly, for they darted back with
terror as the boat filled with water and sank. There it lay,
scarcely a fathom below the surface, and those two were provided
for, buried, and forgotten. The glass with the foot of blue wood
was the only thing that did not sink, for the wood floated and
the glass drifted away to be cast upon the shore and broken;
where and when, is indeed of no consequence. It had served its
purpose, and it had been loved, which Anne Lisbeth’s boy had not
been. But in heaven no soul will be able to say, “Never loved.”
Anne Lisbeth had now lived in the town many years; she was
called “Madame,” and felt dignified in consequence; she
remembered the old, noble days, in which she had driven in the
carriage, and had associated with countess and baroness. Her
beautiful, noble child had been a dear angel, and possessed the
kindest heart; he had loved her so much, and she had loved him
in return; they had kissed and loved each other, and the boy had
been her joy, her second life. Now he was fourteen years of age,
tall, handsome, and clever. She had not seen him since she
carried him in her arms; neither had she been for years to the
count’s palace; it was quite a journey thither from the town.
“I must make one effort to go,” said Anne Lisbeth, “to see my
darling, the count’s sweet child, and press him to my heart.
Certainly he must long to see me, too, the young count; no doubt
he thinks of me and loves me, as in those days when he would
fling his angel-arms round my neck, and lisp ’Anne Liz.’ It was
music to my ears. Yes, I must make an effort to see him again.”
She drove across the country in a grazier’s cart, and then got
out, and continued her journey on foot, and thus reached the
count’s castle. It was as great and magnificent as it had always
been, and the garden looked the same as ever; all the servants
were strangers to her, not one of them knew Anne Lisbeth, nor of
what consequence she had once been there; but she felt sure the
countess would soon let them know it, and her darling boy, too:
how she longed to see him!
Now that Anne Lisbeth was at her journey’s end, she was kept
waiting a long time; and for those who wait, time passes slowly.
But before the great people went in to dinner, she was called in
and spoken to very graciously. She was to go in again after
dinner, and then she would see her sweet boy once more. How
tall, and slender, and thin he had grown; but the eyes and the
sweet angel mouth were still beautiful. He looked at her, but he
did not speak, he certainly did not know who she was. He turned
round and was going away, but she seized his hand and pressed it
to her lips.
“Well, well,” he said; and with that he walked out of the
room. He who filled her every thought! he whom she loved best,
and who was her whole earthly pride!
Anne Lisbeth went forth from the castle into the public road,
feeling mournful and sad; he whom she had nursed day and night,
and even now carried about in her dreams, had been cold and
strange, and had not a word or thought respecting her. A great
black raven darted down in front of her on the high road, and
croaked dismally.
“Ah,” said she, “what bird of ill omen art thou?” Presently
she passed the laborer’s hut; his wife stood at the door, and
the two women spoke to each other.
“You look well,” said the woman; “you’re fat and plump; you
are well off.”
“Oh yes,” answered Anne Lisbeth.
“The boat went down with them,” continued the woman; “Hans
the skipper and the boy were both drowned; so there’s an end of
them. I always thought the boy would be able to help me with a
few dollars. He’ll never cost you anything more, Anne Lisbeth.”
“So they were drowned,” repeated Anne Lisbeth; but she said
no more, and the subject was dropped. She felt very
low-spirited, because her count-child had shown no inclination
to speak to her who loved him so well, and who had travelled so
far to see him. The journey had cost money too, and she had
derived no great pleasure from it. Still she said not a word of
all this; she could not relieve her heart by telling the
laborer’s wife, lest the latter should think she did not enjoy
her former position at the castle. Then the raven flew over her,
screaming again as he flew.
“The black wretch!” said Anne Lisbeth, “he will end by
frightening me today.” She had brought coffee and chicory with
her, for she thought it would be a charity to the poor woman to
give them to her to boil a cup of coffee, and then she would
take a cup herself.
The woman prepared the coffee, and in the meantime Anne
Lisbeth seated her in a chair and fell asleep. Then she dreamed
of something which she had never dreamed before; singularly
enough she dreamed of her own child, who had wept and hungered
in the laborer’s hut, and had been knocked about in heat and in
cold, and who was now lying in the depths of the sea, in a spot
only known by God. She fancied she was still sitting in the hut,
where the woman was busy preparing the coffee, for she could
smell the coffee-berries roasting. But suddenly it seemed to her
that there stood on the threshold a beautiful young form, as
beautiful as the count’s child, and this apparition said to her,
“The world is passing away; hold fast to me, for you are my
mother after all; you have an angel in heaven, hold me fast;”
and the child-angel stretched out his hand and seized her. Then
there was a terrible crash, as of a world crumbling to pieces,
and the angel-child was rising from the earth, and holding her
by the sleeve so tightly that she felt herself lifted from the
ground; but, on the other hand, something heavy hung to her feet
and dragged her down, and it seemed as if hundreds of women were
clinging to her, and crying, “If thou art to be saved, we must
be saved too. Hold fast, hold fast.” And then they all hung on
her, but there were too many; and as they clung the sleeve was
torn, and Anne Lisbeth fell down in horror, and awoke. Indeed
she was on the point of falling over in reality with the chair
on which she sat; but she was so startled and alarmed that she
could not remember what she had dreamed, only that it was
something very dreadful.
They drank their coffee and had a chat together, and then
Anne Lisbeth went away towards the little town where she was to
meet the carrier, who was to drive her back to her own home. But
when she came to him she found that he would not be ready to
start till the evening of the next day. Then she began to think
of the expense, and what the distance would be to walk. She
remembered that the route by the sea-shore was two miles shorter
than by the high road; and as the weather was clear, and there
would be moonlight, she determined to make her way on foot, and
to start at once, that she might reach home the next day.
The sun had set, and the evening bells sounded through the
air from the tower of the village church, but to her it was not
the bells, but the cry of the frogs in the marshes. Then they
ceased, and all around became still; not a bird could be heard,
they were all at rest, even the owl had not left her hiding
place; deep silence reigned on the margin of the wood by the
sea-shore. As Anne Lisbeth walked on she could hear her own
footsteps in the sands; even the waves of the sea were at rest,
and all in the deep waters had sunk into silence. There was
quiet among the dead and the living in the deep sea. Anne
Lisbeth walked on, thinking of nothing at all, as people say, or
rather her thoughts wandered, but not away from her, for thought
is never absent from us, it only slumbers. Many thoughts that
have lain dormant are roused at the proper time, and begin to
stir in the mind and the heart, and seem even to come upon us
from above. It is written, that a good deed bears a blessing for
its fruit; and it is also written, that the wages of sin is
death. Much has been said and much written which we pass over or
know nothing of. A light arises within us, and then forgotten
things make themselves remembered; and thus it was with Anne
Lisbeth. The germ of every vice and every virtue lies in our
heart, in yours and in mine; they lie like little grains of
seed, till a ray of sunshine, or the touch of an evil hand, or
you turn the corner to the right or to the left, and the
decision is made. The little seed is stirred, it swells and
shoots up, and pours its sap into your blood, directing your
course either for good or evil. Troublesome thoughts often exist
in the mind, fermenting there, which are not realized by us
while the senses are as it were slumbering; but still they are
there. Anne Lisbeth walked on thus with her senses half asleep,
but the thoughts were fermenting within her.
From one Shrove Tuesday to another, much may occur to weigh
down the heart; it is the reckoning of a whole year; much may be
forgotten, sins against heaven in word and thought, sins against
our neighbor, and against our own conscience. We are scarcely
aware of their existence; and Anne Lisbeth did not think of any
of her errors. She had committed no crime against the law of the
land; she was an honorable person, in a good position—that she
knew.
She continued her walk along by the margin of the sea. What
was it she saw lying there? An old hat; a man’s hat. Now when
might that have been washed overboard? She drew nearer, she
stopped to look at the hat; “Ha! what was lying yonder?” She
shuddered; yet it was nothing save a heap of grass and tangled
seaweed flung across a long stone, but it looked like a corpse.
Only tangled grass, and yet she was frightened at it. As she
turned to walk away, much came into her mind that she had heard
in her childhood: old superstitions of spectres by the
sea-shore; of the ghosts of drowned but unburied people, whose
corpses had been washed up on the desolate beach. The body, she
knew, could do no harm to any one, but the spirit could pursue
the lonely wanderer, attach itself to him, and demand to be
carried to the churchyard, that it might rest in consecrated
ground. “Hold fast! hold fast!” the spectre would cry; and as
Anne Lisbeth murmured these words to herself, the whole of her
dream was suddenly recalled to her memory, when the mother had
clung to her, and uttered these words, when, amid the crashing
of worlds, her sleeve had been torn, and she had slipped from
the grasp of her child, who wanted to hold her up in that
terrible hour. Her child, her own child, which she had never
loved, lay now buried in the sea, and might rise up, like a
spectre, from the waters, and cry, “Hold fast; carry me to
consecrated ground!”
As these thoughts passed through her mind, fear gave speed to
her feet, so that she walked faster and faster. Fear came upon
her as if a cold, clammy hand had been laid upon her heart, so
that she almost fainted. As she looked across the sea, all there
grew darker; a heavy mist came rolling onwards, and clung to
bush and tree, distorting them into fantastic shapes. She turned
and glanced at the moon, which had risen behind her. It looked
like a pale, rayless surface, and a deadly weight seemed to hang
upon her limbs. “Hold,” thought she; and then she turned round a
second time to look at the moon. A white face appeared quite
close to her, with a mist, hanging like a garment from its
shoulders. “Stop! carry me to consecrated earth,” sounded in her
ears, in strange, hollow tones. The sound did not come from
frogs or ravens; she saw no sign of such creatures. “A grave!
dig me a grave!” was repeated quite loud. Yes, it was indeed the
spectre of her child. The child that lay beneath the ocean, and
whose spirit could have no rest until it was carried to the
churchyard, and until a grave had been dug for it in consecrated
ground. She would go there at once, and there she would dig. She
turned in the direction of the church, and the weight on her
heart seemed to grow lighter, and even to vanish altogether; but
when she turned to go home by the shortest way, it returned.
“Stop! stop!” and the words came quite clear, though they were
like the croak of a frog, or the wail of a bird. “A grave! dig
me a grave!”
The mist was cold and damp, her hands and face were moist and
clammy with horror, a heavy weight again seized her and clung to
her, her mind became clear for thoughts that had never before
been there.
In these northern regions, a beech-wood often buds in a
single night and appears in the morning sunlight in its full
glory of youthful green. So, in a single instant, can the
consciousness of the sin that has been committed in thoughts,
words, and actions of our past life, be unfolded to us. When
once the conscience is awakened, it springs up in the heart
spontaneously, and God awakens the conscience when we least
expect it. Then we can find no excuse for ourselves; the deed is
there and bears witness against us. The thoughts seem to become
words, and to sound far out into the world. We are horrified at
the thought of what we have carried within us, and at the
consciousness that we have not overcome the evil which has its
origin in thoughtlessness and pride. The heart conceals within
itself the vices as well as the virtues, and they grow in the
shallowest ground. Anne Lisbeth now experienced in thought what
we have clothed in words. She was overpowered by them, and sank
down and crept along for some distance on the ground. “A grave!
dig me a grave!” sounded again in her ears, and she would have
gladly buried herself, if in the grave she could have found
forgetfulness of her actions.
It was the first hour of her awakening, full of anguish and
horror. Superstition made her alternately shudder with cold or
burn with the heat of fever. Many things, of which she had
feared even to speak, came into her mind. Silently, as the
cloud-shadows in the moonshine, a spectral apparition flitted by
her; she had heard of it before. Close by her galloped four
snorting steeds, with fire flashing from their eyes and
nostrils. They dragged a burning coach, and within it sat the
wicked lord of the manor, who had ruled there a hundred years
before. The legend says that every night, at twelve o’clock, he
drove into his castleyard and out again. He was not as pale as
dead men are, but black as a coal. He nodded, and pointed to
Anne Lisbeth, crying out, “Hold fast! hold fast! and then you
may ride again in a nobleman’s carriage, and forget your child.”
She gathered herself up, and hastened to the churchyard; but
black crosses and black ravens danced before her eyes, and she
could not distinguish one from the other. The ravens croaked as
the raven had done which she saw in the daytime, but now she
understood what they said. “I am the raven-mother; I am the
raven-mother,” each raven croaked, and Anne Lisbeth felt that
the name also applied to her; and she fancied she should be
transformed into a black bird, and have to cry as they cried, if
she did not dig the grave. And she threw herself upon the earth,
and with her hands dug a grave in the hard ground, so that the
blood ran from her fingers. “A grave! dig me a grave!” still
sounded in her ears; she was fearful that the cock might crow,
and the first red streak appear in the east, before she had
finished her work; and then she would be lost. And the cock
crowed, and the day dawned in the east, and the grave was only
half dug. An icy hand passed over her head and face, and down
towards her heart. “Only half a grave,” a voice wailed, and fled
away. Yes, it fled away over the sea; it was the ocean spectre;
and, exhausted and overpowered, Anne Lisbeth sunk to the ground,
and her senses left her.
It was a bright day when she came to herself, and two men
were raising her up; but she was not lying in the churchyard,
but on the sea-shore, where she had dug a deep hole in the sand,
and cut her hand with a piece of broken glass, whose sharp stern
was stuck in a little block of painted wood. Anne Lisbeth was in
a fever. Conscience had roused the memories of superstitions,
and had so acted upon her mind, that she fancied she had only
half a soul, and that her child had taken the other half down
into the sea. Never would she be able to cling to the mercy of
Heaven till she had recovered this other half which was now held
fast in the deep water.
Anne Lisbeth returned to her home, but she was no longer the
woman she had been. Her thoughts were like a confused, tangled
skein; only one thread, only one thought was clear to her,
namely that she must carry the spectre of the sea-shore to the
churchyard, and dig a grave for him there; that by so doing she
might win back her soul. Many a night she was missed from her
home, and was always found on the sea-shore waiting for the
spectre.
In this way a whole year passed; and then one night she
vanished again, and was not to be found. The whole of the next
day was spent in a useless search after her.
Towards evening, when the clerk entered the church to toll
the vesper bell, he saw by the altar Anne Lisbeth, who had spent
the whole day there. Her powers of body were almost exhausted,
but her eyes flashed brightly, and on her cheeks was a rosy
flush. The last rays of the setting sun shone upon her, and
gleamed over the altar upon the shining clasps of the Bible,
which lay open at the words of the prophet Joel, “Rend your
hearts and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord.”
“That was just a chance,” people said; but do things happen
by chance? In the face of Anne Lisbeth, lighted up by the
evening sun, could be seen peace and rest. She said she was
happy now, for she had conquered. The spectre of the shore, her
own child, had come to her the night before, and had said to
her, “Thou hast dug me only half a grave: but thou hast now, for
a year and a day, buried me altogether in thy heart, and it is
there a mother can best hide her child!” And then he gave her
back her lost soul, and brought her into the church. “Now I am
in the house of God,” she said, “and in that house we are
happy.”
When the sun set, Anne Lisbeth’s soul had risen to that
region where there is no more pain; and Anne Lisbeth’s troubles
were at an end.
|
The Child in the Grave
IT was a very sad day, and every heart in the house felt the
deepest grief; for the youngest child, a boy of four years old,
the joy and hope of his parents, was dead. Two daughters, the
elder of whom was going to be confirmed, still remained: they
were both good, charming girls; but the lost child always seems
the dearest; and when it is youngest, and a son, it makes the
trial still more heavy. The sisters mourned as young hearts can
mourn, and were especially grieved at the sight of their
parents’ sorrow. The father’s heart was bowed down, but the
mother sunk completely under the deep grief. Day and night she
had attended to the sick child, nursing and carrying it in her
bosom, as a part of herself. She could not realize the fact that
the child was dead, and must be laid in a coffin to rest in the
ground. She thought God could not take her darling little one
from her; and when it did happen notwithstanding her hopes and
her belief, and there could be no more doubt on the subject, she
said in her feverish agony, “God does not know it. He has
hard-hearted ministering spirits on earth, who do according to
their own will, and heed not a mother’s prayers.” Thus in her
great grief she fell away from her faith in God, and dark
thoughts arose in her mind respecting death and a future state.
She tried to believe that man was but dust, and that with his
life all existence ended. But these doubts were no support to
her, nothing on which she could rest, and she sunk into the
fathomless depths of despair. In her darkest hours she ceased to
weep, and thought not of the young daughters who were still left
to her. The tears of her husband fell on her forehead, but she
took no notice of him; her thoughts were with her dead child;
her whole existence seemed wrapped up in the remembrances of the
little one and of every innocent word it had uttered.
The day of the little child’s funeral came. For nights
previously the mother had not slept, but in the morning twilight
of this day she sunk from weariness into a deep sleep; in the
mean time the coffin was carried into a distant room, and there
nailed down, that she might not hear the blows of the hammer.
When she awoke, and wanted to see her child, the husband, with
tears, said, “We have closed the coffin; it was necessary to do
so.”
“When God is so hard to me, how can I expect men to be
better?” she said with groans and tears.
The coffin was carried to the grave, and the disconsolate
mother sat with her young daughters. She looked at them, but she
saw them not; for her thoughts were far away from the domestic
hearth. She gave herself up to her grief, and it tossed her to
and fro, as the sea tosses a ship without compass or rudder. So
the day of the funeral passed away, and similar days followed,
of dark, wearisome pain. With tearful eyes and mournful glances,
the sorrowing daughters and the afflicted husband looked upon
her who would not hear their words of comfort; and, indeed, what
comforting words could they speak, when they were themselves so
full of grief? It seemed as if she would never again know sleep,
and yet it would have been her best friend, one who would have
strengthened her body and poured peace into her soul. They at
last persuaded her to lie down, and then she would lie as still
as if she slept.
One night, when her husband listened, as he often did, to her
breathing, he quite believed that she had at length found rest
and relief in sleep. He folded his arms and prayed, and soon
sunk himself into healthful sleep; therefore he did not notice
that his wife arose, threw on her clothes, and glided silently
from the house, to go where her thoughts constantly lingered—to
the grave of her child. She passed through the garden, to a path
across a field that led to the churchyard. No one saw her as she
walked, nor did she see any one; for her eyes were fixed upon
the one object of her wanderings. It was a lovely starlight
night in the beginning of September, and the air was mild and
still. She entered the churchyard, and stood by the little
grave, which looked like a large nosegay of fragrant flowers.
She sat down, and bent her head low over the grave, as if she
could see her child through the earth that covered him—her
little boy, whose smile was so vividly before her, and the
gentle expression of whose eyes, even on his sick-bed, she could
not forget. How full of meaning that glance had been, as she
leaned over him, holding in hers the pale hand which he had no
longer strength to raise! As she had sat by his little cot, so
now she sat by his grave; and here she could weep freely, and
her tears fell upon it.
“Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child,” said a
voice quite close to her,—a voice that sounded so deep and
clear, that it went to her heart.
She looked up, and by her side stood a man wrapped in a black
cloak, with a hood closely drawn over his face; but her keen
glance could distinguish the face under the hood. It was stern,
yet awakened confidence, and the eyes beamed with youthful
radiance.
“Down to my child,” she repeated; and tones of despair and
entreaty sounded in the words.
“Darest thou to follow me?” asked the form. “I am Death.”
She bowed her head in token of assent. Then suddenly it
appeared as if all the stars were shining with the radiance of
the full moon on the many-colored flowers that decked the grave.
The earth that covered it was drawn back like a floating
drapery. She sunk down, and the spectre covered her with a black
cloak; night closed around her, the night of death. She sank
deeper than the spade of the sexton could penetrate, till the
churchyard became a roof above her. Then the cloak was removed,
and she found herself in a large hall, of wide-spreading
dimensions, in which there was a subdued light, like twilight,
reigning, and in a moment her child appeared before her,
smiling, and more beautiful than ever; with a silent cry she
pressed him to her heart. A glorious strain of music sounded—now
distant, now near. Never had she listened to such tones as
these; they came from beyond a large dark curtain which
separated the regions of death from the land of eternity.
“My sweet, darling mother,” she heard the child say. It was
the well-known, beloved voice; and kiss followed kiss, in
boundless delight. Then the child pointed to the dark curtain.
“There is nothing so beautiful on earth as it is here. Mother,
do you not see them all? Oh, it is happiness indeed.”
But the mother saw nothing of what the child pointed out,
only the dark curtain. She looked with earthly eyes, and could
not see as the child saw,—he whom God has called to be with
Himself. She could hear the sounds of music, but she heard not
the words, the Word in which she was to trust.
“I can fly now, mother,” said the child; “I can fly with
other happy children into the presence of the Almighty. I would
fain fly away now; but if you weep for me as you are weeping
now, you may never see me again. And yet I would go so gladly.
May I not fly away? And you will come to me soon, will you not,
dear mother?”
“Oh, stay, stay!” implored the mother; “only one moment more;
only once more, that I may look upon thee, and kiss thee, and
press thee to my heart.”
Then she kissed and fondled her child. Suddenly her name was
called from above; what could it mean? her name uttered in a
plaintive voice.
“Hearest thou?” said the child. “It is my father who calls
thee.” And in a few moments deep sighs were heard, as of
children weeping. “They are my sisters,” said the child.
“Mother, surely you have not forgotten them.”
And then she remembered those she left behind, and a great
terror came over her. She looked around her at the dark night.
Dim forms flitted by. She seemed to recognize some of them, as
they floated through the regions of death towards the dark
curtain, where they vanished. Would her husband and her
daughters flit past? No; their sighs and lamentations still
sounded from above; and she had nearly forgotten them, for the
sake of him who was dead.
“Mother, now the bells of heaven are ringing,” said the
child; “mother, the sun is going to rise.”
An overpowering light streamed in upon her, the child had
vanished, and she was being borne upwards. All around her became
cold; she lifted her head, and saw that she was lying in the
churchyard, on the grave of her child. The Lord, in a dream, had
been a guide to her feet and a light to her spirit. She bowed
her knees, and prayed for forgiveness. She had wished to keep
back a soul from its immortal flight; she had forgotten her
duties towards the living who were left her. And when she had
offered this prayer, her heart felt lighter. The sun burst
forth, over her head a little bird carolled his song, and the
church-bells sounded for the early service. Everything around
her seemed holy, and her heart was chastened. She acknowledged
the goodness of God, she acknowledged the duties she had to
perform, and eagerly she returned home. She bent over her
husband, who still slept; her warm, devoted kiss awakened him,
and words of heartfelt love fell from the lips of both. Now she
was gentle and strong as a wife can be; and from her lips came
the words of faith: “Whatever He doeth is right and best.”
Then her husband asked, “From whence hast thou all at once
derived such strength and comforting faith?”
And as she kissed him and her children, she said, “It came
from God, through my child in the grave.”
|
Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind
THERE was once a sculptor, named Alfred, who having won the large
gold medal and obtained a travelling scholarship, went to Italy,
and then came back to his native land. He was young at that
time- indeed, he is young still, although he is ten years older
than he was then. On his return, he went to visit one of the
little towns in the island of Zealand. The whole town knew who
the stranger was; and one of the richest men in the place gave a
party in his honor, and all who were of any consequence, or who
possessed some property, were invited. It was quite an event,
and all the town knew of it, so that it was not necessary to
announce it by beat of drum. Apprentice-boys, children of the
poor, and even the poor people themselves, stood before the
house, watching the lighted windows; and the watchman might
easily fancy he was giving a party also, there were so many
people in the streets. There was quite an air of festivity about
it, and the house was full of it; for Mr. Alfred, the sculptor,
was there. He talked and told anecdotes, and every one listened
to him with pleasure, not unmingled with awe; but none felt so
much respect for him as did the elderly widow of a naval
officer. She seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was concerned, to be
like a piece of fresh blotting-paper that absorbed all he said
and asked for more. She was very appreciative, and incredibly
ignorant—a kind of female Gaspar Hauser.
“I should like to see Rome,” she said; “it must be a lovely
city, or so many foreigners would not be constantly arriving
there. Now, do give me a description of Rome. How does the city
look when you enter in at the gate?”
“I cannot very well describe it,” said the sculptor; “but you
enter on a large open space, in the centre of which stands an
obelisk, which is a thousand years old.”
“An organist!” exclaimed the lady, who had never heard the
word ‘obelisk.’ Several of the guests could scarcely forbear
laughing, and the sculptor would have had some difficulty in
keeping his countenance, but the smile on his lips faded away;
for he caught sight of a pair of dark-blue eyes close by the
side of the inquisitive lady. They belonged to her daughter; and
surely no one who had such a daughter could be silly. The mother
was like a fountain of questions; and the daughter, who listened
but never spoke, might have passed for the beautiful maid of the
fountain. How charming she was! She was a study for the sculptor
to contemplate, but not to converse with; for she did not speak,
or, at least, very seldom.
“Has the pope a great family?” inquired the lady.
The young man answered considerately, as if the question had
been a different one, “No; he does not come from a great
family.”
“That is not what I asked,” persisted the widow; “I mean, has
he a wife and children?”
“The pope is not allowed to marry,” replied the gentleman.
“I don’t like that,” was the lady’s remark.
She certainly might have asked more sensible questions; but
if she had not been allowed to say just what she liked, would
her daughter have been there, leaning so gracefully on her
shoulder, and looking straight before her, with a smile that was
almost mournful on her face?
Mr. Alfred again spoke of Italy, and of the glorious colors
in Italian scenery; the purple hills, the deep blue of the
Mediterranean, the azure of southern skies, whose brightness and
glory could only be surpassed in the north by the deep-blue eyes
of a maiden; and he said this with a peculiar intonation; but
she who should have understood his meaning looked quite
unconscious of it, which also was charming.
“Beautiful Italy!” sighed some of the guests.
“Oh, to travel there!” exclaimed others.
“Charming! Charming!” echoed from every voice.
“I may perhaps win a hundred thousand dollars in the
lottery,” said the naval officer’s widow; “and if I do, we will
travel—I and my daughter; and you, Mr. Alfred, must be our
guide. We can all three travel together, with one or two more of
our good friends.” And she nodded in such a friendly way at the
company, that each imagined himself to be the favored person who
was to accompany them to Italy. “Yes, we must go,” she
continued; “but not to those parts where there are robbers. We
will keep to Rome. In the public roads one is always safe.”
The daughter sighed very gently; and how much there may be in
a sigh, or attributed to it! The young man attributed a great
deal of meaning to this sigh. Those deep-blue eyes, which had
been lit up this evening in honor of him, must conceal
treasures, treasures of heart and mind, richer than all the
glories of Rome; and so when he left the party that night, he
had lost it completely to the young lady. The house of the naval
officer’s widow was the one most constantly visited by Mr.
Alfred, the sculptor. It was soon understood that his visits
were not intended for that lady, though they were the persons
who kept up the conversation. He came for the sake of the
daughter. They called her Kæla. Her name was really Karen
Malena, and these two names had been contracted into the one
name Kæla. She was really beautiful; but some said she was
rather dull, and slept late of a morning.
“She has been accustomed to that,” her mother said. “She is a
beauty, and they are always easily tired. She does sleep rather
late; but that makes her eyes so clear.”
What power seemed to lie in the depths of those dark eyes!
The young man felt the truth of the proverb, “Still waters run
deep:” and his heart had sunk into their depths. He often talked
of his adventures, and the mamma was as simple and eager in her
questions as on the first evening they met. It was a pleasure to
hear Alfred describe anything. He showed them colored plates of
Naples, and spoke of excursions to Mount Vesuvius, and the
eruptions of fire from it. The naval officer’s widow had never
heard of them before.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “So that is a burning
mountain; but is it not very dangerous to the people who live
near it?”
“Whole cities have been destroyed,” he replied; “for
instance, Herculaneum and Pompeii.”
“Oh, the poor people! And you saw all that with your own
eyes?”
“No; I did not see any of the eruptions which are represented
in those pictures; but I will show you a sketch of my own, which
represents an eruption I once saw.”
He placed a pencil sketch on the table; and mamma, who had
been over-powered with the appearance of the colored plates,
threw a glance at the pale drawing and cried in astonishment,
“What, did you see it throw up white fire?”
For a moment, Alfred’s respect for Kæla’s mamma underwent a
sudden shock, and lessened considerably; but, dazzled by the
light which surrounded Kæla, he soon found it quite natural that
the old lady should have no eye for color. After all, it was of
very little consequence; for Kæla’s mamma had the best of all
possessions; namely, Kæla herself.
Alfred and Kæla were betrothed, which was a very natural
result; and the betrothal was announced in the newspaper of the
little town. Mama purchased thirty copies of the paper, that she
might cut out the paragraph and send it to friends and
acquaintances. The betrothed pair were very happy, and the
mother was happy too. She said it seemed like connecting herself
with Thorwalsden.
“You are a true successor of Thorwalsden,” she said to
Alfred; and it seemed to him as if, in this instance, mamma had
said a clever thing. Kæla was silent; but her eyes shone, her
lips smiled, every movement was graceful,—in fact, she was
beautiful; that cannot be repeated too often. Alfred decided to
take a bust of Kæla as well as of her mother. They sat to him
accordingly, and saw how he moulded and formed the soft clay
with his fingers.
“I suppose it is only on our account that you perform this
common-place work yourself, instead of leaving it to your
servant to do all that sticking together.”
“It is really necessary that I should mould the clay myself,”
he replied.
“Ah, yes, you are always so polite,” said mamma, with a
smile; and Kæla silently pressed his hand, all soiled as it was
with the clay.
Then he unfolded to them both the beauties of Nature, in all
her works; he pointed out to them how, in the scale of creation,
inanimate matter was inferior to animate nature; the plant above
the mineral, the animal above the plant, and man above them all.
He strove to show them how the beauty of the mind could be
displayed in the outward form, and that it was the sculptor’s
task to seize upon that beauty of expression, and produce it in
his works. Kæla stood silent, but nodded in approbation of what
he said, while mamma-in-law made the following confession:—
“It is difficult to follow you; but I go hobbling along after
you with my thoughts, though what you say makes my head whirl
round and round. Still I contrive to lay hold on some of it.”
Kæla’s beauty had a firm hold on Alfred; it filled his soul,
and held a mastery over him. Beauty beamed from Kæla’s every
feature, glittered in her eyes, lurked in the corners of her
mouth, and pervaded every movement of her agile fingers. Alfred,
the sculptor, saw this. He spoke only to her, thought only of
her, and the two became one; and so it may be said she spoke
much, for he was always talking to her; and he and she were one.
Such was the betrothal, and then came the wedding, with
bride’s-maids and wedding presents, all duly mentioned in the
wedding speech. Mamma-in-law had set up Thorwalsden’s bust at
the end of the table, attired in a dressing-gown; it was her
fancy that he should be a guest. Songs were sung, and cheers
given; for it was a gay wedding, and they were a handsome pair.
“Pygmalion loved his Galatea,” said one of the songs.
“Ah, that is some of your mythologies,” said mamma-in-law.
Next day the youthful pair started for Copenhagen, where they
were to live; mamma-in-law accompanied them, to attend to the
“coarse work,” as she always called the domestic arrangements.
Kæla looked like a doll in a doll’s house, for everything was
bright and new, and so fine. There they sat, all three; and as
for Alfred, a proverb may describe his position—he looked like a
swan amongst the geese. The magic of form had enchanted him; he
had looked at the casket without caring to inquire what it
contained, and that omission often brings the greatest
unhappiness into married life. The casket may be injured, the
gilding may fall off, and then the purchaser regrets his
bargain.
In a large party it is very disagreeable to find a button
giving way, with no studs at hand to fall back upon; but it is
worse still in a large company to be conscious that your wife
and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot
depend upon yourself to produce a little ready wit to carry off
the stupidity of the whole affair.
The young married pair often sat together hand in hand; he
would talk, but she could only now and then let fall a word in
the same melodious voice, the same bell-like tones. It was a
mental relief when Sophy, one of her friends, came to pay them a
visit. Sophy was not, pretty. She was, however, quite free from
any physical deformity, although Kæla used to say she was a
little crooked; but no eye, save an intimate acquaintance, would
have noticed it. She was a very sensible girl, yet it never
occurred to her that she might be a dangerous person in such a
house. Her appearance created a new atmosphere in the doll’s
house, and air was really required, they all owned that. They
felt the want of a change of air, and consequently the young
couple and their mother travelled to Italy.
“Thank heaven we are at home again within our own four
walls,” said mamma-in-law and daughter both, on their return
after a year’s absence.
“There is no real pleasure in travelling,” said mamma; “to
tell the truth, it’s very wearisome; I beg pardon for saying so.
I was soon very tired of it, although I had my children with me;
and, besides, it’s very expensive work travelling, very
expensive. And all those galleries one is expected to see, and
the quantity of things you are obliged to run after! It must be
done, for very shame; you are sure to be asked when you come
back if you have seen everything, and will most likely be told
that you’ve omitted to see what was best worth seeing of all. I
got tired at last of those endless Madonnas; I began to think I
was turning into a Madonna myself.”
“And then the living, mamma,” said Kæla.
“Yes, indeed,” she replied, “no such a thing as a respectable
meat soup—their cookery is miserable stuff.”
The journey had also tired Kæla; but she was always fatigued,
that was the worst of it. So they sent for Sophy, and she was
taken into the house to reside with them, and her presence there
was a great advantage. Mamma-in-law acknowledged that Sophy was
not only a clever housewife, but well-informed and accomplished,
though that could hardly be expected in a person of her limited
means. She was also a generous-hearted, faithful girl; she
showed that thoroughly while Kæla lay sick, fading away. When
the casket is everything, the casket should be strong, or else
all is over. And all was over with the casket, for Kæla died.
“She was beautiful,” said her mother; “she was quite
different from the beauties they call ‘antiques,’ for they are
so damaged. A beauty ought to be perfect, and Kæla was a perfect
beauty.”
Alfred wept, and mamma wept, and they both wore mourning. The
black dress suited mamma very well, and she wore mourning the
longest. She had also to experience another grief in seeing
Alfred marry again, marry Sophy, who was nothing at all to look
at. “He’s gone to the very extreme,” said mamma-in-law; “he has
gone from the most beautiful to the ugliest, and he has
forgotten his first wife. Men have no constancy. My husband was
a very different man,—but then he died before me.”
“‘Pygmalion loved his Galatea,’ was in the song they sung at
my first wedding,” said Alfred; “I once fell in love with a
beautiful statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the
kindred soul, which is a gift from heaven, the angel who can
feel and sympathize with and elevate us, I have not found and
won till now. You came, Sophy, not in the glory of outward
beauty, though you are even fairer than is necessary. The chief
thing still remains. You came to teach the sculptor that his
work is but dust and clay only, an outward form made of a
material that decays, and that what we should seek to obtain is
the ethereal essence of mind and spirit. Poor Kæla! our life was
but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world, where we
shall know each other from a union of mind, we shall be but mere
acquaintances.”
“That was not a loving speech,” said Sophy, “nor spoken like
a Christian. In a future state, where there is neither marrying
nor giving in marriage, but where, as you say, souls are
attracted to each other by sympathy; there everything beautiful
develops itself, and is raised to a higher state of existence:
her soul will acquire such completeness that it may harmonize
with yours, even more than mine, and you will then once more
utter your first rapturous exclamation of your love, ‘Beautiful,
most beautiful!’”
|
A Story from the Sand-Hills
THIS story is from the sand-dunes or sand-hills of Jutland, but
it does not begin there in the North, but far away in the South,
in Spain. The wide sea is the highroad from nation to nation;
journey in thought; then, to sunny Spain. It is warm and
beautiful there; the fiery pomegranate flowers peep from among
dark laurels; a cool refreshing breeze from the mountains blows
over the orange gardens, over the Moorish halls with their
golden cupolas and coloured walls. Children go through the
streets in procession with candles and waving banners, and the
sky, lofty and clear with its glittering stars, rises above
them. Sounds of singing and castanets can be heard, and youths
and maidens dance upon the flowering acacia trees, while even
the beggar sits upon a block of marble, refreshing himself with
a juicy melon, and dreamily enjoying life. It all seems like a
beautiful dream.
Here dwelt a newly married couple who completely gave
themselves up to the charm of life; indeed they possessed every
good thing they could desire—health and happiness, riches and
honour.
“We are as happy as human beings can be,” said the young
couple from the depths of their hearts. They had indeed only one
step higher to mount on the ladder of happiness—they hoped that
God would give them a child, a son like them in form and spirit.
The happy little one was to be welcomed with rejoicing, to be
cared for with love and tenderness, and enjoy every advantage of
wealth and luxury that a rich and influential family can give.
So the days went by like a joyous festival.
“Life is a gracious gift from God, almost too great a gift
for us to appreciate!” said the young wife. “Yet they say that
fulness of joy for ever and ever can only be found in the future
life. I cannot realise it!”
“The thought arises, perhaps, from the arrogance of men,”
said the husband. “It seems a great pride to believe that we
shall live for ever, that we shall be as gods! Were not these
the words of the serpent, the father of lies?”
“Surely you do not doubt the existence of a future life?”
exclaimed the young wife. It seemed as if one of the first
shadows passed over her sunny thoughts.
“Faith realises it, and the priests tell us so,” replied her
husband; “but amid all my happiness I feel that it is arrogant
to demand a continuation of it—another life after this. Has not
so much been given us in this world that we ought to be, we must
be, contented with it?”
“Yes, it has been given to us,” said the young wife, “but
this life is nothing more than one long scene of trial and
hardship to many thousands. How many have been cast into this
world only to endure poverty, shame, illness, and misfortune? If
there were no future life, everything here would be too
unequally divided, and God would not be the personification of
justice.”
“The beggar there,” said her husband, “has joys of his own
which seem to him great, and cause him as much pleasure as a
king would find in the magnificence of his palace. And then do
you not think that the beast of burden, which suffers blows and
hunger, and works itself to death, suffers just as much from its
miserable fate? The dumb creature might demand a future life
also, and declare the law unjust that excludes it from the
advantages of the higher creation.”
“Christ said: ‘In my father’s house are many mansions,’” she
answered. “Heaven is as boundless as the love of our Creator;
the dumb animal is also His creature, and I firmly believe that
no life will be lost, but each will receive as much happiness as
he can enjoy, which will be sufficient for him.”
“This world is sufficient for me,” said the husband, throwing
his arm round his beautiful, sweet-tempered wife. He sat by her
side on the open balcony, smoking a cigarette in the cool air,
which was loaded with the sweet scent of carnations and orange
blossoms. Sounds of music and the clatter of castanets came from
the road beneath, the stars shone above then, and two eyes full
of affection—those of his wife—looked upon him with the
expression of undying love. “Such a moment,” he said, “makes it
worth while to be born, to die, and to be annihilated!” He
smiled—the young wife raised her hand in gentle reproof, and the
shadow passed away from her mind, and they were happy—quite
happy.
Everything seemed to work together for their good. They
advanced in honour, in prosperity, and in happiness. A change
came certainly, but it was only a change of place and not of
circumstances.
The young man was sent by his Sovereign as ambassador to the
Russian Court. This was an office of high dignity, but his birth
and his acquirements entitled him to the honour. He possessed a
large fortune, and his wife had brought him wealth equal to his
own, for she was the daughter of a rich and respected merchant.
One of this merchant’s largest and finest ships was to be sent
that year to Stockholm, and it was arranged that the dear young
couple, the daughter and the son-in-law, should travel in it to
St. Petersburg. All the arrangements on board were princely and
silk and luxury on every side.
In an old war song, called “The King of England’s Son,” it
says:
“Farewell, he said, and sailed away.
And many recollect that day.
The ropes were of silk, the anchor of gold,
And everywhere riches and wealth untold.”
These words would aptly describe the vessel from Spain, for here
was the same luxury, and the same parting thought naturally
arose:
“God grant that we once more may meet
In sweet unclouded peace and joy.”
There was a favourable wind blowing as they left the Spanish
coast, and it would be but a short journey, for they hoped to
reach their destination in a few weeks; but when they came out
upon the wide ocean the wind dropped, the sea became smooth and
shining, and the stars shone brightly. Many festive evenings
were spent on board. At last the travellers began to wish for
wind, for a favourable breeze; but their wish was useless—not a
breath of air stirred, or if it did arise it was contrary. Weeks
passed by in this way, two whole months, and then at length a
fair wind blew from the south-west. The ship sailed on the high
seas between Scotland and Jutland; then the wind increased, just
as it did in the old song of “The King of England’s Son.”
“ ’Mid storm and wind, and pelting hail,
Their efforts were of no avail.
The golden anchor forth they threw;
Towards Denmark the west wind blew.”
This all happened a long time ago; King Christian VII, who sat
on the Danish throne, was still a young man. Much has happened
since then, much has altered or been changed. Sea and moorland
have been turned into green meadows, stretches of heather have
become arable land, and in the shelter of the peasant’s
cottages, apple-trees and rose-bushes grow, though they
certainly require much care, as the sharp west wind blows upon
them. In West Jutland one may go back in thought to old times,
farther back than the days when Christian VII ruled. The purple
heather still extends for miles, with its barrows and aerial
spectacles, intersected with sandy uneven roads, just as it did
then; towards the west, where broad streams run into the bays,
are marshes and meadows encircled by lofty, sandy hills, which,
like a chain of Alps, raise their pointed summits near the sea;
they are only broken by high ridges of clay, from which the sea,
year by year, bites out great mouthfuls, so that the overhanging
banks fall down as if by the shock of an earthquake. Thus it is
there today and thus it was long ago, when the happy pair were
sailing in the beautiful ship.
It was a Sunday, towards the end of September; the sun was
shining, and the chiming of the church bells in the Bay of
Nissum was carried along by the breeze like a chain of sounds.
The churches there are almost entirely built of hewn blocks of
stone, each like a piece of rock. The North Sea might foam over
them and they would not be disturbed. Nearly all of them are
without steeples, and the bells are hung outside between two
beams. The service was over, and the congregation passed out
into the churchyard, where not a tree or bush was to be seen; no
flowers were planted there, and they had not placed a single
wreath upon any of the graves. It is just the same now. Rough
mounds show where the dead have been buried, and rank grass,
tossed by the wind, grows thickly over the whole churchyard;
here and there a grave has a sort of monument, a block of
half-decayed wood, rudely cut in the shape of a coffin; the
blocks are brought from the forest of West Jutland, but the
forest is the sea itself, and the inhabitants find beams, and
planks, and fragments which the waves have cast upon the beach.
One of these blocks had been placed by loving hands on a child’s
grave, and one of the women who had come out of the church
walked up to it; she stood there, her eyes resting on the
weather-beaten memorial, and a few moments afterwards her
husband joined her. They were both silent, but he took her hand,
and they walked together across the purple heath, over moor and
meadow towards the sandhills. For a long time they went on
without speaking.
“It was a good sermon to-day,” the man said at last. “If we
had not God to trust in, we should have nothing.”
“Yes,” replied the woman, “He sends joy and sorrow, and He
has a right to send them. To-morrow our little son would have
been five years old if we had been permitted to keep him.”
“It is no use fretting, wife,” said the man. “The boy is well
provided for. He is where we hope and pray to go to.”
They said nothing more, but went out towards their houses
among the sand-hills. All at once, in front of one of the houses
where the sea grass did not keep the sand down with its twining
roots, what seemed to be a column of smoke rose up. A gust of
wind rushed between the hills, hurling the particles of sand
high into the air; another gust, and the strings of fish hung up
to dry flapped and beat violently against the walls of the
cottage; then everything was quiet once more, and the sun shone
with renewed heat.
The man and his wife went into the cottage. They had soon
taken off their Sunday clothes and come out again, hurrying over
the dunes which stood there like great waves of sand suddenly
arrested in their course, while the sandweeds and dune grass
with its bluish stalks spread a changing colour over them. A few
neighbours also came out, and helped each other to draw the
boats higher up on the beach. The wind now blew more keenly, it
was chilly and cold, and when they went back over the
sand-hills, sand and little sharp stones blew into their faces.
The waves rose high, crested with white foam, and the wind cut
off their crests, scattering the foam far and wide.
Evening came; there was a swelling roar in the air, a wailing
or moaning like the voices of despairing spirits, that sounded
above the thunder of the waves. The fisherman’s little cottage
was on the very margin, and the sand rattled against the window
panes; every now and then a violent gust of wind shook the house
to its foundation. It was dark, but about midnight the moon
would rise. Later on the air became clearer, but the storm swept
over the perturbed sea with undiminished fury; the fisher folks
had long since gone to bed, but in such weather there was no
chance of closing an eye. Presently there was a tapping at the
window; the door was opened, and a voice said:
“There’s a large ship stranded on the farthest reef.”
In a moment the fisher people sprung from their beds and
hastily dressed themselves. The moon had risen, and it was light
enough to make the surrounding objects visible to those who
could open their eyes in the blinding clouds of sand; the
violence of the wind was terrible, and it was only possible to
pass among the sand-hills if one crept forward between the
gusts; the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, and the
ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. Only a
practised eye could discern the vessel out in the offing; she
was a fine brig, and the waves now lifted her over the reef,
three or four cables’ length out of the usual channel. She drove
towards the shore, struck on the second reef, and remained
fixed.
It was impossible to render assistance; the sea rushed in
upon the vessel, making a clean breach over her. Those on shore
thought they heard cries for help from those on board, and could
plainly distinguish the busy but useless efforts made by the
stranded sailors. Now a wave came rolling onward. It fell with
enormous force on the bowsprit, tearing it from the vessel, and
the stern was lifted high above the water. Two people were seen
to embrace and plunge together into the sea, and the next moment
one of the largest waves that rolled towards the sand-hills
threw a body on the beach. It was a woman; the sailors said that
she was quite dead, but the women thought they saw signs of life
in her, so the stranger was carried across the sand-hills to the
fisherman’s cottage. How beautiful and fair she was! She must be
a great lady, they said.
They laid her upon the humble bed; there was not a yard of
linen on it, only a woollen coverlet to keep the occupant warm.
Life returned to her, but she was delirious, and knew nothing
of what had happened or where she was; and it was better so, for
everything she loved and valued lay buried in the sea. The same
thing happened to her ship as to the one spoken of in the song
about “The King of England’s Son.”
“Alas! how terrible to see
The gallant bark sink rapidly.”
Fragments of the wreck and pieces of wood were washed ashore;
they were all that remained of the vessel. The wind still blew
violently on the coast.
For a few moments the strange lady seemed to rest; but she
awoke in pain, and uttered cries of anguish and fear. She opened
her wonderfully beautiful eyes, and spoke a few words, but
nobody understood her.—And lo! as a reward for the sorrow and
suffering she had undergone, she held in her arms a new-born
babe. The child that was to have rested upon a magnificent
couch, draped with silken curtains, in a luxurious home; it was
to have been welcomed with joy to a life rich in all the good
things of this world; and now Heaven had ordained that it should
be born in this humble retreat, that it should not even receive
a kiss from its mother, for when the fisherman’s wife laid the
child upon the mother’s bosom, it rested on a heart that beat no
more—she was dead.
The child that was to have been reared amid wealth and luxury
was cast into the world, washed by the sea among the sand-hills
to share the fate and hardships of the poor.
Here we are reminded again of the song about “The King of
England’s Son,” for in it mention is made of the custom
prevalent at the time, when knights and squires plundered those
who had been saved from shipwreck. The ship had stranded some
distance south of Nissum Bay, and the cruel, inhuman days, when,
as we have just said, the inhabitants of Jutland treated the
shipwrecked people so crudely were past, long ago. Affectionate
sympathy and self-sacrifice for the unfortunate existed then,
just as it does in our own time in many a bright example. The
dying mother and the unfortunate child would have found kindness
and help wherever they had been cast by the winds, but nowhere
would it have been more sincere than in the cottage of the poor
fisherman’s wife, who had stood, only the day before, beside her
child’s grave, who would have been five years old that day if
God had spared it to her.
No one knew who the dead stranger was, they could not even
form a conjecture; the fragments of wreckage gave no clue to the
matter.
No tidings reached Spain of the fate of the daughter and
son-in-law. They did not arrive at their destination, and
violent storms had raged during the past weeks. At last the
verdict was given: “Foundered at sea—all lost.” But in the
fisherman’s cottage among the sand-hills near Huusby, there
lived a little scion of the rich Spanish family.
Where Heaven sends food for two, a third can manage to find a
meal, and in the depth of the sea there is many a dish of fish
for the hungry.
They called the boy Jørgen.
“It must certainly be a Jewish child, its skin is so dark,”
the people said.
“It might be an Italian or a Spaniard,” remarked the
clergyman.
But to the fisherman’s wife these nations seemed all the
same, and she consoled herself with the thought that the child
was baptized as a Christian.
The boy throve; the noble blood in his veins was warm, and he
became strong on his homely fare. He grew apace in the humble
cottage, and the Danish dialect spoken by the West Jutes became
his language. The pomegranate seed from Spain became a hardy
plant on the coast of West Jutland. Thus may circumstances alter
the course of a man’s life! To this home he clung with
deep-rooted affection; he was to experience cold and hunger, and
the misfortunes and hardships that surround the poor; but he
also tasted of their joys.
Childhood has bright days for every one, and the memory of
them shines through the whole after-life. The boy had many
sources of pleasure and enjoyment; the coast for miles and miles
was full of playthings, for it was a mosaic of pebbles, some red
as coral or yellow as amber, and others again white and rounded
like birds’ eggs and smoothed and prepared by the sea. Even the
bleached fishes’ skeletons, the water plants dried by the wind,
and seaweed, white and shining long linen-like bands waving
between the stones—all these seemed made to give pleasure and
occupation for the boy’s thoughts, and he had an intelligent
mind; many great talents lay dormant in him. How readily he
remembered stories and songs that he heard, and how dexterous he
was with his fingers! With stones and mussel-shells he could put
together pictures and ships with which one could decorate the
room; and he could make wonderful things from a stick, his
foster-mother said, although he was still so young and little.
He had a sweet voice, and every melody seemed to flow naturally
from his lips. And in his heart were hidden chords, which might
have sounded far out into the world if he had been placed
anywhere else than in the fisherman’s hut by the North Sea.
One day another ship was wrecked on the coast, and among
other things a chest filled with valuable flower bulbs was
washed ashore. Some were put into saucepans and cooked, for they
were thought to be fit to eat, and others lay and shrivelled in
the sand—they did not accomplish their purpose, or unfold their
magnificent colours. Would Jørgen fare better? The flower bulbs
had soon played their part, but he had years of apprenticeship
before him. Neither he nor his friends noticed in what a
monotonous, uniform way one day followed another, for there was
always plenty to do and see. The ocean itself was a great
lesson-book, and it unfolded a new leaf each day of calm or
storm—the crested wave or the smooth surface.
The visits to the church were festive occasions, but among
the fisherman’s house one was especially looked forward to; this
was, in fact, the visit of the brother of Jørgen’s
foster-mother, the eel-breeder from Fjaltring, near Bovbjerg. He
came twice a year in a cart, painted red with blue and white
tulips upon it, and full of eels; it was covered and locked like
a box, two dun oxen drew it, and Jørgen was allowed to guide
them.
The eel-breeder was a witty fellow, a merry guest, and
brought a measure of brandy with him. They all received a small
glassful or a cupful if there were not enough glasses; even
Jørgen had about a thimbleful, that he might digest the fat eel,
as the eel-breeder said; he always told one story over and over
again, and if his hearers laughed he would immediately repeat it
to them. Jørgen while still a boy, and also when he was older,
used phrases from the eel-breeder’s story on various occasions,
so it will be as well for us to listen to it. It runs thus:
“The eels went into the bay, and the young ones begged leave
to go a little farther out. ‘Don’t go too far,’ said their
mother; ‘the ugly eel-spearer might come and snap you all up.’
But they went too far, and of eight daughters only three came
back to the mother, and these wept and said, ‘We only went a
little way out, and the ugly eel-spearer came immediately and
stabbed five of our sisters to death.’ ‘They’ll come back
again,’ said the mother eel. ‘Oh, no,’ exclaimed the daughters,
‘for he skinned them, cut them in two, and fried them.’ ‘Oh,
they’ll come back again,’ the mother eel persisted. ‘No,’
replied the daughters, ‘for he ate them up.’ ‘They’ll come back
again,’ repeated the mother eel. ‘But he drank brandy after
them,’ said the daughters. ‘Ah, then they’ll never come back,’
said the mother, and she burst out crying, ‘it’s the brandy that
buries the eels.’”
“And therefore,” said the eel-breeder in conclusion, ”it is
always the proper thing to drink brandy after eating eels.”
This story was the tinsel thread, the most humorous
recollection of Jørgen’s life. He also wanted to go a little way
farther out and up the bay—that is to say, out into the world in
a ship—but his mother said, like the eel-breeder, “There are so
many bad people—eel spearers!” He wished to go a little way past
the sand-hills, out into the dunes, and at last he did: four
happy days, the brightest of his childhood, fell to his lot, and
the whole beauty and splendour of Jutland, all the happiness and
sunshine of his home, were concentrated in these. He went to a
festival, but it was a burial feast.
A rich relation of the fisherman’s family had died; the farm
was situated far eastward in the country and a little towards
the north. Jørgen’s foster parents went there, and he also went
with them from the dunes, over heath and moor, where the
Skjærumaa takes its course through green meadows and contains
many eels; mother eels live there with their daughters, who are
caught and eaten up by wicked people. But do not men sometimes
act quite as cruelly towards their own fellow-men? Was not the
knight Sir Bugge murdered by wicked people? And though he was
well spoken of, did he not also wish to kill the architect who
built the castle for him, with its thick walls and tower, at the
point where the Skjærumaa falls into the bay? Jørgen and his
parents now stood there; the wall and the ramparts still
remained, and red crumbling fragments lay scattered around. Here
it was that Sir Bugge, after the architect had left him, said to
one of his men, “Go after him and say, ‘Master, the tower
shakes.’ If he turns round, kill him and take away the money I
paid him, but if he does not turn round let him go in peace.”
The man did as he was told; the architect did not turn round,
but called back “The tower does not shake in the least, but one
day a man will come from the west in a blue cloak—he will cause
it to shake!” And so indeed it happened a hundred years later,
for the North Sea broke in and cast down the tower; but
Predbjørn Gyldenstjerne, the man who then possessed the castle,
built a new castle higher up at the end of the meadow, and that
one is standing to this day, and is called Nørre-Vosborg.
Jørgen and his foster parents went past this castle. They had
told him its story during the long winter evenings, and now he
saw the stately edifice, with its double moat, and trees and
bushes; the wall, covered with ferns, rose within the moat, but
the lofty lime-trees were the most beautiful of all; they grew
up to the highest windows, and the air was full of their sweet
fragrance. In a north-west corner of the garden stood a great
bush full of blossom, like winter snow amid the summer’s green;
it was a juniper bush, the first that Jørgen had ever seen in
bloom. He never forgot it, nor the lime-trees; the child’s soul
treasured up these memories of beauty and fragrance to gladden
the old man.
From Nørre-Vosborg, where the juniper blossomed, the journey
became more pleasant, for they met some other people who were
also going to the funeral and were riding in waggons. Our
travellers had to sit all together on a little box at the back
of the waggon, but even this, they thought, was better than
walking. So they continued their journey across the rugged
heath. The oxen which drew the waggon stopped every now and
then, where a patch of fresh grass appeared amid the heather.
The sun shone with considerable heat, and it was wonderful to
behold how in the far distance something like smoke seemed to be
rising; yet this smoke was clearer than the air; it was
transparent, and looked like rays of light rolling and dancing
afar over the heath.
“That is Lokeman driving his sheep,” said some one.
And this was enough to excite Jørgen’s imagination. He felt
as if they were now about to enter fairyland, though everything
was still real. How quiet it was! The heath stretched far and
wide around them like a beautiful carpet. The heather was in
blossom, and the juniper-bushes and fresh oak saplings rose like
bouquets from the earth. An inviting place for a frolic, if it
had not been for the number of poisonous adders of which the
travellers spoke; they also mentioned that the place had
formerly been infested with wolves, and that the district was
still called Wolfsborg for this reason. The old man who was
driving the oxen told them that in the lifetime of his father
the horses had many a hard battle with the wild beasts that were
now exterminated. One morning, when he himself had gone out to
bring in the horses, he found one of them standing with its
forefeet on a wolf it had killed, but the savage animal had torn
and lacerated the brave horse’s legs.
The journey over the heath and the deep sand was only too
quickly at an end. They stopped before the house of mourning,
where they found plenty of guests within and without. Waggon
after waggon stood side by side, while the horses and oxen had
been turned out to graze on the scanty pasture. Great sand-hills
like those at home by the North Sea rose behind the house and
extended far and wide. How had they come here, so many miles
inland? They were as large and high as those on the coast, and
the wind had carried them there; there was also a legend
attached to them.
Psalms were sung, and a few of the old people shed tears;
with this exception, the guests were cheerful enough, it seemed
to Jørgen, and there was plenty to eat and drink. There were
eels of the fattest, requiring brandy to bury them, as the
eel-breeder said; and certainly they did not forget to carry out
his maxim here.
Jørgen went in and out the house; and on the third day he
felt as much at home as he did in the fisherman’s cottage among
the sand-hills, where he had passed his early days. Here on the
heath were riches unknown to him until now; for flowers,
blackberries, and bilberries were to be found in profusion, so
large and sweet that when they were crushed beneath the tread of
passers-by the heather was stained with their red juice. Here
was a barrow and yonder another. Then columns of smoke rose into
the still air; it was a heath fire, they told him—how brightly
it blazed in the dark evening!
The fourth day came, and the funeral festivities were at an
end; they were to go back from the land-dunes to the sand-dunes.
“Ours are better,” said the old fisherman, Jørgen’s
foster-father; “these have no strength.”
And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come
inland, and it seemed very easy to understand. This is how they
explained it:
A dead body had been found on the coast, and the peasants
buried it in the churchyard. From that time the sand began to
fly about and the sea broke in with violence. A wise man in the
district advised them to open the grave and see if the buried
man was not lying sucking his thumb, for if so he must be a
sailor, and the sea would not rest until it had got him back.
The grave was opened, and he really was found with his thumb in
his mouth. So they laid him upon a cart, and harnessed two oxen
to it; and the oxen ran off with the sailor over heath and moor
to the ocean, as if they had been stung by an adder. Then the
sand ceased to fly inland, but the hills that had been piled up
still remained.
All this Jørgen listened to and treasured up in his memory of
the happiest days of his childhood—the days of the burial feast.
How delightful it was to see fresh places and to mix with
strangers! And he was to go still farther, for he was not yet
fourteen years old when he went out in a ship to see the world.
He encountered bad weather, heavy seas, unkindness, and hard
men—such were his experiences, for he became ship-boy. Cold
nights, bad living, and blows had to be endured; then he felt
his noble Spanish blood boil within him, and bitter, angry,
words rose to his lips, but he gulped them down; it was better,
although he felt as the eel must feel when it is skinned, cut
up, and put into the frying-pan.
“I shall get over it,” said a voice within him.
He saw the Spanish coast, the native land of his parents. He
even saw the town where they had lived in joy and prosperity,
but he knew nothing of his home or his relations, and his
relations knew just as little about him.
The poor ship boy was not permitted to land, but on the last
day of their stay he managed to get ashore. There were several
purchases to be made, and he was sent to carry them on board.
Jørgen stood there in his shabby clothes which looked as if
they had been washed in the ditch and dried in the chimney; he,
who had always dwelt among the sand-hills, now saw a great city
for the first time. How lofty the houses seemed, and what a
number of people there were in the streets! some pushing this
way, some that—a perfect maelstrom of citizens and peasants,
monks and soldiers—the jingling of bells on the trappings of
asses and mules, the chiming of church bells, calling, shouting,
hammering and knocking—all going on at once. Every trade was
located in the basement of the houses or in the side
thoroughfares; and the sun shone with such heat, and the air was
so close, that one seemed to be in an oven full of beetles,
cockchafers, bees and flies, all humming and buzzing together.
Jørgen scarcely knew where he was or which way he went. Then he
saw just in front of him the great doorway of a cathedral; the
lights were gleaming in the dark aisles, and the fragrance of
incense was wafted towards him. Even the poorest beggar ventured
up the steps into the sanctuary. Jørgen followed the sailor he
was with into the church, and stood in the sacred edifice.
Coloured pictures gleamed from their golden background, and on
the altar stood the figure of the Virgin with the child Jesus,
surrounded by lights and flowers; priests in festive robes were
chanting, and choir boys in dazzling attire swung silver
censers. What splendour and magnificence he saw there! It
streamed in upon his soul and overpowered him: the church and
the faith of his parents surrounded him, and touched a chord in
his heart that caused his eyes to overflow with tears.
They went from the church to the market-place. Here a
quantity of provisions were given him to carry. The way to the
harbour was long; and weary and overcome with various emotions,
he rested for a few moments before a splendid house, with marble
pillars, statues, and broad steps. Here he rested his burden
against the wall. Then a porter in livery came out, lifted up a
silver-headed cane, and drove him away—him, the grandson of that
house. But no one knew that, and he just as little as any one.
Then he went on board again, and once more encountered rough
words and blows, much work and little sleep—such was his
experience of life. They say it is good to suffer in one’s young
days, if age brings something to make up for it.
His period of service on board the ship came to an end, and
the vessel lay once more at Ringkjøbing in Jutland. He came
ashore, and went home to the sand-dunes near Huusby; but his
foster-mother had died during his absence.
A hard winter followed this summer. Snow-storms swept over
land and sea, and there was difficulty in getting from one place
to another. How unequally things are distributed in this world!
Here there was bitter cold and snow-storms, while in Spain there
was burning sunshine and oppressive heat. Yet, when a clear
frosty day came, and Jørgen saw the swans flying in numbers from
the sea towards the land, across to Nørre-Vosborg, it seemed to
him that people could breathe more freely here; the summer also
in this part of the world was splendid. In imagination he saw
the heath blossom and become purple with rich juicy berries, and
the elder-bushes and lime-trees at Nørre Vosborg in flower. He
made up his mind to go there again.
Spring came, and the fishing began. Jørgen was now an active
helper in this, for he had grown during the last year, and was
quick at work. He was full of life, and knew how to swim, to
tread water, and to turn over and tumble in the strong tide.
They often warned him to beware of the sharks, which seize the
best swimmer, draw him down, and devour him; but such was not to
be Jørgen’s fate.
At a neighbour’s house in the dunes there was a boy named
Martin, with whom Jørgen was on very friendly terms, and they
both took service in the same ship to Norway, and also went
together to Holland. They never had a quarrel, but a person can
be easily excited to quarrel when he is naturally hot tempered,
for he often shows it in many ways; and this is just what Jørgen
did one day when they fell out about the merest trifle. They
were sitting behind the cabin door, eating from a delft plate,
which they had placed between them. Jørgen held his pocket-knife
in his hand and raised it towards Martin, and at the same time
became ashy pale, and his eyes had an ugly look. Martin only
said, “Ah! ah! you are one of that sort, are you? Fond of using
the knife!”
The words were scarcely spoken, when Jørgen’s hand sank down.
He did not answer a syllable, but went on eating, and afterwards
returned to his work. When they were resting again he walked up
to Martin and said:
“Hit me in the face! I deserve it. But sometimes I feel as if
I had a pot in me that boils over.”
“There, let the thing rest,” replied Martin.
And after that they were almost better friends than ever;
when afterwards they returned to the dunes and began telling
their adventures, this was told among the rest. Martin said that
Jørgen was certainly passionate, but a good fellow after all.
They were both young and healthy, well-grown and strong; but
Jørgen was the cleverer of the two.
In Norway the peasants go into the mountains and take the
cattle there to find pasture. On the west coast of Jutland huts
have been erected among the sand-hills; they are built of pieces
of wreck, and thatched with turf and heather; there are sleeping
places round the walls, and here the fishermen live and sleep
during the early spring. Every fisherman has a female helper, or
manager as she is called, who baits his hooks, prepares warm
beer for him when he comes ashore, and gets the dinner cooked
and ready for him by the time he comes back to the hut tired and
hungry. Besides this the managers bring up the fish from the
boats, cut them open, prepare them, and have generally a great
deal to do.
Jørgen, his father, and several other fishermen and their
managers inhabited the same hut; Martin lived in the next one.
One of the girls, whose name was Else, had known Jørgen from
childhood; they were glad to see each other, and were of the
same opinion on many points, but in appearance they were
entirely opposite; for he was dark, and she was pale, and fair,
and had flaxen hair, and eyes as blue as the sea in sunshine.
As they were walking together one day, Jørgen held her hand
very firmly in his, and she said to him:
“Jørgen, I have something I want to say to you; let me be
your manager, for you are like a brother to me; but Martin,
whose housekeeper I am—he is my lover—but you need not tell this
to the others.”
It seemed to Jørgen as if the loose sand was giving way under
his feet. He did not speak a word, but nodded his head, and that
meant “yes.” It was all that was necessary; but he suddenly felt
in his heart that he hated Martin, and the more he thought the
more he felt convinced that Martin had stolen away from him the
only being he ever loved, and that this was Else: he had never
thought of Else in this way before, but now it all became plain
to him.
When the sea is rather rough, and the fishermen are coming
home in their great boats, it is wonderful to see how they cross
the reefs. One of them stands upright in the bow of the boat,
and the others watch him sitting with the oars in their hands.
Outside the reef it looks as if the boat was not approaching
land but going back to sea; then the man who is standing up
gives them the signal that the great wave is coming which is to
float them across the reef. The boat is lifted high into the
air, so that the keel is seen from the shore; the next moment
nothing can be seen, mast, keel, and people are all hidden—it
seems as though the sea had devoured them; but in a few moments
they emerge like a great sea animal climbing up the waves, and
the oars move as if the creature had legs. The second and third
reef are passed in the same manner; then the fishermen jump into
the water and push the boat towards the shore—every wave helps
them—and at length they have it drawn up, beyond the reach of
the breakers.
A wrong order given in front of the reef—the slightest
hesitation—and the boat would be lost,
“Then it would be all over with me and Martin too!”
This thought passed through Jørgen’s mind one day while they
were out at sea, where his foster-father had been taken suddenly
ill. The fever had seized him. They were only a few oars’
strokes from the reef, and Jørgen sprang from his seat and stood
up in the bow.
“Father-let me come!” he said, and he glanced at Martin and
across the waves; every oar bent with the exertions of the
rowers as the great wave came towards them, and he saw his
father’s pale face, and dared not obey the evil impulse that had
shot through his brain. The boat came safely across the reef to
land; but the evil thought remained in his heart, and roused up
every little fibre of bitterness which he remembered between
himself and Martin since they had known each other. But he could
not weave the fibres together, nor did he endeavour to do so. He
felt that Martin had robbed him, and this was enough to make him
hate his former friend. Several of the fishermen saw this, but
Martin did not—he remained as obliging and talkative as ever, in
fact he talked rather too much.
Jørgen’s foster-father took to his bed, and it became his
death-bed, for he died a week afterwards; and now Jørgen was
heir to the little house behind the sand-hills. It was small,
certainly, but still it was something, and Martin had nothing of
the kind.
“You will not go to sea again, Jørgen, I suppose,” observed
one of the old fishermen. “You will always stay with us now.”
But this was not Jørgen’s intention; he wanted to see
something of the world. The eel-breeder of Fjaltring had an
uncle at Old Skagen, who was a fisherman, but also a prosperous
merchant with ships upon the sea; he was said to be a good old
man, and it would not be a bad thing to enter his service. Old
Skagen lies in the extreme north of Jutland, as far away from
the Huusby dunes as one can travel in that country; and this is
just what pleased Jørgen, for he did not want to remain till the
wedding of Martin and Else, which would take place in a week or
two.
The old fisherman said it was foolish to go away, for now
that Jørgen had a home Else would very likely be inclined to
take him instead of Martin.
Jørgen gave such a vague answer that it was not easy to make
out what he meant—the old man brought Else to him, and she said:
“You have a home now; you ought to think of that.”
And Jørgen thought of many things.
The sea has heavy waves, but there are heavier waves in the
human heart. Many thoughts, strong and weak, rushed through
Jørgen’s brain, and he said to Else:
“If Martin had a house like mine, which of us would you
rather have?”
“But Martin has no house and cannot get one.”
“Suppose he had one?”
“Well, then I would certainly take Martin, for that is what
my heart tells me; but one cannot live upon love.”
Jørgen turned these things over in his mind all night.
Something was working within him, he hardly knew what it was,
but it was even stronger than his love for Else; and so he went
to Martin’s, and what he said and did there was well considered.
He let the house to Martin on most liberal terms, saying that he
wished to go to sea again, because he loved it. And Else kissed
him when she heard of it, for she loved Martin best.
Jørgen proposed to start early in the morning, and on the
evening before his departure, when it was already getting rather
late, he felt a wish to visit Martin once more. He started, and
among the dunes met the old fisherman, who was angry at his
leaving the place. The old man made jokes about Martin, and
declared there must be some magic about that fellow, of whom the
girls were so fond.
Jørgen did not pay any attention to his remarks, but said
good-bye to the old man and went on towards the house where
Martin dwelt. He heard loud talking inside; Martin was not
alone, and this made Jørgen waver in his determination, for he
did not wish to see Else again. On second thoughts, he decided
that it was better not to hear any more thanks from Martin, and
so he turned back.
On the following morning, before the sun rose, he fastened
his knapsack on his back, took his wooden provision box in his
hand, and went away among the sand-hills towards the coast path.
This way was more pleasant than the heavy sand road, and besides
it was shorter; and he intended to go first to Fjaltring, near
Bovbjerg, where the eel-breeder lived, to whom he had promised a
visit.
The sea lay before him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells
and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his
feet. While he thus walked on his nose suddenly began to bleed;
it was a trifling occurrence, but trifles sometimes are of great
importance. A few large drops of blood fell upon one of his
sleeves. He wiped them off and stopped the bleeding, and it
seemed to him as if this had cleared and lightened his brain.
The sea-cale bloomed here and there in the sand as he passed. He
broke off a spray and stuck it in his hat; he determined to be
merry and light-hearted, for he was going out into the wide
world—“a little way out, beyond the bay,” as the young eels had
said. “Beware of bad people who will catch you, and skin you,
and put you in the frying-pan!” he repeated in his mind, and
smiled, for he thought he should find his way through the
world—good courage is a strong weapon!
The sun was high in the heavens when he approached the narrow
entrance to Nissum Bay. He looked back and saw a couple of
horsemen galloping a long distance behind him, and there were
other people with them. But this did not concern him.
The ferry-boat was on the opposite side of the bay. Jørgen
called to the ferry-man, and the latter came over with his boat.
Jørgen stepped in; but before he had got half-way across, the
men whom he had seen riding so hastily, came up, hailed the
ferry-man, and commanded him to return in the name of the law.
Jørgen did not understand the reason of this, but he thought it
would be best to turn back, and therefore he himself took an oar
and returned. As soon as the boat touched the shore, the men
sprang on board, and before he was aware of it, they had bound
his hands with a rope.
“This wicked deed will cost you your life,” they said. “It is
a good thing we have caught you.”
He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had been
found dead, with his throat cut. One of the fishermen, late on
the previous evening, had met Jørgen going towards Martin’s
house; this was not the first time Jørgen had raised his knife
against Martin, so they felt sure that he was the murderer. The
prison was in a town at a great distance, and the wind was
contrary for going there by sea; but it would not take half an
hour to get across the bay, and another quarter of an hour would
bring them to Nørre-Vosborg, the great castle with ramparts and
moat. One of Jørgen’s captors was a fisherman, a brother of the
keeper of the castle, and he said it might be managed that
Jørgen should be placed for the present in the dungeon at
Vosborg, where Long Martha the gipsy had been shut up till her
execution. They paid no attention to Jørgen’s defence; the few
drops of blood on his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against
him. But he was conscious of his innocence, and as there was no
chance of clearing himself at present he submitted to his fate.
The party landed just at the place where Sir Bugge’s castle
had stood, and where Jørgen had walked with his foster-parents
after the burial feast, during. the four happiest days of his
childhood. He was led by the well-known path, over the meadow to
Vosborg; once more the elders were in bloom and the lofty
lime-trees gave forth sweet fragrance, and it seemed as if it
were but yesterday that he had last seen the spot. In each of
the two wings of the castle there was a staircase which led to a
place below the entrance, from whence there is access to a low,
vaulted cellar. In this dungeon Long Martha had been imprisoned,
and from here she was led away to the scaffold. She had eaten
the hearts of five children, and had imagined that if she could
obtain two more she would be able to fly and make herself
invisible. In the middle of the roof of the cellar there was a
little narrow air-hole, but no window. The flowering lime trees
could not breathe refreshing fragrance into that abode, where
everything was dark and mouldy. There was only a rough bench in
the cell; but a good conscience is a soft pillow, and therefore
Jørgen could sleep well.
The thick oaken door was locked, and secured on the outside
by an iron bar; but the goblin of superstition can creep through
a keyhole into a baron’s castle just as easily as it can into a
fisherman’s cottage, and why should he not creep in here, where
Jørgen sat thinking of Long Martha and her wicked deeds? Her
last thoughts on the night before her execution had filled this
place, and the magic that tradition asserted to have been
practised here, in Sir Svanwedel’s time, came into Jørgen’s
mind, and made him shudder; but a sunbeam, a refreshing thought
from without, penetrated his heart even here—it was the
remembrance of the flowering elder and the sweet smelling
lime-trees.
He was not left there long. They took him away to the town of
Ringkjøbing, where he was imprisoned with equal severity.
Those times were not like ours. The common people were
treated harshly; and it was just after the days when farms were
converted into knights’ estates, when coachmen and servants were
often made magistrates, and had power to sentence a poor man,
for a small offence, to lose his property and to corporeal
punishment. Judges of this kind were still to be found; and in
Jutland, so far from the capital, and from the enlightened,
well-meaning, head of the Government, the law was still very
loosely administered sometimes—the smallest grievance Jørgen
could expect was that his case should be delayed.
His dwelling was cold and comfortless; and how long would he
be obliged to bear all this? It seemed his fate to suffer
misfortune and sorrow innocently. He now had plenty of time to
reflect on the difference of fortune on earth, and to wonder why
this fate had been allotted to him; yet he felt sure that all
would be made clear in the next life, the existence that awaits
us when this life is over. His faith had grown strong in the
poor fisherman’s cottage; the light which had never shone into
his father’s mind, in all the richness and sunshine of Spain,
was sent to him to be his comfort in poverty and distress, a
sign of that mercy of God which never fails.
The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of
the North Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was
blowing, and then it sounded like the rushing of a thousand
waggons over a hard road with a mine underneath. Jørgen heard
these sounds in his prison, and it was a relief to him. No music
could have touched his heart as did these sounds of the sea—the
rolling sea, the boundless sea, on which a man can be borne
across the world before the wind, carrying his own house with
him wherever he goes, just as the snail carries its home even
into a strange country.
He listened eagerly to its deep murmur and then the thought
arose—“Free! free! How happy to be free, even barefooted and in
ragged clothes!” Sometimes, when such thoughts crossed his mind,
the fiery nature rose within him, and he beat the wall with his
clenched fists.
Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when Niels the
thief, called also a horse-dealer, was arrested; and now better
times came, and it was seen that Jørgen had been wrongly
accused.
On the afternoon before Jørgen’s departure from home, and
before the murder, Niels the thief, had met Martin at a
beer-house in the neighbourhood of Ringkjøbing. A few glasses
were drank, not enough to cloud the brain, but enough to loosen
Martin’s tongue. He began to boast and to say that he had
obtained a house and intended to marry, and when Niels asked him
where he was going to get the money, he slapped his pocket
proudly and said:
“The money is here, where it ought to be.”
This boast cost him his life; for when he went home Niels
followed him, and cut his throat, intending to rob the murdered
man of the gold, which did not exist.
All this was circumstantially explained; but it is enough for
us to know that Jørgen was set free. But what compensation did
he get for having been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out
from all communication with his fellow creatures? They told him
he was fortunate in being proved innocent, and that he might go.
The burgomaster gave him two dollars for travelling expenses,
and many citizens offered him provisions and beer—there were
still good people; they were not all hard and pitiless. But the
best thing of all was that the merchant Brønne, of Skagen, into
whose service Jørgen had proposed entering the year before, was
just at that time on business in the town of Ringkjøbing. Brønne
heard the whole story; he was kind-hearted, and understood what
Jørgen must have felt and suffered. Therefore he made up his
mind to make it up to the poor lad, and convince him that there
were still kind folks in the world.
So Jørgen went forth from prison as if to paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this path now,
for no goblet of life is all bitterness; no good man would pour
out such a draught for his fellow-man, and how should He do it,
Who is love personified?
“Let everything be buried and forgotten,” said Brønne, the
merchant. “Let us draw a thick line through last year: we will
even burn the almanack. In two days we will start for dear,
friendly, peaceful Skagen. People call it an out-of-the-way
corner; but it is a good warm chimney-corner, and its windows
open toward every part of the world.”
What a journey that was: It was like taking fresh breath out
of the cold dungeon air into the warm sunshine. The heather
bloomed in pride and beauty, and the shepherd-boy sat on a
barrow and blew his pipe, which he had carved for himself out of
a sheep bone. Fata Morgana, the beautiful aerial phenomenon of
the wilderness, appeared with hanging gardens and waving
forests, and the wonderful cloud called “Lokeman driving his
sheep” also was seen.
Up towards Skagen they went, through the land of the Wendels,
whence the men with long beards (the Longobardi or Lombards) had
emigrated in the reign of King Snio, when all the children and
old people were to have been killed, till the noble Dame
Gambaruk proposed that the young people should emigrate. Jørgen
knew all this, he had some little knowledge; and although he did
not know the land of the Lombards beyond the lofty Alps, he had
an idea that it must be there, for in his boyhood he had been in
the south, in Spain. He thought of the plenteousness of the
southern fruit, of the red pomegranate flowers, of the humming,
buzzing, and toiling in the great beehive of a city he had seen;
but home is the best place after all, and Jørgen’s home was
Denmark.
At last they arrived at “Vendilskaga,” as Skagen is called in
old Norwegian and Icelandic writings. At that time Old Skagen,
with the eastern and western town, extended for miles, with sand
hills and arable land as far as the lighthouse near “Grenen.”
Then, as now, the houses were strewn among the wind-raised
sand-hills—a wilderness in which the wind sports with the sand,
and where the voice of the sea-gull and wild swan strikes
harshly on the ear.
In the south-west, a mile from “Grenen,” lies Old Skagen;
merchant Brønne dwelt here, and this was also to be Jørgen’s
home for the future. The dwelling-house was tarred, and all the
small out-buildings had been put together from pieces of wreck.
There was no fence, for indeed there was nothing to fence in
except the long rows of fishes which were hung upon lines, one
above the other, to dry in the wind. The entire coast was strewn
with spoiled herrings, for there were so many of these fish that
a net was scarcely thrown into the sea before it was filled.
They were caught by carloads, and many of them were either
thrown back into the sea or left to lie on the beach.
The old man’s wife and daughter and his servants also came to
meet him with great rejoicing. There was a great squeezing of
hands, and talking and questioning. And the daughter, what a
sweet face and bright eyes she had!
The inside of the house was comfortable and roomy. Fritters,
that a king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed
on the table, and there was wine from the Skagen vineyard—that
is, the sea; for there the grapes come ashore ready pressed and
prepared in barrels and in bottles.
When the mother and daughter heard who Jørgen was, and how
innocently he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more
friendly way; and pretty Clara’s eyes had a look of especial
interest as she listened to his story. Jørgen found a happy home
in Old Skagen. It did his heart good, for it had been sorely
tried. He had drunk the bitter goblet of love which softens or
hardens the heart, according to circumstances. Jørgen’s heart
was still soft—it was young, and therefore it was a good thing
that Miss Clara was going in three weeks’ time to Christiansand
in Norway, in her father’s ship, to visit an aunt and to stay
there the whole winter.
On the Sunday before she went away they all went to church,
to the Holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and
had been built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it
stood some little way out of the town. It was rather ruinous
certainly, and the road to it was heavy, through deep sand, but
the people gladly surmounted these difficulties to get to the
house of God, to sing psalms and to hear the sermon. The sand
had heaped itself up round the walls of the church, but the
graves were kept free from it.
It was the largest church north of the Limfjorden. The Virgin
Mary, with a golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her
arms, stood lifelike on the altar; the holy Apostles had been
carved in the choir, and on the walls there were portraits of
the old burgomasters and councillors of Skagen; the pulpit was
of carved work. The sun shone brightly into the church, and its
radiance fell on the polished brass chandelier and on the little
ship that hung from the vaulted roof.
Jørgen felt overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that
which possessed him, when, as a boy, he stood in the splendid
Spanish cathedral. But here the feeling was different, for he
felt conscious of being one of the congregation.
After the sermon followed Holy Communion. He partook of the
bread and wine, and it so happened that he knelt by the side of
Miss Clara; but his thoughts were so fixed upon heaven and the
Holy Sacrament that he did not notice his neighbour until he
rose from his knees, and then he saw tears rolling down her
cheeks.
She left Skagen and went to Norway two days later. He
remained behind, and made himself useful on the farm and at the
fishery. He went out fishing, and in those days fish were more
plentiful and larger than they are now. The shoals of the
mackerel glittered in the dark nights, and indicated where they
were swimming; the gurnards snarled, and the crabs gave forth
pitiful yells when they were chased, for fish are not so mute as
people say.
Every Sunday Jørgen went to church; and when his eyes rested
on the picture of the Virgin Mary over the altar as he sat
there, they often glided away to the spot where they had knelt
side by side.
Autumn came, and brought rain and snow with it; the water
rose up right into the town of Skagen, the sand could not suck
it all in, one had to wade through it or go by boat. The storms
threw vessel after vessel on the fatal reefs; there were
snow-storm and sand-storms; the sand flew up to the houses,
blocking the entrances, so that people had to creep up through
the chimneys; that was nothing at all remarkable here. It was
pleasant and cheerful indoors, where peat fuel and fragments of
wood from the wrecks blazed and crackled upon the hearth.
Merchant Brønne read aloud, from an old chronicle, about Prince
Hamlet of Denmark, who had come over from England, landed near
Bovbjerg, and fought a battle; close by Ramme was his grave,
only a few miles from the place where the eel-breeder lived;
hundreds of barrow rose there from the heath, forming as it were
an enormous churchyard. Merchant Brønne had himself been at
Hamlet’s grave; they spoke about old times, and about their
neighbours, the English and the Scotch, and Jørgen sang the air
of “The King of England’s Son,” and of his splendid ship and its
outfit.
“In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear,
And proved himself the son of a King;
Of his courage and valour let us sing.”
This verse Jørgen sang with so much feeling that his eyes
beamed, and they were black and sparkling since his infancy.
There was wealth, comfort, and happiness even among the
domestic animals, for they were all well cared for, and well
kept. The kitchen looked bright with its copper and tin
utensils, and white plates, and from the rafters hung hams,
beef, and winter stores in plenty. This can still be seen in
many rich farms on the west coast of Jutland: plenty to eat and
drink, clean, prettily decorated rooms, active minds, cheerful
tempers, and hospitality can be found there, as in an Arab’s
tent.
Jørgen had never spent such a happy time since the famous
burial feast, and yet Miss Clara was absent, except in the
thoughts and memory of all.
In April a ship was to start for Norway, and Jørgen was to
sail in it. He was full of life and spirits, and looked so
sturdy and well that Dame Brønne said it did her good to see
him.
“And it does one good to look at you also, old wife,” said
the merchant. “Jørgen has brought fresh life into our winter
evenings, and into you too, mother. You look younger than ever
this year, and seem well and cheerful. But then you were once
the prettiest girl in Viborg, and that is saying a great deal,
for I have always found the Viborg girls the prettiest of any.”
Jørgen said nothing, but he thought of a certain maiden of
Skagen, whom he was soon to visit. The ship set sail for
Christiansand in Norway, and as the wind was favourable it soon
arrived there.
One morning merchant Brønne went out to the lighthouse, which
stands a little way out of Old Skagen, not far from “Grenen.”
The light was out, and the sun was already high in the heavens,
when he mounted the tower. The sand-banks extend a whole mile
from the shore, beneath the water, outside these banks; many
ships could be seen that day, and with the aid of his telescope
the old man thought he descried his own ship, the Karen Brønne.
Yes! certainly, there she was, sailing homewards with Clara and
Jørgen on board.
Clara sat on deck, and saw the sand-hills gradually appearing
in the distance; the church and lighthouse looked like a heron
and a swan rising from the blue waters. If the wind held good
they might reach home in about an hour. So near they were to
home and all its joys—so near to death and all its terrors! A
plank in the ship gave way, and the water rushed in; the crew
flew to the pumps, and did their best to stop the leak. A signal
of distress was hoisted, but they were still fully a mile from
the shore. Some fishing boats were in sight, but they were too
far off to be of any use. The wind blew towards the land, the
tide was in their favour, but it was all useless; the ship could
not be saved.
Jørgen threw his right arm round Clara, and pressed her to
him. With what a look she gazed up into his face, as with a
prayer to God for help he breasted the waves, which rushed over
the sinking ship! She uttered a cry, but she felt safe and
certain that he would not leave her to sink. And in this hour of
terror and danger Jørgen felt as the king’s son did, as told in
the old song:
“In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear.”
How glad he felt that he was a good swimmer! He worked his way
onward with his feet and one arm, while he held the young girl
up firmly with the other. He rested on the waves, he trod the
water—in fact, did everything he could think of, in order not to
fatigue himself, and to reserve strength enough to reach land.
He heard Clara sigh, and felt her shudder convulsively, and he
pressed her more closely to him. Now and then a wave rolled over
them, the current lifted them; the water, although deep, was so
clear that for a moment he imagined he saw the shoals of
mackerel glittering, or Leviathan himself ready to swallow them.
Now the clouds cast a shadow over the water, then again came the
playing sunbeams; flocks of loudly screaming birds passed over
him, and the plump and lazy wild ducks which allow themselves to
be drifted by the waves rose up terrified at the sight of the
swimmer. He began to feel his strength decreasing, but he was
only a few cable lengths’ distance from the shore, and help was
coming, for a boat was approaching him. At this moment he
distinctly saw a white staring figure under the water—a wave
lifted him up, and he came nearer to the figure—he felt a
violent shock, and everything became dark around him.
On the sand reef lay the wreck of a ship, which was covered
with water at high tide; the white figure head rested against
the anchor, the sharp iron edge of which rose just above the
surface. Jørgen had come in contact with this; the tide had
driven him against it with great force. He sank down stunned
with the blow, but the next wave lifted him and the young girl
up again. Some fishermen, coming with a boat, seized them and
dragged them into it. The blood streamed down over Jørgen’s
face; he seemed dead, but still held the young girl so tightly
that they were obliged to take her from him by force. She was
pale and lifeless; they laid her in the boat, and rowed as
quickly as possible to the shore. They tried every means to
restore Clara to life, but it was all of no avail. Jørgen had
been swimming for some distance with a corpse in his arms, and
had exhausted his strength for one who was dead.
Jørgen still breathed, so the fishermen carried him to the
nearest house upon the sand-hills, where a smith and general
dealer lived who knew something of surgery, and bound up
Jørgen’s wounds in a temporary way until a surgeon could be
obtained from the nearest town the next day. The injured man’s
brain was affected, and in his delirium he uttered wild cries;
but on the third day he lay quiet and weak upon his bed; his
life seemed to hang by a thread, and the physician said it would
be better for him if this thread broke. “Let us pray that God
may take him,” he said, “for he will never be the same man
again.”
But life did not depart from him—the thread would not break,
but the thread of memory was severed; the thread of his mind had
been cut through, and what was still more grievous, a body
remained—a living healthy body that wandered about like a
troubled spirit.
Jørgen remained in merchant Brønne’s house. “He was hurt
while endeavouring to save our child,” said the old man, “and
now he is our son.” People called Jørgen insane, but that was
not exactly the correct term. He was like an instrument in which
the strings are loose and will give no sound; only occasionally
they regained their power for a few minutes, and then they
sounded as they used to do. He would sing snatches of songs or
old melodies, pictures of the past would rise before him, and
then disappear in the mist, as it were, but as a general rule he
sat staring into vacancy, without a thought. We may conjecture
that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their brightness,
and looked like clouded glass.
“Poor mad Jørgen,” said the people. And this was the end of a
life whose infancy was to have been surrounded with wealth and
splendour had his parents lived! All his great mental abilities
had been lost, nothing but hardship, sorrow, and disappointment
had been his fate. He was like a rare plant, torn from its
native soil, and tossed upon the beach to wither there. And was
this one of God’s creatures, fashioned in His own likeness, to
have no better fate? Was he to be only the plaything of fortune?
No! the all-loving Creator would certainly repay him in the life
to come for what he had suffered and lost here. “The Lord is
good to all; and His mercy is over all His works.” The pious old
wife of the merchant repeated these words from the Psalms of
David in patience and hope, and the prayer of her heart was that
Jørgen might soon be called away to enter into eternal life.
In the churchyard where the walls were surrounded with sand
Clara lay buried. Jørgen did not seem to know this; it did not
enter his mind, which could only retain fragments of the past.
Every Sunday he went to church with the old people, and sat
there silently, staring vacantly before him. One day, when the
Psalms were being sung, he sighed deeply, and his eyes became
bright; they were fixed upon a place near the altar where he had
knelt with his friend who was dead. He murmured her name, and
became deadly pale, and tears rolled down his cheeks. They led
him out of church; he told those standing round him that he was
well, and had never been ill; he, who had been so grievously
afflicted, the outcast, thrown upon the world, could not
remember his sufferings. The Lord our Creator is wise and full
of loving kindness—who can doubt it?
In Spain, where balmy breezes blow over the Moorish cupolas
and gently stir the orange and myrtle groves, where singing and
the sound of the castanets are always heard, the richest
merchant in the place, a childless old man, sat in a luxurious
house, while children marched in procession through the streets
with waving flags and lighted tapers. If he had been able to
press his children to his heart, his daughter, or her child,
that had, perhaps never seen the light of day, far less the
kingdom of heaven, how much of his wealth would he not have
given! “Poor child!” Yes, poor child—a child still, yet more
than thirty years old, for Jørgen had arrived at this age in Old
Skagen.
The shifting sands had covered the graves in the courtyard,
quite up to the church walls, but still, the dead must be buried
among their relatives and the dear ones who had gone before
them. Merchant Brønne and his wife now rested with their
children under the white sand.
It was in the spring—the season of storms. The sand from the
dunes was whirled up in clouds; the sea was rough, and flocks of
birds flew like clouds in the storm, screaming across the
sand-hills. Shipwreck followed upon shipwreck on the reefs
between Old Skagen and the Huusby dunes.
One evening Jørgen sat in his room alone: all at once his
mind seemed to become clearer, and a restless feeling came over
him, such as had often, in his younger days, driven him out to
wander over the sand-hills or on the heath. “Home, home!” he
cried. No one heard him. He went out and walked towards the
dunes. Sand and stones blew into his face, and whirled round
him; he went in the direction of the church. The sand was banked
up the walls, half covering the windows, but it had been cleared
away in front of the door, and the entrance was free and easy to
open, so Jørgen went into the church.
The storm raged over the town of Skagen; there had not been
such a terrible tempest within the memory of the inhabitants,
nor such a rough sea. But Jørgen was in the temple of God, and
while the darkness of night reigned outside, a light arose in
his soul that was never to depart from it; the heavy weight that
pressed on his brain burst asunder. He fancied he heard the
organ, but it was only the storm and the moaning of the sea. He
sat down on one of the seats, and lo! the candies were lighted
one by one, and there was brightness and grandeur such as he had
only seen in the Spanish cathedral. The portraits of the old
citizens became alive, stepped down from the walls against which
they had hung for centuries, and took seats near the church
door. The gates flew open, and all the dead people from the
churchyard came in, and filled the church, while beautiful music
sounded. Then the melody of the psalm burst forth, like the
sound of the waters, and Jørgen saw that his foster parents from
the Huusby dunes were there, also old merchant Brønne with his
wife and their daughter Clara, who gave him her hand. They both
went up to the altar where they had knelt before, and the priest
joined their hands and united them for life. Then music was
heard again; it was wonderfully sweet, like a child’s voice,
full of joy and expectation, swelling to the powerful tones of a
full organ, sometimes soft and sweet, then like the sounds of a
tempest, delightful and elevating to hear, yet strong enough to
burst the stone tombs of the dead. Then the little ship that
hung from the roof of the choir was let down and looked
wonderfully large and beautiful with its silken sails and
rigging:
“The ropes were of silk, the anchor of gold,
And everywhere riches and pomp untold,”
as the old song says.
The young couple went on board, accompanied by the whole
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all.
Then the walls and arches of the church were covered with
flowering junipers and lime trees breathing forth fragrance; the
branches waved, creating a pleasant coolness; they bent and
parted, and the ship sailed between them through the air and
over the sea. Every candle in the church became a star, and the
wind sang a hymn in which they all joined. “Through love to
glory, no life is lost, the future is full of blessings and
happiness. Hallelujah!” These were the last words Jørgen uttered
in this world, for the thread that bound his immortal soul was
severed, and nothing but the dead body lay in the dark church,
while the storm raged outside, covering it with loose sand.
The next day was Sunday, and the congregation and their
pastor went to the church. The road had always been heavy, but
now it was almost unfit for use, and when they at last arrived
at the church, a great heap of sand lay piled up in front of
them. The whole church was completely buried in sand. The
clergyman offered a short prayer, and said that God had closed
the door of His house here, and that the congregation must go
and build a new one for Him somewhere else. So they sung a hymn
in the open air, and went home again.
Jørgen could not be found anywhere in the town of Skagen, nor
on the dunes, though they searched for him everywhere. They came
to the conclusion that one of the great waves, which had rolled
far up on the beach, had carried him away; but his body lay
buried in a great sepulchre—the church itself. The Lord had
thrown down a covering for his grave during the storm, and the
heavy mound of sand lies upon it to this day. The drifting sand
had covered the vaulted roof of the church, the arched
cloisters, and the stone aisles. The white thorn and the dog
rose now blossom above the place where the church lies buried,
but the spire, like an enormous monument over a grave, can be
seen for miles round. No king has a more splendid memorial.
Nothing disturbs the peaceful sleep of the dead. I was the first
to hear this story, for the storm sung it to me among the
sand-hills.
|
The Butterfly
THERE was once a butterfly who wished for a bride, and, as may be
supposed, he wanted to choose a very pretty one from among the
flowers. He glanced, with a very critical eye, at all the
flower-beds, and found that the flowers were seated quietly and
demurely on their stalks, just as maidens should sit before they
are engaged; but there was a great number of them, and it
appeared as if his search would become very wearisome. The
butterfly did not like to take too much trouble, so he flew off
on a visit to the daisies. The French call this flower
“Marguerite,” and they say that the little daisy can prophesy.
Lovers pluck off the leaves, and as they pluck each leaf, they
ask a question about their lovers; thus: “Does he or she love
me?—Ardently? Distractedly? Very much? A little? Not at all?”
and so on. Every one speaks these words in his own language. The
butterfly came also to Marguerite to inquire, but he did not
pluck off her leaves; he pressed a kiss on each of them, for he
thought there was always more to be done by kindness.
“Darling Marguerite daisy,” he said to her, “you are the
wisest woman of all the flowers. Pray tell me which of the
flowers I shall choose for my wife. Which will be my bride? When
I know, I will fly directly to her, and propose.”
But Marguerite did not answer him; she was offended that he
should call her a woman when she was only a girl; and there is a
great difference. He asked her a second time, and then a third;
but she remained dumb, and answered not a word. Then he would
wait no longer, but flew away, to commence his wooing at once.
It was in the early spring, when the crocus and the snowdrop
were in full bloom.
“They are very pretty,” thought the butterfly; “charming
little lasses; but they are rather formal.”
Then, as the young lads often do, he looked out for the elder
girls. He next flew to the anemones; these were rather sour to
his taste. The violet, a little too sentimental. The
lime-blossoms, too small, and besides, there was such a large
family of them. The apple-blossoms, though they looked like
roses, bloomed to-day, but might fall off to-morrow, with the
first wind that blew; and he thought that a marriage with one of
them might last too short a time. The pea-blossom pleased him
most of all; she was white and red, graceful and slender, and
belonged to those domestic maidens who have a pretty appearance,
and can yet be useful in the kitchen. He was just about to make
her an offer, when, close by the maiden, he saw a pod, with a
withered flower hanging at the end.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“That is my sister,” replied the pea-blossom.
“Oh, indeed; and you will be like her some day,” said he; and
he flew away directly, for he felt quite shocked.
A honeysuckle hung forth from the hedge, in full bloom; but
there were so many girls like her, with long faces and sallow
complexions. No; he did not like her. But which one did he like?
Spring went by, and summer drew towards its close; autumn
came; but he had not decided. The flowers now appeared in their
most gorgeous robes, but all in vain; they had not the fresh,
fragrant air of youth. For the heart asks for fragrance, even
when it is no longer young; and there is very little of that to
be found in the dahlias or the dry chrysanthemums; therefore the
butterfly turned to the mint on the ground. You know, this plant
has no blossom; but it is sweetness all over,—full of fragrance
from head to foot, with the scent of a flower in every leaf.
“I will take her,” said the butterfly; and he made her an
offer. But the mint stood silent and stiff, as she listened to
him. At last she said,—
“Friendship, if you please; nothing more. I am old, and you
are old, but we may live for each other just the same; as to
marrying—no; don’t let us appear ridiculous at our age.”
And so it happened that the butterfly got no wife at all. He
had been too long choosing, which is always a bad plan. And the
butterfly became what is called an old bachelor.
It was late in the autumn, with rainy and cloudy weather. The
cold wind blew over the bowed backs of the willows, so that they
creaked again. It was not the weather for flying about in summer
clothes; but fortunately the butterfly was not out in it. He had
got a shelter by chance. It was in a room heated by a stove, and
as warm as summer. He could exist here, he said, well enough.
“But it is not enough merely to exist,” said he, “I need
freedom, sunshine, and a little flower for a companion.”
Then he flew against the window-pane, and was seen and
admired by those in the room, who caught him, and stuck him on a
pin, in a box of curiosities. They could not do more for him.
“Now I am perched on a stalk, like the flowers,” said the
butterfly. “It is not very pleasant, certainly; I should imagine
it is something like being married; for here I am stuck fast.”
And with this thought he consoled himself a little.
“That seems very poor consolation,” said one of the plants in
the room, that grew in a pot.
“Ah,” thought the butterfly, “one can’t very well trust these
plants in pots; they have too much to do with mankind.”
|
The Bishop of Børglum and His Warriors
OUR scene is laid in Northern Jutland, in the so-called “wild
moor.” We hear what is called the “Wester-wow-wow”—the peculiar
roar of the North Sea as it breaks against the western coast of
Jutland. It rolls and thunders with a sound that penetrates for
miles into the land; and we are quite near the roaring. Before
us rises a great mound of sand—a mountain we have long seen, and
towards which we are wending our way, driving slowly along
through the deep sand. On this mountain of sand is a lofty old
building—the convent of Børglum. In one of its wings (the larger
one) there is still a church. And at this convent we now arrive
in the late evening hour; but the weather is clear in the bright
June night around us, and the eye can range far, far over field
and moor to the Bay of Aalborg, over heath and meadow, and far
across the deep blue sea.
Now we are there, and roll past between barns and other farm
buildings; and at the left of the gate we turn aside to the Old
Castle Farm, where the lime trees stand in lines along the
walls, and, sheltered from the wind and weather, grow so
luxuriantly that their twigs and leaves almost conceal the
windows.
We mount the winding staircase of stone, and march through
the long passages under the heavy roof-beams. The wind moans
very strangely here, both within and without. It is hardly known
how, but the people say—yes, people say a great many things when
they are frightened or want to frighten others—they say that the
old dead choir-men glide silently past us into the church, where
mass is sung. They can be heard in the rushing of the storm, and
their singing brings up strange thoughts in the hearers—thoughts
of the old times into which we are carried back.
On the coast a ship is stranded; and the bishop’s warriors
are there, and spare not those whom the sea has spared. The sea
washes away the blood that has flowed from the cloven skulls.
The stranded goods belong to the bishop, and there is a store of
goods here. The sea casts up tubs and barrels filled with costly
wine for the convent cellar, and in the convent is already good
store of beer and mead. There is plenty in the kitchen—dead game
and poultry, hams and sausages; and fat fish swim in the ponds
without.
The Bishop of Børglum is a mighty lord. He has great
possessions, but still he longs for more—everything must bow
before the mighty Olaf Glob. His rich cousin at Thyland is dead,
and his widow is to have the rich inheritance. But how comes it
that one relation is always harder towards another than even
strangers would be? The widow’s husband had possessed all
Thyland, with the exception of the church property. Her son was
not at home. In his boyhood he had already started on a journey,
for his desire was to see foreign lands and strange people. For
years there had been no news of him. Perhaps he had been long
laid in the grave, and would never come back to his home, to
rule where his mother then ruled.
“What has a woman to do with rule?” said the bishop.
He summoned the widow before a law court; but what did he
gain thereby? The widow had never been disobedient to the law,
and was strong in her just rights.
Bishop Olaf of Børglum, what dost thou purpose? What writest
thou on yonder smooth parchment, sealing it with thy seal, and
intrusting it to the horsemen and servants, who ride away, far
away, to the city of the Pope?
It is the time of falling leaves and of stranded ships, and
soon icy winter will come.
Twice had icy winter returned before the bishop welcomed the
horsemen and servants back to their home. They came from Rome
with a papal decree—a ban, or bull, against the widow who had
dared to offend the pious bishop. “Cursed be she and all that
belongs to her. Let her be expelled from the congregation and
the Church. Let no man stretch forth a helping hand to her, and
let friends and relations avoid her as a plague and a
pestilence!”
“What will not bend must break,” said the Bishop of Børglum.
And all forsake the widow; but she holds fast to her God. He
is her helper and defender.
One servant only—an old maid—remained faithful to her; and
with the old servant, the widow herself followed the plough; and
the crop grew, although the land had been cursed by the Pope and
by the bishop.
“Thou child of perdition, I will yet carry out my purpose!”
cried the Bishop of Børglum. “Now will I lay the hand of the
Pope upon thee, to summon thee before the tribunal that shall
condemn thee!”
Then did the widow yoke the last two oxen that remained to
her to a wagon, and mounted up on the wagon, with her old
servant, and travelled away across the heath out of the Danish
land. As a stranger she came into a foreign country, where a
strange tongue was spoken and where new customs prevailed.
Farther and farther she journeyed, to where green hills rise
into mountains, and the vine clothes their sides. Strange
merchants drive by her, and they look anxiously after their
wagons laden with merchandise. They fear an attack from the
armed followers of the robber-knights. The two poor women, in
their humble vehicle drawn by two black oxen, travel fearlessly
through the dangerous sunken road and through the darksome
forest. And now they were in Franconia. And there met them a
stalwart knight, with a train of twelve armed followers. He
paused, gazed at the strange vehicle, and questioned the women
as to the goal of their journey and the place whence they came.
Then one of them mentioned Thyland in Denmark, and spoke of her
sorrows, of her woes, which were soon to cease, for so Divine
Providence had willed it. For the stranger knight is the widow’s
son! He seized her hand, he embraced her, and the mother wept.
For years she had not been able to weep, but had only bitten her
lips till the blood started.
It is the time of falling leaves and of stranded ships, and
soon will icy winter come.
The sea rolled wine-tubs to the shore for the bishop’s
cellar. In the kitchen the deer roasted on the spit before the
fire. At Børglum it was warm and cheerful in the heated rooms,
while cold winter raged without, when a piece of news was
brought to the bishop. “Jens Glob, of Thyland, has come back,
and his mother with him.” Jens Glob laid a complaint against the
bishop, and summoned him before the temporal and the spiritual
court.
“That will avail him little,” said the bishop. “Best leave
off thy efforts, knight Jens.”
Again it is the time of falling leaves and stranded ships.
Icy winter comes again, and the “white bees” are swarming, and
sting the traveller’s face till they melt.
“Keen weather to-day!” say the people, as they step in.
Jens Glob stands so deeply wrapped in thought, that he singes
the skirt of his wide garment.
“Thou Børglum bishop,” he exclaims, “I shall subdue thee
after all! Under the shield of the Pope, the law cannot reach
thee; but Jens Glob shall reach thee!”
Then he writes a letter to his brother-in-law, Olaf Hase, in
Sallingland, and prays that knight to meet him on Christmas eve,
at mass, in the church at Widberg. The bishop himself is to read
the mass, and consequently will journey from Børglum to Thyland;
and this is known to Jens Glob.
Moorland and meadow are covered with ice and snow. The marsh
will bear horse and rider, the bishop with his priests and armed
men. They ride the shortest way, through the waving reeds, where
the wind moans sadly.
Blow thy brazen trumpet, thou trumpeter clad in fox-skin! it
sounds merrily in the clear air. So they ride on over heath and
moorland—over what is the garden of Fata Morgana in the hot
summer, though now icy, like all the country—towards the church
of Widberg.
The wind is blowing his trumpet too—blowing it harder and
harder. He blows up a storm—a terrible storm—that increases more
and more. Towards the church they ride, as fast as they may
through the storm. The church stands firm, but the storm careers
on over field and moorland, over land and sea.
Børglum’s bishop reaches the church; but Olaf Hase will
scarce do so, however hard he may ride. He journeys with his
warriors on the farther side of the bay, in order that he may
help Jens Glob, now that the bishop is to be summoned before the
judgment seat of the Highest.
The church is the judgment hall; the altar is the council
table. The lights burn clear in the heavy brass candelabra. The
storm reads out the accusation and the sentence, roaming in the
air over moor and heath, and over the rolling waters. No
ferry-boat can sail over the bay in such weather as this.
Olaf Hase makes halt at Ottesworde. There he dismisses his
warriors, presents them with their horses and harness, and gives
them leave to ride home and greet his wife. He intends to risk
his life alone in the roaring waters; but they are to bear
witness for him that it is not his fault if Jens Glob stands
without reinforcement in the church at Widberg. The faithful
warriors will not leave him, but follow him out into the deep
waters. Ten of them are carried away; but Olaf Hase and two of
the youngest men reach the farther side. They have still four
miles to ride.
It is past midnight. It is Christmas. The wind has abated.
The church is lighted up; the gleaming radiance shines through
the window-frames, and pours out over meadow and heath. The mass
has long been finished, silence reigns in the church, and the
wax is heard dropping from the candles to the stone pavement.
And now Olaf Hase arrives.
In the forecourt Jens Glob greets him kindly, and says,
“I have just made an agreement with the bishop.”
“Sayest thou so?” replied Olaf Hase. “Then neither thou nor
the bishop shall quit this church alive.”
And the sword leaps from the scabbard, and Olaf Hase deals a
blow that makes the panel of the church door, which Jens Glob
hastily closes between them, fly in fragments.
“Hold, brother! First hear what the agreement was that I
made. I have slain the bishop and his warriors and priests. They
will have no word more to say in the matter, nor will I speak
again of all the wrong that my mother has endured.”
The long wicks of the altar lights glimmer red; but there is
a redder gleam upon the pavement, where the bishop lies with
cloven skull, and his dead warriors around him, in the quiet of
the holy Christmas night.
And four days afterwards the bells toll for a funeral in the
convent of Børglum. The murdered bishop and the slain warriors
and priests are displayed under a black canopy, surrounded by
candelabra decked with crape. There lies the dead man, in the
black cloak wrought with silver; the crozier in the powerless
hand that was once so mighty. The incense rises in clouds, and
the monks chant the funeral hymn. It sounds like a wail—it
sounds like a sentence of wrath and condemnation, that must be
heard far over the land, carried by the wind—sung by the
wind—the wail that sometimes is silent, but never dies; for ever
again it rises in song, singing even into our own time this
legend of the Bishop of Børglum and his hard nephew. It is heard
in the dark night by the frightened husbandman, driving by in
the heavy sandy road past the convent of Børglum. It is heard by
the sleepless listener in the thickly-walled rooms at Børglum.
And not only to the ear of superstition is the sighing and the
tread of hurrying feet audible in the long echoing passages
leading to the convent door that has long been locked. The door
still seems to open, and the lights seem to flame in the brazen
candlesticks; the fragrance of incense arises; the church gleams
in its ancient splendor; and the monks sing and say the mass
over the slain bishop, who lies there in the black
silver-embroidered mantle, with the crozier in his powerless
hand; and on his pale proud forehead gleams the red wound like
fire, and there burn the worldly mind and the wicked thoughts.
Sink down into his grave—into oblivion—ye terrible shapes of
the times of old!
Hark to the raging of the angry wind, sounding above the
rolling sea! A storm approaches without, calling aloud for human
lives. The sea has not put on a new mind with the new time. This
night it is a horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow,
perhaps, it may be a glassy mirror—even as in the old time that
we have buried. Sleep sweetly, if thou canst sleep!
Now it is morning.
The new time flings sunshine into the room. The wind still
keeps up mightily. A wreck is announced—as in the old time.
During the night, down yonder by Løkken, the little fishing
village with the red-tiled roofs—we can see it up here from the
window—a ship has come ashore. It has struck, and is fast
embedded in the sand; but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope
on board, and formed a bridge from the wreck to the mainland;
and all on board are saved, and reach the land, and are wrapped
in warm blankets; and to-day they are invited to the farm at the
convent of Børglum. In comfortable rooms they encounter
hospitality and friendly faces. They are addressed in the
language of their country, and the piano sounds for them with
melodies of their native land; and before these have died away,
the chord has been struck, the wire of thought that reaches to
the land of the sufferers announces that they are rescued. Then
their anxieties are dispelled; and at even they join in the
dance at the feast given in the great hall at Børglum. Waltzes
and Styrian dances are given, and Danish popular songs, and
melodies of foreign lands in these modern times.
Blessed be thou, new time! Speak thou of summer and of purer
gales! Send thy sunbeams gleaming into our hearts and thoughts!
On thy glowing canvas let them be painted—the dark legends of
the rough hard times that are past!
|
The Beetle Who Went on His Travels
THERE was once an Emperor who had a horse shod with gold. He had
a golden shoe on each foot, and why was this? He was a beautiful
creature, with slender legs, bright, intelligent eyes, and a
mane that hung down over his neck like a veil. He had carried
his master through fire and smoke in the battle-field, with the
bullets whistling round him; he had kicked and bitten, and taken
part in the fight, when the enemy advanced; and, with his master
on his back, he had dashed over the fallen foe, and saved the
golden crown and the Emperor’s life, which was of more value
than the brightest gold. This is the reason of the Emperor’s
horse wearing golden shoes.
A beetle came creeping forth from the stable, where the
farrier had been shoeing the horse. “Great ones, first, of
course,” said he, “and then the little ones; but size is not
always a proof of greatness.” He stretched out his thin leg as
he spoke.
“And pray what do you want?” asked the farrier.
“Golden shoes,” replied the beetle.
“Why, you must be out of your senses,” cried the farrier.
“Golden shoes for you, indeed!”
“Yes, certainly; golden shoes,” replied the beetle. “Am I not
just as good as that great creature yonder, who is waited upon
and brushed, and has food and drink placed before him? And don’t
I belong to the royal stables?”
“But why does the horse have golden shoes?” asked the
farrier; “of course you understand the reason?”
“Understand! Well, I understand that it is a personal slight
to me,” cried the beetle. “It is done to annoy me, so I intend
to go out into the world and seek my fortune.”
“Go along with you,” said the farrier.
“You’re a rude fellow,” cried the beetle, as he walked out of
the stable; and then he flew for a short distance, till he found
himself in a beautiful flower-garden, all fragrant with roses
and lavender. The lady-birds, with red and black shells on their
backs, and delicate wings, were flying about, and one of them
said, “Is it not sweet and lovely here? Oh, how beautiful
everything is.”
“I am accustomed to better things,” said the beetle. “Do you
call this beautiful? Why, there is not even a dung-heap.” Then
he went on, and under the shadow of a large haystack he found a
caterpillar crawling along. “How beautiful this world is!” said
the caterpillar. “The sun is so warm, I quite enjoy it. And soon
I shall go to sleep, and die as they call it, but I shall wake
up with beautiful wings to fly with, like a butterfly.”
“How conceited you are!” exclaimed the beetle. “Fly about as
a butterfly, indeed! what of that. I have come out of the
Emperor’s stable, and no one there, not even the Emperor’s
horse, who, in fact, wears my cast-off golden shoes, has any
idea of flying, excepting myself. To have wings and fly! why, I
can do that already;” and so saying, he spread his wings and
flew away. “I don’t want to be disgusted,” he said to himself,
“and yet I can’t help it.” Soon after, he fell down upon an
extensive lawn, and for a time pretended to sleep, but at last
fell asleep in earnest. Suddenly a heavy shower of rain came
falling from the clouds. The beetle woke up with the noise and
would have been glad to creep into the earth for shelter, but he
could not. He was tumbled over and over with the rain, sometimes
swimming on his stomach and sometimes on his back; and as for
flying, that was out of the question. He began to doubt whether
he should escape with his life, so he remained, quietly lying
where he was. After a while the weather cleared up a little, and
the beetle was able to rub the water from his eyes, and look
about him. He saw something gleaming, and he managed to make his
way up to it. It was linen which had been laid to bleach on the
grass. He crept into a fold of the damp linen, which certainly
was not so comfortable a place to lie in as the warm stable, but
there was nothing better, so he remained lying there for a whole
day and night, and the rain kept on all the time. Towards
morning he crept out of his hiding-place, feeling in a very bad
temper with the climate. Two frogs were sitting on the linen,
and their bright eyes actually glistened with pleasure.
“Wonderful weather this,” cried one of them, “and so
refreshing. This linen holds the water together so beautifully,
that my hind legs quiver as if I were going to swim.”
“I should like to know,” said another, “If the swallow who
flies so far in her many journeys to foreign lands, ever met
with a better climate than this. What delicious moisture! It is
as pleasant as lying in a wet ditch. I am sure any one who does
not enjoy this has no love for his fatherland.”
“Have you ever been in the Emperor’s stable?” asked the
beetle. “There the moisture is warm and refreshing; that’s the
climate for me, but I could not take it with me on my travels.
Is there not even a dunghill here in this garden, where a person
of rank, like myself, could take up his abode and feel at home?”
But the frogs either did not or would not understand him.
“I never ask a question twice,” said the beetle, after he had
asked this one three times, and received no answer. Then he went
on a little farther and stumbled against a piece of broken
crockery-ware, which certainly ought not to have been lying
there. But as it was there, it formed a good shelter against
wind and weather to several families of earwigs who dwelt in it.
Their requirements were not many, they were very sociable, and
full of affection for their children, so much so that each
mother considered her own child the most beautiful and clever of
them all.
“Our dear son has engaged himself,” said one mother, “dear
innocent boy; his greatest ambition is that he may one day creep
into a clergyman’s ear. That is a very artless and loveable
wish; and being engaged will keep him steady. What happiness for
a mother!”
“Our son,” said another, “had scarcely crept out of the egg,
when he was off on his travels. He is all life and spirits, I
expect he will wear out his horns with running. How charming
this is for a mother, is it not Mr. Beetle?” for she knew the
stranger by his horny coat.
“You are both quite right,” said he; so they begged him to
walk in, that is to come as far as he could under the broken
piece of earthenware.
“Now you shall also see my little earwigs,” said a third and
a fourth mother, “they are lovely little things, and highly
amusing. They are never ill-behaved, except when they are
uncomfortable in their inside, which unfortunately often happens
at their age.”
Thus each mother spoke of her baby, and their babies talked
after their own fashion, and made use of the little nippers they
have in their tails to nip the beard of the beetle.
“They are always busy about something, the little rogues,”
said the mother, beaming with maternal pride; but the beetle
felt it a bore, and he therefore inquired the way to the nearest
dung-heap.
“That is quite out in the great world, on the other side of
the ditch,” answered an earwig, “I hope none of my children will
ever go so far, it would be the death of me.”
“But I shall try to get so far,” said the beetle, and he
walked off without taking any formal leave, which is considered
a polite thing to do.
When he arrived at the ditch, he met several friends, all
them beetles; “We live here,” they said, “and we are very
comfortable. May we ask you to step down into this rich mud, you
must be fatigued after your journey.”
“Certainly,” said the beetle, “I shall be most happy; I have
been exposed to the rain, and have had to lie upon linen, and
cleanliness is a thing that greatly exhausts me; I have also
pains in one of my wings from standing in the draught under a
piece of broken crockery. It is really quite refreshing to be
with one’s own kindred again.”
“Perhaps you came from a dung-heap,” observed the oldest of
them.
“No, indeed, I came from a much grander place,” replied the
beetle; “I came from the emperor’s stable, where I was born,
with golden shoes on my feet. I am travelling on a secret
embassy, but you must not ask me any questions, for I cannot
betray my secret.”
Then the beetle stepped down into the rich mud, where sat
three young-lady beetles, who tittered, because they did not
know what to say.
“None of them are engaged yet,” said their mother, and the
beetle maidens tittered again, this time quite in confusion.
“I have never seen greater beauties, even in the royal
stables,” exclaimed the beetle, who was now resting himself.
“Don’t spoil my girls,” said the mother; “and don’t talk to
them, pray, unless you have serious intentions.”
But of course the beetle’s intentions were serious, and after
a while our friend was engaged. The mother gave them her
blessing, and all the other beetles cried “hurrah.”
Immediately after the betrothal came the marriage, for there
was no reason to delay. The following day passed very
pleasantly, and the next was tolerably comfortable; but on the
third it became necessary for him to think of getting food for
his wife, and, perhaps, for children.
“I have allowed myself to be taken in,” said our beetle to
himself, “and now there’s nothing to be done but to take them
in, in return.”
No sooner said than done. Away he went, and stayed away all
day and all night, and his wife remained behind a forsaken
widow.
“Oh,” said the other beetles, “this fellow that we have
received into our family is nothing but a complete vagabond. He
has gone away and left his wife a burden upon our hands.”
“Well, she can be unmarried again, and remain here with my
other daughters,” said the mother. “Fie on the villain that
forsook her!”
In the mean time the beetle, who had sailed across the ditch
on a cabbage leaf, had been journeying on the other side. In the
morning two persons came up to the ditch. When they saw him they
took him up and turned him over and over, looking very learned
all the time, especially one, who was a boy. “Allah sees the
black beetle in the black stone, and the black rock. Is not that
written in the Koran?” he asked.
Then he translated the beetle’s name into Latin, and said a
great deal upon the creature’s nature and history. The second
person, who was older and a scholar, proposed to carry the
beetle home, as they wanted just such good specimens as this.
Our beetle considered this speech a great insult, so he flew
suddenly out of the speaker’s hand. His wings were dry now, so
they carried him to a great distance, till at last he reached a
hothouse, where a sash of the glass roof was partly open, so he
quietly slipped in and buried himself in the warm earth. “It is
very comfortable here,” he said to himself, and soon after fell
asleep. Then he dreamed that the emperor’s horse was dying, and
had left him his golden shoes, and also promised that he should
have two more. All this was very delightful, and when the beetle
woke up he crept forth and looked around him. What a splendid
place the hothouse was! At the back, large palm-trees were
growing; and the sunlight made the leaves—look quite glossy; and
beneath them what a profusion of luxuriant green, and of flowers
red like flame, yellow as amber, or white as new-fallen snow!
“What a wonderful quantity of plants,” cried the beetle; “how
good they will taste when they are decayed! This is a capital
store-room. There must certainly be some relations of mine
living here; I will just see if I can find any one with whom I
can associate. I’m proud, certainly; but I’m also proud of being
so. Then he prowled about in the earth, and thought what a
pleasant dream that was about the dying horse, and the golden
shoes he had inherited. Suddenly a hand seized the beetle, and
squeezed him, and turned him round and round. The gardener’s
little son and his playfellow had come into the hothouse, and,
seeing the beetle, wanted to have some fun with him. First, he
was wrapped, in a vine-leaf, and put into a warm trousers’
pocket. He twisted and turned about with all his might, but he
got a good squeeze from the boy’s hand, as a hint for him to
keep quiet. Then the boy went quickly towards a lake that lay at
the end of the garden. Here the beetle was put into an old
broken wooden shoe, in which a little stick had been fastened
upright for a mast, and to this mast the beetle was bound with a
piece of worsted. Now he was a sailor, and had to sail away. The
lake was not very large, but to the beetle it seemed an ocean,
and he was so astonished at its size that he fell over on his
back, and kicked out his legs. Then the little ship sailed away;
sometimes the current of the water seized it, but whenever it
went too far from the shore one of the boys turned up his
trousers, and went in after it, and brought it back to land. But
at last, just as it went merrily out again, the two boys were
called, and so angrily, that they hastened to obey, and ran away
as fast as they could from the pond, so that the little ship was
left to its fate. It was carried away farther and farther from
the shore, till it reached the open sea. This was a terrible
prospect for the beetle, for he could not escape in consequence
of being bound to the mast. Then a fly came and paid him a
visit. “What beautiful weather,” said the fly; “I shall rest
here and sun myself. You must have a pleasant time of it.”
“You speak without knowing the facts,” replied the beetle;
“don’t you see that I am a prisoner?”
“Ah, but I’m not a prisoner,” remarked the fly, and away he
flew.
“Well, now I know the world,” said the beetle to himself;
“it’s an abominable world; I’m the only respectable person in
it. First, they refuse me my golden shoes; then I have to lie on
damp linen, and to stand in a draught; and to crown all, they
fasten a wife upon me. Then, when I have made a step forward in
the world, and found out a comfortable position, just as I could
wish it to be, one of these human boys comes and ties me up, and
leaves me to the mercy of the wild waves, while the emperor’s
favorite horse goes prancing about proudly on his golden shoes.
This vexes me more than anything. But it is useless to look for
sympathy in this world. My career has been very interesting, but
what’s the use of that if nobody knows anything about it? The
world does not deserve to be made acquainted with my adventures,
for it ought to have given me golden shoes when the emperor’s
horse was shod, and I stretched out my feet to be shod, too. If
I had received golden shoes I should have been an ornament to
the stable; now I am lost to the stable and to the world. It is
all over with me.”
But all was not yet over. A boat, in which were a few young
girls, came rowing up. “Look, yonder is an old wooden shoe
sailing along,” said one of the younger girls.
“And there’s a poor little creature bound fast in it,” said
another.
The boat now came close to our beetle’s ship, and the young
girls fished it out of the water. One of them drew a small pair
of scissors from her pocket, and cut the worsted without hurting
the beetle, and when she stepped on shore she placed him on the
grass. “There,” she said, “creep away, or fly, if thou canst. It
is a splendid thing to have thy liberty.” Away flew the beetle,
straight through the open window of a large building; there he
sank down, tired and exhausted, exactly on the mane of the
emperor’s favorite horse, who was standing in his stable; and
the beetle found himself at home again. For some time he clung
to the mane, that he might recover himself. “Well,” he said,
“here I am, seated on the emperor’s favorite horse,—sitting upon
him as if I were the emperor himself. But what was it the
farrier asked me? Ah, I remember now,—that’s a good thought,—he
asked me why the golden shoes were given to the horse. The
answer is quite clear to me, now. They were given to the horse
on my account.” And this reflection put the beetle into a good
temper. The sun’s rays also came streaming into the stable, and
shone upon him, and made the place lively and bright.
“Travelling expands the mind very much,” said the beetle. “The
world is not so bad after all, if you know how to take things as
they come.
|
What the Old Man Does Is Always Right
I
WILL tell you a story that was told me when I was a little boy.
Every time I thought of this story, it seemed to me more and
more charming; for it is with stories as it is with many
people—they become better as they grow older.
I have no doubt that you have been in the country, and seen a
very old farmhouse, with a thatched roof, and mosses and small
plants growing wild upon it. There is a stork’s nest on the
ridge of the gable, for we cannot do without the stork. The
walls of the house are sloping, and the windows are low, and
only one of the latter is made to open. The baking-oven sticks
out of the wall like a great knob. An elder-tree hangs over the
palings; and beneath its branches, at the foot of the paling, is
a pool of water, in which a few ducks are disporting themselves.
There is a yard-dog too, who barks at all corners. Just such a
farmhouse as this stood in a country lane; and in it dwelt an
old couple, a peasant and his wife. Small as their possessions
were, they had one article they could not do without, and that
was a horse, which contrived to live upon the grass which it
found by the side of the high road. The old peasant rode into
the town upon this horse, and his neighbors often borrowed it of
him, and paid for the loan of it by rendering some service to
the old couple. After a time they thought it would be as well to
sell the horse, or exchange it for something which might be more
useful to them. But what might this something be?
“You’ll know best, old man,” said the wife. “It is fair-day
to-day; so ride into town, and get rid of the horse for money,
or make a good exchange; whichever you do will be right to me,
so ride to the fair.”
And she fastened his neckerchief for him; for she could do
that better than he could, and she could also tie it very
prettily in a double bow. She also smoothed his hat round and
round with the palm of her hand, and gave him a kiss. Then he
rode away upon the horse that was to be sold or bartered for
something else. Yes, the old man knew what he was about. The sun
shone with great heat, and not a cloud was to be seen in the
sky. The road was very dusty; for a number of people, all going
to the fair, were driving, riding, or walking upon it. There was
no shelter anywhere from the hot sunshine. Among the rest a man
came trudging along, and driving a cow to the fair. The cow was
as beautiful a creature as any cow could be.
“She gives good milk, I am certain,” said the peasant to
himself. “That would be a very good exchange: the cow for the
horse. Hallo there! you with the cow,” he said. “I tell you
what; I dare say a horse is of more value than a cow; but I
don’t care for that,—a cow will be more useful to me; so, if you
like, we’ll exchange.”
“To be sure I will,” said the man.
Accordingly the exchange was made; and as the matter was
settled, the peasant might have turned back; for he had done the
business he came to do. But, having made up his mind to go to
the fair, he determined to do so, if only to have a look at it;
so on he went to the town with his cow. Leading the animal, he
strode on sturdily, and, after a short time, overtook a man who
was driving a sheep. It was a good fat sheep, with a fine fleece
on its back.
“I should like to have that fellow,” said the peasant to
himself. “There is plenty of grass for him by our palings, and
in the winter we could keep him in the room with us. Perhaps it
would be more profitable to have a sheep than a cow. Shall I
exchange?”
The man with the sheep was quite ready, and the bargain was
quickly made. And then our peasant continued his way on the
high-road with his sheep. Soon after this, he overtook another
man, who had come into the road from a field, and was carrying a
large goose under his arm.
“What a heavy creature you have there!” said the peasant; “it
has plenty of feathers and plenty of fat, and would look well
tied to a string, or paddling in the water at our place. That
would be very useful to my old woman; she could make all sorts
of profits out of it. How often she has said, ‘If now we only
had a goose!’ Now here is an opportunity, and, if possible, I
will get it for her. Shall we exchange? I will give you my sheep
for your goose, and thanks into the bargain.”
The other had not the least objection, and accordingly the
exchange was made, and our peasant became possessor of the
goose. By this time he had arrived very near the town. The crowd
on the high road had been gradually increasing, and there was
quite a rush of men and cattle. The cattle walked on the path
and by the palings, and at the turnpike-gate they even walked
into the toll-keeper’s potato-field, where one fowl was
strutting about with a string tied to its leg, for fear it
should take fright at the crowd, and run away and get lost. The
tail-feathers of the fowl were very short, and it winked with
both its eyes, and looked very cunning, as it said “Cluck,
cluck.” What were the thoughts of the fowl as it said this I
cannot tell you; but directly our good man saw it, he thought,
“Why that’s the finest fowl I ever saw in my life; it’s finer
than our parson’s brood hen, upon my word. I should like to have
that fowl. Fowls can always pick up a few grains that lie about,
and almost keep themselves. I think it would be a good exchange
if I could get it for my goose. Shall we exchange?” he asked the
toll-keeper.
“Exchange,” repeated the man; “well, it would not be a bad
thing.”
And so they made an exchange,—the toll-keeper at the
turnpike-gate kept the goose, and the peasant carried off the
fowl. Now he had really done a great deal of business on his way
to the fair, and he was hot and tired. He wanted something to
eat, and a glass of ale to refresh himself; so he turned his
steps to an inn. He was just about to enter when the ostler came
out, and they met at the door. The ostler was carrying a sack.
“What have you in that sack?” asked the peasant.
“Rotten apples,” answered the ostler; “a whole sackful of
them. They will do to feed the pigs with.”
“Why that will be terrible waste,” he replied; “I should like
to take them home to my old woman. Last year the old apple-tree
by the grass-plot only bore one apple, and we kept it in the
cupboard till it was quite withered and rotten. It was always
property, my old woman said; and here she would see a great deal
of property—a whole sackful; I should like to show them to her.”
“What will you give me for the sackful?” asked the ostler.
“What will I give? Well, I will give you my fowl in
exchange.”
So he gave up the fowl, and received the apples, which he
carried into the inn parlor. He leaned the sack carefully
against the stove, and then went to the table. But the stove was
hot, and he had not thought of that. Many guests were
present—horse dealers, cattle drovers, and two Englishmen. The
Englishmen were so rich that their pockets quite bulged out and
seemed ready to burst; and they could bet too, as you shall
hear. “Hiss-s-s, hiss-s-s.” What could that be by the stove? The
apples were beginning to roast. “What is that?” asked one.
“Why, do you know”—said our peasant. And then he told them
the whole story of the horse, which he had exchanged for a cow,
and all the rest of it, down to the apples.
“Well, your old woman will give it you well when you get
home,” said one of the Englishmen. “Won’t there be a noise?”
“What! Give me what?” said the peasant. “Why, she will kiss
me, and say, ‘what the old man does is always right.’”
“Let us lay a wager on it,” said the Englishmen. “We’ll wager
you a ton of coined gold, a hundred pounds to the
hundred-weight.”
“No; a bushel will be enough,” replied the peasant. “I can
only set a bushel of apples against it, and I’ll throw myself
and my old woman into the bargain; that will pile up the
measure, I fancy.”
“Done! taken!” and so the bet was made.
Then the landlord’s coach came to the door, and the two
Englishmen and the peasant got in, and away they drove, and soon
arrived and stopped at the peasant’s hut. “Good evening, old
woman.” “Good evening, old man.” “I’ve made the exchange.”
“Ah, well, you understand what you’re about,” said the woman.
Then she embraced him, and paid no attention to the strangers,
nor did she notice the sack.
“I got a cow in exchange for the horse.”
“Thank Heaven,” said she. “Now we shall have plenty of milk,
and butter, and cheese on the table. That was a capital
exchange.”
“Yes, but I changed the cow for a sheep.”
“Ah, better still!” cried the wife. “You always think of
everything; we have just enough pasture for a sheep. Ewe’s milk
and cheese, woollen jackets and stockings! The cow could not
give all these, and her hair only falls off. How you think of
everything!”
“But I changed away the sheep for a goose.”
“Then we shall have roast goose to eat this year. You dear
old man, you are always thinking of something to please me. This
is delightful. We can let the goose walk about with a string
tied to her leg, so she will be fatter still before we roast
her.”
“But I gave away the goose for a fowl.”
“A fowl! Well, that was a good exchange,” replied the woman.
“The fowl will lay eggs and hatch them, and we shall have
chickens; we shall soon have a poultry-yard. Oh, this is just
what I was wishing for.”
“Yes, but I exchanged the fowl for a sack of shrivelled
apples.”
“What! I really must give you a kiss for that!” exclaimed the
wife. “My dear, good husband, now I’ll tell you something. Do
you know, almost as soon as you left me this morning, I began to
think of what I could give you nice for supper this evening, and
then I thought of fried eggs and bacon, with sweet herbs; I had
eggs and bacon, but I wanted the herbs; so I went over to the
schoolmaster’s: I knew they had plenty of herbs, but the
schoolmistress is very mean, although she can smile so sweetly.
I begged her to lend me a handful of herbs. ‘Lend!’ she
exclaimed, ‘I have nothing to lend; nothing at all grows in our
garden, not even a shrivelled apple; I could not even lend you a
shrivelled apple, my dear woman.’ But now I can lend her ten, or
a whole sackful, which I’m very glad of; it makes me laugh to
think about it;” and then she gave him a hearty kiss.
“Well, I like all this,” said both the Englishmen; “always
going down the hill, and yet always merry; it’s worth the money
to see it.” So they paid a hundred-weight of gold to the
peasant, who, whatever he did, was not scolded but kissed.
Yes, it always pays best when the wife sees and maintains
that her husband knows best, and whatever he does is right.
That is a story which I heard when I was a child; and now you
have heard it too, and know that “What the old man does is
always right.”
|
The Portuguese Duck
A
DUCK once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who said
she came from Spain, which is almost the same thing. At all
events, she was called the “Portuguese,” and she laid eggs, was
killed, and cooked, and there was an end of her. But the
ducklings which crept forth from the eggs were also called
“Portuguese,” and about that there may be some question. But of
all the family one only remained in the duckyard, which may be
called a farmyard, as the chickens were admitted, and the cock
strutted about in a very hostile manner. “He annoys me with his
loud crowing,” said the Portuguese duck; “but, still, he’s a
handsome bird, there’s no denying that, although he’s not a
drake. He ought to moderate his voice, like those little birds
who are singing in the lime-trees over there in our neighbor’s
garden, but that is an art only acquired in polite society. How
sweetly they sing there; it is quite a pleasure to listen to
them! I call it Portuguese singing. If I had only such a little
singing-bird, I’d be kind and good as a mother to him, for it’s
in my nature, in my Portuguese blood.”
While she was speaking, one of the little singing-birds came
tumbling head over heels from the roof into the yard. The cat
was after him, but he had escaped from her with a broken wing,
and so came tumbling into the yard. “That’s just like the cat,
she’s a villain,” said the Portuguese duck. “I remember her ways
when I had children of my own. How can such a creature be
allowed to live, and wander about upon the roofs. I don’t think
they allow such things in Portugal.” She pitied the little
singing-bird, and so did all the other ducks who were not
Portuguese.
“Poor little creature!” they said, one after another, as they
came up. “We can’t sing, certainly; but we have a
sounding-board, or something of the kind, within us; we can feel
that, though we don’t talk about it.”
“But I can talk,” said the Portuguese duck; “and I’ll do
something for the little fellow; it’s my duty;” and she stepped
into the water-trough, and beat her wings upon the water so
strongly that the bird was nearly drowned by a shower-bath; but
the duck meant it kindly. “That is a good deed,” she said; “I
hope the others will take example by it.”
“Tweet, tweet!” said the little bird, for one of his wings
being broken, he found it difficult to shake himself; but he
quite understood that the bath was meant kindly, and he said,
“You are very kind-hearted, madam;” but he did not wish for a
second bath.
“I have never thought about my heart,” replied the Portuguese
duck, “but I know that I love all my fellow-creatures, except
the cat, and nobody can expect me to love her, for she ate up
two of my ducklings. But pray make yourself at home; it is easy
to make one’s self comfortable. I am myself from a foreign
country, as you may see by my feathery dress. My drake is a
native of these parts; he’s not of my race; but I am not proud
on that account. If any one here can understand you, I may say
positively I am that person.”
“She’s quite full of ‘Portulak,’” said a little common duck,
who was witty. All the common ducks considered the word
“Portulak” a good joke, for it sounded like Portugal. They
nudged each other, and said, “Quack! that was witty!”
Then the other ducks began to notice the little bird. “The
Portuguese had certainly a great flow of language,” they said to
the little bird. “For our part we don’t care to fill our beaks
with such long words, but we sympathize with you quite as much.
If we don’t do anything else, we can walk about with you
everywhere, and we think that is the best thing we can do.”
“You have a lovely voice,” said one of the eldest ducks; “it
must be great satisfaction to you to be able to give so much
pleasure as you do. I am certainly no judge of your singing so I
keep my beak shut, which is better than talking nonsense, as
others do.”
“Don’t plague him so,” interposed the Portuguese duck; “he
requires rest and nursing. My little singing-bird do you wish me
to prepare another bath for you?”
“Oh, no! no! pray let me dry,” implored the little bird.
“The water-cure is the only remedy for me, when I am not
well,” said the Portuguese. “Amusement, too, is very beneficial.
The fowls from the neighborhood will soon be here to pay you a
visit. There are two Cochin Chinese amongst them; they wear
feathers on their legs, and are well educated. They have been
brought from a great distance, and consequently I treat them
with greater respect than I do the others.”
Then the fowls arrived, and the cock was polite enough to-day
to keep from being rude. “You are a real songster,” he said,
“you do as much with your little voice as it is possible to do;
but there requires more noise and shrillness in any one who
wishes it to be known who he is.”
The two Chinese were quite enchanted with the appearance of
the singing-bird. His feathers had been much ruffled by his
bath, so that he seemed to them quite like a tiny Chinese fowl.
“He’s charming,” they said to each other, and began a
conversation with him in whispers, using the most aristocratic
Chinese dialect: “We are of the same race as yourself,” they
said. “The ducks, even the Portuguese, are all aquatic birds, as
you must have noticed. You do not know us yet,—very few know us,
or give themselves the trouble to make our acquaintance, not
even any of the fowls, though we are born to occupy a higher
grade in society than most of them. But that does not disturb
us, we quietly go on in our own way among the rest, whose ideas
are certainly not ours; for we look at the bright side of
things, and only speak what is good, although that is sometimes
very difficult to find where none exists. Except ourselves and
the cock there is not one in the yard who can be called talented
or polite. It cannot even be said of the ducks, and we warn you,
little bird, not to trust that one yonder, with the short tail
feathers, for she is cunning; that curiously marked one, with
the crooked stripes on her wings, is a mischief-maker, and never
lets any one have the last word, though she is always in the
wrong. That fat duck yonder speaks evil of every one, and that
is against our principles. If we have nothing good to tell, we
close our beaks. The Portuguese is the only one who has had any
education, and with whom we can associate, but she is
passionate, and talks too much about ‘Portugal.’”
“I wonder what those two Chinese are whispering about,”
whispered one duck to another; “they are always doing it, and it
annoys me. We never speak to them.”
Now the drake came up, and he thought the little singing-bird
was a sparrow. “Well, I don’t understand the difference,” he
said; “it appears to me all the same. He’s only a plaything, and
if people will have playthings, why let them, I say.”
“Don’t take any notice of what he says,” whispered the
Portuguese; “he’s very well in matters of business, and with him
business is placed before everything. But now I shall lie down
and have a little rest. It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we
may be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with sage and
onions and apples.” So she laid herself down in the sun and
winked with one eye; she had a very comfortable place, and felt
so comfortable that she fell asleep. The little singing-bird
busied himself for some time with his broken wing, and at last
he lay down, too, quite close to his protectress. The sun shone
warm and bright, and he found out that it was a very good place.
But the fowls of the neighborhood were all awake, and, to tell
the truth, they had paid a visit to the duckyard, simply and
solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first
to leave, and the other fowls soon followed them.
The witty little duck said of the Portuguese, that the old
lady was getting quite a “doting ducky,” All the other ducks
laughed at this. “Doting ducky,” they whispered. “Oh, that’s too
‘witty!’” And then they repeated the former joke about
“Portulak,” and declared it was most amusing. Then they all lay
down to have a nap.
They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly
something was thrown into the yard for them to eat. It came down
with such a bang, that the whole company started up and clapped
their wings. The Portuguese awoke too, and rushed over to the
other side: in so doing she trod upon the little singing-bird.
“Tweet,” he cried; “you trod very hard upon me, madam.”
“Well, then, why do you lie in my way?” she retorted, “you
must not be so touchy. I have nerves of my own, but I do not cry
‘tweet.’”
“Don’t be angry,” said the little bird; “the ‘tweet’ slipped
out of my beak unawares.”
The Portuguese did not listen to him, but began eating as
fast as she could, and made a good meal. When she had finished,
she lay down again, and the little bird, who wished to be
amiable, began to sing,—
“Chirp and twitter,
The dew-drops glitter,
In the hours of sunny spring,
I’ll sing my best,
Till I go to rest,
With my head behind my wing.”
“Now I want rest after my dinner,” said the Portuguese; “you
must conform to the rules of the house while you are here. I
want to sleep now.”
The little bird was quite taken aback, for he meant it
kindly. When madam awoke afterwards, there he stood before her
with a little corn he had found, and laid it at her feet; but as
she had not slept well, she was naturally in a bad temper. “Give
that to a chicken,” she said, “and don’t be always standing in
my way.”
“Why are you angry with me?” replied the little singing-bird,
“what have I done?”
“Done!” repeated the Portuguese duck, “your mode of
expressing yourself is not very polite. I must call your
attention to that fact.”
“It was sunshine here yesterday,” said the little bird, “but
to-day it is cloudy and the air is close.”
“You know very little about the weather, I fancy,” she
retorted, “the day is not over yet. Don’t stand there, looking
so stupid.”
“But you are looking at me just as the wicked eyes looked
when I fell into the yard yesterday.”
“Impertinent creature!” exclaimed the Portuguese duck: “would
you compare me with the cat—that beast of prey? There’s not a
drop of malicious blood in me. I’ve taken your part, and now
I’ll teach you better manners.” So saying, she made a bite at
the little singing-bird’s head, and he fell dead on the ground.
“Now whatever is the meaning of this?” she said; “could he not
bear even such a little peck as I gave him? Then certainly he
was not made for this world. I’ve been like a mother to him, I
know that, for I’ve a good heart.”
Then the cock from the neighboring yard stuck his head in,
and crowed with steam-engine power.
“You’ll kill me with your crowing,” she cried, “it’s all your
fault. He’s lost his life, and I’m very near losing mine.”
“There’s not much of him lying there,” observed the cock.
“Speak of him with respect,” said the Portuguese duck, “for
he had manners and education, and he could sing. He was
affectionate and gentle, and that is as rare a quality in
animals as in those who call themselves human beings.”
Then all the ducks came crowding round the little dead bird.
Ducks have strong passions, whether they feel envy or pity.
There was nothing to envy here, so they all showed a great deal
of pity, even the two Chinese. “We shall never have another
singing-bird again amongst us; he was almost a Chinese,” they
whispered, and then they wept with such a noisy, clucking sound,
that all the other fowls clucked too, but the ducks went about
with redder eyes afterwards. “We have hearts of our own,” they
said, “nobody can deny that.”
“Hearts!” repeated the Portuguese, “indeed you have, almost
as tender as the ducks in Portugal.”
“Let us think of getting something to satisfy our hunger,”
said the drake, “that’s the most important business. If one of
our toys is broken, why we have plenty more.”
|
The Ice Maiden
Little Rudy
The Journey to the New Home
The Uncle
Babette
On the Way Home
The Visit to the Mill
The Eagle’s Nest
What Fresh News the Parlor-Cat Had to Tell
The Ice Maiden
The Godmother
The Cousin
Evil Powers
At the Mill
Night Visions
The Conclusion
I. Little Rudy
WE will pay a visit to Switzerland, and wander through that
country of mountains, whose steep and rocky sides are overgrown
with forest trees. Let us climb to the dazzling snow-fields at
their summits, and descend again to the green meadows beneath,
through which rivers and brooks rush along as if they could not
quickly enough reach the sea and vanish. Fiercely shines the sun
over those deep valleys, as well as upon the heavy masses of
snow which lie on the mountains.
During the year these accumulations thaw or fall in the
rolling avalance, or are piled up in shining glaciers. Two of
these glaciers lie in the broad, rocky cliffs, between the
Schreckhorn and the Wetterhorn, near the little town of
Grindelwald. They are wonderful to behold, and therefore in the
summer time strangers come here from all parts of the world to
see them. They cross snow-covered mountains, and travel through
the deep valleys, or ascend for hours, higher and still higher,
the valleys appearing to sink lower and lower as they proceed,
and become as small as if seen from an air balloon. Over the
lofty summits of these mountains the clouds often hang like a
dark veil; while beneath in the valley, where many brown, wooden
houses are scattered about, the bright rays of the sun may be
shining upon a little brilliant patch of green, making it appear
almost transparent. The waters foam and dash along in the
valleys beneath; the streams from above trickle and murmur as
they fall down the rocky mountain’s side, looking like
glittering silver bands.
On both sides of the mountain-path stand these little wooden
houses; and, as within, there are many children and many mouths
to feed, each house has its own little potato garden. These
children rush out in swarms, and surround travellers, whether on
foot or in carriages. They are all clever at making a bargain.
They offer for sale the sweetest little toy-houses, models of
the mountain cottages in Switzerland. Whether it be rain or
sunshine, these crowds of children are always to be seen with
their wares.
About twenty years ago, there might be seen occasionally,
standing at a short distance from the other children, a little
boy, who was also anxious to sell his curious wares. He had an
earnest, expressive countenance, and held the box containing his
carved toys tightly with both hands, as if unwilling to part
with it. His earnest look, and being also a very little boy,
made him noticed by the strangers; so that he often sold the
most, without knowing why. An hour’s walk farther up the ascent
lived his grandfather, who cut and carved the pretty little
toy-houses; and in the old man’s room stood a large press, full
of all sorts of carved things—nut-crackers, knives and forks,
boxes with beautifully carved foliage, leaping chamois. It
contained everything that could delight the eyes of a child. But
the boy, who was named Rudy, looked with still greater pleasure
and longing at some old fire-arms which hung upon the rafters,
under the ceiling of the room. His grandfather promised him that
he should have them some day, but that he must first grow big
and strong, and learn how to use them. Small as he was, the
goats were placed in his care, and a good goat-keeper should
also be a good climber, and such Rudy was; he sometimes, indeed,
climbed higher than the goats, for he was fond of seeking for
birds’-nests at the top of high trees; he was bold and daring,
but was seldom seen to smile, excepting when he stood by the
roaring cataract, or heard the descending roll of the avalanche.
He never played with the other children, and was not seen with
them, unless his grandfather sent him down to sell his curious
workmanship. Rudy did not much like trade; he loved to climb the
mountains, or to sit by his grandfather and listen to his tales
of olden times, or of the people in Meyringen, the place of his
birth.
“In the early ages of the world,” said the old man, “these
people could not be found in Switzerland. They are a colony from
the north, where their ancestors still dwell, and are called
Swedes.”
This was something for Rudy to know, but he learnt more from
other sources, particularly from the domestic animals who
belonged to the house. One was a large dog, called Ajola, which
had belonged to his father; and the other was a tom-cat. This
cat stood very high in Rudy’s favor, for he had taught him to
climb.
“Come out on the roof with me,” said the cat; and Rudy quite
understood him, for the language of fowls, ducks, cats, and
dogs, is as easily understood by a young child as his own native
tongue. But it must be at the age when grandfather’s stick
becomes a neighing horse, with head, legs, and tail. Some
children retain these ideas later than others, and they are
considered backwards and childish for their age. People say so;
but is it so?
“Come out on the roof with me, little Rudy,” was the first
thing he heard the cat say, and Rudy understood him. “What
people say about falling down is all nonsense,” continued the
cat; “you will not fall, unless you are afraid. Come, now, set
one foot here and another there, and feel your way with your
fore-feet. Keep your eyes wide open, and move softly, and if you
come to a hole jump over it, and cling fast as I do.” And this
was just what Rudy did. He was often on the sloping roof with
the cat, or on the tops of high trees. But, more frequently,
higher still on the ridges of the rocks where puss never came.
“Higher, higher!” cried the trees and the bushes, “see to
what height we have grown, and how fast we hold, even to the
narrow edges of the rocks.”
Rudy often reached the top of the mountain before the
sunrise, and there inhaled his morning draught of the fresh,
invigorating mountain air,—God’s own gift, which men call the
sweet fragrance of plant and herb on the mountain-side, and the
mint and wild thyme in the valleys. The overhanging clouds
absorb all heaviness from the air, and the winds convey them
away over the pine-tree summits. The spirit of fragrance, light
and fresh, remained behind, and this was Rudy’s morning draught.
The sunbeams—those blessing-bringing daughters of the sun—kissed
his cheeks. Vertigo might be lurking on the watch, but he dared
not approach him. The swallows, who had not less than seven
nests in his grandfather’s house, flew up to him and his goats,
singing, “We and you, you and we.” They brought him greetings
from his grandfather’s house, even from two hens, the only birds
of the household; but Rudy was not intimate with them.
Although so young and such a little fellow, Rudy had
travelled a great deal. He was born in the canton of Valais, and
brought to his grandfather over the mountains. He had walked to
Staubbach—a little town that seems to flutter in the air like a
silver veil—the glittering, snow-clad mountain Jungfrau. He had
also been to the great glaciers; but this is connected with a
sad story, for here his mother met her death, and his
grandfather used to say that all Rudy’s childish merriment was
lost from that time. His mother had written in a letter, that
before he was a year old he had laughed more than he cried; but
after his fall into the snow-covered crevasse, his disposition
had completely changed. The grandfather seldom spoke of this,
but the fact was generally known. Rudy’s father had been a
postilion, and the large dog which now lived in his
grandfather’s cottage had always followed him on his journeys
over the Simplon to the lake of Geneva. Rudy’s relations, on his
father’s side, lived in the canton of Valais, in the valley of
the Rhone. His uncle was a chamois hunter, and a well-known
guide. Rudy was only a year old when his father died, and his
mother was anxious to return with her child to her own
relations, who lived in the Bernese Oberland. Her father dwelt
at a few hours’ distance from Grindelwald; he was a carver in
wood, and gained so much by it that he had plenty to live upon.
She set out homewards in the month of June, carrying her infant
in her arms, and, accompanied by two chamois hunters, crossed
the Gemmi on her way to Grindelwald. They had already left more
than half the journey behind them. They had crossed high ridges,
and traversed snow-fields; they could even see her native
valley, with its familiar wooden cottages. They had only one
more glacier to climb. Some newly fallen snow concealed a cleft
which, though it did not extend to the foaming waters in the
depths beneath, was still much deeper than the height of a man.
The young woman, with the child in her arms, slipped upon it,
sank in, and disappeared. Not a shriek, not a groan was heard;
nothing but the whining of a little child. More than an hour
elapsed before her two companions could obtain from the nearest
house ropes and poles to assist in raising them; and it was with
much exertion that they at last succeeded in raising from the
crevasse what appeared to be two dead bodies. Every means was
used to restore them to life. With the child they were
successful, but not with the mother; so the old grandfather
received his daughter’s little son into his house an orphan,—a
little boy who laughed more than he cried; but it seemed as if
laughter had left him in the cold ice-world into which he had
fallen, where, as the Swiss peasants say, the souls of the lost
are confined till the judgment-day.
The glaciers appear as if a rushing stream had been frozen in
its course, and pressed into blocks of green crystal, which,
balanced one upon another, form a wondrous palace of crystal for
the Ice Maiden—the queen of the glaciers. It is she whose mighty
power can crush the traveller to death, and arrest the flowing
river in its course. She is also a child of the air, and with
the swiftness of the chamois she can reach the snow-covered
mountain tops, where the boldest mountaineer has to cut
footsteps in the ice to ascend. She will sail on a frail
pine-twig over the raging torrents beneath, and spring lightly
from one iceberg to another, with her long, snow-white hair
flowing around her, and her dark-green robe glittering like the
waters of the deep Swiss lakes. “Mine is the power to seize and
crush,” she cried. “Once a beautiful boy was stolen from me by
man,—a boy whom I had kissed, but had not kissed to death. He is
again among mankind, and tends the goats on the mountains. He is
always climbing higher and higher, far away from all others, but
not from me. He is mine; I will send for him.” And she gave
Vertigo the commission.
It was summer, and the Ice Maiden was melting amidst the
green verdure, when Vertigo swung himself up and down. Vertigo
has many brothers, quite a troop of them, and the Ice Maiden
chose the strongest among them. They exercise their power in
different ways, and everywhere. Some sit on the banisters of
steep stairs, others on the outer rails of lofty towers, or
spring like squirrels along the ridges of the mountains. Others
tread the air as a swimmer treads the water, and lure their
victims here and there till they fall into the deep abyss.
Vertigo and the Ice Maiden clutch at human beings, as the
polypus seizes upon all that comes within its reach. And now
Vertigo was to seize Rudy.
“Seize him, indeed,” cried Vertigo; “I cannot do it. That
monster of a cat has taught him her tricks. That child of the
human race has a power within him which keeps me at a distance;
I cannot possibly reach the boy when he hangs from the branches
of trees, over the precipice; or I would gladly tickle his feet,
and send him heels over head through the air; but I cannot
accomplish it.”
“We must accomplish it,” said the Ice Maiden; “either you or
I must; and I will—I will!”
“No, no!” sounded through the air, like an echo on the
mountain church bells chime. It was an answer in song, in the
melting tones of a chorus from others of nature’s spirits—good
and loving spirits, the daughters of the sunbeam. They who place
themselves in a circle every evening on the mountain peaks;
there they spread out their rose-colored wings, which, as the
sun sinks, become more flaming red, until the lofty Alps seem to
burn with fire. Men call this the Alpine glow. After the sun has
set, they disappear within the white snow on the mountain-tops,
and slumber there till sunrise, when they again come forth. They
have great love for flowers, for butterflies, and for mankind;
and from among the latter they had chosen little Rudy. “You
shall not catch him; you shall not seize him!” they sang.
“Greater and stronger than he have I seized!” said the Ice
Maiden.
Then the daughters of the sun sang a song of the traveller,
whose cloak had been carried away by the wind. “The wind took
the covering, but not the man; it could even seize upon him, but
not hold him fast. The children of strength are more powerful,
more ethereal, even than we are. They can rise higher than our
parent, the sun. They have the magic words that rule the wind
and the waves, and compel them to serve and obey; and they can,
at last, cast off the heavy, oppressive weight of mortality, and
soar upwards.” Thus sweetly sounded the bell-like tones of the
chorus.
And each morning the sun’s rays shone through the one little
window of the grandfather’s house upon the quiet child. The
daughters of the sunbeam kissed him; they wished to thaw, and
melt, and obliterate the ice kiss which the queenly maiden of
the glaciers had given him as he lay in the lap of his dead
mother, in the deep crevasse of ice from which he had been so
wonderfully rescued.
II. The Journey to the New Home
UDY was just eight years old, when his uncle, who lived on the
other side of the mountain, wished to have the boy, as he
thought he might obtain a better education with him, and learn
something more. His grandfather thought the same, so he
consented to let him go. Rudy had many to say farewell to, as
well as his grandfather. First, there was Ajola, the old dog.
“Your father was the postilion, and I was the postilion’s
dog,” said Ajola. “We have often travelled the same journey
together; I knew all the dogs and men on this side of the
mountain. It is not my habit to talk much; but now that we have
so little time to converse together, I will say something more
than usual. I will relate to you a story, which I have reflected
upon for a long time. I do not understand it, and very likely
you will not, but that is of no consequence. I have, however,
learnt from it that in this world things are not equally
divided, neither for dogs nor for men. All are not born to lie
on the lap and to drink milk: I have never been petted in this
way, but I have seen a little dog seated in the place of a
gentleman or lady, and travelling inside a post-chaise. The
lady, who was his mistress, or of whom he was master, carried a
bottle of milk, of which the little dog now and then drank; she
also offered him pieces of sugar to crunch. He sniffed at them
proudly, but would not eat one, so she ate them herself. I was
running along the dirty road by the side of the carriage as
hungry as a dog could be, chewing the cud of my own thoughts,
which were rather in confusion. But many other things seemed in
confusion also. Why was not I lying on a lap and travelling in a
coach? I could not tell; yet I knew I could not alter my own
condition, either by barking or growling.”
This was Ajola’s farewell speech, and Rudy threw his arms
round the dog’s neck and kissed his cold nose. Then he took the
cat in his arms, but he struggled to get free.
“You are getting too strong for me,” he said; “but I will not
use my claws against you. Clamber away over the mountains; it
was I who taught you to climb. Do not fancy you are going to
fall, and you will be quite safe.” Then the cat jumped down and
ran away; he did not wish Rudy to see that there were tears in
his eyes.
The hens were hopping about the floor; one of them had no
tail; a traveller, who fancied himself a sportsman, had shot off
her tail, he had mistaken her for a bird of prey.
“Rudy is going away over the mountains,” said one of the
hens.
“He is always in such a hurry,” said the other; “and I don’t
like taking leave,” so they both hopped out.
But the goats said farewell; they bleated and wanted to go
with him, they were so very sorry.
Just at this time two clever guides were going to cross the
mountains to the other side of the Gemmi, and Rudy was to go
with them on foot. It was a long walk for such a little boy, but
he had plenty of strength and invincible courage. The swallows
flew with him a little way, singing, “We and you—you and we.”
The way led across the rushing Lutschine, which falls in
numerous streams from the dark clefts of the Grindelwald
glaciers. Trunks of fallen trees and blocks of stone form
bridges over these streams. After passing a forest of alders,
they began to ascend, passing by some blocks of ice that had
loosened themselves from the side of the mountain and lay across
their path; they had to step over these ice-blocks or walk round
them. Rudy crept here and ran there, his eyes sparkling with
joy, and he stepped so firmly with his iron-tipped mountain
shoe, that he left a mark behind him wherever he placed his
foot.
The earth was black where the mountain torrents or the melted
ice had poured upon it, but the bluish green, glassy ice
sparkled and glittered. They had to go round little pools, like
lakes, enclosed between large masses of ice; and, while thus
wandering out of their path, they came near an immense stone,
which lay balanced on the edge of an icy peak. The stone lost
its balance just as they reached it, and rolled over into the
abyss beneath, while the noise of its fall was echoed back from
every hollow cliff of the glaciers.
They were always going upwards. The glaciers seemed to spread
above them like a continued chain of masses of ice, piled up in
wild confusion between bare and rugged rocks. Rudy thought for a
moment of what had been told him, that he and his mother had
once lain buried in one of these cold, heart-chilling fissures;
but he soon banished such thoughts, and looked upon the story as
fabulous, like many other stories which had been told him. Once
or twice, when the men thought the way was rather difficult for
such a little boy, they held out their hands to assist him; but
he would not accept their assistance, for he stood on the
slippery ice as firmly as if he had been a chamois. They came at
length to rocky ground; sometimes stepping upon moss-covered
stones, sometimes passing beneath stunted fir-trees, and again
through green meadows. The landscape was always changing, but
ever above them towered the lofty snow-clad mountains, whose
names not only Rudy but every other child knew—“The Jungfrau,”
“The Monk and the Eiger.”
Rudy had never been so far away before; he had never trodden
on the wide-spreading ocean of snow that lay here with its
immovable billows, from which the wind blows off the snowflake
now and then, as it cuts the foam from the waves of the sea. The
glaciers stand here so close together it might almost be said
they are hand-in-hand; and each is a crystal palace for the Ice
Maiden, whose power and will it is to seize and imprison the
unwary traveller.
The sun shone warmly, and the snow sparkled as if covered
with glittering diamonds. Numerous insects, especially
butterflies and bees, lay dead in heaps on the snow. They had
ventured too high, or the wind had carried them here and left
them to die of cold.
Around the Wetterhorn hung a feathery cloud, like a woolbag,
and a threatening cloud too, for as it sunk lower it increased
in size, and concealed within was a “föhn,”1 fearful in its
violence should it break loose. This journey, with its varied
incidents,—the wild paths, the night passed on the mountain, the
steep rocky precipices, the hollow clefts, in which the rustling
waters from time immemorial had worn away passages for
themselves through blocks of stone,—all these were firmly
impressed on Rudy’s memory.
In a forsaken stone building, which stood just beyond the
seas of snow, they one night took shelter. Here they found some
charcoal and pine branches, so that they soon made a fire. They
arranged couches to lie on as well as they could, and then the
men seated themselves by the fire, took out their pipes, and
began to smoke. They also prepared a warm, spiced drink, of
which they partook and Rudy was not forgotten—he had his share.
Then they began to talk of those mysterious beings with which
the land of the Alps abounds; the hosts of apparitions which
come in the night, and carry off the sleepers through the air,
to the wonderful floating town of Venice; of the wild herds-man,
who drives the black sheep across the meadows. These flocks are
never seen, yet the tinkle of their little bells has often been
heard, as well as their unearthly bleating. Rudy listened
eagerly, but without fear, for he knew not what fear meant; and
while he listened, he fancied he could hear the roaring of the
spectral herd. It seemed to come nearer and roar louder, till
the men heard it also and listened in silence, till, at length,
they told Rudy that he must not dare to sleep. It was a “fohn,”
that violent storm-wind which rushes from the mountain to the
valley beneath, and in its fury snaps asunder the trunks of
large trees as if they were but slender reeds, and carries the
wooden houses from one side of a river to the other as easily as
we could move the pieces on a chess-board. After an hour had
passed, they told Rudy that it was all over, and he might go to
sleep; and, fatigued with his long walk, he readily slept at the
word of command.
Very early the following morning they again set out. The sun
on this day lighted up for Rudy new mountains, new glaciers, and
new snow-fields. They had entered the Canton Valais, and found
themselves on the ridge of the hills which can be seen from
Grindelwald; but he was still far from his new home. They
pointed out to him other clefts, other meadows, other woods and
rocky paths, and other houses. Strange men made their appearance
before him, and what men! They were misshapen, wretched-looking
creatures, with yellow complexions; and on their necks were
dark, ugly lumps of flesh, hanging down like bags. They were
called cretins. They dragged themselves along painfully, and
stared at the strangers with vacant eyes. The women looked more
dreadful than the men. Poor Rudy! were these the sort of people
he should see at his new home?
III. The Uncle
UDY arrived at last at his uncle’s house, and was thankful to
find the people like those he had been accustomed to see. There
was only one cretin amongst them, a poor idiot boy, one of those
unfortunate beings who, in their neglected conditions, go from
house to house, and are received and taken care of in different
families, for a month or two at a time.
Poor Saperli had just arrived at his uncle’s house when Rudy
came. The uncle was an experienced hunter; he also followed the
trade of a cooper; his wife was a lively little person, with a
face like a bird, eyes like those of an eagle, and a long, hairy
throat. Everything was new to Rudy—the fashion of the dress, the
manners, the employments, and even the language; but the latter
his childish ear would soon learn. He saw also that there was
more wealth here, when compared with his former home at his
grandfather’s. The rooms were larger, the walls were adorned
with the horns of the chamois, and brightly polished guns. Over
the door hung a painting of the Virgin Mary, fresh alpine roses
and a burning lamp stood near it. Rudy’s uncle was, as we have
said, one of the most noted chamois hunters in the whole
district, and also one of the best guides. Rudy soon became the
pet of the house; but there was another pet, an old hound, blind
and lazy, who would never more follow the hunt, well as he had
once done so. But his former good qualities were not forgotten,
and therefore the animal was kept in the family and treated with
every indulgence. Rudy stroked the old hound, but he did not
like strangers, and Rudy was as yet a stranger; he did not,
however, long remain so, he soon endeared himself to every
heart, and became like one of the family.
“We are not very badly off, here in the canton Valais,” said
his uncle one day; “we have the chamois, they do not die so fast
as the wild goats, and it is certainly much better here now than
in former times. How highly the old times have been spoken of,
but ours is better. The bag has been opened, and a current of
air now blows through our once confined valley. Something better
always makes its appearance when old, worn-out things fail.”
When his uncle became communicative, he would relate stories
of his youthful days, and farther back still of the warlike
times in which his father had lived. Valais was then, as he
expressed it, only a closed-up bag, quite full of sick people,
miserable cretins; but the French soldiers came, and they were
capital doctors, they soon killed the disease and the sick
people, too. The French people knew how to fight in more ways
than one, and the girls knew how to conquer too; and when he
said this the uncle nodded at his wife, who was a French woman
by birth, and laughed. The French could also do battle on the
stones. “It was they who cut a road out of the solid rock over
the Simplon—such a road, that I need only say to a child of
three years old, ‘Go down to Italy, you have only to keep in the
high road,’ and the child will soon arrive in Italy, if he
followed my directions.”
Then the uncle sang a French song, and cried, “Hurrah! long
live Napoleon Buonaparte.” This was the first time Rudy had ever
heard of France, or of Lyons, that great city on the Rhone where
his uncle had once lived. His uncle said that Rudy, in a very
few years, would become a clever hunter, he had quite a talent
for it; he taught the boy to hold a gun properly, and to load
and fire it. In the hunting season he took him to the hills, and
made him drink the warm blood of the chamois, which is said to
prevent the hunter from becoming giddy; he taught him to know
the time when, from the different mountains, the avalanche is
likely to fall, namely, at noontide or in the evening, from the
effects of the sun’s rays; he made him observe the movements of
the chamois when he gave a leap, so that he might fall firmly
and lightly on his feet. He told him that when on the fissures
of the rocks he could find no place for his feet, he must
support himself on his elbows, and cling with his legs, and even
lean firmly with his back, for this could be done when
necessary. He told him also that the chamois are very cunning,
they place lookers-out on the watch; but the hunter must be more
cunning than they are, and find them out by the scent.
One day, when Rudy went out hunting with his uncle, he hung a
coat and hat on an alpine staff, and the chamois mistook it for
a man, as they generally do. The mountain path was narrow here;
indeed it was scarcely a path at all, only a kind of shelf,
close to the yawning abyss. The snow that lay upon it was
partially thawed, and the stones crumbled beneath the feet.
Every fragment of stone broken off struck the sides of the rock
in its fall, till it rolled into the depths beneath, and sunk to
rest. Upon this shelf Rudy’s uncle laid himself down, and crept
forward. At about a hundred paces behind him stood Rudy, upon
the highest point of the rock, watching a great vulture hovering
in the air; with a single stroke of his wing the bird might
easily cast the creeping hunter into the abyss beneath, and make
him his prey. Rudy’s uncle had eyes for nothing but the chamois,
who, with its young kid, had just appeared round the edge of the
rock. So Rudy kept his eyes fixed on the bird, he knew well what
the great creature wanted; therefore he stood in readiness to
discharge his gun at the proper moment. Suddenly the chamois
made a spring, and his uncle fired and struck the animal with
the deadly bullet; while the young kid rushed away, as if for a
long life he had been accustomed to danger and practised flight.
The large bird, alarmed at the report of the gun, wheeled off in
another direction, and Rudy’s uncle was saved from danger, of
which he knew nothing till he was told of it by the boy.
While they were both in pleasant mood, wending their way
homewards, and the uncle whistling the tune of a song he had
learnt in his young days, they suddenly heard a peculiar sound
which seemed to come from the top of the mountain. They looked
up, and saw above them, on the over-hanging rock, the
snow-covering heave and lift itself as a piece of linen
stretched on the ground to dry raises itself when the wind
creeps under it. Smooth as polished marble slabs, the waves of
snow cracked and loosened themselves, and then suddenly, with
the rumbling noise of distant thunder, fell like a foaming
cataract into the abyss. An avalanche had fallen, not upon Rudy
and his uncle, but very near them. Alas, a great deal too near!
“Hold fast, Rudy!” cried his uncle; “hold fast, with all your
might.”
Then Rudy clung with his arms to the trunk of the nearest
tree, while his uncle climbed above him, and held fast by the
branches. The avalanche rolled past them at some distance; but
the gust of wind that followed, like the storm-wings of the
avalanche, snapped asunder the trees and bushes over which it
swept, as if they had been but dry rushes, and threw them about
in every direction. The tree to which Rudy clung was thus
overthrown, and Rudy dashed to the ground. The higher branches
were snapped off, and carried away to a great distance; and
among these shattered branches lay Rudy’s uncle, with his skull
fractured. When they found him, his hand was still warm; but it
would have been impossible to recognize his face. Rudy stood by,
pale and trembling; it was the first shock of his life, the
first time he had ever felt fear. Late in the evening he
returned home with the fatal news,—to that home which was now to
be so full of sorrow. His uncle’s wife uttered not a word, nor
shed a tear, till the corpse was brought in; then her agony
burst forth. The poor cretin crept away to his bed, and nothing
was seen of him during the whole of the following day. Towards
evening, however, he came to Rudy, and said, “Will you write a
letter for me? Saperli cannot write; Saperli can only take the
letters to the post.”
“A letter for you!” said Rudy; “who do you wish to write to?”
“To the Lord Christ,” he replied.
“What do you mean?” asked Rudy.
Then the poor idiot, as the cretin was often called, looked
at Rudy with a most touching expression in his eyes, clasped his
hands, and said, solemnly and devoutly, “Saperli wants to send a
letter to Jesus Christ, to pray Him to let Saperli die, and not
the master of the house here.”
Rudy pressed his hand, and replied, “A letter would not reach
Him up above; it would not give him back whom we have lost.”
It was not, however, easy for Rudy to convince Saperli of the
impossibility of doing what he wished.
“Now you must work for us,” said his foster-mother; and Rudy
very soon became the entire support of the house.
IV. Babette
HO was the best marksman in the canton Valais? The chamois knew
well. “Save yourselves from Rudy,” they might well say. And who
is the handsomest marksman? “Oh, it is Rudy,” said the maidens;
but they did not say, “Save yourselves from Rudy.” Neither did
anxious mothers say so; for he bowed to them as pleasantly as to
the young girls. He was so brave and cheerful. His cheeks were
brown, his teeth white, and his eyes dark and sparkling. He was
now a handsome young man of twenty years. The most icy water
could not deter him from swimming; he could twist and turn like
a fish. None could climb like he, and he clung as firmly to the
edges of the rocks as a limpet. He had strong muscular power, as
could be seen when he leapt from rock to rock. He had learnt
this first from the cat, and more lately from the chamois. Rudy
was considered the best guide over the mountains; every one had
great confidence in him. He might have made a great deal of
money as guide. His uncle had also taught him the trade of a
cooper; but he had no inclination for either; his delight was in
chamois-hunting, which also brought him plenty of money. Rudy
would be a very good match, as people said, if he would not look
above his own station. He was also such a famous partner in
dancing, that the girls often dreamt about him, and one and
another thought of him even when awake.
“He kissed me in the dance,” said Annette, the schoolmaster’s
daughter, to her dearest friend; but she ought not to have told
this, even to her dearest friend. It is not easy to keep such
secrets; they are like sand in a sieve; they slip out. It was
therefore soon known that Rudy, so brave and so good as he was,
had kissed some one while dancing, and yet he had never kissed
her who was dearest to him.
“Ah, ah,” said an old hunter, “he has kissed Annette, has he?
he has begun with A, and I suppose he will kiss through the
whole alphabet.”
But a kiss in the dance was all the busy tongues could accuse
him of. He certainly had kissed Annette, but she was not the
flower of his heart.
Down in the valley, near Bex, among the great walnut-trees,
by the side of a little rushing mountain-stream, lived a rich
miller. His dwelling-house was a large building, three storeys
high, with little turrets. The roof was covered with chips,
bound together with tin plates, that glittered in sunshine and
in the moonlight. The largest of the turrets had a weather-cock,
representing an apple pierced by a glittering arrow, in memory
of William Tell. The mill was a neat and well-ordered place,
that allowed itself to be sketched and written about; but the
miller’s daughter did not permit any to sketch or write about
her. So, at least, Rudy would have said, for her image was
pictured in his heart; her eyes shone in it so brightly, that
quite a flame had been kindled there; and, like all other fires,
it had burst forth so suddenly, that the miller’s daughter, the
beautiful Babette, was quite unaware of it. Rudy had never
spoken a word to her on the subject. The miller was rich, and,
on that account, Babette stood very high, and was rather
difficult to aspire to. But said Rudy to himself, “Nothing is
too high for a man to reach: he must climb with confidence in
himself, and he will not fail.” He had learnt this lesson in his
youthful home.
It happened once that Rudy had some business to settle at
Bex. It was a long journey at that time, for the railway had not
been opened. From the glaciers of the Rhone, at the foot of the
Simplon, between its ever-changing mountain summits, stretches
the valley of the canton Valais. Through it runs the noble river
of the Rhone, which often overflows its banks, covering fields
and highways, and destroying everything in its course. Near the
towns of Sion and St. Maurice, the valley takes a turn, and
bends like an elbow, and behind St. Maurice becomes so narrow
that there is only space enough for the bed of the river and a
narrow carriage-road. An old tower stands here, as if it were
guardian to the canton Valais, which ends at this point; and
from it we can look across the stone bridge to the toll-house on
the other side, where the canton Vaud commences. Not far from
this spot stands the town of Bex, and at every step can be seen
an increase of fruitfulness and verdure. It is like entering a
grove of chestnut and walnut-trees. Here and there the cypress
and pomegranate blossoms peep forth; and it is almost as warm as
an Italian climate. Rudy arrived at Bex, and soon finished the
business which had brought him there, and then walked about the
town; but not even the miller’s boy could be seen, nor any one
belonging to the mill, not to mention Babette. This did not
please him at all. Evening came on. The air was filled with the
perfume of the wild thyme and the blossoms of the lime-trees,
and the green woods on the mountains seemed to be covered with a
shining veil, blue as the sky. Over everything reigned a
stillness, not of sleep or of death, but as if Nature were
holding her breath, that her image might be photographed on the
blue vault of heaven. Here and there, amidst the trees of the
silent valley, stood poles which supported the wires of the
electric telegraph. Against one of these poles leaned an object
so motionless that it might have been mistaken for the trunk of
a tree; but it was Rudy, standing there as still as at that
moment was everything around him. He was not asleep, neither was
he dead; but just as the various events in the world—matters of
momentous importance to individuals—were flying through the
telegraph wires, without the quiver of a wire or the slightest
tone, so, through the mind of Rudy, thoughts of overwhelming
importance were passing, without an outward sign of emotion. The
happiness of his future life depended upon the decision of his
present reflections. His eyes were fixed on one spot in the
distance—a light that twinkled through the foliage from the
parlor of the miller’s house, where Babette dwelt. Rudy stood so
still, that it might have been supposed he was watching for a
chamois; but he was in reality like a chamois, who will stand
for a moment, looking as if it were chiselled out of the rock,
and then, if only a stone rolled by, would suddenly bound
forward with a spring, far away from the hunter. And so with
Rudy: a sudden roll of his thoughts roused him from his
stillness, and made him bound forward with determination to act.
“Never despair!” cried he. “A visit to the mill, to say good
evening to the miller, and good evening to little Babette, can
do no harm. No one ever fails who has confidence in himself. If
I am to be Babette’s husband, I must see her some time or
other.”
Then Rudy laughed joyously, and took courage to go to the
mill. He knew what he wanted; he wanted to marry Babette. The
clear water of the river rolled over its yellow bed, and willows
and lime-trees were reflected in it, as Rudy stepped along the
path to the miller’s house. But, as the children sing—
“There was no one at home in the house,
Only a kitten at play.”
The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried “mew.”
But Rudy had no inclination for this sort of conversation; he
passed on, and knocked at the door. No one heard him, no one
opened the door. “Mew,” said the cat again; and had Rudy been
still a child, he would have understood this language, and known
that the cat wished to tell him there was no one at home. So he
was obliged to go to the mill and make inquiries, and there he
heard that the miller had gone on a journey to Interlachen, and
taken Babette with him, to the great shooting festival, which
began that morning, and would continue for eight days, and that
people from all the German settlements would be there.
Poor Rudy! we may well say. It was not a fortunate day for
his visit to Bex. He had just to return the way he came, through
St. Maurice and Sion, to his home in the valley. But he did not
despair. When the sun rose the next morning, his good spirits
had returned; indeed he had never really lost them. “Babette is
at Interlachen,” said Rudy to himself, “many days’ journey from
here. It is certainly a long way for any one who takes the
high-road, but not so far if he takes a short cut across the
mountain, and that just suits a chamois-hunter. I have been that
way before, for it leads to the home of my childhood, where, as
a little boy, I lived with my grandfather. And there are
shooting matches at Interlachen. I will go, and try to stand
first in the match. Babette will be there, and I shall be able
to make her acquaintance.”
Carrying his light knapsack, which contained his Sunday
clothes, on his back, and with his musket and his game-bag over
his shoulder, Rudy started to take the shortest way across the
mountain. Still it was a great distance. The shooting matches
were to commence on that day, and to continue for a whole week.
He had been told also that the miller and Babette would remain
that time with some relatives at Interlachen. So over the Gemmi
Rudy climbed bravely, and determined to descend the side of the
Grindelwald. Bright and joyous were his feelings as he stepped
lightly onwards, inhaling the invigorating mountain air. The
valley sunk as he ascended, the circle of the horizon expanded.
One snow-capped peak after another rose before him, till the
whole of the glittering Alpine range became visible. Rudy knew
each ice-clad peak, and he continued his course towards the
Schreckhorn, with its white powdered stone finger raised high in
the air. At length he had crossed the highest ridges, and before
him lay the green pasture lands sloping down towards the valley,
which was once his home. The buoyancy of the air made his heart
light. Hill and valley were blooming in luxuriant beauty, and
his thoughts were youthful dreams, in which old age or death
were out of the question. Life, power, and enjoyment were in the
future, and he felt free and light as a bird. And the swallows
flew round him, as in the days of his childhood, singing “We and
you—you and we.” All was overflowing with joy. Beneath him lay
the meadows, covered with velvety green, with the murmuring
river flowing through them, and dotted here and there were small
wooden houses. He could see the edges of the glaciers, looking
like green glass against the soiled snow, and the deep chasms
beneath the loftiest glacier. The church bells were ringing, as
if to welcome him to his home with their sweet tones. His heart
beat quickly, and for a moment he seemed to have foregotten
Babette, so full were his thoughts of old recollections. He was,
in imagination, once more wandering on the road where, when a
little boy, he, with other children, came to sell their
curiously carved toy houses. Yonder, behind the fir-trees, still
stood his grandfather’s house, his mother’s father, but
strangers dwelt in it now. Children came running to him, as he
had once done, and wished to sell their wares. One of them
offered him an Alpine rose. Rudy took the rose as a good omen,
and thought of Babette. He quickly crossed the bridge where the
two rivers flow into each other. Here he found a walk
over-shadowed with large walnut-trees, and their thick foliage
formed a pleasant shade. Very soon he perceived in the distance,
waving flags, on which glittered a white cross on a red
ground—the standard of the Danes as well as of the Swiss—and
before him lay Interlachen.
“It is really a splendid town, like none other that I have
ever seen,” said Rudy to himself. It was indeed a Swiss town in
its holiday dress. Not like the many other towns, crowded with
heavy stone houses, stiff and foreign looking. No; here it
seemed as if the wooden houses on the hills had run into the
valley, and placed themselves in rows and ranks by the side of
the clear river, which rushes like an arrow in its course. The
streets were rather irregular, it is true, but still this added
to their picturesque appearance. There was one street which Rudy
thought the prettiest of them all; it had been built since he
had visited the town when a little boy. It seemed to him as if
all the neatest and most curiously carved toy houses which his
grandfather once kept in the large cupboard at home, had been
brought out and placed in this spot, and that they had increased
in size since then, as the old chestnut trees had done. The
houses were called hotels; the woodwork on the windows and
balconies was curiously carved. The roofs were gayly painted,
and before each house was a flower garden, which separated it
from the macadamized high-road. These houses all stood on the
same side of the road, so that the fresh, green meadows, in
which were cows grazing, with bells on their necks, were not
hidden. The sound of these bells is often heard amidst Alpine
scenery. These meadows were encircled by lofty hills, which
receded a little in the centre, so that the most beautifully
formed of Swiss mountains—the snow-crowned Jungfrau— could be
distinctly seen glittering in the distance. A number of
elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies from foreign lands, and
crowds of country people from the neighboring cantons, were
assembled in the town. Each marksman wore the number of hits he
had made twisted in a garland round his hat. Here were music and
singing of all descriptions: hand-organs, trumpets, shouting,
and noise. The houses and bridges were adorned with verses and
inscriptions. Flags and banners were waving. Shot after shot was
fired, which was the best music to Rudy’s ears. And amidst all
this excitement he quite forgot Babette, on whose account only
he had come. The shooters were thronging round the target, and
Rudy was soon amongst them. But when he took his turn to fire,
he proved himself the best shot, for he always struck the
bull’s-eye.
“Who may that young stranger be?” was the inquiry on all
sides. “He speaks French as it is spoken in the Swiss cantons.”
“And makes himself understood very well when he speaks
German,” said some.
“He lived here, when a child, with his grandfather, in a
house on the road to Grindelwald,” remarked one of the
sportsmen.
And full of life was this young stranger; his eyes sparkled,
his glance was steady, and his arm sure, therefore he always hit
the mark. Good fortune gives courage, and Rudy was always
courageous. He soon had a circle of friends gathered round him.
Every one noticed him, and did him homage. Babette had quite
vanished from his thoughts, when he was struck on the shoulder
by a heavy hand, and a deep voice said to him in French, “You
are from the canton Valais.”
Rudy turned round, and beheld a man with a ruddy, pleasant
face, and a stout figure. It was the rich miller from Bex. His
broad, portly person, hid the slender, lovely Babette; but she
came forward and glanced at him with her bright, dark eyes. The
rich miller was very much flattered at the thought that the
young man, who was acknowledged to be the best shot, and was so
praised by every one, should be from his own canton. Now was
Rudy really fortunate: he had travelled all this way to this
place, and those he had forgotten were now come to seek him.
When country people go far from home, they often meet with those
they know, and improve their acquaintance. Rudy, by his
shooting, had gained the first place in the shooting-match, just
as the miller at home at Bex stood first, because of his money
and his mill. So the two men shook hands, which they had never
done before. Babette, too, held out her hand to Rudy frankly,
and he pressed it in his, and looked at her so earnestly, that
she blushed deeply. The miller talked of the long journey they
had travelled, and of the many towns they had seen. It was his
opinion that he had really made as great a journey as if he had
travelled in a steamship, a railway carriage, or a post-chaise.
“I came by a much shorter way,” said Rudy; “I came over the
mountains. There is no road so high that a man may not venture
upon it.”
“Ah, yes; and break your neck,” said the miller; “and you
look like one who will break his neck some day, you are so
daring.”
“Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in
himself,” replied Rudy.
The miller’s relations at Interlachen, with whom the miller
and Babette were staying, invited Rudy to visit them, when they
found he came from the same canton as the miller. It was a most
pleasant visit. Good fortune seemed to follow him, as it does
those who think and act for themselves, and who remember the
proverb, “Nuts are given to us, but they are not cracked for
us.” And Rudy was treated by the miller’s relations almost like
one of the family, and glasses of wine were poured out to drink
to the welfare of the best shooter. Babette clinked glasses with
Rudy, and he returned thanks for the toast. In the evening they
all took a delightful walk under the walnut-trees, in front of
the stately hotels; there were so many people, and such
crowding, that Rudy was obliged to offer his arm to Babette.
Then he told her how happy it made him to meet people from the
canton Vaud,—for Vaud and Valais were neighboring cantons. He
spoke of this pleasure so heartily that Babette could not resist
giving his arm a slight squeeze; and so they walked on together,
and talked and chatted like old acquaintances. Rudy felt
inclined to laugh sometimes at the absurd dress and walk of the
foreign ladies; but Babette did not wish to make fun of them,
for she knew there must be some good, excellent people amongst
them; she, herself, had a godmother, who was a high-born English
lady. Eighteen years before, when Babette was christened, this
lady was staying at Bex, and she stood godmother for her, and
gave her the valuable brooch she now wore in her bosom.
Her godmother had twice written to her, and this year she was
expected to visit Interlachen with her two daughters; “but they
are old-maids,” added Babette, who was only eighteen: “they are
nearly thirty.” Her sweet little mouth was never still a moment,
and all that she said sounded in Rudy’s ears as matters of the
greatest importance, and at last he told her what he was longing
to tell. How often he had been at Bex, how well he knew the
mill, and how often he had seen Babette, when most likely she
had not noticed him; and lastly, that full of many thoughts
which he could not tell her, he had been to the mill on the
evening when she and her father has started on their long
journey, but not too far for him to find a way to overtake them.
He told her all this, and a great deal more; he told her how
much he could endure for her; and that it was to see her, and
not the shooting-match, which had brought him to Interlachen.
Babette became quite silent after hearing all this; it was
almost too much, and it troubled her.
And while they thus wandered on, the sun sunk behind the
lofty mountains. The Jungfrau stood out in brightness and
splendor, as a back-ground to the green woods of the surrounding
hills. Every one stood still to look at the beautiful sight,
Rudy and Babette among them.
“Nothing can be more beautiful than this,” said Babette.
“Nothing!” replied Rudy, looking at Babette.
“To-morrow I must return home,” remarked Rudy a few minutes
afterwards.
“Come and visit us at Bex,” whispered Babette; “my father
will be pleased to see you.”
V. On the Way Home
H, what a number of things Rudy had to carry over the mountains,
when he set out to return home! He had three silver cups, two
handsome pistols, and a silver coffee-pot. This latter would be
useful when he began housekeeping. But all these were not the
heaviest weight he had to bear; something mightier and more
important he carried with him in his heart, over the high
mountains, as he journeyed homeward.
The weather was dismally dark, and inclined to rain; the
clouds hung low, like a mourning veil on the tops of the
mountains, and shrouded their glittering peaks. In the woods
could be heard the sound of the axe and the heavy fall of the
trunks of the trees, as they rolled down the slopes of the
mountains. When seen from the heights, the trunks of these trees
looked like slender stems; but on a nearer inspection they were
found to be large and strong enough for the masts of a ship. The
river murmured monotonously, the wind whistled, and the clouds
sailed along hurriedly.
Suddenly there appeared, close by Rudy’s side, a young
maiden; he had not noticed her till she came quite near to him.
She was also going to ascend the mountain. The maiden’s eyes
shone with an unearthly power, which obliged you to look into
them; they were strange eyes,—clear, deep, and unfathomable.
“Hast thou a lover?” asked Rudy; all his thoughts were
naturally on love just then.
“I have none,” answered the maiden, with a laugh; it was as
if she had not spoken the truth.
“Do not let us go such a long way round,” said she. “We must
keep to the left; it is much shorter.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied; “and fall into some crevasse. Do you
pretend to be a guide, and not know the road better than that?”
“I know every step of the way,” said she; “and my thoughts
are collected, while yours are down in the valley yonder. We
should think of the Ice Maiden while we are up here; men say she
is not kind to their race.”
“I fear her not,” said Rudy. “She could not keep me when I
was a child; I will not give myself up to her now I am a man.”
Darkness came on, the rain fell, and then it began to snow,
and the whiteness dazzled the eyes.
“Give me your hand,” said the maiden; “I will help you to
mount.” And he felt the touch of her icy fingers.
“You help me,” cried Rudy; “I do not yet require a woman to
help me to climb.” And he stepped quickly forwards away from
her.
The drifting snow-shower fell like a veil between them, the
wind whistled, and behind him he could hear the maiden laughing
and singing, and the sound was most strange to hear.
“It certainly must be a spectre or a servant of the Ice
Maiden,” thought Rudy, who had heard such things talked about
when he was a little boy, and had stayed all night on the
mountain with the guides.
The snow fell thicker than ever, the clouds lay beneath him;
he looked back, there was no one to be seen, but he heard sounds
of mocking laughter, which were not those of a human voice.
When Rudy at length reached the highest part of the mountain,
where the path led down to the valley of the Rhone, the snow had
ceased, and in the clear heavens he saw two bright stars
twinkling. They reminded him of Babette and of himself, and of
his future happiness, and his heart glowed at the thought.
VI. The Visit to the Mill
HAT beautiful things you have brought home!” said his old
foster-mother; and her strange-looking eagle-eyes sparkled,
while she wriggled and twisted her skinny neck more quickly and
strangely than ever. “You have brought good luck with you, Rudy.
I must give you a kiss, my dear boy.”
Rudy allowed himself to be kissed; but it could be seen by
his countenance that he only endured the infliction as a homely
duty.
“How handsome you are, Rudy!” said the old woman.
“Don’t flatter,” said Rudy, with a laugh; but still he was
pleased.
“I must say once more,” said the old woman, “that you are
very lucky.”
“Well, in that I believe you are right,” said he, as he
thought of Babette. Never had he felt such a longing for that
deep valley as he now had. “They must have returned home by this
time,” said he to himself, “it is already two days over the time
which they fixed upon. I must go to Bex.”
So Rudy set out to go to Bex; and when he arrived there, he
found the miller and his daughter at home. They received him
kindly, and brought him many greetings from their friends at
Interlachen. Babette did not say much. She seemed to have become
quite silent; but her eyes spoke, and that was quite enough for
Rudy. The miller had generally a great deal to talk about, and
seemed to expect that every one should listen to his jokes, and
laugh at them; for was not he the rich miller? But now he was
more inclined to hear Rudy’s adventures while hunting and
travelling, and to listen to his descriptions of the
difficulties the chamois-hunter has to overcome on the
mountain-tops, or of the dangerous snow-drifts which the wind
and weather cause to cling to the edges of the rocks, or to lie
in the form of a frail bridge over the abyss beneath. The eyes
of the brave Rudy sparkled as he described the life of a hunter,
or spoke of the cunning of the chamois and their wonderful
leaps; also of the powerful fohn and the rolling avalanche. He
noticed that the more he described, the more interested the
miller became, especially when he spoke of the fierce vulture
and of the royal eagle. Not far from Bex, in the canton Valais,
was an eagle’s nest, more curiously built under a high,
over-hanging rock. In this nest was a young eagle; but who would
venture to take it? A young Englishman had offered Rudy a whole
handful of gold, if he would bring him the young eagle alive.
“There is a limit to everything,” was Rudy’s reply. “The
eagle could not be taken; it would be folly to attempt it.”
The wine was passed round freely, and the conversation kept
up pleasantly; but the evening seemed too short for Rudy,
although it was midnight when he left the miller’s house, after
this his first visit.
While the lights in the windows of the miller’s house still
twinkled through the green foliage, out through the open
skylight came the parlor-cat on to the roof, and along the
water-pipe walked the kitchen-cat to meet her.
“What is the news at the mill?” asked the parlor-cat. “Here
in the house there is secret love-making going on, which the
father knows nothing about. Rudy and Babette have been treading
on each other’s paws, under the table, all the evening. They
trod on my tail twice, but I did not mew; that would have
attracted notice.”
“Well, I should have mewed,” said the kitchen-cat.
“What might suit the kitchen would not suit the parlor,” said
the other. “I am quite curious to know what the miller will say
when he finds out this engagement.”
Yes, indeed; what would the miller say? Rudy himself was
anxious to know that; but to wait till the miller heard of it
from others was out of the question. Therefore, not many days
after this visit, he was riding in the omnibus that runs between
the two cantons, Valais and Vaud. These cantons are separated by
the Rhone, over which is a bridge that unites them. Rudy, as
usual, had plenty of courage, and indulged in pleasant thoughts
of the favorable answer he should receive that evening. And when
the omnibus returned, Rudy was again seated in it, going
homewards; and at the same time the parlor-cat at the miller’s
house ran out quickly, crying,—
“Here, you from the kitchen, what do you think? The miller
knows all now. Everything has come to a delightful end. Rudy
came here this evening, and he and Babette had much whispering
and secret conversation together. They stood in the path near
the miller’s room. I lay at their feet; but they had no eyes or
thoughts for me.
“‘I will go to your father at once,’ said he; ‘it is the most
honorable way.’
“‘Shall I go with you?’ asked Babette; ‘it will give you
courage.’
“‘I have plenty of courage,’ said Rudy; ‘but if you are with
me, he must be friendly, whether he says Yes or No.’
”So they turned to go in, and Rudy trod heavily on my tail;
he certainly is very clumsy. I mewed; but neither he nor Babette
had any ears for me. They opened the door, and entered together.
I was before them, and jumped on the back of a chair. I hardly
know what Rudy said; but the miller flew into a rage, and
threatened to kick him out of the house. He told him he might go
to the mountains, and look after the chamois, but not after our
little Babette.”
”And what did they say? Did they speak?” asked the
kitchen-cat.
”What did they say! why, all that people generally do say
when they go a-wooing—‘I love her, and she loves me; and when
there is milk in the can for one, there is milk in the can for
two.’
“‘But she is so far above you,’ said the miller; ‘she has
heaps of gold, as you know. You should not attempt to reach
her.’
“‘There is nothing so high that a man cannot reach, if he
will,’ answered Rudy; for he is a brave youth.
“‘Yet you could not reach the young eagle,’ said the miller,
laughing. ‘Babette is higher than the eagle’s nest.’
“‘I will have them both,’ said Rudy.
“‘Very well; I will give her to you when you bring me the
young eaglet alive,’ said the miller; and he laughed till the
tears stood in his eyes. ‘But now I thank you for this visit,
Rudy; and if you come to-morrow, you will find nobody at home.
Good-bye, Rudy.’
“Babette also wished him farewell; but her voice sounded as
mournful as the mew of a little kitten that has lost its mother.
“‘A promise is a promise between man and man,’ said Rudy. ‘Do
not weep, Babette; I shall bring the young eagle.’
“‘You will break your neck, I hope,’ said the miller, ‘and we
shall be relieved from your company.’
“I call that kicking him out of the house,” said the
parlor-cat. “And now Rudy is gone, and Babette sits and weeps,
while the miller sings German songs that he learnt on his
journey; but I do not trouble myself on the matter,—it would be
of no use.”
“Yet, for all that, it is a very strange affair,” said the
kitchen-cat.
VII. The Eagle’s Nest
ROM the mountain-path came a joyous sound of some person
whistling, and it betokened good humor and undaunted courage. It
was Rudy, going to meet his friend Vesinaud. “You must come and
help,” said he. “I want to carry off the young eaglet from the
top of the rock. We will take young Ragli with us.”
“Had you not better first try to take down the moon? That
would be quite as easy a task,” said Vesinaud. “You seem to be
in good spirits.”
“Yes, indeed I am. I am thinking of my wedding. But to be
serious, I will tell you all about it, and how I am situated.”
Then he explained to Vesinaud and Ragli what he wished to do,
and why.
“You are a daring fellow,” said they; “but it is no use; you
will break your neck.”
“No one falls, unless he is afraid,” said Rudy.
So at midnight they set out, carrying with them poles,
ladders, and ropes. The road lay amidst brushwood and underwood,
over rolling stones, always upwards higher and higher in the
dark night. Waters roared beneath them, or fell in cascades from
above. Humid clouds were driving through the air as the hunters
reached the precipitous ledge of the rock. It was even darker
here, for the sides of the rocks almost met, and the light
penetrated only through a small opening at the top. At a little
distance from the edge could be heard the sound of the roaring,
foaming waters in the yawning abyss beneath them. The three
seated themselves on a stone, to await in stillness the dawn of
day, when the parent eagle would fly out, as it would be
necessary to shoot the old bird before they could think of
gaining possession of the young one. Rudy sat motionless, as if
he had been part of the stone on which he sat. He held his gun
ready to fire, with his eyes fixed steadily on the highest point
of the cliff, where the eagle’s nest lay concealed beneath the
overhanging rock.
The three hunters had a long time to wait. At last they heard
a rustling, whirring sound above them, and a large hovering
object darkened the air. Two guns were ready to aim at the dark
body of the eagle as it rose from the nest. Then a shot was
fired; for an instant the bird fluttered its wide-spreading
wings, and seemed as if it would fill up the whole of the chasm,
and drag down the hunters in its fall. But it was not so; the
eagle sunk gradually into the abyss beneath, and the branches of
trees and bushes were broken by its weight. Then the hunters
roused themselves: three of the longest ladders were brought and
bound together; the topmost ring of these ladders would just
reach the edge of the rock which hung over the abyss, but no
farther. The point beneath which the eagle’s nest lay sheltered
was much higher, and the sides of the rock were as smooth as a
wall. After consulting together, they determined to bind
together two more ladders, and to hoist them over the cavity,
and so form a communication with the three beneath them, by
binding the upper ones to the lower. With great difficulty they
contrived to drag the two ladders over the rock, and there they
hung for some moments, swaying over the abyss; but no sooner had
they fastened them together, than Rudy placed his foot on the
lowest step.
It was a bitterly cold morning; clouds of mist were rising
from beneath, and Rudy stood on the lower step of the ladder as
a fly rests on a piece of swinging straw, which a bird may have
dropped from the edge of the nest it was building on some tall
factory chimney; but the fly could fly away if the straw were
shaken, Rudy could only break his neck. The wind whistled around
him, and beneath him the waters of the abyss, swelled by the
thawing of the glaciers, those palaces of the Ice Maiden, foamed
and roared in their rapid course. When Rudy began to ascend, the
ladder trembled like the web of the spider, when it draws out
the long, delicate threads; but as soon as he reached the fourth
of the ladders, which had been bound together, he felt more
confidence,—he knew that they had been fastened securely by
skilful hands. The fifth ladder, that appeared to reach the
nest, was supported by the sides of the rock, yet it swung to
and fro, and flapped about like a slender reed, and as if it had
been bound by fishing lines. It seemed a most dangerous
undertaking to ascend it, but Rudy knew how to climb; he had
learnt that from the cat, and he had no fear. He did not observe
Vertigo, who stood in the air behind him, trying to lay hold of
him with his outstretched polypous arms.
When at length he stood on the topmost step of the ladder, he
found that he was still some distance below the nest, and not
even able to see into it. Only by using his hands and climbing
could he possibly reach it. He tried the strength of the stunted
trees, and the thick underwood upon which the nest rested, and
of which it was formed, and finding they would support his
weight, he grasped them firmly, and swung himself up from the
ladder till his head and breast were above the nest, and then
what an overpowering stench came from it, for in it lay the
putrid remains of lambs, chamois, and birds. Vertigo, although
he could not reach him, blew the poisonous vapor in his face, to
make him giddy and faint; and beneath, in the dark, yawning
deep, on the rushing waters, sat the Ice Maiden, with her long,
pale, green hair falling around her, and her death-like eyes
fixed upon him, like the two barrels of a gun. “I have thee
now,” she cried.
In a corner of the eagle’s nest sat the young eaglet, a large
and powerful bird, though still unable to fly. Rudy fixed his
eyes upon it, held on by one hand with all his strength, and
with the other threw a noose round the young eagle. The string
slipped to its legs. Rudy tightened it, and thus secured the
bird alive. Then flinging the sling over his shoulder, so that
the creature hung a good way down behind him, he prepared to
descend with the help of a rope, and his foot soon touched
safely the highest step of the ladder. Then Rudy, remembering
his early lesson in climbing, “Hold fast, and do not fear,”
descended carefully down the ladders, and at last stood safely
on the ground with the young living eaglet, where he was
received with loud shouts of joy and congratulations.
VIII. What Fresh News the Parlor-Cat Had to Tell
HERE is what you asked for,” said Rudy, as he entered the
miller’s house at Bex, and placed on the floor a large basket.
He removed the lid as he spoke, and a pair of yellow eyes,
encircled by a black ring, stared forth with a wild, fiery
glance, that seemed ready to burn and destroy all that came in
its way. Its short, strong beak was open, ready to bite, and on
its red throat were short feathers, like stubble.
“The young eaglet!” cried the miller.
Babette screamed, and started back, while her eyes wandered
from Rudy to the bird in astonishment.
“You are not to be discouraged by difficulties, I see,” said
the miller.
“And you will keep your word,” replied Rudy. “Each has his
own characteristic, whether it is honor or courage.”
“But how is it you did not break your neck?” asked the
miller.
“Because I held fast,” answered Rudy; “and I mean to hold
fast to Babette.”
“You must get her first,” said the miller, laughing; and
Babette thought this a very good sign.
“We must take the bird out of the basket,” said she. “It is
getting into a rage; how its eyes glare. How did you manage to
conquer it?”
Then Rudy had to describe his adventure, and the miller’s
eyes opened wide as he listened.
“With your courage and your good fortune you might win three
wives,” said the miller.
“Oh, thank you,” cried Rudy.
“But you have not won Babette yet,” said the miller, slapping
the young Alpine hunter on the shoulder playfully.
“Have you heard the fresh news at the mill?” asked the
parlor-cat of the kitchen-cat. “Rudy has brought us the young
eagle, and he is to take Babette in exchange. They kissed each
other in the presence of the old man, which is as good as an
engagement. He was quite civil about it; drew in his claws, and
took his afternoon nap, so that the two were left to sit and wag
their tails as much as they pleased. They have so much to talk
about that it will not be finished till Christmas.” Neither was
it finished till Christmas.
The wind whirled the faded, fallen leaves; the snow drifted
in the valleys, as well as upon the mountains, and the Ice
Maiden sat in the stately palace which, in winter time, she
generally occupied. The perpendicular rocks were covered with
slippery ice, and where in summer the stream from the rocks had
left a watery veil, icicles large and heavy hung from the trees,
while the snow-powdered fir-trees were decorated with fantastic
garlands of crystal. The Ice Maiden rode on the howling wind
across the deep valleys, the country, as far as Bex, was covered
with a carpet of snow, so that the Ice Maiden could follow Rudy,
and see him, when he visited the mill; and while in the room at
the miller’s house, where he was accustomed to spend so much of
his time with Babette. The wedding was to take place in the
following summer, and they heard enough of it, for so many of
their friends spoke of the matter.
Then came sunshine to the mill. The beautiful Alpine roses
bloomed, and joyous, laughing Babette, was like the early
spring, which makes all the birds sing of summer time and bridal
days.
“How those two do sit and chatter together,” said the
parlor-cat; “I have had enough of their mewing.”
IX. The Ice Maiden
HE walnut and chestnut trees, which extend from the bridge of
St. Maurice, by the river Rhone, to the shores of the lake of
Geneva, were already covered with the delicate green garlands of
early spring, just bursting into bloom, while the Rhone rushed
wildly from its source among the green glaciers which form the
ice palace of the Ice Maiden. She sometimes allows herself to be
carried by the keen wind to the lofty snow-fields, where she
stretches herself in the sunshine on the soft snowy-cushions.
From thence she throws her far-seeing glance into the deep
valley beneath, where human beings are busily moving about like
ants on a stone in the sun. “Spirits of strength, as the
children of the sun call you,” cried the Ice Maiden, “ye are but
worms! Let but a snow-ball roll, and you and your houses and
your towns are crushed and swept away.” And she raised her proud
head, and looked around her with eyes that flashed death from
their glance. From the valley came a rumbling sound; men were
busily at work blasting the rocks to form tunnels, and laying
down roads for the railway. “They are playing at work
underground, like moles,” said she. “They are digging passages
beneath the earth, and the noise is like the reports of cannons.
I shall throw down my palaces, for the clamor is louder than the
roar of thunder.” Then there ascended from the valley a thick
vapor, which waved itself in the air like a fluttering veil. It
rose, as a plume of feathers, from a steam engine, to which, on
the lately-opened railway, a string of carriages was linked,
carriage to carriage, looking like a winding serpent. The train
shot past with the speed of an arrow. “They play at being
masters down there, those spirits of strength!” exclaimed the
Ice Maiden; “but the powers of nature are still the rulers.” And
she laughed and sang till her voice sounded through the valley,
and people said it was the rolling of an avalanche. But the
children of the sun sang in louder strains in praise of the mind
of man, which can span the sea as with a yoke, can level
mountains, and fill up valleys. It is the power of thought which
gives man the mastery over nature.
Just at this moment there came across the snow-field, where
the Ice Maiden sat, a party of travellers. They had bound
themselves fast to each other, so that they looked like one
large body on the slippery plains of ice encircling the deep
abyss.
“Worms!” exclaimed the Ice Maiden. “You, the lords of the
powers of nature!” And she turned away and looked maliciously at
the deep valley where the railway train was rushing by. “There
they sit, these thoughts!” she exclaimed. “There they sit in
their power over nature’s strength. I see them all. One sits
proudly apart, like a king; others sit together in a group;
yonder, half of them are asleep; and when the steam dragon
stops, they will get out and go their way. The thoughts go forth
into the world,” and she laughed.
“There goes another avalanche,” said those in the valley
beneath.
“It will not reach us,” said two who sat together behind the
steam dragon. “Two hearts and one beat,” as people say. They
were Rudy and Babette, and the miller was with them. “I am like
the luggage,” said he; “I am here as a necessary appendage.”
“There sit those two,” said the Ice Maiden. “Many a chamois
have I crushed. Millions of Alpine roses have I snapped and
broken off; not a root have I spared. I know them all, and their
thoughts, those spirits of strength!” and again she laughed.
“There rolls another avalanche,” said those in the valley.
X. The Godmother
T Montreux, one of the towns which encircle the northeast part
of the lake of Geneva, lived Babette’s godmother, the noble
English lady, with her daughters and a young relative. They had
only lately arrived, yet the miller had paid them a visit, and
informed them of Babette’s engagement to Rudy. The whole story
of their meeting at Interlachen, and his brave adventure with
the eaglet, were related to them, and they were all very much
interested, and as pleased about Rudy and Babette as the miller
himself. The three were invited to come to Montreux; it was but
right for Babette to become acquainted with her godmother, who
wished to see her very much. A steam-boat started from the town
of Villeneuve, at one end of the lake of Geneva, and arrived at
Bernex, a little town beyond Montreux, in about half an hour.
And in this boat, the miller, with his daughter and Rudy, set
out to visit her godmother. They passed the coast which has been
so celebrated in song. Here, under the walnut-trees, by the deep
blue lake, sat Byron, and wrote his melodious verses about the
prisoner confined in the gloomy castle of Chillon. Here, where
Clarens, with its weeping-willows, is reflected in the clear
water, wandered Rousseau, dreaming of Heloise. The river Rhone
glides gently by beneath the lofty snow-capped hills of Savoy,
and not far from its mouth lies a little island in the lake, so
small that, seen from the shore, it looks like a ship. The
surface of the island is rocky; and about a hundred years ago, a
lady caused the ground to be covered with earth, in which three
acacia-trees were planted, and the whole enclosed with stone
walls. The acacia-trees now overshadow every part of the island.
Babette was enchanted with the spot; it seemed to her the most
beautiful object in the whole voyage, and she thought how much
she should like to land there. But the steam-ship passed it by,
and did not stop till it reached Bernex. The little party walked
slowly from this place to Montreux, passing the sun-lit walls
with which the vineyards of the little mountain town of Montreux
are surrounded, and peasants’ houses, overshadowed by fig-trees,
with gardens in which grow the laurel and the cypress.
Halfway up the hill stood the boarding-house in which
Babette’s godmother resided. She was received most cordially;
her godmother was a very friendly woman, with a round, smiling
countenance. When a child, her head must have resembled one of
Raphael’s cherubs; it was still an angelic face, with its white
locks of silvery hair. The daughters were tall, elegant, slender
maidens.
The young cousin, whom they had brought with them, was
dressed in white from head to foot; he had golden hair and
golden whiskers, large enough to be divided amongst three
gentlemen; and he began immediately to pay the greatest
attention to Babette.
Richly bound books, note-paper, and drawings, lay on the
large table. The balcony window stood open, and from it could be
seen the beautiful wide extended lake, the water so clear and
still, that the mountains of Savoy, with their villages, woods,
and snow-crowned peaks, were clearly reflected in it.
Rudy, who was usually so lively and brave, did not in the
least feel himself at home; he acted as if he were walking on
peas, over a slippery floor. How long and wearisome the time
appeared; it was like being in a treadmill. And then they went
out for a walk, which was very slow and tedious. Two steps
forward and one backwards had Rudy to take to keep pace with the
others. They walked down to Chillon, and went over the old
castle on the rocky island. They saw the implements of torture,
the deadly dungeons, the rusty fetters in the rocky walls, the
stone benches for those condemned to death, the trap-doors
through which the unhappy creatures were hurled upon iron
spikes, and impaled alive. They called looking at all these a
pleasure. It certainly was the right place to visit. Byron’s
poetry had made it celebrated in the world. Rudy could only feel
that it was a place of execution. He leaned against the stone
framework of the window, and gazed down into the deep, blue
water, and over to the little island with the three acacias, and
wished himself there, away and free from the whole chattering
party. But Babette was most unusually lively and good-tempered.
“I have been so amused,” she said.
The cousin had found her quite perfect.
“He is a perfect fop,” said Rudy; and this was the first time
Rudy had said anything that did not please Babette.
The Englishman had made her a present of a little book, in
remembrance of their visit to Chillon. It was Byron’s poem, “The
Prisoner of Chillon,” translated into French, so that Babette
could read it.
“The book may be very good,” said Rudy; “but that finely
combed fellow who gave it to you is not worth much.”
“He looks something like a flour-sack without any flour,”
said the miller, laughing at his own wit. Rudy laughed, too, for
so had he appeared to him.
XI. The Cousin
HEN Rudy went a few days after to pay a visit to the mill, he
found the young Englishman there. Babette was just thinking of
preparing some trout to set before him. She understood well how
to garnish the dish with parsley, and make it look quite
tempting. Rudy thought all this quite unnecessary. What did the
Englishman want there? What was he about? Why should he be
entertained, and waited upon by Babette? Rudy was jealous, and
that made Babette happy. It amused her to discover all the
feelings of his heart; the strong points and weak ones. Love was
to her as yet only a pastime, and she played with Rudy’s whole
heart. At the same time it must be acknowledged that her
fortune, her whole life, her inmost thoughts, her best and most
noble feelings in this world were all for him. Still the more
gloomy he looked, the more her eyes laughed. She could almost
have kissed the fair Englishman, with the golden whiskers, if by
so doing she could have put Rudy in a rage, and made him run out
of the house. That would have proved how much he loved her. All
this was not right in Babette, but she was only nineteen years
of age, and she did not reflect on what she did, neither did she
think that her conduct would appear to the young Englishman as
light, and not even becoming the modest and much-loved daughter
of the miller.
The mill at Bex stood in the highway, which passed under the
snow-clad mountains, and not far from a rapid mountain-stream,
whose waters seemed to have been lashed into a foam like
soap-suds. This stream, however, did not pass near enough to the
mill, and therefore the mill-wheel was turned by a smaller
stream which tumbled down the rocks on the opposite side, where
it was opposed by a stone mill-dam, and obtained greater
strength and speed, till it fell into a large basin, and from
thence through a channel to the mill-wheel. This channel
sometimes overflowed, and made the path so slippery that any one
passing that way might easily fall in, and be carried towards
the mill wheel with frightful rapidity. Such a catastrophe
nearly happened to the young Englishman. He had dressed himself
in white clothes, like a miller’s man, and was climbing the path
to the miller’s house, but he had never been taught to climb,
and therefore slipped, and nearly went in head-foremost. He
managed, however, to scramble out with wet sleeves and
bespattered trousers. Still, wet and splashed with mud, he
contrived to reach Babette’s window, to which he had been guided
by the light that shone from it. Here he climbed the old
linden-tree that stood near it, and began to imitate the voice
of an owl, the only bird he could venture to mimic. Babette
heard the noise, and glanced through the thin window curtain;
but when she saw the man in white, and guessed who he was, her
little heart beat with terror as well as anger. She quickly put
out the light, felt if the fastening of the window was secure,
and then left him to howl as long as he liked. How dreadful it
would be, thought Babette, if Rudy were here in the house. But
Rudy was not in the house. No, it was much worse, he was
outside, standing just under the linden-tree. He was speaking
loud, angry words. He could fight, and there might be murder!
Babette opened the window in alarm, and called Rudy’s name; she
told him to go away, she did not wish him to remain there.
“You do not wish me to stay,” cried he; “then this is an
appointment you expected—this good friend whom you prefer to me.
Shame on you, Babette!”
“You are detestable!” exclaimed Babette, bursting into tears.
“Go away. I hate you.”
“I have not deserved this,” said Rudy, as he turned away, his
cheeks burning, and his heart like fire.
Babette threw herself on the bed, and wept bitterly. “So much
as I loved thee, Rudy, and yet thou canst think ill of me.”
Thus her anger broke forth; it relieved her, however:
otherwise she would have been more deeply grieved; but now she
could sleep soundly, as youth only can sleep.
XII. Evil Powers
UDY left Bex, and took his way home along the mountain path. The
air was fresh, but cold; for here amidst the deep snow, the Ice
Maiden reigned. He was so high up that the large trees beneath
him, with their thick foliage, appeared like garden plants, and
the pines and bushes even less. The Alpine roses grew near the
snow, which lay in detached stripes, and looked like linen laid
out to bleach. A blue gentian grew in his path, and he crushed
it with the butt end of his gun. A little higher up, he espied
two chamois. Rudy’s eyes glistened, and his thoughts flew at
once in a different direction; but he was not near enough to
take a sure aim. He ascended still higher, to a spot where a few
rough blades of grass grew between the blocks of stone and the
chamois passed quietly on over the snow-fields. Rudy walked
hurriedly, while the clouds of mist gathered round him. Suddenly
he found himself on the brink of a precipitous rock. The rain
was falling in torrents. He felt a burning thirst, his head was
hot, and his limbs trembled with cold. He seized his
hunting-flask, but it was empty; he had not thought of filling
it before ascending the mountain. He had never been ill in his
life, nor ever experienced such sensations as those he now felt.
He was so tired that he could scarcely resist lying down at his
full length to sleep, although the ground was flooded with the
rain. Yet when he tried to rouse himself a little, every object
around him danced and trembled before his eyes.
Suddenly he observed in the doorway of a hut newly built
under the rock, a young maiden. He did not remember having seen
this hut before, yet there it stood; and he thought, at first,
that the young maiden was Annette, the schoolmaster’s daughter,
whom he had once kissed in the dance. The maiden was not
Annette; yet it seemed as if he had seen her somewhere before,
perhaps near Grindelwald, on the evening of his return home from
Interlachen, after the shooting-match.
“How did you come here?” he asked.
“I am at home,” she replied; “I am watching my flocks.”
“Your flocks!” he exclaimed; “where do they find pasture?
There is nothing here but snow and rocks.”
“Much you know of what grows here,” she replied, laughing.
“not far beneath us there is beautiful pasture-land. My goats go
there. I tend them carefully; I never miss one. What is once
mine remains mine.”
“You are bold,” said Rudy.
“And so are you,” she answered.
“Have you any milk in the house?” he asked; “if so, give me
some to drink; my thirst is intolerable.”
“I have something better than milk,” she replied, “which I
will give you. Some travellers who were here yesterday with
their guide left behind them a half a flask of wine, such as you
have never tasted. They will not come back to fetch it, I know,
and I shall not drink it; so you shall have it.”
Then the maiden went to fetch the wine, poured some into a
wooden cup, and offered it to Rudy.
“How good it is!” said he; “I have never before tasted such
warm, invigorating wine.” And his eyes sparkled with new life; a
glow diffused itself over his frame; it seemed as if every
sorrow, every oppression were banished from his mind, and a
fresh, free nature were stirring within him. “You are surely
Annette, the schoolmaster’s daughter,” cried he; “will you give
me a kiss?”
“Yes, if you will give me that beautiful ring which you wear
on your finger.”
“My betrothal ring?” he replied.
“Yes, just so,” said the maiden, as she poured out some more
wine, and held it to his lips. Again he drank, and a living joy
streamed through every vein.
“The whole world is mine, why therefore should I grieve?”
thought he. “Everything is created for our enjoyment and
happiness. The stream of life is a stream of happiness; let us
flow on with it to joy and felicity.”
Rudy gazed on the young maiden; it was Annette, and yet it
was not Annette; still less did he suppose it was the spectral
phantom, whom he had met near Grindelwald. The maiden up here on
the mountain was fresh as the new fallen snow, blooming as an
Alpine rose, and as nimble-footed as a young kid. Still, she was
one of Adam’s race, like Rudy. He flung his arms round the
beautiful being, and gazed into her wonderfully clear eyes,—only
for a moment; but in that moment words cannot express the effect
of his gaze. Was it the spirit of life or of death that
overpowered him? Was he rising higher, or sinking lower and
lower into the deep, deadly abyss? He knew not; but the walls of
ice shone like blue-green glass; innumerable clefts yawned
around him, and the water-drops tinkled like the chiming of
church bells, and shone clearly as pearls in the light of a
pale-blue flame. The Ice Maiden, for she it was, kissed him, and
her kiss sent a chill as of ice through his whole frame. A cry
of agony escaped from him; he struggled to get free, and
tottered from her. For a moment all was dark before his eyes,
but when he opened them again it was light, and the Alpine
maiden had vanished. The powers of evil had played their game;
the sheltering hut was no more to be seen. The water trickled
down the naked sides of the rocks, and snow lay thickly all
around. Rudy shivered with cold; he was wet through to the skin;
and his ring was gone,—the betrothal ring that Babette had given
him. His gun lay near him in the snow; he took it up and tried
to discharge it, but it missed fire. Heavy clouds lay on the
mountain clefts, like firm masses of snow. Upon one of these
Vertigo sat, lurking after his powerless prey, and from beneath
came a sound as if a piece of rock had fallen from the cleft,
and was crushing everything that stood in its way or opposed its
course.
But, at the miller’s, Babette sat alone and wept. Rudy had
not been to see her for six days. He who was in the wrong, and
who ought to ask her forgiveness; for did she not love him with
her whole heart?
XIII. At the Mill
HAT strange creatures human beings are,” said the parlor-cat to
the kitchen-cat; “Babette and Rudy have fallen out with each
other. She sits and cries, and he thinks no more about her.”
“That does not please me to hear,” said the kitchen-cat.
“Nor me either,” replied the parlor-cat; “but I do not take
it to heart. Babette may fall in love with the red whiskers, if
she likes, but he has not been here since he tried to get on the
roof.”
The powers of evil carry on their game both around us and
within us. Rudy knew this, and thought a great deal about it.
What was it that had happened to him on the mountain? Was it
really a ghostly apparition, or a fever dream? Rudy knew nothing
of fever, or any other ailment. But, while he judged Babette, he
began to examine his own conduct. He had allowed wild thoughts
to chase each other in his heart, and a fierce tornado to break
loose. Could he confess to Babette, indeed, every thought which
in the hour of temptation might have led him to wrong doing? He
had lost her ring, and that very loss had won him back to her.
Could she expect him to confess? He felt as if his heart would
break while he thought of it, and while so many memories
lingered on his mind. He saw her again, as she once stood before
him, a laughing, spirited child; many loving words, which she
had spoken to him out of the fulness of her love, came like a
ray of sunshine into his heart, and soon it was all sunshine as
he thought of Babette. But she must also confess she was wrong;
that she should do.
He went to the mill—he went to confession. It began with a
kiss, and ended with Rudy being considered the offender. It was
such a great fault to doubt Babette’s truth—it was most
abominable of him. Such mistrust, such violence, would cause
them both great unhappiness. This certainly was very true, she
knew that; and therefore Babette preached him a little sermon,
with which she was herself much amused, and during the preaching
of which she looked quite lovely. She acknowledged, however,
that on one point Rudy was right. Her godmother’s nephew was a
fop: she intended to burn the book which he had given her, so
that not the slightest thing should remain to remind her of him.
“Well, that quarrel is all over,” said the kitchen-cat. “Rudy
is come back, and they are friends again, which they say is the
greatest of all pleasures.”
“I heard the rats say one night,” said the kitchen-cat, “that
the greatest pleasure in the world was to eat tallow candles and
to feast on rancid bacon. Which are we to believe, the rats or
the lovers?”
“Neither of them,” said the parlor-cat; “it is always the
safest plan to believe nothing you hear.”
The greatest happiness was coming for Rudy and Babette. The
happy day, as it is called, that is, their wedding-day, was near
at hand. They were not to be married at the church at Bex, nor
at the miller’s house; Babette’s godmother wished the nuptials
to be solemnized at Montreux, in the pretty little church in
that town. The miller was very anxious that this arrangement
should be agreed to. He alone knew what the newly-married couple
would receive from Babette’s godmother, and he knew also that it
was a wedding present well worth a concession. The day was
fixed, and they were to travel as far as Villeneuve the evening
before, to be in time for the steamer which sailed in the
morning for Montreux, and the godmother’s daughters were to
dress and adorn the bride.
“Here in this house there ought to be a wedding-day kept,”
said the parlor-cat, “or else I would not give a mew for the
whole affair.”
“There is going to be great feasting,” replied the
kitchen-cat. “Ducks and pigeons have been killed, and a whole
roebuck hangs on the wall. It makes me lick my lips when I think
of it.”
“To-morrow morning they will begin the journey.”
Yes, to-morrow! And this evening, for the last time, Rudy and
Babette sat in the miller’s house as an engaged couple. Outside,
the Alps glowed in the evening sunset, the evening bells chimed,
and the children of the sunbeam sang, “Whatever happens is
best.”
XIV. Night Visions
HE sun had gone down, and the clouds lay low on the valley of
the Rhone. The wind blew from the south across the mountains; it
was an African wind, a wind which scattered the clouds for a
moment, and then suddenly fell. The broken clouds hung in
fantastic forms upon the wood-covered hills by the rapid Rhone.
They assumed the shapes of antediluvian animals, of eagles
hovering in the air, of frogs leaping over a marsh, and then
sunk down upon the rushing stream and appeared to sail upon it,
although floating in the air. An uprooted fir-tree was being
carried away by the current, and marking out its path by eddying
circles on the water. Vertigo and his sisters were dancing upon
it, and raising these circles on the foaming river. The moon
lighted up the snow on the mountain-tops, shone on the dark
woods, and on the drifting clouds those fantastic forms which at
night might be taken for spirits of the powers of nature. The
mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little
window. They sailed in hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came
out of her palace of ice. Then she seated herself on the trunk
of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water from the
glaciers carried her down the river to the open lake.
“The wedding guests are coming,” sounded from air and sea.
These were the sights and sounds without; within there were
visions, for Babette had a wonderful dream. She dreamt that she
had been married to Rudy for many years, and that, one day when
he was out chamois hunting, and she alone in their dwelling at
home, the young Englishman with the golden whiskers sat with
her. His eyes were quite eloquent, and his words possessed a
magic power; he offered her his hand, and she was obliged to
follow him. They went out of the house and stepped downwards,
always downwards, and it seemed to Babette as if she had a
weight on her heart which continually grew heavier. She felt she
was committing a sin against Rudy, a sin against God. Suddenly
she found herself forsaken, her clothes torn by the thorns, and
her hair gray; she looked upwards in her agony, and there, on
the edge of the rock, she espied Rudy. She stretched out her
arms to him, but she did not venture to call him or to pray; and
had she called him, it would have been useless, for it was not
Rudy, only his hunting coat and hat hanging on an alpenstock, as
the hunters sometimes arrange them to deceive the chamois. “Oh!”
she exclaimed in her agony; “oh, that I had died on the happiest
day of my life, my wedding-day. O my God, it would have been a
mercy and a blessing had Rudy travelled far away from me, and I
had never known him. None know what will happen in the future.”
And then, in ungodly despair, she cast herself down into the
deep rocky gulf. The spell was broken; a cry of terror escaped
her, and she awoke.
The dream was over; it had vanished. But she knew she had
dreamt something frightful about the young Englishman, yet
months had passed since she had seen him or even thought of him.
Was he still at Montreux, and should she meet him there on her
wedding day? A slight shadow passed over her pretty mouth as she
thought of this, and she knit her brows; but the smile soon
returned to her lip, and joy sparkled in her eyes, for this was
the morning of the day on which she and Rudy were to be married,
and the sun was shining brightly. Rudy was already in the parlor
when she entered it, and they very soon started for Villeneuve.
Both of them were overflowing with happiness, and the miller was
in the best of tempers, laughing and merry; he was a good,
honest soul, and a kind father.
“Now we are masters of the house,” said the parlor-cat.
XV. The Conclusion
T was early in the afternoon, and just at dinner-time, when the
three joyous travellers reached Villeneuve. After dinner, the
miller placed himself in the arm-chair, smoked his pipe, and had
a little nap. The bridal pair went arm-in-arm out through the
town and along the high road, at the foot of the wood-covered
rocks, and by the deep, blue lake.
The gray walls, and the heavy clumsy-looking towers of the
gloomy castle of Chillon, were reflected in the clear flood. The
little island, on which grew the three acacias, lay at a short
distance, looking like a bouquet rising from the lake. “How
delightful it must be to live there,” said Babette, who again
felt the greatest wish to visit the island; and an opportunity
offered to gratify her wish at once, for on the shore lay a
boat, and the rope by which it was moored could be very easily
loosened. They saw no one near, so they took possession of it
without asking permission of any one, and Rudy could row very
well. The oars divided the pliant water like the fins of a
fish—that water which, with all its yielding softness, is so
strong to bear and to carry, so mild and smiling when at rest,
and yet so terrible in its destroying power. A white streak of
foam followed in the wake of the boat, which, in a few minutes,
carried them both to the little island, where they went on
shore; but there was only just room enough for two to dance.
Rudy swung Babette round two or three times; and then,
hand-in-hand, they sat down on a little bench under the drooping
acacia-tree, and looked into each other’s eyes, while everything
around them glowed in the rays of the setting sun.
The fir-tree forests on the mountains were covered with a
purple hue like the heather bloom; and where the woods
terminated, and the rocks became prominent, they looked almost
transparent in the rich crimson glow of the evening sky. The
surface of the lake was like a bed of pink rose-leaves.
As the evening advanced, the shadows fell upon the
snow-capped mountains of Savoy painting them in colors of deep
blue, while their topmost peaks glowed like red lava; and for a
moment this light was reflected on the cultivated parts of the
mountains, making them appear as if newly risen from the lap of
earth, and giving to the snow-crested peak of the Dent du Midi
the appearance of the full moon as it rises above the horizon.
Rudy and Babette felt that they had never seen the Alpine
glow in such perfection before. “How very beautiful it is, and
what happiness to be here!” exclaimed Babette.
“Earth has nothing more to bestow upon me,” said Rudy; “an
evening like this is worth a whole life. Often have I realized
my good fortune, but never more than in this moment. I feel that
if my existence were to end now, I should still have lived a
happy life. What a glorious world this is; one day ends, and
another begins even more beautiful than the last. How infinitely
good God is, Babette!”
“I have such complete happiness in my heart,” said she.
“Earth has no more to bestow,” answered Rudy. And then came
the sound of the evening bells, borne upon the breeze over the
mountains of Switzerland and Savoy, while still, in the golden
splendor of the west, stood the dark blue mountains of Jura.
“God grant you all that is brightest and best!” exclaimed
Babette.
“He will,” said Rudy. “He will to-morrow. To-morrow you will
be wholly mine, my own sweet wife.”
“The boat!” cried Babette, suddenly. The boat in which they
were to return had broken loose, and was floating away from the
island.
“I will fetch it back,” said Rudy; throwing off his coat and
boots, he sprang into the lake, and swam with strong efforts
towards it.
The dark-blue water, from the glaciers of the mountains, was
icy cold and very deep. Rudy gave but one glance into the water
beneath; but in that one glance he saw a gold ring rolling,
glittering, and sparkling before him. His engaged ring came into
his mind; but this was larger, and spread into a glittering
circle, in which appeared a clear glacier. Deep chasms yawned
around it, the water-drops glittered as if lighted with blue
flame, and tinkled like the chiming of church bells. In one
moment he saw what would require many words to describe. Young
hunters, and young maidens—men and women who had sunk in the
deep chasms of the glaciers—stood before him here in lifelike
forms, with eyes open and smiles on their lips; and far beneath
them could be heard the chiming of the church bells of buried
villages, where the villagers knelt beneath the vaulted arches
of churches in which ice-blocks formed the organ pipes, and the
mountain stream the music.
On the clear, transparent ground sat the Ice Maiden. She
raised herself towards Rudy, and kissed his feet; and instantly
a cold, deathly chill, like an electric shock, passed through
his limbs. Ice or fire! It was impossible to tell, the shock was
so instantaneous.
“Mine! mine!” sounded around him, and within him; “I kissed
thee when thou wert a little child. I once kissed thee on the
mouth, and now I have kissed thee from heel to toe; thou art
wholly mine.” And then he disappeared in the clear, blue water.
All was still. The church bells were silent; the last tone
floated away with the last red glimmer on the evening clouds.
“Thou art mine,” sounded from the depths below: but from the
heights above, from the eternal world, also sounded the words,
“Thou art mine!” Happy was he thus to pass from life to life,
from earth to heaven. A chord was loosened, and tones of sorrow
burst forth. The icy kiss of death had overcome the perishable
body; it was but the prelude before life’s real drama could
begin, the discord which was quickly lost in harmony. Do you
think this a sad story? Poor Babette! for her it was unspeakable
anguish.
The boat drifted farther and farther away. No one on the
opposite shore knew that the betrothed pair had gone over to the
little island. The clouds sunk as the evening drew on, and it
became dark. Alone, in despair, she waited and trembled. The
weather became fearful; flash after flash lighted up the
mountains of Jura, Savoy, and Switzerland, while peals of
thunder, that lasted for many minutes, rolled over her head. The
lightning was so vivid that every single vine stem could be seen
for a moment as distinctly as in the sunlight at noon-day; and
then all was veiled in darkness. It flashed across the lake in
winding, zigzag lines, lighting it up on all sides; while the
echoes of the thunder grew louder and stronger. On land, the
boats were all carefully drawn up on the beach, every living
thing sought shelter, and at length the rain poured down in
torrents.
“Where can Rudy and Babette be in this awful weather?” said
the miller.
Poor Babette sat with her hands clasped, and her head bowed
down, dumb with grief; she had ceased to weep and cry for help.
“In the deep water!” she said to herself; “far down he lies,
as if beneath a glacier.”
Deep in her heart rested the memory of what Rudy had told her
of the death of his mother, and of his own recovery, even after
he had been taken up as dead from the cleft in the glacier.
“Ah,” she thought, “the Ice Maiden has him at last.”
Suddenly there came a flash of lightning, as dazzling as the
rays of the sun on the white snow. The lake rose for a moment
like a shining glacier; and before Babette stood the pallid,
glittering, majestic form of the Ice Maiden, and at her feet lay
Rudy’s corpse.
“Mine!” she cried, and again all was darkness around the
heaving water.
“How cruel,” murmured Babette; “why should he die just as the
day of happiness drew near? Merciful God, enlighten my
understanding, shed light upon my heart; for I cannot comprehend
the arrangements of Thy providence, even while I bow to the
decree of Thy almighty wisdom and power.” And God did enlighten
her heart.
A sudden flash of thought, like a ray of mercy, recalled her
dream of the preceding night; all was vividly represented before
her. She remembered the words and wishes she had then expressed,
that what was best for her and for Rudy she might piously submit
to.
“Woe is me,” she said; “was the germ of sin really in my
heart? was my dream a glimpse into the course of my future life,
whose thread must be violently broken to rescue me from sin? Oh,
miserable creature that I am!”
Thus she sat lamenting in the dark night, while through the
deep stillness the last words of Rudy seemed to ring in her
ears. “This earth has nothing more to bestow.” Words, uttered in
the fulness of joy, were again heard amid the depths of sorrow.
Years have passed since this sad event happened. The shores
of the peaceful lake still smile in beauty. The vines are full
of luscious grapes. Steamboats, with waving flags, pass swiftly
by. Pleasure-boats, with their swelling sails, skim lightly over
the watery mirror, like white butterflies. The railway is opened
beyond Chillon, and goes far into the deep valley of the Rhone.
At every station strangers alight with red-bound guide-books in
their hands, in which they read of every place worth seeing.
They visit Chillon, and observe on the lake the little island
with the three acacias, and then read in their guide-book the
story of the bridal pair who, in the year 1856, rowed over to
it. They read that the two were missing till the next morning,
when some people on the shore heard the despairing cries of the
bride, and went to her assistance, and by her were told of the
bridegroom’s fate.
But the guide-book does not speak of Babette’s quiet life
afterwards with her father, not at the mill—strangers dwell
there now—but in a pretty house in a row near the station. On
many an evening she sits at her window, and looks out over the
chestnut-trees to the snow-capped mountains on which Rudy once
roamed. She looks at the Alpine glow in the evening sky, which
is caused by the children of the sun retiring to rest on the
mountain-tops; and again they breathe their song of the
traveller whom the whirlwind could deprive of his cloak but not
of his life. There is a rosy tint on the mountain snow, and
there are rosy gleams in each heart in which dwells the thought,
“God permits nothing to happen, which is not the best for us.”
But this is not often revealed to all, as it was revealed to
Babette in her wonderful dream.
|
The Psyche
IN the fresh morning dawn, in the rosy air gleams a great Star,
the brightest Star of the morning. His rays tremble on the white
wall, as if he wished to write down on it what he can tell, what
he has seen there and elsewhere during thousands of years in our
rolling world. Let us hear one of his stories.
“A short time ago”—the Star’s “short time ago” is called
among men “centuries ago”—“my rays followed a young artist. It
was in the city of the Popes, in the world-city, Rome. Much has
been changed there in the course of time, but the changes have
not come so quickly as the change from youth to old age. Then
already the palace of the Caesars was a ruin, as it is now; fig
trees and laurels grew among the fallen marble columns, and in
the desolate bathing-halls, where the gilding still clings to
the wall; the Coliseum was a gigantic ruin; the church bells
sounded, the incense sent up its fragrant cloud, and through the
streets marched processions with flaming tapers and glowing
canopies. Holy Church was there, and art was held as a high and
holy thing. In Rome lived the greatest painter in the world,
Raphael; there also dwelt the first of sculptors, Michael
Angelo. Even the Pope paid homage to these two, and honored them
with a visit. Art was recognized and honored, and was rewarded
also. But, for all that, everything great and splendid was not
seen and known.
“In a narrow lane stood an old house. Once it had been a
temple; a young sculptor now dwelt there. He was young and quite
unknown. He certainly had friends, young artists, like himself,
young in spirit, young in hopes and thoughts; they told him he
was rich in talent, and an artist, but that he was foolish for
having no faith in his own power; for he always broke what he
had fashioned out of clay, and never completed anything; and a
work must be completed if it is to be seen and to bring money.
“‘You are a dreamer,’ they went on to say to him, ‘and that’s
your misfortune. But the reason of this is, that you have never
lived, you have never tasted life, you have never enjoyed it in
great wholesome draughts, as it ought to be enjoyed. In youth
one must mingle one’s own personality with life, that they may
become one. Look at the great master Raphael, whom the Pope
honors and the world admires. He’s no despiser of wine and
bread.’
“‘And he even appreciates the baker’s daughter, the pretty
Fornarina,’ added Angelo, one of the merriest of the young
friends.
“Yes, they said a good many things of the kind, according to
their age and their reason. They wanted to draw the young artist
out with them into the merry wild life, the mad life as it might
also be called; and at certain times he felt an inclination for
it. He had warm blood, a strong imagination, and could take part
in the merry chat, and laugh aloud with the rest; but what they
called ‘Raphael’s merry life’ disappeared before him like a
vapor when he saw the divine radiance that beamed forth from the
pictures of the great master; and when he stood in the Vatican,
before the forms of beauty which the masters had hewn out of
marble thousands of years since, his breast swelled, and he felt
within himself something high, something holy, something
elevating, great and good, and he wished that he could produce
similar forms from the blocks of marble. He wished to make a
picture of that which was within him, stirring upward from his
heart to the realms of the Infinite; but how, and in what form?
The soft clay was fashioned under his fingers into forms of
beauty, but the next day he broke what he had fashioned,
according to his wont.
“One day he walked past one of those rich palaces of which
Rome has many to show. He stopped before the great open portal,
and beheld a garden surrounded by cloistered walks. The garden
bloomed with a goodly show of the fairest roses. Great white
lilies with green juicy leaves shot upward from the marble basin
in which the clear water was splashing; and a form glided past,
the daughter of the princely house, graceful, delicate, and
wonderfully fair. Such a form of female loveliness he had never
before beheld—yet stay: he had seen it, painted by Raphael,
painted as a Psyche, in one of the Roman palaces. Yes, there it
had been painted; but here it passed by him in living reality.
“The remembrance lived in his thoughts, in his heart. He went
home to his humble room, and modelled a Psyche of clay. It was
the rich young Roman girl, the noble maiden; and for the first
time he looked at his work with satisfaction. It had a meaning
for him, for it was she. And the friends who saw his work
shouted aloud for joy; they declared that this work was a
manifestation of his artistic power, of which they had long been
aware, and that now the world should be made aware of it too.
“The clay figure was lifelike and beautiful, but it had not
the whiteness or the durability of marble. So they declared that
the Psyche must henceforth live in marble. He already possessed
a costly block of that stone. It had been lying for years, the
property of his parents, in the courtyard. Fragments of glass,
climbing weeds, and remains of artichokes had gathered about it
and sullied its purity; but under the surface the block was as
white as the mountain snow; and from this block the Psyche was
to arise.”
Now, it happened one morning—the bright Star tells nothing
about this, but we know it occurred—that a noble Roman company
came into the narrow lane. The carriage stopped at the top of
the lane, and the company proceeded on foot towards the house,
to inspect the young sculptor’s work, for they had heard him
spoken of by chance. And who were these distinguished guests?
Poor young man! or fortunate young man he might be called. The
noble young lady stood in the room and smiled radiantly when her
father said to her, “It is your living image.” That smile could
not be copied, any more than the look could be reproduced, the
wonderful look which she cast upon the young artist. It was a
fiery look, that seemed at once to elevate and to crush him.
“The Psyche must be executed in marble,” said the wealthy
patrician. And those were words of life for the dead clay and
the heavy block of marble, and words of life likewise for the
deeply-moved artist. “When the work is finished I will purchase
it,” continued the rich noble.
A new era seemed to have arisen in the poor studio. Life and
cheerfulness gleamed there, and busy industry plied its work.
The beaming Morning Star beheld how the work progressed. The
clay itself seemed inspired since she had been there, and
moulded itself, in heightened beauty, to a likeness of the
well-known features.
“Now I know what life is,” cried the artist rejoicingly; “it
is Love! It is the lofty abandonment of self for the dawning of
the beautiful in the soul! What my friends call life and
enjoyment is a passing shadow; it is like bubbles among seething
dregs, not the pure heavenly wine that consecrates us to life.”
The marble block was reared in its place. The chisel struck
great fragments from it; the measurements were taken, points and
lines were made, the mechanical part was executed, till
gradually the stone assumed a human female form, a shape of
beauty, and became converted into the Psyche, fair and
glorious—a divine being in human shape. The heavy stone appeared
as a gliding, dancing, airy Psyche, with the heavenly innocent
smile—the smile that had mirrored itself in the soul of the
young artist.
The Star of the roseate dawn beheld and understood what was
stirring within the young man, and could read the meaning of the
changing color of his cheek, of the light that flashed from his
eye, as he stood busily working, reproducing what had been put
into his soul from above.
“Thou art a master like those masters among the ancient
Greeks,” exclaimed his delighted friends; “soon shall the whole
world admire thy Psyche.”
“My Psyche!” he repeated. “Yes, mine. She must be mine. I,
too, am an artist, like those great men who are gone. Providence
has granted me the boon, and has made me the equal of that lady
of noble birth.”
And he knelt down and breathed a prayer of thankfulnesss to
Heaven, and then he forgot Heaven for her sake—for the sake of
her picture in stone—for her Psyche which stood there as if
formed of snow, blushing in the morning dawn.
He was to see her in reality, the living, graceful Psyche,
whose words sounded like music in his ears. He could now carry
the news into the rich palace that the marble Psyche was
finished. He betook himself thither, strode through the open
courtyard where the waters ran splashing from the dolphin’s jaws
into the marble basins, where the snowy lilies and the fresh
roses bloomed in abundance. He stepped into the great lofty
hall, whose walls and ceilings shone with gilding and bright
colors and heraldic devices. Gayly-dressed serving-men, adorned
with trappings like sleigh horses, walked to and fro, and some
reclined at their ease upon the carved oak seats, as if they
were the masters of the house. He told them what had brought him
to the palace, and was conducted up the shining marble
staircase, covered with soft carpets and adorned with many a
statue. Then he went on through richly-furnished chambers, over
mosaic floors, amid gorgeous pictures. All this pomp and luxury
seemed to weary him; but soon he felt relieved, for the princely
old master of the house received him most graciously,, almost
heartily; and when he took his leave he was requested to step
into the Signora’s apartment, for she, too, wished to see him.
The servants led him through more luxurious halls and chambers
into her room, where she appeared the chief and leading
ornament.
She spoke to him. No hymn of supplication, no holy chant,
could melt his soul like the sound of her voice. He took her
hand and lifted it to his lips. No rose was softer, but a fire
thrilled through him from this rose—a feeling of power came upon
him, and words poured from his tongue—he knew not what he said.
Does the crater of the volcano know that the glowing lava is
pouring from it? He confessed what he felt for her. She stood
before him astonished, offended, proud, with contempt in her
face, an expression of disgust, as if she had suddenly touched a
cold unclean reptile. Her cheeks reddened, her lips grew white,
and her eyes flashed fire, though they were dark as the
blackness of night.
“Madman!” she cried, “away! begone!”
And she turned her back upon him. Her beautiful face wore an
expression like that of the stony countenance with the snaky
locks.
Like a stricken, fainting man, he tottered down the staircase
and out into the street. Like a man walking in his sleep, he
found his way back to his dwelling. Then he woke up to madness
and agony, and seized his hammer, swung it high in the air, and
rushed forward to shatter the beautiful marble image. But, in
his pain, he had not noticed that his friend Angelo stood beside
him; and Angelo held back his arm with a strong grasp, crying,
“Are you mad? What are you about?”
They struggled together. Angelo was the stronger; and, with a
deep sigh of exhaustion, the young artist threw himself into a
chair.
“What has happened?” asked Angelo. “Command yourself. Speak!”
But what could he say? How could he explain? And as Angelo
could make no sense of his friend’s incoherent words, he forbore
to question him further, and merely said,
“Your blood grows thick from your eternal dreaming. Be a man,
as all others are, and don’t go on living in ideals, for that is
what drives men crazy. A jovial feast will make you sleep
quietly and happily. Believe me, the time will come when you
will be old, and your sinews will shrink, and then, on some fine
sunshiny day, when everything is laughing and rejoicing, you
will lie there a faded plant, that will grow no more. I do not
live in dreams, but in reality. Come with me. Be a man!”
And he drew the artist away with him. At this moment he was
able to do so, for a fire ran in the blood of the young
sculptor; a change had taken place in his soul; he felt a
longing to tear from the old, the accustomed—to forget, if
possible, his own individuality; and therefore it was that he
followed Angelo.
In an out-of-the-way suburb of Rome lay a tavern much visited
by artists. It was built on the ruins of some ancient baths. The
great yellow citrons hung down among the dark shining leaves,
and covered a part of the old reddish-yellow walls. The tavern
consisted of a vaulted chamber, almost like a cavern, in the
ruins. A lamp burned there before the picture of the Madonna. A
great fire gleamed on the hearth, and roasting and boiling was
going on there; without, under the citron trees and laurels,
stood a few covered tables.
The two artists were received by their friends with shouts of
welcome. Little was eaten, but much was drunk, and the spirits
of the company rose. Songs were sung and ditties were played on
the guitar; presently the Salterello sounded, and the merry
dance began. Two young Roman girls, who sat as models to the
artists, took part in the dance and in the festivity. Two
charming Bacchantes were they; certainly not Psyches—not
delicate, beautiful roses, but fresh, hearty, glowing
carnations.
How hot it was on that day! Even after sundown it was hot.
There was fire in the blood, fire in every glance, fire
everywhere. The air gleamed with gold and roses, and life seemed
like gold and roses.
“At last you have joined us, for once,” said his friends.
“Now let yourself be carried by the waves within and around
you.”
“Never yet have I felt so well, so merry!” cried the young
artist. “You are right—you are all of you right. I was a fool—a
dreamer. Man belongs to reality, and not to fancy.”
With songs and with sounding guitars the young people
returned that evening from the tavern, through the narrow
streets; the two glowing carnations, daughters of the Campagna,
went with them.
In Angelo’s room, among a litter of colored sketches
(studies) and glowing pictures, the voices sounded mellower, but
not less merrily. On the ground lay many a sketch that resembled
the daughters of the Campagna, in their fresh, hearty
comeliness, but the two originals were far handsomer than their
portraits. All the burners of the six-armed lamp flared and
flamed; and the human flamed up from within, and appeared in the
glare as if it were divine.
“Apollo! Jupiter! I feel myself raised to our heaven—to your
glory! I feel as if the blossom of life were unfolding itself in
my veins at this moment!”
Yes, the blossom unfolded itself, and then burst and fell,
and an evil vapor arose from it, blinding the sight, leading
astray the fancy; the firework of the senses went out, and it
became dark.
He was again in his own room. There he sat down on his bed
and collected his thoughts.
“Fie on thee!” these were the words that sounded out of his
mouth from the depths of his heart. “Wretched man, go, begone!”
And a deep painful sigh burst from his bosom.
“Away! begone!” These, her words, the words of the living
Psyche, echoed through his heart, escaped from his lips. He
buried his head in the pillows, his thoughts grew confused, and
he fell asleep.
In the morning dawn he started up, and collected his thoughts
anew. What had happened? Had all the past been a dream? The
visit to her, the feast at the tavern, the evening with the
purple carnations of the Campagna? No, it was all real—a reality
he had never before experienced.
In the purple air gleamed the bright Star, and its beams fell
upon him and upon the marble Psyche. He trembled as he looked at
that picture of immortality, and his glance seemed impure to
him. He threw the cloth over the statue, and then touched it
once more to unveil the form—but he was not able to look again
at his own work.
Gloomy, quiet, absorbed in his own thoughts, he sat there
through the long day; he heard nothing of what was going on
around him, and no man guessed what was passing in this human
soul.
And days and weeks went by, but the nights passed more slowly
than the days. The flashing Star beheld him one morning as he
rose, pale and trembling with fever, from his sad couch; then he
stepped towards the statue, threw back the covering, took one
long, sorrowful gaze at his work, and then, almost sinking
beneath the burden, he dragged the statue out into the garden.
In that place was an old dry well, now nothing but a hole. Into
this he cast the Psyche, threw earth in above her, and covered
up the spot with twigs and nettles.
“Away! begone!” Such was the short epitaph he spoke.
The Star beheld all this from the pink morning sky, and its
beam trembled upon two great tears upon the pale feverish cheeks
of the young man; and soon it was said that he was sick unto
death, and he lay stretched upon a bed of pain.
The convent Brother Ignatius visited him as a physician and a
friend, and brought him words of comfort, of religion, and spoke
to him of the peace and happiness of the church, of the
sinfulness of man, of rest and mercy to be found in heaven.
And the words fell like warm sunbeams upon a teeming soil.
The soil smoked and sent up clouds of mist, fantastic pictures,
pictures in which there was reality; and from these floating
islands he looked across at human life. He found it vanity and
delusion—and vanity and delusion it had been to him. They told
him that art was a sorcerer, betraying us to vanity and to
earthly lusts; that we are false to ourselves, unfaithful to our
friends, unfaithful towards Heaven; and that the serpent was
always repeating within us, “Eat, and thou shalt become as God.”
And it appeared to him as if now, for the first time, he knew
himself, and had found the way that leads to truth and to peace.
In the church was the light and the brightness of God—in the
monk’s cell he should find the rest through which the tree of
human life might grow on into eternity.
Brother Ignatius strengthened his longings, and the
determination became firm within him. A child of the world
became a servant of the church—the young artist renounced the
world, and retired into the cloister.
The brothers came forward affectionately to welcome him, and
his inauguration was as a Sunday feast. Heaven seemed to him to
dwell in the sunshine of the church, and to beam upon him from
the holy pictures and from the cross. And when, in the evening,
at the sunset hour, he stood in his little cell, and, opening
the window, looked out upon old Rome, upon the desolated
temples, and the great dead Coliseum—when he saw all this in its
spring garb, when the acacias bloomed, and the ivy was fresh,
and roses burst forth everywhere, and the citron and orange were
in the height of their beauty, and the palm trees waved their
branches—then he felt a deeper emotion than had ever yet
thrilled through him. The quiet open Campagna spread itself
forth towards the blue snow-covered mountains, which seemed to
be painted in the air; all the outlines melting into each other,
breathing peace and beauty, floating, dreaming—and all appearing
like a dream!
Yes, this world was a dream, and the dream lasts for hours,
and may return for hours; but convent life is a life of
years—long years, and many years.
From within comes much that renders men sinful and impure. He
fully realized the truth of this. What flames arose up in him at
times! What a source of evil, of that which we would not, welled
up continually! He mortified his body, but the evil came from
within.
One day, after the lapse of many years, he met Angelo, who
recognized him.
“Man!” exclaimed Angelo. “Yes, it is thou! Art thou happy
now? Thou hast sinned against God, and cast away His boon from
thee—hast neglected thy mission in this world! Read the parable
of the intrusted talent! The MASTER, who spoke that parable,
spoke the truth! What hast thou gained? What hast thou found?
Dost thou not fashion for thyself a religion and a dreamy life
after thine own idea, as almost all do? Suppose all this is a
dream, a fair delusion!”
“Get thee away from me, Satan!” said the monk; and he quitted
Angelo.
“There is a devil, a personal devil! This day I have seen
him!” said the monk to himself. “Once I extended a finger to
him, and he took my whole hand. But now,” he sighed, “the evil
is within me, and it is in yonder man; but it does not bow him
down; he goes abroad with head erect, and enjoys his comfort;
and I grasped at comfort in the consolations of religion. If it
were nothing but a consolation? Supposing everything here were,
like the world I have quitted, only a beautiful fancy, a
delusion like the beauty of the evening clouds, like the misty
blue of the distant hills!—when you approach them, they are very
different! O eternity! Thou actest like the great calm ocean,
that beckons us, and fills us with expectation—and when we
embark upon thee, we sink, disappear, and cease to be. Delusion!
away with it! begone!”
And tearless, but sunk in bitter reflection, he sat upon his
hard couch, and then knelt down—before whom? Before the stone
cross fastened to the wall? No, it was only habit that made him
take this position.
The more deeply he looked into his own heart, the blacker did
the darkness seem.—“Nothing within, nothing without—this life
squanderied and cast away!” And this thought rolled and grew
like a snowball, until it seemed to crush him.
“I can confide my griefs to none. I may speak to none of the
gnawing worm within. My secret is my prisoner; if I let the
captive escape, I shall be his!”
And the godlike power that dwelt within him suffered and
strove.
“O Lord, my Lord!” he cried, in his despair, “be merciful and
grant me faith. I threw away the gift thou hadst vouchsafed to
me, I left my mission unfulfilled. I lacked strength, and
strength thou didst not give me. Immortality—the Psyche in my
breast—away with it!—it shall be buried like that Psyche, the
best gleam of my life; never will it arise out of its grave!”
The Star glowed in the roseate air, the Star that shall
surely be extinguished and pass away while the soul still lives
on; its trembling beam fell upon the white wall, but it wrote
nothing there upon being made perfect in God, nothing of the
hope of mercy, of the reliance on the divine love that thrills
through the heart of the believer.
“The Psyche within can never die. Shall it live in
consciousness? Can the incomprehensible happen? Yes, yes. My
being is incomprehensible. Thou art unfathomable, O Lord. Thy
whole world is incomprehensible—a wonder-work of power, of glory
and of love.”
His eyes gleamed, and then closed in death. The tolling of
the church bell was the last sound that echoed above him, above
the dead man; and they buried him, covering him with earth that
had been brought from Jerusalem, and in which was mingled the
dust of many of the pious dead.
When years had gone by his skeleton was dug up, as the
skeletons of the monks who had died before him had been; it was
clad in a brown frock, a rosary was put into the bony hand, and
the form was placed among the ranks of other skeletons in the
cloisters of the convent. And the sun shone without, while
within the censers were waved and the Mass was celebrated.
And years rolled by.
The bones fell asunder and became mingled with others. Skulls
were piled up till they formed an outer wall around the church;
and there lay also his head in the burning sun, for many dead
were there, and no one knew their names, and his name was
forgotten also. And see, something was moving in the sunshine,
in the sightless cavernous eyes! What might that be? A sparkling
lizard moved about in the skull, gliding in and out through the
sightless holes. The lizard now represented all the life left in
that head, in which once great thoughts, bright dreams, the love
of art and of the glorious, had arisen, whence hot tears had
rolled down, where hope and immortality had had their being. The
lizard sprang away and disappeared, and the skull itself
crumbled to pieces and became dust among dust.
Centuries passed away. The bright Star gleamed unaltered,
radiant and large, as it had gleamed for thousands of years, and
the air glowed red with tints fresh as roses, crimson like
blood.
There, where once had stood the narrow lane containing the
ruins of the temple, a nunnery was now built. A grave was being
dug in the convent garden for a young nun who had died, and was
to be laid in the earth this morning. The spade struck against a
hard substance; it was a stone, that shone dazzling white. A
block of marble soon appeared, a rounded shoulder was laid bare;
and now the spade was plied with a more careful hand, and
presently a female head was seen, and butterflies’ wings. Out of
the grave in which the young nun was to be laid they lifted, in
the rosy morning, a wonderful statue of a Psyche carved in white
marble.
“How beautiful, how perfect it is!” cried the spectators. “A
relic of the best period of art.”
And who could the sculptor have been? No one knew; no one
remembered him, except the bright star that had gleamed for
thousands of years. The star had seen the course of that life on
earth, and knew of the man’s trials, of his weakness—in fact,
that he had been but human. The man’s life had passed away, his
dust had been scattered abroad as dust is destined to be; but
the result of his noblest striving, the glorious work that gave
token of the divine element within him—the Psyche that never
dies, that lives beyond posterity—the brightness even of this
earthly Psyche remained here after him, and was seen and
acknowledged and appreciated.
The bright Morning Star in the roseate air threw its glancing
ray downward upon the Psyche, and upon the radiant countenances
of the admiring spectators, who here beheld the image of the
soul portrayed in marble.
What is earthly will pass away and be forgotten, and the Star
in the vast firmament knows it. What is heavenly will shine
brightly through posterity; and when the ages of posterity are
past, the Psyche—the soul—will still live on!
|
“The Will-o’-the-Wisp Is in the Town,” Says the Moor-Woman
THERE was a man who once knew many stories, but they had slipped
away from him—so he said. The Story that used to visit him of
its own accord no longer came and knocked at his door. And why
did it come no longer? It is true enough that for days and years
the man had not thought of it, had not expected it to come and
knock; and if he had expected it, it would certainly not have
come; for without there was war, and within was the care and
sorrow that war brings with it.
The stork and the swallows came back from their long journey,
for they thought of no danger; and, behold, when they arrived,
the nest was burnt, the habitations of men were burnt, the
hedges were all in disorder, and everything seemed gone, and the
enemy’s horses were stamping in the old graves. Those were hard,
gloomy times, but they came to an end.
And now they were past and gone—so people said; yet no Story
came and knocked at the door, or gave any tidings of its
presence.
“I suppose it must be dead, or gone away with many other
things,” said the man.
But the story never dies. And more than a whole year went by,
and he longed—oh, so very much!—for the Story.
“I wonder if the Story will ever come back again and knock?”
And he remembered it so well in all the various forms in
which it had come to him, sometimes young and charming, like
spring itself, sometimes as a beautiful maiden, with a wreath of
thyme in her hair, and a beechen branch in her hand, and with
eyes that gleamed like deep woodland lakes in the bright
sunshine.
Sometimes it had come to him in the guise of a peddler, and
had opened its box and let silver ribbon come fluttering out,
with verses and inscriptions of old remembrances.
But it was most charming of all when it came as an old
grandmother, with silvery hair, and such large, sensible eyes.
She knew so well how to tell about the oldest times, long before
the princesses spun with the golden spindles, and the dragons
lay outside the castles, guarding them. She told with such an
air of truth, that black spots danced before the eyes of all who
heard her, and the floor became black with human blood; terrible
to see and to hear, and yet so entertaining, because such a long
time had passed since it all happened.
“Will it ever knock at my door again?” said the man, and he
gazed at the door, so that black spots came before his eyes and
upon the floor; he did not know if it was blood, or mourning
crape from the dark heavy days.
And as he sat thus, the thought came upon him whether the
Story might not have hidden itself, like the princess in the old
tale. And he would now go in search of it; if he found it, it
would beam in new splendor, lovelier than ever.
“Who knows? Perhaps it has hidden itself in the straw that
balances on the margin of the well. Carefully, carefully!
Perhaps it lies hidden in a certain flower—that flower in one of
the great books on the book-shelf.”
And the man went and opened one of the newest books, to gain
information on this point; but there was no flower to be found.
There he read about Holger Danske; and the man read that the
tale had been invented and put together by a monk in France,
that it was a romance, “translated into Danish and printed in
that language;” that Holger Danske had never really lived, and
consequently could never come again, as we have sung, and have
been so glad to believe. And William Tell was treated just like
Holger Danske. These were all only myths—nothing on which we
could depend; and yet it is all written in a very learned book.
“Well, I shall believe what I believe!” said the man. “There
grows no plantain where no foot has trod.”
And he closed the book and put it back in its place, and went
to the fresh flowers at the window. Perhaps the Story might have
hidden itself in the red tulips, with the golden yellow edges,
or in the fresh rose, or in the beaming camellia. The sunshine
lay among the flowers, but no Story.
The flowers which had been here in the dark troublous time
had been much more beautiful; but they had been cut off, one
after another, to be woven into wreaths and placed in coffins,
and the flag had waved over them! Perhaps the Story had been
buried with the flowers; but then the flowers would have known
of it, and the coffin would have heard it, and every little
blade of grass that shot forth would have told of it. The Story
never dies.
Perhaps it has been here once, and has knocked; but who had
eyes or ears for it in those times? People looked darkly,
gloomily, and almost angrily at the sunshine of spring, at the
twittering birds, and all the cheerful green; the tongue could
not even bear the old merry, popular songs, and they were laid
in the coffin with so much that our heart held dear. The Story
may have knocked without obtaining a hearing; there was none to
bid it welcome, and so it may have gone away.
“I will go forth and seek it. Out in the country! out in the
wood! and on the open sea beach!”
Out in the country lies an old manor house, with red walls,
pointed gables, and a red flag that floats on the tower. The
nightingale sings among the finely-fringed beech-leaves, looking
at the blooming apple trees of the garden, and thinking that
they bear roses. Here the bees are mightily busy in the
summer-time, and hover round their queen with their humming
song. The autumn has much to tell of the wild chase, of the
leaves of the trees, and of the races of men that are passing
away together. The wild swans sing at Christmas-time on the open
water, while in the old hall the guests by the fireside gladly
listen to songs and to old legends.
Down into the old part of the garden, where the great avenue
of wild chestnut trees lures the wanderer to tread its shades,
went the man who was in search of the Story; for here the wind
had once murmured something to him of “Waldemar Daa and his
Daughters.” The Dryad in the tree, who was the Story-mother
herself, had here told him the “Dream of the Old Oak Tree.”
Here, in the time of the ancestral mother, had stood clipped
hedges, but now only ferns and stinging nettles grew there,
hiding the scattered fragments of old sculptured figures; the
moss is growing in their eyes, but they can see as well as ever,
which was more than the man could do who was in search of the
Story, for he could not find that. Where could it be?
The crows flew past him by hundreds across the old trees, and
screamed, “Krah! da!—Krah! da!”
And he went out of the garden and over the grass-plot of the
yard, into the alder grove; there stood a little six-sided
house, with a poultry-yard and a duck-yard. In the middle of the
room sat the old woman who had the management of the whole, and
who knew accurately about every egg that was laid, and about
every chicken that could creep out of an egg. But she was not
the Story of which the man was in search; that she could attest
with a Christian certificate of baptism and of vaccination that
lay in her drawer.
Without, not far from the house, is a hill covered with
red-thorn and broom. Here lies an old grave-stone, which was
brought here many years ago from the churchyard of the
provincial town, a remembrance of one of the most honored
councillors of the place; his wife and his five daughters, all
with folded hands and stiff ruffs, stand round him. One could
look at them so long, that it had an effect upon the thoughts,
and these reacted upon the stones, as if they were telling of
old times; at least it had been so with the man who was in
search of the Story.
As he came nearer, he noticed a living butterfly sitting on
the forehead of the sculptured councillor. The butterfly flapped
its wings, and flew a little bit farther, and then returned
fatigued to sit upon the grave-stone, as if to point out what
grew there. Four-leaved shamrocks grew there; there were seven
specimens close to each other. When fortune comes, it comes in a
heap. He plucked the shamrocks and put them in his pocket.
“Fortune is as good as red gold, but a new charming story
would be better still,” thought the man; but he could not find
it here.
And the sun went down, round and large; the meadow was
covered with vapor. The Moor-woman was at her brewing.
It was evening. He stood alone in his room, and looked out
upon the sea, over the meadow, over moor and coast. The moon
shone bright, a mist was over the meadow, making it look like a
great lake; and, indeed, it was once so, as the legend tells—and
in the moonlight the eye realizes these myths.
Then the man thought of what he had been reading in the town,
that William Tell and Holger Danske never really lived, but yet
live in popular story, like the lake yonder, a living evidence
for such myths. Yes, Holger Danske will return again!
As he stood thus and thought, something beat quite strongly
against the window. Was it a bird, a bat or an owl? Those are
not let in, even when they knock. The window flew open of
itself, and an old woman looked in at the man.
“What’s your pleasure?” said he. “Who are you? You’re looking
in at the first floor window. Are you standing on a ladder?”
“You have a four-leaved shamrock in your pocket,” she
replied. “Indeed, you have seven, and one of them is a
six-leaved one.”
“Who are you?” asked the man again.
“The Moor-woman,” she replied. “The Moor-woman who brews. I
was at it. The bung was in the cask, but one of the little
moor-imps pulled it out in his mischief, and flung it up into
the yard, where it beat against the window; and now the beer’s
running out of the cask, and that won’t do good to anybody.”
“Pray tell me some more!” said the man.
“Yes, wait a little,” answered the Moor-woman. “I’ve
something else to do just now.” And she was gone.
The man was going to shut the window, when the woman already
stood before him again.
“Now it’s done,” she said; “but I shall have half the beer to
brew over again to-morrow, if the weather is suitable. Well,
what have you to ask me? I’ve come back, for I always keep my
word, and you have seven four-leaved shamrocks in your pocket,
and one of them is a six-leaved one. That inspires respect, for
that’s an order that grows beside the sandy way; but that every
one does not find. What have you to ask me? Don’t stand there
like a ridiculous oaf, for I must go back again directly to my
bung and my cask.”
And the man asked about the Story, and inquired if the
Moor-woman had met it in her journeyings.
“By the big brewing-vat!” exclaimed the woman, “haven’t you
got stories enough? I really believe that most people have
enough of them. Here are other things to take notice of, other
things to examine. Even the children have gone beyond that. Give
the little boy a cigar, and the little girl a new crinoline;
they like that much better. To listen to stories! No, indeed,
there are more important things to be done here, and other
things to notice!”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the man, “and what do you
know of the world? You don’t see anything but frogs and
Will-o’-the-Wisps!”
“Yes, beware of the Will-o’-the-Wisps,” said the Moor-woman,
“for they’re out—they’re let loose—that’s what we must talk
about! Come to me in the moor, where my presence is necessary,
and I will tell you all about it; but you must make haste, and
come while your seven four-leaved shamrocks, for which one has
six leaves, are still fresh, and the moon stands high!”
And the Moor-woman was gone.
It struck twelve in the town, and before the last stroke had
died away, the man was out in the yard, out in the garden, and
stood in the meadow. The mist had vanished, and the Moor-woman
stopped her brewing.
“You’ve been a long time coming!” said the Moor-woman.
“Witches get forward faster than men, and I’m glad that I belong
to the witch folk!”
“What have you to say to me now?” asked the man. “Is it
anything about the Story?”
“Can you never get beyond asking about that?” retorted the
woman.
“Can you tell me anything about the poetry of the future?”
resumed the man.
“Don’t get on your stilts,” said the crone, “and I’ll answer
you. You think of nothing but poetry, and only ask about that
Story, as if she were the lady of the whole troop. She’s the
oldest of us all, but she takes precedence of the youngest. I
know her well. I’ve been young, too, and she’s no chicken now. I
was once quite a pretty elf-maiden, and have danced in my time
with the others in the moonlight, and have heard the
nightingale, and have gone into the forest and met the
Story-maiden, who was always to be found out there, running
about. Sometimes she took up her night’s lodging in a half-blown
tulip, or in a field flower; sometimes she would slip into the
church, and wrap herself in the mourning crape that hung down
from the candles on the altar.”
“You are capitally well-informed,” said the man.
“I ought at least to know as much as you,” answered the
Moor-woman. “Stories and poetry—yes, they’re like two yards of
the same piece of stuff; they can go and lie down where they
like, and one can brew all their prattle, and have it all the
better and cheaper. You shall have it from me for nothing. I
have a whole cupboard-full of poetry in bottles. It makes
essences; and that’s the best of it—bitter and sweet herbs. I
have everything that people want of poetry, in bottles, so that
I can put a little on my handkerchief, on holidays, to smell.”
“Why, these are wonderful things that you’re telling!” said
the man. “You have poetry in bottles?”
“More than you can require,” said the woman. “I suppose you
know the history of ‘the Girl who Trod on the Loaf, so that she
might not soil her shoes’? That has been written, and printed
too.”
“I told that story myself,” said the man.
“Yes, then you must know it; and you must know also that the
girl sank into the earth directly, to the Moor-woman, just as
Old Bogey’s grandmother was paying her morning visit to inspect
the brewery. She saw the girl gliding down, and asked to have
her as a remembrance of her visit, and got her too; while I
received a present that’s of no use to me—a travelling
druggist’s shop—a whole cupboard-full of poetry in bottles.
Grandmother told me where the cupboard was to be placed, and
there it’s standing still. Just look! You’ve your seven
four-leaved shamrocks in your pocket, one of which is a
six-leaved one, and so you will be able to see it.”
And really in the midst of the moor lay something like a
great knotted block of alder, and that was the old grandmother’s
cupboard. The Moor-woman said that this was always open to her
and to every one in the land, if they only knew where the
cupboard stood. It could be opened either at the front or at the
back, and at every side and corner—a perfect work of art, and
yet only an old alder stump in appearance. The poets of all
lands, and especially those of our own country, had been
arranged here; the spirit of them had been extracted, refined,
criticised and renovated, and then stored up in bottles. With
what may be called great aptitude, if it was not genius the
grandmother had taken as it were the flavor of this and of that
poet, and had added a little devilry, and then corked up the
bottles for use during all future times.
“Pray let me see,” said the man.
“Yes, but there are more important things to hear,” replied
the Moor-woman.
“But now we are at the cupboard!” said the man. And he looked
in. “Here are bottles of all sizes. What is in this one? and
what in that one yonder?”
“Here is what they call may-balm,” replied the woman. “I have
not tried it myself. But I have not yet told you the ‘more
important’ thing you were to hear. THE WILL-O’-THE-WISP’S IN THE
TOWN! That’s of much more consequence than poetry and stories. I
ought, indeed, to hold my tongue; but there must be a
necessity—a fate—a something that sticks in my throat, and that
wants to come out. Take care, you mortals!”
“I don’t understand a word of all this!” cried the man.
“Be kind enough to seat yourself on that cupboard,” she
retorted, “but take care you don’t fall through and break the
bottles—you know what’s inside of them. I must tell of the great
event. It occurred no longer ago than the day before yesterday.
It did not happen earlier. It has now three hundred and
sixty-three days to run about. I suppose you know how many days
there are in a year?”
And this is what the Moor-woman told:
“There was a great commotion yesterday out here in the marsh!
There was a christening feast! A little Will-o’-the-Wisp was
born here—in fact, twelve of them were born all together; and
they have permission, if they choose to use it, to go abroad
among men, and to move about and command among them, just as if
they were born mortals. That was a great event in the marsh, and
accordingly all the Will-o’-the-Wisps, male and female, went
dancing like little lights across the moor. There are some of
them of the dog species, but those are not worth mentioning. I
sat there on the cupboard, and had all the twelve little
new-born Will-o’-the-Wisps upon my lap. They shone like
glow-worms; they already began to hop, and increased in size
every moment, so that before a quarter of an hour had elapsed,
each of them looked just as large as his father or his uncle.
Now, it’s an old-established regulation and favor, that when the
moon stands just as it did yesterday, and the wind blows just as
it blew then, it is allowed and accorded to all
Will-o’-the-Wisps—that is, to all those who are born at that
minute of time—to become mortals, and individually to exert
their power for the space of one year.
“The Will-o’-the-Wisp may run about in the country and
through the world, if it is not afraid of falling into the sea,
or of being blown out by a heavy storm. It can enter into a
person and speak for him, and make all the movements it pleases.
The Will-o’-the-Wisp may take whatever form he likes, of man or
woman, and can act in their spirit and in their disguise in such
a way that he can effect whatever he wishes to do. But he must
manage, in the course of the year, to lead three hundred and
sixty-five people into a bad way, and in a grand style, too. To
lead them away from the right and the truth; and then he reaches
the highest point. Such a Will-o’-the-Wisp can attain to the
honor of being a runner before the devil’s state coach; and then
he’ll wear clothes of fiery yellow, and breathe forth flames out
of his throat. That’s enough to make a simple Will-o’-the-Wisp
smack his lips. But there’s some danger in this, and a great
deal of work for a Will-o’-the-Wisp who aspires to play so
distinguished a part. If the eyes of the man are opened to what
he is, and if the man can then blow him away, it’s all over with
him, and he must come back into the marsh; or if, before the
year is up, the Will-o’-the-Wisp is seized with a longing to see
his family, and so returns to it and gives the matter up, it is
over with him likewise, and he can no longer burn clear, and
soon becomes extinguished, and cannot be lit up again; and when
the year has elapsed, and he has not led three hundred and
sixty-five people away from the truth and from all that is grand
and noble, he is condemned to be imprisoned in decayed wood, and
to lie glimmering there, without being able to move; and that’s
the most terrible punishment that can be inflicted on a lively
Will-o’-the-Wisp.
“Now, all this I know, and all this I told to the twelve
little Will-o’-the-Wisps whom I had on my lap, and who seemed
quite crazy with joy.
“I told them that the safest and most convenient course was
to give up the honor, and do nothing at all; but the little
flames would not agree to this, and already fancied themselves
clad in fiery yellow clothes, breathing flames from their
throats.
“‘Stay with us,’ said some of the older ones.
“‘Carry on your sport with mortals,’ said the others.
“‘The mortals are drying up our meadows; they’ve taken to
draining. What will our successors do?’
“‘We want to flame; we will flame—flame!’ cried the new-born
Will-o’the-Wisps.
“And thus the affair was settled.
“And now a ball was given, a minute long; it could not well
be shorter. The little elf-maidens whirled round three times
with the rest, that they might not appear proud, but they
preferred dancing with one another.
“And now the sponsors’ gifts were presented, and presents
were thrown them. These presents flew like pebbles across the
sea-water. Each of the elf-maidens gave a little piece of her
veil.
“‘Take that,’ they said, ‘and then you’ll know the higher
dance, the most difficult turns and twists—that is to say, if
you should find them necessary. You’ll know the proper
deportment, and then you can show yourself in the very pick of
society.’
“The night raven taught each of the young Will-o’-the-Wisps
to say, ‘Goo—goo—good,’ and to say it in the right place; and
that’s a great gift which brings its own reward.
“The owl and the stork—but they said it was not worth
mentioning, and so we won’t mention it.
“King Waldemar’s wild chase was just then rushing over the
moor, and when the great lords heard of the festivities that
were going on, they sent a couple of handsome dogs, which hunt
on the spoor of the wind, as a present; and these might carry
two or three of the Will-o’-the-Wisps. A couple of old Alpas,
spirits who occupy themselves with Alp-pressing, were also at
the feast; and from these the young Will-o’-the-Wisps learned
the art of slipping through every key-hole, as if the door stood
open before them. These Alpas offered to carry the youngsters to
the town, with which they were well acquainted. They usually
rode through the atmosphere on their own back hair, which is
fastened into a knot, for they love a hard seat; but now they
sat sideways on the wild hunting dogs, took the young
Will-o’-the-Wisps in their laps, who wanted to go into the town
to mislead and entice mortals, and, whisk! away they were. Now,
this is what happened last night. To-day the Will-o’-the-Wisps
are in the town, and have taken the matter in hand—but where and
how? Ah, can you tell me that? Still, I’ve a lightning conductor
in my great toe, and that will always tell me something.”
“Why, this is a complete story,” exclaimed the man.
“Yes, but it is only the beginning,” replied the woman. “Can
you tell me how the Will-o’-the-Wisps deport themselves, and how
they behave? and in what shapes they have aforetime appeared and
led people into crooked paths?”
“I believe,” replied the man, “that one could tell quite a
romance about the Will-o’-the-Wisps, in twelve parts; or, better
still, one might make quite a popular play of them.”
“You might write that,” said the woman, “but it’s best let
alone.”
“Yes, that’s better and more agreeable,” the man replied,
“for then we shall escape from the newspapers, and not be tied
up by them, which is just as uncomfortable as for a
Will-o’-the-Wisp to lie in decaying wood, to have to gleam, and
not to be able to stir.”
“I don’t care about it either way,” cried the woman. “Let the
rest write, those who can, and those who cannot likewise. I’ll
grant you an old bung from my cask that will open the cupboard
where poetry’s kept in bottles, and you may take from that
whatever may be wanting. But you, my good man, seem to have
blotted your hands sufficiently with ink, and to have come to
that age of satiety that you need not be running about every
year for stories, especially as there are much more important
things to be done. You must have understood what is going on?”
“The Will-o’-the-Wisp is in town,” said the man. “I’ve heard
it, and I have understood it. But what do you think I ought to
do? I should be thrashed if I were to go to the people and say,
‘Look, yonder goes a Will-o’-the-Wisp in his best clothes!’”
“They also go in undress,” replied the woman. “The
Will-o’-the-Wisp can assume all kinds of forms, and appear in
every place. He goes into the church, but not for the sake of
the service; and perhaps he may enter into one or other of the
priests. He speaks in the Parliament, not for the benefit of the
country, but only for himself. He’s an artist with the color-pot
as well as in the theatre; but when he gets all the power into
his own hands, then the pot’s empty! I chatter and chatter, but
it must come out, what’s sticking in my throat, to the
disadvantage of my own family. But I must now be the woman that
will save a good many people. It is not done with my good will,
or for the sake of a medal. I do the most insane things I
possibly can, and then I tell a poet about it, and thus the
whole town gets to know of it directly.”
“The town will not take that to heart,” observed the man;
“that will not disturb a single person; for they will all think
I’m only telling them a story if I say, ‘The Will-o’-the-Wisp is
in the town, says the Moor-woman. Take care of yourselves!’”
|
The Golden Treasure
THE drummer’s wife went into the church. She saw the new altar
with the painted pictures and the carved angels. Those upon the
canvas and in the glory over the altar were just as beautiful as
the carved ones; and they were painted and gilt into the
bargain. Their hair gleamed golden in the sunshine, lovely to
behold; but the real sunshine was more beautiful still. It shone
redder, clearer through the dark trees, when the sun went down.
It was lovely thus to look at the sunshine of heaven. And she
looked at the red sun, and she thought about it so deeply, and
thought of the little one whom the stork was to bring, and the
wife of the drummer was very cheerful, and looked and looked,
and wished that the child might have a gleam of sunshine given
to it, so that it might at least become like one of the shining
angels over the altar.
And when she really had the little child in her arms, and
held it up to its father, then it was like one of the angels in
the church to behold, with hair like gold—the gleam of the
setting sun was upon it.
“My golden treasure, my riches, my sunshine!” said the
mother; and she kissed the shining locks, and it sounded like
music and song in the room of the drummer; and there was joy,
and life, and movement. The drummer beat a roll—a roll of joy.
And the Drum said—the Fire-drum, that was beaten when there was
a fire in the town:
“Red hair! the little fellow has red hair! Believe the drum,
and not what your mother says! Rub-a dub, rub-a dub!”
And the town repeated what the Fire-drum had said.
The boy was taken to church, the boy was christened. There
was nothing much to be said about his name; he was called Peter.
The whole town, and the Drum too, called him Peter the drummer’s
boy with the red hair; but his mother kissed his red hair, and
called him her golden treasure.
In the hollow way in the clayey bank, many had scratched
their names as a remembrance.
“Celebrity is always something!” said the drummer; and so he
scratched his own name there, and his little son’s name
likewise.
And the swallows came. They had, on their long journey, seen
more durable characters engraven on rocks, and on the walls of
the temples in Hindostan, mighty deeds of great kings, immortal
names, so old that no one now could read or speak them.
Remarkable celebrity!
In the clayey bank the martens built their nest. They bored
holes in the deep declivity, and the splashing rain and the thin
mist came and crumbled and washed the names away, and the
drummer’s name also, and that of his little son.
“Peter’s name will last a full year and a half longer!” said
the father.
“Fool!” thought the Fire-drum; but it only said, “Dub, dub,
dub, rub-a-dub!”
He was a boy full of life and gladness, this drummer’s son
with the red hair. He had a lovely voice. He could sing, and he
sang like a bird in the woodland. There was melody, and yet no
melody.
“He must become a chorister boy,” said his mother. “He shall
sing in the church, and stand among the beautiful gilded angels
who are like him!”
“Fiery cat!” said some of the witty ones of the town.
The Drum heard that from the neighbors’ wives.
“Don’t go home, Peter,” cried the street boys. “If you sleep
in the garret, there’ll be a fire in the house, and the
fire-drum will have to be beaten.”
“Look out for the drumsticks,” replied Peter; and, small as
he was, he ran up boldly, and gave the foremost such a punch in
the body with his fist, that the fellow lost his legs and
tumbled over, and the others took their legs off with themselves
very rapidly.
The town musician was very genteel and fine. He was the son
of the royal plate-washer. He was very fond of Peter, and would
sometimes take him to his home; and he gave him a violin, and
taught him to play it. It seemed as if the whole art lay in the
boy’s fingers; and he wanted to be more than a drummer—he wanted
to become musician to the town.
“I’ll be a soldier,” said Peter; for he was still quite a
little lad, and it seemed to him the finest thing in the world
to carry a gun, and to be able to march one, two—one, two, and
to wear a uniform and a sword.
“Ah, you learn to long for the drum-skin, drum, dum, dum!”
said the Drum.
“Yes, if he could only march his way up to be a general!”
observed his father; “but before he can do that, there must be
war.”
“Heaven forbid!” said his mother.
“We have nothing to lose,” remarked the father.
“Yes, we have my boy,” she retorted.
“But suppose he came back a general!” said the father.
“Without arms and legs!” cried the mother. “No, I would
rather keep my golden treasure with me.”
“Drum, dum, dum!” The Fire-drum and all the other drums were
beating, for war had come. The soldiers all set out, and the son
of the drummer followed them. “Red-head. Golden treasure!”
The mother wept; the father in fancy saw him “famous;” the
town musician was of opinion that he ought not to go to war, but
should stay at home and learn music.
“Red-head,” said the soldiers, and little Peter laughed; but
when one of them sometimes said to another, “Foxey,” he would
bite his teeth together and look another way—into the wide
world. He did not care for the nickname.
The boy was active, pleasant of speech, and good-humored;
that is the best canteen, said his old comrades.
And many a night he had to sleep under the open sky, wet
through with the driving rain or the falling mist; but his good
humor never forsook him. The drum-sticks sounded, “Rub-a-dub,
all up, all up!” Yes, he was certainly born to be a drummer.
The day of battle dawned. The sun had not yet risen, but the
morning was come. The air was cold, the battle was hot; there
was mist in the air, but still more gunpowder-smoke. The bullets
and shells flew over the soldiers’ heads, and into their
heads—into their bodies and limbs; but still they pressed
forward. Here or there one or other of them would sink on his
knees, with bleeding temples and a face as white as chalk. The
little drummer still kept his healthy color; he had suffered no
damage; he looked cheerfully at the dog of the regiment, which
was jumping along as merrily as if the whole thing had been got
up for his amusement, and as if the bullets were only flying
about that he might have a game of play with them.
“March! Forward! March!” This, was the word of command for
the drum. The word had not yet been given to fall back, though
they might have done so, and perhaps there would have been much
sense in it; and now at last the word “Retire” was given; but
our little drummer beat “Forward! march!” for he had understood
the command thus, and the soldiers obeyed the sound of the drum.
That was a good roll, and proved the summons to victory for the
men, who had already begun to give way.
Life and limb were lost in the battle. Bombshells tore away
the flesh in red strips; bombshells lit up into a terrible glow
the strawheaps to which the wounded had dragged themselves, to
lie untended for many hours, perhaps for all the hours they had
to live.
It’s no use thinking of it; and yet one cannot help thinking
of it, even far away in the peaceful town. The drummer and his
wife also thought of it, for Peter was at the war.
“Now, I’m tired of these complaints,” said the Fire-drum.
Again the day of battle dawned; the sun had not yet risen,
but it was morning. The drummer and his wife were asleep. They
had been talking about their son, as, indeed, they did almost
every night, for he was out yonder in God’s hand. And the father
dreamt that the war was over, that the soldiers had returned
home, and that Peter wore a silver cross on his breast. But the
mother dreamt that she had gone into the church, and had seen
the painted pictures and the carved angels with the gilded hair,
and her own dear boy, the golden treasure of her heart, who was
standing among the angels in white robes, singing so sweetly, as
surely only the angels can sing; and that he had soared up with
them into the sunshine, and nodded so kindly at his mother.
“My golden treasure!” she cried out; and she awoke. “Now the
good God has taken him to Himself!” She folded her hands, and
hid her face in the cotton curtains of the bed, and wept. “Where
does he rest now? among the many in the big grave that they have
dug for the dead? Perhaps he’s in the water in the marsh! Nobody
knows his grave; no holy words have been read over it!” And the
Lord’s Prayer went inaudibly over her lips; she bowed her head,
and was so weary that she went to sleep.
And the days went by, in life as in dreams!
It was evening. Over the battle-field a rainbow spread, which
touched the forest and the deep marsh.
It has been said, and is preserved in popular belief, that
where the rainbow touches the earth a treasure lies buried, a
golden treasure; and here there was one. No one but his mother
thought of the little drummer, and therefore she dreamt of him.
And the days went by, in life as in dreams!
Not a hair of his head had been hurt, not a golden hair.
“Drum-ma-rum! drum-ma-rum! there he is!” the Drum might have
said, and his mother might have sung, if she had seen or dreamt
it.
With hurrah and song, adorned with green wreaths of victory,
they came home, as the war was at an end, and peace had been
signed. The dog of the regiment sprang on in front with large
bounds, and made the way three times as long for himself as it
really was.
And days and weeks went by, and Peter came into his parents’
room. He was as brown as a wild man, and his eyes were bright,
and his face beamed like sunshine. And his mother held him in
her arms; she kissed his lips, his forehead, and his red hair.
She had her boy back again; he had not a silver cross on his
breast, as his father had dreamt, but he had sound limbs, a
thing the mother had not dreamt. And what a rejoicing was there!
They laughed and they wept; and Peter embraced the old
Fire-drum.
“There stands the old skeleton still!” he said.
And the father beat a roll upon it.
“One would think that a great fire had broken out here,” said
the Fire-drum. “Bright day! fire in the heart! golden treasure!
skrat! skr-r-at! skr-r-r-r-at!”
And what then? What then!—Ask the town musician.
“Peter’s far outgrowing the drum,” he said. “Peter will be
greater than I.”
And yet he was the son of a royal plate-washer; but all that
he had learned in half a lifetime, Peter learned in half a year.
There was something so merry about him, something so truly
kind-hearted. His eyes gleamed, and his hair gleamed too—there
was no denying that!
“He ought to have his hair dyed,” said the neighbor’s wife.
“That answered capitally with the policeman’s daughter, and she
got a husband.”
“But her hair turned as green as duckweed, and was always
having to be colored up.”
“She knows how to manage for herself,” said the neighbors,
“and so can Peter. He comes to the most genteel houses, even to
the burgomaster’s where he gives Miss Charlotte piano-forte
lessons.”
He could play! He could play, fresh out of his heart, the
most charming pieces, that had never been put upon music-paper.
He played in the bright nights, and in the dark nights, too. The
neighbors declared it was unbearable, and the Fire-drum was of
the same opinion.
He played until his thoughts soared up, and burst forth in
great plans for the future:
“To be famous!”
And burgomaster’s Charlotte sat at the piano. Her delicate
fingers danced over the keys, and made them ring into Peter’s
heart. It seemed too much for him to bear; and this happened not
once, but many times; and at last one day he seized the delicate
fingers and the white hand, and kissed it, and looked into her
great brown eyes. Heaven knows what he said; but we may be
allowed to guess at it. Charlotte blushed to guess at it. She
reddened from brow to neck, and answered not a single word; and
then strangers came into the room, and one of them was the state
councillor’s son. He had a lofty white forehead, and carried it
so high that it seemed to go back into his neck. And Peter sat
by her a long time, and she looked at him with gentle eyes.
At home that evening he spoke of travel in the wide world,
and of the golden treasure that lay hidden for him in his
violin.
“To be famous!”
“Tum-me-lum, tum-me-lum, tum-me-lum!” said the Fire-drum.
“Peter has gone clear out of his wits. I think there must be a
fire in the house.”
Next day the mother went to market.
“Shall I tell you news, Peter?” she asked when she came home.
“A capital piece of news. Burgomaster’s Charlotte has engaged
herself to the state councillor’s son; the betrothal took place
yesterday evening.”
“No!” cried Peter, and he sprang up from his chair. But his
mother persisted in saying “Yes.” She had heard it from the
baker’s wife, whose husband had it from the burgomaster’s own
mouth
And Peter became as pale as death, and sat down again.
“Good Heaven! what’s the matter with you?” asked his mother.
“Nothing, nothing; only leave me to myself,” he answered but
the tears were running down his cheeks.
“My sweet child, my golden treasure!” cried the mother, and
she wept; but the Fire-drum sang, not out loud, but inwardly.
“Charlotte’s gone! Charlotte’s gone! and now the song is
done.”
But the song was not done; there were many more verses in it,
long verses, the most beautiful verses, the golden treasures of
a life.
“She behaves like a mad woman,” said the neighbor’s wife.
“All the world is to see the letters she gets from her golden
treasure, and to read the words that are written in the papers
about his violin playing. And he sends her money too, and that’s
very useful to her since she has been a widow.”
“He plays before emperors and kings,” said the town musician.
“I never had that fortune, but he’s my pupil, and he does not
forget his old master.”
And his mother said,
“His father dreamt that Peter came home from the war with a
silver cross. He did not gain one in the war, but it is still
more difficult to gain one in this way. Now he has the cross of
honor. If his father had only lived to see it!”
“He’s grown famous!” said the Fire-drum, and all his native
town said the same thing, for the drummer’s son, Peter with the
red hair— Peter whom they had known as a little boy, running
about in wooden shoes, and then as a drummer, playing for the
dancers—was become famous!
“He played at our house before he played in the presence of
kings,” said the burgomaster’s wife. “At that time he was quite
smitten with Charlotte. He was always of an aspiring turn. At
that time he was saucy and an enthusiast. My husband laughed
when he heard of the foolish affair, and now our Charlotte is a
state councillor’s wife.”
A golden treasure had been hidden in the heart and soul of
the poor child, who had beaten the roll as a drummer—a roll of
victory for those who had been ready to retreat. There was a
golden treasure in his bosom, the power of sound; it burst forth
on his violin as if the instrument had been a complete organ,
and as if all the elves of a midsummer night were dancing across
the strings. In its sounds were heard the piping of the thrush
and the full clear note of the human voice; therefore the sound
brought rapture to every heart, and carried his name triumphant
through the land. That was a great firebrand—the firebrand of
inspiration.
“And then he looks so splendid!” said the young ladies and
the old ladies too; and the oldest of all procured an album for
famous locks of hair, wholly and solely that she might beg a
lock of his rich splendid hair, that treasure, that golden
treasure.
And the son came into the poor room of the drummer, elegant
as a prince, happier than a king. His eyes were as clear and his
face was as radiant as sunshine; and he held his mother in his
arms, and she kissed his mouth, and wept as blissfully as any
one can weep for joy; and he nodded at every old piece of
furniture in the room, at the cupboard with the tea-cups, and at
the flower-vase. He nodded at the sleeping-bench, where he had
slept as a little boy; but the old Fire-drum he brought out, and
dragged it into the middle of the room, and said to it and to
his mother:
“My father would have beaten a famous roll this evening. Now
I must do it!”
And he beat a thundering roll-call on the instrument, and the
Drum felt so highly honored that the parchment burst with
exultation.
“He has a splendid touch!” said the Drum. “I’ve a remembrance
of him now that will last. I expect that the same thing will
happen to his mother, from pure joy over her golden treasure.”
And this is the story of the Golden Treasure.
|
The Porter’s Son
THE General lived in the grand first floor, and the porter lived
in the cellar. There was a great distance between the two
families— the whole of the ground floor, and the difference in
rank; but they lived in the same house, and both had a view of
the street, and of the courtyard. In the courtyard was a
grass-plot, on which grew a blooming acacia tree (when it was in
bloom), and under this tree sat occasionally the finely-dressed
nurse, with the still more finely-dressed child of the
General—little Emily. Before them danced about barefoot the
little son of the porter, with his great brown eyes and dark
hair; and the little girl smiled at him, and stretched out her
hands towards him; and when the General saw that from the
window, he would nod his head and cry, “Charming!” The General’s
lady (who was so young that she might very well have been her
husband’s daughter from an early marriage) never came to the
window that looked upon the courtyard. She had given orders,
though, that the boy might play his antics to amuse her child,
but must never touch it. The nurse punctually obeyed the
gracious lady’s orders.
The sun shone in upon the people in the grand first floor,
and upon the people in the cellar; the acacia tree was covered
with blossoms, and they fell off, and next year new ones came.
The tree bloomed, and the porter’s little son bloomed too, and
looked like a fresh tulip.
The General’s little daughter became delicate and pale, like
the leaf of the acacia blossom. She seldom came down to the tree
now, for she took the air in a carriage. She drove out with her
mamma, and then she would always nod at the porter’s George;
yes, she used even to kiss her hand to him, till her mamma said
she was too old to do that now.
One morning George was sent up to carry the General the
letters and newspapers that had been delivered at the porter’s
room in the morning. As he was running up stairs, just as he
passed the door of the sand-box, he heard a faint piping. He
thought it was some young chicken that had strayed there, and
was raising cries of distress; but it was the General’s little
daughter, decked out in lace and finery.
“Don’t tell papa and mamma,” she whimpered; “they would be
angry.”
“What’s the matter, little missie?” asked George.
“It’s all on fire!” she answered. “It’s burning with a bright
flame!” George hurried up stairs to the General’s apartments; he
opened the door of the nursery. The window curtain was almost
entirely burnt, and the wooden curtain-pole was one mass of
flame. George sprang upon a chair he brought in haste, and
pulled down the burning articles; he then alarmed the people.
But for him, the house would have been burned down.
The General and his lady cross-questioned little Emily.
“I only took just one lucifer-match,” she said, “and it was
burning directly, and the curtain was burning too. I spat at it,
to put it out; I spat at it as much as ever I could, but I could
not put it out; so I ran away and hid myself, for papa and mamma
would be angry.”
“I spat!” cried the General’s lady; “what an expression! Did
you ever hear your papa and mamma talk about spitting? You must
have got that from down stairs!”
And George had a penny given him. But this penny did not go
to the baker’s shop, but into the savings-box; and soon there
were so many pennies in the savings-box that he could buy a
paint-box and color the drawings he made, and he had a great
number of drawings. They seemed to shoot out of his pencil and
out of his fingers’ ends. His first colored pictures he
presented to Emily.
“Charming!” said the General, and even the General’s lady
acknowledged that it was easy to see what the boy had meant to
draw. “He has genius.” Those were the words that were carried
down into the cellar.
The General and his gracious lady were grand people. They had
two coats of arms on their carriage, a coat of arms for each of
them, and the gracious lady had had this coat of arms
embroidered on both sides of every bit of linen she had, and
even on her nightcap and her dressing-bag. One of the coats of
arms, the one that belonged to her, was a very dear one; it had
been bought for hard cash by her father, for he had not been
born with it, nor had she; she had come into the world too
early, seven years before the coat of arms, and most people
remembered this circumstance, but the family did not remember
it. A man might well have a bee in his bonnet, when he had such
a coat of arms to carry as that, let alone having to carry two;
and the General’s wife had a bee in hers when she drove to the
court ball, as stiff and as proud as you please.
The General was old and gray, but he had a good seat on
horseback, and he knew it, and he rode out every day, with a
groom behind him at a proper distance. When he came to a party,
he looked somehow as if he were riding into the room upon his
high horse; and he had orders, too, such a number that no one
would have believed it; but that was not his fault. As a young
man he had taken part in the great autumn reviews which were
held in those days. He had an anecdote that he told about those
days, the only one he knew. A subaltern under his orders had cut
off one of the princes, and taken him prisoner, and the Prince
had been obliged to ride through the town with a little band of
captured soldiers, himself a prisoner behind the General. This
was an ever-memorable event, and was always told over and over
again every year by the General, who, moreover, always repeated
the remarkable words he had used when he returned his sword to
the Prince; those words were, “Only my subaltern could have
taken your Highness prisoner; I could never have done it!” And
the Prince had replied, “You are incomparable.” In a real war
the General had never taken part. When war came into the
country, he had gone on a diplomatic career to foreign courts.
He spoke the French language so fluently that he had almost
forgotten his own; he could dance well, he could ride well, and
orders grew on his coat in an astounding way. The sentries
presented arms to him, one of the most beautiful girls presented
arms to him, and became the General’s lady, and in time they had
a pretty, charming child, that seemed as if it had dropped from
heaven, it was so pretty; and the porter’s son danced before it
in the courtyard, as soon as it could understand it, and gave
her all his colored pictures, and little Emily looked at them,
and was pleased, and tore them to pieces. She was pretty and
delicate indeed.
“My little Roseleaf!” cried the General’s lady, “thou art
born to wed a prince.”
The prince was already at the door, but they knew nothing of
it; people don’t see far beyond the threshold.
“The day before yesterday our boy divided his bread and
butter with her!” said the porter’s wife. There was neither
cheese nor meat upon it, but she liked it as well as if it had
been roast beef. There would have been a fine noise if the
General and his wife had seen the feast, but they did not see
it.
George had divided his bread and butter with little Emily,
and he would have divided his heart with her, if it would have
pleased her. He was a good boy, brisk and clever, and he went to
the night school in the Academy now, to learn to draw properly.
Little Emily was getting on with her education too, for she
spoke French with her “bonne,” and had a dancing master.
“George will be confirmed at Easter,” said the porter’s wife;
for George had got so far as this.
“It would be the best thing, now, to make an apprentice of
him,” said his father. “It must be to some good calling—and then
he would be out of the house.”
“He would have to sleep out of the house,” said George’s
mother. “It is not easy to find a master who has room for him at
night, and we shall have to provide him with clothes too. The
little bit of eating that he wants can be managed for him, for
he’s quite happy with a few boiled potatoes; and he gets taught
for nothing. Let the boy go his own way. You will say that he
will be our joy some day, and the Professor says so too.”
The confirmation suit was ready. The mother had worked it
herself; but the tailor who did repairs had cut them out, and a
capital cutter-out he was.
“If he had had a better position, and been able to keep a
workshop and journeymen,” the porter’s wife said, “he might have
been a court tailor.”
The clothes were ready, and the candidate for confirmation
was ready. On his confirmation day, George received a great
pinchbeck watch from his godfather, the old iron monger’s
shopman, the richest of his godfathers. The watch was an old and
tried servant. It always went too fast, but that is better than
to be lagging behind. That was a costly present. And from the
General’s apartment there arrived a hymn-book bound in morocco,
sent by the little lady to whom George had given pictures. At
the beginning of the book his name was written, and her name, as
“his gracious patroness.” These words had been written at the
dictation of the General’s lady, and the General had read the
inscription, and pronounced it “Charming!”
“That is really a great attention from a family of such
position,” said the porter’s wife; and George was sent up stairs
to show himself in his confirmation clothes, with the hymn-book
in his hand.
The General’s lady was sitting very much wrapped up, and had
the bad headache she always had when time hung heavy upon her
hands. She looked at George very pleasantly, and wished him all
prosperity, and that he might never have her headache. The
General was walking about in his dressing-gown. He had a cap
with a long tassel on his head, and Russian boots with red tops
on his feet. He walked three times up and down the room,
absorbed in his own thoughts and recollections, and then stopped
and said:
“So little George is a confirmed Christian now. Be a good
man, and honor those in authority over you. Some day, when you
are an old man, you can say that the General gave you this
precept.”
That was a longer speech than the General was accustomed to
make, and then he went back to his ruminations, and looked very
aristocratic. But of all that George heard and saw up there,
little Miss Emily remained most clear in his thoughts. How
graceful she was, how gentle, and fluttering, and pretty she
looked. If she were to be drawn, it ought to be on a
soap-bubble. About her dress, about her yellow curled hair,
there was a fragrance as of a fresh-blown rose; and to think
that he had once divided his bread and butter with her, and that
she had eaten it with enormous appetite, and nodded to him at
every second mouthful! Did she remember anything about it? Yes,
certainly, for she had given him the beautiful hymn-book in
remembrance of this; and when the first new moon in the first
new year after this event came round, he took a piece of bread,
a penny, and his hymn-book, and went out into the open air, and
opened the book to see what psalm he should turn up. It was a
psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Then he opened the book again
to see what would turn up for little Emily. He took great pains
not to open the book in the place where the funeral hymns were,
and yet he got one that referred to the grave and death. But
then he thought this was not a thing in which one must believe;
for all that he was startled when soon afterwards the pretty
little girl had to lie in bed, and the doctor’s carriage stopped
at the gate every day.
“They will not keep her with them,” said the porter’s wife.
“The good God knows whom He will summon to Himself.”
But they kept her after all; and George drew pictures and
sent them to her. He drew the Czar’s palace; the old Kremlin at
Moscow, just as it stood, with towers and cupolas; and these
cupolas looked like gigantic green and gold cucumbers, at least
in George’s drawing. Little Emily was highly pleased, and
consequently, when a week had elapsed, George sent her a few
more pictures, all with buildings in them; for, you see, she
could imagine all sorts of things inside the windows and doors.
He drew a Chinese house, with bells hanging from every one of
sixteen stories. He drew two Grecian temples with slender marble
pillars, and with steps all round them. He drew a Norwegian
church. It was easy to see that this church had been built
entirely of wood, hewn out and wonderfully put together; every
story looked as if it had rockers, like a cradle. But the most
beautiful of all was the castle, drawn on one of the leaves, and
which he called “Emily’s Castle.” This was the kind of place in
which she must live. That is what George had thought, and
consequently he had put into this building whatever he thought
most beautiful in all the others. It had carved wood-work, like
the Norwegian church; marble pillars, like the Grecian temple;
bells in every story; and was crowned with cupolas, green and
gilded, like those of the Kremlin of the Czar. It was a real
child’s castle, and under every window was written what the hall
or the room inside was intended to be; for instance: “Here Emily
sleeps;” “Here Emily dances;” “Here Emily plays at receiving
visitors.” It was a real pleasure to look at the castle, and
right well was the castle looked at accordingly.
“Charming!” said the General.
But the old Count—for there was an old Count there, who was
still grander than the General, and had a castle of his own—said
nothing at all; he heard that it had been designed and drawn by
the porter’s little son. Not that he was so very little, either,
for he had already been confirmed. The old Count looked at the
pictures, and had his own thoughts as he did so.
One day, when it was very gloomy, gray, wet weather, the
brightest of days dawned for George; for the Professor at the
Academy called him into his room.
“Listen to me, my friend,” said the Professor; “I want to
speak to you. The Lord has been good to you in giving you
abilities, and He has also been good in placing you among kind
people. The old Count at the corner yonder has been speaking to
me about you. I have also seen your sketches; but we will not
say any more about those, for there is a good deal to correct in
them. But from this time forward you may come twice a-week to my
drawing-class, and then you will soon learn how to do them
better. I think there’s more of the architect than of the
painter in you. You will have time to think that over; but go
across to the old Count this very day, and thank God for having
sent you such a friend.”
It was a great house—the house of the old Count at the
corner. Round the windows elephants and dromedaries were carved,
all from the old times; but the old Count loved the new time
best, and what it brought, whether it came from the first floor,
or from the cellar, or from the attic.
“I think,” said, the porter’s wife, “the grander people are,
the fewer airs do they give themselves. How kind and
straightforward the old count is! and he talks exactly like you
and me. Now, the General and his lady can’t do that. And George
was fairly wild with delight yesterday at the good reception he
met with at the Count’s, and so am I to-day, after speaking to
the great man. Wasn’t it a good thing that we didn’t bind George
apprentice to a handicraftsman? for he has abilities of his
own.”
“But they must be helped on by others,” said the father.
“That help he has got now,” rejoined the mother; “for the
Count spoke out quite clearly and distinctly.”
“But I fancy it began with the General,” said the father,
“and we must thank them too.”
“Let us do so with all my heart,” cried the mother, “though I
fancy we have not much to thank them for. I will thank the good
God; and I will thank Him, too, for letting little Emily get
well.”
Emily was getting on bravely, and George got on bravely too.
In the course of the year he won the little silver prize medal
of the Academy, and afterwards he gained the great one too.
“It would have been better, after all, if he had been
apprenticed to a handicraftsman,” said the porter’s wife,
weeping; “for then we could have kept him with us. What is he to
do in Rome? I shall never get a sight of him again, not even if
he comes back; but that he won’t do, the dear boy.”
“It is fortune and fame for him,” said the father.
“Yes, thank you, my friend,” said the mother; “you are saying
what you do not mean. You are just as sorrowful as I am.”
And it was all true about the sorrow and the journey. But
everybody said it was a great piece of good fortune for the
young fellow. And he had to take leave, and of the General too.
The General’s lady did not show herself, for she had her bad
headache. On this occasion the General told his only anecdote,
about what he had said to the Prince, and how the Prince had
said to him, “You are incomparable.” And he held out a languid
hand to George.
Emily gave George her hand too, and looked almost sorry; and
George was the most sorry of all.
Time goes by when one has something to do; and it goes by,
too, when one has nothing to do. The time is equally long, but
not equally useful. It was useful to George, and did not seem
long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his home.
How might the good folks be getting on, up stairs and down
stairs? Yes, there was writing about that, and many things can
be put into a letter—bright sunshine and dark, heavy days. Both
of these were in the letter which brought the news that his
father was dead, and that his mother was alone now. She wrote
that Emily had come down to see her, and had been to her like an
angel of comfort; and concerning herself, she added that she had
been allowed to keep her situation as porteress.
The General’s lady kept a diary, and in this diary was
recorded every ball she attended and every visit she received.
The diary was illustrated by the insertion of the visiting cards
of the diplomatic circle and of the most noble families; and the
General’s lady was proud of it. The diary kept growing through a
long time, and amid many severe headaches, and through a long
course of half-nights, that is to say, of court balls. Emily had
now been to a court ball for the first time. Her mother had worn
a bright red dress, with black lace, in the Spanish style; the
daughter had been attired in white, fair and delicate; green
silk ribbons fluttered like flag-leaves among her yellow locks,
and on her head she wore a wreath of water-lillies. Her eyes
were so blue and clear, her mouth was so delicate and red, she
looked like a little water spirit, as beautiful as such a spirit
can be imagined. The Princes danced with her, one after another
of course; and the General’s lady had not a headache for a week
afterwards.
But the first ball was not the last, and Emily could not
stand it; it was a good thing, therefore, that summer brought
with it rest, and exercise in the open air. The family had been
invited by the old Count to visit him at him castle. That was a
castle with a garden which was worth seeing. Part of this garden
was laid out quite in the style of the old days, with stiff
green hedges; you walked as if between green walls with
peep-holes in them. Box trees and yew trees stood there trimmed
into the form of stars and pyramids, and water sprang from
fountains in large grottoes lined with shells. All around stood
figures of the most beautiful stone—that could be seen in their
clothes as well as in their faces; every flower-bed had a
different shape, and represented a fish, or a coat of arms, or a
monogram. That was the French part of the garden; and from this
part the visitor came into what appeared like the green, fresh
forest, where the trees might grow as they chose, and
accordingly they were great and glorious. The grass was green,
and beautiful to walk on, and it was regularly cut, and rolled,
and swept, and tended. That was the English part of the garden.
“Old time and new time,” said the Count, “here they run well
into one another. In two years the building itself will put on a
proper appearance, there will be a complete metamorphosis in
beauty and improvement. I shall show you the drawings, and I
shall show you the architect, for he is to dine here to-day.”
“Charming!” said the General.
“ ’Tis like Paradise here,” said the General’s lady, “and
yonder you have a knight’s castle!”
“That’s my poultry-house,” observed the Count. “The pigeons
live in the tower, the turkeys in the first floor, but old Elsie
rules in the ground floor. She has apartments on all sides of
her. The sitting hens have their own room, and the hens with
chickens have theirs; and the ducks have their own particular
door leading to the water.”
“Charming!” repeated the General.
And all sailed forth to see these wonderful things. Old Elsie
stood in the room on the ground floor, and by her side stood
Architect George. He and Emily now met for the first time after
several years, and they met in the poultry-house.
Yes, there he stood, and was handsome enough to be looked at.
His face was frank and energetic; he had black shining hair, and
a smile about his mouth, which said, “I have a brownie that sits
in my ear, and knows every one of you, inside and out.” Old
Elsie had pulled off her wooden shoes, and stood there in her
stockings, to do honor to the noble guests. The hens clucked,
and the cocks crowed, and the ducks waddled to and fro, and
said, “Quack, quack!” But the fair, pale girl, the friend of his
childhood, the daughter of the General, stood there with a rosy
blush on her usually pale cheeks, and her eyes opened wide, and
her mouth seemed to speak without uttering a word, and the
greeting he received from her was the most beautiful greeting a
young man can desire from a young lady, if they are not related,
or have not danced many times together, and she and the
architect had never danced together.
The Count shook hands with him, and introduced him.
“He is not altogether a stranger, our young friend George.”
The General’s lady bowed to him, and the General’s daughter
was very nearly giving him her hand; but she did not give it to
him.
“Our little Master George!” said the General. “Old friends!
Charming!”
“You have become quite an Italian,” said the General’s lady,
“and I presume you speak the language like a native?”
“My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it,”
observed the General.
At dinner, George sat at the right hand of Emily, whom the
General had taken down, while the Count led in the General’s
lady.
Mr. George talked and told of his travels; and he could talk
well, and was the life and soul of the table, though the old
Count could have been it too. Emily sat silent, but she
listened, and her eyes gleamed, but she said nothing.
In the verandah, among the flowers, she and George stood
together; the rose-bushes concealed them. And George was
speaking again, for he took the lead now.
“Many thanks for the kind consideration you showed my old
mother,” he said. “I know that you went down to her on the night
when my father died, and you stayed with her till his eyes were
closed. My heartiest thanks!”
He took Emily’s hand and kissed it—he might do so on such an
occasion. She blushed deeply, but pressed his hand, and looked
at him with her dear blue eyes.
“Your mother was a dear soul!” she said. “How fond she was of
her son! And she let me read all your letters, so that I almost
believe I know you. How kind you were to me when I was little
girl! You used to give me pictures.”
“Which you tore in two,” said George.
“No, I have still your drawing of the castle.”
“I must build the castle in reality now,” said George; and he
became quite warm at his own words.
The General and the General’s lady talked to each other in
their room about the porter’s son—how he knew how to behave, and
to express himself with the greatest propriety.
“He might be a tutor,” said the General.
“Intellect!” said the General’s lady; but she did not say
anything more.
During the beautiful summer-time Mr. George several times
visited the Count at his castle; and he was missed when he did
not come.
“How much the good God has given you that he has not given to
us poor mortals,” said Emily to him. “Are you sure you are very
grateful for it?”
It flattered George that the lovely young girl should look up
to him, and he thought then that Emily had unusually good
abilities. And the General felt more and more convinced that
George was no cellar-child.
“His mother was a very good woman,” he observed. “It is only
right I should do her that justice now she is in her grave.”
The summer passed away, and the winter came; again there was
talk about Mr. George. He was highly respected, and was received
in the first circles. The General had met him at a court ball.
And now there was a ball to be given in the General’s house
for Emily, and could Mr. George be invited to it?
“He whom the King invites can be invited by the General
also,” said the General, and drew himself up till he stood quite
an inch higher than before.
Mr. George was invited, and he came; princes and counts came,
and they danced, one better than the other. But Emily could only
dance one dance—the first; for she made a false step—nothing of
consequence; but her foot hurt her, so that she had to be
careful, and leave off dancing, and look at the others. So she
sat and looked on, and the architect stood by her side.
“I suppose you are giving her the whole history of St.
Peter’s,” said the General, as he passed by; and smiled, like
the personification of patronage.
With the same patronizing smile he received Mr. George a few
days afterwards. The young man came, no doubt, to return thanks
for the invitation to the ball. What else could it be? But
indeed there was something else, something very astonishing and
startling. He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so that the General
could hardly believe his own ears. It was “the height of
rhodomontade,” an offer, quite an inconceivable offer—Mr. George
came to ask the hand of Emily in marriage!
“Man!” cried the General, and his brain seemed to be boiling.
“I don’t understand you at all. What is it you say? What is it
you want? I don’t know you. Sir! Man! What possesses you to
break into my house? And am I to stand here and listen to you?”
He stepped backwards into his bed-room, locked the door behind
him, and left Mr. George standing alone. George stood still for
a few minutes, and then turned round and left the room. Emily
was standing in the corridor.
“My father has answered?” she said, and her voice trembled.
George pressed her hand.
“He has escaped me,” he replied; “but a better time will
come.”
There were tears in Emily’s eyes, but in the young man’s eyes
shone courage and confidence; and the sun shone through the
window, and cast his beams on the pair, and gave them his
blessing.
The General sat in his room, bursting hot. Yes, he was still
boiling, until he boiled over in the exclamation, “Lunacy!
porter! madness!”
Not an hour was over before the General’s lady knew it out of
the General’s own mouth. She called Emily, and remained alone
with her.
“You poor child,” she said; “to insult you so! to insult us
so! There are tears in your eyes, too, but they become you well.
You look beautiful in tears. You look as I looked on my
wedding-day. Weep on, my sweet Emily.”
“Yes, that I must,” said Emily, “if you and my father do not
say ‘yes.’”
“Child!” screamed the General’s lady; “you are ill! You are
talking wildly, and I shall have a most terrible headache! Oh,
what a misfortune is coming upon our house! Don’t make your
mother die, Emily, or you will have no mother.”
And the eyes of the General’s lady were wet, for she could
not bear to think of her own death.
In the newspapers there was an announcement. “Mr. George has
been elected Professor of the Fifth Class, number Eight.”
“It’s a pity that his parents are dead and cannot read it,”
said the new porter people, who now lived in the cellar under
the General’s apartments. They knew that the Professor had been
born and grown up within their four walls.
“Now he’ll get a salary,” said the man.
“Yes, that’s not much for a poor child,” said the woman.
“Eighteen dollars a year,” said the man. “Why, it’s a good
deal of money.”
“No, I mean the honor of it,” replied the wife. “Do you think
he cares for the money? Those few dollars he can earn a hundred
times over, and most likely he’ll get a rich wife into the
bargain. If we had children of our own, husband, our child
should be an architect and a professor too.”
George was spoken well of in the cellar, and he was spoken
well of in the first floor. The old Count took upon himself to
do that.
The pictures he had drawn in his childhood gave occasion for
it. But how did the conversation come to turn on these pictures?
Why, they had been talking of Russia and of Moscow, and thus
mention was made of the Kremlin, which little George had once
drawn for Miss Emily. He had drawn many pictures, but the Count
especially remembered one, “Emily’s Castle,” where she was to
sleep, and to dance, and to play at receiving guests.
“The Professor was a true man,” said the Count, “and would be
a privy councillor before he died, it was not at all unlikely;
and he might build a real castle for the young lady before that
time came: why not?”
“That was a strange jest,” remarked the General’s lady, when
the Count had gone away. The General shook his head
thoughtfully, and went out for a ride, with his groom behind him
at a proper distance, and he sat more stiffly than ever on his
high horse.
It was Emily’s birthday. Flowers, books, letters, and
visiting cards came pouring in. The General’s lady kissed her on
the mouth, and the General kissed her on the forehead; they were
affectionate parents, and they and Emily had to receive grand
visitors, two of the Princes. They talked of balls and theatres,
of diplomatic missions, of the government of empires and
nations; and then they spoke of talent, native talent; and so
the discourse turned upon the young architect.
“He is building up an immortality for himself,” said one,
“and he will certainly build his way into one of our first
families”.
“One of our first families!” repeated the General and
afterwards the General’s lady; “what is meant by one of our
first families?”
“I know for whom it was intended,” said the General’s lady,
“but I shall not say it. I don’t think it. Heaven disposes, but
I shall be astonished.”
“I am astonished also!” said the General. “I haven’t an idea
in my head!” And he fell into a reverie, waiting for ideas.
There is a power, a nameless power, in the possession of
favor from above, the favor of Providence, and this favor little
George had. But we are forgetting the birthday.
Emily’s room was fragrant with flowers, sent by male and
female friends; on the table lay beautiful presents for greeting
and remembrance, but none could come from George—none could come
from him; but it was not necessary, for the whole house was full
of remembrances of him. Even out of the ash-bin the blossom of
memory peeped forth, for Emily had sat whimpering there on the
day when the window-curtain caught fire, and George arrived in
the character of fire engine. A glance out of the window, and
the acacia tree reminded of the days of childhood. Flowers and
leaves had fallen, but there stood the tree covered with hoar
frost, looking like a single huge branch of coral, and the moon
shone clear and large among the twigs, unchanged in its
changings, as it was when George divided his bread and butter
with little Emily.
Out of a box the girl took the drawings of the Czar’s palace
and of her own castle—remembrances of George. The drawings were
looked at, and many thoughts came. She remembered the day when,
unobserved by her father and mother, she had gone down to the
porter’s wife who lay dying. Once again she seemed to sit beside
her, holding the dying woman’s hand in hers, hearing the dying
woman’s last words: “Blessing George!” The mother was thinking
of her son, and now Emily gave her own interpretation to those
words. Yes, George was certainly with her on her birthday.
It happened that the next day was another birthday in that
house, the General’s birthday. He had been born the day after
his daughter, but before her of course—many years before her.
Many presents arrived, and among them came a saddle of exquisite
workmanship, a comfortable and costly saddle—one of the Princes
had just such another. Now, from whom might this saddle come?
The General was delighted. There was a little note with the
saddle. Now if the words on the note had been “many thanks for
yesterday’s reception,” we might easily have guessed from whom
it came. But the words were “From somebody whom the General does
not know.”
“Whom in the world do I not know?” exclaimed the General. “I
know everybody;” and his thoughts wandered all through society,
for he knew everybody there. “That saddle comes from my wife!”
he said at last. “She is teasing me—charming!”
But she was not teasing him; those times were past.
Again there was a feast, but it was not in the General’s
house, it was a fancy ball at the Prince’s, and masks were
allowed too.
The General went as Rubens, in a Spanish costume, with a
little ruff round his neck, a sword by his side, and a stately
manner. The General’s lady was Madame Rubens, in black velvet
made high round the neck, exceedingly warm, and with a
mill-stone round her neck in the shape of a great
ruff—accurately dressed after a Dutch picture in the possession
of the General, in which the hands were especially admired. They
were just like the hands of the General’s lady.
Emily was Psyche. In white crape and lace she was like a
floating swan. She did not want wings at all. She only wore them
as emblematic of Psyche.
Brightness, splendor, light and flowers, wealth and taste
appeared at the ball; there was so much to see, that the
beautiful hands of Madame Rubens made no sensation at all.
A black domino, with an acacia blossom in his cap, danced
with Psyche.
“Who is that?” asked the General’s lady.
“His Royal Highness,” replied the General. “I am quite sure
of it. I knew him directly by the pressure of his hand.”
The General’s lady doubted it.
General Rubens had no doubts about it. He went up to the
black domino and wrote the royal letters in the mask’s hand.
These were denied, but the mask gave him a hint.
The words that came with the saddle: “One whom you do not
know, General.”
“But I do know you,” said the General. “It was you who sent
me the saddle.”
The domino raised his hand, and disappeared among the other
guests.
“Who is that black domino with whom you were dancing, Emily?”
asked the General’s lady.
“I did not ask his name,” she replied, “because you knew it.
It is the Professor. Your protégé is here, Count!” she
continued, turning to that nobleman, who stood close by. “A
black domino with acacia blossoms in his cap.”
“Very likely, my dear lady,” replied the Count. “But one of
the Princes wears just the same costume.”
“I knew the pressure of the hand,” said the General. “The
saddle came from the Prince. I am so certain of it that I could
invite that domino to dinner.”
“Do so. If it be the Prince he will certainly come,” replied
the Count.
“And if it is the other he will not come,” said the General,
and approached the black domino, who was just speaking with the
King. The General gave a very respectful invitation “that they
might make each other’s acquaintance,” and he smiled in his
certainty concerning the person he was inviting. He spoke loud
and distinctly.
The domino raised his mask, and it was George. “Do you repeat
your invitation, General?” he asked.
The General certainly seemed to grow an inch taller, assumed
a more stately demeanor, and took two steps backward and one
step forward, as if he were dancing a minuet, and then came as
much gravity and expression into the face of the General as the
General could contrive to infuse into it; but he replied,
“I never retract my words! You are invited, Professor!” and
he bowed with a glance at the King, who must have heard the
whole dialogue.
Now, there was a company to dinner at the General’s, but only
the old Count and his protégé were invited.
“I have my foot under his table,” thought George. “That’s
laying the foundation stone.”
And the foundation stone was really laid, with great
ceremony, at the house of the General and of the General’s lady.
The man had come, and had spoken quite like a person in good
society, and had made himself very agreeable, so that the
General had often to repeat his “Charming!” The General talked
of this dinner, talked of it even to a court lady; and this
lady, one of the most intellectual persons about the court,
asked to be invited to meet the Professor the next time he
should come. So he had to be invited again; and he was invited,
and came, and was charming again; he could even play chess.
“He’s not out of the cellar,” said the General; “he’s quite a
distinguished person. There are many distinguished persons of
that kind, and it’s no fault of his.”
The Professor, who was received in the King’s palace, might
very well be received by the General; but that he could ever
belong to the house was out of the question, only the whole town
was talking of it.
He grew and grew. The dew of favor fell from above, so no one
was surprised after all that he should become a Privy
Councillor, and Emily a Privy Councillor’s lady.
“Life is either a tragedy or a comedy,” said the General. “In
tragedies they die, in comedies they marry one another.”
In this case they married. And they had three clever boys—but
not all at once.
The sweet children rode on their hobby-horses through all the
rooms when they came to see the grandparents. And the General
also rode on his stick; he rode behind them in the character of
groom to the little Privy Councillors.
And the General’s lady sat on her sofa and smiled at them,
even when she had her severest headache.
So far did George get, and much further; else it had not been
worth while to tell the story of THE PORTER’S SON.
|
The Toad
THE well was deep, and therefore the rope had to be a long one;
it was heavy work turning the handle when any one had to raise a
bucketful of water over the edge of the well. Though the water
was clear, the sun never looked down far enough into the well to
mirror itself in the waters; but as far as its beams could
reach, green things grew forth between the stones in the sides
of the well.
Down below dwelt a family of the Toad race. They had, in
fact, come head-over-heels down the well, in the person of the
old Mother-Toad, who was still alive. The green Frogs, who had
been established there a long time, and swam about in the water,
called them “well-guests.” But the new-comers seemed determined
to stay where they were, for they found it very agreeable living
“in a dry place,” as they called the wet stones.
The Mother-Frog had once been a traveller. She happened to be
in the water-bucket when it was drawn up, but the light became
too strong for her, and she got a pain in her eyes. Fortunately
she scrambled out of the bucket; but she fell into the water
with a terrible flop, and had to lie sick for three days with
pains in her back. She certainly had not much to tell of the
things up above, but she knew this, and all the Frogs knew it,
that the well was not all the world. The Mother-Toad might have
told this and that, if she had chosen, but she never answered
when they asked her anything, and so they left off asking.
“She’s thick, and fat and ugly,” said the young green Frogs;
“and her children will be just as ugly as she is.”
“That may be,” retorted the mother-Toad, “but one of them has
a jewel in his head, or else I have the jewel.”
The young frogs listened and stared; and as these words did
not please them, they made grimaces and dived down under the
water. But the little Toads kicked up their hind legs from mere
pride, for each of them thought that he must have the jewel; and
then they sat and held their heads quite still. But at length
they asked what it was that made them so proud, and what kind of
a thing a jewel might be.
“Oh, it is such a splendid and precious thing, that I cannot
describe it,” said the Mother-Toad. “It’s something which one
carries about for one’s own pleasure, and that makes other
people angry. But don’t ask me any questions, for I shan’t
answer you.”
“Well, I haven’t got the jewel,” said the smallest of the
Toads; she was as ugly as a toad can be. “Why should I have such
a precious thing? And if it makes others angry, it can’t give me
any pleasure. No, I only wish I could get to the edge of the
well, and look out; it must be beautiful up there.”
“You’d better stay where you are,” said the old Mother-Toad,
“for you know everything here, and you can tell what you have.
Take care of the bucket, for it will crush you to death; and
even if you get into it safely, you may fall out. And it’s not
every one who falls so cleverly as I did, and gets away with
whole legs and whole bones.”
“Quack!” said the little Toad; and that’s just as if one of
us were to say, “Aha!”
She had an immense desire to get to the edge of the well, and
to look over; she felt such a longing for the green, up there;
and the next morning, when it chanced that the bucket was being
drawn up, filled with water, and stopped for a moment just in
front of the stone on which the Toad sat, the little creature’s
heart moved within it, and our Toad jumped into the filled
bucket, which presently was drawn to the top, and emptied out.
“Ugh, you beast!” said the farm laborer who emptied the
bucket, when he saw the toad. “You’re the ugliest thing I’ve
seen for one while.” And he made a kick with his wooden shoe at
the toad, which just escaped being crushed by managing to
scramble into the nettles which grew high by the well’s brink.
Here she saw stem by stem, but she looked up also; the sun shone
through the leaves, which were quite transparent; and she felt
as a person would feel who steps suddenly into a great forest,
where the sun looks in between the branches and leaves.
“It’s much nicer here than down in the well! I should like to
stay here my whole life long!” said the little Toad. So she lay
there for an hour, yes, for two hours. “I wonder what is to be
found up here? As I have come so far, I must try to go still
farther.” And so she crawled on as fast as she could crawl, and
got out upon the highway, where the sun shone upon her, and the
dust powdered her all over as she marched across the way.
“I’ve got to a dry place. now, and no mistake,” said the
Toad. “It’s almost too much of a good thing here; it tickles one
so.”
She came to the ditch; and forget-me-nots were growing there,
and meadow-sweet; and a very little way off was a hedge of
whitethorn, and elder bushes grew there, too, and bindweed with
white flowers. Gay colors were to be seen here, and a butterfly,
too, was flitting by. The Toad thought it was a flower which had
broken loose that it might look about better in the world, which
was quite a natural thing to do.
“If one could only make such a journey as that!” said the
Toad. “Croak! how capital that would be.”
Eight days and eight nights she stayed by the well, and
experienced no want of provisions. On the ninth day she thought,
“Forward! onward!” But what could she find more charming and
beautiful? Perhaps a little toad or a few green frogs. During
the last night there had been a sound borne on the breeze, as if
there were cousins in the neighborhood.
“It’s a glorious thing to live! glorious to get out of the
well, and to lie among the stinging-nettles, and to crawl along
the dusty road. But onward, onward! that we may find frogs or a
little toad. We can’t do without that; nature alone is not
enough for one.” And so she went forward on her journey.
She came out into the open field, to a great pond, round
about which grew reeds; and she walked into it.
“It will be too damp for you here,” said the Frogs; “but you
are very welcome! Are you a he or a she? But it doesn’t matter;
you are equally welcome.”
And she was invited to the concert in the evening—the family
concert; great enthusiasm and thin voices; we know the sort of
thing. No refreshments were given, only there was plenty to
drink, for the whole pond was free.
“Now I shall resume my journey,” said the little Toad; for
she always felt a longing for something better.
She saw the stars shining, so large and so bright, and she
saw the moon gleaming; and then she saw the sun rise, and mount
higher and higher.
“Perhaps after all, I am still in a well, only in a larger
well. I must get higher yet; I feel a great restlessness and
longing.” And when the moon became round and full, the poor
creature thought, “I wonder if that is the bucket which will be
let down, and into which I must step to get higher up? Or is the
sun the great bucket? How great it is! how bright it is! It can
take up all. I must look out, that I may not miss the
opportunity. Oh, how it seems to shine in my head! I don’t think
the jewel can shine brighter. But I haven’t the jewel; not that
I cry about that—no, I must go higher up, into splendor and joy!
I feel so confident, and yet I am afraid. It’s a difficult step
to take, and yet it must be taken. Onward, therefore, straight
onward!”
She took a few steps, such as a crawling animal may take, and
soon found herself on a road beside which people dwelt; but
there were flower gardens as well as kitchen gardens. And she
sat down to rest by a kitchen garden.
“What a number of different creatures there are that I never
knew! and how beautiful and great the world is! But one must
look round in it, and not stay in one spot.” And then she hopped
into the kitchen garden. “How green it is here! how beautiful it
is here!”
“I know that,” said the Caterpillar, on the leaf, “my leaf is
the largest here. It hides half the world from me, but I don’t
care for the world.”
“Cluck, cluck!” And some fowls came. They tripped about in
the cabbage garden. The Fowl who marched at the head of them had
a long sight, and she spied the Caterpillar on the green leaf,
and pecked at it, so that the Caterpillar fell on the ground,
where it twisted and writhed.
The Fowl looked at it first with one eye and then with the
other, for she did not know what the end of this writhing would
be.
“It doesn’t do that with a good will,” thought the Fowl, and
lifted up her head to peck at the Caterpillar.
The Toad was so horrified at this, that she came crawling
straight up towards the Fowl.
“Aha, it has allies,” quoth the Fowl. “Just look at the
crawling thing!” And then the Fowl turned away. “I don’t care
for the little green morsel; it would only tickle my throat.”
The other fowls took the same view of it, and they all turned
away together.
“I writhed myself free,” said the Caterpillar. “What a good
thing it is when one has presence of mind! But the hardest thing
remains to be done, and that is to get on my leaf again. Where
is it?”
And the little Toad came up and expressed her sympathy. She
was glad that in her ugliness she had frightened the fowls.
“What do you mean by that?” cried the Caterpillar. “I
wriggled myself free from the Fowl. You are very disagreeable to
look at. Cannot I be left in peace on my own property? Now I
smell cabbage; now I am near my leaf. Nothing is so beautiful as
property. But I must go higher up.”
“Yes, higher up,” said the little Toad; “higher-up! She feels
just as I do; but she’s not in a good humor to-day. That’s
because of the fright. We all want to go higher up.” And she
looked up as high as ever she could.
The stork sat in his nest on the roof of the farm-house. He
clapped with his beak, and the Mother-stork clapped with hers.
“How high up they live!” thought the Toad. “If one could only
get as high as that!”
In the farm-house lived two young students; the one was a
poet and the other a scientific searcher into the secrets of
nature. The one sang and wrote joyously of everything that God
had created, and how it was mirrored in his heart. He sang it
out clearly, sweetly, richly, in well-sounding verses; while the
other investigated created matter itself, and even cut it open
where need was. He looked upon God’s creation as a great sum in
arithmetic—subtracted, multiplied, and tried to know it within
and without, and to talk with understanding concerning it; and
that was a very sensible thing; and he spoke joyously and
cleverly of it. They were good, joyful men, those two,
“There sits a good specimen of a toad,” said the naturalist.
“I must have that fellow in a bottle of spirits.”
“You have two of them already,” replied the poet. “Let the
thing sit there and enjoy its life.”
“But it’s so wonderfully ugly,” persisted the first.
“Yes, if we could find the jewel in its head,” said the poet,
“I too should be for cutting it open.”
“A jewel!” cried the naturalist. “You seem to know a great
deal about natural history.”
“But is there not something beautiful in the popular belief
that just as the toad is the ugliest of animals, it should often
carry the most precious jewel in its head? Is it not just the
same thing with men? What a jewel that was that Aesop had, and
still more, Socrates!”
The Toad did not hear any more, nor did she understand half
of what she had heard. The two friends walked on, and thus she
escaped the fate of being bottled up in spirits.
“Those two also were speaking of the jewel,” said the Toad to
herself. “What a good thing that I have not got it! I might have
been in a very disagreeable position.”
Now there was a clapping on the roof of the farm-house.
Father-Stork was making a speech to his family, and his family
was glancing down at the two young men in the kitchen garden.
“Man is the most conceited creature!” said the Stork. “Listen
how their jaws are wagging; and for all that they can’t clap
properly. They boast of their gifts of eloquence and their
language! Yes, a fine language truly! Why, it changes in every
day’s journey we make. One of them doesn’t understand another.
Now, we can speak our language over the whole earth—up in the
North and in Egypt. And then men are not able to fly, moreover.
They rush along by means of an invention they call ’railway;’
but they often break their necks over it. It makes my beak turn
cold when I think of it. The world could get on without men. We
could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs
and earth-worms.”
“That was a powerful speech,” thought the little Toad. “What
a great man that is yonder! and how high he sits! Higher than
ever I saw any one sit yet; and how he can swim!” she cried, as
the Stork soared away through the air with outspread pinions.
And the Mother-Stork began talking in the nest, and told
about Egypt and the waters of the Nile, and the incomparable mud
that was to be found in that strange land; and all this sounded
new and very charming to the little Toad.
“I must go to Egypt!” said she. “If the Stork or one of his
young ones would only take me! I would oblige him in return.
Yes, I shall get to Egypt, for I feel so happy! All the longing
and all the pleasure that I feel is much better than having a
jewel in one’s head.”
And it was just she who had the jewel. That jewel was the
continual striving and desire to go upward—ever upward. It
gleamed in her head, gleamed in joy, beamed brightly in her
longing.
Then, suddenly, up came the Stork. He had seen the Toad in
the grass, and stooped down and seized the little creature
anything but gently. The Stork’s beak pinched her, and the wind
whistled; it was not exactly agreeable, but she was going
upward—upward towards Egypt— and she knew it; and that was why
her eyes gleamed, and a spark seemed to fly out of them.
“Quunk!—ah!”
The body was dead—the Toad was killed! But the spark that had
shot forth from her eyes; what became of that?
The sunbeam took it up; the sunbeam carried the jewel from
the head of the toad. Whither?
Ask not the naturalist; rather ask the poet. He will tell it
thee under the guise of a fairy tale; and the Caterpillar on the
cabbage, and the Stork family belong to the story. Think! the
Caterpillar is changed, and turns into a beautiful butterfly;
the Stork family flies over mountains and seas, to the distant
Africa, and yet finds the shortest way home to the same
country—to the same roof. Nay, that is almost too improbable;
and yet it is true. You may ask the naturalist, he will confess
it is so; and you know it yourself, for you have seen it.
But the jewel in the head of the toad?
Seek it in the sun; see it there if you can.
The brightness is too dazzling there. We have not yet such
eyes as can see into the glories which God has created, but we
shall receive them by-and-by; and that will be the most
beautiful story of all, and we shall all have our share in it.
|
The Nis and the Dame
YOU have all heard of the Nis, but have you ever heard of the
Dame,—the Gardener’s Dame? She had plenty of reading; knew
verses by heart; aye, and could write them herself with ease;
except that the rhymes, “clinchings,” as she called them, cost
her a little trouble. She had gifts of writing, and gifts of
speech; she could well have been priest, or, at all events, the
priest’s wife.
“The earth is beauteous in her Sunday gown,” said she, and
this thought she had set in regular form and “clinching;” set it
up in a ditty, that was ever so fine and long.
The Under-schoolmaster, Mr. Kisserup (not that it matters
about his name), was a cousin of hers, and on a visit at the
Gardener’s; he heard the Dame’s poem, and it did him good, he
said—a world of good. “You have soul, ma’am” said he.
“Fiddle-de-dee!” said the Gardener. “Don’t be putting such
stuff in her head. Soul indeed! a wife should be a body, a
plain, decent body, and watch the pot to see that the porridge
is not burnt.”
“The burnt taste I can take out of the porridge with a little
charcoal,” said the Dame, “and out of you with a little kiss.
One might fancy you thought of nothing but greens and potatoes;
and yet you love the flowers;” and so saying, she kissed him.
“Flowers are all soul!” said she.
“Mind your porridge-pot,” said he, and went off into the
garden. This was his porridge-pot, and this he minded.
But the Under-schoolmaster sat in the Dame’s parlor, and
talked with the Dame. Her fine words, “Earth is beauteous,” he
made the text of a whole sermon, after his own fashion.
“Earth is beauteous, make it subject unto you! was said, and
we became the lords. Some rule it with the mind, others with the
body. This man is sent into the world like an incorporate note
of admiration! that man like a dash of hesitation: We pause, and
ask, Why is he here? One of us becomes a bishop; another only a
poor under-master; but all is for the best. Earth is beauteous,
and always in her Sunday gown! That was a thought-stirring poem,
ma’am full of feeling and cosmography!”
“You have soul, Mr. Kisserup,” said the Dame, “a great deal
of soul, I assure you. One gains clearness of perception by
talking with you.”
And so they went on in the same strain, as grand and,
excellent as ever. But out in the kitchen there was somebody
else talking; and that was the Nis, the little gray-jacketed Nis
with his red cap—you know him. The Nis sat in the kitchen,
playing the pot-watcher. He talked, but nobody heard him except
the great black tom-cat,“Cream-thief,” as the Dame called him.
The Nis was snarling at her, because she did not believe in
his existence, he found: true, she had never seen him; but
still, with all her reading, she ought to have known he did
exist, and have shown him some little attention. She never
thought, on Christmas Eve, of setting so much as a spoonful of
porridge for him; though all his forefathers had got this, and
from dames, too, who had had no reading at all: their porridge
used to be swimming with cream and butter. It made the cat’s
mouth water to hear of it.
“She calls me an idea!” said the Nis: “that’s quite beyond
the reach of my ideas. In fact, she denies me. I’ve caught her
saying so before, and again just now, yonder, where she sits
droning to that boy-whipper, that understrapper. I say with
Daddy, ‘Mind your porridge-pot.’ That she doesn’t do: so now for
making it boil over.”
And the Nis puffed at the fire till it burned and blazed.
“Hubble—bubble—hish!” the pot boiled over.
“And now for picking holes in Daddy’s sock,” said the Nis.
“I’ll unravel a long piece, from toe to heel; so there’ll be
something to darn when she’s not too busy poetizing, Dame
poetess, please darn Daddy’s stockings.”
The Cat sniggered and sneezed; he had caught cold somehow,
though he always went in furs.
“I’ve unlatched the larder-door,” said the Nis. “There’s
clotted cream there as thick as gruel. If you won’t have a lick,
I will.”
“If I am to get all the blame and beating,” said the Cat,
“I’ll have my share of the cream.”
“A sweet lick is worth a kick!” said the Nis. “But now I’ll
be off to the Schoolmaster’s room, hang his braces on the
looking-glass, put his socks in the water-jug, and make him
believe that the punch has set his brain spinning. Last night: I
sat on the woodstack by the kennel. I dearly love to bully the
watch-dog; so I swung my legs about in front of him. His chain
was so short he could not reach them, however high he sprang: he
was furious, and went on bark-barking, and I went on
dingle-dangling; that was rare sport! Schoolmaster awoke, and
jumped up, and looked out three times; but he couldn’t see me,
though he had got barnacles on; he sleeps in his barnacles.”
“Say mew, if Dame is coming,” said the Cat; “I am hard of
bearing: I feel sick to-day.”
“You have the licking sickness,” said the Nis; “lick away;
lick the sickness away. Only be sure to wipe your beard, that
the cream mayn’t hang on it. Now I’ll go for a bit of
eavesdropping.”
And the Nis stood behind the door, and the door stood ajar.
There was no one in the parlor except the Dame and the
Under-master. They were talking about things which—as the
Schoolmaster finely observed—ought in every household to rank
far above pots and pans—the Gifts of the Soul.
“Mr. Kisserup,” said the Dame, “I will now show you something
in that line, which I have never yet shown to any living
creature—least of all to a man—my smaller poems -some of which,
however, are rather long. I have called them ‘clinchings by a
Gentlewoman.’ I cling to those old designations.”
“And so one ought,” said the Schoolmaster; “one ought root
the German out of our language.”
“I do my best toward it,” said the Dame. “You will never hear
me speak of Butterdeig or Kleiner; no, I call them past-leaves
and fatty-cakes.”
And she took out of her drawer a writing-book, in a bright
green binding, with two blotches of ink on it.
“There is much in the book that is earnest,” said she: “my
mind inclines toward the sorrowful. Here now is my ‘Midnight
Sigh,’ my ‘Evening Red,’ and here ‘When I was wedded to
Klemmensen’—my husband, you know; you may pass that over, though
it has thought and feeling. ‘The Housewife’s Duties’ is the best
piece—sorrowful, like all the rest; I am strongest in that
style. Only one single piece is jocular: it contains some lively
thoughts—one must indulge in them now and then—thoughts
about—don’t laugh at me—about being a poetess! It has hitherto
been all between me and my drawer; and now you make the third of
us, Mr. Kisserup. Poetry is my ruling passion; it haunts and
worries me—it reigns over me. This I have expressed in my title
‘The Little Nis.’ You know the old cottage tales about the Nis,
who is always playing pranks in the house. I have depicted
myself as the house, and my poetical feelings as the Nis, the
spirit that possesses me. His power and strength I have sung in
‘The Little Nis;’ but you must pledge me with hands and mouth
never to reveal my secret, either to my husband or any one else.
Read it aloud, so that I may hear whether you understand the
composition.”
And the Schoolmaster read, and the Dame listened, and so did
the little Nis. He was eavesdropping, you know; and he came up
just in time to hear the title of “The Little Nis.”
“Ho! ho!” said he; “that’s my name! what has she been writing
about me? O, I’ll give her tit for tat; chip her eggs, nip her
chickens, hunt the fat off her fatted calf: fie upon such a
Dame!”
And he listened with pursed-up lips and pricked-up ears but
as he heard of the Nis’s power and glory, and his lordship over
the Dame (it was poetry, you know, she meant, but the Nis took
the name literally), the little fellow began smiling more and
more; his eyes glistened with pleasure; then came lines of
dignity in the corners of his mouth; he drew up his heels, and
stood on his toes an inch or two higher than usual; he was
delighted with what was said about the little Nis.
“I have done her wrong! She is a Dame of soul and high
breeding! She has put me into her ‘Clinchings,’ and they will be
printed and read! No more cream for Master Cat: I shall let
nobody touch it but myself. One drinks less than two, so that
will be a saving: and that I shall carry out, and pay respect
and honor to our Dame.”
“Ah, he’s a man all over, that Nis,” said the old Cat. “Only
one soft mew from the Dame, a mew about himself, and he changes
his mind in a jiffy! And that Dame of ours, isn’t she sly!”
But the Dame was not sly; it was all because the Nis was a
man.
If you cannot understand this story, ask somebody to help
you; but do not ask the Nis—no, nor yet the Dame.
|
The Dryad
WE are travelling to Paris to the Exhibition.
Now we are there. That was a journey, a flight without magic.
We flew on the wings of steam over the sea and across the land.
Yes, our time is the time of fairy tales.
We are in the midst of Paris, in a great hotel. Blooming
flowers ornament the staircases, and soft carpets the floors.
Our room is a very cosy one, and through the open balcony
door we have a view of a great square. Spring lives down there;
it has come to Paris, and arrived at the same time with us. It
has come in the shape of a glorious young chestnut tree, with
delicate leaves newly opened. How the tree gleams, dressed in
its spring garb, before all the other trees in the place! One of
these latter had been struck out of the list of living trees. It
lies on the ground with roots exposed. On the place where it
stood, the young chestnut tree is to be planted, and to
flourish.
It still stands towering aloft on the heavy wagon which has
brought it this morning a distance of several miles to Paris.
For years it had stood there, in the protection of a mighty oak
tree, under which the old venerable clergyman had often sat,
with children listening to his stories.
The young chestnut tree had also listened to the stories; for
the Dryad who lived in it was a child also. She remembered the
time when the tree was so little that it only projected a short
way above the grass and ferns around. These were as tall as they
would ever be; but the tree grew every year, and enjoyed the air
and the sunshine, and drank the dew and the rain. Several times
it was also, as it must be, well shaken by the wind and the
rain; for that is a part of education.
The Dryad rejoiced in her life, and rejoiced in the sunshine,
and the singing of the birds; but she was most rejoiced at human
voices; she understood the language of men as well as she
understood that of animals.
Butterflies, cockchafers, dragon-flies, everything that could
fly came to pay a visit. They could all talk. They told of the
village, of the vineyard, of the forest, of the old castle with
its parks and canals and ponds. Down in the water dwelt also
living beings, which, in their way, could fly under the water
from one place to another—beings with knowledge and delineation.
They said nothing at all; they were so clever!
And the swallow, who had dived, told about the pretty little
goldfish, of the thick turbot, the fat brill, and the old carp.
The swallow could describe all that very well, but, “Self is the
man,” she said. “One ought to see these things one’s self.” But
how was the Dryad ever to see such beings? She was obliged to be
satisfied with being able to look over the beautiful country and
see the busy industry of men.
It was glorious; but most glorious of all when the old
clergyman sat under the oak tree and talked of France, and of
the great deeds of her sons and daughters, whose names will be
mentioned with admiration through all time.
Then the Dryad heard of the shepherd girl, Joan of Arc, and
of Charlotte Corday; she heard about Henry the Fourth, and
Napoleon the First; she heard names whose echo sounds in the
hearts of the people.
The village children listened attentively, and the Dryad no
less attentively; she became a school-child with the rest. In
the clouds that went sailing by she saw, picture by picture,
everything that she heard talked about. The cloudy sky was her
picture-book.
She felt so happy in beautiful France, the fruitful land of
genius, with the crater of freedom. But in her heart the sting
remained that the bird, that every animal that could fly, was
much better off than she. Even the fly could look about more in
the world, far beyond the Dryad’s horizon.
France was so great and so glorious, but she could only look
across a little piece of it. The land stretched out, world-wide,
with vineyards, forests and great cities. Of all these Paris was
the most splendid and the mightiest. The birds could get there;
but she, never!
Among the village children was a little ragged, poor girl,
but a pretty one to look at. She was always laughing or singing
and twining red flowers in her black hair.
“Don’t go to Paris!” the old clergyman warned her. “Poor
child! if you go there, it will be your ruin.”
But she went for all that.
The Dryad often thought of her; for she had the same wish,
and felt the same longing for the great city.
The Dryad’s tree was bearing its first chestnut blossoms; the
birds were twittering round them in the most beautiful sunshine.
Then a stately carriage came rolling along that way, and in it
sat a grand lady driving the spirited, light-footed horses. On
the back seat a little smart groom balanced himself. The Dryad
knew the lady, and the old clergyman knew her also. He shook his
head gravely when he saw her, and said:
“So you went there after all, and it was your ruin, poor
Mary!”
“That one poor?” thought the Dryad. “No; she wears a dress
fit for a countess” (she had become one in the city of magic
changes). “Oh, if I were only there, amid all the splendor and
pomp! They shine up into the very clouds at night; when I look
up, I can tell in what direction the town lies.”
Towards that direction the Dryad looked every evening. She
saw in the dark night the gleaming cloud on the horizon; in the
clear moonlight nights she missed the sailing clouds, which
showed her pictures of the city and pictures from history.
The child grasps at the picture-books, the Dryad grasped at
the cloud-world, her thought-book. A sudden, cloudless sky was
for her a blank leaf; and for several days she had only had such
leaves before her.
It was in the warm summer-time: not a breeze moved through
the glowing hot days. Every leaf, every flower, lay as if it
were torpid, and the people seemed torpid, too.
Then the clouds arose and covered the region round about
where the gleaming mist announced “Here lies Paris.”
The clouds piled themselves up like a chain of mountains,
hurried on through the air, and spread themselves abroad over
the whole landscape, as far as the Dryad’s eye could reach.
Like enormous blue-black blocks of rock, the clouds lay piled
over one another. Gleams of lightning shot forth from them.
“These also are the servants of the Lord God,” the old
clergyman had said. And there came a bluish dazzling flash of
lightning, a lighting up as if of the sun itself, which could
burst blocks of rock asunder. The lightning struck and split to
the roots the old venerable oak. The crown fell asunder. It
seemed as if the tree were stretching forth its arms to clasp
the messengers of the light.
No bronze cannon can sound over the land at the birth of a
royal child as the thunder sounded at the death of the old oak.
The rain streamed down; a refreshing wind was blowing; the storm
had gone by, and there was quite a holiday glow on all things.
The old clergyman spoke a few words for honorable remembrance,
and a painter made a drawing, as a lasting record of the tree.
“Everything passes away,” said the Dryad, “passes away like a
cloud, and never comes back!”
The old clergyman, too, did not come back. The green roof of
his school was gone, and his teaching-chair had vanished. The
children did not come; but autumn came, and winter came, and
then spring also. In all this change of seasons the Dryad looked
toward the region where, at night, Paris gleamed with its bright
mist far on the horizon.
Forth from the town rushed engine after engine, train after
train, whistling and screaming at all hours in the day. In the
evening, towards midnight, at daybreak, and all the day through,
came the trains. Out of each one, and into each one, streamed
people from the country of every king. A new wonder of the world
had summoned them to Paris.
In what form did this wonder exhibit itself?
“A splendid blossom of art and industry,” said one, “has
unfolded itself in the Champ de Mars, a gigantic sunflower, from
whose petals one can learn geography and statistics, and can
become as wise as a lord mayor, and raise one’s self to the
level of art and poetry, and study the greatness and power of
the various lands.”
“A fairy tale flower,” said another, “a many-colored
lotus-plant, which spreads out its green leaves like a velvet
carpet over the sand. The opening spring has brought it forth,
the summer will see it in all its splendor, the autumn winds
will sweep it away, so that not a leaf, not a fragment of its
root shall remain.”
In front of the Military School extends in time of peace the
arena of war—a field without a blade of grass, a piece of sandy
steppe, as if cut out of the Desert of Africa, where Fata
Morgana displays her wondrous airy castles and hanging gardens.
In the Champ de Mars, however, these were to be seen more
splendid, more wonderful than in the East, for human art had
converted the airy deceptive scenes into reality.
“The Aladdin’s Palace of the present has been built,” it was
said. “Day by day, hour by hour, it unfolds more of its
wonderful splendor.”
The endless halls shine in marble and many colors. “Master
Bloodless” here moves his limbs of steel and iron in the great
circular hall of machinery. Works of art in metal, in stone, in
Gobelins tapestry, announce the vitality of mind that is
stirring in every land. Halls of paintings, splendor of flowers,
everything that mind and skill can create in the workshop of the
artisan, has been placed here for show. Even the memorials of
ancient days, out of old graves and turf-moors, have appeared at
this general meeting.
The overpowering great variegated whole must be divided into
small portions, and pressed together like a plaything, if it is
to be understood and described.
Like a great table on Christmas Eve, the Champ de Mars
carried a wonder-castle of industry and art, and around this
knickknacks from all countries had been ranged, knickknacks on a
grand scale, for every nation found some remembrance of home.
Here stood the royal palace of Egypt, there the caravanserai
of the desert land. The Bedouin had quitted his sunny country,
and hastened by on his camel. Here stood the Russian stables,
with the fiery glorious horses of the steppe. Here stood the
simple straw-thatched dwelling of the Danish peasant, with the
Dannebrog flag, next to Gustavus Vasa’s wooden house from
Dalarne, with its wonderful carvings. American huts, English
cottages, French pavilions, kiosks, theatres, churches, all
strewn around, and between them the fresh green turf, the clear
springing water, blooming bushes, rare trees, hothouses, in
which one might fancy one’s self transported into the tropical
forest; whole gardens brought from Damascus, and blooming under
one roof. What colors, what fragrance!
Artificial grottoes surrounded bodies of fresh or salt water,
and gave a glimpse into the empire of the fishes; the visitor
seemed to wander at the bottom of the sea, among fishes and
polypi.
“All this,” they said, “the Champ de Mars offers;” and around
the great richly-spread table the crowd of human beings moves
like a busy swarm of ants, on foot or in little carriages, for
not all feet are equal to such a fatiguing journey.
Hither they swarm from morning till late in the evening.
Steamer after steamer, crowded with people, glides down the
Seine. The number of carriages is continually on the increase.
The swarm of people on foot and on horseback grows more and more
dense. Carriages and omnibuses are crowded, stuffed and
embroidered with people. All these tributary streams flow in one
direction—towards the Exhibition. On every entrance the flag of
France is displayed; around the world’s bazaar wave the flags of
all nations. There is a humming and a murmuring from the hall of
the machines; from the towers the melody of the chimes is heard;
with the tones of the organs in the churches mingle the hoarse
nasal songs from the cafés of the East. It is a kingdom of
Babel, a wonder of the world!
In very truth it was. That’s what all the reports said, and
who did not hear them? The Dryad knew everything that is told
here of the new wonder in the city of cities.
“Fly away, ye birds! fly away to see, and then come back and
tell me,” said the Dryad.
The wish became an intense desire—became the one thought of a
life. Then, in the quiet silent night, while the full moon was
shining, the Dryad saw a spark fly out of the moon’s disc, and
fall like a shooting star. And before the tree, whose leaves
waved to and fro as if they were stirred by a tempest, stood a
noble, mighty, and grand figure. In tones that were at once rich
and strong, like the trumpet of the Last Judgment bidding
farewell to life and summoning to the great account, it said:
“Thou shalt go to the city of magic; thou shalt take root
there, and enjoy the mighty rushing breezes, the air and the
sunshine there. But the time of thy life shall then be
shortened; the line of years that awaited thee here amid the
free nature shall shrink to but a small tale. Poor Dryad! It
shall be thy destruction. Thy yearning and longing will
increase, thy desire will grow more stormy, the tree itself will
be as a prison to thee, thou wilt quit thy cell and give up thy
nature to fly out and mingle among men. Then the years that
would have belonged to thee will be contracted to half the span
of the ephemeral fly, that lives but a day: one night, and thy
life-taper shall be blown out—the leaves of the tree will wither
and be blown away, to become green never again!”
Thus the words sounded. And the light vanished away, but not
the longing of the Dryad. She trembled in the wild fever of
expectation.
“I shall go there!” she cried, rejoicingly. “Life is
beginning and swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it is
hastening.”
When the gray dawn arose and the moon turned pale and the
clouds were tinted red, the wished-for hour struck. The words of
promise were fulfilled.
People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the
roots of the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it. A wagon
was brought out, drawn by many horses, and the tree was lifted
up, with its roots and the lumps of earth that adhered to them;
matting was placed around the roots, as though the tree had its
feet in a warm bag. And now the tree was lifted on the wagon and
secured with chains. The journey began—the journey to Paris.
There the tree was to grow as an ornament to the city of French
glory.
The twigs and the leaves of the chestnut tree trembled in the
first moments of its being moved; and the Dryad trembled in the
pleasurable feeling of expectation.
“Away! away!” it sounded in every beat of her pulse. “Away!
away” sounded in words that flew trembling along. The Dryad
forgot to bid farewell to the regions of home; she thought not
of the waving grass and of the innocent daisies, which had
looked up to her as to a great lady, a young Princess playing at
being a shepherdess out in the open air.
The chestnut tree stood upon the wagon, and nodded his
branches; whether this meant “farewell” or “forward,” the Dryad
knew not; she dreamed only of the marvellous new things, that
seemed yet so familiar, and that were to unfold themselves
before her. No child’s heart rejoicing in innocence—no heart
whose blood danced with passion—had set out on the journey to
Paris more full of expectation than she.
Her “farewell” sounded in the words “Away! away!”
The wheels turned; the distant approached; the present
vanished. The region was changed, even as the clouds change. New
vineyards, forests, villages, villas appeared—came
nearer—vanished!
The chestnut tree moved forward, and the Dryad went with it.
Steam-engine after steam-engine rushed past, sending up into the
air vapory clouds, that formed figures which told of Paris,
whence they came, and whither the Dryad was going.
Everything around knew it, and must know whither she was
bound. It seemed to her as if every tree she passed stretched
out its leaves towards her, with the prayer—“Take me with you!
take me with you!” for every tree enclosed a longing Dryad.
What changes during this flight! Houses seemed to be rising
out of the earth—more and more—thicker and thicker. The chimneys
rose like flower-pots ranged side by side, or in rows one above
the other, on the roofs. Great inscriptions in letters a yard
long, and figures in various colors, covering the walls from
cornice to basement, came brightly out.
“Where does Paris begin, and when shall I be there?” asked
the Dryad.
The crowd of people grew; the tumult and the bustle
increased; carriage followed upon carriage; people on foot and
people on horseback were mingled together; all around were shops
on shops, music and song, crying and talking.
The Dryad, in her tree, was now in the midst of Paris. The
great heavy wagon all at once stopped on a little square planted
with trees. The high houses around had all of them balconies to
the windows, from which the inhabitants looked down upon the
young fresh chestnut tree, which was coming to be planted here
as a substitute for the dead tree that lay stretched on the
ground.
The passers-by stood still and smiled in admiration of its
pure vernal freshness. The older trees, whose buds were still
closed, whispered with their waving branches, “Welcome!
welcome!” The fountain, throwing its jet of water high up in the
air, to let it fall again in the wide stone basin, told the wind
to sprinkle the new-comer with pearly drops, as if it wished to
give him a refreshing draught to welcome him.
The Dryad felt how her tree was being lifted from the wagon
to be placed in the spot where it was to stand. The roots were
covered with earth, and fresh turf was laid on top. Blooming
shrubs and flowers in pots were ranged around; and thus a little
garden arose in the square.
The tree that had been killed by the fumes of gas, the steam
of kitchens, and the bad air of the city, was put upon the wagon
and driven away. The passers-by looked on. Children and old men
sat upon the bench, and looked at the green tree. And we who are
telling this story stood upon a balcony, and looked down upon
the green spring sight that had been brought in from the fresh
country air, and said, what the old clergyman would have said,
“Poor Dryad!”
“I am happy! I am happy!” the Dryad cried, rejoicing; “and
yet I cannot realize, cannot describe what I feel. Everything is
as I fancied it, and yet as I did not fancy it.”
The houses stood there, so lofty, so close! The sunlight
shone on only one of the walls, and that one was stuck over with
bills and placards, before which the people stood still; and
this made a crowd.
Carriages rushed past, carriages rolled past; light ones and
heavy ones mingled together. Omnibuses, those over-crowded
moving houses, came rattling by; horsemen galloped among them;
even carts and wagons asserted their rights.
The Dryad asked herself if these high-grown houses, which
stood so close around her, would not remove and take other
shapes, like the clouds in the sky, and draw aside, so that she
might cast a glance into Paris, and over it. Notre Dame must
show itself, the Vendôme Column, and the wondrous building which
had called and was still calling so many strangers to the city.
But the houses did not stir from their places. It was yet day
when the lamps were lit. The gas-jets gleamed from the shops,
and shone even into the branches of the trees, so that it was
like sunlight in summer. The stars above made their appearance,
the same to which the Dryad had looked up in her home. She
thought she felt a clear pure stream of air which went forth
from them. She felt herself lifted up and strengthened, and felt
an increased power of seeing through every leaf and through
every fibre of the root. Amid all the noise and the turmoil, the
colors and the lights, she knew herself watched by mild eyes.
From the side streets sounded the merry notes of fiddles and
wind instruments. Up! to the dance, to the dance! to jollity and
pleasure! that was their invitation. Such music it was, that
horses, carriages, trees, and houses would have danced, if they
had known how. The charm of intoxicating delight filled the
bosom of the Dryad.
“How glorious, how splendid it is!” she cried, rejoicingly.
“Now I am in Paris!”
The next day that dawned, the next night that fell, offered
the same spectacle, similar bustle, similar life; changing,
indeed, yet always the same; and thus it went on through the
sequence of days.
“Now I know every tree, every flower on the square here! I
know every house, every balcony, every shop in this narrow
cut-off corner, where I am denied the sight of this great mighty
city. Where are the arches of triumph, the Boulevards, the
wondrous building of the world? I see nothing of all this. As if
shut up in a cage, I stand among the high houses, which I now
know by heart, with their inscriptions, signs, and placards; all
the painted confectionery, that is no longer to my taste. Where
are all the things of which I heard, for which I longed, and for
whose sake I wanted to come hither? what have I seized, found,
won? I feel the same longing I felt before; I feel that there is
a life I should wish to grasp and to experience. I must go out
into the ranks of living men, and mingle among them. I must fly
about like a bird. I must see and feel, and become human
altogether. I must enjoy the one half-day, instead of vegetating
for years in every-day sameness and weariness, in which I become
ill, and at last sink and disappear like the dew on the meadows.
I will gleam like the cloud, gleam in the sunshine of life, look
out over the whole like the cloud, and pass away like it, no one
knoweth whither.”
Thus sighed the Dryad; and she prayed:
“Take from me the years that were destined for me, and give
me but half of the life of the ephemeral fly! Deliver me from my
prison! Give me human life, human happiness, only a short span,
only the one night, if it cannot be otherwise; and then punish
me for my wish to live, my longing for life! Strike me out of
thy list. Let my shell, the fresh young tree, wither, or be hewn
down, and burnt to ashes, and scattered to all the winds!”
A rustling went through the leaves of the tree; there was a
trembling in each of the leaves; it seemed as if fire streamed
through it. A gust of wind shook its green crown, and from the
midst of that crown a female figure came forth. In the same
moment she was sitting beneath the brightly-illuminated leafy
branches, young and beautiful to behold, like poor Mary, to whom
the clergyman had said, “The great city will be thy
destruction.”
The Dryad sat at the foot of the tree—at her house door,
which she had locked, and whose key had thrown away. So young!
so fair! The stars saw her, and blinked at her. The gas-lamps
saw her, and gleamed and beckoned to her. How delicate she was,
and yet how blooming!—a child, and yet a grown maiden! Her dress
was fine as silk, green as the freshly-opened leaves on the
crown of the tree; in her nut-brown hair clung a half-opened
chestnut blossom. She looked like the Goddess of Spring.
For one short minute she sat motionless; then she sprang up,
and, light as a gazelle, she hurried away. She ran and sprang
like the reflection from the mirror that, carried by the
sunshine, is cast, now here, now there. Could any one have
followed her with his eyes, he would have seen how marvellously
her dress and her form changed, according to the nature of the
house or the place whose light happened to shine upon her.
She reached the Boulevards. Here a sea of light streamed
forth from the gas-flames of the lamps, the shops and the cafés.
Here stood in a row young and slender trees, each of which
concealed its Dryad, and gave shade from the artificial
sunlight. The whole vast pavement was one great festive hall,
where covered tables stood laden with refreshments of all kinds,
from champagne and Chartreuse down to coffee and beer. Here was
an exhibition of flowers, statues, books, and colored stuffs.
From the crowd close by the lofty houses she looked forth
over the terrific stream beyond the rows of trees. Yonder heaved
a stream of rolling carriages, cabriolets, coaches, omnibuses,
cabs, and among them riding gentlemen and marching troops. To
cross to the opposite shore was an undertaking fraught with
danger to life and limb. Now lanterns shed their radiance
abroad; now the gas had the upper hand; suddenly a rocket rises!
Whence? Whither?
Here are sounds of soft Italian melodies; yonder, Spanish
songs are sung, accompanied by the rattle of the castanets; but
strongest of all, and predominating over the rest, the
street-organ tunes of the moment, the exciting “Can-Can” music,
which Orpheus never knew, and which was never heard by the
“Belle Helénè.” Even the barrow was tempted to hop upon one of
its wheels.
The Dryad danced, floated, flew, changing her color every
moment, like a humming-bird in the sunshine; each house, with
the world belonging to it, gave her its own reflections.
As the glowing lotus-flower, torn from its stem, is carried
away by the stream, so the Dryad drifted along. Whenever she
paused, she was another being, so that none was able to follow
her, to recognize her, or to look more closely at her.
Like cloud-pictures, all things flew by her. She looked into
a thousand faces, but not one was familiar to her; she saw not a
single form from home. Two bright eyes had remained in her
memory. She thought of Mary, poor Mary, the ragged merry child,
who wore the red flowers in her black hair. Mary was now here,
in the world-city, rich and magnificent as in that day when she
drove past the house of the old clergyman, and past the tree of
the Dryad, the old oak.
Here she was certainly living, in the deafening tumult.
Perhaps she had just stepped out of one of the gorgeous
carriages in waiting. Handsome equipages, with coachmen in gold
braid and footmen in silken hose, drove up. The people who
alighted from them were all richly-dressed ladies. They went
through the opened gate, and ascended the broad staircase that
led to a building resting on marble pillars. Was this building,
perhaps, the wonder of the world? There Mary would certainly be
found.
“Sancta Maria!” resounded from the interior. Incense floated
through the lofty painted and gilded aisles, where a solemn
twilight reigned.
It was the Church of the Madeleine.
Clad in black garments of the most costly stuffs, fashioned
according to the latest mode, the rich feminine world of Paris
glided across the shining pavement. The crests of the
proprietors were engraved on silver shields on the velvet-bound
prayer-books, and embroidered in the corners of perfumed
handkerchiefs bordered with Brussels lace. A few of the ladies
were kneeling in silent prayer before the altars; others
resorted to the confessionals.
Anxiety and fear took possession of the Dryad; she felt as if
she had entered a place where she had no right to be. Here was
the abode of silence, the hall of secrets. Everything was said
in whispers, every word was a mystery.
The Dryad saw herself enveloped in lace and silk, like the
women of wealth and of high birth around her. Had, perhaps,
every one of them a longing in her breast, like the Dryad?
A deep, painful sigh was heard. Did it escape from some
confessional in a distant corner, or from the bosom of the
Dryad? She drew the veil closer around her; she breathed
incense, and not the fresh air. Here was not the abiding-place
of her longing.
Away! away—a hastening without rest. The ephemeral fly knows
not repose, for her existence is flight.
She was out again among the gas candelabra, by a magnificent
fountain.
“All its streaming waters are not able to wash out the
innocent blood that was spilt here.”
Such were the words spoken. Strangers stood around, carrying
on a lively conversation, such as no one would have dared to
carry on in the gorgeous hall of secrets whence the Dryad came.
A heavy stone slab was turned and then lifted. She did not
understand why. She saw an opening that led into the depths
below. The strangers stepped down, leaving the starlit air and
the cheerful life of the upper world behind them.
“I am afraid,” said one of the women who stood around, to her
husband, “I cannot venture to go down, nor do I care for the
wonders down yonder. You had better stay here with me.”
“Indeed, and travel home,” said the man, “and quit Paris
without having seen the most wonderful thing of all—the real
wonder of the present period, created by the power and
resolution of one man!”
“I will not go down for all that,” was the reply.
“The wonder of the present time,” it had been called. The
Dryad had heard and had understood it. The goal of her ardent
longing had thus been reached, and here was the entrance to it.
Down into the depths below Paris? She had not thought of such a
thing; but now she heard it said, and saw the strangers
descending, and went after them.
The staircase was of cast iron, spiral, broad and easy. Below
there burned a lamp, and farther down, another. They stood in a
labyrinth of endless halls and arched passages, all
communicating with each other. All the streets and lanes of
Paris were to be seen here again, as in a dim reflection. The
names were painted up; and every, house above had its number
down here also, and struck its roots under the macadamized quays
of a broad canal, in which the muddy water flowed onward. Over
it the fresh streaming water was carried on arches; and quite at
the top hung the tangled net of gas-pipes and telegraph-wires.
In the distance lamps gleamed, like a reflection from the
world-city above. Every now and then a dull rumbling was heard.
This came from the heavy wagons rolling over the entrance
bridges.
Whither had the Dryad come?
You have, no doubt, heard of the CATACOMBS? Now they are
vanishing points in that new underground world—that wonder of
the present day—the sewers of Paris. The Dryad was there, and
not in the world’s Exhibition in the Champ de Mars.
She heard exclamations of wonder and admiration.
“From here go forth health and life for thousands upon
thousands up yonder! Our time is the time of progress, with its
manifold blessings.”
Such was the opinion and the speech of men; but not of those
creatures who had been born here, and who built and dwelt
here—of the rats, namely, who were squeaking to one another in
the clefts of a crumbling wall, quite plainly, and in a way the
Dryad understood well.
A big old Father-Rat, with his tail bitten off, was relieving
his feelings in loud squeaks; and his family gave their tribute
of concurrence to every word he said:
“I am disgusted with this man-mewing,” he cried—“with these
outbursts of ignorance. A fine magnificence, truly! all made up
of gas and petroleum! I can’t eat such stuff as that. Everything
here is so fine and bright now, that one’s ashamed of one’s
self, without exactly knowing why. Ah, if we only lived in the
days of tallow candles! and it does not lie so very far behind
us. That was a romantic time, as one may say.”
“What are you talking of there?” asked the Dryad. “I have
never seen you before. What is it you are talking about?”
“Of the glorious days that are gone,” said the Rat—“of the
happy time of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers.
Then it was a great thing to get down here. That was a rat’s
nest quite different from Paris. Mother Plague used to live here
then; she killed people, but never rats. Robbers and smugglers
could breathe freely here. Here was the meeting-place of the
most interesting personages, whom one now only gets to see in
the theatres where they act melodrama, up above. The time of
romance is gone even in our rat’s nest; and here also fresh air
and petroleum have broken in.”
A carriage stopped, a kind of open omnibus, drawn by swift
horses. The company mounted and drove away along the Boulevard
de Sebastopol, that is to say, the underground boulevard, over
which the well-known crowded street of that name extended.
The carriage disappeared in the twilight; the Dryad
disappeared, lifted to the cheerful freshness above. Here, and
not below in the vaulted passages, filled with heavy air, the
wonder work must be found which she was to seek in her short
lifetime. It must gleam brighter than all the gas-flames,
stronger than the moon that was just gliding past.
Yes, certainly, she saw it yonder in the distance, it gleamed
before her, and twinkled and glittered like the evening star in
the sky.
She saw a glittering portal open, that led to a little
garden, where all was brightness and dance music. Colored lamps
surrounded little lakes, in which were water-plants of colored
metal, from whose flowers jets of water spurted up. Beautiful
weeping willows, real products of spring, hung their fresh
branches over these lakes like a fresh, green, transparent, and
yet screening veil. In the bushes burnt an open fire, throwing a
red twilight over the quiet huts of branches, into which the
sounds of music penetrated—an ear tickling, intoxicating music,
that sent the blood coursing through the veins.
Beautiful girls in festive attire, with pleasant smiles on
their lips, and the light spirit of youth in their
hearts—“Marys,” with roses in their hair, but without carriage
and postilion—flitted to and fro in the wild dance.
Where were the heads, where the feet? As if stung by
tarantulas, they sprang, laughed, rejoiced, as if in their
ecstacies they were going to embrace all the world.
The Dryad felt herself torn with them into the whirl of the
dance. Round her delicate foot clung the silken boot, chestnut
brown in color, like the ribbon that floated from her hair down
upon her bare shoulders. The green silk dress waved in large
folds, but did not entirely hide the pretty foot and ankle.
Had she come to the enchanted Garden of Armida? What was the
name of the place?
The name glittered in gas-jets over the entrance. It was
“Mabille.”
The soaring upwards of rockets, the splashing of fountains,
and the popping of champagne corks accompanied the wild
bacchantic dance. Over the whole glided the moon through the
air, clear, but with a somewhat crooked face.
A wild joviality seemed to rush through the Dryad, as though
she were intoxicated with opium. Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke,
but the sound of violins and of flutes drowned the sound of her
voice. Her partner whispered words to her which she did not
understand, nor do we understand them. He stretched out his arms
to draw her to him, but he embraced only the empty air.
The Dryad had been carried away, like a rose-leaf on the
wind. Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light
high up on a tower. The beacon light shone from the goal of her
longing, shone from the red lighthouse tower of the Fata Morgana
of the Champ de Mars. Thither she was carried by the wind. She
circled round the tower; the workmen thought it was a butterfly
that had come too early, and that now sank down dying.
The moon shone bright, gas-lamps spread light around, through
the halls, over the all-world’s buildings scattered about, over
the rose-hills and the rocks produced by human ingenuity, from
which waterfalls, driven by the power of “Master Bloodless,”
fell down. The caverns of the sea, the depths of the lakes, the
kingdom of the fishes were opened here. Men walked as in the
depths of the deep pond, and held converse with the sea, in the
diving-bell of glass. The water pressed against the strong glass
walls above and on every side. The polypi, eel-like living
creatures, had fastened themselves to the bottom, and stretched
out arms, fathoms long, for prey. A big turbot was making
himself broad in front, quietly enough, but not without casting
some suspicious glances aside. A crab clambered over him,
looking like a gigantic spider, while the shrimps wandered about
in restless haste, like the butterflies and moths of the sea.
In the fresh water grew water-lilies, nymphaea, and reeds;
the gold-fishes stood up below in rank and file, all turning
their heads one way, that the streaming water might flow into
their mouths. Fat carps stared at the glass wall with stupid
eyes. They knew that they were here to be exhibited, and that
they had made the somewhat toilsome journey hither in tubs
filled with water; and they thought with dismay of the
land-sickness from which they had suffered so cruelly on the
railway.
They had come to see the Exhibition, and now contemplated it
from their fresh or salt-water position. They looked attentively
at the crowds of people who passed by them early and late. All
the nations in the world, they thought, had made an exhibition
of their inhabitants, for the edification of the soles and
haddocks, pike and carp, that they might give their opinions
upon the different kinds.
“Those are scaly animals” said a little slimy Whiting. “They
put on different scales two or three times a day, and they emit
sounds which they call speaking. We don’t put on scales, and we
make ourselves understood in an easier way, simply by twitching
the corners of our mouths and staring with our eyes. We have a
great many advantages over mankind.”
“But they have learned swimming of us,” remarked a
well-educated Codling. “You must know I come from the great sea
outside. In the hot time of the year the people yonder go into
the water; first they take off their scales, and then they swim.
They have learnt from the frogs to kick out with their hind
legs, and row with their fore paws. But they cannot hold out
long. They want to be like us, but they cannot come up to us.
Poor people!”
And the fishes stared. They thought that the whole swarm of
people whom they had seen in the bright daylight were still
moving around them; they were certain they still saw the same
forms that had first caught their attention.
A pretty Barbel, with spotted skin, and an enviably round
back, declared that the “human fry” were still there.
“I can see a well set-up human figure quite well,” said the
Barbel. “She was called ‘contumacious lady,’ or something of
that kind. She had a mouth and staring eyes, like ours, and a
great balloon at the back of her head, and something like a
shut-up umbrella in front; there were a lot of dangling bits of
seaweed hanging about her. She ought to take all the rubbish
off, and go as we do; then she would look something like a
respectable barbel, so far as it is possible for a person to
look like one!”
“What’s become of that one whom they drew away with the hook?
He sat on a wheel-chair, and had paper, and pen, and ink, and
wrote down everything. They called him a ‘writer.’”
“They’re going about with him still,” said a hoary old maid
of a Carp, who carried her misfortune about with her, so that
she was quite hoarse. In her youth she had once swallowed a
hook, and still swam patiently about with it in her gullet. “A
writer? That means, as we fishes describe it, a kind of cuttle
or ink-fish among men.”
Thus the fishes gossipped in their own way; but in the
artificial water-grotto the laborers were busy; who were obliged
to take advantage of the hours of night to get their work done
by daybreak. They accompanied with blows of their hammers and
with songs the parting words of the vanishing Dryad.
“So, at any rate, I have seen you, you pretty gold-fishes,”
she said. “Yes, I know you;” and she waved her hand to them. “I
have known about you a long time in my home; the swallow told me
about you. How beautiful you are! how delicate and shining! I
should like to kiss every one of you. You others, also. I know
you all; but you do not know me.”
The fishes stared out into the twilight. They did not
understand a word of it.
The Dryad was there no longer. She had been a long time in
the open air, where the different countries—the country of black
bread, the codfish coast, the kingdom of Russia leather, and the
banks of eau-de-Cologne, and the gardens of rose oil—exhaled
their perfumes from the world-wonder flower.
When, after a night at a ball, we drive home half asleep and
half awake, the melodies still sound plainly in our ears; we
hear them, and could sing them all from memory. When the eye of
the murdered man closes, the picture of what it saw last clings
to it for a time like a photographic picture.
So it was likewise here. The bustling life of day had not yet
disappeared in the quiet night. The Dryad had seen it; she knew,
thus it will be repeated tomorrow.
The Dryad stood among the fragrant roses, and thought she
knew them, and had seen them in her own home. She also saw red
pomegranate flowers, like those that little Mary had worn in her
dark hair.
Remembrances from the home of her childhood flashed through
her thoughts; her eyes eagerly drank in the prospect around, and
feverish restlessness chased her through the wonder-filled
halls.
A weariness that increased continually, took possession of
her. She felt a longing to rest on the soft Oriental carpets
within, or to lean against the weeping willow without by the
clear water. But for the ephemeral fly there was no rest. In a
few moments the day had completed its circle.
Her thoughts trembled, her limbs trembled, she sank down on
the grass by the bubbling water.
“Thou wilt ever spring living from the earth,” she said
mournfully. “Moisten my tongue—bring me a refreshing draught.”
“I am no living water,” was the answer. “I only spring upward
when the machine wills it.”
“Give me something of thy freshness, thou green grass,”
implored the Dryad; “give me one of thy fragrant flowers.”
“We must die if we are torn from our stalks,” replied the
Flowers and the Grass.
“Give me a kiss, thou fresh stream of air—only a single
life-kiss.”
“Soon the sun will kiss the clouds red,” answered the Wind;
“then thou wilt be among the dead—blown away, as all the
splendor here will be blown away before the year shall have
ended. Then I can play again with the light loose sand on the
place here, and whirl the dust over the land and through the
air. All is dust!”
The Dryad felt a terror like a woman who has cut asunder her
pulse-artery in the bath, but is filled again with the love of
life, even while she is bleeding to death. She raised herself,
tottered forward a few steps, and sank down again at the
entrance to a little church. The gate stood open, lights were
burning upon the altar, and the organ sounded.
What music! Such notes the Dryad had never yet heard; and yet
it seemed to her as if she recognized a number of well-known
voices among them. They came deep from the heart of all
creation. She thought she heard the stories of the old
clergyman, of great deeds, and of the celebrated names, and of
the gifts that the creatures of God must bestow upon posterity,
if they would live on in the world.
The tones of the organ swelled, and in their song there
sounded these words:
“Thy wishing and thy longing have torn thee, with thy roots,
from the place which God appointed for thee. That was thy
destruction, thou poor Dryad!”
The notes became soft and gentle, and seemed to die away in a
wail.
In the sky the clouds showed themselves with a ruddy gleam.
The Wind sighed:
“Pass away, ye dead! now the sun is going to rise!”
The first ray fell on the Dryad. Her form was irradiated in
changing colors, like the soap-bubble when it is bursting and
becomes a drop of water; like a tear that falls and passes away
like a vapor.
Poor Dryad! Only a dew-drop, only a tear, poured upon the
earth, and vanished away!
|
Poultry Meg’s Family
POULTRY MEG was the only person who lived in the new stately
dwelling that had been built for the fowls and ducks belonging
to the manor house. It stood there where once the old knightly
building had stood with its tower, its pointed gables, its moat,
and its drawbridge. Close by it was a wilderness of trees and
thicket; here the garden had been, and had stretched out to a
great lake, which was now moorland. Crows and choughs flew
screaming over the old trees, and there were crowds of birds;
they did not seem to get fewer when any one shot among them, but
seemed rather to increase. One heard the screaming into the
poultry-house, where Poultry Meg sat with the ducklings running
to and fro over her wooden shoes. She knew every fowl and every
duck from the moment it crept out of the shell; and she was fond
of her fowls and her ducks, and proud of the stately house that
had been built for them. Her own little room in the house was
clean and neat, for that was the wish of the gracious lady to
whom the house belonged. She often came in the company of grand
noble guests, to whom she showed “the hens’ and ducks’
barracks,” as she called the little house.
Here were a clothes cupboard, and an, arm-chair, and even a
chest of drawers; and on these drawers a polished metal plate
had been placed, whereon was engraved the word “Grubbe,” and
this was the name of the noble family that had lived in the
house of old. The brass plate had been found when they were
digging the foundation; and the clerk has said it had no value
except in being an old relic. The clerk knew all about the
place, and about the old times, for he had his knowledge from
books, and many a memorandum had been written and put in his
table-drawer. But the oldest of the crows perhaps knew more than
he, and screamed it out in her own language; but that was the
crow’s language, and the clerk did not understand that, clever
as he was.
After the hot summer days the mist sometimes hung over the
moorland as if a whole lake were behind the old trees, among
which the crows and the daws were fluttering; and thus it had
looked when the good Knight Grubbe had lived here—when the old
manor house stood with its thick red walls. The dog-chain used
to reach in those days quite over the gateway; through the tower
one went into a paved passage which led to the rooms; the
windows were narrow, and the panes were small, even in the great
hall where the dancing used to be; but in the time of the last
Grubbe, there had been no dancing in the hall within the memory
of man, although an old drum still lay there that had served as
part of the music. Here stood a quaintly carved cupboard, in
which rare flower-roots were kept, for my Lady Grubbe was fond
of plants and cultivated trees and shrubs. Her husband preferred
riding out to shoot wolves and boars; and his little daughter
Marie always went with him part of the way. When she was only
five years old, she would sit proudly on her horse, and look
saucily round with her great black eyes. It was a great
amusement to her to hit out among the hunting-dogs with her
whip; but her father would rather have seen her hit among the
peasant boys, who came running up to stare at their lord.
The peasant in the clay hut close by the knightly house had a
son named Søren, of the same age as the gracious little lady.
The boy could climb well, and had always to bring her down the
bird’s nests. The birds screamed as loud as they could, and one
of the greatest of them hacked him with its beak over the eye so
that the blood ran down, and it was at first thought the eye had
been destroyed; but it had not been injured after all. Marie
Grubbe used to call him her Søren, and that was a great favor,
and was an advantage to Søren’s father—poor Jon, who had one day
committed a fault, and was to be punished by riding on the
wooden horse. This same horse stood in the courtyard, and had
four poles for legs, and a single narrow plant for a back; on
this Jon had to ride astride, and some heavy bricks were
fastened to his feet into the bargain, that he might not sit too
comfortably. He made horrible grimaces, and Søren wept and
implored little Marie to interfere. She immediately ordered that
Søren’s father should be taken down, and when they did not obey
her, she stamped on the floor, and pulled at her father’s sleeve
till it was torn to pieces. She would have her way, and she got
her way, and Søren’s father was taken down.
Lady Grubbe, who now came up, parted her little daughter’s
hair from the child’s brow, and looked at her affectionately;
but Marie did not understand why.
She wanted to go to the hounds, and not to her mother, who
went down into the garden, to the lake where the water-lily
bloomed, and the heads of bulrushes nodded amid the reeds; and
she looked at all this beauty and freshness. “How pleasant!” she
said. In the garden stood at that time a rare tree, which she
herself had planted. It was called the blood-beech—a kind of
negro growing among the other trees, so dark brown were the
leaves. This tree required much sunshine, for in continual shade
it would become bright green like the other trees, and thus lose
its distinctive character. In the lofty chestnut trees were many
birds’ nests, and also in the thickets and in the grassy
meadows. It seemed as though the birds knew that they were
protected here, and that no one must fire a gun at them.
Little Marie came here with Søren. He knew how to climb, as
we have already said, and eggs and fluffy-feathered young birds
were brought down. The birds, great and small, flew about in
terror and tribulation; the peewit from the fields, and the
crows and daws from the high trees, screamed and screamed; it
was just such din as the family will raise to the present day.
“What are you doing, you children?” cried the gentle lady;
“that is sinful!”
Søren stood abashed, and even the little gracious lady looked
down a little; but then he said, quite short and pretty,
“My father lets me do it!”
“Craw-craw! away-away from here!” cried the great black
birds, and they flew away; but on the following day they came
back, for they were at home here.
The quiet gentle lady did not remain long at home here on
earth, for the good God called her away; and, indeed, her home
was rather with Him than in the knightly house; and the church
bells tolled solemnly when her corpse was carried to the church,
and the eyes of the poor people were wet with tears, for she had
been good to them.
When she was gone, no one attended to her plantations, and
the garden ran to waste. Grubbe the knight was a hard man, they
said; but his daughter, young as she was, knew how to manage
him. He used to laugh and let her have her way. She was now
twelve years old, and strongly built. She looked the people
through and through with her black eyes, rode her horse as
bravely as a man, and could fire off her gun like a practiced
hunter.
One day there were great visitors in the neighborhood, the
grandest visitors who could come. The young King, and his
half-brother and comrade, the Lord Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve.
They wanted to hunt the wild boar, and to pass a few days at the
castle of Grubbe.
Gyldenløve sat at table next to Marie Grubbe, and he took her
by the hand and gave her a kiss, as if she had been a relation;
but she gave him a box on the ear, and told him she could not
bear him, at which there was great laughter, as if that had been
a very amusing thing.
And perhaps it was very amusing, for, five years afterwards,
when Marie had fulfilled her seventeenth year, a messenger
arrived with a letter, in which Lord Gyldenløve proposed for the
hand of the noble young lady. There was a thing for you!
“He is the grandest and most gallant gentleman in the whole
country,” said Grubbe the knight; “that is not a thing to
despise.”
“I don’t care so very much about him,” said Marie Grubbe; but
she did not despise the grandest man of all the country, who sat
by the king’s side.
Silver plate, and fine linen and woollen, went off to
Copenhagen in a ship, while the bride made the journey by land
in ten days. But the outfit met with contrary winds, or with no
winds at all, for four months passed before it arrived; and when
it came, my Lady Gyldenløve was gone.
“I’d rather lie on coarse sacking than lie in his silken
beds,” she declared. “I’d rather walk barefoot than drive with
him in a coach!”
Late one evening in November two women came riding into the
town of Aarhuus. They were the gracious Lady Gyldenløve (Marie
Grubbe) and her maid. They came from the town of Weile, whither
they had come in a ship from Copenhagen. They stopped at Lord
Grubbe’s stone mansion in Aarhuus. Grubbe was not well pleased
with this visit. Marie was accosted in hard words; but she had a
bedroom given her, and got her beer soup of a morning; but the
evil part of her father’s nature was aroused against her, and
she was not used to that. She was not of a gentle temper, and we
often answer as we are addressed. She answered openly, and spoke
with bitterness and hatred of her husband, with whom she
declared she would not live; she was too honorable for that.
A year went by, but it did not go by pleasantly. There were
evil words between the father and the daughter, and that ought
never to be. Bad words bear bad fruit. What could be the end of
such a state of things?
“We two cannot live under the same roof,” said the father one
day. “Go away from here to our old manor house; but you had
better bite your tongue off than spread any lies among the
people.”
And so the two parted. She went with her maid to the old
castle where she had been born, and near which the gentle, pious
lady, her mother, was lying in the church vault. An old cowherd
lived in the courtyard, and was the only other inhabitant of the
place. In the rooms heavy black cobwebs hung down, covered with
dust; in the garden everything grew just as it would; hops and
climbing plants ran like a net between the trees and bushes, and
the hemlock and nettle grew larger and stronger. The blood-beech
had been outgrown by other trees, and now stood in the shade;
and its leaves were green like those of the common trees, and
its glory had departed. Crows and choughs, in great close
masses, flew past over the tall chestnut trees, and chattered
and screamed as if they had something very important to tell one
another—as if they were saying, “Now she’s come back again, the
little girl who had their eggs and their young ones stolen from
them; and as for the thief who had got them down, he had to
climb up a leafless tree, for he sat on a tall ship’s mast, and
was beaten with a rope’s end if he did not behave himself.”
The clerk told all this in our own times; he had collected it
and looked it up in books and memoranda. It was to be found,
with many other writings, locked up in his table-drawer.
“Upward and downward is the course of the world,” said he.
“It is strange to hear.”
And we will hear how it went with Marie Grubbe. We need not
for that forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting in her capital
hen-house, in our own time. Marie Grubbe sat down in her times,
but not with the same spirit that old Poultry Meg showed.
The winter passed away, and the spring and the summer passed
away, and the autumn came again, with the damp, cold sea-fog. It
was a lonely, desolate life in the old manor house. Marie Grubbe
took her gun in her hand and went out to the heath, and shot
hares and foxes, and whatever birds she could hit. More than
once she met the noble Sir Palle Dyre, of Nørrebæk, who was also
wandering about with his gun and his dogs. He was tall and
strong, and boasted of this when they talked together. He could
have measured himself against the deceased Mr. Brockenhuus, of
Egeskov, of whom the people still talked. Palle Dyre had, after
the example of Brockenhuus, caused an iron chain with a
hunting-horn to be hung in his gateway; and when he came riding
home, he used to seize the chain, and lift himself and his horse
from the ground, and blow the horn.
“Come yourself, and see me do that, Dame Marie,” he said.
“One can breathe fresh and free at Nørrebæk.”
When she went to his castle is not known, but on the altar
candlestick in the church of Nørrebæk it was inscribed that they
were the gift of Palle Dyre and Marie Grubbe, of Nørrebæk
Castle.
A great stout man was Palle Dyre. He drank like a sponge. He
was like a tub that could never get full; he snored like a whole
sty of pigs, and he looked red and bloated.
“He is treacherous and malicious,” said Dame Pally Dyre,
Grubbe’s daughter. Soon she was weary of her life with him, but
that did not make it better.
One day the table was spread, and the dishes grew cold. Palle
Dyre was out hunting foxes, and the gracious lady was nowhere to
be found. Towards midnight Palle Dyre came home, but Dame Dyre
came neither at midnight, nor next morning. She had turned her
back upon Nørrebæk, and had ridden away without saying good-bye.
It was gray, wet weather; the wind grew cold, and a flight of
black screaming birds flew over her head. They were not so
homeless as she.
First she journeyed southward, quite down into the German
land. A couple of golden rings with costly stones were turned
into money; and then she turned to the east, and then she turned
again and went towards the west. She had no food before her
eyes, and murmured against everything, even against the good God
himself, so wretched was her soul. Soon her body became wretched
too, and she was scarcely able to move a foot. The peewit flew
up as she stumbled over the mound of earth where it had built
its nest. The bird cried, as it always cried, “You thief! you
thief!” She had never stolen her neighbor’s goods; but as a
little girl she had caused eggs and young birds to be taken from
the trees, and she thought of that now.
From where she lay she could see the sand-dunes. By the
seashore lived fishermen; but she could not get so far, she was
so ill. The great white sea-mews flew over her head, and
screamed as the crows and daws screamed at home in the garden of
the manor house. The birds flew quite close to her, and at last
it seemed to her as if they became black as crows, and then all
was night before her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she was being lifted and
carried. A great strong man had taken her up in his arms, and
she was looking straight into his bearded face. He had a scar
over one eye, which seemed to divide the eyebrow into two parts.
Weak as she was, he carried her to the ship, where he got a
rating for it from the captain.
The next day the ship sailed away. Madame Grubbe had not been
put ashore, so she sailed away with it. But she will return,
will she not? Yes, but where, and when?
The clerk could tell about this too, and it was not a story
which he patched together himself. He had the whole strange
history out of an old authentic book, which we ourselves can
take out and read. The Danish historian, Ludwig Holberg, who has
written so many useful books and merry comedies, from which we
can get such a good idea of his times and their people, tells in
his letters of Marie Grubbe, where and how he met her. It is
well worth hearing; but for all that, we don’t at all forget
Poultry Meg, who is sitting cheerful and comfortable in the
charming fowl-house.
The ship sailed away with Marie Grubbe. That’s where we left
off.
Long years went by.
The plague was raging at Copenhagen; it was in the year 1711.
The Queen of Denmark went away to her German home, the King
quitted the capital, and everybody who could do so hurried away.
The students, even those who had board and lodging gratis, left
the city. One of these students, the last who had remained in
the free college, at last went away too. It was two o’clock in
the morning. He was carrying his knapsack, which was better
stacked with books and writings than with clothes. A damp mist
hung over the town; not a person was to be seen in the streets;
the street-doors around were marked with crosses, as a sign that
the plague was within, or that all the inmates were dead. A
great wagon rattled past him; the coachman brandished his whip,
and the horses flew by at a gallop. The wagon was filled with
corpses. The young student kept his hand before his face, and
smelt at some strong spirits that he had with him on a sponge in
a little brass scent-case. Out of a small tavern in one of the
streets there were sounds of singing and of unhallowed laughter,
from people who drank the night through to forget that the
plague was at their doors, and that they might be put into the
wagon as the others had been. The student turned his steps
towards the canal at the castle bridge, where a couple of small
ships were lying; one of these was weighing anchor, to get away
from the plague-stricken city.
“If God spares our lives and grants us a fair wind, we are
going to Gronmud, near Falster,” said the captain; and he asked
the name of the student who wished to go with him.
“Ludvig Holberg,” answered the student; and the name sounded
like any other. But now there sounds in it one of the proudest
names of Denmark; then it was the name of a young, unknown
student.
The ship glided past the castle. It was not yet bright day
when it was in the open sea. A light wind filled the sails, and
the young student sat down with his face turned towards the
fresh wind, and went to sleep, which was not exactly the most
prudent thing he could have done.
Already on the third day the ship lay by the island of
Falster.
“Do you know any one here with whom I could lodge cheaply?”
Holberg asked the captain.
“I should think you would do well to go to the ferry-woman in
Borrehaus,” answered the captain. “If you want to be very civil
to her, her name is Mother Søren Sørensen Muller. But it may
happen that she may fly into a fury if you are too polite to
her. The man is in custody for a crime, and that’s why she
manages the ferry-boat herself—she has fists of her own.”
The student took his knapsack and betook himself to the
ferry-house. The house door was not locked—it opened, and he
went into a room with a brick floor, where a bench, with a great
coverlet of leather, formed the chief article of furniture. A
white hen, who had a brood of chickens, was fastened to the
bench, and had overturned the pipkin of water, so that the wet
ran across the floor. There were no people either here or in the
adjoining room; only a cradle stood there, in which was a child.
The ferry-boat came back with only one person in it. Whether
that person was a man or a woman was not an easy matter to
determine. The person in question was wrapped in a great cloak,
and wore a kind of hood. Presently the boat lay to.
It was a woman who got out of it and came into the room. She
looked very stately when she straightened her back; two proud
eyes looked forth from beneath her black eyebrows. It was Mother
Søren, the ferry-wife. The crows and daws might have called out
another name for her, which we know better.
She looked morose, and did not seem to care to talk; but this
much was settled, that the student should board in her house for
an indefinite time, while things looked so bad in Copenhagen.
This or that honest citizen would often come to the
ferry-house from the neighboring little town. There came Frank
the cutler, and Sivert the exciseman. They drank a mug of beer
in the ferry-house, and used to converse with the student, for
he was a clever young man, who knew his “Practica,” as they
called it; he could read Greek and Latin, and was well up in
learned subjects.
“The less one knows, the less it presses upon one,” said
Mother Søren.
“You have to work hard,” said Holberg one day, when she was
dipping clothes in the strong soapy water, and was obliged
herself to split the logs for the fire.
“That’s my affair,” she replied.
“Have you been obliged to toil in this way from your
childhood?”
“You can read that from my hands,” she replied, and held out
her hands, that were small indeed, but hard and strong, with
bitten nails. “You are learned, and can read.”
At Christmas-time it began to snow heavily. The cold came on,
the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to wash the
people’s faces. Mother Søren did not let that disturb her; she
threw her cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head.
Early in the afternoon—it was already dark in the house—she laid
wood and turf on the hearth, and then she sat down to darn her
stockings, for there was no one to do it for her. Towards
evening she spoke more words to the student than it was
customary with her to use; she spoke of her husband.
“He killed a sailor of Dragor by mischance, and for that he
has to work for three years in irons. He’s only a common sailor,
and therefore the law must take its course.”
“The law is there for people of high rank, too,” said
Holberg.
“Do you think so?” said Mother Søren; then she looked into
the fire for a while; but after a time she began to speak again.
“Have you heard of Kai Lykke, who caused a church to be pulled
down, and when the clergyman, Master Martin, thundered from the
pulpit about it, he had him put in irons, and sat in judgment
upon him, and condemned him to death? Yes, and the clergyman was
obliged to bow his head to the stroke. And yet Kai Lykke went
scot-free.”
“He had a right to do as he did in those times,” said
Holberg; “but now we have left those times behind us.”
“You may get a fool to believe that,” cried Mother Søren; and
she got up and went into the room where the child lay. She
lifted up the child, and laid it down more comfortably. Then she
arranged the bed-place of the student. He had the green
coverlet, for he felt the cold more than she, though he was born
in Norway.
On New Year’s morning it was a bright sunshiny day. The frost
had been so strong, and was still so strong, that the fallen
snow had become a hard mass, and one could walk upon it. The
bells of the little town were tolling for church. Student
Holberg wrapped himself up in his woollen cloak, and wanted to
go to the town.
Over the ferry-house the crows and daws were flying with loud
cries; one could hardly hear the church bells for their
screaming. Mother Søren stood in front of the house, filling a
brass pot with snow, which she was going to put on the fire to
get drinking water. She looked up to the crowd of birds, and
thought her own thoughts.
Student Holberg went to church. On his way there and on his
return he passed by the house of tax-collector Sivert, by the
town-gate. Here he was invited to take a mug of brown beer with
treacle and sugar. The discourse fell upon Mother Søren, but the
tax collector did not know much about her, and, indeed, few knew
much about her. She did not belong to the island of Falster, he
said; she had a little property of her own at one time. Her
husband was a common sailor, a fellow of a very hot temper, and
had killed a sailor of Dragor; and he beat his wife, and yet she
defended him.
“I should not endure such treatment,” said the
tax-collector’s wife. “I am come of more respectable people. My
father was stocking-weaver to the Court.”
“And consequently you have married a governmental official,”
said Holberg, and made a bow to her and to the collector.
It was on Twelfth Night, the evening of the festival of the
Three Kings, Mother Søren lit up for Holberg a three-king
candle, that is, a tallow candle with three wicks, which she had
herself prepared.
“A light for each man,” said Holberg.
“For each man?” repeated the woman, looking sharply at him.
“For each of the wise men from the East,” said Holberg.
“You mean it that way,” said she, and then she was silent for
a long time. But on this evening he learned more about her than
he had yet known.
“You speak very affectionately of your husband,” observed
Holberg, “and yet the people say that he ill-uses you every
day.”
“That’s no one’s business but mine,” she replied. “The blows
might have done me good when I was a child; now, I suppose, I
get them for my sins. But I know what good he has done me,” and
she rose up. “When I lay sick upon the desolate heath, and no
one would have pity on me, and no one would have anything to do
with me, except the crows and daws, which came to peck me to
bits, he carried me in his arms, and had to bear hard words
because of the burden he brought on board ship. It’s not in my
nature to be sick, and so I got well. Every man has his own way,
and Søren has his; but the horse must not be judged by the
halter. Taking one thing with another, I have lived more
agreeably with him than with the man whom they called the most
noble and gallant of the King’s subjects. I have had the
Stadtholder Gyldenløve, the King’s half-brother, for my husband;
and afterwards I took Palle Dyre. One is as good as another,
each in his own way, and I in mine. That was a long gossip, but
now you know all about me.”
And with those words she left the room.
It was Marie Grubbe! so strangely had fate played with her.
She did not live to see many anniversaries of the festival of
the Three Kings; Holberg has recorded that she died in June,
1716; but he has not written down, for he did not know, that a
number of great black birds circled over the ferry-house, when
Mother Søren, as she was called, was lying there a corpse. They
did not scream, as if they knew that at a burial silence should
be observed. So soon as she lay in the earth, the birds
disappeared; but on the same evening in Jutland, at the old
manor house, an enormous number of crows and choughs were seen;
they all cried as loud as they could, as if they had some
announcement to make. Perhaps they talked of him who, as a
little boy, had taken away their eggs and their young; of the
peasant’s son, who had to wear an iron garter, and of the noble
young lady, who ended by being a ferryman’s wife.
“Brave! brave!” they cried.
And the whole family cried, “Brave! brave!” when the old
house was pulled down.
“They are still crying, and yet there’s nothing to cry
about,” said the clerk, when he told the story. “The family is
extinct, the house has been pulled down, and where it stood is
now the stately poultry-house, with gilded weathercocks, and the
old Poultry Meg. She rejoices greatly in her beautiful dwelling.
If she had not come here,” the old clerk added, “she would have
had to go into the work-house.”
The pigeons cooed over her, the turkey-cocks gobbled, and the
ducks quacked.
“Nobody knew her,” they said; “she belongs to no family. It’s
pure charity that she is here at all. She has neither a drake
father nor a hen mother, and has no descendants.”
She came of a great family, for all that; but she did not
know it, and the old clerk did not know it, though he had so
much written down; but one of the old crows knew about it, and
told about it. She had heard from her own mother and grandmother
about Poultry Meg’s mother and grandmother. And we know the
grandmother too. We saw her ride, as child, over the bridge,
looking proudly around her, as if the whole world belonged to
her, and all the birds’ nests in it; and we saw her on the
heath, by the sand-dunes; and, last of all, in the ferry-house.
The granddaughter, the last of her race, had come back to the
old home, where the old castle had stood, where the black wild
birds were screaming; but she sat among the tame birds, and
these knew her and were fond of her. Poultry Meg had nothing
left to wish for; she looked forward with pleasure to her death,
and she was old enough to die.
“Grave, grave!” cried the crows.
And Poultry Meg has a good grave, which nobody knew except
the old crow, if the old crow is not dead already.
And now we know the story of the old manor house, of its old
proprietors, and of all Poultry Meg’s family.
|
Lucky Peer
I.
IN the principal street there stood a fine old-fashioned house;
the wall about the court-yard had bits of glass worked into it,
so that when the sun or moon shone, it was as if covered with
diamonds. That was a sign of wealth, and there was wealth inside
there; folks said that the merchant was a man who could just put
away two barrels of gold in his best parlor; yes, could put a
heap of gold-pieces, as a savings bank against the future,
outside the door of the room where his little son was born.
This little fellow had arrived in the rich house. There was
great joy from cellar up to the garret; and up there, there was
still greater joy an hour or two afterward. The warehouseman and
his wife lived up there, and here too there entered just then a
little son, given by our Lord, brought by the stork, and
exhibited by the mother. And here too there was a heap outside
the door, quite accidentally; but it was not a gold-heap—it was
a heap of sweepings.
The rich merchant was a very considerate, good man; his wife,
delicate and gentle-born, dressed well, was pious, and, besides,
was kind and good to the poor. Everybody congratulated these two
people on now having a little son, who would grow up, and, like
his father, be rich and happy. At the font the little boy was
called “FELIX,” which means in Latin “lucky,” and that he was,
and his parents still more.
The warehouseman, a right sound fellow, and good to the
bottom of his heart, and his wife, an honest and industrious
woman, were blessed by all who knew them; how lucky they were at
getting their little boy, and he was called “PEER !”1
The boy on the first floor and the boy in the garret each got
just as many kisses from his parents, and just as much sunshine
from our Lord; but still they were placed a little
differently,—one down-stairs, and one up. Peer sat the highest,
away up in the garret, and he had his own mother for a nurse;
little Felix had a stranger for his nurse, but she was a good
and honest girl—you could see that in her character-book. The
rich child had a pretty little wagon, and was drawn about by his
spruce nurse; the child from the garret was carried in the arms
of his own mother, both when he was in his Sunday clothes, and
when he had his every-day things on; and he was just as much
pleased.
They were both pretty children, they both kept growing, and
soon could show with their hands how tall they were, and say
single words in their mother tongue. Equally sweet, equally
dainty and petted were they both. As they grew up they had a
like pleasure out of the merchant’s horses and carriages. Felix
got permission from his nurse to sit by the coachman and look at
the horses; he fancied himself driving. Peer got permission to
sit at the garret window and look down into the yard when the
master and mistress went out to drive, and when they were fairly
gone, he placed two chairs, one in front, the other behind, up
there in the room, and so he drove himself; he was the real
coachman— that was a little more than fancying himself to be the
coachman.
They had noticed each other, these two, but it was not until
they were two years old that they spoke to each other. Felix
went elegantly dressed in silk and velvet, with bare knees,
after the English style. “The poor child will freeze!” said the
family in the garret. Peer had trousers that came down to his
ankles, but one day his clothes were torn right across his
knees, so that he had as much of a draught, and was just as much
undressed as the merchant’s little delicate boy. Felix came with
his mother and wanted to go out; Peer came with his, and wanted
to go in.
“Give little Peer your hand,” said the merchant’s lady. “You
two can talk to each other.”
And one said “Peer!” and the other said “Felix!” Yes, that
was all they said that time.
The rich lady petted her boy, but there was one who petted
Peer just as much, and that was his grandmother. She was
weak-sighted, and yet she saw much more in little Peer than his
father or mother could see; yes, more than anybody at all could
discover.
“The dear child,” said she, “is going to get on in the world.
He is born with a gold apple in his hand. There is the shining
apple!” And she kissed the child’s little hand. His parents
could see nothing, nor Peer either, but as he grew to know more,
no doubt he would find that out too.
“That is such a story, such a real wonder-story, that
grandmother tells!” said the parents.
Indeed grandmother could tell stories, and Peer was never
tired of hearing always the same ones. She taught him a psalm
and to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, and he knew it not as a gabble
but as words which meant some-thing; every single petition in it
she explained to him. Especially he thought about what
grandmother said on the words: “Give us this day our daily
bread;” he was to understand that it was necessary for one to
get wheat bread, for another to get black bread; one must have a
great house when he had a great deal of company; another, in
small circumstances, could live quite as happily in a little
room in the garret. “So each person has what he calls ‘daily
bread.’”
Peer had regularly his good daily bread, and very delightful
days, too, but they were not to last always. Stern years of war
began; the young were to go away, the old to stay at home.
Peer’s father was among those who were enrolled, and soon it was
heard that he was one of the first who fell in battle against
the victorious enemy.
There was terrible grief in the little room in the garret.
The mother cried, the grandmother and little Peer cried; and
every time one of the neighbors came up to see them, they talked
about “father,” and then they cried all together. The widow,
meanwhile, received permission, the first year, to lodge rent
free, and afterward she was to pay only a small rent. The
grandmother stayed with the mother, who supported herself by
washing for several “single fine gentlemen,” as she called them.
Peer had neither sorrow nor want. He had his fill of meat and
drink, and grandmother told him stories so extraordinary and
wonderful about the wide world, that he asked her, one day, if
they two might not go on Sunday to foreign lands, and come home
again as prince and princess, with gold crowns on.
“I am too old for that,” said grandmother; “and you must
first learn a terrible lot of things, become great and strong;
but you must always be a good and affectionate child—just as you
are now.”
Peer rode around the room on hobbyhorses; he had two such;
but the merchant’s son had a real live horse; it was so little
that it might as well have been called a baby-horse, as Peer
called it, and it never could become any bigger. Felix rode it
about in the yard; he even rode outside the gate with his father
and a riding-master from the king’s stable. For the first
half-hour Peer did not like his horses, and would not ride
them—they were not real. He asked his mother why he could not
have a real horse like little Felix; and his mother said:
“Felix lives down on the first floor, close by the stables,
but you live high up, under the roof. One cannot have horses up
in the garret except like those you have; do you ride on them.”
And so Peer rode: first to the chest of drawers, the great
mountain full of treasures; both Peer’s Sunday clothes and his
mother’s were there, and there were the shining silver dollars
which she laid aside for rent He rode to the stove, which he
called the black bear; it slept all summer long, but when winter
came it must do something: warm the room and cook the meals.
Peer had a godfather who usually came every Sunday in winter
and got a good warm dinner. It was rather a coming down for him,
said the mother and the grandmother. He had begun as a coachman;
he took to drink and slept at his post, and that neither a
soldier nor a coachman may do. Then he became a carter and drove
a cart, and sometimes a drosky for gentlefolk; but now he drove
a dirt-cart and went from door to door, swinging his rattle,
“snurre-rurre-ud!” and out from all the houses came the girls
and housewives with their buckets full, and turned these into
the cart: rags and tags, ashes and rubbish were all turned in.
One day Peer had come down from the garret, his mother had gone
to town, and he stood at the open gate, and there outside was
godfather with his cart.
“Will you take a drive?” he asked. Right willingly would
Peer, but only as far as the corner. His eyes shone as he sat on
the seat alone with godfather and was allowed to hold the whip.
Peer drove with real live horses, drove quite to the corner. His
mother came along just then; she looked rather dubious. It was
not so grand to her to see her own little son riding on a
dirt-cart. He must get down at once. Still she thanked
godfather; but when they reached home she forbade Peer to take
that excursion again.
One day he went again down to the gate. There was no
godfather there to entice him off for a drive, but there were
other allurements three or four small street urchins were down
in the gutter, poking about to see what they could find that had
been lost or had hidden itself there. They had often found a
button or a copper coin; but they had quite as often scratched
themselves with a broken bottle, or pricked themselves with a
pin, which was just now the case. Peer must join them, and when
he got down among the gutter-stones he found a silver coin.
Another day he was down on his knees again, digging with the
other boys. They only got dirty fingers; he found a gold ring,
and showed, with sparkling eyes, his lucky find, and then the
others threw dirt at him, and called him Lucky Peer; they would
not let him be with them then when they poked in the gutter.
Back of the merchant’s yard there was some low ground which
was to be filled up for building lots; gravel and ashes were
carted and tipped out there. Great heaps lay about. Godfather
drove his cart, but Peer was not to drive with him. The street
boys dug in the heaps; they dug with a stick and with their bare
hands. They were always finding one thing or another which
seemed worth picking up. Hither came little Peer. They saw him
and cried out:—
“Clear out, Lucky Peer!” And when he came nearer, they flung
lumps of dirt at him. One of these struck against his wooden
shoe and fell to pieces. Something shining dropped out; Peer
took it up; it was a little heart made of amber. He ran home
with it. The rest did not notice that even when they threw dirt
at him he was a child of luck.
The silver skilling which he had found was laid away in his
little savings bank; the ring and the amber heart were shown
down stairs to the merchants wife, because the mother wanted to
know if they were among the “things found” that ought to be
given notice of to the police.
How the eyes of the merchant’s wife shone on seeing the ring!
It was no other than her own engagement ring, which she had lost
three years before; so long had it lain in the gutter. Peer was
well rewarded, and the money rattled in his little box. The
amber heart was a cheap thing, the lady said; Peer might just as
well keep that. At night the amber heart lay on the bureau, and
the grandmother lay in bed.
“Eh! what is it that burns so!” said she. “It looks as if
some candle were lighted there.” She got up to see, and it was
the little heart of amber. Ah, the grandmother with her weak
eyes often saw more than all others could see. Now she had her
private thoughts about this. The next morning she took a small
strong ribbon, drew it through the opening at the top of the
heart, and put it round her little grandson’s neck.
“You must never take it off; except to put a new ribbon into
it; and you must not show it either to other boys. If they
should take it from you, you would have the stomach-ache!” That
was the only dreadful sickness little Peer had thus far known.
There was a strange power too in the heart. Grandmother showed
him that when she rubbed it with her hand, and a little straw
was laid by it, the straw seemed to be alive and sprang to the
heart of amber, and would not let it go.
II.
HE merchant’s son had a tutor who heard him say his lessons
alone, and walked out with him alone. Peer was also to have an
education, so he went to school with a great quantity of other
boys. They studied together, and that was more delightful than
going alone with a tutor. Peer would not change.
He was a lucky Peer, but godfather was also a lucky Peer,2
for all he was not called Peer. He won a prize in the lottery,
of two hundred rix-dollars, on a ticket which he shared with
eleven others. He went at once and bought some better clothes,
and he looked very well in them. Luck never comes alone, it
always has company, and it did this time. Godfather gave up his
dirt-cart and joined the theatre.
“For what in the world,” said grandmother. “is he going to
the theatre? What does he go as?”
As a machinist. That was a real getting on, and he was now
quite another man, and took a wonderful deal of enjoyment in the
comedy, which he always saw from the top or from the side. The
most charming thing was the ballet, but that indeed gave him the
hardest work, and there was always some danger from fire. They
danced both in heaven and on earth. That was something for
little Peer to see, and one evening when there was to be a dress
rehearsal of a new ballet, in which they were all dressed and
adorned as in the evening when people pay to see all the fine
show, he had permission to bring Peer with him, and put him in a
place where he could see the whole.
It was a Scripture ballet—Samson. The Philistines danced
about him, and he tumbled the whole house down over them and
himself; but there were fire-engines and firemen on hand in case
of any accident.
Peer had never seen a comedy, still less a ballet. He put on
his Sunday clothes and went with godfather to the theatre. It
was just like a great drying-loft, with ever so many curtains
and screens, great openings in the floor, lamps and lights.
There was a host of nooks and crannies up and down, and people
came out from these just as in a great church with its balcony
pews.3 The floor went down quite steeply, and there Peer was
placed, and told to stay there till it was all finished and he
was sent for. He had three sandwiches in his pocket, so that he
need not starve.
Soon it grew lighter and lighter: there came up in front,
just as if straight out of the earth, a number of musicians with
both flutes and violins. At the side where Peer sat people came
dressed as if they were in the street; but there came also
knights with gold helmets, beautiful maidens in gauze and
flowers, even angels all in white with wings on their hacks.
They were placed up and down, on the floor and up in the
“balcony pews,” to be looked at. They were the whole force of
the ballet dancers; but Peer did not know that. He believed they
belonged in the fairy tales his grandmother had told him about.
Then there came a woman, who was the most beautiful of all, with
a gold helmet and spear; she looked out over all the others and
sat between an angel and an imp. Ah! how much there was to see,
and yet the ballet was not even begun.
There was a moment of quiet. A man dressed in black moved a
little fairy wand over all the musicians, and then they began to
play, so that there was a whistling of music, and the wall
itself began to rise. One looked out on to a flower-garden,
where the sun shone, and all the people danced and leaped. Such
a wonderful sight had Peer never imagined. There the soldiers
marched, and there was fighting, and there where the guilds and
the mighty Samson with his love. But she was as wicked as she
was beautiful: she betrayed him. The Philistines plucked his
eyes out; he had to grind in the mill and be set up for mockery
in the dancing hall; but then he laid hold of the strong pillars
which held the roof up, and shook them and the whole house; it
fell, and there burst forth wonderful flames of red and green
fire.
Peer could have sat there his whole life long and looked on,
even if the sandwiches were all eaten—and they were all eaten.
Now here was something to tell about when he got home. He was
not to be got off to bed. He stood on one leg and laid the other
upon the table—that was what Samson’s love and all the other
ladies did. He made a treadmill out of grandmother’s chair, and
upset two chairs and a bolster over himself to show how the
dancing-hall came down. He showed this, and he gave it with all
the music that belonged to it; there was no talking in the
ballet. He sang high and low, with words and without; there was
no connection in it; it was just like a whole opera. The most
noticeable thing, meanwhile, of all was his beautiful voice,
clear as a bell, but no one spoke of that.
Peer was before to have been a grocer’s boy, to mind prunes
and lump sugar; now he found there was something very much
finer, and that was to get into the Samson story and dance in
the ballet. There were a great many poor children that went that
way, said the grandmother, and became fine and honored people;
still no little girl of her family should ever get permission to
go that way; a boy—well, he stood more firmly.
Peer had not seen a single one of the little girls fall
before the whole house fell, and then they all fell together, he
said.
Peer certainly must be a ballet-dancer.
“He gives me no rest!” said his mother. At last, his
grandmother promised to take him one day to the ballet-master,
who was a fine gentleman, and had his own house, like the
merchant. Would Peer ever get to that? Nothing is impossible for
our Lord. Peer had a gold apple in his hand when he was a child.
Such had lain in his hands; perhaps it was also in his legs.
Peer went to the ballet-master, and knew him at once; it was
Samson himself. His eyes had not suffered at all at the hands of
the Philistines. That was only a part of the play, he was told.
And Samson looked kindly and pleasantly on him, and told him to
stand up straight, look right at him, and show him his ankle.
Peer showed his whole foot, and leg too.
“So he got a place in the ballet,” said grandmother.
It was easily brought about at the ballet-master’s house; but
first his mother and grandmother must needs make other
preparations, and talk with people who knew about these things;
first with the merchant’s wife, who thought it a good career for
a pretty, well-formed boy without any prospect, like Peer. Then
they talked with Miss Frandsen; she understood all about the
ballet. At one time, in the younger days of grandmother, she had
been the most favorite danseuse at the theatre; she had danced
goddesses and princesses, had been cheered and applauded
whenever she came out; but then she grew older,—we all do—and
then she no longer had principal parts; she had to dance behind
the younger ones; and finally she went behind all the dancers
quite into the dressing-room, where The dressed the others to be
goddesses and princesses.
“So it goes!” said Miss Frandsen. “The theatre road is a
delightful one to travel, but it is full of thorns. Chicane
grows there,—chicane!”
That was a word Peer did not understand; but he came to
understand it quite well.
“He is determined to go into the ballet,” said his mother.
“He is a pious Christian child, that he is,” said
grandmother.
“And well brought up,” said Miss Frandsen. “ Well bred and
moral! that was I in my heyday.”
And so Peer went to dancing-school, and got some summer
clothes and thin-soled dancing-shoes to make it easier. All the
old dancers kissed him, and said that he was a boy good enough
to eat.
He was told to stand up, stick his legs out, and hold on by a
post so as not to fall, while he learned to kick first with his
right leg, then with his left. It was not so hard for him as for
most of the others. The ballet-master clapped him on the back
and said he would soon be in the ballet; he should be a king’s
child, who was carried on shields and wore a gold crown. That
was practised at the dancing school, and rehearsed at the
theatre itself.
The mother and grandmother must go to see little Peer in all
his glory, and they looked, and they both cried, for all it was
so splendid. Peer in all his glory and show had not seen them at
all; but the merchant’s family he had seen; they sat in the loge
nearest the stage. Little Felix was with them in his test
clothes. He wore buttoned gloves, just like grown-up gentlemen,
and sat with an opera-glass at his eyes the whole evening,
although he could see perfectly well—again just like grown-up
gentlemen. He looked at Peer. Peer looked at him; and Peer was a
king’s child with a gold crown on. This evening brought the two
children in closer relation to one another.
Some days after, as they met each other in the yard, Felix
went up to Peer and told him he had seen him when he was a
prince. He knew very well that he was not a prince any longer,
but then he had worn a prince’s clothes and had a gold crown on.
“I shall wear them again on Sunday,” said Peer.
Felix did not see him then, but he thought about it the whole
evening. He would have liked very well to be in Peer’s shoes; he
had not Miss Frandsen’s warning that the theatre way was a
thorny one, and that chicane grew on it; neither did Peer know
this yet, but he would very soon learn it.
His young companions the dancing children were not all as
good as they ought to be for all that they sometimes were angels
with wings to them. There was a little girl, Malle Knallemp, who
always, when she was dressed as page, and Peer was a page,
stepped maliciously on the side of his foot, so as to see his
stockings; there was a bad boy who always was sticking pins in
his back, and one day he ate Peer’s sandwiches by mistake; but
that was impossible, for Peer had some meat-pie with his
sandwich, and the other boy had only bread and butter. He could
not have made a mistake.
It would be in vain to recite all the vexations that Peer
endured in the two years, and the worst was not yet,—that was to
come. There was a ballet to be brought out called The Vampire.
In it the smallest dancing children were dressed as bats; wore
gray tights that fitted snugly to their bodies; black gauze
wings were stretched from their shoulders, and so they were to
run on tiptoe, as if they were just flying, and then they were
to whirl round on the floor. Peer could do this especially well;
but his trousers and jacket, all of one piece, were old and
worn; the threads did not hold together; so that, just as he
whirled round before the eyes of all the people, there was a rip
right down his back, straight from his neck down to where the
legs are fastened in, and all his short, little white shirt was
to be seen.
All the people laughed. Peer saw it, and knew that he was
ripped all down the back; he whirled and whirled, but it grew
worse and worse. Folks laughed louder and louder; the other
vampires laughed with them, and whirled into him, and all the
more dreadfully when the people clapped and shouted bravo!
“That is for the ripped vampire!” said the dancing children;
and so they always called him “Ripperip.”
Peer cried; Miss Frandsen comforted him. “’Tis only chicane,”
said she; and now Peer knew what chicane was.
Besides the dancing-school, they had another one attached to
the theatre, where the children were taught to cipher and write,
to learn history and geography; ay, they had a teacher in
religion, for it is not enough to know how to dance there is
something more in the world than wearing out dancing-shoes.
Here, too, Peer was quick,—the very luckiest of all,—and got
plenty of good marks; but his companions still called him
“Ripperip.” It was only a joke; but at last he would not stand
it any longer, and he struck out and boxed one of the boys, so
that he was black and blue under the left eye, and had to have
it whitened in the evening when he was to go in the ballet. Peer
was talked to sharply by the dancing-master, and more harshly by
the sweeping-woman, for it was her son he had punished.
III.
GOOD many thoughts went through little Peer’s head, and one
Sunday, when he had his best clothes on, he started out without
saying a word about it to his mother or grandmother, not even to
Miss Frandsen, who always gave him good advice, straight to the
chapel-master; he thought this man was the most important one
there was outside the ballet. He stepped boldly in and said:—
“I am at the dancing-school, but there is so much chicane,
and I would much rather be a player or a singer, if you please.”
“Have you a voice?” asked the chapel-master, and looked quite
pleasantly at him. “Seems to me I know you. Where have I seen
you before? Was it not you who was ripped down the back?“ and
now he laughed. But Peer grew red; he was surely no longer Lucky
Peer, as his grandmother had called him. He looked down at his
feet and wished himself away.
“Sing me a song!” said the chapel-master. “Nay, cheer up, my
lad” and he tapped him under the chin, and Peer looked up into
his kind eyes and sang a song which he had heard at the theatre
in the opera “Robert le Diable”—“Grace à moi.”
“That is a difficult song, hot you make it go,” said the
chapel-master. “You have an excellent voice—when it is not
ripped in the back!” and he laughed and called his wife. She
also must hear Peer sing, and she nodded her head and said
something in a foreign tongue. Just at that moment the
singing-master of the theatre came in; it was he to whom Peer
should have gone if he wanted to get among the singers; now he
came of himself, (quite accidentally, as it were; he heard him
also sing “Grace à moi,” but he did not laugh, and he did not
look so kindly on him as the chapel-master and his wife; still
it was decided that Peer should have singing-lessons.
“Now he has got on the right track,” said Miss Frandsen. “One
gets along a great deal farther with a voice than with legs. If
I had had a voice, I should have been a great songstress, and
perhaps a baroness now.”
“Or a bookbinder’s lady,” said mother. “Had you become rich,
you would have had the bookbinder any way.”
We do not understand that hint; but Miss Frandsen did.
Peer must sing for her, and sing for the merchant’s family,
when they heard of his new career. He was called in one evening
when they had company down-stairs, and he sang several songs—for
one. “Grace à moi.” All the company clapped their hands, and
Felix with them; he had heard him sing before; in the stable
Peer had sung the entire ballet of Samson, and that was the most
delightful of all.
“One cannot sing a ballet,” said the lady.
“Yes, Peer could,” said Felix, and so he was bidden do it. He
sang and he talked, he drummed and hummed: it was child’s play,
but there came snatches of well-known melodies, which did not
give an ill idea of what the ballet meant. All the company found
it very entertaining; they laughed and praised it, one louder
than another. The merchant’s lady gave Peer a great piece of
cake and a silver dollar.
How lucky the boy felt, till his eyes rested on a gentleman
who stood somewhat back, and looked sternly at him. There was
something harsh and severe in the man’s black eyes; he did not
laugh; he did not speak a single friendly word, and this
gentleman was the theatre’s singing-master.
PEER AND THE CHAPEL-MASTER.
Next morning, Peer was to go to him, and he stood there quite as
severe-looking as before.
“What possessed you yesterday!” said he. “Could you not
understand that they were making a fool of you? Never do that
again, and don’t you go running about and singing at doors,
outside or in. Now you can go. I’ll not have any singing with
you today.”
Peer was dreadfully cast down; he had fallen out of the
master’s good grace. Nevertheless the master was really better
satisfied with him than ever before. In all the absurdity which
he had scraped together, there was some meaning, something not
at all common. The lad had an ear for music, and a voice clear
as a bell and of great compass; if it continued like that, then
the little man’s fortune was made.
Now began the singing-lessons; Peer was industrious arid
quick. How much there was to learn! how much to know! The mother
toiled and slaved that her son might go well dressed and neat,
and not look too mean among the people to whose houses he now
went. He was always singing and trolling; they had no need at
all of a canary-bird, the mother said. Every Sunday must he sing
a psalm with his grandmother, It was charming to hear his fresh
voice lift itself up with hers. “It is much more beautiful than
to hear him sing wildly;” that was what she called his singing,
when, like a little bird, he trolled with his voice, and gave
forth tones which seemed to come of themselves, and make such
music as they pleased. What tunes there were in his little
throat, what sounding music in his little breast! Indeed he
could imitate a whole orchestra. There were both flute and
bassoon in his voice, violin and bugle. He sang as the birds
sing; but mans voice is most charming, even a little mans, when
he can sing like Peer.
But in the winter, just as he was to go to the priest to be
prepared for confirmation, he caught cold; the little bird in
his breast said pip the voice was ripped like the vampire’s
back-piece.
“It is no great misfortune,” thought mother and grandmother;
“now he doesn’t go singing tra la, and thus he can think more
seriously about his Christianity.”
His voice was changing, the singing-master said. Peer must
now not sing at all. How long would it be? A year, perhaps two;
perhaps the voice would never come again. That was a great
grief.
“Think now only of the confirmation,” said mother and
grandmother. “Apply yourself to music,” said the singing-master,
“but hold your mouth!”
He thought of his “Christianity,” and he studied music. There
was singing and playing going on inside him; he wrote entire
melodies down in notes, songs without words. Finally he wrote
the words, too.
“Really, thou art a poet, little Peer,” said the merchant’s
wife, to whom he carried his text and music. The merchant
received a piece of music dedicated to him—a piece without
words. Felix also got one, and so did Miss Frandsen, and that
went into her album, in which were verses and music by two who
were once young lieutenants, but now were old majors on
half-pay. The book was given by “a friend,” who had himself
bound it.
And Peer “stood” at Easter, as they say. Felix presented him
with a silver watch. It was the first watch Peer had owned; it
seemed to him that he was a man already when he did not need to
ask others what o’clock it was. Felix came up to the garret,
congratulated him, and handed him the watch; he himself was not
to “stand” until the autumn. They took each other by the hand,
these two children of the house, both just the same age, born
the same day and in the same house; and Felix ate of the cake
which had been baked in the garret on occasion of the
confirmation.
“It is a glad day with solemn thoughts,” said grandmother.
“Yes, very solemn!” said mother. “Had father only lived to
see Peer stand!”
The next Sunday they all three sat at Our Lord’s table. As
they came from church there came a message from the
singing-master, asking Peer to come to him, and Peer went. Some
good news awaited him, and yet pretty serious, too. He was to
give up singing for a year altogether; his voice was to lie
fallow like a field, as a peasant might say; but during that
time he was to go to school, not in the capital, where every
evening he would be running to the theatre, from which he could
not keep away; he was to go thirty miles away from home, to
board with a schoolmaster, who kept a lad or two en pension.
There he was to learn language and science, which would one day
be of service to him. The charge for a year’s course was three
hundred rix-dollars, and that was paid by a “benevolent man who
did not wish his name given.”
“It is the merchant,” said mother and grandmother.
The day of departure came. A good many tears were shed and
kisses and blessings given; and then Peer rode thirty miles1 on
the railway out into the wide world. it was Whitsuntide. The sun
shone, the woods were flesh and green; the train went rushing
through them. Fields and villages flitted past; gentlemen’s
country-seats peeped out; the cattle stood on the after-crop
pastures. Soon there came a station, then another, market town
after market town. At each stopping-place there was a hubbub of
people, welcoming or saying good-bye; there was noisy talking
outside and in the carriages. Where Peer sat there was a deal of
entertainment and chattering by a widow dressed in black. She
talked about his grave, his coffin, and his corpse—meaning her
child’s. It had been such a poor little thing, that there could
have been no happiness for it had it lived. It was a great
relief for her and the little lamb when it fell asleep.
“I spared no expense in the flowers!” said she; “and you must
remember that it died at a very expensive time, when you have to
cut the flowers in pots! Every Sunday I went to my grave and
laid a wreath on it with great white silk bows; the silk bows
were immediately stolen by small girls, and used for dancing
bows, they were so attractive. One Sunday when I went there, I
knew that my grave was on the left of the principal path, but
when I got there, there was my grave on the right. ‘How is
this?’ says I to the grave-digger; ‘isn’t my grave on the left?’
“‘No, it isn’t any longer!’ said he. ‘Madam’s grave lies
there, to be sure, but the mound has been moved over to the
right; that place belongs to another man’s grave.’
“‘But I will have my corpse in my grave,’ says I; ‘and I have
a perfect right to say so. Shall I go and dress a false mound,
when my corpse lies without any sign on the other side? Indeed I
won’t!’
“‘Oh, madam must talk to the dean.’
“He is such a good man, that dean! He gave me permission to
have my corpse on the right. It would cost five rix-dollars. I
gave that with a kiss of my hand, and stood myself by my old
grave. ‘Can I now be very sure that it is my own coffin and my
corpse that is moved?’
“‘That madam can!’ And so I gave each of the men a piece of
money for the moving. But now, since it had cost so much, I
thought I ought to send something to make it beautiful, and so I
ordered a monument with an inscription. But, will you believe
it, when I got it there was a carving of a butterfly at the top.
‘Why, that means Frivolity,’ said I. ‘I won’t have that on my
grave.’
“‘It is not Frivolity, madam, it is Immortality.’
“‘I never heard that,’ said I. Now, have any of you here in
the carriage ever heard of a butterfly as a sign for anything
except Frivolity? I held my peace. I have no liking for talk,
and I put the monument away in my pantry. There it stood till my
lodger came home. He is a student, and has ever so many books.
He assured me that it stood for Immortality, and so the monument
was placed on the grave.”
In the midst of this chatter Peer came to the station where
he was to stop, that he, too, might become student, and have
ever so many books.
IV.
ERR GABRIEL, the worthy man of learning, with whom Peer was to
live as a boarding scholar, was himself at the railway station,
waiting to meet him. Herr Gabriel was a lank, bony man, with
great staring eyes that stuck out so very far, one was almost
afraid that when he sneezed they would start out of his head
entirely. He was accompanied by three of his own little boys;
one of them stumbled over his own legs, and the other two trod
on Peer’s toes in their eagerness to see him close to. Two
lamger boys besides were with them,—the older about fourteen
years, fair-skinned, freckled, and very pimply.
“Young Madsen, Student in about three years, if he studies!
Primus, the dean’s son.” That was the younger, who looked like a
head of wheat. “Both are boarders, studying with me,” said Herr
Gabriel. “Our little playthings,” he called his own boys.
“Trine, take the new-comer’s trunk on your wheelbarrow. The
table is set for you at home.”
“Stuffed turkey!” said the two young gentlemen who were
boarders.
“Stuffed turkey!” said the little playthings, and the first
again fell over his own legs.
“Cæsar, look after your feet!” exclaimed Herr Gabriel; and
they went into the town and out of it. There stood a great
half-tumbled-down timber-work house, with a jasmine covered
summer-house. Here stood Madame Gabriel, with more small
“playthings,” two little girls.
“The new pupil,” said Herr Gabriel.
“Most heartily welcome!” said Madame Gabriel, a youthful,
thrifty dame, red and white, with kiss-me-if-you-dare curls, and
a good deal of pomade on her hair.
“Good heavens, what a well-grown lad you are!” said she to
Peer. “You are quite a gentleman already. I supposed that you
were like Primus or young Madsen. Angel Gabriel, it was well
that the inner door is nailed. You know what I think.”
“Fudge!” said Herr Gabriel; and they stepped into the room.
There was a novel on the table, lying open, and a sandwich on
it. One could see that it was used for a book mark—it lay across
the open page.
“Now I must be the housewife!” and with all five of the
children, and the two boarders, she carried Peer through the
kitchen, out by the passage-way, and into a little room, the
windows of which looked out on the garden; that was to be his
study and sleeping apartment; it was next to Madame Gabriel’s
room, where she slept with all the five children, and where the
connecting-door, for decency’s sake, and to prevent gossip which
spares nobody, had been that very day nailed up by Herr Gabriel,
at Madame’s express request.
“Here you are, to live just as if you were at your parents’.
We have a theatre, too, in the town. The apothecary is the
director of a private company, and we have traveling players.
But now you shall have your turkey;” and so she carried Peer
into the dining-room, where the week’s wash was drying on a
line.
“That doesn’t do any harm,” said she. “It is only
cleanliness, and you are accustomed, of course, to that.”
So Peer sat down to the roast turkey, in the midst of the
children, but not with the two boarders, who had squeezed
themselves in behind, and were now giving a dramatic
representation for the entertainment of themselves and the
stranger. There had lately been strolling players in town, who
had acted Schiller’s “Robbers;” the two oldest boys had been
immensely taken with it, and at once performed the whole piece
at home—all the parts, notwithstanding they only remembered
these words “Dreams come from the stomach.” But they were made
use of by all the characters in different tones of voice. There
stood Amelia, with heavenly eyes and dreamy looki: “Dreams come
from the stomach!” said she, and covered her face with both her
hands. Carl Moor came forward with heroic stride and manly
voice: “Dreams come from the stomach,” and at that the whole
flock of children, boys and girls, tumbled in; they were all
robbers, and murdered one another, crying out, “Dreams come from
the stomach.”
That was Schiller’s “Robbers.” Peer had this representation
and stuffed turkey for his first introduction into Herr
Gabriel’s house. Then he betook himself to his little chamber,
whose window, into which the sun shone warmly, gave upon the
garden. He sat there and looked out. Herr Gabriel was walking
there, absorbed in reading a book. He came nearer, and looked
in; his eyes seemed fixed upon Peer, who bowed respectfully.
Herr Gabriel opened his mouth as wide as he could, thrust his
tongue out, and let it wag from one side to the other right in
the face of the astonished Peer, who could not understand what
in the world he meant by this performance. Then off went Herr
Gabriel, but turned back again before the window, and thrust his
tongue out of his mouth.
What did he do that for? He was not thinking of Peer, or that
the panes of glass were transparent ; he only saw that one on
the outside was reflected in them, and he wanted to see his
tongue, as he had a stomach-ache; but Peer did not know all
this.
Later in the evening Herr Gabriel went into his room, and
Peer sat in his. It was quite late. He heard scolding—a woman’s
voice scolding in Madame Gabriel’s sleeping chamber.
“I shall go up to Gabriel, and tell him what rascals you
are!”
“We should also go to Gabriel and tell him what Madame is.”
“I shall go into fits!” she cried out.
“Who’ll see a woman in a fit! four skillings!”
Then Madame’s voice sank deeper, but distinctly said: “What
must the young gentleman in there think of our house at hearing
all this plain talk.” At that the scolding grew less, but then
again rose louder and louder.
“Finis,” cried Madame. “Go and make the punch; better peace
than strife.”
And then it was still. They went out of the door; the girls
and Madame knocked on the door to Peer:—
“Young man! now you have some notion what it is to be a
housewife. Thank Heaven, you don’t keep girls. I want peace, and
so I give them punch. I would gladly give you a glass,—one
sleeps so well after it,—but no one dares go through the entry
after ten o’clock; my Gabriel will not allow it. But you shall
have your punch, nevertheless. There is a great hole stopped up
in the door; I will push the stopper out, put the nose of the
pitcher in, and do you hold your tumbler under, and so I’ll give
you the punch. It is a secret, even from my Gabriel. You must
not worry him with household affairs.”
And so peer got his punch, and there was peace in Madame
Gabriel’s room, peace and quiet in the whole house. Peer lay
down, thought of his mother and grandmother, said his evening
prayer, and fell asleep. What one dreams the first night one
sleeps in a strange house has special significance, grandmother
had said. Peer dreamt that he took the amber heart, which he
still constantly wore, laid it in a flower-pot, and it grew into
a great tree, up through the loft and the roof; it bore
thousands of hearts of silver and gold; the flower-pot broke in
two, and it was no longer an amber heart—it had become mould,
earth to earth—gone, gone forever! Then Peer awoke; he still had
the amber heart, and it was warm, warm on his own warm heart.
V.
ARLY in the morning the first study hours began at Herr
Gabriel’s. They studied French. At breakfast the only ones
present were the boarders, the children, and Madame. She drank
here her second cup of coffee her first she always took in bed.
“It is so wholesome, when one is liable to spasms.” She asked
Peer what he had studied thus far.
“French,” he replied.
“It is a high cost language!” said she; “it is the diplomatic
speech, and the one that is used by people of good blood. I did
not study it in my childhood, but when one lives with a learned
man one gets of his wisdom, quite as one gets his mother-milk.
Thus I have all the necessary words. I am quite confident I
should know how to compromise myself in whatever company I
happened to be.”2
Madame had won a foreign word, a title, by her marriage with
a learned man. She was baptized Mette after a rich aunt, whose
heir she was to he. She got the name, but not the inheritance.
Herr Gabriel rebaptized Mette into Meta, the Latin for measure.
When she was named, all her clothes, woolen and linen, were
marked with the letters M. G., Meta Gabriel ; but young Madsen
had a boy’s wit, and read in the letters M. G. the character
“very good” (Danish Meget godt3), and therefore he added in ink
a great interrogation point, and put it on the tablecloth, the
towels, and sheets.
“Don’t you like Madame?” asked Peer, when young Madsen made
him privately acquainted with this piece of wit. “She is so
kind, and Herr Gabriel is so learned.”
“She is a bundle of lies!” said young Madsen; “and Herr
Gabriel is a scoundrel. If I were only a corporal, and he a
recruit, ugh! how I would give him the flat of my sword!” And
there was a blood-thirsty look about young Madsen; his lips grew
smaller than their wont, and his whole face seemed one great
freckle.
These were dreadful words to hear spoken, and they gave Peer
a shock; yet young Madsen had the clearest right to them in his
mind. It was a cruel thing on the part of parents and tutor that
a fellow should waste his best, most delightful youth in
learning grammar, names, and dates which nobody cares anything
for, instead of enjoying his liberty and spending his time going
about with a gun over his shoulder, like a good shot. “No, one
has no business to be shut up and sit on a bench till he falls
asleep over a book; Herr Gabriel wants that, and so one gets
called lazy and has the character ‘passable,’4 yes, one’s
parents get letters about it; so I say Herr Gabriel is a
scoundrel.”
“He grips your hand too,” added little Primus, who seemed to
agree with young Madsen. It was not at all pleasant for Peer to
hear them. But Peer got no “hand grips;” he was too grown up, as
Madsen had said. He was not called lazy either, for that he was
not; he was to have his hours alone. He was soon well ahead of
Madsen and Primus.
“He has ability!” said Herr Gabriel.
“And one can see that he has been to dancing-school!” said
Madame.
“We must have him in our dramatic society,” said the
apothecary, who lived more for the town’s private theatre than
for his apothecary shop. Malicious people applied the old stale
witticism, that he had certainly been bitten by a mad player,
for he was clean gone mad for the theatre.
“The young scholar is born for a lover,” said the apothecary.
“In a couple of years he could be Romeo; and I believe that if
he were well painted, and had a little moustache, he could go on
the stage very well this winter.”
The Apothecary’s daughter—“great dramatic talent,” said the
father; “true beauty,” said the mother—was to be Juliet; Madame
Gabriel must be the nurse, and the Apothecary, who was both
director and stage-manager, would take the rôle of the
apothecary—a slight one, but one of great importance. The whole
depended on Herr Gabriel’s permission for Peer to act Romeo. It
was plain that it was best to work through Madame Gabriel, and
the Apothecary understood that he must first win her over.
“You are born to be nurse,” said he, and thought that he was
flattering her exceedingly. “That is assuredly the most complete
rôle in the piece,” he continued. “it is the humorous rôle;
without it the piece could not be tolerated for its melancholy.
No one but you, Madame Gabriel, has the quickness and life that
should bubble tip here.”
All very true, she agreed, but her husband would surely never
permit his young pupil to contribute those crumbs of time which
would have to be given in learning the part of Romeo. She
promised, however, to “pump” him, as she called it. The
Apothecary began at once to study his part, and especially to
think about his make-up. He wished to be a squint-eyed, poor,
miserable fellow, and yet a clever man—rather a difficult
problem; but Madame Gabriel had a much harder one in “pumping”
her husband to the required point. He could not, he said, answer
for it to Peer’s guardians, who paid for his schooling and
board, if he permitted the young man to play in tragedy. We
cannot conceal the fact, however, that Peer had the most intense
longing to act. “But it will not do,” said he.
“It’s coming,” said Madame; “only let me keep on pumping.”
She would have given punch, but Herr Gabriel did not drink it
with any pleasure. Married people are sometimes different. We
say this without any offence to Madame.
“One glass and no more,” she said to herself. “It elevates
the soul and makes one happy, and thus it behooves us to be—it
is our Lord’s will with us.”
Peer was to be Romeo. That was pumped through by Madame. The
rehearsals were held at the Apothecary’s. They had chocolate and
“ geniuses,” that is to say, small biscuits. They were sold at
the bake-shop, twelve for a skilling,5 and they were so
exceedingly small, and so many, that it was thought a witticism
to call them geniuses.
“It is an easy thing to make fun of one,” said Herr Gabriel,
and so he himself gave nicknames to one thing and another. The
Apothecary’s house he called “Noah’s Ark with its clean and
unclean beasts,” and that was only because of the affection
which was shown by the family toward the two and four-footed
pets in the house. The young lady had her own cat, Graciosa—a
pretty, soft-skinned creature, that lay in the window, in her
lap, on her work, or ran over the table spread for dinner. The
mistress had a poultry-yard, a duck-yard, a parrot, and
canary-birds; and Polly could outcry them all together. Two
dogs, Flick and Flock, walked about the chamber; they were not
perfumery bottles by any means, and they lay on the sofa and on
the matrimonial bed.
The rehearsal began, and was only interrupted a moment by the
dogs slobbering over Madame Gabriel’s new gown; but that was out
of pure friendship and it did not spot it. The cat also caused a
slight disturbance: it would insist on giving its paw to Juliet,
sit on her head and beat its tail. Juliet’s tender speeches were
divided between the cat and Romeo. Every word that Peer had to
say was exactly what he wished to say to the Apothecary’s
daughter. How lovely and charming she was, a child of Nature,
who, as Madame Gabriel expressed it, went right by the side of
her part. Peer grew quite warm about it.
There surely was instinct or something even higher with the
cat. It perched on Peer’s shoulders and symbolized the sympathy
between Romeo and Juliet; with each successive rehearsal Peer’s
ardor grew more manifest and stronger, the cat more
confidential, the parrot and the canary-birds more noisy; Flick
and Flock ran in and out. The evening of the representation
came, and Peer was Romeo himself—he kissed Juliet right on her
mouth.
“Quite like nature!” said Madame Gabriel.
“Disgraceful!” said the Councillor, Herr Svendsen, the
richest citizen and fattest man in the town. The perspiration
ran down him, the house was so warm and he himself was so
heated. Peer found no favor in his eyes. “Such a puppy!” said he
; “a puppy so long too that one could crack him in halves and
make two puppies of him.”
Great applause—and one enemy! He got off well. Indeed Peer
was a Lucky Peer. Tired and overcome by the exertions of the
evening and the flattery shown him, he went home to his little
chamber. it was past midnight; Madame Gabriel knocked on the
wall.
“Romeo! here’s punch!”
And the spout was put through the door. and Peer Romeo held
his glass under.
“Good-night, Madame Gabriel.”
But Peer could not sleep. All that he had said. and
especially what Juliet had said, buzzed in his head, and when at
length he fell asleep, he dreamt of a wedding—a wedding with
Miss Frandsen! What singular things one can dream!
VI.
OW get that comedy out of your head!” said Herr Gabriel the next
morning, “and let us squeeze in some science.”
Peer had come near to thinking like young Madsen: “that one
was giving up his fresh youth when he was shut up and set down
with a book in his hand;” but when he sat at his book there
shone from it so many noble and good thoughts that Peer found
himself quite absorbed in it. He heard of the world’s great men
and their achievements so many had been the children of poor
people; Themistocles the hero, son of a potter; Shakespeare, a
poor weaver’s boy, who when a young man held horses at the door
of the theatre, where afterward he was the mightiest man in
poetic art of all countries and all time. He heard of the
singing contest at Wartburg, where the poets vied to see who
would produce the most beautiful poem—a contest like the old
trial of the Grecian poets at the great public feasts. Herr
Gabriel talked of these with especial delight. Sophocles had in
his old age written one of his best tragedies and won the prize
of victory over all the others. In this honor and fortune his
heart broke with joy. Ah! how blessed to die in the midst of his
joy of victory! What Could be more fortunate! Thoughts and
dreamings filled the soul of our little friend, but he had no
one to whom he could tell them. They would not be intelligible
to young Madsen or to Primus, nor to Madame Gabriel either: she
was either all good humor, or the sorrowing mother, sitting
dissolved in tears. Her two small girls looked with astonishment
at her, nor could Peer either discover why she was so
overwhelmed with sorrow and grief.
“The poor children” said she then, “a mother is ever thinking
of their future. The boys can take care of themselves. Cæsar
falls, but he gets up again; the two older ones splash in the
water-bowl; they want to be in the navy and make good matches.
But my two little girls! what will their future be? They will
reach the age when the heart feels, and then know I w’ell that
the one they each get attached to will not be at all after
Gabriel’s mind; he will give them one they cannot endure, and
then will they be so unhappy. That is what I think of as a
mother, and that is my sorrow and my grief. You poor children!
you to become so unhappy!” She wept.
The little girls looked at her; Peer looked at her with a
sympathetic look. He could not think of anything to answer, and
so he took himself back to his little room, sat down at the old
piano, and forth came tones and fantasies which streamed through
his heart.
In the early morning he went with a clear brain to his
studies and performed the part assigned to him. He was a
conscientious, right-minded fellew; in his diary he recorded
what each day he had read and studied, how late he had sat up
playing at the piano—always mutely, so as not to waken Madame
Gabriel. It never read in his diary, except on Sunday, the day
of rest: “Thought of Juliet,” “Was at the Apothecary’s,” “Wrote
a letter to mother and grandmother.” Peer was still Romeo and a
good son.
“Very industrious!” said Herr Gabriel. “Follow that example,
young Madsen. You will be reject.”
“Scoundrel!” said young Madsen to himself; Primus, the dean’s
son, suffered from lethargy. “It is a disease,” said the dean’s
wife, and he was not to be treated with severity. The deanery
was only two miles distant; wealth and fine society were there.
“He will die a bishop!” said Madame Gabriel. “ He has good
conjugations at the court, and the deaness is a lady of noble
birth. She knows all about Haaltry—that means coats-of-arms.”
It was Whitsuntide. A year had gone by since Peer came to
Herr Gabriel’s house. He had acquired an education, but his
voice had not returned; would it ever come?
The Gabriel household was invited to the Dean’s to a great
dinner and a ball in the evening. A good many guests came from
the town and from the manor-houses about. The apothecary’s
family were invited; Romeo would see Juliet, perhaps dance the
first dance with her.
It was a substantial place, the deanery,—whitewashed and
without any manure-heaps in the yard; with a dove-cote painted
green, about which twined an ivy vine. The Deaness was a
corpulent woman—glaukopis athene. Herr Gabriel called her the
blue-eyed, not the ox-eyed, as Juno was called, thought Peer.
There was a certain remarkable mildness about her, an endeavor
to have an invalid took ; she certainly had Primus’s sickness.
She was dressed in a corn-colored silk, wore great curls, caught
up on the right by a large medallion portrait of her
great-grandmother, a general’s wife, and on the left by an
equally large bunch of grapes of white porcelain.
The Dean had a ruddy, well-conditioned countenance, with
shining white teeth, well suited to biting into a roast fillet.
His conversation was always garnished with anecdotes. He could
discourse with everybody, but no one had ever succeeded in
carrying on a conversation with him.
The councillor, too, was here, and among the strangers from
the manors was Felix, the merchant’s son; he had been confirmed,
and was now a young gentleman very elegant in clothes and
manners; he was a millionaire, they said. Madame Gabriel had not
courage to speak to him.
Peer was overjoyed at seeing Felix, who came forward most
cordially to meet him, and said that he brought greetings from
his parents, who read all the letters which Peer wrote home to
his mother and grandmother.
The dancing began. The Apothecary’s daughter was to dance the
first dance with the councillor; that was the promise she had
made at home to her mother and the councillor himself. The
second dance was promised to Peer; but Felix came and took her
out, only vouchsafing a good-natured nod.
“You promised that I should have one dance; the young lady
will only give permission when you promise.”
Peer kept a civil face and said nothing, and Felix danced
with the Apothecary’s daughter, the most beautiful girl at the
ball. He danced the next dance also with her.
“Will you grant me the supper dance?” asked Peer, with a pale
face.
“Yes, the supper dance,” she answered, with her most charming
smile.
“You surely will not take my partner from me?” said Felix,
who stood close by. “It is not friendly. We two old friends from
the town! You say that you are so very glad to see me. Then you
must allow me the pleasure of taking the lady to supper!” and he
put his arm round Peer and laid his forehead jestingly against
his. “Granted! isn’t it? granted!”
“No!” said Peer, his eyes sparkling with anger.
Felix gayly raised his arms and set his elbows akimbo,
looking like a frog ready to spring:—
“You have perfect right, young gentleman! I would say the
same if the supper dance were promised me, sir!” He drew back
with a graceful bow to the young lady. But not long after, when
Peer stood in a corner and arranged his neck-tie, Felix came,
put his arm round his neck, and with the most coaxing look,
said:—
“Be splendid! my mother and your mother and old
grandmother—they will all say that it is just like you. I am off
to-morrow, and I shall be horribly bored if I do not take the
young lady to supper. My own friend! my only friend!”
At that Peer, as his only friend, could not hold out; he
himself carried Felix to the young beauty.
It was bright morning when the guests the next day drove away
from the Dean’s. The Gabriel household was in one carriage, and
the whole family went to sleep except Peer and Madame.
She talked about the young merchant, the rich man’s son, who
was really Peer’s friend she had heard him say: “Your health, my
friend.” “Mother and grandmother.” There was something so
“negligent” and gallant in him, she said; “one saw at once that
he was the son of rich people, or else a count’s child. That the
rest of us can’t claim. One must be able to bow!”
Peer said nothing. He was depressed all day. In the evening,
at bed-time, when lying in bed sleep was chased away, and he
said to himself: “How they bow and smirk!” That had he done, the
rich young fellow; “because one is born poor, he is placed under
the favor and condescension of these richly-horn people. Are you
then better than we? And why were you created better than we?”
There was something vicious rearing up in him ; something
wrong; something which his grandmother would be grieved at.
“Poor grandmother! Thou also hast been appointed to poverty. God
has known how to do that!” and he felt anger in his heart, and
yet at the same time an apprehension that he was sinning in
thought and word against the good God. He grieved to think he
had lost his child’s mind, and yet he possessed it just by this
grief, whole and rich in nature. Happy Peer!
A week after there came a letter from grandmother. She wrote,
as she could, great letters and small letters mixed up, all her
heart’s love in things small and great that concerned Peer:—
“MY OWN SWEET, BLESSED BOY:—I think of thee, I long for thee,
and that too does thy mother. She gets along very well with her
washing. And the merchant’s Felix was in to see us yesterday,
with a greeting from thee. You had been at the Dean’s ball, and
thou wert so honorable; that wilt thou always be, and rejoice
the heart of thy old grandmother and thy hard-working mother.
She has something to tell you about Miss Frandsen.”
And then followed a postscript from Peer’s mother.
“Miss Frandsen is married, the old thing. The bookbinder
Court is become court bookbinder, in accordance with his
petition, with a great sign, ‘Court Bookbinder Court!’ And she
has become Madame Court. it is an old love that does not rust,
my sweet boy.
“THY MOTHER.”
“Second Postscript. Grandmother has knit you six pair of
woollen socks, which you will get by the first opportunity. I
have laid with them a pork-pie, your favorite dish. I know that
you never get it at Herr Gabriel’s, since the lady is so afraid
of what—I don’t know exactly how to spell ‘trichines.’ You must
not believe that, but only eat.
“THY OWN MOTHER.”
Peer read the letter and read himself happy. Felix was so
good; what wrong had he done him! They had separated at the
Dean’s without saying good-bye to each other.
“Felix is better than I,” said Peer.
VII.
N a quite life one day glides into the next, and month quickly
follows month. Peer was already in the second year of his stay
at Herr Gabriel’s, who with great earnestness and
determination—Madame called it obstinacy— insisted that he
should not again go on the stage.
Peer himself received from the singing-master, who monthly
paid the stipend for his instruction and support, a serious
admonition not to think of comedy-playing so long as he was
placed there; and he obeyed, but his thoughts traveled often to
the theatre at the capital. They had but a fancied life there,
on the stage where he was to have stood as a great singer; now
his voice was gone, nor did it come back, and often was he
sorely oppressed thereat. Who could comfort him? neither Herr
Gabriel nor Madame; but our Lord surely could. Consolation comes
to us in many ways. Peer found it in sleep—he was indeed a lucky
Peer.
One night he dreamed that it was Whitsunday, and he was out
in the charming green forest, where the sun shone in through the
boughs, and where all the ground beneath the trees was covered
with anemones and cow-slips. Then the cuckoo began—“Cuckoo!” How
many years shall I live? asked Peer, for that people always ask
the cuckoo the first time in the year that they hear its note,
and the cuckoo answered: “Cuckoo!” but uttered no more and was
silent.
“Shall I only live a single year?” asked Peer; “truly that is
too little, Be so good as to cuckoo if it is so!” Then began the
bird—“Cuckoo! cuckoo!” Aye! it went on without end, and as it
went Peer cuckooed with it, and that as lively as if he too were
a cuckoo; but his note was stronger and clearer; all the little
birds warbled, and Peer sang after them, but far more
beautifully; he had all the clear voice of his childhood, and
carolled in song. He was so glad at heart, anti then he awoke,
but with the assurance that the sounding-board still was in him,
that his voice still lived, and some bright Whitsun morning
would burst forth in all its freshness; and so he slept, happy
in this assurance.
But days and weeks and months passed; he perceived not that
his voice came again.
Every bit of intelligence which he could get of the theatre
at the capital was a true feast for his soul; it was meat and
drink to him. Crumbs are really bread, and he received crumbs
thankfully—the poorest little story. There was a flax-dealer’s
family living near the Gabriels. The mother, an estimable
mistress of her household, brisk and laughing, but without any
acquaintance or knowledge of the theatre, had been at the
capital for the first time, and was enraptured with everything
there, even with the people; they had laughed at everything she
had said, she assured them—and that was very likely.
“Were you at the theatre also?” asked Peer.
“That I was,” replied the flax-dealer’s wife. “How I steamed!
You ought to have seen me sit and steam in that hot place!”
“But what did they do? What piece did they play?”
“That will I tell you,” said she. “I shall give you the whole
comedy. I was there twice. The first evening it was a talking
piece. Out came she, the princess: ‘Ahbe, dahbe! abe, dabe!’ how
she could talk. Next came the people: ‘Abbe, dahbe! abe, dabe!’
and then down came Madame. Now they began again. The prince, he:
‘Ahbe, dahbe! abe, dabe!’ then down came Madame. She fell down
five times that evening. The second time I was there, it was all
singing ‘Ahbe, dahbe! abe, dabe!‘ and then down came Madame.
There was a country-woman sitting by my side; she bad never been
in the theatre, and supposed that it was all over; but I, who
now knew all about it, said that when I was there last, Madame
was down five times. The singing evening she only did it three
times. There I there you have both the comedies, as true to life
as I saw them.”
If it was tragedy she saw, Madame always came down. Then it
flashed over Peer’s mind what she meant. At the great theatre
there was painted upon the curtain which fell between the acts a
great female figure, a Muse with the comic and the tragic mask.
This was Madame who “came” down. That had been the real comedy;
what they said and sang had been to the flax-dealer’s wife only
“Ahbe, dahbe! abe, dabe!” but it bad been a great pleasure, and
so had it been also to Peer, and not less to Madame Gabriel, who
heard this recital of the pieces. She sat with an expression of
astonishment and a consciousness of mental superiority, for had
she not, as Nurse, been Shakspeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” as the
Apothecary said?
“Then down comes Madame,” explained by Peer, became afterward
a witty by-word in the house every time a child, a cup, or one
or another piece of furniture fell upon the floor in the house.
“That is the way proverbs and familiar sayings arise!” said
Herr Gabriel, who appropriated everything to scientific use.
New Year’s eve, at the stroke of twelve, the Gabriels and
their boarders stood, each with a glass of punch, the only one
Herr Gabriel drank the whole year, because punch makes one’s
stomach ache. They drank a health to the new year, and counted
the strokes of the clock, “one, two,” till the twelfth stroke.
“Down comes Madame!” said they.
The new year rolled up and on. At Whitsuntide Peer had been
two years in the house.
VIII.
WO years were gone, but the voice had not come back. How would
the future be for our little friend?
He could always be a tutor in a school—that was in Herr
Gabriel’s mind—there was a livelihood in that, though nothing to
be married on; nor was Peer’s mind quite made up as to how large
a share of his heart the apothecary’s daughter had.
“Be a tutor!” said Madame Gabriel; “a schoolmaster! then be
the veriest humdrum on earth, just like my Gabriel. No, you are
born for the theatre. Be the greatest actor in the world that is
something else than being a tutor.”
An actor! ay, that was the goal.
He gave vent to his feelings in a letter to the
singing-master; he told of his longing and his hope. Most
earnestly did he long for the great city where his mother and
grandmother lived, whom he had not seen for two years. The
distance was only thirty miles;1 in six hours, by the quick
train, that could be passed. Why had they not seen one another?
That is easily explained. Peer had, on leaving, been made to
give his promise to stay where he should he placed, and not to
think of a visit. His mother was busy enough with her washing
and ironing. Yet, for all that, she thought a good many times of
making the great journey, though it would cost a deal of money,
but she never did. Grandmother had a horror of railways; she
thought to go by them was to fly in the face of Providence.
Nothing could induce her to travel by steam; she was, too, an
old woman, and she would take no journey until she took her last
one up to our Lord.
That she said in May, but in June the old thing did travel,
and quite alone, too, the thirty long miles, to the strange
town, to strange people, and all to go to Peer. It was a great
occasion, the most sorrowful one that could occur to mother and
grandmother.
The cuckoo had said “cuckoo!” without end when Peer the
second time asked it, “How many years shall I live?” His health
and spirits were good: the future shone brightly. He had
received a delightful letter from his fatherly friend, the
singing-master. Peer was to go home, and they would see what
could be done for him—what course he should pursue if his voice
was really gone.
“Appear as Romeo!” said Madame Gabriel; “you are old enough
now for the lover’s part, and have got some color in your
cheeks; you don’t need to paint.”
“Be Romeo!” said the Apothecary and the Apothecary’s
daughter.
Many thoughts went sounding through his head and heart. But
“Nobody knows what to-morrow shall be.”
He sat down below in the garden that stretched out to the
meadow. It was evening and moonlight. His cheeks burned, his
blood was on fire, the air brought a grateful coolness. There
over the moor a mist hung that rose and sank and made him think
of the dance of the Elfin maidens. There came into his mind the
old saving of the Knight Olaf, who rode out to ask the guests to
nis wedding, but was stopped by the Elfin maidens, who drew him
into their dance and sport, and thereby came his death. It was a
piece of folk lore, an old poem. The moonlight and the mist over
the moor painted pictures for it this evening.
Peer sat and soon was in a half dreaming state, looking out
upon it all. The bushes seemed to have shapes of human sort and
half of beastly form. They stood motionless, while the mist rose
like a great waving veil. Something like this had Peer seen in a
ballet at the theatre, when Elfin maidens were represented,
whirling and waving with veils of gauze; but here it was far
more charming and more wonderful. So great a scene as this no
theatre could show; none had so clear an air, so shining a
moonlight.
Just in front, in the mist, appeared most distinctly a female
shape, and it became three, and the three many; they danced hand
in hand, floating girls. The air bore them along to the hedge
where Peer stood. They nodded to him; they spake; it was like
the cling! clang! of silver bells. They danced into the garden
and about him; they enclosed him in their circle. Without
thought he danced with them, but not their dance. He whirled
about, as in the memorable vampire dance, but he thought not of
that, he thought not at all of aught more, but was enveloped in
the wondrous beauty he saw around him.
The moor was a sea, so deep and dark-blue, with water-lilies
that were bright with all conceivable colors; dancing over the
waves they bore him upon their veil to the opposite shore, where
the giant mound has thrown aside its grassy sward and rose into
a castle of clouds, but the clouds were of marble; flowering
vines of gold and costly stones twined about the mighty blocks
of marble; each flower was a radiant bud that sang with human
voice. It was like a choir of thousands and thousands of happy
children. Was it heaven, or was it the Elfin hill?
The castle walls stirred—they moved toward each other—they
closed about him. He was within them and the world of men was
without. Then felt he a pain, a strange yearning, as never
before. No outlet could he find, but from the floor away up to
the roof there smiled upon him sweet young girls; they were so
loving as he looked upon them, and yet the thought came—are ye
but paintings? He would speak with them, but his tongue found no
words; his speech was gone; not a sound came from his lips. Then
he threw himself upon the earth, with a misery he never before
had known.
One of the Elfin maidens came to him; surely she meant well
to him in her manner; she had taken the shape he would most like
to see; it was the likeness of the Apothecary’s daughter; he was
almost ready to believe that it was she; but soon he saw that
she was hollow in the back—a charming front view, but open
behind and nothing at all inside.
“One hour here is a hundred years outside,” said she; “thou
hast already been here a whole hour. All whom you know and love
without these walls are dead. Stay with us! Yes, stay thou must,
or the walls will hold thee in a vice till the blood spirts from
thy fore head.”
And the walls trembled, and the air became like that of a
glowing furnace. He found his voice.
“Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken me?” he cried from the depths
of his soul.
Then Grandmother stood beside him. She took him in her arms,
she kissed his brow, she kissed his mouth.
“My own sweet little one!” said she, “our Lord doth not let
thee go; He lets none of us go, not the greatest sinner. To God
be praise and honor for evermore!”
And she took out her psalmbook, the same one from which she
and Peer many a Sunday had sung. How her voice rang! how full
her tones! all the Elfin maidens laid their heads down to the
rest they longed for. Peer sang with Grandmother, as before he
had sung each Sunday; how strong and mighty all at once was his
voice! the walls of the castle trembled; they became clouds and
mist; Grandmother went with him out of the hill into the high
grass, where the glow-worms made light and the moon shone. But
his feet were so weary he could not move them; he sank down on
the sward; it was the softest bed; there he rested and awoke to
the sound of a psalm.
Grandmother sat beside him—sat by his bed in the little
chamber in Herr Gabriel’s house. The fever was over; life and
reason had returned. But he had been at the door of death. Down
in the garden, that evening they had found him in a swoon; a
violent fever followed. The doctor thought that he would not get
up from it again, but must die, and so they had written thus to
his mother. She and Grandmother felt that they must go to him;
both could not leave, and so the old grandmother went, and went
by the railway.
“It was for Peer only that I did it,” said she. “I did it in
God’s name, or I must believe that I flew with the Evil One on a
broomstick on Midsummer Eve.”
IX.
HE journey home was made with glad and light heart. Devoutly did
grandmother thank our Lord that Peer was yet to outlive her. She
had delightful neighbors in the railway carriage—the apothecary
and his daughter. They talked about Peer: they loved him as if
they belonged to his family. He was to become a great actor,
said the apothecary; his voice had now returned, too, and there
was a fortune in such a throat as his.
What a pleasure it was to the grandmother to hear such words!
She lived on them; she believed them thoroughly; and so they
came to the station at the capital, where the mother met her.
“God be praised for the railway!” said grandmother, “and be
praised, too, that I quite forgot I was on it! I owe that to
these excellent people;” and she pressed the hands of the
apothecary and his daughter. “The railway is a blessed discovery
when one is through with it. One is in God’s hands.”
Then she talked of her sweet boy, who was out of all danger
and housed with people who were very well off and kept two girls
and a man. Peer was like a son in the house, and on the same
footing with two children of distinguished families: one of them
was a Dean’s son. The grandmother had lodged at the post-inn; it
was dreadfully dear! but then she had been invited to Madam
Gabriel’s; there she had stayed five days; they were angelic
people, especially the mistress; she had urged her to drink
punch, excellently made, but rather strong.
In about a month would Peer, by God’s help, be strong enough
to come home to the capital.
“He has been flattered and has become very fine,” said the
mother. “He will not feel at home here in the garret. I am very
glad that the singing-master has invited him to stay with him.
And yet,” so mourned she, “it is horribly sad that one should be
so poor that one’s own bairn should not find it good enough for
him in his own home.”
“Don’t say those words to Peer,” said grandmother; “you don’t
see into him as I do.”
“But he must have meat and drink, any way, no matter how fine
he has grown; and he shall not want those so long as my hands
can joggle in the wash-tub. Madam Court has told me that he can
dine twice a week with her, now that she is well off. She knows
what prosperity is, and what rough times are, too. Has she not
herself told me that one evening, in the box at the theatre
where the old danseuses have a place, she felt sick? The whole
day long she had only had water and a caraway seed cake, and she
was sick from hunger, and very faint. ‘Water! water!’ cried the
other. ‘No! some tarts!’ she begged; ‘tarts!’ She needed
something nourishing, and had not the least need of water. Now
she has her own pantries and a well-spread table.”
Thirty miles away Peer still sat, but happy in the thought
that he would soon be in the city, at the theatre, with all his
old, dear friends, whom now he rightly knew how to value. Within
him there was music: without there was music too. All was
sunshine—the glad time of youth, the time of hope and
anticipation. Every day he grew stronger, got good spirits and
color. But Madam Gabriel was much depressed as his time for
departure drew near.
“You are going into great society, and into the midst of many
temptations, for you are handsome—that you have become in our
house. You have naïveté, just as I have, and that will get you
into temptation. One must not be fastidious, and he must not be
mangy; fastidious like the Queen Dagmar, who on Sunday tied her
silk sleeves and then had her mind made up about such little
things. More than that, I would never have taken on so as I
Lucretia did. What did she stick herself for? She was pure and
honest; everybody in the town knew that. What could she do about
the misfortune which I won’t talk about, but that you at your
time of life understand perfectly well? So she gives a shriek
and takes the dagger There was no use in that. I would not have
done it nor you either; for we are both people of nature, and
that people will be to the end of time, and that will you
continue to be in your art career. How happy I shall be to read
about you in the papers! Some time you will come to our little
town and appear perhaps as Romeo, but I shall not be the nurse
then. If shall sit in the parquet and enjoy myself.”
Madam had a great washing and ironing done the week he went
away, that Peer might go home with a whole, clean wardrobe, as
when he came. She drew a new, strong ribbon through his amber
heart; that was the only thing she wanted for a “remembrance
souvenir,” but she did not get it.
From Herr Gabriel he received a French lexicon, enriched with
marginal notes by Herr Gabriel’s own hand. Madam Gabriel gave
him roses and ribbon-grass. The roses would wither, but the
grass would keep all winter if it did not get into the water but
was kept in a dry place, and she wrote a quotation from Goethe
as a kind of album-leaf: “Umgang mit Frauen ist das Element
guter Sitten.” She gave it in translation : “Intercourse with
women is the foundation of good manners. Goethe.”
“He was a great man!” said she, “if he had only not written
‘Faust,’ for I don’t understand it. Gabriel says so too.”
Young Madsen presented Peer with a not badly-done drawing
which he had made of Herr Gabriel hanging from the gallows, with
a ferule in his hand, and the inscription: “A great actor’s
first conductor on the road of science.” Primus, the Dean’s son,
gave him a pair of slippers, which the Deaness herself had made,
but so large that Primus could not fill them for a year or two
yet. Upon the soles was written in ink:—“Remember a sorrowing
friend. Primus.”
All of Herr Gabriel’s household accompanied Peer to the
train.
“They shall not say that you went off sans adieu!” said
Madam, and she kissed him in the railway station.
“I am not concerned,” said she; “when one does not do a thing
secretly, one can do anything!”
The signal-whistle let off steam; young Madsen and Primus
shouted hurra! the “small playthings” joined in with them; Madam
dried her eyes and wiped them with her pocket handkerchief; Herr
Gabriel said only the word, Vale!
The villages and stations flew by. Were the people in them as
happy as Peer? He thought of that, praised his good fortune, and
thought of the invisible golden apple which grandmother had seen
lying in his hand when he was a child. He thought of his lucky
find in the gutter, and, above all, of his new-found voice, and
of the knowledge he had now acquired. He had become altogether
another person. He sang within for gladness; it was a great
restraint for him to keep from singing aloud in the cars.
Now the towers of the city appeared, and the buildings began
to show themselves. The train reached the station. There stood
mother and grandmother, and one other along with them, Madam
Court, well bound, Court bookbinder Court’s lady, born Frandsen.
Neither in want nor in prosperity did she forget her friends.
She must needs kiss him as his mother and grandmother had done.
“Court could not come with me,” said she; “he is hard at work
binding a lot of books for the King’s private library. You had
your good luck, and I have mine. I have my Court and my own
chimney corner, with a rocking-chair. Twice a week you are to
dine with us. You shall see my life at home; it is a complete
ballet!”
Mother and grandmother hardly got a chance to talk to Peer,
but they looked on him with eves that shone with delight. Then
he had to take a cab to drive to his new home at the
singing-master’s. They laughed and they cried.
“He is still so charming!” said grandmother.
“He has his own good face just as when he went away!” said
mother; “and he will keep that when he is in the theatre.”
The cab stopped at the singing-master’s door, but the master
was out. His old servant opened the door and showed Peer up to
his chamber, where all about on the walls were portraits of
composers, and on the stove a white plaster bust stood gleaming.
The old man, a little dull, but trustworthiness itself, showed
him the drawers in the bureau, and hooks for him to hang his
clothes from, and said he was very willing to clean his boots
when the singing-master came in and gave Peer a hearty shake of
the hand in welcome.
“Here is every convenience!” said he; “make yourself quite at
home you can use my piano in the room. To-morrow we will hear
how your voice gets on. This is our warden of the castle, our
director of household affairs,” and he nodded to the old
servant. “All is in order; Carl Maria Von Weber, on the stove
there, has been whitened in honor of your coming. He was
dreadfully grimy. But it is not Weber at all that is put up
there, it is Mozart. How comes he there?”
“It is the old Weber,” said the servant; “I took him myself
to the plaster-man, and he has sent him home this morning.”
“But this is a bust of Mozart, and not a bust of Weber.”
“Pardon, sir,” said the servant; “it is the old Weber, who
has become clean. The master does not recognize him again now
that he has been whitened.”
He could learn how it was of the plaster-man, and then he got
the answer that Weber had been broken in pieces, and so he had
sent him Mozart instead, it was all the same thing on the stove.
The first day Peer was not to sing nor play, but when our
young friend came into the parlor, where the piano stood, and
the opera of Joseph lay open upon it, he sang “My Fourteenth
Spring,” and sang with a voice that was clear as a bell. There
was something so charming about it, so innocent, and yet so
strong and full. The singing-master’s eyes were wet with tears.
“So shall it be, and better still!” exclaimed he. “Now we
will shut the piano for the day; you will want to rest.”
“But I must go this evening to my mother and grandmother, for
I have promised it;” and he hurried away. The setting sun shone
over the home of his childhood; the bits of glass in the wall
sparkled; it was like a diamond castle. Mother and grandmother
sat up there in the garret, a good many steps up, but he flew up
three stairs at a time, and was at their door and received with
kisses and embraces.
It was clean and tidy there in the little chamber. There
stood the stove, the old bear, and the chest of drawers with the
hidden treasure which he knew when he rode his hobbyhorse; on
the walls hung the three familiar pictures the King’s portrait,
a picture of Our Lord, and father’s silhouette, cut out in black
paper. It was a good side view, said mother, but it would have
been more like him if the paper had been white and red, for that
he was an excellent man! and Peer was the very picture of him.
There was much to talk about, much to tell. They were to have
a head-cheese, and Madam Court had promised to look in upon them
in the evening.
“But how is it that those two old people, Court and Miss
Frandsen, ever should have got married?” asked Peer.
“It has been in their thoughts these many years,” said
mother. “You know he was married. Well, he did it, they say, to
pique Miss Frandsen, who looked down on him when she was in her
high and mighty state. He got a comfortable property with his
wife, but she was dreadfully old; lively, and on crutches! She
could not die; he waited for it. It would not have surprised me,
if, like the man in the story, he had every Sunday put the old
thing out in the open air, so that our Lord might see her and
remember to send for her.”
“Miss Frandsen sat still and waited,” said grandmother. “I
never believed she would get it. But last year Madam Court died,
and so Frandsen came to be mistress in the house.”
At that moment in came Madam Court.
“We were talking about you,” said grandmother; “we were
talking about your patience and reward.”
“Yes,” said Madam Court. “It did not come in my youth, but
one is always young so long as one hasn’t a broken body, says my
Court. He is a witty fellow. We are old, good works, he says,
both in one volume, and that with gilt top. I am so happy with
my Court and my chimney-corner. A porcelain stove! there the
fire is made in the evening, and it keeps warm all the next day.
It is such a luxury. It is as in the ballet of Circe’s Island.
Do you remember me as Circe?”
“Yes, you were charming!” said grandmother. “But how people
do change!” That was not at all said impolitely, and was not so
taken. Then came the head-cheese and the tea.
The next morning Peer paid his visit at the merchant’s. The
lady met him, pressed his hand, and bade him take a seat by her.
In conversation with her he expressed his great gratitude; he
knew that the merchant was his secret benefactor. The lady did
not know it. “But it is like my husband,” said she. “It is not
worth talking about.”
The merchant was nearly angry when Peer touched on this. “You
are on the wrong track altogether,” said he, and abruptly closed
the conversation. Felix was a student and was to go into
diplomatic life.
“My husband calls it all folly,” said the lady. “I have no
opinion. Providence disposes of such things.”
Felix did not show himself, for he was taking a lesson at his
fencing-master’s. At home Peer told how he had thanked the
merchant, but that he would not receive his thanks.
“Who told you that he was what you call him, your
benefactor?” asked the singing-master.
“Mother and grandmother,” answered Peer.
“Oh, then it must be so.”
“You know about it?” said Peer.
“I know; but you will get nothing out of me. Now come, let us
sing an hour here at home, this morning.”
X.
NCE a week there was quartette music. Ears, soul, and thought
were filled with the grand musical poems of Beethoven and
Mozart. For a long time Peer had heard no good and well-given
music. It was as if a kiss of fire darted down his spine and
shot through all his nerves. His eyes filled with tears. Every
music-evening here at home was a feast to him that made a deeper
impression upon him than any opera at the theatre, where there
is always something that destroys pleasure or brings faults too
strongly forward. The first thing one knows the words do not
come out right; they are so smoothed down in the singing that
they are as intelligible to a Chinaman as to a Greenlander; then
the effect is weakened by faults in the dramatic expression, and
by a full voice sinking down in single places to the power of a
music-box, or is drawled out in false tones. Lack of
truthfulness also in decoration and costume is to be observed.
All this was absent from the quartette. The music poems rose in
all their grandeur, costly hangings decorated the walls in the
concert-room, and he was in the world of music, listening to the
masters in their fascination.
In the great public music-hall was given one evening, by a
well-trained orchestra, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony;
especially the andante movement, “the scene by the brook,”
stirred and excited our young friend with strange power. It
carried him into the living, fresh woods; the lark and the
nightingale warbled; there the cuckoo sang. What beauty of
Nature, what a well-spring of refreshment was there! From this
hour he knew within himself that it was the picturesque music,
in which Nature was reflected, and the emotions of men’s hearts
were set forth, that struck deepest into his soul: Beethoven and
Haydn became his favorite composers.
With the singing-master he talked frequently of this, and at
every conversation they two came nearer each other. flow rich in
knowledge this man was, as inexhaustible as Mimer’s2 well. Peer
listened to him, and just as when he was a little boy he heard
eagerly grandmother’s wonder stories and tales, now he heard
those of the world of music, and knew what the forest and the
sea told, what sounds in the old giant mound, what every bird
sings with its bill, and what the voiceless flowers breathe
forth in fragrance.
The hour for singing every morning was a real hour of delight
for master and pupil every little song was sung with a
freshness, an expression, and a simplicity: most charmingly did
they give Schubert’s “Travel Song.” The melody was true, and the
words also; they blended together, they exalted and illumined
one another, as is fitting. Peer was undeniably a dramatic
singer. Each month showed progress in ability; every week, yes,
each day by day.
Our young friend grew in a wholesome, happy way, knowing no
want or sorrow. His trust in mankind was never deceived; he had
a child’s soul and a man’s endurance, and everywhere he was
received with gentle eyes and a kind welcome. Day by day the
relations between him and the singing-master grew more intimate
and more confidential; the two were like elder and younger
brothers, and the younger had all the fervor and warmth of a
young heart; that the elder understood, and gave in turn in his
own wise.
The singing-master’s character was marked by a southern
ardor, and one saw at once that this man could hate vehemently
or love passionately, and fortunately this last governed in him.
He was, moreover, so placed by a fortune left him by his father,
that he did not need to take any office which did not content
him. He did secretly a great deal of good in a sensible way, but
would not suffer people to thank him, or, indeed, to talk about
it.
“Have I done anything,” said he, “it is because I could and
ought to do it. it was my duty.”
His old serving-man, “our warden,” as he called him in jest,
talked only with half a voice when he gave expression to his
opinion about the master of the house. “I know what he gives
away ‘between a year and a day,’ and I don’t know the half! The
King ought to give him a star to wear on his breast. But he
would not wear it; he would get mad as lightning, if I know him,
should one notice him for his honesty. He is happy beyond the
rest of us, in the faith which he has. He is just like a man out
of the Bible.” And at that the old fellow gave an additional
emphasis, as if Peer could have some doubt.
He felt and understood well that the singing-master was a
true Christian in good earnest, an example for every one. Yet
the man never went to church, and when Peer one day mentioned
that next Sunday he was going with his mother and grandmother to
our Lord’s table, and asked if the singing-master never did the
same, the answer came, No. It seemed as if he would say
something more, as if, indeed, he had some confidence to impart
to Peer, but it was not said.
One evening he read aloud from the papers of the beneficence
of two or three persons, who were mentioned, and that led him to
speak of good deeds and their reward.
“When one does not think of it, it is sure to come. The
reward for good deeds is like dates that are spoken of in the
Talmud, they ripen late and then are sweet.”
“Talmud,” asked Peer, “what sort of a book is that?”
“A book,” was the answer, “from which more than one seed of
thought has been implanted in Christianity.”
“Who wrote the book?”
“Wise men in the earliest time; wise in various nations and
religions. Here is wisdom enclosed in such words as one finds in
Solomon’s Proverbs. What kernels of truth I One reads here that
men round about the whole earth, in all the centuries, have
always been the same. ‘Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend’s
friend has a friend; be discreet in what you say,’ is found
here. It is a piece of wisdom for all times. ‘No one can jump
over his own shadow!’ is here too, and, ‘Wear shoes when you
walk over thorns!’ You ought to read this book. You will find in
it the proof of culture more clearly than you will discover
cultivation of the soil in layers of earth. For me, as a Jew, it
is besides an inheritance from my fathers.”
“Jew,” said Peer, “are you a Jew?”
“Did you not know that? How strange that we two should not
have spoken of it before to-day.”
Mother and grandmother knew nothing about it either; they had
never thought anything about it, but always had known that the
singing-master was an honorable, unexceptionable man. It was in
the providence of God that Peer had come in his way; next to our
Lord he owed him all his fortune. And now the mother let out a
secret, which she had carried faithfully a few days only, and
which, under the pledge of secrecy, had been told her by the
merchants lady. The singing-master was never to know that it was
out; it was he who had paid for Peer’s support and education at
Herr Gabriel’s. From the evening when, at the merchant’s house,
he heard Peer sing the ballet “Samson,” he alone had been his
real friend and benefactor but in secret.
XI.
ADAM COURT expected Peer to visit her at her house, and he went
there.
“Now you shall know my Court,” said she, “and you shall make
the acquaintance of my chimney-corner. I never dreamed of this
when I danced in ‘Circe’ and ‘The Rose Elf in Provence.’ Indeed,
there are not many now who think of that ballet and of little
Frandsen. ‘Sic transit gloria in the moon,’ as they say in
Latin. My Court is a witty fellow, and uses that phrase wheB I
talk about my time of honor. He likes to poke fun at me, but he
does it with a good heart.”
The “chimney-corner” was an inviting low-studded room, with a
carpet on the floor, and an endless lot of portraits for a
book-binder to have. There was a picture of Gutenberg, and one
of Franklin, of Shakspeare, Cervantes, Molière, and the two
blind poets, Homer and Ossian. Lowest down, hung, glazed and in
a broad frame, one cut out in paper of a danseuse, with great
spangles on a dress of gauze, the right leg lifted toward
heaven, and written beneath a verse:—
“Who wins our hearts by her dancing?
Who of her wreath-trophies can sing,1
Mademoiselle Emilie Frandsen!”
It was written by Court, who wrote excellent verse, especially
comic verse. He had himself clipped the picture out and pasted
and sewed it before he got his first wife. It had lain many
years in a drawer, now it flourished here in the poetic picture
gallery; “my chimney-corner,” as Madam Court called her little
room. Here were Peer and Court introduced to each other.
“Is he not a charming man?” said she to Peer. “To me he is just
the most charming.”
“Ay, on a Sunday, when I am well bound in State clothes,”
said Herr Court.
“You are charming without any binding,” said she, and then
she tipped her head down as it came over her that she had spoken
a little too childishly for one of her age.
“Old love does not rust,” said Herr Court. “An old house
a-fire burns down to the ground.”
“It is as with the Phœnix,” said Madam Court; “one rises up
young again. Here is my Paradise. I do not care at all to seek
any other place, except an hour at your mother and
grandmother’s.”
“And at your sister’s,” said Herr Court.
“No, angel Court; it is no longer any Paradise there. I must
tell you, Peer, they live in narrow circumstances, but there is
a great mingle-mangle about them for all that. No one knows what
he dare say there in that house. One dare not mention the word
‘darkey,’ for the eldest daughter is beloved by one who has
negro blood in him. One dare not say ‘hunchback,’ for that one
of the children is. One dare not talk about ‘defalcation,’—my
brother-in-law has been in that unfortunate way. One dare not
even say that he has been driving in the wood: wood is an ugly
sound, for it is just the same as Woods, who fought with the
youngest son. I don’t like to go out and sit and hold my tongue.
I don’t dare talk, so I just come back to my own house and sit
in my chimney-corner. Were it not too emphatic, as they say, I
would gladly ask our Lord to let us live as long as my
chimney-corner holds out, for there one grows better. Here is my
Paradise, and this my Court has given me.”
“She has a gold mill in her mouth,” said he.
“And thou hast gold grain in thy heart,” said she.
“Grind, grind all the bag will hold,
Milly’s the grain, Milly’s pure gold,”
said he, as he chucked her under the chin.
“That verse was written right on the spot! It ought to be
printed!”
“Yes, and handsomely bound!” said he.
So these two old folks rallied each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YEAR passed before Peer began to study a rôle at the theatre.
He chose “Joseph,” but he changed it for “George Brown,” in the
opera of “The White Lady.” The words and music he quickly made
his own, and from Walter Scott’s romance, which had furnished
the material for the opera, he obtained a clear, full picture of
the young, spirited officer who visits his native hills and
comes to his ancestral castle without knowing it; an old song
wakens recollections of his childhood; fortune attends him, and
he wins a castle and his wife.
What he read became as if something which he himself had
lived—a chapter of his own life’s story. The music, rich in
melodies, was entirely in keeping. There was meanwhile a long,
very long time before the first rehearsals began. The
singing-master did not mean that there should be any hurry about
his appearance, and at length he too understood this. He was not
merely a singer, he was an actor; and his whole being was thrown
into his character. The chorus and the orchestra at the very
first applauded him loudly, and the evening of the
representation was looked forward to with the greatest
expectation.
“One can be a great actor in a night-gown at home,” said a
good-natured companion; “can be very great by daylight, but only
so-so before the lights in a full house. That you will see for
yourself.”
Peer had no anxiety, but a strong desire for the eventful
evening. The singing-master, on the contrary, was quite
feverish. Peer’s mother had not the courage to go to the
theatre; she would be ill with anxiety for her dear boy.
Grandmother was sick, and must stay at home, the doctor had
said; but the trusty friend Madam Court promised to bring the
news the very same evening how it all went off. She should and
would be at the theatre, even if she were to be in the last
extremity.
How long the evening was! How the three or four hours
stretched into eternity! Grandmother sang a psalm, and prayed
with mother to the good God for their little Peer, that he might
this evening also be Lucky Peer. The hands of the clock moved
slowly.
“Now Peer is beginning,” they said; “now he is in the middle;
now he has passed it.”
The mother and grandmother looked at one another, but they
said never a word. In the streets there was the rumbling of
carriages; people were driving home from the theatre. The two
women looked down from the window; the people who were passing
talked in loud voices; they were from the theatre, they knew,
bringing good news or sorrow up into the garret of the
merchant’s house.
At last some one came up the stairs. Madam Court burst in,
followed by her husband. She flung herself on the necks of the
mother and grandmother, but said never a word. She cried and
sobbed.
“Lord God!” said mother and grandmother. “How has it gone
with Peer?”
“Let me weep!” said Madam Court, so overcome was she. “I
cannot bear it. Ah! you dear good people, you cannot bear it
either!” and her tears streamed down.
“Have they hissed him off?” cried the mother.
“No, no! not that!” said Madam Court. “They have—oh, that I
should live to see it!”
Then both mother and grandmother fell to weeping.
“Be calm, Emilie,” said Herr Court. “Peer has been
victorious! He has triumphed! The house came near tumbling down,
they clapped him so. I can feel it still in my hands. It was one
storm of applause from pit to gallery. The entire royal family
clapped too. Really, it was what one may call a white day in the
annals of the theatre. It was more than talent—it was genius!”
“Ay, genius,” said Madam Court, “that is my word. God bless
you, Court, that you spoke that word out. You dear good people,
never would I have believed that one could so sing and act in
comedy, and yet I have lived through a theatre’s whole history.”
She cried again; the mother and grandmother laughed, whilst
tears still chased down their cheeks.
“Now sleep well on that,” said Herr Court; “and now come,
Emilie. Good-night! good-night!”
They left the garret-chamber and two happy people there; but
these were not long alone. The door opened, and Peer, who had
not promised to come before the next forenoon, stood in the
room. He knew well with what thoughts the old people had
followed him; how ignorant, too, they still must be of his
success, and so, as he was driving past with the singing-master,
he stopped outside; there were still lights up in the chamber,
and so he must needs go up to them.
“Splendid! glorious! superb! all went off well!” he exclaimed
jubilantly, and kissed his mother and grandmother. The
singing-master nodded with a bright face and pressed their
hands.
“And now he must go home to rest,” said he, and the visit was
over.
“Our Father in Heaven, how gracious and good Thou art,” said
these two poor women. They talked long into the night about
Peer. Round about in the great town people talked of him,—the
young, handsome, wonderful singer. So far had Peer’s fame gone.
XII.
HE morning papers mentioned the début with a great flourish of
trumpets as something more than common, and the dramatic
reviewer reserved till another number his privilege of
expressing his opinion. The merchant invited Peer and the
singing-master to a grand dinner. It was an attention intended
as a testimony of the interest which he and his wife felt in the
young man, who was born in the house, and in the same year and
on the very same day as their own son.
The merchant proposed the health of the singing-master, the
man who had found and polished this “precious stone,” a name by
which one of the prominent papers had called Peer. Felix sat by
his side and was the soul of gayety and affection. After dinner
he brought out his own cigars; they were better than the
merchant’s; “he can afford to get them,” said that gentleman;
“he has a rich father.” Peer did not smoke,—a great fault, but
one that could easily be mended.
“We must be friends,” said Felix. “You have become the lion
of the town! all the young ladies, and the old ones too, for
that matter, you have taken by storm. You are a lucky fellow all
over. I envy you; especially that you can go in and out over
there at the theatre, among all the little girls.”
That did not now seem to Peer anything so very worthy of
envy.
He had a letter from Madam Gabriel. She was in transports
over the extravagant accounts in the papers of his début, and
all that he was to become as an artist. She had drunk his health
with her maids in a bowl of punch. Herr Gabriel also had a share
in his honor, and was quite sure that he, beyond most others,
spoke foreign words correctly. The apothecary ran about town and
reminded everybody that it was at their little theatre they had
first seen and been amazed at his talent, which was now for the
first time recognized at the capital. “The apothecary’s daughter
would be quite out of conceit with herself,” added Madam, “now
that he could be courting Baronesses and Countesses.” The
apothecary’s daughter had been in too much of a hurry and given
in too soon; she had been betrothed, a month since, to the fat
counsellor. The bans had been published, and they were to be
married on the twentieth of the month.
It was just the twentieth of the month when Peer received
this letter. He seemed to himself to have been pierced through
the heart. At that moment it was clear to him that, during all
the vacillation of his soul, she had been his steadfast thought.
He thought more of her than of all others in the world. Tears
came into his eyes; he crumpled the letter in his hand. It was
the first great grief of heart he had known since he heard, with
mother and grandmother, that his father had fallen in the war.
It seemed to him that all happiness had fled, and his future was
dull and sorrowful. The sunlight no longer beamee from his
youthful face; the sunshine was put out in his heart.
“He does not seem well,” said mother and grandmother. “It is
the wear and tear of that theatre life.”
He was not the same as formerly, they both perceived, and the
singing-master also saw it.
“What is the matter?” said he. “May I not know what troubles
thee?”
At that his cheeks turned red, his tears flowed afresh, and
he burst out with his sorrow, his loss.
“I loved her so earnestly!” said he. “Now, for the first
time, when it is too late, I see it clearly.”
“Poor, troubled friend! I understand thee so well. Weep
freely before me, and hold fast by the thought, as soon as thou
canst, that what happens in the world happens best for us. I too
have known and felt what you now are feeling. I too once, like
you, loved a girl; she was discreet, she was pretty and
fascinating; she was to be my wife. I could offer her good
circumstances, but one condition before the marriage her parents
required, and she required: I must become a Christian—!”
“And that you would not?”
“I could not. One cannot, with an honest conscience, jump
from one religion to another without sinning either against the
one he takes leave of or the one he steps into.”
“Have you no faith?” said Peer.
“I have the God of my fathers. He is a light for my feet and
my understanding.”
They sat for an hour silent, both of them, Then their hands
glanced over the keys, and the singing-master played an old folk
song. Neither of them sang the words; each made his own thoughts
underlie the music. Madam Gabriel’s letter was not again read.
She little dreamed what sorrow it had carried.
A few days after there came a letter from Herr Gabriel; he
also wished to offer his congratulations and “a commission.” It
was this especially which had given occasion to the letter. He
asked Peer to buy a little porcelain thing, namely, Amor and
Hymen, Love and Marriage. “It is all sold out here in the town,”
he wrote, “but easily to be got in the capital. The money goes
with this. Send the thing along as quickly as possible: it is a
wedding present for the counsellor, at whose marriage I was with
my wife.” Finally Peer came to—“Young Madsen never will become a
student: he has left the house, and has daubed the walls over
with stale witticisms against the family. A hard subject that
young Madsen. ‘Sunt pueri pueri, pueri puerilia tractant !’
i.e., ‘Boys are boys, and boys do boyish things.’ I translate it
since you are not a Latinist,” and with that Herr Gabriel’s
letter closed.
XIII.
OMETIMES, when Peer sat at the piano, there sounded tones in it
which stirred thoughts in his breast and head. The tones rose
into melodies that now and then carried words along with them;
they could not be separated from song. Thus arose several little
poems that were rhythmic and full of feeling. They were sung in
a subdued voice. It was as if they were shy and timid in
feeling, and moved in loneliness.
Like the wind our days are blown,
No tarrying place is here;
From cheeks the roses have flown:
Perished the smile and the tear.
Wherefore, then, smitten with grief?
Sorrow, too, taketh its flight,
Everything fades like the leaf,
Men and women, and daytime and night.
Vanishing, vanishing all!
Thy youth, thy hope, and thy friend.
Like the wind, they heed not thy call,
They vanish, nor turn hack again.
“Where did you get that song and melody?” asked the
singing-master, who accidentally found the words and music
written down.
“It came of itself, that and all this. They do not fly
farther into the world.”
“A downcast spirit sets out flowers too,” said the
singing-master, “but it dare not give counsel. Now we must set
sail and steer for your next début. What do you say to Hamlet,
the melancholy young Prince of Denmark?”
“I know Shakspeare’s tragedy,” said Peer, “but not yet
Thomas’s opera.”
“The opera should be called Ophelia,” said the
singing-master. “Shakspeare has, in the tragedy, made the Queen
tell us of Ophelia’s death, and this is made to be the chief
point in the musical rendering. One sees before his eyes, and
feels in the tones, what before we could only learn from the
narrative of the Queen.”
“There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them;
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element; but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.”
The opera brings all this before our eyes. We see Ophelia: she
comes out playing, dancing, singing the old ballad about the
mermaid that entices men down beneath the river, and while she
sings and plucks the flowers the same tones are heard from the
depths of the stream; they sound in the voices that allure from
the deep water; she listens, she laughs, she draws near the
brink, she holds fast by the overhanging willow and stoops to
pluck the white water-lily; gently she glides on to it, and
singing, reclines on its broad leaves; she swings with it, and
is carried by the stream out into the deep, where, like the
broken flower, she sinks in the moonlight with the mermaid’s
melody welling forth about her.
In the entire scene it is as if Hamlet, his mother, his
uncle, and the dead, avenging king alone were necessary to make
the frame for the picture. We do not get Shakspeare’s Hamlet,
just as in the opera Faust we do not get Goethe’s creation. The
speculative is no material for music; it is the passionate
element in both these tragedies which permits them to be
rendered in a musical production.
The opera of Hamlet was brought on the stage. The actress who
had Ophelia’s part was admirable; the death scene was most
effectively rendered; but Hamlet himself received on this
evening a commensurate greatness, a fulness of character which
grew with each scene in which he appeared. People were
astonished at the compass of the singer’s voice, at the
freshness shown in the high as well as in the deep tones, and
that he could with a like brilliancy of power sing Hamlet and
George Brown.
The singing parts in most Italian operas are a patchwork in
which the gifted singers, men and women, work in their soul and
genius, and then, out of the variegated colors given them,
construct shapes as the progress of the poem requires; how much
more glorious, then, must they reveal themselves when the music
is carried out through thoughts and characters; and this Gounod
and Thomas have understood.
This evening at the theatre Hamlet’s form was flesh and
blood, and he raised himself into the position of the chief
personage in the. opera. Most memorable was the night scene on
the ramparts where Hamlet, for the first time, sees his father’s
ghost; the scene in the castle, before the stage which has been
erected, where he flings out the words that are drops of poison;
the terrible meeting with his mother, where the father’s ghost
stands in avengeful attitude before the son; and finally, what
might in the singing, what music at Ophelia’s death! She became
as a lotus flower upon the deep, dark sea, whose waves rolled
with a mighty force into the soul of the spectators. Hamlet this
evening became the chief personage. The triumph was complete.
“How came he by it!” said the merchant’s rich wife, as she
thought on Peer’s parents and his grandmother up in the garret.
The father had been a warehouse-man, clever and honorable; he
had fallen as a soldier on the field of honor; the mother, a
washer-woman,—but that does not give the son culture, and he
grew up in a charity school,—and how much, in a period of two
years, could a provincial schoolmaster instil into him of higher
science.
“It is genius!” said the merchant. “Genius!—that is born of
God’s grace.”
“Most certainly!” said his wife, and folded her hands
reverently when she talked to Peer. “Do you feel humble in your
heart at what you have received?” she asked. “Heaven has been
unspeakably gracious to you. Everything has been given. You do
not know how overpowering your Hamlet is. You have yourself
created the representation. I have heard that many great poets
do not themselves know the glory of what they have given; the
philosophers must reveal it for them. Where did you get your
conception of Hamlet?”
“I have thought over the character, have read a portion of
what has been written about Shakspeare’s work, and since, on the
stage, I have entered into the person and his surroundings. I
give my part and our Lord gives the rest.”
“Our Lord,” said she, with a half-reproving look. “Do not use
that name. He gave you power, but you do not believe that he has
anything to do with the theatre and opera!”
“Most assuredly I do!” said Peer, courageously. “There also
does he have a pulpit for men, and most people hear better there
than in church.”
She shook her head. “God is with us in all good and beautiful
things, but let us be careful how we take his name in vain. It
is a gift of grace for one to be a great artist, but it is still
better to be a good Christian.” Felix, she felt, would never
have named the theatre and the church together before her, and
she was glad of that.
“Now you have laid yourself out against mamma!” said Felix,
laughing.
“That was very far from my thoughts!”
“Don’t trouble yourself about that. You will get into her
good graces again next Sunday when you go to church. Stand
outside her pew, and look up to the right, for there, in the
balcony-pew, is a little face which is worth looking at—the
widow-baroness’s charming daughter. Here is a well-meant piece
of advice, and I give it to you:—You cannot live where you are
now. Move into larger lodgings, with the stairs in good order;
or, if you won’t leave the singing-master, then let him live in
better style. He has means enough, and you have a pretty good
income. You must give a party too, an evening supper. I could
give it myself, and will give it, but you can invite a few of
the little dancing girls. You’re a lucky fellow! but I believe,
heaven help me, that you don’t yet understand how to be a young
man.”
Peer did understand it exactly in his own way. With his full,
ardent young heart, he was in love with art; she was his bride,
she returned his love, and lifted his soul into gladness and
sunshine. The depression which had crushed him soon evaporated,
gentle eyes looked upon him, and every one met him in a friendly
and cordial manner. The amber-heart, which he still wore
constantly on his breast, where grandmother once had hung it,
was certainly a talisman, as he thought, for he was not quite
free from superstition,—a child-like faith one may call it.
Every nature that has genius in it has something of this, and
looks to and believes in its star. Grandmother had shown him the
power that lay in the heart, of drawing things to itself. His
dream had shown him how, out from the amber-heart, there grew a
tree which burst through garret and roof, and bore a
thousand-fold of hearts and silver and gold; that surely
betokened that in the heart, in his own warm heart, lay the
might of his art, whereby he had won and still should win
thousands upon thousands of hearts.
Between him and Felix there was undoubtedly a kind of
sympathy, different as they were from each other. Peer assumed
that the difference between them lay in this: that Felix, as the
rich man’s son, had grown up in temptations, and could afford to
taste them and take his pleasure thus. He had, on the contrary,
been more fortunately placed as a poor man’s son.
Both of these two children of the house were meanwhile
growing up into eminence. Felix would soon be a Kammerjunker,2
and that is the first step to being a Kammerherr,2 as long as
one has a gold key behind. Peer, always lucky, had already in
his hand, though it was invisible, the gold key of genius, which
opens all the treasures of the earth, and all hearts too.
XIV.
T was still winter-time. The sleigh-bells jingled, and the
clouds carried snow-flakes in them, but when sunbeams burst
through them there was a heralding of spring. There was a
fragrance and a music in the young heart that flowed out in
picturesque music and found expression in words.
A SPRING SONG.
In swath of snow the earth is lying,
Over the sea merry skaters are flying,
The frost-rimmed trees are specked with crow’~
But to-morrow, to-morrow the winter-time goes /
The sun bursts through the heavy skies,
Spring comes riding in summer guise,3
And the willow pulls off its woollen glove.
Strike up, musicians, in leafy grove;
Little birds, little birds, sing in the sky,
Winter’s gone by ! winter’s gone by
0, warm is the kiss of the sun on our cheek,
As violets and stonewort in the woodland we seek:
‘Tis as if the old forest were holding its breath,
For now in a night each leaf wakes from death.
The cuckoo sings! (you know its tell-tale song),
So many years your days will be long.4
The world is young! be thou, too, young;
Let happy heart and merry tongue
With spring-time lift the song on high,
Youth’s never gone by ! never gone by!
Youth’s never gone by! never gone by!
The earth lives a charmed life for aye,
With its sun and its storm, its joy and its pain.
So in our hearts a world has lain,
That will not be gone, like a shooting star,
For man is made like God afar,
And God and Nature keep ever young.
So teach us, Spring, the song tbou’st sung,
And pipe in, little birds in the sky,—
“Youth’s never gone by! never gone by !”
“That is a complete musical painting,” said the singing-master,
“and well adapted for chorus and orchestra. It is the best yet
of your pieces which have sprung out of words. You certainly
must learn thorough bass, although it is not your vocation to be
a composer.”
Some young music friends meanwhile quickly brought out the
song at a great concert, where it excited remark but led to
nothing. Our young friend’s career was open before him. His
greatness and importance lay not in the sympathetic tones of his
voice, but in his remarkable dramatic power. This he had shown
as George Brown and as Hamlet. He vcry much preferred the
regular opera to the singing of pieces. It was contrary to his
sound and natural sense, this stepping over from song to
talking, and back to singing again.
“It is,” said he, “as if one came from marble steps on to
wooden ones, sometimes even on to mere hen-roosts, and then
again to marble. The whole poem should live and breathe in its
passage through tones.”
The music of the future, which the new movement in opera is
called, and of which Wagner is specially standard-bearer,
received a response and strong admiration from our young friend.
He found here characters so clearly marked, passages so full of
thought, the entire handling characterized by forward movement,
without any stand-still or recurrence of melodies. “It is surely
a most unnatural thing, the introduction of arias.”
“Yes, introduction,” said the singing-master. “But how they,
in the works of most of the great masters, stand prominently
forth, a large part of the whole! So must and should it be. If
the lyric has a home in any place, it is in the opera;” and he
mentioned in Don Juan, Don Octavio’s aria, “Tears, cease your
flowing.” “How like is it to a charming lake in the woods, by
whose bank one rests and is filled to the brim with the music
that streams through the leafy woods! I pay my respects to the
profundity that lies in the new musical movement, but I do not
dance with you before that golden calf. Nor is it your heart’s
real meaning which you express, or else you are not yourself
quite clear about it.”
“I will appear in one of Wagner’s operas,” said our young
friend. “If I cannot show my meaning by the words, yet I will by
my singing and acting.”
The choice fell on Lohengrin, the young mysterious knight
who, in the boat drawn by swans, glides over the Scheldt to do
battle for Elsa of Brabant. Who so well as he ever acted and
sang the first song of the meeting, the conversation of two
hearts in the bridal chamber, and the song of farewell when the
holy Grail’s white dove hovers about the young knight, who came,
won—and vanished? This evening was, if possible, another step
forward in the artistic greatness and celebrity of our young
friend, and to the singing-master it was a step forward in the
recognition of the music of the future—
“Under certain conditions,” he said.
XV.
T the great yearly exhibition of paintings, Peer and Felix one
day met before the portrait of a young and pretty lady, daughter
of the widow-baroness, as the mother was generally called, whose
salon was the rendezvous for the world of distinction and for
every one of eminence in art and science. The young bars oness
was in her sixteenth year, an innocent, charming child. The
picture was a good likeness and given with artistic skill.
“Step into the saloon here close by,” said Felix. “There
stands the young beauty with her mother.”
They stood engaged in looking at a characteristic picture. It
represented a field where two young married people came riding
on the same horse, holding fast to one another. The chief figure
meanwhile was a young monk who was looking at the two happy
travelers. There was a sorrowful dreamy look in the young man’s
countenance; one could read in it his thought, the story of his
life; an aim missed, great happiness lost! human happiness in
human love he had not won.
The elder baroness saw Felix, who respect- fully greeted her
and the beautiful daughter. Peer showed the same customary
politeness. The widow-baroness knew him immediately from having
seen him on the stage, and after speaking to Felix she said some
friendly, obliging words to Peer as she pressed his hand.
“I and my daughter belong to your admirers.”
What perfect beauty seemed to possess the young girl at this
moment! She looked with her gentle, clear eyes almost gratefully
upon him.
“I see in my house,” continued the widow-baroness, “very many
of the most distinguished artists. We common people stand in
need of a spiritual airing. You will be heartily welcome. Our
young diplomat,” she pointed to Felix, “will show you the way
the first time, and afterward I hope that you will find the way
yourself.”
She smiled on him. The young girl reached out her hand
naturally and cordially, as if they had long known each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later in the autumn, one cold, sleety evening, the two young
men went as they had been invited. It was weather for driving
and not walking in for the rich man’s son, and for the first
singer on the stage. Nevertheless they walked, well wrapped up,
with galoshes on their feet and rough caps on their heads.
It was like a complete fairy scene to come out from the raw
air into the apartment displaying such luxury and good taste. In
the vestibule, before the carpeted stairs, there was a great
display of flowers among bushes and fan-palms. A little fountain
plashed in the basin, which was surrounded by tall callas.
The great salon was beautifully lighted, and a great part of
the company had already gathered. Soon there was almost a crowd.
People trod on silk trains and laces; there was a hum round
about of conversation’s sonorous mosaic, which, on the whole,
was the least worth while of all the splendor there.
Had Peer been a vain fellow, which he was not, he could have
imagined that it was a feast made for him, so cordial was the
reception which he met from the mistress of the house and the
beaming daughter. Young ladies and old, yes, and gentlemen with
them, said most agreeable things to him.
There was music. A young author read a well-written poem.
There was singing, and true delicacy was shown in that no one
urged our young and honored singer to make the whole affair most
complete. The lady of the house was the observing hostess, full
of spirits and full of hospitality in that elegant salon.
It was his introduction into the great world, and our young
friend was soon here also one of the select ones in the choice
family circle. The singing-master shook his head and smiled.
“How young thou art, dear friend,” said he, “that thou canst
enjoy going among these people. They can be good enough in and
for themselves; but they look down on us plain citizens. For
some of them it is only a piece of vanity, an amusement, and for
others a sort of mark of exclusive culture when they receive
into their circle artists and the lions of the day. These belong
in the salon much as the flowers in a vase, they wither and then
they are thrown away.”
“How harsh and unjust,” said Peer. “You do not know these
people, and will not know them.”
“No,” answered the singing-master. “I am not at home with
them, nor are you either, and this they all remember and know.
They caress you and look at you just as they pat and look at a
race-horse that is to win a wager. You belong to another race
than they. They will let you go when you are no longer in the
fashion. Do you not understand that? You are not proud enough.
You are vain, and you show that by seeking these people.”
“How very differently you would talk and judge,” said Peer,
“if you knew the widow-baroness and a few of my friends there.”
“I shall not get to knowing them,” said the singing-master.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“When is the engagement to come out?” asked Felix one day.
“Is it the mother or the daughter?” and he laughed. “Don’t take
the daughter, for then you’ll have all the young nobility
against you, and I too shall be your enemy, and the fiercest
one.”
“What do you mean?” asked Peer.
“You are the most favored one. You can go out and in at all
hours. You’ll get the cash along with the mother, and belong to
a good family.”
“Stop your joking,” said Peer. “There is nothing amusing to
me in what you say.”
“No indeed, there is no fun at all in it,” said Felix. “It is
a most serious matter, for you’ll not let her grace sit and weep
and be a double widow.”
“Leave the baroness out of your talk,” said Peer. “Make
yourself merry over me if you want to, but over me alone, and I
will answer you.”
“No one will believe that it is a love match on your side,”
continued Felix. “She is a little outside of the line of
beauty—one does not live on spirit alone!”
“I gave you credit for more refinement and good sense,” said
Peer, “than would let you talk thus of a lady you ought to
esteem, and whose house you visit, and I won’t talk of this
longer.”
“What are you going to do about it?” asked Felix. “Will you
fight?”
“I know that you have learned that, and I have not, but I can
learn,” and he left Felix.
A day or two afterward the two children of the house met
again, the son from the first floor and the son from the garret.
Felix talked to Peer as if no quarrel had risen between them. He
answered courteously, but curtly too.
“What is the matter now!” said Felix. “We two were a little
irritable lately, but one may have his joke without being flayed
for it; so let us forget and forgive.”
“Can you forgive yourself the manner in which you spoke of a
lady to whom we both owe great respect?”
“I spoke very frankly!” said Felix. “In fine society one may
talk with a razor-edge, but that is not thought an ill thing. It
is the salt for the tasteless every-day fish dinner, as tne poet
calls it. We are all just a little wicked. You can also let a
drop fall, my friend; a little drop of innocence which makes one
smart.”
So they were soon seen arm in arm. Felix well knew that more
than one pretty young lady who would otherwise have passed him
by without seeing him, now noticed him since he was walking with
the “Ideal of the Stage.” Lamp-light always casts a glamour over
the theatre’s hero and lover. It still shines about him when he
shows himself on the street, in day-light, but is generally
rather extinguished then. Most of the artists of the stage are
like swans; one should see them in their element, not on the
paving stones or the public promenade. There are exceptions,
however, and to these belonged our young friend. His appearance
apart from the stage never disturbed the conception one had of
him as George Brown, or Hamlet, or Lohengrin. It was the form
associated thus with poetry or music that many a young heart
made to be the same with the man himself and exalted into the
ideal. He knew that it was thus, and found a kind of pleasure in
it. He was happy in his art, and in the means he possessed of
exercising it, yet there would come a shadow over the joyous
young face, and from the piano sounded the melody with the
words:—
Vanishing—vanishing all!
Thy youth, thy hope, and thy friend.
Like the wind, they heed not thy call,
They vanish, nor turn back again.
“How mournful!” said the widow-baroness. “You have happiness in
full measure. I know no one who is so happy as you.”
“Call no one happy before he is in his grave, the wise Solon
said,” replied he, and smiled through his seriousness; “it were
a wrong, a sin, if I were not thankful and glad of heart. I am
thus. I am thankful for what is intrusted to me, but I myself
set a different value on this from what others do. It is a
beautiful piece of fireworks which shoots off and then is all
out. The actor’s work thus vanishes out of knowledge. The
everlasting shining stars may be forgotten for the meteors of a
moment, but when these are extinguished, there is no living
trace of them except by the old signs. A new generation does not
know and cannot picture to itself those who delighted their
fathers from the stage youth, perhaps, applauds splendor and
brass as delightedly and as loudly as the old folks once did
splendor and true gold. Far more fortunately placed than the
scenic artist are the poet, the sculptor, the painter and the
composer. They may in the struggle of life experience hard
fortune and miss the merited appreciation, while those who
exhibit their works, as the actor and the musician, live in
luxury and proud state. Let the many stand and gaze at the
bright-colored cloud and forget the sun, yet the cloud vanishes,
the sun shines and beams for new generations.”
He sat at the piano and improvised with a richness of thought
and a power such as he never before had shown.
“Wondeffully beautiful!” broke in the widow-baroness. “’Twas
as if I heard the story of a whole life-time. You gave your
heart’s canticle in the music.”
“I thought of the Thousand and one Nights,” said the young
girl, “of the lamp of fortune, of Aladdin,” and she looked with
pure, dewy eyes upon him.
“Aladdin!” he repeated.
This evening was the turning-point in his life. A new section
surely began.
What was befalling him this flitting year? His fresh color
forsook his cheeks; his eyes shone far more clearly than before.
He passed sleepless nights, but not in wild orgies, in revels
and rioting, as so many great artists. He became less talkative,
but more cheerful.
“What is it that fills you so?” said his friend the singing
master. “You do not confide all to me!”
“I think how fortunate I am!” he replied —“I think of the
poor boy! I think of—Aladdin.”
XVI.
EASURED by the expectations of a poorborn child, Peer now led a
prosperous, agreeable life. He was so well to do that, as Felix
once said, he could give a good party to his friends. He thought
of it, and thought of his two earliest friends, his mother and
grandmother. For them and himself he provided a festival.
It was charming spring weather; the two old people must drive
with him out of town and see a little country place which the
singing-master had lately bought. As he was about seating
himself in the carriage, there came a woman, humbly clad, about
thirty years old; she had a begging paper recommending her
signed by Madam Court.
“Don’t you know me?” said she. “Little Curly-head, they used
to call me. The curls are gone, there is so much that is gone,
but there are still good people left. We two have appeared
together in the ballet. You have become better off than I. You
have become a great man. I am now separated from two husbands
and no longer at the theatre.”
Her “paper” begged that she might come to own a
sewing-machine.
“In what ballet have we two performed together?” asked Peer.
“In the ‘Tyrant of Padua,’” she replied. “We were two pages,
in blue velvet and feathered cap. Do you not remember little
Malle Knallerup? I walked just behind you in the procession.”
“And stepped on the side of my foot!” said Peer, laughing.
“Did I?” said she. “Then I took too long a step. But you have
gone far ahead of me. You have understood how to use your legs
in your head,” and she looked with her melancholy face
coquettishly and with a simper at him, quite sure she had passed
quite a witty compliment. Peer was a generous fellow. She should
have the sewing-machine, he promised. Little Malle had indeed
been one of those who especially drove him out of the ballet
into a more fortunate career.
He stopped soon outside the merchant’s house, and stepped
up-stairs to his mother and grandmother. They were in their best
clothes, and had accidentally a visit from Madam Court, who was
at once invited to join them, whereupon she had a sore struggle
with herself, which ended in her sending a messenger to Herr
Court to infrm him that she had accepted the invitation.
“Peer gets all the fine salutations,” said she.
“How stylishly we are driving!” said mother; “And in such a
roomy, great carriage,” said grandmother. Near the town, close
by the royal park, stood a little cozy house, surrounded by
vines and roses, hazels and fruit-trees. Here the carriage
stopped. This was the country-seat. They were received by an old
woman, well known to mother and grandmother; she had often
helped them in their washing and ironing.
The garden was visited, and they went over the house. There
was one specially charming thing—a little glass house, with
beautiful flowers in it. It was connected with the sitting-room.
There was a sliding door in the wall.
“That is just like a coulisse,” said Madam Court. “It moves
by hand; and one can sit here just as in a bird-cage, with
chickweed all about. It is called a winter-garden.”
The sleeping-chamber was also very delightful after its kind.
Long, close curtains at the windows, soft carpets, and two
armchairs, so commodious that mother and grandmother must needs
try them.
“One would get very lazy sitting in them,” said mother.
“One loses his weight,” said Madam Court. “Ah! here you two
music people can swim easily enough through the seas of
theatrical labor. I have known what they are. Ay, believe me, I
can still dream of making battements, and Court makes
battement’s at my side. Is it not charming—‘two souls and one
thought.’”
“There is fresher air here, and more room, than in the two
small rooms up in the garret,” said Peer with beaming eyes.
“That there is,” said mother. “Still home is so good. There
did I bear thee, my sweet boy, and lived with thy father.”
“It is better here,” said grandmother. “Here there are all
the conveniences of a rich man’s place. I do not grudge you and
that noble man the singing-master this home of peace.”
“Then I do not grudge it to you, grandmother, and you, dear
blessed mother. You two shall always live here, and not, as in
town, go up so many steps, and be in such narrow and close
quarters. You shall have a servant to help you, and see me as
often as in town. Are you glad at this? Are you content with
it?”
“What is all this the boy stands here and says!” said mother.
“The house, the garden, all are thine, mother, and thine,
grandmother. It is for this I have labored to lay up money. My
friend the singing-master has faithfully helped me by getting it
ready.”
“What is all this you are saying, child?” burst forth the
mother. “Will you give us a gentleman’s seat? My dearest boy,
thou wouldst do it if thou couldst.”
“It is all true,” said he. “The house is thine and
grandmother’s.” He kissed them both; they burst into tears, and
Madam Court shed quite as many.
“It is the happiest moment of my life!” exclaimed Peer, as he
embraced them all.
And now they had to see everything all over again, since it
was their own. In place of their roxv of five or six plants in
pots out on their roof, they now had this beautiful little
conservatory. Instead of a little closet they had here a great
roomy pantry, and the kitchen itself was a complete little warm
chamber. The chimney had an oven and cooking-stove; it looked
like a great shining box iron, said mother.
“Now you two have at last a chimney corner just like me!”
said Madam Court. “It is royal here. You have got all that man
can get on this earth, and you too, my own courted friend.”
“Not all!” said Peer.
“To be sure the little wife comes!” said Madam Court. “I have
her already for you. I have her in my feeling! but I shall keep
my mouth shut. Thou noble man! Is it not like a ballet, all
this?” She laughed with tears in her eyes, and so did mother and
grandmother.
XVII.
O write the text and music for an opera, and be himself the
interpreter of his own work on the stage, this was his great
aim. Our young friend had a talent in common with Wagner, in
that he could himself construct the dramatic poem; but had he,
like him, the fulness of musical power so that he could fashion
a musical work of any significance?
Courage and doubt alternated in him. He could not dismiss
this constant thought from his mind. A year and a day since had
it shone forth as a picture of fancy; now it was a possibility,
an end in his life. Many free fancies were welcomed at the piano
as birds of passage from that country of Perhaps. The little
romances, the characteristic spring song gave promise of the
still undiscovered land of tone. The widow-baroness saw in them
the sign of promise, as Columbus saw it in the fresh green weed
which the currents of the sea bore toward him before he saw the
land itself on the horizon.
Land was there! The child of fortune should reach it. A word
thrown out was the seed of thought. She, the young, pretty,
innocent girl spoke the word—Aladdin.
A fortune-child like Aladdin was our young friend. This was
the light that broke into him. With this light he read and
re-read the beautiful oriental story; soon it took dramatic
form: scene after scene grew into words and music, and the more
it grew the richer came the music thoughts; at the close of the
work it was as if the well of tone were now for the first time
pierced, and all the abundant fresh water gushed forth. He
composed his work anew, and in stronger form, months afterward,
arose the opera Aladdin.
No one knew of this work; no one had heard any measures at
all of it, not even the most sympathetic of all his friends, the
singing-master. No one at the theatre, when of an evening the
young singer with his voice and his remarkable playing entranced
the public, had a thought that the young man who seemed so to
live and breathe in his rôle, lived far more intensely, ay, for
hours afterward, lost himself in a mighty work of music that
flowed forth from his own soul.
The singing-master had not heard a bar of the opera Aladdin
before it was laid upon his table for examination, complete in
notes and text. What judgment would be passed? Assuredly a
strong and just one. The young composer passed from highest hope
to the thought that the whole thing was only a self-delusion.
Two days passed by, and not a word was interchanged about
this important matter. At length the singing-master stood before
him with the score in his hands, that now he knew. There was a
peculiar seriousness spread over his face that would not let his
mind be guessed.
“I had not expected this,” said he. “I had not believed it of
you. Indeed, I am not yet sure of my judgment: I dare not
express it. Here and there there are faults in the
instrumentation, faults that can easily be corrected. There are
single things, bold and novel, that one must hear under fair
conditions. As there is with Wagner a working over of Carl Maria
Weber, so there is noticeable in you a breath of Haydn. That
which is new in what you have given is still somewhat far off
from me, and you yourself are too near for me to give an exact
judgment. I would rather not judge. I would embrace you!” he
burst out with a rush of gladness. “How came you to do this!”
and he pressed him in his arms. “Happy man!”
There was soon a rumor through the town, in the newspapers
and in society gossip, of the new opera by the young singer,
whom all the town was flattering.
“He’s a poor tailor who could not put together a child’s
trousers out of the scraps left over on his board,” said one and
another.
“Write the text, compose it, and sing it himself!” was also
said. “That is a three-storied genius. But he really was born
still higher—in a garret.”
“There are two at it, he and the singing-master,” they said.
“Now they’ll begin to beat the signal-trumpet of the mutual
admiration society.”
The opera was given out for study. Those who took part would
not give any opinion. “It shall not be said that it is judged
from the theatre,” said they; and almost all put on a serious
face that did not let any expectation of good show itself.
“There are a good many horns in the piece,” said a young man
who played that instrument, and also composed. “Well if he
doesn’t run a horn into himself!”5
“It has genius, it is sparkling, full of me. lody and
character”—that also was said.
“To-morrow at this time,” said Peer, “the scaffold will be
raised. The judgment is, perhaps, already passed.”
“Some say that it is a masterpiece,” said the singing-master;
“others, that it is a mere patchwork.”
“And wherein lies truth?”
“Truth!” said the singing-master. “Pray show me. Look at that
star yonder. Tell me exactly where its place is. Shut one eye.
Do you see it? Now look at it with the other only. The star has
shifted its place. When each eye in the same person sees so
differently, how variously must the great multitude see!”
“Happen what may,” said our young friend, “I must know my
place in the world, understand what I can and must put forth, or
give up.”
The evening came,—the evening of the representation. A
popular artist was to be exalted to a higher place, or plunged
down in his gigantic, proud effort. A shot or a drop! The matter
concerned the whole city. People stood all night in the street
before the ticket-office to secure places. The house was crammed
frill; the ladies came with great bouquets. Would they carry
them home again, or cast them at the victor’s feet?
The widow-baroness and the young, beautiful daughter sat in a
box above the orchestra. There was a stir in the audience, a
murmuring, a movement that stopped at once as the leader of the
orchestra took his place and the overture began.
Who does not remember Henselt’s piece—“Si l’oiseau j’étais,”
that is like a twittering of birds? This was something akin;
merry playing children, happy child-voices; the cuckoo gave its
note with them, the thrush struck in. It was the l)lay and carol
of innocent childhood, the mind of Aladdin. Then there rolled in
upon it a thunderstorm; Noureddin displayed his power; a flash
of lightning rent the rocks; gentle beckoning tones followed, a
sound from the enchanted grotto where the lamp shone in the
petrified cavern, while the wings of mighty spirits brooded over
it.
Now there sounded forth, in the notes of a bugle, a psalm so
gentle and soft as if it came from the mouth of a child; a
single horn was heard and then another, more and more were
blended in the same tones, and rose in fullness and power as if
they were the trumpets of the judgment day. The lamp was in
Aladdin’s hand, and there swelled forth a sea of melody and
majesty as if the ruler of spirits and master of music held
sway.
The curtain rolled up in a storm of applause which sounded
like a fanfare under the conductor’s baton. A grown-up boy
played there, so big and yet so simple,—it was Aladdin who
frolicked among the other boys. Grandmother would at once have
said:—
“That is Peer, as he played and jumped about between the
stove and the chest of drawers at home in the garret. He is not
a year older in his soul!”
With what faith and earnest prayer he sang the prayer
Noureddin bade him offer before he stepped down into the crevice
to obtain the lamp. Was it the pure religious melody, or the
innocence with which he sung, that drew all hearts after him?
The applause was unbounded.
It would have been a profane thing to have repeated the song.
It was called for, but it was not given. The curtain fell,—the
first act was ended.
Every critic was speechless; people were overcome with
gladness—they could only speak out their gratitude.
A few chords from the orchestra, and the curtain rose. The
strains of music, as in Gluck’s “Armida,” and Mozart’s “Magic
Flute,” arrested the attention of each; as the scene was
disclosed where Aladdin stood in the wonderful garden, a soft
subdued music sounded from flowers and stones, from springs and
deep caverns, different melodies blending in one great harmony.
A susurrus of spirits was heard in the chorus; it was now far
off, now near, swelling in might and then dying away. Borne upon
this unison was the monologue of Aladdin; what one indeed calls
a great aria, but so entirely in keeping with character and
situation that it was a necessary dramatic part of the whole.
The resonant, sympathetic voice, the intense music of the heart
subdued all listeners, and seized them with a rapture that could
not rise higher, when he reached forth for the lamp that was
fanned by the song of the spirits.
Bouquets rained down from all sides, a carpet of living
flowers was spread out before his feet.
What a moment of life for the young artist,—the highest, the
greatest! A mightier one could never again be granted him, he
felt. A wreath of laurel glanced upon his breast and fell down
before him. He had seen from whose hand it came. He saw the
young girl in the box nearest the stage, the young baroness,
rising like a Genius of Beauty, singing a pæan over his triumph.
A fire rushed through him, his heart swelled as never before,
he bowed, took the wreath, pressed it against his heart, and at
the same moment fell backward.—Fainted? dead?—What was it?——The
curtain fell.
.......................................................................
“Dead!” ran the word through the house. Dead in the moment of
triumph, like Sophocles at the Olympian Games, like Thorwaldsen
in the theatre during Beethoven’s symphony. An artery in his
heart had burst, and as by a flash of lightning his day here was
ended, ended without pain, ended in an earthly jubilee, in the
fulfilment of his mission on earth. Lucky Peer! More fortunate
than millions!
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