The Project Gutenberg EBook of What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales, by
Hans Christian Andersen
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Title: What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Illustrator: A. W. Bayes, and Brothers Dalziel (Engravers)
Translator: H. W. Dulcken
Release Date: October 24, 2008 [EBook #27000]
Language: English
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[Illustration: WALDEMAR DAA AND HIS DAUGHTERS. p. 122.]
WHAT THE MOON SAW:
AND OTHER TALES.
BY
HANS C. ANDERSEN.
TRANSLATED BY
H. W. DULCKEN, PH.D.
WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. W. BAYES,
ENGRAVED BY THE BROTHERS DALZIEL.
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.
1866.
* * * * *
_Uniform with_ "WHAT THE MOON SAW, and Other Tales," _price 5s.,
extra cloth, on fine toned paper_,
STORIES AND TALES
BY
HANS C. ANDERSEN.
TRANSLATED BY H. W. DULCKEN, PH.D.
EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. W. BAYES.
ENGRAVED BY THE BROTHERS DALZIEL.
*** _The two volumes,_ "STORIES AND TALES" _and_ "WHAT THE MOON SAW,"
_form the most complete collection of_ HANS C. ANDERSEN'S _Tales
published in this country._
* * * * *
PREFACE.
The present book is put forth as a sequel to the volume of HANS C.
ANDERSEN'S "Stories and Tales," published in a similar form in the
course of 1864. It contains tales and sketches various in character;
and following, as it does, an earlier volume, care has been taken to
intersperse with the children's tales stories which, by their graver
character and deeper meaning, are calculated to interest those
"children of a larger growth" who can find instruction as well as
amusement in the play of fancy and imagination, though the realm be
that of fiction, and the instruction be conveyed in a simple form.
The series of sketches of "What the Moon Saw," with which the present
volume opens, arose from the experiences of ANDERSEN, when as a youth
he went to seek his fortune in the capital of his native land; and the
story entitled "Under the Willow Tree" is said likewise to have its
foundation in fact; indeed, it seems redolent of the truth of that
natural human love and suffering which is so truly said to "make the
whole world kin."
On the preparation and embellishment of the book, the same care and
attention have been lavished as on the preceding volume. The pencil of
Mr. BAYES and the graver of the BROTHERS DALZIEL have again been
employed in the work of illustration; and it is hoped that the favour
bestowed by the public on the former volume may be extended to this
its successor.
H. W. D.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
PAGE
What the Moon Saw 1
The Story of the Year 40
She was Good for Nothing 48
"There is a Difference" 55
Everything in its Right Place 59
The Goblin and the Huckster 66
In a Thousand Years 70
The Bond of Friendship 72
Jack the Dullard. An Old Story told Anew 81
Something 86
Under the Willow Tree 92
The Beetle 107
What the Old Man does is always Right 114
The Wind tells about Waldemar Daa and his Daughters 120
Ib and Christine 130
Ole the Tower-Keeper 142
The Bottle-Neck 151
Good Humour 161
A Leaf from the Sky 165
The Dumb Book 168
The Jewish Girl 171
The Thorny Road of Honour 176
The Old Gravestone 180
The Old Bachelor's Nightcap 184
The Marsh King's Daughter 196
The Last Dream of the Old Oak Tree. A Christmas Tale 238
The Bell-deep 244
The Puppet Showman 247
The Pigs 251
Anne Lisbeth 254
Charming 265
In the Duck-yard 272
The Girl who Trod on the Loaf 277
A Story from the Sand-dunes 285
The Bishop of Börglum and his Warriors 316
The Snow Man 323
Two Maidens 328
The Farmyard Cock and the Weathercock 330
The Pen and Inkstand 332
The Child in the Grave 334
Soup on a Sausage-Peg 339
The Stone of the Wise Men 353
The Butterfly 367
In the Uttermost Parts of the Sea 369
The Phoenix Bird 371
* * * * *
WHAT THE MOON SAW.
[Illustration: MY POST OF OBSERVATION.]
INTRODUCTION.
It is a strange thing, that when I feel most fervently and most
deeply, my hands and my tongue seem alike tied, so that I cannot
rightly describe or accurately portray the thoughts that are rising
within me; and yet I am a painter: my eye tells me as much as that,
and all my friends who have seen my sketches and fancies say the same.
I am a poor lad, and live in one of the narrowest of lanes; but I do
not want for light, as my room is high up in the house, with an
extensive prospect over the neighbouring roofs. During the first few
days I went to live in the town, I felt low-spirited and solitary
enough. Instead of the forest and the green hills of former days, I
had here only a forest of chimney-pots to look out upon. And then I
had not a single friend; not one familiar face greeted me.
So one evening I sat at the window, in a desponding mood; and
presently I opened the casement and looked out. Oh, how my heart
leaped up with joy! Here was a well-known face at last--a round,
friendly countenance, the face of a good friend I had known at home.
In, fact it was the MOON that looked in upon me. He was quite
unchanged, the dear old Moon, and had the same face exactly that he
used to show when he peered down upon me through the willow trees on
the moor. I kissed my hand to him over and over again, as he shone far
into my little room; and he, for his part, promised me that every
evening, when he came abroad, he would look in upon me for a few
moments. This promise he has faithfully kept. It is a pity that he can
only stay such a short time when he comes. Whenever he appears, he
tells me of one thing or another that he has seen on the previous
night, or on that same evening. "Just paint the scenes I describe to
you"--this is what he said to me--"and you will have a very pretty
picture-book." I have followed his injunction for many evenings. I
could make up a new "Thousand and One Nights," in my own way, out of
these pictures, but the number might be too great, after all. The
pictures I have here given have not been chosen at random, but follow
in their proper order, just as they were described to me. Some great
gifted painter, or some poet or musician, may make something more of
them if he likes; what I have given here are only hasty sketches,
hurriedly put upon the paper, with some of my own thoughts
interspersed; for the Moon did not come to me every evening--a cloud
sometimes hid his face from me.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN GIRL.]
FIRST EVENING.
"Last night"--I am quoting the Moon's own words--"last night I was
gliding through the cloudless Indian sky. My face was mirrored in the
waters of the Ganges, and my beams strove to pierce through the thick
intertwining boughs of the bananas, arching beneath me like the
tortoise's shell. Forth from the thicket tripped a Hindoo maid, light
as a gazelle, beautiful as Eve. Airy and ethereal as a vision, and yet
sharply defined amid the surrounding shadows, stood this daughter of
Hindostan: I could read on her delicate brow the thought that had
brought her hither. The thorny creeping plants tore her sandals, but
for all that she came rapidly forward. The deer that had come down to
the river to quench their thirst, sprang by with a startled bound, for
in her hand the maiden bore a lighted lamp. I could see the blood in
her delicate finger tips, as she spread them for a screen before the
dancing flame. She came down to the stream, and set the lamp upon the
water, and let it float away. The flame flickered to and fro, and
seemed ready to expire; but still the lamp burned on, and the girl's
black sparkling eyes, half veiled behind their long silken lashes,
followed it with a gaze of earnest intensity. She knew that if the
lamp continued to burn so long as she could keep it in sight, her
betrothed was still alive; but if the lamp was suddenly extinguished,
he was dead. And the lamp burned bravely on, and she fell on her
knees, and prayed. Near her in the grass lay a speckled snake, but she
heeded it not--she thought only of Bramah and of her betrothed. 'He
lives!' she shouted joyfully, 'he lives!' And from the mountains the
echo came back upon her, 'he lives!'"
[Illustration: THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE CHICKENS.]
SECOND EVENING.
"Yesterday," said the Moon to me, "I looked down upon a small
courtyard surrounded on all sides by houses. In the courtyard sat a
clucking hen with eleven chickens; and a pretty little girl was
running and jumping around them. The hen was frightened, and screamed,
and spread out her wings over the little brood. Then the girl's father
came out and scolded her; and I glided away and thought no more of
the matter.
"But this evening, only a few minutes ago, I looked down into the same
courtyard. Everything was quiet. But presently the little girl came
forth again, crept quietly to the hen-house, pushed back the bolt, and
slipped into the apartment of the hen and chickens. They cried out
loudly, and came fluttering down from their perches, and ran about in
dismay, and the little girl ran after them. I saw it quite plainly,
for I looked through a hole in the hen-house wall. I was angry with
the wilful child, and felt glad when her father came out and scolded
her more violently than yesterday, holding her roughly by the arm: she
held down her head, and her blue eyes were full of large tears. 'What
are you about here?' he asked. She wept and said, 'I wanted to kiss
the hen and beg her pardon for frightening her yesterday; but I was
afraid to tell you.'
"And the father kissed the innocent child's forehead, and I kissed her
on the mouth and eyes."
THIRD EVENING.
"In the narrow street round the corner yonder--it is so narrow that my
beams can only glide for a minute along the walls of the house, but in
that minute I see enough to learn what the world is made of--in that
narrow street I saw a woman. Sixteen years ago that woman was a child,
playing in the garden of the old parsonage, in the country. The hedges
of rose-bush were old, and the flowers were faded. They straggled wild
over the paths, and the ragged branches grew up among the boughs of
the apple trees; here and there were a few roses still in bloom--not
so fair as the queen of flowers generally appears, but still they had
colour and scent too. The clergyman's little daughter appeared to me a
far lovelier rose, as she sat on her stool under the straggling hedge,
hugging and caressing her doll with the battered pasteboard cheeks.
"Ten years afterwards I saw her again. I beheld her in a splendid
ball-room: she was the beautiful bride of a rich merchant. I rejoiced
at her happiness, and sought her on calm quiet evenings--ah, nobody
thinks of my clear eye and my silent glance! Alas! my rose ran wild,
like the rose bushes in the garden of the parsonage. There are
tragedies in every-day life, and to-night I saw the last act of one.
"She was lying in bed in a house in that narrow street: she was sick
unto death, and the cruel landlord came up, and tore away the thin
coverlet, her only protection against the cold. 'Get up!' said he;
'your face is enough to frighten one. Get up and dress yourself, give
me money, or I'll turn you out into the street! Quick--get up!' She
answered, 'Alas! death is gnawing at my heart. Let me rest.' But he
forced her to get up and bathe her face, and put a wreath of roses in
her hair; and he placed her in a chair at the window, with a candle
burning beside her, and went away.
"I looked at her, and she was sitting motionless, with her hands in
her lap. The wind caught the open window and shut it with a crash, so
that a pane came clattering down in fragments; but still she never
moved. The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face;
and I saw that she was dead. There at the open window sat the dead
woman, preaching a sermon against _sin_--my poor faded rose out of the
parsonage garden!"
FOURTH EVENING.
"This evening I saw a German play acted," said the Moon. "It was in a
little town. A stable had been turned into a theatre; that is to say,
the stable had been left standing, and had been turned into private
boxes, and all the timber work had been covered with coloured paper. A
little iron chandelier hung beneath the ceiling, and that it might be
made to disappear into the ceiling, as it does in great theatres, when
the _ting-ting_ of the prompter's bell is heard, a great inverted tub
had been placed just above it.
"'_Ting-ting!_' and the little iron chandelier suddenly rose at least
half a yard and disappeared in the tub; and that was the sign that the
play was going to begin. A young nobleman and his lady, who happened
to be passing through the little town, were present at the
performance, and consequently the house was crowded. But under the
chandelier was a vacant space like a little crater: not a single soul
sat there, for the tallow was dropping, drip, drip! I saw everything,
for it was so warm in there that every loophole had been opened. The
male and female servants stood outside, peeping through the chinks,
although a real policeman was inside, threatening them with a stick.
Close by the orchestra could be seen the noble young couple in two old
arm-chairs, which were usually occupied by his worship the mayor and
his lady; but these latter were to-day obliged to content themselves
with wooden forms, just as if they had been ordinary citizens; and the
lady observed quietly to herself, 'One sees, now, that there is rank
above rank;' and this incident gave an air of extra festivity to the
whole proceedings. The chandelier gave little leaps, the crowd got
their knuckles rapped, and I, the Moon, was present at the performance
from beginning to end."
[Illustration: THE PLAY IN A STABLE.]
FIFTH EVENING.
"Yesterday," began the Moon, "I looked down upon the turmoil of Paris.
My eye penetrated into an apartment of the Louvre. An old grandmother,
poorly clad--she belonged to the working class--was following one of
the under-servants into the great empty throne-room, for this was the
apartment she wanted to see--that she was resolved to see; it had cost
her many a little sacrifice, and many a coaxing word, to penetrate
thus far. She folded her thin hands, and looked round with an air of
reverence, as if she had been in a church.
"'Here it was!' she said, 'here!' And she approached the throne, from
which hung the rich velvet fringed with gold lace. 'There,' she
exclaimed, 'there!' and she knelt and kissed the purple carpet. I
think she was actually weeping.
"'But it was not _this very_ velvet!' observed the footman, and a
smile played about his mouth. 'True, but it was this very place,'
replied the woman, 'and it must have looked just like this.' 'It
looked so, and yet it did not,' observed the man: 'the windows were
beaten in, and the doors were off their hinges, and there was blood
upon the floor.' 'But for all that you can say, my grandson died upon
the throne of France. Died!' mournfully repeated the old woman. I do
not think another word was spoken, and they soon quitted the hall. The
evening twilight faded, and my light shone doubly vivid upon the rich
velvet that covered the throne of France.
"Now, who do you think this poor woman was? Listen, I will tell you a
story.
"It happened, in the Revolution of July, on the evening of the most
brilliantly victorious day, when every house was a fortress, every
window a breastwork. The people stormed the Tuileries. Even women and
children were to be found among the combatants. They penetrated into
the apartments and halls of the palace. A poor half-grown boy in a
ragged blouse fought among the older insurgents. Mortally wounded with
several bayonet thrusts, he sank down. This happened in the
throne-room. They laid the bleeding youth upon the throne of France,
wrapped the velvet around his wounds, and his blood streamed forth
upon the imperial purple. There was a picture! the splendid hall, the
fighting groups! A torn flag lay upon the ground, the tricolor was
waving above the bayonets, and on the throne lay the poor lad with the
pale glorified countenance, his eyes turned towards the sky, his limbs
writhing in the death agony, his breast bare, and his poor tattered
clothing half hidden by the rich velvet embroidered with silver
lilies. At the boy's cradle a prophecy had been spoken: 'He will die
on the throne of France!' The mother's heart dreamt of a second
Napoleon.
"My beams have kissed the wreath of _immortelles_ on his grave, and
this night they kissed the forehead of the old grandame, while in a
dream the picture floated before her which thou mayest draw--the poor
boy on the throne of France."
SIXTH EVENING.
"I've been in Upsala," said the Moon: "I looked down upon the great
plain covered with coarse grass, and upon the barren fields. I
mirrored my face in the Tyris river, while the steamboat drove the
fish into the rushes. Beneath me floated the waves, throwing long
shadows on the so-called graves of Odin, Thor, and Friga. In the
scanty turf that covers the hill-side names have been cut.[1] There is
no monument here, no memorial on which the traveller can have his name
carved, no rocky wall on whose surface he can get it painted; so
visitors have the turf cut away for that purpose. The naked earth
peers through in the form of great letters and names; these form a
network over the whole hill. Here is an immortality, which lasts till
the fresh turf grows!
[Footnote 1: Travellers on the Continent have frequent opportunities
of seeing how universally this custom prevails among travellers. In
some places on the Rhine, pots of paint and brushes are offered by the
natives to the traveller desirous of "immortalising" himself.]
"Up on the hill stood a man, a poet. He emptied the mead horn with the
broad silver rim, and murmured a name. He begged the winds not to
betray him, but I heard the name. I knew it. A count's coronet
sparkles above it, and therefore he did not speak it out. I smiled,
for I knew that a poet's crown adorns his own name. The nobility of
Eleanora d'Este is attached to the name of Tasso. And I also know
where the Rose of Beauty blooms!"
Thus spake the Moon, and a cloud came between us. May no cloud
separate the poet from the rose!
SEVENTH EVENING.
"Along the margin of the shore stretches a forest of firs and beeches,
and fresh and fragrant is this wood; hundreds of nightingales visit it
every spring. Close beside it is the sea, the ever-changing sea, and
between the two is placed the broad high-road. One carriage after
another rolls over it; but I did not follow them, for my eye loves
best to rest upon one point. A Hun's Grave[2] lies there, and the sloe
and blackthorn grow luxuriantly among the stones. Here is true poetry
in nature.
[Footnote 2: Large mounds similar to the "barrows" found in Britain,
are thus designated in Germany and the North.]
"And how do you think men appreciate this poetry? I will tell you what
I heard there last evening and during the night.
"First, two rich landed proprietors came driving by. 'Those are
glorious trees!' said the first. 'Certainly; there are ten loads of
firewood in each,' observed the other: 'it will be a hard winter, and
last year we got fourteen dollars a load'--and they were gone. 'The
road here is wretched,' observed another man who drove past. 'That's
the fault of those horrible trees,' replied his neighbour; 'there is
no free current of air; the wind can only come from the sea'--and they
were gone. The stage coach went rattling past. All the passengers were
asleep at this beautiful spot. The postillion blew his horn, but he
only thought, 'I can play capitally. It sounds well here. I wonder if
those in there like it?'--and the stage coach vanished. Then two young
fellows came gallopping up on horseback. There's youth and spirit in
the blood here! thought I; and, indeed, they looked with a smile at
the moss-grown hill and thick forest. 'I should not dislike a walk
here with the miller's Christine,' said one--and they flew past.
"The flowers scented the air; every breath of air was hushed: it
seemed as if the sea were a part of the sky that stretched above the
deep valley. A carriage rolled by. Six people were sitting in it. Four
of them were asleep; the fifth was thinking of his new summer coat,
which would suit him admirably; the sixth turned to the coachman and
asked him if there were anything remarkable connected with yonder heap
of stones. 'No,' replied the coachman, 'it's only a heap of stones;
but the trees are remarkable.' 'How so?' 'Why, I'll tell you how they
are very remarkable. You see, in winter, when the snow lies very deep,
and has hidden the whole road so that nothing is to be seen, those
trees serve me for a landmark. I steer by them, so as not to drive
into the sea; and you see that is why the trees are remarkable.'
"Now came a painter. He spoke not a word, but his eyes sparkled. He
began to whistle. At this the nightingales sang louder than ever.
'Hold your tongues!' he cried testily; and he made accurate notes of
all the colours and transitions--blue, and lilac, and dark brown.
'That will make a beautiful picture,' he said. He took it in just as a
mirror takes in a view; and as he worked he whistled a march of
Rossini. And last of all came a poor girl. She laid aside the burden
she carried, and sat down to rest upon the Hun's Grave. Her pale
handsome face was bent in a listening attitude towards the forest. Her
eyes brightened, she gazed earnestly at the sea and the sky, her hands
were folded, and I think she prayed, 'Our Father.' She herself could
not understand the feeling that swept through her, but I know that
this minute, and the beautiful natural scene, will live within her
memory for years, far more vividly and more truly than the painter
could portray it with his colours on paper. My rays followed her till
the morning dawn kissed her brow."
[Illustration: THE POOR GIRL RESTS ON THE HUN'S GRAVE.]
EIGHTH EVENING.
Heavy clouds obscured the sky, and the Moon did not make his
appearance at all. I stood in my little room, more lonely than ever,
and looked up at the sky where he ought to have shown himself. My
thoughts flew far away, up to my great friend, who every evening told
me such pretty tales, and showed me pictures. Yes, he has had an
experience indeed. He glided over the waters of the Deluge, and smiled
on Noah's ark just as he lately glanced down upon me, and brought
comfort and promise of a new world that was to spring forth from the
old. When the Children of Israel sat weeping by the waters of Babylon,
he glanced mournfully upon the willows where hung the silent harps.
When Romeo climbed the balcony, and the promise of true love fluttered
like a cherub toward heaven, the round Moon hung, half hidden among
the dark cypresses, in the lucid air. He saw the captive giant at St.
Helena, looking from the lonely rock across the wide ocean, while
great thoughts swept through his soul. Ah! what tales the Moon can
tell. Human life is like a story to him. To-night I shall not see thee
again, old friend. To-night I can draw no picture of the memories of
thy visit. And, as I looked dreamily towards the clouds, the sky
became bright. There was a glancing light, and a beam from the Moon
fell upon me. It vanished again, and dark clouds flew past; but still
it was a greeting, a friendly good-night offered to me by the Moon.
NINTH EVENING.
The air was clear again. Several evenings had passed, and the Moon was
in the first quarter. Again he gave me an outline for a sketch. Listen
to what he told me.
"I have followed the polar bird and the swimming whale to the eastern
coast of Greenland. Gaunt ice-covered rocks and dark clouds hung over
a valley, where dwarf willows and barberry bushes stood clothed in
green. The blooming lychnis exhaled sweet odours. My light was faint,
my face pale as the water lily that, torn from its stem, has been
drifting for weeks with the tide. The crown-shaped Northern Light
burned fiercely in the sky. Its ring was broad, and from its
circumference the rays shot like whirling shafts of fire across the
whole sky, flashing in changing radiance from green to red. The
inhabitants of that icy region were assembling for dance and
festivity; but, accustomed to this glorious spectacle, they scarcely
deigned to glance at it. 'Let us leave the souls of the dead to their
ball-play with the heads of the walruses,' they thought in their
superstition, and they turned their whole attention to the song and
dance. In the midst of the circle, and divested of his furry cloak,
stood a Greenlander, with a small pipe, and he played and sang a song
about catching the seal, and the chorus around chimed in with, '_Eia,
Eia, Ah._' And in their white furs they danced about in the circle,
till you might fancy it was a polar bear's ball.
"And now a Court of Judgment was opened. Those Greenlanders who had
quarrelled stepped forward, and the offended person chanted forth the
faults of his adversary in an extempore song, turning them sharply
into ridicule, to the sound of the pipe and the measure of the dance.
The defendant replied with satire as keen, while the audience laughed,
and gave their verdict. The rocks heaved, the glaciers melted, and
great masses of ice and snow came crashing down, shivering to
fragments as they fell: it was a glorious Greenland summer night. A
hundred paces away, under the open tent of hides, lay a sick man. Life
still flowed through his warm blood, but still he was to die--he
himself felt it, and all who stood round him knew it also; therefore
his wife was already sowing round him the shroud of furs, that she
might not afterwards be obliged to touch the dead body. And she asked,
'Wilt thou be buried on the rock, in the firm snow? I will deck the
spot with thy _kayak_, and thy arrows, and the _angekokk_ shall dance
over it. Or wouldst thou rather be buried in the sea?' 'In the sea,'
he whispered, and nodded with a mournful smile. 'Yes, it is a pleasant
summer tent, the sea,' observed the wife. 'Thousands of seals sport
there, the walrus shall lie at thy feet, and the hunt will be safe and
merry!' And the yelling children tore the outspread hide from the
window-hole, that the dead man might be carried to the ocean, the
billowy ocean, that had given him food in life, and that now, in
death, was to afford him a place of rest. For his monument, he had the
floating, ever-changing icebergs, whereon the seal sleeps, while the
storm bird flies round their gleaming summits!"
TENTH EVENING.
[Illustration: THE OLD MAID.]
"I knew an old maid," said the Moon. "Every winter she wore a wrapper
of yellow satin, and it always remained new, and was the only fashion
she followed. In summer she always wore the same straw hat, and I
verily believe the very same grey-blue dress.
"She never went out, except across the street to an old female friend;
and in later years she did not even take this walk, for the old friend
was dead. In her solitude my old maid was always busy at the window,
which was adorned in summer with pretty flowers, and in winter with
cress, grown upon felt. During the last months I saw her no more at
the window, but she was still alive. I knew that, for I had not yet
seen her begin the 'long journey,' of which she often spoke with her
friend. 'Yes, yes,' she was in the habit of saying, 'when I come to
die, I shall take a longer journey than I have made my whole life
long. Our family vault is six miles from here. I shall be carried
there, and shall sleep there among my family and relatives.' Last
night a van stopped at the house. A coffin was carried out, and then I
knew that she was dead. They placed straw round the coffin, and the
van drove away. There slept the quiet old lady, who had not gone out
of her house once for the last year. The van rolled out through the
town-gate as briskly as if it were going for a pleasant excursion. On
the high-road the pace was quicker yet. The coachman looked nervously
round every now and then--I fancy he half expected to see her sitting
on the coffin, in her yellow satin wrapper. And because he was
startled, he foolishly lashed his horses, while he held the reins so
tightly that the poor beasts were in a foam: they were young and
fiery. A hare jumped across the road and startled them, and they
fairly ran away. The old sober maiden, who had for years and years
moved quietly round and round in a dull circle, was now, in death,
rattled over stock and stone on the public highway. The coffin in its
covering of straw tumbled out of the van, and was left on the
high-road, while horses, coachman, and carriage flew past in wild
career. The lark rose up carolling from the field, twittering her
morning lay over the coffin, and presently perched upon it, picking
with her beak at the straw covering, as though she would tear it up.
The lark rose up again, singing gaily, and I withdrew behind the red
morning clouds."
ELEVENTH EVENING.
"I will give you a picture of Pompeii," said the Moon. "I was in the
suburb in the Street of Tombs, as they call it, where the fair
monuments stand, in the spot where, ages ago, the merry youths, their
temples bound with rosy wreaths, danced with the fair sisters of Laïs.
Now, the stillness of death reigned around. German mercenaries, in the
Neapolitan service, kept guard, played cards, and diced; and a troop
of strangers from beyond the mountains came into the town, accompanied
by a sentry. They wanted to see the city that had risen from the grave
illumined by my beams; and I showed them the wheel-ruts in the streets
paved with broad lava slabs; I showed them the names on the doors, and
the signs that hung there yet: they saw in the little courtyard the
basins of the fountains, ornamented with shells; but no jet of water
gushed upwards, no songs sounded forth from the richly-painted
chambers, where the bronze dog kept the door.
"It was the City of the Dead; only Vesuvius thundered forth his
everlasting hymn, each separate verse of which is called by men an
eruption. We went to the temple of Venus, built of snow-white marble,
with its high altar in front of the broad steps, and the weeping
willows sprouting freshly forth among the pillars. The air was
transparent and blue, and black Vesuvius formed the background, with
fire ever shooting forth from it, like the stem of the pine tree.
Above it stretched the smoky cloud in the silence of the night, like
the crown of the pine, but in a blood-red illumination. Among the
company was a lady singer, a real and great singer. I have witnessed
the homage paid to her in the greatest cities of Europe. When they
came to the tragic theatre, they all sat down on the amphitheatre
steps, and thus a small part of the house was occupied by an audience,
as it had been many centuries ago. The stage still stood unchanged,
with its walled side-scenes, and the two arches in the background,
through which the beholders saw the same scene that had been exhibited
in the old times--a scene painted by nature herself, namely, the
mountains between Sorento and Amalfi. The singer gaily mounted the
ancient stage, and sang. The place inspired her, and she reminded me
of a wild Arab horse, that rushes headlong on with snorting nostrils
and flying mane--her song was so light and yet so firm. Anon I thought
of the mourning mother beneath the cross at Golgotha, so deep was the
expression of pain. And, just as it had done thousands of years ago,
the sound of applause and delight now filled the theatre. 'Happy,
gifted creature!' all the hearers exclaimed. Five minutes more, and
the stage was empty, the company had vanished, and not a sound more
was heard--all were gone. But the ruins stood unchanged, as they will
stand when centuries shall have gone by, and when none shall know of
the momentary applause and of the triumph of the fair songstress; when
all will be forgotten and gone, and even for me this hour will be but
a dream of the past."
TWELFTH EVENING.
"I looked through the windows of an editor's house," said the Moon.
"It was somewhere in Germany. I saw handsome furniture, many books,
and a chaos of newspapers. Several young men were present: the editor
himself stood at his desk, and two little books, both by young
authors, were to be noticed. 'This one has been sent to me,' said he.
'I have not read it yet; what think _you_ of the contents?' 'Oh,' said
the person addressed--he was a poet himself--'it is good enough; a
little broad, certainly; but, you see, the author is still young. The
verses might be better, to be sure; the thoughts are sound, though
there is certainly a good deal of commonplace among them. But what
will you have? You can't be always getting something new. That he'll
turn out anything great I don't believe, but you may safely praise
him. He is well read, a remarkable Oriental scholar, and has a good
judgment. It was he who wrote that nice review of my 'Reflections on
Domestic Life.' We must be lenient towards the young man.'
"'But he is a complete hack!' objected another of the gentlemen.
'Nothing is worse in poetry than mediocrity, and he certainly does not
go beyond this.'
"'Poor fellow,' observed a third, 'and his aunt is so happy about him.
It was she, Mr. Editor, who got together so many subscribers for your
last translation.'
"'Ah, the good woman! Well, I have noticed the book briefly. Undoubted
talent--a welcome offering--a flower in the garden of poetry--prettily
brought out--and so on. But this other book--I suppose the author
expects me to purchase it? I hear it is praised. He has genius,
certainly; don't you think so?'
"'Yes, all the world declares as much,' replied the poet, 'but it has
turned out rather wildly. The punctuation of the book, in particular,
is very eccentric.'
"'It will be good for him if we pull him to pieces, and anger him a
little, otherwise he will get too good an opinion of himself.'
"'But that would be unfair,' objected the fourth. 'Let us not carp at
little faults, but rejoice over the real and abundant good that we
find here: he surpasses all the rest.'
"'Not so. If he is a true genius, he can bear the sharp voice of
censure. There are people enough to praise him. Don't let us quite
turn his head.'
"'Decided talent,' wrote the editor, 'with the usual carelessness.
That he can write incorrect verses may be seen in page 25, where there
are two false quantities. We recommend him to study the ancients,
etc.'
"I went away," continued the Moon, "and looked through the windows in
the aunt's house. There sat the be-praised poet, the _tame_ one; all
the guests paid homage to him, and he was happy.
"I sought the other poet out, the _wild_ one; him also I found in a
great assembly at his patron's, where the tame poet's book was being
discussed.
"'I shall read yours also,' said Mæcenas; 'but to speak honestly--you
know I never hide my opinion from you--I don't expect much from it,
for you are much too wild, too fantastic. But it must be allowed that,
as a man, you are highly respectable.'
"A young girl sat in a corner; and she read in a book these words:
"'In the dust lies genius and glory,
But ev'ry-day talent will _pay_.
It's only the old, old story,
But the piece is repeated each day.'"
THIRTEENTH EVENING.
The Moon said, "Beside the woodland path there are two small
farmhouses. The doors are low, and some of the windows are placed
quite high, and others close to the ground; and whitethorn and
barberry bushes grow around them. The roof of each house is overgrown
with moss and with yellow flowers and houseleek. Cabbage and potatoes
are the only plants cultivated in the gardens, but out of the hedge
there grows a willow tree, and under this willow tree sat a little
girl, and she sat with her eyes fixed upon the old oak tree between
the two huts.
"It was an old withered stem. It had been sawn off at the top, and a
stork had built his nest upon it; and he stood in this nest clapping
with his beak. A little boy came and stood by the girl's side: they
were brother and sister.
"'What are you looking at?' he asked.
"'I'm watching the stork,' she replied: 'our neighbours told me that
he would bring us a little brother or sister to-day; let us watch to
see it come!'
"'The stork brings no such things,' the boy declared, 'you may be sure
of that. Our neighbour told me the same thing, but she laughed when
she said it, and so I asked her if she could say 'On my honour,' and
she could not; and I know by that that the story about the storks is
not true, and that they only tell it to us children for fun.'
"'But where do the babies come from, then?' asked the girl.
"'Why, an angel from heaven brings them under his cloak, but no man
can see him; and that's why we never know when he brings them.'
"At that moment there was a rustling in the branches of the willow
tree, and the children folded their hands and looked at one another:
it was certainly the angel coming with the baby. They took each
other's hand, and at that moment the door of one of the houses opened,
and the neighbour appeared.
[Illustration: WATCHING THE STORK.]
"'Come in, you two,' she said. 'See what the stork has brought. It is
a little brother.'
"And the children nodded gravely at one another, for they had felt
quite sure already that the baby was come."
FOURTEENTH EVENING.
"I was gliding over the Lüneburg Heath," the Moon said. "A lonely hut
stood by the wayside, a few scanty bushes grew near it, and a
nightingale who had lost his way sang sweetly. He died in the coldness
of the night: it was his farewell song that I heard.
"The morning dawn came glimmering red. I saw a caravan of emigrant
peasant families who were bound to Hamburgh, there to take ship for
America, where fancied prosperity would bloom for them. The mothers
carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones tottered
by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore
their scanty effects. The cold wind whistled, and therefore the little
girl nestled closer to the mother, who, looking up at my decreasing
disc, thought of the bitter want at home, and spoke of the heavy taxes
they had not been able to raise. The whole caravan thought of the same
thing; therefore, the rising dawn seemed to them a message from the
sun, of fortune that was to gleam brightly upon them. They heard the
dying nightingale sing: it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of
fortune. The wind whistled, therefore they did not understand that the
nightingale sung, 'Fare away over the sea! Thou hast paid the long
passage with all that was thine, and poor and helpless shalt thou
enter Canaan. Thou must sell thyself, thy wife, and thy children. But
your griefs shall not last long. Behind the broad fragrant leaves
lurks the goddess of Death, and her welcome kiss shall breathe fever
into thy blood. Fare away, fare away, over the heaving billows.' And
the caravan listened well pleased to the song of the nightingale,
which seemed to promise good fortune. Day broke through the light
clouds; country people went across the heath to church: the
black-gowned women with their white head-dresses looked like ghosts
that had stepped forth from the church pictures. All around lay a wide
dead plain, covered with faded brown heath, and black charred spaces
between the white sand hills. The women carried hymn books, and walked
into the church. Oh, pray, pray for those who are wandering to find
graves beyond the foaming billows."
[Illustration: PULCINELLA ON COLUMBINE'S GRAVE.]
FIFTEENTH EVENING.
"I know a Pulcinella,"[3] the Moon told me. "The public applaud
vociferously directly they see him. Every one of his movements is
comic, and is sure to throw the house into convulsions of laughter;
and yet there is no art in it all--it is complete nature. When he was
yet a little boy, playing about with other boys, he was already
Punch. Nature had intended him for it, and had provided him with a
hump on his back, and another on his breast; but his inward man, his
mind, on the contrary, was richly furnished. No one could surpass him
in depth of feeling or in readiness of intellect. The theatre was his
ideal world. If he had possessed a slender well-shaped figure, he
might have been the first tragedian on any stage: the heroic, the
great, filled his soul; and yet he had to become a Pulcinella. His
very sorrow and melancholy did but increase the comic dryness of his
sharply-cut features, and increased the laughter of the audience, who
showered plaudits on their favourite. The lovely Columbine was indeed
kind and cordial to him; but she preferred to marry the Harlequin. It
would have been too ridiculous if beauty and ugliness had in reality
paired together.
[Footnote 3: The comic or grotesque character of the Italian ballet,
from which the English "Punch" takes his origin.]
"When Pulcinella was in very bad spirits, she was the only one who
could force a hearty burst of laughter, or even a smile from him:
first she would be melancholy with him, then quieter, and at last
quite cheerful and happy. 'I know very well what is the matter with
you,' she said; 'yes, you're in love!' And he could not help laughing.
'I and Love!' he cried, 'that would have an absurd look. How the
public would shout!' 'Certainly, you are in love,' she continued; and
added with a comic pathos, 'and I am the person you are in love with.'
You see, such a thing may be said when it is quite out of the
question--and, indeed, Pulcinella burst out laughing, and gave a leap
into the air, and his melancholy was forgotten.
"And yet she had only spoken the truth. He _did_ love her, love her
adoringly, as he loved what was great and lofty in art. At her wedding
he was the merriest among the guests, but in the stillness of night he
wept: if the public had seen his distorted face then, they would have
applauded rapturously.
"And a few days ago, Columbine died. On the day of the funeral,
Harlequin was not required to show himself on the boards, for he was a
disconsolate widower. The director had to give a very merry piece,
that the public might not too painfully miss the pretty Columbine and
the agile Harlequin. Therefore Pulcinella had to be more boisterous
and extravagant than ever; and he danced and capered, with despair in
his heart; and the audience yelled, and shouted '_bravo, bravissimo!_'
Pulcinella was actually called before the curtain. He was pronounced
inimitable.
"But last night the hideous little fellow went out of the town, quite
alone, to the deserted churchyard. The wreath of flowers on
Columbine's grave was already faded, and he sat down there. It was a
study for a painter. As he sat with his chin on his hands, his eyes
turned up towards me, he looked like a grotesque monument--a Punch on
a grave--peculiar and whimsical! If the people could have seen their
favourite, they would have cried as usual, '_Bravo, Pulcinella; bravo,
bravissimo!_'"
SIXTEENTH EVENING.
Hear what the Moon told me. "I have seen the cadet who had just been
made an officer put on his handsome uniform for the first time; I have
seen the young bride in her wedding dress, and the princess girl-wife
happy in her gorgeous robes; but never have I seen a felicity equal to
that of a little girl of four years old, whom I watched this evening.
She had received a new blue dress, and a new pink hat, the splendid
attire had just been put on, and all were calling for a candle, for my
rays, shining in through the windows of the room, were not bright
enough for the occasion, and further illumination was required. There
stood the little maid, stiff and upright as a doll, her arms stretched
painfully straight out away from the dress, and her fingers apart; and
oh, what happiness beamed from her eyes, and from her whole
countenance! 'To-morrow you shall go out in your new clothes,' said
her mother; and the little one looked up at her hat, and down at her
frock, and smiled brightly. 'Mother,' she cried, 'what will the little
dogs think, when they see me in these splendid new things?'"
SEVENTEENTH EVENING.
"I have spoken to you of Pompeii," said the Moon; "that corpse of a
city, exposed in the view of living towns: I know another sight still
more strange, and this is not the corpse, but the spectre of a city.
Whenever the jetty fountains splash into the marble basins, they seem
to me to be telling the story of the floating city. Yes, the spouting
water may tell of her, the waves of the sea may sing of her fame! On
the surface of the ocean a mist often rests, and that is her widow's
veil. The bridegroom of the sea is dead, his palace and his city are
his mausoleum! Dost thou know this city? She has never heard the
rolling of wheels or the hoof-tread of horses in her streets, through
which the fish swim, while the black gondola glides spectrally over
the green water. I will show you the place," continued the Moon, "the
largest square in it, and you will fancy yourself transported into the
city of a fairy tale. The grass grows rank among the broad flagstones,
and in the morning twilight thousands of tame pigeons flutter around
the solitary lofty tower. On three sides you find yourself surrounded
by cloistered walks. In these the silent Turk sits smoking his long
pipe, the handsome Greek leans against the pillar and gazes at the
upraised trophies and lofty masts, memorials of power that is gone.
The flags hang down like mourning scarves. A girl rests there: she has
put down her heavy pails filled with water, the yoke with which she
has carried them rests on one of her shoulders, and she leans against
the mast of victory. That is not a fairy palace you see before you
yonder, but a church: the gilded domes and shining orbs flash back my
beams; the glorious bronze horses up yonder have made journeys, like
the bronze horse in the fairy tale: they have come hither, and gone
hence, and have returned again. Do you notice the variegated splendour
of the walls and windows? It looks as if Genius had followed the
caprices of a child, in the adornment of these singular temples. Do
you see the winged lion on the pillar? The gold glitters still, but
his wings are tied--the lion is dead, for the king of the sea is dead;
the great halls stand desolate, and where gorgeous paintings hung of
yore, the naked wall now peers through. The _lazzarone_ sleeps under
the arcade, whose pavement in old times was to be trodden only by the
feet of high nobility. From the deep wells, and perhaps from the
prisons by the Bridge of Sighs, rise the accents of woe, as at the
time when the tambourine was heard in the gay gondolas, and the golden
ring was cast from the _Bucentaur_ to Adria, the queen of the seas.
Adria! shroud thyself in mists; let the veil of thy widowhood shroud
thy form, and clothe in the weeds of woe the mausoleum of thy
bridegroom--the marble, spectral Venice."
EIGHTEENTH EVENING.
"I looked down upon a great theatre," said the Moon. "The house was
crowded, for a new actor was to make his first appearance that night.
My rays glided over a little window in the wall, and I saw a painted
face with the forehead pressed against the panes. It was the hero of
the evening. The knightly beard curled crisply about the chin; but
there were tears in the man's eyes, for he had been hissed off, and
indeed with reason. The poor Incapable! But Incapables cannot be
admitted into the empire of Art. He had deep feeling, and loved his
art enthusiastically, but the art loved not him. The prompter's bell
sounded; '_the hero enters with a determined air_,' so ran the stage
direction in his part, and he had to appear before an audience who
turned him into ridicule. When the piece was over, I saw a form
wrapped in a mantle, creeping down the steps: it was the vanquished
knight of the evening. The scene-shifters whispered to one another,
and I followed the poor fellow home to his room. To hang one's self is
to die a mean death, and poison is not always at hand, I know; but he
thought of both. I saw how he looked at his pale face in the glass,
with eyes half closed, to see if he should look well as a corpse. A
man may be very unhappy, and yet exceedingly affected. He thought of
death, of suicide; I believe he pitied himself, for he wept bitterly,
and when a man has had his cry out he doesn't kill himself.
"Since that time a year had rolled by. Again a play was to be acted,
but in a little theatre, and by a poor strolling company. Again I saw
the well-remembered face, with the painted cheeks and the crisp beard.
He looked up at me and smiled; and yet he had been hissed off only a
minute before--hissed off from a wretched theatre, by a miserable
audience. And to-night a shabby hearse rolled out of the town-gate. It
was a suicide--our painted, despised hero. The driver of the hearse
was the only person present, for no one followed except my beams. In a
corner of the churchyard the corpse of the suicide was shovelled into
the earth, and nettles will soon be growing rankly over his grave, and
the sexton will throw thorns and weeds from the other graves upon it."
NINETEENTH EVENING.
"I come from Rome," said the Moon. "In the midst of the city, upon one
of the seven hills, lie the ruins of the imperial palace. The wild fig
tree grows in the clefts of the wall, and covers the nakedness thereof
with its broad grey-green leaves; trampling among heaps of rubbish,
the ass treads upon green laurels, and rejoices over the rank
thistles. From this spot, whence the eagles of Rome once flew abroad,
whence they 'came, saw, and conquered,' our door leads into a little
mean house, built of clay between two pillars; the wild vine hangs
like a mourning garland over the crooked window. An old woman and her
little granddaughter live there: they rule now in the palace of the
Cæsars, and show to strangers the remains of its past glories. Of the
splendid throne-hall only a naked wall yet stands, and a black cypress
throws its dark shadow on the spot where the throne once stood. The
dust lies several feet deep on the broken pavement; and the little
maiden, now the daughter of the imperial palace, often sits there on
her stool when the evening bells ring. The keyhole of the door close
by she calls her turret window; through this she can see half Rome, as
far as the mighty cupola of St. Peter's.
"On this evening, as usual, stillness reigned around; and in the full
beam of my light came the little granddaughter. On her head she
carried an earthen pitcher of antique shape filled with water. Her
feet were bare, her short frock and her white sleeves were torn. I
kissed her pretty round shoulders, her dark eyes, and black shining
hair. She mounted the stairs; they were steep, having been made up of
rough blocks of broken marble and the capital of a fallen pillar. The
coloured lizards slipped away, startled, from before her feet, but she
was not frightened at them. Already she lifted her hand to pull the
door-bell--a hare's foot fastened to a string formed the bell-handle
of the imperial palace. She paused for a moment--of what might she be
thinking? Perhaps of the beautiful Christ-child, dressed in gold and
silver, which was down below in the chapel, where the silver
candlesticks gleamed so bright, and where her little friends sung the
hymns in which she also could join? I know not. Presently she moved
again--she stumbled; the earthen vessel fell from her head, and broke
on the marble steps. She burst into tears. The beautiful daughter of
the imperial palace wept over the worthless broken pitcher; with her
bare feet she stood there weeping, and dared not pull the string, the
bell-rope of the imperial palace!"
TWENTIETH EVENING.
It was more than a fortnight since the Moon had shone. Now he stood
once more, round and bright, above the clouds, moving slowly onward.
Hear what the Moon told me.
"From a town in Fezzan I followed a caravan. On the margin of the
sandy desert, in a salt plain, that shone like a frozen lake, and was
only covered in spots with light drifting sand, a halt was made. The
eldest of the company--the water gourd hung at his girdle, and on his
head was a little bag of unleavened bread--drew a square in the sand
with his staff, and wrote in it a few words out of the Koran, and then
the whole caravan passed over the consecrated spot. A young merchant,
a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode
pensively forward on his white snorting steed. Was he thinking,
perchance, of his fair young wife? It was only two days ago that the
camel, adorned with furs and with costly shawls, had carried her, the
beauteous bride, round the walls of the city, while drums and cymbals
had sounded, the women sang, and festive shots, of which the
bridegroom fired the greatest number, resounded round the camel; and
now he was journeying with the caravan across the desert.
"For many nights I followed the train. I saw them rest by the
well-side among the stunted palms; they thrust the knife into the
breast of the camel that had fallen, and roasted its flesh by the
fire. My beams cooled the glowing sands, and showed them the black
rocks, dead islands in the immense ocean of sand. No hostile tribes
met them in their pathless route, no storms arose, no columns of sand
whirled destruction over the journeying caravan. At home the beautiful
wife prayed for her husband and her father. 'Are they dead?' she asked
of my golden crescent; 'Are they dead?' she cried to my full disc. Now
the desert lies behind them. This evening they sit beneath the lofty
palm trees, where the crane flutters round them with its long wings,
and the pelican watches them from the branches of the mimosa. The
luxuriant herbage is trampled down, crushed by the feet of elephants.
A troop of negroes are returning from a market in the interior of the
land: the women, with copper buttons in their black hair, and decked
out in clothes dyed with indigo, drive the heavily-laden oxen, on
whose backs slumber the naked black children. A negro leads a young
lion which he has bought, by a string. They approach the caravan; the
young merchant sits pensive and motionless, thinking of his beautiful
wife, dreaming, in the land of the blacks, of his white fragrant lily
beyond the desert. He raises his head, and----" But at this moment a
cloud passed before the Moon, and then another. I heard nothing more
from him this evening.
TWENTY-FIRST EVENING.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE GIRL'S TROUBLE.]
"I saw a little girl weeping," said the Moon; "she was weeping over
the depravity of the world. She had received a most beautiful doll as
a present. Oh, that was a glorious doll, so fair and delicate! She did
not seem created for the sorrows of this world. But the brothers of
the little girl, those great naughty boys, had set the doll high up in
the branches of a tree, and had run away.
"The little girl could not reach up to the doll, and could not help
her down, and that is why she was crying. The doll must certainly have
been crying too; for she stretched out her arms among the green
branches, and looked quite mournful. Yes, these are the troubles of
life of which the little girl had often heard tell. Alas, poor doll!
it began to grow dark already; and suppose night were to come on
completely! Was she to be left sitting there alone on the bough all
night long? No, the little maid could not make up her mind to that.
'I'll stay with you,' she said, although she felt anything but happy
in her mind. She could almost fancy she distinctly saw little gnomes,
with their high-crowned hats, sitting in the bushes; and further back
in the long walk, tall spectres appeared to be dancing. They came
nearer and nearer, and stretched out their hands towards the tree on
which the doll sat; they laughed scornfully, and pointed at her with
their fingers. Oh, how frightened the little maid was! 'But if one has
not done anything wrong,' she thought, 'nothing evil can harm one. I
wonder if I have done anything wrong?' And she considered. 'Oh, yes!
I laughed at the poor duck with the red rag on her leg; she limped
along so funnily, I could not help laughing; but it's a sin to laugh
at animals.' And she looked up at the doll. 'Did you laugh at the duck
too?' she asked; and it seemed as if the doll shook her head."
TWENTY-SECOND EVENING.
"I looked down upon Tyrol," said the Moon, "and my beams caused the
dark pines to throw long shadows upon the rocks. I looked at the
pictures of St. Christopher carrying the Infant Jesus that are painted
there upon the walls of the houses, colossal figures reaching from the
ground to the roof. St. Florian was represented pouring water on the
burning house, and the Lord hung bleeding on the great cross by the
wayside. To the present generation these are old pictures, but I saw
when they were put up, and marked how one followed the other. On the
brow of the mountain yonder is perched, like a swallow's nest, a
lonely convent of nuns. Two of the sisters stood up in the tower
tolling the bell; they were both young, and therefore their glances
flew over the mountain out into the world. A travelling coach passed
by below, the postillion wound his horn, and the poor nuns looked
after the carriage for a moment with a mournful glance, and a tear
gleamed in the eyes of the younger one. And the horn sounded faint and
more faintly, and the convent bell drowned its expiring echoes."
TWENTY-THIRD EVENING.
Hear what the Moon told me. "Some years ago, here in Copenhagen, I
looked through the window of a mean little room. The father and mother
slept, but the little son was not asleep. I saw the flowered cotton
curtains of the bed move, and the child peep forth. At first I thought
he was looking at the great clock, which was gaily painted in red and
green. At the top sat a cuckoo, below hung the heavy leaden weights,
and the pendulum with the polished disc of metal went to and fro, and
said 'tick, tick.' But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his
mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it. That was the
boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if
he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles. For hours together,
when his mother was spinning, he would sit quietly by her side,
watching the murmuring spindle and the revolving wheel, and as he sat
he thought of many things. Oh, if he might only turn the wheel
himself! Father and mother were asleep; he looked at them, and looked
at the spinning wheel, and presently a little naked foot peered out of
the bed, and then a second foot, and then two little white legs. There
he stood. He looked round once more, to see if father and mother were
still asleep--yes, they slept; and now he crept _softly_, _softly_, in
his short little nightgown, to the spinning wheel, and began to spin.
The thread flew from the wheel, and the wheel whirled faster and
faster. I kissed his fair hair and his blue eyes, it was such a pretty
picture.
"At that moment the mother awoke. The curtain shook, she looked forth,
and fancied she saw a gnome or some other kind of little spectre. 'In
Heaven's name!' she cried, and aroused her husband in a frightened
way. He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the
brisk little lad. 'Why, that is Bertel,' said he. And my eye quitted
the poor room, for I have so much to see. At the same moment I looked
at the halls of the Vatican, where the marble gods are enthroned. I
shone upon the group of the Laocoon; the stone seemed to sigh. I
pressed a silent kiss on the lips of the Muses, and they seemed to
stir and move. But my rays lingered longest about the Nile group with
the colossal god. Leaning against the Sphinx, he lies there thoughtful
and meditative, as if he were thinking on the rolling centuries; and
little love-gods sport with him and with the crocodiles. In the horn
of plenty sat with folded arms a little tiny love-god, contemplating
the great solemn river-god, a true picture of the boy at the spinning
wheel--the features were exactly the same. Charming and life-like
stood the little marble form, and yet the wheel of the year has turned
more than a thousand times since the time when it sprang forth from
the stone. Just as often as the boy in the little room turned the
spinning wheel had the great wheel murmured, before the age could
again call forth marble gods equal to those he afterwards formed.
"Years have passed since all this happened," the Moon went on to say.
"Yesterday I looked upon a bay on the eastern coast of Denmark.
Glorious woods are there, and high trees, an old knightly castle with
red walls, swans floating in the ponds, and in the background appears,
among orchards, a little town with a church. Many boats, the crews all
furnished with torches, glided over the silent expanse--but these
fires had not been kindled for catching fish, for everything had a
festive look. Music sounded, a song was sung, and in one of the boats
the man stood erect to whom homage was paid by the rest, a tall sturdy
man, wrapped in a cloak. He had blue eyes and long white hair. I knew
him, and thought of the Vatican, and of the group of the Nile, and
the old marble gods. I thought of the simple little room where little
Bertel sat in his night-shirt by the spinning wheel. The wheel of time
has turned, and new gods have come forth from the stone. From the
boats there arose a shout: 'Hurrah, hurrah for Bertel Thorwaldsen!'"
[Illustration: LITTLE BERTEL'S AMBITION.]
TWENTY-FOURTH EVENING.
"I will now give you a picture from Frankfort," said the Moon. "I
especially noticed one building there. It was not the house in which
Goëthe was born, nor the old Council House, through whose grated
windows peered the horns of the oxen that were roasted and given to
the people when the emperors were crowned. No, it was a private house,
plain in appearance, and painted green. It stood near the old Jews'
Street. It was Rothschild's house.
"I looked through the open door. The staircase was brilliantly
lighted: servants carrying wax candles in massive silver candlesticks
stood there, and bowed low before an old woman, who was being brought
downstairs in a litter. The proprietor of the house stood bare-headed,
and respectfully imprinted a kiss on the hand of the old woman. She
was his mother. She nodded in a friendly manner to him and to the
servants, and they carried her into the dark narrow street, into a
little house, that was her dwelling. Here her children had been born,
from hence the fortune of the family had arisen. If she deserted the
despised street and the little house, fortune would also desert her
children. That was her firm belief."
The Moon told me no more; his visit this evening was far too short.
But I thought of the old woman in the narrow despised street. It would
have cost her but a word, and a brilliant house would have arisen for
her on the banks of the Thames--a word, and a villa would have been
prepared in the Bay of Naples.
"If I deserted the lowly house, where the fortunes of my sons first
began to bloom, fortune would desert them!" It was a superstition, but
a superstition of such a class, that he who knows the story and has
seen this picture, need have only two words placed under the picture
to make him understand it; and these two words are: "A mother."
TWENTY-FIFTH EVENING.
"It was yesterday, in the morning twilight"--these are the words the
Moon told me--"in the great city no chimney was yet smoking--and it
was just at the chimneys that I was looking. Suddenly a little head
emerged from one of them, and then half a body, the arms resting on
the rim of the chimney-pot. 'Ya-hip! ya-hip!' cried a voice. It was
the little chimney-sweeper, who had for the first time in his life
crept through a chimney, and stuck out his head at the top. 'Ya-hip!
ya-hip!' Yes, certainly that was a very different thing to creeping
about in the dark narrow chimneys! the air blew so fresh, and he could
look over the whole city towards the green wood. The sun was just
rising. It shone round and great, just in his face, that beamed with
triumph, though it was very prettily blacked with soot.
"'The whole town can see me now,' he exclaimed, 'and the moon can see
me now, and the sun too. Ya-hip! ya-hip!' And he flourished his broom
in triumph."
[Illustration: PRETTY PU.]
TWENTY-SIXTH EVENING.
"Last night I looked down upon a town in China," said the Moon. "My
beams irradiated the naked walls that form the streets there. Now and
then, certainly, a door is seen; but it is locked, for what does the
Chinaman care about the outer world? Close wooden shutters covered the
windows behind the walls of the houses; but through the windows of
the temple a faint light glimmered. I looked in, and saw the quaint
decorations within. From the floor to the ceiling pictures are
painted, in the most glaring colours, and richly gilt--pictures
representing the deeds of the gods here on earth. In each niche
statues are placed, but they are almost entirely hidden by the
coloured drapery and the banners that hang down. Before each idol (and
they are all made of tin) stood a little altar of holy water, with
flowers and burning wax lights on it. Above all the rest stood Fo, the
chief deity, clad in a garment of yellow silk, for yellow is here the
sacred colour. At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young
priest. He appeared to be praying, but in the midst of his prayer he
seemed to fall into deep thought, and this must have been wrong, for
his cheeks glowed and he held down his head. Poor Soui-hong! Was he,
perhaps, dreaming of working in the little flower garden behind the
high street wall? And did that occupation seem more agreeable to him
than watching the wax lights in the temple? Or did he wish to sit at
the rich feast, wiping his mouth with silver paper between each
course? Or was his sin so great that, if he dared utter it, the
Celestial Empire would punish it with death? Had his thoughts ventured
to fly with the ships of the barbarians, to their homes in far distant
England? No, his thoughts did not fly so far, and yet they were
sinful, sinful as thoughts born of young hearts, sinful here in the
temple, in the presence of Fo and the other holy gods.
"I know whither his thoughts had strayed. At the farther end of the
city, on the flat roof paved with porcelain, on which stood the
handsome vases covered with painted flowers, sat the beauteous Pu, of
the little roguish eyes, of the full lips, and of the tiny feet. The
tight shoe pained her, but her heart pained her still more. She lifted
her graceful round arm, and her satin dress rustled. Before her stood
a glass bowl containing four gold-fish. She stirred the bowl carefully
with a slender lacquered stick, very slowly, for she, too, was lost in
thought. Was she thinking, perchance, how the fishes were richly
clothed in gold, how they lived calmly and peacefully in their crystal
world, how they were regularly fed, and yet how much happier they
might be if they were free? Yes, that she could well understand, the
beautiful Pu. Her thoughts wandered away from her home, wandered to
the temple, but not for the sake of holy things. Poor Pu! Poor
Soui-hong!
"Their earthly thoughts met, but my cold beam lay between the two,
like the sword of the cherub."
TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING.
"The air was calm," said the Moon; "the water was transparent as the
purest ether through which I was gliding, and deep below the surface I
could see the strange plants that stretched up their long arms towards
me like the gigantic trees of the forest. The fishes swam to and fro
above their tops. High in the air a flight of wild swans were winging
their way, one of which sank lower and lower, with wearied pinions,
his eyes following the airy caravan, that melted farther and farther
into the distance. With outspread wings he sank slowly, as a soap
bubble sinks in the still air, till he touched the water. At length
his head lay back between his wings, and silently he lay there, like a
white lotus flower upon the quiet lake. And a gentle wind arose, and
crisped the quiet surface, which gleamed like the clouds that poured
along in great broad waves; and the swan raised his head, and the
glowing water splashed like blue fire over his breast and back. The
morning dawn illuminated the red clouds, the swan rose strengthened,
and flew towards the rising sun, towards the bluish coast whither the
caravan had gone; but he flew alone, with a longing in his breast.
Lonely he flew over the blue swelling billows."
TWENTY-EIGHTH EVENING.
"I will give you another picture of Sweden," said the Moon. "Among
dark pine woods, near the melancholy banks of the Stoxen, lies the old
convent church of Wreta. My rays glided through the grating into the
roomy vaults, where kings sleep tranquilly in great stone coffins. On
the wall, above the grave of each, is placed the emblem of earthly
grandeur, a kingly crown; but it is made only of wood, painted and
gilt, and is hung on a wooden peg driven into the wall. The worms have
gnawed the gilded wood, the spider has spun her web from the crown
down to the sand, like a mourning banner, frail and transient as the
grief of mortals. How quietly they sleep! I can remember them quite
plainly. I still see the bold smile on their lips, that so strongly
and plainly expressed joy or grief. When the steamboat winds along
like a magic snail over the lakes, a stranger often comes to the
church, and visits the burial vault; he asks the names of the kings,
and they have a dead and forgotten sound. He glances with a smile at
the worm-eaten crowns, and if he happens to be a pious, thoughtful
man, something of melancholy mingles with the smile. Slumber on, ye
dead ones! The Moon thinks of you, the Moon at night sends down his
rays into your silent kingdom, over which hangs the crown of pine
wood."
TWENTY-NINTH EVENING.
"Close by the high-road," said the Moon, "is an inn, and opposite to
it is a great waggon-shed, whose straw roof was just being
re-thatched. I looked down between the bare rafters and through the
open loft into the comfortless space below. The turkey-cock slept on
the beam, and the saddle rested in the empty crib. In the middle of
the shed stood a travelling carriage; the proprietor was inside, fast
asleep, while the horses were being watered. The coachman stretched
himself, though I am very sure that he had been most comfortably
asleep half the last stage. The door of the servants' room stood open,
and the bed looked as if it had been turned over and over; the candle
stood on the floor, and had burnt deep down into the socket. The wind
blew cold through the shed: it was nearer to the dawn than to
midnight. In the wooden frame on the ground slept a wandering family
of musicians. The father and mother seemed to be dreaming of the
burning liquor that remained in the bottle. The little pale daughter
was dreaming too, for her eyes were wet with tears. The harp stood at
their heads, and the dog lay stretched at their feet."
THIRTIETH EVENING.
[Illustration: THE BEAR PLAYING AT SOLDIERS WITH THE CHILDREN.]
"It was in a little provincial town," the Moon said; "it certainly happened
last year, but that has nothing to do with the matter. I saw it quite
plainly. To-day I read about it in the papers, but there it was not half so
clearly expressed. In the taproom of the little inn sat the bear leader,
eating his supper; the bear was tied up outside, behind the wood pile--poor
Bruin, who did nobody any harm, though he looked grim enough. Up in the
garret three little children were playing by the light of my beams; the
eldest was perhaps six years old, the youngest certainly not more than two.
'Tramp, tramp'--somebody was coming upstairs: who might it be? The door was
thrust open--it was Bruin, the great, shaggy Bruin! He had got tired of
waiting down in the courtyard, and had found his way to the stairs. I saw
it all," said the Moon. "The children were very much frightened at first at
the great shaggy animal; each of them crept into a corner, but he found
them all out, and smelt at them, but did them no harm. 'This must be a
great dog,' they said, and began to stroke him. He lay down upon the
ground, the youngest boy clambered on his back, and bending down a little
head of golden curls, played at hiding in the beast's shaggy skin.
Presently the eldest boy took his drum, and beat upon it till it rattled
again; the bear rose upon his hind legs, and began to dance. It was a
charming sight to behold. Each boy now took his gun, and the bear was
obliged to have one too, and he held it up quite properly. Here was a
capital playmate they had found; and they began marching--one, two; one,
two.
"Suddenly some one came to the door, which opened, and the mother of
the children appeared. You should have seen her in her dumb terror,
with her face as white as chalk, her mouth half open, and her eyes
fixed in a horrified stare. But the youngest boy nodded to her in
great glee, and called out in his infantile prattle, 'We're playing at
soldiers.' And then the bear leader came running up."
THIRTY-FIRST EVENING.
The wind blew stormy and cold, the clouds flew hurriedly past; only
for a moment now and then did the Moon become visible. He said, "I
looked down from the silent sky upon the driving clouds, and saw the
great shadows chasing each other across the earth. I looked upon a
prison. A closed carriage stood before it; a prisoner was to be
carried away. My rays pierced through the grated window towards the
wall: the prisoner was scratching a few lines upon it, as a parting
token; but he did not write words, but a melody, the outpouring of his
heart. The door was opened, and he was led forth, and fixed his eyes
upon my round disc. Clouds passed between us, as if he were not to see
my face, nor I his. He stepped into the carriage, the door was closed,
the whip cracked, and the horses galloped off into the thick forest,
whither my rays were not able to follow him; but as I glanced through
the grated window, my rays glided over the notes, his last farewell
engraved on the prison wall--where words fail, sounds can often speak.
My rays could only light up isolated notes, so the greater part of
what was written there will ever remain dark to me. Was it the
death-hymn he wrote there? Were these the glad notes of joy? Did he
drive away to meet death, or hasten to the embraces of his beloved?
The rays of the Moon do not read all that is written by mortals."
THIRTY-SECOND EVENING.
"I love the children," said the Moon, "especially the quite little
ones--they are so droll. Sometimes I peep into the room, between the
curtain and the window frame, when they are not thinking of me. It
gives me pleasure to see them dressing and undressing. First, the
little round naked shoulder comes creeping out of the frock, then the
arm; or I see how the stocking is drawn off, and a plump little white
leg makes its appearance, and a white little foot that is fit to be
kissed, and I kiss it too.
"But about what I was going to tell you. This evening I looked through
a window, before which no curtain was drawn, for nobody lives
opposite. I saw a whole troop of little ones, all of one family, and
among them was a little sister. She is only four years old, but can
say her prayers as well as any of the rest. The mother sits by her bed
every evening, and hears her say her prayers; and then she has a kiss,
and the mother sits by the bed till the little one has gone to sleep,
which generally happens as soon as ever she can close her eyes.
"This evening the two elder children were a little boisterous. One of
them hopped about on one leg in his long white nightgown, and the
other stood on a chair surrounded by the clothes of all the children,
and declared he was acting Grecian statues. The third and fourth laid
the clean linen carefully in the box, for that is a thing that has to
be done; and the mother sat by the bed of the youngest, and announced
to all the rest that they were to be quiet, for little sister was
going to say her prayers.
"I looked in, over the lamp, into the little maiden's bed, where she
lay under the neat white coverlet, her hands folded demurely and her
little face quite grave and serious. She was praying the Lord's prayer
aloud. But her mother interrupted her in the middle of her prayer.
'How is it,' she asked, 'that when you have prayed for daily bread,
you always add something I cannot understand? You must tell me what
that is.' The little one lay silent, and looked at her mother in
embarrassment. 'What is it you say after _our daily bread_?' 'Dear
mother, don't be angry: I only said, _and plenty of butter on it_.'"
THE STORY OF THE YEAR.
It was far in January, and a terrible fall of snow was pelting down.
The snow eddied through the streets and lanes; the window-panes seemed
plastered with snow on the outside; snow plumped down in masses from
the roofs: and a sudden hurry had seized on the people, for they ran,
and flew, and fell into each others' arms, and as they clutched each
other fast for a moment, they felt that they were safe at least for
that length of time. Coaches and horses seemed frosted with sugar. The
footmen stood with their backs against the carriages, so as to turn
their faces from the wind. The foot passengers kept in the shelter of
the carriages, which could only move slowly on in the deep snow; and
when the storm at last abated, and a narrow path was swept clean
alongside the houses, the people stood still in this path when they
met, for none liked to take the first step aside into the deep snow to
let the other pass him. Thus they stood silent and motionless, till,
as if by tacit consent, each sacrificed one leg, and stepping aside,
buried it in the deep snow-heap.
Towards evening it grew calm. The sky looked as if it had been swept,
and had become more lofty and transparent. The stars looked as if they
were quite new, and some of them were amazingly bright and pure. It
froze so hard that the snow creaked, and the upper rind of snow might
well have grown hard enough to bear the sparrows in the morning dawn.
These little birds hopped up and down where the sweeping had been
done; but they found very little food, and were not a little cold.
"Piep!" said one of them to another; "they call this a new year, and
it is worse than the last! We might just as well have kept the old
one. I'm dissatisfied, and I've a right to be so."
"Yes; and the people ran about and fired off shots to celebrate the
new year," said a little shivering sparrow; "and they threw pans and
pots against the doors, and were quite boisterous with joy, because
the old year was gone. I was glad of it too, because I hoped we should
have had warm days; but that has come to nothing--it freezes much
harder than before. People have made a mistake in reckoning the time!"
"That they have!" a third put in, who was old, and had a white poll;
"they've something they call the calendar--it's an invention of their
own--and everything is to be arranged according to that; but it won't
do. When spring comes, then the year begins, and I reckon according to
that."
"But when will spring come?" the others inquired.
"It will come when the stork comes back. But his movements are very
uncertain, and here in town no one knows anything about it: in the
country they are better informed. Shall we fly out there and wait?
There, at any rate, we shall be nearer to spring."
"Yes, that may be all very well," observed one of the sparrows, who
had been hopping about for a long time, chirping, without saying
anything decided. "I've found a few comforts here in town, which I am
afraid I should miss out in the country. Near this neighbourhood, in a
courtyard, there lives a family of people, who have taken the very
sensible notion of placing three or four flower-pots against the wall,
with their mouths all turned inwards, and the bottom of each pointing
outwards. In each flower-pot a hole has been cut, big enough for me to
fly in and out at it. I and my husband have built a nest in one of
those pots, and have brought up our young family there. The family of
people of course made the whole arrangement that they might have the
pleasure of seeing us, or else they would not have done it. To please
themselves they also strew crumbs of bread; and so we have food, and
are in a manner provided for. So I think my husband and I will stay
where we are, although we are very dissatisfied--but we shall stay."
"And we will fly into the country to see if spring is not coming!" And
away they flew.
Out in the country it was hard winter, and the glass was a few degrees
lower than in the town. The sharp winds swept across the snow-covered
fields. The farmer, muffled in warm mittens, sat in his sledge, and
beat his arms across his breast to warm himself, and the whip lay
across his knees. The horses ran till they smoked again. The snow
creaked, and the sparrows hopped about in the ruts, and shivered,
"Piep! when will spring come? it is very long in coming!"
"Very long," sounded from the next snow-covered hill, far over the
field. It might be the echo which was heard; or perhaps the words were
spoken by yonder wonderful old man, who sat in wind and weather high
on the heap of snow. He was quite white, attired like a peasant in a
coarse white coat of frieze; he had long white hair, and was quite
pale, with big blue eyes.
"Who is that old man yonder?" asked the sparrows.
"I know who he is," quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail, and
was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all like little
birds in the sight of Heaven, and therefore was not above speaking to
the sparrows, and giving them information. "I know who the old man is.
It is Winter, the old man of last year. He is not dead, as the
calendar says, but is guardian to little Prince Spring, who is to
come. Yes, Winter bears sway here. Ugh! the cold makes you shiver,
does it not, you little ones?"
"Yes. Did I not tell the truth?" said the smallest sparrow: "the
calendar is only an invention of man, and is not arranged according to
nature! They ought to leave these things to us, who are born cleverer
than they."
And one week passed away, and two passed away. The frozen lake lay
hard and stiff, looking like a sheet of lead, and damp icy mists lay
brooding over the land; the great black crows flew about in long rows,
but silently; and it seemed as if nature slept. Then a sunbeam glided
along over the lake, and made it shine like burnished tin. The snowy
covering on the field and on the hill did not glitter as it had done;
but the white form, Winter himself, still sat there, his gaze fixed
unswervingly upon the south. He did not notice that the snowy carpet
seemed to sink as it were into the earth, and that here and there a
little grass-green patch appeared, and that all these patches were
crowded with sparrows.
"Kee-wit! kee-wit! Is spring coming now?"
"Spring!" The cry resounded over field and meadow, and through the
black-brown woods, where the moss still glimmered in bright green upon
the tree trunks; and from the south the first two storks came flying
through the air. On the back of each sat a pretty little child--one
was a girl and the other a boy. They greeted the earth with a kiss,
and wherever they set their feet, white flowers grew up from beneath
the snow. Then they went hand in hand to the old ice man, Winter,
clung to his breast embracing him, and in a moment they, and he, and
all the region around were hidden in a thick damp mist, dark and
heavy, that closed over all like a veil. Gradually the wind rose, and
now it rushed roaring along, and drove away the mist with heavy blows,
so that the sun shone warmly forth, and Winter himself vanished, and
the beautiful children of Spring sat on the throne of the year.
"That's what I call spring," cried each of the sparrows. "Now we shall
get our rights, and have amends for the stern winter."
Wherever the two children turned, green buds burst forth on bushes and
trees, the grass shot upwards, and the corn-fields turned green and
became more and more lovely. And the little maiden strewed flowers all
around. Her apron, which she held up before her, was always full of
them; they seemed to spring up there, for her lap continued full,
however zealously she strewed the blossoms around; and in her
eagerness she scattered a snow of blossoms over apple trees and peach
trees, so that they stood in full beauty before their green leaves had
fairly come forth.
And she clapped her hands, and the boy clapped his, and then flocks of
birds came flying up, nobody knew whence, and they all twittered and
sang, "Spring has come."
[Illustration: THE STORKS BRINGING BACK THE SPRING.]
That was beautiful to behold. Many an old granny crept forth over the
threshold into the sunshine, and tripped gleefully about, casting a
glance at the yellow flowers which shone everywhere in the fields,
just as they used to do when she was young. The world grew young again
to her, and she said, "It is a blessed day out here to-day!"
The forest still wore its brown-green dress, made of buds; but the
thyme was already there, fresh and fragrant; there were violets in
plenty, anemones and primroses came forth, and there was sap and
strength in every blade of grass. That was certainly a beautiful
carpet on which no one could resist sitting down, and there
accordingly the young spring pair sat hand in hand, and sang and
smiled, and grew on.
A mild rain fell down upon them from the sky, but they did not notice
it, for the rain-drops were mingled with their own tears of joy. They
kissed each other, and were betrothed as people that should marry, and
in the same moment the verdure of the woods was unfolded, and when the
sun rose, the forest stood there arrayed in green.
And hand in hand the betrothed pair wandered under the fresh pendent
ocean of leaves, where the rays of the sun gleamed through the
interstices in lovely, changing hues. What virgin purity, what
refreshing balm in the delicate leaves! The brooks and streams rippled
clearly and merrily among the green velvety rushes and over the
coloured pebbles. All nature seemed to say, "There is plenty, and
there shall be plenty always!" And the cuckoo sang and the lark
carolled: it was a charming spring; but the willows had woolly gloves
over their blossoms: they were desperately careful, and that is
wearisome.
And days went by and weeks went by, and the heat came as it were
whirling down. Hot waves of air came through the corn, that became
yellower and yellower. The white water-lily of the north spread its
great green leaves over the glassy mirror of the woodland lakes, and
the fishes sought out the shady spots beneath; and at the sheltered
side of the wood, where the sun shone down upon the walls of the
farmhouse, warming the blooming roses, and the cherry trees, which
hung full of juicy black berries, almost hot with the fierce beams,
there sat the lovely wife of Summer, the same being whom we have seen
as a child and as a bride; and her glance was fixed upon the black
gathering clouds, which in wavy outlines--blue-black and heavy--were
piling themselves up, like mountains, higher and higher. They came
from three sides, and growing like a petrified sea, they came swooping
towards the forest, where every sound had been silenced as if by
magic. Every breath of air was hushed, every bird was mute. There was
a seriousness--a suspense throughout all nature; but in the highways
and lanes, foot passengers, and riders, and men in carriages were
hurrying on to get under shelter. Then suddenly there was a flashing
of light, as if the sun were burst forth--flaming, burning,
all-devouring! And the darkness returned amid a rolling crash. The
rain poured down in streams, and there was alternate darkness and
blinding light; alternate silence and deafening clamour. The young,
brown, feathery reeds on the moor moved to and fro in long waves, the
twigs of the woods were hidden in a mist of waters, and still came
darkness and light, and still silence and roaring followed one
another; grass and corn lay beaten down and swamped, looking as though
they could never raise themselves again. But soon the rain fell only
in gentle drops, the sun peered through the clouds, the water-drops
glittered like pearls on the leaves, the birds sang, the fishes leaped
up from the surface of the lake, the gnats danced in the sunshine, and
yonder on the rock, in the salt, heaving sea water, sat Summer
himself--a strong man with sturdy limbs and long dripping hair--there
he sat, strengthened by the cool bath, in the warm sunshine. All
nature round about was renewed, everything stood luxuriant, strong and
beautiful; it was summer, warm, lovely summer.
[Illustration: SUMMER TIME.]
And pleasant and sweet was the fragrance that streamed upwards from
the rich clover-field, where the bees swarmed round the old ruined
place of meeting: the bramble wound itself around the altar stone,
which, washed by the rain, glittered in the sunshine; and thither flew
the queen-bee with her swarm, and prepared wax and honey. Only Summer
saw it, he and his strong wife; for them the altar table stood covered
with the offerings of nature.
And the evening sky shone like gold, shone as no church dome can
shine; and in the interval between the evening and the morning red,
there was moonlight: it was summer.
And days went by, and weeks went by. The bright scythes of the reapers
gleamed in the corn-fields; the branches of the apple trees bent down,
heavy with red-and-yellow fruit. The hops smelt sweetly, hanging in
large clusters; and under the hazel bushes where hung great bunches of
nuts, rested a man and woman--Summer and his quiet consort.
"What wealth!" exclaimed the woman: "all around a blessing is
diffused, everywhere the scene looks homelike and good; and yet--I
know not why--I long for peace and rest--I know not how to express it.
Now they are already ploughing again in the field. The people want to
gain more and more. See, the storks flock together, and follow at a
little distance behind the plough--the bird of Egypt that carried us
through the air. Do you remember how we came as children to this land
of the North? We brought with us flowers, and pleasant sunshine, and
green to the woods; the wind has treated them roughly, and they have
become dark and brown like the trees of the South, but they do not,
like them, bear fruit."
"Do you wish to see the golden fruit?" said the man: "then rejoice."
And he lifted his arm, and the leaves of the forest put on hues of red
and gold, and beauteous tints spread over all the woodland. The rose
bush gleamed with scarlet hips; the elder branches hung down with
great heavy bunches of dark berries; the wild chestnuts fell ripe from
their dark husks; and in the depths of the forests the violets bloomed
for the second time.
But the Queen of the Year became more and more silent, and paler and
paler. "It blows cold," she said, "and night brings damp mists. I long
for the land of my childhood."
And she saw the storks fly away, one and all; and she stretched forth
her hands towards them. She looked up at the nests, which stood empty.
In one of them the long-stalked cornflower was growing; in another,
the yellow mustard-seed, as if the nest were only there for its
protection and comfort; and the sparrows were flying up into the
storks' nests.
"Piep! where has the master gone? I suppose he can't bear it when the
wind blows, and that therefore he has left the country. I wish him a
pleasant journey!"
The forest leaves became more and more yellow, leaf fell down upon
leaf, and the stormy winds of autumn howled. The year was far
advanced, and the Queen of the Year reclined upon the fallen yellow
leaves, and looked with mild eyes at the gleaming star, and her
husband stood by her. A gust swept through the leaves; they fell again
in a shower, and the Queen was gone, but a butterfly, the last of the
season, flew through the cold air.
The wet fogs came, an icy wind blew, and the long dark nights drew on
apace. The Ruler of the Year stood there with locks white as snow, but
he knew not it was his hair that gleamed so white--he thought
snow-flakes were falling from the clouds; and soon a thin covering of
snow was spread over the fields.
And then the church bells rang for the Christmas time.
"The bells ring for the new-born," said the Ruler of the Year. "Soon
the new king and queen will be born; and I shall go to rest, as my
wife has done--to rest in the gleaming star."
And in the fresh green fir wood, where the snow lay, stood the Angel
of Christmas, and consecrated the young trees that were to adorn his
feast.
"May there be joy in the room, and under the green boughs," said the
Ruler of the Year. In a few weeks he had become a very old man, white
as snow. "My time for rest draws near, and the young pair of the year
shall now receive my crown and sceptre."
"But the might is still thine," said the Angel of Christmas; "the
might and not the rest. Let the snow lie warmly upon the young seed.
Learn to bear it, that another receives homage while thou yet
reignest. Learn to bear being forgotten while thou art yet alive. The
hour of thy release will come when spring appears."
"And when will spring come?" asked Winter.
"It will come when the stork returns."
And with white locks and snowy beard, cold, bent, and hoary, but
strong as the wintry storm, and firm as ice, old Winter sat on the
snowy drift on the hill, looking towards the south, where he had
before sat and gazed. The ice cracked, the snow creaked, the skaters
skimmed to and fro on the smooth lakes, ravens and crows contrasted
picturesquely with the white ground, and not a breath of wind stirred.
And in the quiet air old Winter clenched his fists, and the ice was
fathoms thick between land and land.
Then the sparrows came again out of the town, and asked, "Who is that
old man yonder?" And the raven sat there again, or a son of his, which
comes to quite the same thing, and answered them and said, "It is
Winter, the old man of last year. He is not dead, as the almanack
says, but he is the guardian of Spring, who is coming."
"When will spring come?" asked the sparrows. "Then we shall have good
times, and a better rule. The old one was worth nothing."
And Winter nodded in quiet thought at the leafless forest, where every
tree showed the graceful form and bend of its twigs; and during the
winter sleep the icy mists of the clouds came down, and the ruler
dreamed of his youthful days, and of the time of his manhood; and
towards the morning dawn the whole wood was clothed in glittering hoar
frost. That was the summer dream of winter, and the sun scattered the
hoar frost from the boughs.
"When will spring come?" asked the sparrows.
"The spring!" sounded like an echo from the hills on which the snow
lay. The sun shone warmer, the snow melted, and the birds twittered,
"Spring is coming!"
And aloft through the air came the first stork, and the second
followed him. A lovely child sat on the back of each, and they
alighted on the field, kissed the earth, and kissed the old silent
man, and he disappeared, shrouded in the cloudy mist. And the story of
the year was done.
"That is all very well," said the sparrows; "it is very beautiful too,
but it is not according to the almanack, and therefore it is
irregular."
SHE WAS GOOD FOR NOTHING.
The mayor stood at the open window. His shirt-frill was very fine, and
so were his ruffles; he had a breast-pin stuck in his frill, and was
uncommonly smooth-shaven--all his own work; certainly he had given
himself a slight cut, but he had stuck a bit of newspaper on the
place. "Hark 'ee, youngster!" he cried.
The youngster in question was no other than the son of the poor
washerwoman, who was just going past the house; and he pulled off his
cap respectfully. The peak of the said cap was broken in the middle,
for the cap was arranged so that it could be rolled up and crammed
into his pocket. In his poor, but clean and well-mended attire, with
heavy wooden shoes on his feet, the boy stood there, as humble and
abashed as if he stood opposite the king himself.
[Illustration: THE MAYOR AND THE WASHERWOMAN'S SON.]
"You're a good boy," said Mr. Mayor. "You're a civil boy. I suppose
your mother is rinsing clothes down yonder in the river? I suppose you
are to carry that thing to your mother that you have in your pocket?
That's a bad affair with your mother. How much have you got in it?"
"Half a quartern," stammered the boy, in a frightened voice.
"And this morning she had just as much," the mayor continued.
"No," replied the boy, "it was yesterday."
"Two halves make a whole. She's good for nothing! It's a sad thing
with that kind of people! Tell your mother that she ought to be
ashamed of herself; and mind you don't become a drunkard--but you will
become one, though. Poor child--there, go!"
Accordingly the boy went on his way. He kept his cap in his hand, and
the wind played with his yellow hair, so that great locks of it stood
up straight. He turned down by the street corner, into the little lane
that led to the river, where his mother stood by the washing bench,
beating the heavy linen with the mallet. The water rolled quickly
along, for the flood-gates at the mill had been drawn up, and the
sheets were caught by the stream, and threatened to overturn the
bench. The washerwoman was obliged to lean against the bench, to
support it.
"I was very nearly sailing away," she said. "It is a good thing that
you are come, for I have need to recruit my strength a little. For six
hours I've been standing in the water. Have you brought anything for
me?"
The boy produced the bottle, and the mother put it to her mouth, and
took a little.
"Ah, how that revives one!" she said: "how it warms! It is as good as
a hot meal, and not so dear. And you, my boy! you look quite pale. You
are shivering in your thin clothes--to be sure it is autumn. Ugh! how
cold the water is! I hope I shall not be ill. But no, I shall not be
that! Give me a little more, and you may have a sip too, but only a
little sip, for you must not accustom yourself to it, my poor dear
child!"
And she stepped up to the bridge on which the boy stood, and came
ashore. The water dripped from the straw matting she had wound round
her, and from her gown.
"I work and toil as much as ever I can," she said, "but I do it
willingly, if I can only manage to bring you up honestly and well, my
boy."
As she spoke, a somewhat older woman came towards them. She was poor
enough to behold, lame of one leg, and with a large false curl hanging
down over one of her eyes, which was a blind one. The curl was
intended to cover the eye, but it only made the defect more striking.
This was a friend of the laundress. She was called among the
neighbours, "Lame Martha with the curl."
"Oh, you poor thing! How you work, standing there in the water!" cried
the visitor. "You really require something to warm you; and yet
malicious folks cry out about the few drops you take!" And in a few
minutes' time the mayor's late speech was reported to the laundress;
for Martha had heard it all, and she had been angry that a man could
speak as he had done to a woman's own child, about the few drops the
mother took: and she was the more angry, because the mayor on that
very day was giving a great feast, at which wine was drunk by the
bottle--good wine, strong wine. "A good many will take more than they
need--but that's not called drinking. _They_ are good; but _you_ are
good for nothing!" cried Martha, indignantly.
"Ah, so he spoke to you, my child?" said the washerwoman; and her lips
trembled as she spoke. "So he says you have a mother who is good for
nothing? Well, perhaps he's right, but he should not have said it to
the child. Still, I have had much misfortune from that house."
"You were in service there when the mayor's parents were alive, and
lived in that house. That is many years ago: many bushels of salt have
been eaten since then, and we may well be thirsty;" and Martha smiled.
"The mayor has a great dinner party to-day. The guests were to have
been put off, but it was too late, and the dinner was already cooked.
The footman told me about it. A letter came a little while ago, to say
that the younger brother had died in Copenhagen."
"Died!" repeated the laundress--and she became pale as death.
"Yes, certainly," said Martha. "Do you take that so much to heart?
Well, you must have known him years ago, when you were in service in
the house."
"Is he dead? He was such a good, worthy man! There are not many like
him." And the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Good heavens! everything
is whirling around me--it was too much for me. I feel quite ill." And
she leaned against the plank.
"Good heavens, you are ill indeed!" exclaimed the other woman. "Come,
come, it will pass over presently. But no, you really look seriously
ill. The best thing will be for me to lead you home."
"But my linen yonder--"
"I will take care of that. Come, give me your arm. The boy can stay
here and take care of it, and I'll come back and finish the washing;
that's only a trifle."
The laundress's limbs shook under her. "I have stood too long in the
cold water," she said faintly, "and I have eaten and drunk nothing
since this morning. The fever is in my bones. O kind Heaven, help me
to get home! My poor child!" and she burst into tears. The boy wept
too, and soon he was sitting alone by the river, beside the damp
linen. The two women could make only slow progress. The laundress
dragged her weary limbs along, and tottered through the lane and round
the corner into the street where stood the house of the mayor; and
just in front of his mansion she sank down on the pavement. Many
people assembled round her, and Lame Martha ran into the house to get
help. The mayor and his guests came to the window.
"That's the washerwoman!" he said. "She has taken a glass too much.
She is good for nothing. It's a pity for the pretty son she has. I
really like the child very well; but the mother is good for nothing."
Presently the laundress came to herself, and they led her into her
poor dwelling, and put her to bed. Kind Martha heated a mug of beer
for her, with butter and sugar, which she considered the best
medicine; and then she hastened to the river, and rinsed the
linen--badly enough, though her will was good. Strictly speaking, she
drew it ashore, wet as it was, and laid it in a basket.
Towards evening she was sitting in the poor little room with the
laundress. The mayor's cook had given her some roasted potatoes and a
fine fat piece of ham, for the sick woman, and Martha and the boy
discussed these viands while the patient enjoyed the smell, which she
pronounced very nourishing.
And presently the boy was put to bed, in the same bed in which his
mother lay; but he slept at her feet, covered with an old quilt made
up of blue and white patches.
Soon the patient felt a little better. The warm beer had strengthened
her, and the fragrance of the provisions pleased her also. "Thanks,
you kind soul," she said to Martha. "I will tell you all when the boy
is asleep. I think he has dropped off already. How gentle and good he
looks, as he lies there with his eyes closed. He does not know what
his mother has suffered, and Heaven grant he may never know it. I was
in service at the councillor's, the father of the mayor. It happened
that the youngest of the sons, the student, came home. I was young
then, a wild girl, but honest, that I may declare in the face of
Heaven. The student was merry and kind, good and brave. Every drop of
blood in him was good and honest. I have not seen a better man on this
earth. He was the son of the house, and I was only a maid, but we
formed an attachment to each other, honestly and honourably. And he
told his mother of it, for she was in his eyes as a Deity on earth;
and she was wise and gentle. He went away on a journey, but before he
started he put his gold ring on my finger; and directly he was gone
my mistress called me. With a firm yet gentle seriousness she spoke to
me, and it seemed as if Wisdom itself were speaking. She showed me
clearly, in spirit and in truth, the difference there was between him
and me.
"'Now he is charmed with your pretty appearance,' she said, 'but your
good looks will leave you. You have not been educated as he has. You
are not equals in mind, and there is the misfortune. I respect the
poor,' she continued; 'in the sight of God they may occupy a higher
place than many a rich man can fill; but here on earth we must beware
of entering a false track as we go onward, or our carriage is upset,
and we are thrown into the road. I know that a worthy man wishes to
marry you--an artisan--I mean Erich the glovemaker. He is a widower
without children, and is well to do. Think it over.'
"Every word she spoke cut into my heart like a knife, but I knew that
my mistress was right, and that knowledge weighed heavily upon me. I
kissed her hand, and wept bitter tears, and I wept still more when I
went into my room and threw myself on my bed. It was a heavy night
that I had to pass through. Heaven knows what I suffered and how I
wrestled! The next Sunday I went to the Lord's house, to pray for
strength and guidance. It seemed like a Providence, that as I stepped
out of church Erich came towards me. And now there was no longer a
doubt in my mind. We were suited to each other in rank and in means,
and he was even then a thriving man. Therefore I went up to him, took
his hand, and said, 'Are you still of the same mind towards me?' 'Yes,
ever and always,' he replied. 'Will you marry a girl who honours and
respects, but who does not love you--though that may come later?' I
asked again. 'Yes, it will come!' he answered; and upon this we joined
hands. I went home to my mistress. I wore the gold ring that the son
had given me at my heart. I could not put it on my finger in the
daytime, but only in the evening when I went to bed. I kissed the ring
again and again, till my lips almost bled, and then I gave it to my
mistress, and told her the banns were to be put up next week for me
and the glovemaker. Then my mistress put her arms round me and kissed
me. _She_ did not say that I was good for nothing; but perhaps I was
better then than I am now, though the misfortunes of life had not yet
found me out. In a few weeks we were married; and for the first year
the world went well with us: we had a journeyman and an apprentice,
and you, Martha, lived with us as our servant."
"Oh, you were a dear, good mistress," cried Martha. "Never shall I
forget how kind you and your husband were!"
"Yes, those were our good years, when you were with us. We had not
any children yet. The student I never saw again.--Yes, though, I saw
him, but he did not see me. He was here at his mother's funeral. I saw
him stand by the grave. He was pale as death, and very downcast, but
that was for his mother; afterwards, when his father died, he was away
in a foreign land, and did not come back hither. I know that he never
married; I believe he became a lawyer. He had forgotten me; and even
if he had seen me again, he would not have known me, I look so ugly.
And that is very fortunate."
And then she spoke of her days of trial, and told how misfortune had
come as it were swooping down upon them.
"We had five hundred dollars," she said; "and as there was a house in
the street to be bought for two hundred, and it would pay to pull it
down and build a new one, it was bought. The builder and carpenter
calculated the expense, and the new house was to cost ten hundred and
twenty! Erich had credit, and borrowed the money in the chief town,
but the captain who was to bring it was shipwrecked, and the money was
lost with him."
"Just at that time my dear sweet boy who is sleeping yonder was born.
My husband was struck down by a long heavy illness: for three quarters
of a year I was compelled to dress and undress him. We went back more
and more, and fell into debt. All that we had was sold, and my husband
died. I have worked, and toiled, and striven, for the sake of the
child, and scrubbed staircases, washed linen, clean and coarse alike,
but I was not to be better off, such was God's good will. But He will
take me to Himself in His own good time, and will not forsake my boy."
And she fell asleep.
Towards morning she felt much refreshed, and strong enough, as she
thought, to go back to her work. She had just stepped again into the
cold water, when a trembling and faintness seized her: she clutched at
the air with her hand, took a step forward, and fell down. Her head
rested on the bank, and her feet were still in the water: her wooden
shoes, with a wisp of straw in each, which she had worn, floated down
the stream, and thus Martha found her on coming to bring her some
coffee.
In the meantime a messenger from the mayor's house had been dispatched
to her poor lodging to tell her "to come to the mayor immediately, for
he had something to tell her." It was too late! A barber-surgeon was
brought to open a vein in her arm; but the poor woman was dead.
"She has drunk herself to death!" said the mayor.
In the letter that brought the news of his brother's death, the
contents of the will had been mentioned, and it was a legacy of six
hundred dollars to the glovemaker's widow, who had once been his
mother's maid. The money was to be paid, according to the mayor's
discretion, in larger or smaller sums, to her or to her child.
"There was some fuss between my brother and her," said the mayor.
"It's a good thing that she is dead; for now the boy will have the
whole, and I will get him into a house among respectable people. He
may turn out a reputable working man."
And Heaven gave its blessing to these words.
So the mayor sent for the boy, promised to take care of him, and added
that it was a good thing the lad's mother was dead, inasmuch as she
had been good for nothing.
They bore her to the churchyard, to the cemetery of the poor, and
Martha strewed sand upon her grave, and planted a rose tree upon it,
and the boy stood beside her.
"My dear mother!" he cried, as the tears fell fast. "Is it true what
they said: that she was good for nothing?" "No, she was good for
much!" replied the old servant, and she looked up indignantly. "I knew
it many a year ago, and more than all since last night. I tell you she
was worth much, and the Lord in heaven knows it is true, let the world
say as much as it chooses, 'She was good for nothing.'"
"THERE IS A DIFFERENCE."
It was in the month of May. The wind still blew cold, but bushes and
trees, field and meadow, all alike said the spring had come. There was
store of flowers even in the wild hedges; and there spring carried on
his affairs, and preached from a little apple tree, where one branch
hung fresh and blooming, covered with delicate pink blossoms that were
just ready to open. The apple tree branch knew well enough how
beautiful he was, for the knowledge is inherent in the leaf as well as
in the blood; and consequently the branch was not surprised when a
nobleman's carriage stopped opposite to him on the road, and the young
countess said that an apple branch was the loveliest thing one could
behold, a very emblem of spring in its most charming form. And the
branch was most carefully broken off, and she held it in her delicate
hand, and sheltered it with her silk parasol. Then they drove to the
castle, where there were lofty halls and splendid apartments. Pure
white curtains fluttered round the open windows, and beautiful flowers
stood in shining transparent vases; and in one of these, which looked
as if it had been cut out of fresh-fallen snow, the apple branch was
placed among some fresh light twigs of beech. It was charming to
behold.
But the branch became proud; and this was quite like human nature.
People of various kinds came through the room, and according to their
rank they might express their admiration. A few said nothing at all,
and others again said too much, and the apple tree branch soon got to
understand that there was a difference among plants. "Some are created
for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do
without altogether," thought the apple branch; and as he stood just in
front of the open window, from whence he could see into the garden and
across the fields, he had flowers and plants enough to contemplate and
to think about, for there were rich plants and humble plants--some
very humble indeed.
"Poor despised herbs!" said the apple branch. "There is certainly a
difference! And how unhappy they must feel, if indeed that kind can
feel like myself and my equals. Certainly there is a difference, and
distinctions must be made, or we should all be equal."
And the apple branch looked down with a species of pity, especially
upon a certain kind of flower of which great numbers are found in the
fields and in ditches. No one bound them into a nosegay, they were too
common; for they might be found even among the paving-stones, shooting
up everywhere like the rankest weeds, and they had the ugly name of
"dandelion," or "dog-flower."
"Poor despised plants!" said the apple branch. "It is not your fault
that you received the ugly name you bear. But it is with plants as
with men--there must be a difference!"
"A difference?" said the sunbeam; and he kissed the blooming apple
branch, and saluted in like manner the yellow dandelions out in the
field--all the brothers of the sunbeam kissed them, the poor flowers
as well as the rich.
Now the apple branch had never thought of the boundless beneficence of
Providence in creation towards everything that lives and moves and has
its being; he had never thought how much that is beautiful and good
may be hidden, but not forgotten; but that, too, was quite like human
nature.
The sunbeam, the ray of light, knew better; and said, "You don't see
far, and you don't see clearly. What is the despised plant that you
especially pity?"
"The dandelion," replied the apple branch. "It is never received into
a nosegay; it is trodden under foot. There are too many of them; and
when they run to seed, they fly away like little pieces of wool over
the roads, and hang and cling to people's dress. They are nothing but
weeds--but it is right there should be weeds too. Oh, I'm really very
thankful that I was not created one of those flowers."
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN AND THE DANDELIONS.]
But there came across the fields a whole troop of children; the
youngest of whom was so small that it was carried by the rest, and
when it was set down in the grass among the yellow flowers it laughed
aloud with glee, kicked out with its little legs, rolled about and
plucked the yellow flowers, and kissed them in its pretty innocence.
The elder children broke off the flowers with their tall stalks, and
bent the stalks round into one another, link by link, so that a whole
chain was made; first a necklace, and then a scarf to hang over their
shoulders and tie round their waists, and then a chaplet to wear on
the head: it was quite a gala of green links and yellow flowers. The
eldest children carefully gathered the stalks on which hung the white
feathery ball, formed by the flower that had run to seed; and this
loose, airy wool-flower, which is a beautiful object, looking like the
finest snowy down, they held to their mouths, and tried to blow away
the whole head at one breath: for their grandmother had said that
whoever could do this would be sure to get new clothes before the year
was out. So on this occasion the despised flower was actually raised
to the rank of a prophet or augur.
"Do you see?" said the sunbeam. "Do you see the beauty of those
flowers? do you see their power?"
"Yes, over children," replied the apple branch.
And now an old woman came into the field, and began to dig with a
blunt shaftless knife round the root of the dandelion plant, and
pulled it up out of the ground. With some of the roots she intended to
make tea for herself; others she was going to sell for money to the
druggist.
"But beauty is a higher thing!" said the apple tree branch. "Only the
chosen few can be admitted into the realm of beauty. There is a
difference among plants, just as there is a difference among men."
And then the sunbeam spoke of the boundless love of the Creator, as
manifested in the creation, and of the just distribution of things in
time and in eternity.
"Yes, yes, that is your opinion," the apple branch persisted.
But now some people came into the room, and the beautiful young
countess appeared, the lady who had placed the apple branch in the
transparent vase in the sunlight. She carried in her hand a flower, or
something of the kind. The object, whatever it might be, was hidden by
three or four great leaves, wrapped around it like a shield, that no
draught or gust of wind should injure it; and it was carried more
carefully than the apple bough had ever been. Very gently the large
leaves were now removed, and lo, there appeared the fine feathery seed
crown of the despised dandelion! This it was that the lady had plucked
with the greatest care, and had carried home with every precaution, so
that not one of the delicate feathery darts that form its downy ball
should be blown away. She now produced it, quite uninjured, and
admired its beautiful form, its peculiar construction, and its airy
beauty, which was to be scattered by the wind.
"Look, with what singular beauty Providence has invested it," she
said. "I will paint it, together with the apple branch, whose beauty
all have admired; but this humble flower has received just as much
from Heaven in a different way; and, various as they are, both are
children of the kingdom of beauty."
And the sunbeam kissed the humble flower, and he kissed the blooming
apple branch, whose leaves appeared covered with a roseate blush.
EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE.
It is more than a hundred years ago.
Behind the wood, by the great lake, stood the old baronial mansion.
Round about it lay a deep moat, in which grew reeds and grass. Close
by the bridge, near the entrance-gate, rose an old willow tree that
bent over the reeds.
Up from the hollow lane sounded the clang of horns and the trampling
of horses; therefore the little girl who kept the geese hastened to
drive her charges away from the bridge, before the hunting company
should come gallopping up. They drew near with such speed that the
girl was obliged to climb up in a hurry, and perch herself on the
coping-stone of the bridge, lest she should be ridden down. She was
still half a child, and had a pretty light figure, and a gentle
expression in her face, with two clear blue eyes. The noble baron took
no note of this, but as he gallopped past the little goose-herd, he
reversed the whip he held in his hand, and in rough sport gave her
such a push in the chest with the butt-end, that she fell backwards
into the ditch.
"Everything in its place," he cried; "into the puddle with you!" And
he laughed aloud, for this was intended for wit, and the company
joined in his mirth: the whole party shouted and clamoured, and the
dogs barked their loudest.
Fortunately for herself, the poor girl in falling seized one of the
hanging branches of the willow tree, by means of which she kept
herself suspended over the muddy water, and as soon as the baron and
his company had disappeared through the castle-gate, the girl tried to
scramble up again; but the bough broke off at the top, and she would
have fallen backward among the reeds, if a strong hand from above had
not at that moment seized her. It was the hand of a pedlar, who had
seen from a short distance what had happened, and who now hurried up
to give aid.
"Everything in its right place," he said, mimicking the gracious
baron; and he drew the little maiden up to the firm ground. He would
have restored the broken branch to the place from which it had been
torn, but "everything in its place" cannot always be managed, and
therefore he stuck the piece in the ground. "Grow and prosper till you
can furnish a good flute for them up yonder," he said; for he would
have liked to play the "rogue's march" for my lord the baron, and my
lord's whole family. And then he betook himself to the castle, but not
into the ancestral hall, he was too humble for that! He went to the
servants' quarters, and the men and maids turned over his stock of
goods, and bargained with him; and from above, where the guests were
at table, came a sound of roaring and screaming that was intended for
song, and indeed they did their best. Loud laughter, mingled with the
barking and howling of dogs, sounded through the windows, for there
was feasting and carousing up yonder. Wine and strong old ale foamed
in the jugs and glasses, and the dogs sat with their masters and dined
with them. They had the pedlar summoned upstairs, but only to make fun
of him. The wine had mounted into their heads, and the sense had flown
out. They poured wine into a stocking, that the pedlar might drink
with them, but that he must drink quickly; that was considered a rare
jest, and was a cause of fresh laughter. And then whole farms, with
oxen and peasants too, were staked on a card, and won and lost.
"Everything in its right place!" said the pedlar, when he had at last
made his escape out of what he called "the Sodom and Gomorrah up
yonder." "The open high-road is my right place," he said; "I did not
feel at all happy there." And the little maiden who sat keeping the
geese nodded at him in a friendly way, as he strode along beside the
hedges.
And days and weeks went by; and it became manifest that the willow
branch which the pedlar had stuck into the ground by the castle moat
remained fresh and green, and even brought forth new twigs. The little
goose-girl saw that the branch must have taken root, and rejoiced
greatly at the circumstance; for this tree, she said, was now her
tree.
The tree certainly came forward well; but everything else belonging to
the castle went very rapidly back, what with feasting and
gambling--for these two things are like wheels, upon which no man can
stand securely.
Six years had not passed away before the noble lord passed out of the
castle-gate, a beggared man, and the mansion was bought by a rich
dealer; and this purchaser was the very man who had once been made a
jest of there, for whom wine had been poured into a stocking; but
honesty and industry are good winds to speed a vessel; and now the
dealer was possessor of the baronial estate. But from that hour no
more card-playing was permitted there. "That is bad reading," said he:
"when the Evil One saw a Bible for the first time, he wanted to put a
bad book against it, and invented card-playing."
The new proprietor took a wife; and who might that be but the
goose-girl, who had always been faithful and good, and looked as
beautiful and fine in her new clothes as if she had been born a great
lady. And how did all this come about? That is too long a story for
our busy time, but it really happened, and the most important part is
to come.
It was a good thing now to be in the old mansion. The mother managed
the domestic affairs, and the father superintended the estate, and it
seemed as if blessings were streaming down. Where rectitude enters in,
prosperity is sure to follow. The old house was cleaned and painted,
the ditches were cleared and fruit trees planted. Everything wore a
bright cheerful look, and the floors were as polished as a draught
board. In the long winter evenings the lady sat at the spinning-wheel
with her maids, and every Sunday evening there was a reading from the
Bible, by the Councillor of Justice himself--this title the dealer had
gained, though it was only in his old age. The children grew up--for
children had come--and they received the best education, though all
had not equal abilities, as we find indeed in all families.
In the meantime the willow branch at the castle-gate had grown to be a
splendid tree, which stood there free and self-sustained. "That is our
genealogical tree," the old people said, and the tree was to be
honoured and respected--so they told all the children, even those who
had not very good heads.
And a hundred years rolled by.
It was in our own time. The lake had been converted to moorland, and
the old mansion had almost disappeared. A pool of water and the ruins
of some walls, this was all that was left of the old baronial castle,
with its deep moat; and here stood also a magnificent old willow, with
pendent boughs, which seemed to show how beautiful a tree may be if
left to itself. The main stem was certainly split from the root to the
crown, and the storm had bowed the noble tree a little; but it stood
firm for all that, and from every cleft into which wind and weather
had carried a portion of earth, grasses and flowers sprang forth:
especially near the top, where the great branches parted, a sort of
hanging garden had been formed of wild raspberry bush, and even a
small quantity of mistletoe had taken root, and stood, slender and
graceful, in the midst of the old willow which was mirrored in the
dark water. A field-path led close by the old tree.
High by the forest hill, with a splendid prospect in every direction,
stood the new baronial hall, large and magnificent, with panes of
glass so clearly transparent, that it looked as if there were no panes
there at all. The grand flight of steps that led to the entrance
looked like a bower of roses and broad-leaved plants. The lawn was as
freshly green as if each separate blade of grass were cleaned morning
and evening. In the hall hung costly pictures; silken chairs and sofas
stood there, so easy that they looked almost as if they could run by
themselves; there were tables of great marble slabs, and books bound
in morocco and gold. Yes, truly, wealthy people lived here, people of
rank: the baron with his family.
All things here corresponded with each other. The motto was still
"Everything in its right place;" and therefore all the pictures which
had been put up in the old house for honour and glory, hung now in the
passage that led to the servants' hall: they were considered as old
lumber, and especially two old portraits, one representing a man in a
pink coat and powdered wig, the other a lady with powdered hair and
holding a rose in her hand, and each surrounded with a wreath of
willow leaves. These two pictures were pierced with many holes,
because the little barons were in the habit of setting up the old
people as a mark for their cross-bows. The pictures represented the
Councillor of Justice and his lady, the founders of the present
family.
"But they did not properly belong to our family," said one of the
little barons. "He was a dealer, and she had kept the geese. They were
not like papa and mamma."
The pictures were pronounced to be worthless; and as the motto was
"Everything in its right place," the great-grandmother and
great-grandfather had been sent into the passage that led to the
servants' hall.
The son of the neighbouring clergyman was tutor in the great house.
One day he was out walking with his pupils, the little barons and
their eldest sister, who had just been confirmed; they came along the
field-path, past the old willow, and as they walked on the young lady
bound a wreath of field flowers, "Everything in its right place," and
the flowers formed a pretty whole. At the same time she heard every
word that was spoken, and she liked to hear the clergyman's son talk
of the power of nature and of the great men and women in history. She
had a good hearty disposition, with true nobility of thought and
soul, and a heart full of love for all that God hath created.
[Illustration: THE OLD WILLOW TREE.]
The party came to a halt at the old willow tree. The youngest baron
insisted on having such a flute cut for him from it as he had had made
of other willows. Accordingly the tutor broke off a branch.
"Oh, don't do that!" cried the young baroness; but it was done
already. "That is our famous old tree," she continued, "and I love it
dearly. They laugh at me at home for this, but I don't mind. There is
a story attached to this tree."
And she told what we all know about the tree, about the old mansion,
the pedlar and the goose-girl, who had met for the first time in this
spot, and had afterwards become the founders of the noble family to
which the young barons belonged.
"They would not be ennobled, the good old folks!" she said. "They kept
to the motto 'Everything in its right place;' and accordingly they
thought it would be out of place for them to purchase a title with
money. My grandfather, the first baron, was their son: he is said to
have been a very learned man, very popular with princes and
princesses, and a frequent guest at the court festivals. The others at
home love him best; but, I don't know how, there seems to me something
about that first pair that draws my heart towards them. How
comfortable, how patriarchal it must have been in the old house, where
the mistress sat at the spinning-wheel among her maids, and the old
master read aloud from the Bible!"
"They were charming, sensible people," said the clergyman's son; and
with this the conversation naturally fell upon nobles and citizens.
The young man scarcely seemed to belong to the citizen class, so well
did he speak concerning the purpose and meaning of nobility. He said,
"It is a great thing to belong to a family that has distinguished
itself, and thus to have, as it were, in one's blood, a spur that
urges one on to make progress in all that is good. It is delightful to
have a name that serves as a card of admission into the highest
circles. Nobility means that which is great and noble: it is a coin
that has received a stamp to indicate what it is worth. It is the
fallacy of the time, and many poets have frequently maintained this
fallacy, that nobility of birth is accompanied by foolishness, and
that the lower you go among the poor, the more does everything around
shine. But that is not my view, for I consider it entirely false. In
the higher classes many beautiful and kindly traits are found. My
mother told me one of this kind, and I could tell you many others.
"My mother was on a visit to a great family in town. My grandmother, I
think, had been housekeeper to the count's mother. The great nobleman
and my mother were alone in the room, when the former noticed that an
old woman came limping on crutches into the courtyard. Indeed, she was
accustomed to come every Sunday, and carry away a gift with her. 'Ah,
there is the poor old lady,' said the nobleman: 'walking is a great
toil to her;' and before my mother understood what he meant, he had
gone out of the room and run down the stairs, to save the old woman
the toilsome walk, by carrying to her the gift she had come to
receive.
"Now, that was only a small circumstance, but, like the widow's two
mites in the Scripture, it has a sound that finds an echo in the
depths of the heart in human nature; and these are the things the poet
should show and point out; especially in these times should he sing of
it, for that does good, and pacifies and unites men. But where a bit
of mortality, because it has a genealogical tree and a coat of arms,
rears up like an Arabian horse, and prances in the street, and says in
the room, 'People out of the street have been here,' when a commoner
has been--that is nobility in decay, and become a mere mask--a mask of
the kind that Thespis created; and people are glad when such an one is
turned into satire."
This was the speech of the clergyman's son. It was certainly rather
long, but then the flute was being finished while he made it.
At the castle there was a great company. Many guests came from the
neighbourhood and from the capital. Many ladies, some tastefully, and
others tastelessly dressed, were there, and the great hall was quite
full of people. The clergymen from the neighbourhood stood
respectfully congregated in a corner, which made it look almost as if
there were to be a burial there. But it was not so, for this was a
party of pleasure, only that the pleasure had not yet begun.
A great concert was to be performed, and consequently the little baron
had brought in his willow flute; but he could not get a note out of
it, nor could his papa, and therefore the flute was worth nothing.
There was instrumental music and song, both of the kind that delight
the performers most--quite charming!
"You are a performer?" said a cavalier--his father's son and nothing
else--to the tutor. "You play the flute and make it too--that's
genius. That should command, and should have the place of honour!"
"No indeed," replied the young man, "I only advance with the times, as
every one is obliged to do."
"Oh, you will enchant us with the little instrument, will you not?"
And with these words he handed to the clergyman's son the flute cut
from the willow tree by the pool, and announced aloud that the tutor
was about to perform a solo on that instrument.
Now, they only wanted to make fun of him, that was easily seen; and
therefore the tutor would not play, though indeed he could do so very
well; but they crowded round him and importuned him so strongly, that
at last he took the flute and put it to his lips.
That was a wonderful flute! A sound, as sustained as that which is
emitted by the whistle of a steam engine, and much stronger, echoed
far over courtyard, garden, and wood, miles away into the country;
and simultaneously with the tone came a rushing wind that roared,
"Everything in its right place!" And papa flew as if carried by the
wind straight out of the hall and into the shepherd's cot; and the
shepherd flew, not into the hall, for there he could not come--no, but
into the room of the servants, among the smart lacqueys who strutted
about there in silk stockings; and the proud servants were struck
motionless with horror at the thought that such a personage dared to
sit down to table with them.
But in the hall the young baroness flew up to the place of honour at
the top of the table, where she was worthy to sit; and the young
clergyman's son had a seat next to her; and there the two sat as if
they were a newly-married pair. An old count of one of the most
ancient families in the country remained untouched in his place of
honour; for the flute was just, as men ought to be. The witty
cavalier, the son of his father and nothing else, who had been the
cause of the flute-playing, flew head-over-heels into the
poultry-house--but not alone.
For a whole mile round about the sounds of the flute were heard, and
singular events took place. A rich banker's family, driving along in a
coach and four, was blown quite out of the carriage, and could not
even find a place on the footboard at the back. Two rich peasants who
in our times had grown too high for their corn-fields, were tumbled
into the ditch. It was a dangerous flute, that: luckily, it burst at
the first note, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back
into the owner's pocket. "Everything in its right place."
The day afterwards not a word was said about this marvellous event;
and thence has come the expression "pocketing the flute." Everything
was in its usual order, only that the two old portraits of the dealer
and the goose-girl hung on the wall in the banqueting hall. They had
been blown up yonder, and as one of the real connoisseurs said they
had been painted by a master's hand, they remained where they were,
and were restored. "Everything in its right place."
And to that it will come; for _hereafter_ is long--longer than this
story.
THE GOBLIN AND THE HUCKSTER.
There was once a regular student: he lived in a garret, and nothing at
all belonged to him; but there was also once a regular huckster: he
lived on the ground floor, and the whole house was his; and the
goblin kept with him, for on the huckster's table on Christmas Eve
there was always a dish of plum porridge, with a great piece of butter
floating in the middle. The huckster could accomplish that; and
consequently the goblin stuck to the huckster's shop, and that was
very interesting.
[Illustration: THE STUDENT'S BARGAIN.]
One evening the student came through the back door to buy candles and
cheese for himself. He had no one to send, and that's why he came
himself. He procured what he wanted and paid for it, and the huckster
and his wife both nodded a "good evening" to him; and the woman was
one who could do more than merely nod--she had an immense power of
tongue! And the student nodded too, and then suddenly stood still,
reading the sheet of paper in which the cheese had been wrapped. It
was a leaf torn out of an old book, a book that ought not to have been
torn up, a book that was full of poetry.
"Yonder lies some more of the same sort," said the huckster: "I gave
an old woman a little coffee for the books; give me two groschen, and
you shall have the remainder."
"Yes," said the student, "give me the book instead of the cheese: I
can eat my bread and butter without cheese. It would be a sin to tear
the book up entirely. You are a capital man, a practical man, but you
understand no more about poetry than does that cask yonder."
Now, that was an insulting speech, especially towards the cask; but
the huckster laughed and the student laughed, for it was only said in
fun. But the goblin was angry that any one should dare to say such
things to a huckster who lived in his own house and sold the best
butter.
When it was night, and the shop was closed and all were in bed, the
goblin came forth, went into the bedroom, and took away the good
lady's tongue; for she did not want that while she was asleep; and
whenever he put this tongue upon any object in the room, the said
object acquired speech and language, and could express its thoughts
and feelings as well as the lady herself could have done; but only one
object could use it at a time, and that was a good thing, otherwise
they would have interrupted each other.
And the goblin laid the tongue upon the cask in which the old
newspapers were lying.
"Is it true," he asked, "that you don't know what poetry means?"
"Of course I know it," replied the cask: "poetry is something that
always stands at the foot of a column in the newspapers, and is
sometimes cut out. I dare swear I have more of it in me than the
student, and I'm only a poor tub compared to the huckster."
Then the goblin put the tongue upon the coffee-mill, and, mercy! how
it began to go! And he put it upon the butter-cask, and on the
cash-box: they were all of the waste-paper cask's opinion, and the
opinion of the majority must be respected.
"Now I shall tell it to the student!" And with these words the goblin
went quite quietly up the back stairs to the garret, where the student
lived. The student had still a candle burning, and the goblin peeped
through the keyhole, and saw that he was reading in the torn book that
he had carried up out of the shop downstairs.
But how light it was in his room! Out of the book shot a clear beam,
expanding into a thick stem, and into a mighty tree, which grew
upward and spread its branches far over the student. Each leaf was
fresh, and every blossom was a beautiful female head, some with dark
sparkling eyes, others with wonderfully clear blue orbs; every fruit
was a gleaming star, and there was a glorious sound of song in the
student's room.
Never had the little goblin imagined such splendour, far less had he
ever seen or heard anything like it. He stood still on tiptoe, and
peeped in till the light went out in the student's garret. Probably
the student blew it out, and went to bed; but the little goblin
remained standing there nevertheless, for the music still sounded on,
soft and beautiful--a splendid cradle song for the student who had
lain down to rest.
"This is an incomparable place," said the goblin: "I never expected
such a thing! I should like to stay here with the student." And then
the little man thought it over--and he was a sensible little man
too--but he sighed, "The student has no porridge!" And then he went
down again to the huckster's shop: and it was a very good thing that
he got down there again at last, for the cask had almost worn out the
good woman's tongue, for it had spoken out at one side everything that
was contained in it, and was just about turning itself over, to give
it out from the other side also, when the goblin came in, and restored
the tongue to its owner. But from that time forth the whole shop, from
the cash-box down to the firewood, took its tone from the cask, and
paid him such respect, and thought so much of him, that when the
huckster afterwards read the critical articles on theatricals and art
in the newspaper, they were all persuaded the information came from
the cask itself.
But the goblin could no longer sit quietly and contentedly listening
to all the wisdom down there: so soon as the light glimmered from the
garret in the evening he felt as if the rays were strong cables
drawing him up, and he was obliged to go and peep through the keyhole;
and there a feeling of greatness rolled around him, such as we feel
beside the ever-heaving sea when the storm rushes over it, and he
burst into tears! He did not know himself why he was weeping, but a
peculiar feeling of pleasure mingled with his tears. How wonderfully
glorious it must be to sit with the student under the same tree! But
that might not be, he was obliged to be content with the view through
the keyhole, and to be glad of that. There he stood on the cold
landing-place, with the autumn wind blowing down from the loft-hole:
it was cold, very cold; but the little mannikin only felt that when
the light in the room was extinguished, and the tones in the tree died
away. Ha! then he shivered, and crept down again to his warm corner,
where it was homely and comfortable.
And when Christmas came, and brought with it the porridge and the
great lump of butter, why, then he thought the huckster the better
man.
But in the middle of the night the goblin was awaked by a terrible
tumult and beating against the window shutters. People rapped noisily
without, and the watchman blew his horn, for a great fire had broken
out--the whole street was full of smoke and flame. Was it in the house
itself, or at a neighbour's? Where was it? Terror seized on all. The
huckster's wife was so bewildered that she took her gold earrings out
of her ears and put them in her pocket, that at any rate she might
save something; the huckster ran for his share-papers; and the maid
for her black silk mantilla, for she had found means to purchase one.
Each one wanted to save the best thing they had; the goblin wanted to
do the same thing, and in a few leaps he was up the stairs, and into
the room of the student, who stood quite quietly at the open window,
looking at the conflagration that was raging in the house of the
neighbour opposite. The goblin seized upon the wonderful book which
lay upon the table, popped it into his red cap, and held the cap tight
with both hands. The great treasure of the house was saved; and now he
ran up and away, quite on to the roof of the house, on to the chimney.
There he sat, illuminated by the flames of the burning house opposite,
both hands pressed tightly over his cap, in which the treasure lay;
and now he knew the real feelings of his heart, and knew to whom it
really belonged. But when the fire was extinguished, and the goblin
could think calmly again, why, then....
"I must divide myself between the two," he said; "I can't quite give
up the huckster, because of the porridge!"
Now, that was spoken quite like a human creature. We all of us visit
the huckster for the sake of the porridge.
IN A THOUSAND YEARS.
Yes, in a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steam through
the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will become
visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see the monuments and
the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just as we in our time
make pilgrimages to the tottering splendours of Southern Asia. In a
thousand years they will come!
The Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine still roll their course, Mont
Blanc stands firm with its snow-capped summit, and the Northern Lights
gleam over the lands of the North; but generation after generation has
become dust, whole rows of the mighty of the moment are forgotten,
like those who already slumber under the hill on which the rich trader
whose ground it is has built a bench, on which he can sit and look out
across his waving corn-fields.
"To Europe!" cry the young sons of America; "to the land of our
ancestors, the glorious land of monuments and fancy--to Europe!"
The ship of the air comes. It is crowded with passengers, for the
transit is quicker than by sea. The electro-magnetic wire under the
ocean has already telegraphed the number of the aërial caravan. Europe
is in sight: it is the coast of Ireland that they see, but the
passengers are still asleep; they will not be called till they are
exactly over England. There they will first step on European shore, in
the land of Shakespeare as the educated call it; in the land of
politics, the land of machines, as it is called by others.
Here they stay a whole day. That is all the time the busy race can
devote to the whole of England and Scotland. Then the journey is
continued through the tunnel under the English Channel, to France, the
land of Charlemagne and Napoleon. Moliere is named: the learned men
talk of the classic school of remote antiquity: there is rejoicing and
shouting for the names of heroes, poets, and men of science, whom our
time does not know, but who will be born after our time in Paris, the
crater of Europe.
The air steamboat flies over the country whence Columbus went forth,
where Cortez was born, and where Calderon sang dramas in sounding
verse. Beautiful black-eyed women live still in the blooming valleys,
and the oldest songs speak of the Cid and the Alhambra.
Then through the air, over the sea, to Italy, where once lay old,
everlasting Rome. It has vanished! The Campagna lies desert: a single
ruined wall is shown as the remains of St. Peter's, but there is a
doubt if this ruin be genuine.
Next to Greece, to sleep a night in the grand hotel at the top of
Mount Olympus, to say that they have been there; and the journey is
continued to the Bosphorus, to rest there a few hours, and see the
place where Byzantium lay; and where the legend tells that the harem
stood in the time of the Turks, poor fishermen are now spreading their
nets.
Over the remains of mighty cities on the broad Danube, cities which we
in our time know not, the travellers pass; but here and there, on the
rich sites of those that time shall bring forth, the caravan sometimes
descends, and departs thence again.
Down below lies Germany, that was once covered with a close net of
railways and canals, the region where Luther spoke, where Goëthe sang,
and Mozart once held the sceptre of harmony! Great names shine there,
in science and in art, names that are unknown to us. One day devoted
to seeing Germany, and one for the North, the country of Oersted and
Linnæus, and for Norway, the land of the old heroes and the young
Normans. Iceland is visited on the journey home: the geysers burn no
more, Hecla is an extinct volcano, but the rocky island is still fixed
in the midst of the foaming sea, a continual monument of legend and
poetry.
"There is really a great deal to be seen in Europe," says the young
American, "and we have seen it in a week, according to the directions
of the great traveller" (and here he mentions the name of one of his
contemporaries) "in his celebrated work, 'How to See all Europe in a
Week.'"
THE BOND OF FRIENDSHIP.
We have just taken a little journey, and already we want to take a
longer one. Whither? To Sparta, to Mycene, to Delphi? There are a
hundred places at whose names the heart beats with the desire of
travel. On horseback we go up the mountain paths, through brake and
through brier. A single traveller makes an appearance like a whole
caravan. He rides forward with his guide, a pack-horse carries trunks,
a tent, and provisions, and a few armed soldiers follow as a guard. No
inn with warm beds awaits him at the end of his tiring day's journey:
the tent is often his dwelling-place. In the great wild region the
guide cooks him a pillan of rice, fowls, and curry for his supper. A
thousand gnats swarm round the tent. It is a boisterous night, and
to-morrow the way will lead across swollen streams; take care you are
not washed away!
What is your reward for undergoing these hardships? The fullest,
richest reward. Nature manifests herself here in all her greatness;
every spot is historical, and the eye and the thoughts are alike
delighted. The poet may sing it, the painter portray it in rich
pictures; but the air of reality which sinks deep into the soul of the
spectator, and remains there, neither painter nor poet can produce.
In many little sketches I have endeavoured to give an idea of a small
part of Athens and its environs; but how colourless the picture seems!
How little does it exhibit Greece, the mourning genius of beauty,
whose greatness and whose sorrow the stranger never forgets!
The lonely herdsman yonder on the hills would, perhaps, by a simple
recital of an event in his life, better enlighten the stranger who
wishes in a few features to behold the land of the Hellenes, than any
picture could do.
"Then," says my Muse, "let him speak." A custom, a good, peculiar
custom, shall be the subject of the mountain shepherd's tale. It is
called
THE BOND OF FRIENDSHIP.
Our rude house was put together of clay; but the door-posts were
columns of fluted marble found near the spot where the house was
erected. The roof reached almost down to the ground. It was now dark
brown and ugly, but it had originally consisted of blooming olive and
fresh laurel branches brought from beyond the mountain. Around our
dwelling was a narrow gorge, whose walls of rock rose steeply upwards,
and showed naked and black, and round their summits often hung clouds,
like white living figures. Never did I hear a singing bird there,
never did the men there dance to the sound of the bagpipe; but the
spot was sacred from the old times: even its name reminded of this,
for it was called Delphi! The dark solemn mountains were all covered
with snow; the highest, which gleamed the longest in the red light of
evening, was Parnassus; the brook which rolled from it near our house
was once sacred also. Now the ass sullies it with its feet, but the
stream rolls on and on, and becomes clear again. How I can remember
every spot in the deep holy solitude! In the midst of the hut a fire
was kindled, and when the hot ashes lay there red and glowing, the
bread was baked in them. When the snow was piled so high around our
hut as almost to hide it, my mother appeared most cheerful: then she
would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she never
sang at other times, for the Turks our masters would not allow it. She
sang:
"On the summit of Olympus, in the forest of dwarf firs, lay an old
stag. His eyes were heavy with tears; he wept blue and even red
tears; and there came a roebuck by, and said, 'What ails thee, that
thou weepest those blue and red tears?' And the stag answered, 'The
Turk has come to our city: he has wild dogs for the chase, a goodly
pack.' 'I will drive them away across the islands,' cried the young
roebuck, 'I will drive them away across the islands into the deep
sea!' But before evening sank down the roebuck was slain, and before
night the stag was hunted and dead."
And when my mother sang thus, her eyes became moist, and on the long
eyelashes hung a tear; but she hid it, and baked our black bread in
the ashes. Then I would clench my fist and cry, "We will kill the
Turks!" but she repeated from the song the words, "I will drive them
across the islands into the deep sea. But before evening sank down the
roebuck was slain, and before the night came the stag was hunted and
dead."
For several days and nights we had been lonely in our hut, when my
father came home. I knew he would bring me shells from the Gulf of
Lepanto, or perhaps even a bright gleaming knife. This time he brought
us a child, a little half-naked girl, that he brought under his
sheepskin cloak. It was wrapped in a fur, and all that the little
creature possessed when this was taken off, and she lay in my mother's
lap, were three silver coins, fastened in her dark hair. My father
told us that the Turks had killed the child's parents; and he told so
much about them, that I dreamed of the Turks all night. He himself had
been wounded, and my mother bound up his arm. The wound was deep, and
the thick sheepskin was stiff with frozen blood. The little maiden was
to be my sister. How radiantly beautiful she looked! Even my mother's
eyes were not more gentle than hers. Anastasia, as she was called, was
to be my sister, because her father had been united to mine by the old
custom which we still keep. They had sworn brotherhood in their youth,
and chosen the most beautiful and virtuous girl in the neighbourhood
to consecrate their bond of friendship. I often heard of the strange
good custom.
So now the little girl was my sister. She sat in my lap, and I brought
her flowers and the feathers of the mountain birds: we drank together
of the waters of Parnassus, and dwelt together for many a year under
the laurel roof of the hut, while my mother sang winter after winter
of the stag who wept red tears. But as yet I did not understand that
it was my own countrymen whose many sorrows were mirrored in those
tears.
One day there came three Frankish men. Their dress was different from
ours. They had tents and beds with them on their horses, and more
than twenty Turks, all armed with swords and muskets, accompanied
them; for they were friends of the pacha, and had letters from him
commanding an escort for them. They only came to see our mountains, to
ascend Parnassus amid the snow and the clouds, and to look at the
strange black steep rock near our hut. They could not find room in it,
nor could they endure the smoke that rolled along the ceiling and
found its way out at the low door; therefore they pitched their tents
on the small space outside our dwelling, roasted lambs and birds, and
poured out strong sweet wine, of which the Turks were not allowed to
partake.
[Illustration: THE GREEK MOTHER'S SONG.]
When they departed, I accompanied them for some distance, carrying my
little sister Anastasia, wrapped in a goatskin, on my back. One of the
Frankish gentlemen made me stand in front of a rock, and drew me, and
her too, as we stood there, so that we looked like one creature. I
never thought of it; but Anastasia and I were really one. She was
always sitting in my lap or riding in the goatskin at my back; and
when I dreamed, she appeared in my dreams.
Two nights afterwards, other men, armed with knives and muskets, came
into our tent. They were Albanians, brave men, my mother told me. They
only stayed a short time. My sister Anastasia sat on the knee of one
of them, and when they were gone she had not three, but only two
silver coins in her hair. They wrapped tobacco in strips of paper and
smoked it. I remember they were undecided as to the road they were to
take.
But they had to make a choice. They went, and my father went with
them. Soon afterwards we heard the sound of firing. The noise was
renewed, and soldiers rushed into our hut, and took my mother, and
myself, and my sister Anastasia prisoners. They declared that the
robbers had been entertained by us, and that my father had acted as
the robbers' guide, and therefore we must go with them. Presently I
saw the corpses of the robbers brought in; I saw my father's corpse
too. I cried and cried till I fell asleep. When I awoke, we were in
prison, but the room was not worse than ours in our own house. They
gave me onions to eat, and musty wine poured from a tarry cask, but we
had no better fare at home.
How long we were kept prisoners I do not know; but many days and
nights went by. When we were set free it was the time of the holy
Easter feast. I carried Anastasia on my back, for my mother was ill,
and could only move slowly, and it was a long way till we came down to
the sea, to the Gulf of Lepanto. We went into a church that gleamed
with pictures painted on a golden ground. They were pictures of
angels, and very beautiful; but it seemed to me that our little
Anastasia was just as beautiful. In the middle of the floor stood a
coffin filled with roses. "The Lord Christ is pictured there in the
form of a beautiful rose," said my mother; and the priest announced,
"Christ is risen!" All the people kissed each other: each one had a
burning taper in his hand, and I received one myself, and so did
little Anastasia. The bagpipes sounded, men danced hand in hand from
the church, and outside the women were roasting the Easter lamb. We
were invited to partake, and I sat by the fire; a boy, older than
myself, put his arms round my neck, kissed me, and said, "Christ is
risen!" and thus it was that for the first time I met Aphtanides.
My mother could make fishermen's nets, for which there was a good
demand here in the bay, and we lived a long time by the side of the
sea, the beautiful sea, that tasted like tears, and in its colours
reminded me of the song of the stag that wept--for sometimes its
waters were red, and sometimes green or blue.
[Illustration: THE FRIENDS AT LEPANTO.]
Aphtanides knew how to manage our boat, and I often sat in it, with my
little Anastasia, while it glided on through the water, swift as a
bird flying through the air. Then, when the sun sank down, the
mountains were tinted with a deeper and deeper blue, one range seemed
to rise behind the other, and behind them all stood Parnassus with its
snow-crowned summit. The mountain-top gleamed in the evening rays like
glowing iron, and it seemed as though the light came from within it;
for long after the sun had set, the mountain still shone through the
clear blue air. The white water birds touched the surface of the sea
with their wings, and all here was as calm and quiet as among the
black rocks at Delphi. I lay on my back in the boat, Anastasia leaned
against me, and the stars above us shone brighter than the lamps in
our church. They were the same stars, and they stood exactly in the
same positions above me, as when I had sat in front of our hut at
Delphi; and at last I almost fancied I was there. Suddenly there was a
splash in the water, and the boat rocked violently. I cried out in
horror, for Anastasia had fallen into the water: but in a moment
Aphtanides had sprung in after her, and was holding her up to me! We
dried her clothes as well as we could, remaining on the water till
they were dry; for no one was to know what a fright we had had for our
little adopted sister, in whose life Aphtanides now had a part.
The summer came. The sun burned so hot that the leaves turned yellow
on the trees. I thought of our cool mountains, and of the fresh water
they contained; my mother, too, longed for them; and one evening we
wandered home. What peace, what silence! We walked on through the
thick thyme, still fragrant though the sun had scorched its leaves.
Not a single herdsman did we meet, not one solitary hut did we pass.
Everything was quiet and deserted; but a shooting star announced that
in heaven there was yet life. I know not if the clear blue air gleamed
with light of its own, or if the radiance came from the stars; but we
could see the outlines of the mountains quite plainly. My mother
lighted a fire, roasted some roots she had brought with her, and I and
my little sister slept among the thyme, without fear of the ugly
Smidraki,[4] from whose throat fire spurts forth, or of the wolf and
jackal; for my mother sat beside us, and I considered her presence
protection enough for us.
We reached our old home; but the hut was a heap of ruins, and a new
one had to be built. A few women lent my mother their aid, and in a
few days walls were raised, and covered with a new roof of olive
branches. My mother made many bottle cases of bark and skins; I kept
the little flock of the priests,[5] and Anastasia and the little
tortoises were my playmates.
[Footnote 4: According to the Greek superstition, this is a monster
generated from the unopened entrails of slaughtered sheep, which are
thrown away in the fields.]
[Footnote 5: A peasant who can read often becomes a priest; he is then
called "very holy Sir," and the lower orders kiss the ground on which
he has stepped.]
Once we had a visit from our beloved Aphtanides, who said he had
greatly longed to see us, and who stayed with us two whole happy days.
A month afterwards he came again, and told us that he was going in a
ship to Corfu and Patras, but must bid us good-bye first; and he had
brought a large fish for our mother. He had a great deal to tell, not
only of the fishermen yonder in the Gulf of Lepanto, but also of
kings and heroes, who had once possessed Greece, just as the Turks
possess it now.
I have seen a bud on a rose-bush gradually unfold in days and weeks,
till it became a rose, and hung there in its beauty, before I was
aware how large and beautiful and red it had become; and the same
thing I now saw in Anastasia. She was now a beautiful grown girl, and
I had become a stout stripling. The wolf-skins that covered my
mother's and Anastasia's bed, I had myself taken from wolves that had
fallen beneath my shots.
Years had gone by, when one evening Aphtanides came in, slender as a
reed, strong and brown. He kissed us all, and had much to tell of the
fortifications of Malta, of the great ocean, and of the marvellous
sepulchres of Egypt. It sounded strange as a legend of the priests,
and I looked up to him with a kind of veneration.
"How much you know!" I exclaimed; "what wonders you can tell of!"
"But you have told me the finest thing, after all," he replied. "You
told me of a thing that has never been out of my thoughts--of the good
old custom of the bond of friendship, a custom I should like to
follow. Brother, let you and I go to church, as your father and
Anastasia's went before us: your sister Anastasia is the most
beautiful and most innocent of girls; she shall consecrate us! No
people has such grand old customs as we Greeks."
Anastasia blushed like a young rose, and my mother kissed Aphtanides.
A couple of miles from our house there, where loose earth lies on the
hill, and a few scattered trees give a shelter, stood the little
church; a silver lamp hung in front of the altar.
I had put on my best clothes: the white fustanella fell in rich folds
around my hips, the red jacket fitted tight and close, the tassel on
my fez cap was silver, and in my girdle gleamed a knife and my
pistols. Aphtanides was clad in the blue garb worn by Greek sailors;
on his chest hung a silver plate with the figure of the Virgin Mary;
his scarf was as costly as those worn by rich lords. Every one could
see that we were about to go through a solemn ceremony. We stepped
into the little simple church, where the evening sunlight, streaming
through the door, gleamed on the burning lamp and the pictures on
golden ground. We knelt down on the altar steps, and Anastasia came
before us. A long white garment hung loose over her graceful form; on
her white neck and bosom hung a chain, covered with old and new coins,
forming a kind of collar. Her black hair was fastened in a knot, and
confined by a head-dress made of silver and gold coins that had been
found in an old temple. No Greek girl had more beautiful ornaments
than she. Her countenance glowed, and her eyes were like two stars.
We all three prayed silently; and then she said to us, "Will you be
friends in life and in death?" "Yes," we replied. "Will you, whatever
may happen, remember this--my brother is a part of myself. My secret
is his, my happiness is his. Self-sacrifice, patience--everything in
me belongs to him as to me?" And we again answered, "Yes."
Then she joined our hands and kissed us on the forehead, and we again
prayed silently. Then the priest came through the door near the altar,
and blessed us all three; and a song, sung by the other holy men,
sounded from behind the altar screen, and the bond of eternal
friendship was concluded. When we rose, I saw my mother standing by
the church door weeping heartily.
How cheerful it was now, in our little hut, and by the springs of
Delphi! On the evening before his departure, Aphtanides sat thoughtful
with me on the declivity of a mountain; his arm was flung round my
waist, and mine was round his neck: we spoke of the sorrows of Greece,
and of the men whom the country could trust. Every thought of our
souls lay clear before each of us, and I seized his hand.
"One thing thou must still know, one thing that till now has been a
secret between myself and Heaven. My whole soul is filled with love!
with a love stronger than the love I bear to my mother and to thee!"
"And whom do you love?" asked Aphtanides, and his face and neck grew
red as fire.
"I love Anastasia," I replied--and his hand trembled in mine, and he
became pale as a corpse. I saw it; I understood the cause; and I
believe _my_ hand trembled. I bent towards him, kissed his forehead,
and whispered, "I have never spoken of it to her, and perhaps she does
not love me. Brother, think of this: I have seen her daily; she has
grown up beside me, and has become a part of my soul!"
"And she shall be thine!" he exclaimed, "thine! I may not deceive
thee, nor will I do so. I also love her; but to-morrow I depart. In a
year we shall see each other once more, and then you will be married,
will you not? I have a little gold of my own: it shall be thine. Thou
must, thou shalt take it."
And we wandered home silently across the mountains. It was late in the
evening when we stood at my mother's door.
Anastasia held the lamp upwards as we entered; my mother was not
there. She gazed at Aphtanides with a beautifully mournful gaze.
"To-morrow you are going from us," she said: "I am very sorry for
it."
"Sorry!" he repeated, and in his voice there seemed a trouble as great
as the grief I myself felt. I could not speak, but he seized her hand
and said, "Our brother yonder loves you, and he is dear to you, is he
not? His very silence is a proof of his affection."
Anastasia trembled and burst into tears. Then I saw no one but her,
thought of none but her, and threw my arms round her, and said, "I
love thee!" She pressed her lips to mine, and flung her arms round my
neck; but the lamp had fallen to the ground, and all was dark around
us--dark as in the heart of poor Aphtanides.
Before daybreak he rose, kissed us all, said farewell, and went away.
He had given all his money to my mother for us. Anastasia was my
betrothed, and a few days afterwards she became my wife.
JACK THE DULLARD.
AN OLD STORY TOLD ANEW.
Far in the interior of the country lay an old baronial hall, and in it
lived an old proprietor, who had two sons, which two young men thought
themselves too clever by half. They wanted to go out and woo the
king's daughter; for the maiden in question had publicly announced
that she would choose for her husband that youth who could arrange his
words best.
So these two geniuses prepared themselves a full week for the
wooing--this was the longest time that could be granted them; but it
was enough, for they had had much preparatory information, and
everybody knows how useful that is. One of them knew the whole Latin
dictionary by heart, and three whole years of the daily paper of the
little town into the bargain; and so well, indeed, that he could
repeat it all either backwards or forwards, just as he chose. The
other was deeply read in the corporation laws, and knew by heart what
every corporation ought to know; and accordingly he thought he could
talk of affairs of state, and put his spoke in the wheel in the
council. And he knew one thing more: he could embroider braces with
roses and other flowers, and with arabesques, for he was a tasty,
light-fingered fellow.
"I shall win the princess!" So cried both of them. Therefore their old
papa gave to each a handsome horse. The youth who knew the dictionary
and newspaper by heart had a black horse, and he who knew all about
the corporation laws received a milk-white steed. Then they rubbed the
corners of their mouths with fish-oil, so that they might become very
smooth and glib. All the servants stood below in the courtyard, and
looked on while they mounted their horses; and just by chance the
third son came up. For the proprietor had really three sons, though
nobody counted the third with his brothers, because he was not so
learned as they, and indeed he was generally known as "Jack the
Dullard."
"Hallo!" said Jack the Dullard, "where are you going? I declare you
have put on your Sunday clothes!"
"We're going to the king's court, as suitors to the king's daughter.
Don't you know the announcement that has been made all through the
country?" And they told him all about it.
"My word! I'll be in it too!" cried Jack the Dullard; and his two
brothers burst out laughing at him, and rode away.
"Father dear," said Jack, "I must have a horse too. I do feel so
desperately inclined to marry! If she accepts me, she accepts me; and
if she won't have me, I'll have her; but she _shall_ be mine!"
"Don't talk nonsense," replied the old gentleman. "You shall have no
horse from me. You don't know how to speak--you can't arrange your
words. Your brothers are very different fellows from you."
"Well," quoth Jack the Dullard, "if I can't have a horse, I'll take
the billy-goat, who belongs to me, and he can carry me very well!"
And so said, so done. He mounted the billy-goat, pressed his heels
into its sides, and gallopped down the high street like a hurricane.
"Hei, houp! that was a ride! Here I come!" shouted Jack the Dullard,
and he sang till his voice echoed far and wide.
But his brothers rode slowly on in advance of him. They spoke not a
word, for they were thinking about all the fine extempore speeches
they would have to bring out, and all these had to be cleverly
prepared beforehand.
"Hallo!" shouted Jack the Dullard. "Here am I! Look what I have found
on the high-road." And he showed them what it was, and it was a dead
crow.
"Dullard!" exclaimed the brothers, "what are you going to do with
that?"
"With the crow? why, I am going to give it to the princess."
"Yes, do so," said they; and they laughed, and rode on.
"Hallo, here I am again! Just see what I have found now: you don't
find that on the high-road every day!"
And the brothers turned round to see what he could have found now.
[Illustration: JACK'S INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCESS.]
"Dullard!" they cried, "that is only an old wooden shoe, and the upper
part is missing into the bargain; are you going to give that also to
the princess?"
"Most certainly I shall," replied Jack the Dullard; and again the
brothers laughed and rode on, and thus they got far in advance of him;
but----
"Hallo--hop rara!" and there was Jack the Dullard again. "It is
getting better and better," he cried. "Hurrah! it is quite famous."
"Why, what have you found this time?" inquired the brothers.
"Oh," said Jack the Dullard, "I can hardly tell you. How glad the
princess will be!"
"Bah!" said the brothers; "that is nothing but clay out of the ditch."
"Yes, certainly it is," said Jack the Dullard; "and clay of the finest
sort. See, it is so wet, it runs through one's fingers." And he filled
his pocket with the clay.
But his brothers gallopped on till the sparks flew, and consequently
they arrived a full hour earlier at the town-gate than could Jack. Now
at the gate each suitor was provided with a number, and all were
placed in rows immediately on their arrival, six in each row, and so
closely packed together that they could not move their arms; and that
was a prudent arrangement, for they would certainly have come to
blows, had they been able, merely because one of them stood before the
other.
All the inhabitants of the country round about stood in great crowds
around the castle, almost under the very windows, to see the princess
receive the suitors; and as each stepped into the hall, his power of
speech seemed to desert him, like the light of a candle that is blown
out. Then the princess would say, "He is of no use! away with him out
of the hall!"
At last the turn came for that brother who knew the dictionary by
heart; but he did not know it now; he had absolutely forgotten it
altogether; and the boards seemed to re-echo with his footsteps, and
the ceiling of the hall was made of looking-glass, so that he saw
himself standing on his head; and at the window stood three clerks and
a head clerk, and every one of them was writing down every single word
that was uttered, so that it might be printed in the newspapers, and
sold for a penny at the street corners. It was a terrible ordeal, and
they had moreover made such a fire in the stove, that the room seemed
quite red hot.
"It is dreadfully hot here!" observed the first brother.
"Yes," replied the princess, "my father is going to roast young
pullets to-day."
"Baa!" there he stood like a baa-lamb. He had not been prepared for a
speech of this kind; and had not a word to say, though he intended to
say something witty. "Baa!"
"He is of no use!" said the princess. "Away with him."
And he was obliged to go accordingly. And now the second brother came
in.
"It is terribly warm here!" he observed.
"Yes, we're roasting pullets to-day," replied the princess.
"What--what were you--were you pleased to ob----" stammered he--and
all the clerks wrote down, "pleased to ob----"
"He is of no use!" said the princess. "Away with him!"
Now came the turn of Jack the Dullard. He rode into the hall on his
goat.
"Well, it's most abominably hot here."
"Yes, because I'm roasting young pullets," replied the princess.
"Ah, that's lucky!" exclaimed Jack the Dullard, "for I suppose you'll
let me roast my crow at the same time?"
"With the greatest pleasure," said the princess. "But have you
anything you can roast it in? for I have neither pot nor pan."
"Certainly I have!" said Jack. "Here's a cooking utensil with a tin
handle." And he brought out the old wooden shoe, and put the crow into
it.
"Well, that _is_ a famous dish!" said the princess. "But what shall we
do for sauce?"
"Oh, I have that in my pocket," said Jack: "I have so much of it, that
I can afford to throw some away;" and he poured some of the clay out
of his pocket.
"I like that!" said the princess. "You can give an answer, and you
have something to say for yourself, and so you shall be my husband.
But are you aware that every word we speak is being taken down, and
will be published in the paper to-morrow? Look yonder, and you will
see in every window three clerks and a head clerk; and the old head
clerk is the worst of all, for he can't understand anything." But she
only said this to frighten Jack the Dullard: and the clerks gave a
great crow of delight, and each one spurted a blot out of his pen on
to the floor.
"Oh, those are the gentlemen, are they?" said Jack; "then I will give
the best I have to the head clerk." And he turned out his pockets, and
flung the wet clay full in the head clerk's face.
"That was very cleverly done," observed the princess. "I could not
have done that; but I shall learn in time."
And accordingly Jack the Dullard was made a king, and received a crown
and a wife, and sat upon a throne. And this report we have wet from
the press of the head clerk and the corporation of printers--but they
are not to be depended upon in the least!
SOMETHING.
"I want to be something!" said the eldest of five brothers. "I want to
do something in the world. I don't care how humble my position may be
in society, if I only effect some good, for that will really be
something. I'll make bricks, for they are quite indispensable things,
and then I shall truly have done something."
"But that _something_ will not be enough!" quoth the second brother.
"What you intend doing is just as much as nothing at all. It is
journeyman's work, and can be done by a machine. No, I would rather be
a bricklayer at once, for that _is_ something real; and that's what I
will be. That brings rank; as a bricklayer one belongs to a guild, and
is a citizen, and has one's own flag and one's own house of call. Yes,
and if all goes well, I will keep journeymen. I shall become a master
bricklayer, and my wife will be a master's wife--that is what _I_ call
something."
"That's nothing at all!" said the third. "That is beyond the pale of
the guild, and there are many of those in a town that stand far above
the mere master artizan. You may be an honest man; but as a 'master'
you will after all only belong to those who are ranked among common
men. I know something better than that. I will be an architect, and
will thus enter into the territory of art and speculation. I shall be
reckoned among those who stand high in point of intellect. I shall
certainly have to serve up from the pickaxe, so to speak; so I must
begin as a carpenter's apprentice, and must go about as an assistant,
in a cap, though I am accustomed to wear a silk hat. I shall have to
fetch beer and spirits for the common journeymen, and they will call
me 'thou,' and that is insulting! But I shall imagine to myself that
the whole thing is only acting, and a kind of masquerade.
To-morrow--that is to say, when I have served my time--I shall go my
own way, and the others will be nothing to me. I shall go to the
academy, and get instructions in drawing, and shall be called an
architect. _That's something!_ I may get to be called 'sir,' and even
'worshipful sir,' or even get a handle at the front or at the back of
my name, and shall go on building and building, just as those before
me have built. That will always be a thing to remember, and that's
what I call something!"
"But I don't care at all for _that_ something," said the fourth. "_I_
won't sail in the wake of others, and be a copyist. I will be a
genius; and will stand up greater than all the rest of you together. I
shall be the creator of a new style, and will give the plan of a
building suitable to the climate and the material of the country, for
the nationality of the people, for the development of the age--and an
additional storey for my own genius."
"But supposing the climate and the material are bad," said the fifth,
"that would be a disastrous circumstance, for these two exert a great
influence! Nationality, moreover, may expand itself until it becomes
affectation, and the development of the century may run wild with your
work, as youth often runs wild. I quite realise the fact that none of
you will be anything real, however much you may believe in yourselves.
But, do what you like, I will not resemble you: I shall keep on the
outside of things, and criticise whatever you produce. To every work
there is attached something that is not right--something that has gone
wrong; and I will ferret that out and find fault with it; and _that_
will be doing _something_!"
And he kept his word; and everybody said concerning this fifth
brother, "There is certainly something in him; he has a good head; but
he does nothing." And by that very means they thought _something_ of
him!
Now, you see, this is only a little story; but it will never end so
long as the world lasts.
But what became of the five brothers? Why, this is _nothing_, and not
_something_.
Listen, it is a capital story.
The eldest brother, he who manufactured bricks, soon became aware of
the fact that every brick, however small it might be, produced for him
a little coin, though this coin was only copper; and many copper
pennies laid one upon the other can be changed into a shining dollar;
and wherever one knocks with such a dollar in one's hand, whether at
the baker's, or the butcher's, or the tailor's--wherever it may be,
the door flies open, and the visitor is welcomed, and gets what he
wants. You see that is what comes of bricks. Some of those belonging
to the eldest brother certainly crumbled away, or broke in two, but
there was a use even for these.
On the high rampart, the wall that kept out the sea, Margaret, the
poor woman, wished to build herself a little house. All the faulty
bricks were given to her, and a few perfect ones into the bargain, for
the eldest brother was a good-natured man, though he certainly did not
achieve anything beyond the manufacture of bricks. The poor woman put
together the house for herself. It was little and narrow, and the
single window was quite crooked. The door was too low, and the
thatched roof might have shown better workmanship. But after all it
was a shelter; and from the little house you could look far across the
sea, whose waves broke vainly against the protecting rampart on which
it was built. The salt billows spurted their spray over the whole
house, which was still standing when he who had given the bricks for
its erection had long been dead and buried.
The second brother knew better how to build a wall, for he had served
an apprenticeship to it. When he had served his time and passed his
examination he packed his knapsack and sang the journeyman's song:
"While I am young I'll wander, from place to place I'll roam,
And everywhere build houses, until I come back home;
And youth will give me courage, and my true love won't forget:
Hurrah then for a workman's life! I'll be a master yet!"
And he carried his idea into effect. When he had come home and become
a master, he built one house after another in the town. He built a
whole street; and when the street was finished and became an ornament
to the place, the houses built a house for him in return, that was to
be his own. But how can houses build a house? If you ask them they
will not answer you, but people will understand what is meant by the
expression, and say, 'certainly, it was the street that built his
house for him.' It was little, and the floor was covered with clay;
but when he danced with his bride upon this clay floor, it seemed to
become polished oak; and from every stone in the wall sprang forth a
flower, and the room was gay, as if with the costliest paper-hanger's
work. It was a pretty house, and in it lived a happy pair. The flag of
the guild fluttered before the house, and the journeymen and
apprentices shouted hurrah! Yes, he certainly was _something_! And at
last he died; and _that_ was something too.
Now came the architect, the third brother, who had been at first a
carpenter's apprentice, had worn a cap, and served as an errand boy,
but had afterwards gone to the academy, and risen to become an
architect, and to be called "honoured sir." Yes, if the houses of the
street had built a house for the brother who had become a bricklayer,
the street now received its name from the architect, and the
handsomest house in it became his property. _That_ was something, and
_he_ was something; and he had a long title before and after his name.
His children were called _genteel_ children, and when he died his
widow was "a widow of rank," and _that_ is something!--and his name
always remained at the corner of the street, and lived on in the
mouth of every one as the street's name--and _that_ was something!
Now came the genius of the family, the fourth brother, who wanted to
invent something new and original, and an additional storey on the top
of it for himself. But the top storey tumbled down, and he came
tumbling down with it, and broke his neck. Nevertheless he had a
splendid funeral, with guild flags and music; poems in the papers, and
flowers strewn on the paving-stones in the street; and three funeral
orations were held over him, each one longer than the last, which
would have rejoiced him greatly, for he always liked it when people
talked about him; a monument also was erected over his grave. It was
only one storey high, but still it was _something_.
Now he was dead like the three other brothers; but the last, the one
who was a critic, outlived them all: and that was quite right, for by
this means he got the last word, and it was of great importance to him
to have the last word. The people always said he had a good head of
his own. At last his hour came, and he died, and came to the gates of
Paradise. There souls always enter two and two, and he came up with
another soul that wanted to get into Paradise too; and who should this
be but old dame Margaret from the house upon the sea wall.
"I suppose this is done for the sake of contrast, that I and this
wretched soul should arrive here at exactly the same time!" said the
critic. "Pray who are you, my good woman?" he asked. "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 talking to her.
"I'm a poor old woman of a very humble family," she replied. "I'm old
Margaret that lived in the house on the sea wall."
"Well, and what have you done? what have you accomplished down there?"
"I have really accomplished nothing at all in the world: nothing that
I can plead to have the doors here opened to me. It would be a real
mercy to allow me to slip in through the gate."
"In what manner did you leave the world?" asked he, just for the sake
of saying something; for it was wearisome work standing there and
saying nothing.
"Why, I really don't know how I left it. I was sick and miserable
during my last years, and could not well bear creeping out of bed, and
going out suddenly into the frost and cold. It was a hard winter, but
I have got out of it all now. For a few days the weather was quite
calm, but very cold, as your honour must very well know. The sea was
covered with ice as far as one could look. All the people from the
town walked out upon the ice, and I think they said there was a dance
there, and skating. There was beautiful music and a great feast there
too; the sound came into my poor little room, where I lay ill. And it
was towards the evening; the moon had risen beautifully, but was not
yet in its full splendour; I looked from my bed out over the wide sea,
and far off, just where the sea and sky join, a strange white cloud
came up. I lay looking at the cloud, and I saw a little black spot in
the middle of it, that grew larger and larger; and now I knew what it
meant, for I am old and experienced, though this token is not often
seen. I knew it, and a shuddering came upon me. Twice in my life I
have seen the same thing; and I knew there would be an awful tempest,
and a spring flood, which would overwhelm the poor people who were now
drinking and dancing and rejoicing--young and old, the whole city had
issued forth--who was to warn them, if no one saw what was coming
yonder, or knew, as I did, what it meant? I was dreadfully alarmed,
and felt more lively than I had done for a long time. I crept out of
bed, and got to the window, but could not crawl farther, I was so
exhausted. But I managed to open the window. I saw the people outside
running and jumping about on the ice; I could see the beautiful flags
that waved in the wind. I heard the boys shouting 'hurrah!' and the
servant men and maids singing. There were all kinds of merriment going
on. But the white cloud with the black spot! I cried out as loud as I
could, but no one heard me; I was too far from the people. Soon the
storm would burst, and the ice would break, and all who were upon it
would be lost without remedy. They could not hear me, and I could not
come out to them. Oh, if I could only bring them ashore! Then kind
Heaven inspired me with the thought of setting fire to my bed, and
rather to let the house burn down, than that all those people should
perish so miserably. I succeeded in lighting up a beacon for them. The
red flame blazed up on high, and I escaped out of the door, but fell
down exhausted on the threshold, and could get no farther. The flames
rushed out towards me, flickered through the window, and rose high
above the roof. All the people on the ice yonder beheld it, and ran as
fast as they could, to give aid to a poor old woman who, they thought,
was being burned to death. Not one remained behind. I heard them
coming; but I also became aware of a rushing sound in the air; I heard
a rumbling like the sound of heavy artillery; the spring-flood was
lifting the covering of ice, which presently cracked and burst into a
thousand fragments. But the people succeeded in reaching the
sea-wall--I saved them all! But I fancy I could not bear the cold and
the fright, and so I came up here to the gates of Paradise. I am told
they are opened to poor creatures like me--and now I have no house
left down upon the rampart: not that I think this will give me
admission here."
Then the gates of heaven were opened, and the angel led the old woman
in. She left a straw behind her, a straw that had been in her bed when
she set it on fire to save the lives of many; and this straw had been
changed into the purest gold--into gold that grew and grew, and spread
out into beauteous leaves and flowers.
[Illustration: DAME MARGERY FIRES HER BED FOR A BEACON.]
"Look, this is what the poor woman brought," said the angel to the
critic. "What dost _thou_ bring? I know that thou hast accomplished
nothing--thou hast not made so much as a single brick. Ah, if thou
couldst only return, and effect at least so much as that! Probably the
brick, when thou hadst made it, would not be worth much; but if it
were made with good-will, it would at least be _something_. But thou
canst not go back, and I can do nothing for thee!"
Then the poor soul, the old dame who had lived on the dyke, put in a
petition for him. She said,
"His brother gave me the bricks and the pieces out of which I built up
my house, and that was a great deal for a poor woman like me. Could
not all those bricks and pieces be counted as a single brick in his
favour? It was an act of mercy. He wants it now; and is not this the
very fountain of mercy?"
Then the angel said:
"Thy brother, him whom thou hast regarded as the least among you all,
he whose honest industry seemed to thee as the most humble, hath given
thee this heavenly gift. Thou shalt not be turned away. It shall be
vouchsafed to thee to stand here without the gate, and to reflect, and
repent of thy life down yonder; but thou shalt not be admitted until
thou hast in real earnest accomplished _something_."
"I could have said that in better words!" thought the critic, but he
did not find fault aloud; and for him, after all, that was
"SOMETHING!"
UNDER THE WILLOW TREE.
The region round the little town of Kjöge is very bleak and bare. The
town certainly lies by the sea shore, which is always beautiful, but
just there it might be more beautiful than it is: all around are flat
fields, and it is a long way to the forest. But when one is very much
at home in a place, one always finds something beautiful, and
something that one longs for in the most charming spot in the world
that is strange to us. We confess that, by the utmost boundary of the
little town, where some humble gardens skirt the streamlet that falls
into the sea, it must be very pretty in summer; and this was the
opinion of the two children from neighbouring houses, who were playing
there, and forcing their way through the gooseberry bushes, to get to
one another. In one of the gardens stood an elder tree, and in the
other an old willow, and under the latter the children were especially
very fond of playing; they were allowed to play there, though, indeed,
the tree stood close beside the stream, and they might easily have
fallen into the water. But the eye of God watches over the little
ones; if it did not, they would be badly off. And, moreover, they were
very careful with respect to the water; in fact, the boy was so much
afraid of it, that they could not lure him into the sea in summer,
when the other children were splashing about in the waves.
Accordingly, he was famously jeered and mocked at, and had to bear
the jeering and mockery as best he could. But once Joanna, the
neighbour's little girl, dreamed she was sailing in a boat, and Knud
waded out to join her till the water rose, first to his neck, and
afterwards closed over his head, so that he disappeared altogether.
From the time when little Knud heard of this dream, he would no longer
bear the teasing of the other boys. He might go into the water now, he
said, for Joanna had dreamed it. He certainly never carried the idea
into practice, but the dream was his great guide for all that.
Their parents, who were poor people, often took tea together, and Knud
and Joanna played in the gardens and on the high-road, where a row of
willows had been planted beside the skirting ditch; these trees, with
their polled tops, certainly did not look beautiful, but they were not
put there for ornament, but for use. The old willow tree in the garden
was much handsomer, and therefore the children were fond of sitting
under it. In the town itself there was a great market-place, and at
the time of the fair this place was covered with whole streets of
tents and booths, containing silk ribbons, boots, and everything that
a person could wish for. There was great crowding, and generally the
weather was rainy; but it did not destroy the fragrance of the
honey-cakes and the gingerbread, of which there was a booth quite
full; and the best of it was, that the man who kept this booth came
every year to lodge during the fair-time in the dwelling of little
Knud's father. Consequently there came a present of a bit of
gingerbread every now and then, and of course Joanna received her
share of the gift. But, perhaps the most charming thing of all was
that the gingerbread dealer knew all sorts of tales, and could even
relate histories about his own gingerbread cakes; and one evening, in
particular, he told a story about them which made such a deep
impression on the children that they never forgot it; and for that
reason it is perhaps advisable that we should hear it too, more
especially as the story is not long.
"On the shop-board," he said, "lay two gingerbread cakes, one in the
shape of a man with a hat, the other of a maiden without a bonnet;
both their faces were on the side that was uppermost, for they were to
be looked at on that side, and not on the other; and, indeed, most
people have a favourable side from which they should be viewed. On the
left side the man wore a bitter almond--that was his heart; but the
maiden, on the other hand, was honey-cake all over. They were placed
as samples on the shop-board, and remaining there a long time, at last
they fell in love with one another, but neither told the other, as
they should have done if they had expected anything to come of it.
"'He is a man, and therefore he must speak first,' she thought; but
she felt quite contented, for she knew her love was returned.
"His thoughts were far more extravagant, as is always the case with a
man. He dreamed that he was a real street boy, that he had four
pennies of his own, and that he purchased the maiden, and ate her up.
So they lay on the shop-board for weeks and weeks, and grew dry and
hard, but the thoughts of the maiden became ever more gentle and
maidenly.
"'It is enough for me that I have lived on the same table with him,'
she said, and crack! she broke in two.
"'If she had only known of my love, she would have kept together a
little longer,' he thought.
"And that is the story, and here they are, both of them," said the
baker in conclusion. "They are remarkable for their curious history,
and for their silent love, which never came to anything. And there
they are for you!" and, so saying, he gave Joanna the man who was yet
entire, and Knud got the broken maiden; but the children had been so
much impressed by the story that they could not summon courage to eat
the lovers up.
On the following day they went out with them to the churchyard, and
sat down by the church wall, which is covered, winter and summer, with
the most luxuriant ivy as with a rich carpet. Here they stood the two
cake figures up in the sunshine among the green leaves, and told the
story to a group of other children; they told them of the silent love
which led to nothing. It was called _love_ because the story was so
lovely, on that they all agreed. But when they turned to look again at
the gingerbread pair, a big boy, out of mischief, had eaten up the
broken maiden. The children cried about this, and afterwards--probably
that the poor lover might not be left in the world lonely and
desolate--they ate him up too; but they never forgot the story.
The children were always together by the elder tree and under the
willow, and the little girl sang the most beautiful songs with a voice
that was clear as a bell. Knud, on the other hand, had not a note of
music in him, but he knew the words of the songs, and that, at least,
was something. The people of Kjöge, even to the rich wife of the
fancy-shop keeper, stood still and listened when Joanna sang. "She has
a very sweet voice, that little girl," they said.
Those were glorious days, but they could not last for ever. The
neighbours were neighbours no longer. The little maiden's mother was
dead, and the father intended to marry again, in the capital, where he
had been promised a living as a messenger, which was to be a very
lucrative office. And the neighbours separated regretfully, the
children weeping heartily, but the parents promised that they should
at least write to one another once a year.
[Illustration: THE NAUGHTY BOY WHO ATE THE GINGERBREAD MAIDEN.]
And Knud was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, for the big boy could
not be allowed to run wild any longer; and moreover he was confirmed.
Ah, how gladly on that day of celebration would he have been in
Copenhagen with little Joanna! but he remained in Kjöge, and had never
yet been to Copenhagen, though the little town is only five Danish
miles distant from the capital; but far across the bay, when the sky
was clear, Knud had seen the towers in the distance, and on the day of
his confirmation he could distinctly see the golden cross on the
principal church glittering in the sun.
Ah, how often his thoughts were with Joanna! Did she think of him?
Yes. Towards Christmas there came a letter from her father to the
parents of Knud, to say that they were getting on very well in
Copenhagen, and especially might Joanna look forward to a brilliant
future on the strength of her fine voice. She had been engaged in the
theatre in which people sing, and was already earning some money, out
of which she sent her dear neighbours of Kjöge a dollar for the merry
Christmas Eve. They were to drink her health, she had herself added in
a postscript, and in the same postscript there stood further, "A kind
greeting to Knud."
The whole family wept: and yet all this was very pleasant; those were
joyful tears that they shed. Knud's thoughts had been occupied every
day with Joanna; and now he knew that she also thought of him: and the
nearer the time came when his apprenticeship would be over, the more
clearly did it appear to him that he was very fond of Joanna, and that
she must be his wife; and when he thought of this, a smile came upon
his lips, and he drew the thread twice as fast as before, and pressed
his foot hard against the knee-strap. He ran the awl far into his
finger, but he did not care for that. He determined not to play the
dumb lover, as the two gingerbread cakes had done: the story should
teach him a lesson.
And now he was a journeyman, and his knapsack was packed ready for his
journey: at length, for the first time in his life, he was to go to
Copenhagen, where a master was already waiting for him. How glad
Joanna would be! She was now seventeen years old, and he nineteen.
Already in Kjöge he had wanted to buy a gold ring for her; but he
recollected that such things were to be had far better in Copenhagen.
And now he took leave of his parents, and on a rainy day, late in the
autumn, went forth on foot out of the town of his birth. The leaves
were falling down from the trees, and he arrived at his new master's
in the metropolis wet to the skin. Next Sunday he was to pay a visit
to Joanna's father. The new journeyman's clothes were brought forth,
and the new hat from Kjöge was put on, which became Knud very well,
for till this time he had only worn a cap. And he found the house he
sought, and mounted flight after flight of stairs until he became
almost giddy. It was terrible to him to see how people lived piled up
one over the other in the dreadful city.
Everything in the room had a prosperous look, and Joanna's father
received him very kindly. To the new wife he was a stranger, but she
shook hands with him, and gave him some coffee.
"Joanna will be glad to see you," said the father: "you have grown
quite a nice young man. You shall see her presently. She is a girl who
rejoices my heart, and, please God, she will rejoice it yet more. She
has her own room now, and pays us rent for it." And the father knocked
quite politely at the door, as if he were a visitor, and then they
went in.
But how pretty everything was in that room! such an apartment was
certainly not to be found in all Kjöge: the queen herself could not be
more charmingly lodged. There were carpets, there were window curtains
quite down to the floor, and around were flowers and pictures, and a
mirror into which there was almost danger that a visitor might step,
for it was as large as a door; and there was even a velvet chair.
Knud saw all this at a glance: and yet he saw nothing but Joanna. She
was a grown maiden, quite different from what Knud had fancied her,
and much more beautiful. In all Kjöge there was not a girl like her.
How graceful she was, and with what an odd unfamiliar glance she
looked at Knud! But that was only for a moment, and then she rushed
towards him as if she would have kissed him. She did not really do so,
but she came very near it. Yes, she was certainly rejoiced at the
arrival of the friend of her youth! The tears were actually in her
eyes; and she had much to say, and many questions to put concerning
all, from Knud's parents down to the elder tree and the willow, which
she called Elder-mother and Willow-father, as if they had been human
beings; and indeed they might pass as such, just as well as the
gingerbread cakes; and of these she spoke too, and of their silent
love, and how they had lain upon the shop-board and split in two--and
then she laughed very heartily; but the blood mounted into Knud's
cheeks, and his heart beat thick and fast. No, she had not grown proud
at all. And it was through her--he noticed it well--that her parents
invited him to stay the whole evening with them; and she poured out
the tea and gave him a cup with her own hands; and afterwards she took
a book and read aloud to them, and it seemed to Knud that what she
read was all about himself and his love, for it matched so well with
his thoughts; and then she sang a simple song, but through her singing
it became like a history, and seemed to be the outpouring of her very
heart. Yes, certainly she was fond of Knud. The tears coursed down his
cheeks--he could not restrain them, nor could he speak a single word:
he seemed to himself as if he were struck dumb; and yet she pressed
his hand, and said,
"You have a good heart, Knud--remain always as you are now."
That was an evening of matchless delight to Knud; to sleep after it
was impossible, and accordingly Knud did not sleep.
At parting, Joanna's father had said, "Now, you won't forget us
altogether! Don't let the whole winter go by without once coming to
see us again;" and therefore he could very well go again the next
Sunday, and resolved to do so. But every evening when working hours
were over--and they worked by candlelight there--Knud went out through
the town: he went into the street in which Joanna lived, and looked up
at her window; it was almost always lit up, and one evening he could
see the shadow of her face quite plainly on the curtain--and that was
a grand evening for him. His master's wife did not like his
gallivanting abroad every evening, as she expressed it; and she shook
her head; but the master only smiled.
"He is only a young fellow," he said.
But Knud thought to himself: "On Sunday I shall see her, and I shall
tell her how completely she reigns in my heart and soul, and that she
must be my little wife. I know I am only a poor journeyman shoemaker,
but I shall work and strive--yes, I shall tell her so. Nothing comes
of silent love: I have learned that from the cakes."
And Sunday came round, and Knud sallied forth; but, unluckily, they
were all invited out for that evening, and were obliged to tell him
so. Joanna pressed his hand and said,
"Have you ever been to the theatre? You must go once. I shall sing on
Wednesday, and if you have time on that evening, I will send you a
ticket; my father knows where your master lives."
How kind that was of her! And on Wednesday at noon he received a
sealed paper, with no words written in it; but the ticket was there,
and in the evening Knud went to the theatre for the first time in his
life. And what did he see? He saw Joanna, and how charming and how
beautiful she looked! She was certainly married to a stranger, but
that was all in the play--something that was only make-believe, as
Knud knew very well. If it had been real, he thought, she would never
have had the heart to send him a ticket that he might go and see it.
And all the people shouted and applauded, and Knud cried out "hurrah!"
Even the king smiled at Joanna, and seemed to delight in her. Ah, how
small Knud felt! but then he loved her so dearly, and thought that
she loved him too; but it was for the man to speak the first word, as
the gingerbread maiden in the child's story had taught him: and there
was a great deal for him in that story.
So soon as Sunday came, he went again. He felt as if he were going
into a church. Joanna was alone, and received him--it could not have
happened more fortunately. "It is well that you are come," she said.
[Illustration: KNUD'S DISAPPOINTMENT.]
"I had an idea of sending my father to you, only I felt a presentiment
that you would be here this evening; for I must tell you that I start
for France on Friday: I must go there, if I am to become efficient."
It seemed to Knud as if the whole room were whirling round and round
with him. He felt as if his heart would presently burst: no tear rose
to his eyes, but still it was easy to see how sorrowful he was.
"You honest, faithful soul!" she exclaimed; and these words of hers
loosened Knud's tongue. He told her how constantly he loved her, and
that she must become his wife; and as he said this, he saw Joanna
change colour and turn pale. She let his hand fall, and answered,
seriously and mournfully,
"Knud, do not make yourself and me unhappy. I shall always be a good
sister to you, one in whom you may trust, but I shall never be
anything more." And she drew her white hand over his hot forehead.
"Heaven gives us strength for much," she said, "if we only endeavour
to do our best."
At that moment the stepmother came into the room; and Joanna said
quickly,
"Knud is quite inconsolable because I am going away. Come, be a man,"
she continued, and laid her hand upon his shoulder; and it seemed as
if they had been talking of the journey, and nothing else. "You are a
child," she added; "but now you must be good and reasonable, as you
used to be under the willow tree, when we were both children."
But Knud felt as if the whole world had slid out of its course, and
his thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the
wind. He stayed, though he could not remember if she had asked him to
stay; and she was kind and good, and poured out his tea for him, and
sang to him. It had not the old tone, and yet it was wonderfully
beautiful, and made his heart feel ready to burst. And then they
parted. Knud did not offer her his hand, but she seized it, and said,
"Surely you will shake hands with your sister at parting, old
playfellow!"
And she smiled through the tears that were rolling over her cheeks,
and she repeated the word "brother"--and certainly there was good
consolation in that--and thus they parted.
She sailed to France, and Knud wandered about the muddy streets of
Copenhagen. The other journeymen in the workshop asked him why he went
about so gloomily, and told him he should go and amuse himself with
them, for he was a young fellow.
And they went with him to the dancing-rooms. He saw many handsome
girls there, but certainly not one like Joanna; and here, where he
thought to forget her, she stood more vividly than ever before the
eyes of his soul. "Heaven gives us strength for a great deal, if we
only try to do our best," she had said; and holy thoughts came into
his mind, and he folded his hands. The violins played, and the girls
danced round in a circle; and he was quite startled, for it seemed to
him as if he were in a place to which he ought not to have brought
Joanna--for she was there with him, in his heart; and accordingly he
went out. He ran through the streets, and passed by the house where
she had dwelt: it was dark there, dark everywhere, and empty, and
lonely. The world went on its course, but Knud pursued his lonely way,
unheedingly.
The winter came, and the streams were frozen. Everything seemed to be
preparing for a burial. But when spring returned, and the first
steamer was to start, a longing seized him to go away, far, far into
the world, but not to France. So he packed his knapsack, and wandered
far into the German land, from city to city, without rest or peace;
and it was not till he came to the glorious old city of Nuremberg that
he could master his restless spirit; and in Nuremberg, therefore, he
decided to remain.
Nuremberg is a wonderful old city, and looks as if it were cut out of
an old picture-book. The streets seem to stretch themselves along just
as they please. The houses do not like standing in regular ranks.
Gables with little towers, arabesques, and pillars, start out over the
pathway, and from the strange peaked roofs water-spouts, formed like
dragons or great slim dogs, extend far over the street.
Here in the market-place stood Knud, with his knapsack on his back. He
stood by one of the old fountains that are adorned with splendid
bronze figures, scriptural and historical, rising up between the
gushing jets of water. A pretty servant-maid was just filling her
pails, and she gave Knud a refreshing draught; and as her hand was
full of roses, she gave him one of the flowers, and he accepted it as
a good omen.
From the neighbouring church the strains of the organ were sounding:
they seemed to him as familiar as the tones of the organ at home at
Kjöge; and he went into the great cathedral. The sunlight streamed in
through the stained glass windows, between the two lofty slender
pillars. His spirit became prayerful, and peace returned to his soul.
And he sought and found a good master in Nuremberg, with whom he
stayed, and in whose house he learned the German language.
The old moat round the town has been converted into a number of little
kitchen gardens; but the high walls are standing yet, with their heavy
towers. The ropemaker twists his ropes on a gallery or walk built of
wood, inside the town wall, where elder bushes grow out of the clefts
and cracks, spreading their green twigs over the little low houses
that stand below; and in one of these dwelt the master with whom Knud
worked; and over the little garret window at which Knud sat the elder
waved its branches.
Here he lived through a summer and a winter; but when the spring came
again he could bear it no longer. The elder was in blossom, and its
fragrance reminded him so of home, that he fancied himself back in the
garden at Kjöge; and therefore Knud went away from his master, and
dwelt with another, farther in the town, over whose house no elder
bush grew.
His workshop was quite close to one of the old stone bridges, by a low
water-mill, that rushed and foamed always. Without, rolled the roaring
stream, hemmed in by houses, whose old decayed gables looked ready to
topple down into the water. No elder grew here--there was not even a
flower-pot with its little green plant; but just opposite the workshop
stood a great old willow tree, that seemed to cling fast to the house,
for fear of being carried away by the water, and which stretched forth
its branches over the river, just as the willow at Kjöge spread its
arms across the streamlet by the gardens there.
Yes, he had certainly gone from the "Elder-mother" to the
"Willow-father." The tree here had something, especially on moonlight
evenings, that went straight to his heart--and that something was not
in the moonlight, but in the old tree itself.
Nevertheless, he could not remain. Why not? Ask the willow tree, ask
the blooming elder! And therefore he bade farewell to his master in
Nuremberg, and journeyed onward.
To no one did he speak of Joanna--in his secret heart he hid his
sorrow; and he thought of the deep meaning in the old childish story
of the two cakes. Now he understood why the man had a bitter almond in
his breast--he himself felt the bitterness of it; and Joanna, who was
always so gentle and kind, was typified by the honey-cake. The strap
of his knapsack seemed so tight across his chest that he could
scarcely breathe; he loosened it, but was not relieved. He saw but
half the world around him; the other half he carried about him, and
within himself. And thus it stood with him.
Not till he came in sight of the high mountains did the world appear
freer to him; and now his thoughts were turned without, and tears came
into his eyes.
The Alps appeared to him as the folded wings of the earth; how if they
were to unfold themselves, and display their variegated pictures of
black woods, foaming waters, clouds, and masses of snow? At the last
day, he thought, the world will lift up its great wings, and mount
upwards towards the sky, and burst like a soap-bubble in the glance of
the Highest!
"Ah," sighed he, "that the Last Day were come!"
Silently he wandered through the land, that seemed to him as an
orchard covered with soft turf. From the wooden balconies of the
houses the girls who sat busy with their lace-making nodded at him;
the summits of the mountains glowed in the red sun of the evening;
and when he saw the green lakes gleaming among the dark trees, he
thought of the coast by the Bay of Kjöge, and there was a longing in
his bosom, but it was pain no more.
There where the Rhine rolls onward like a great billow, and bursts,
and is changed into snow-white, gleaming, cloud-like masses, as if
clouds were being created there, with the rainbow fluttering like a
loose band above them; there he thought of the water-mill at Kjöge,
with its rushing, foaming water.
Gladly would he have remained in the quiet Rhenish town, but here too
were too many elder trees and willows, and therefore he journeyed on,
over the high, mighty mountains, through shattered walls of rock, and
on roads that clung like swallows' nests to the mountain-side. The
waters foamed on in the depths, the clouds were below him, and he
strode on over thistles, Alpine roses, and snow, in the warm summer
sun; and saying farewell to the lands of the North, he passed on under
the shade of blooming chestnut trees, and through vineyards and fields
of maize. The mountains were a wall between him and all his
recollections; and he wished it to be so.
Before him lay a great glorious city which they called _Milano_, and
here he found a German master who gave him work. They were an old
pious couple, in whose workshop he now laboured. And the two old
people became quite fond of the quiet journeyman, who said little, but
worked all the more, and led a pious Christian life. To himself also
it seemed as if Heaven had lifted the heavy burden from his heart.
His favourite pastime was to mount now and then upon the mighty marble
church, which seemed to him to have been formed of the snow of his
native land, fashioned into roofs, and pinnacles, and decorated open
halls: from every corner and every point the white statues smiled upon
him. Above him was the blue sky, below him the city and the
wide-spreading Lombard plains, and towards the north the high
mountains clad with perpetual snow; and he thought of the church at
Kjöge, with its red, ivy-covered walls, but he did not long to go
thither: here, beyond the mountains, he would be buried.
He had dwelt here a year, and three years had passed away since he
left his home, when one day his master took him into the city, not to
the circus where riders exhibited, but to the opera, where was a hall
worth seeing. There were seven storeys, from each of which beautiful
silken curtains hung down, and from the ground to the dizzy height of
the roof sat elegant ladies, with bouquets of flowers in their hands,
as if they were at a ball, and the gentlemen were in full dress, and
many of them decorated with gold and silver. It was as bright there as
in the brilliant sunshine, and the music rolled gloriously through
the building. Everything was much more splendid than in the theatre at
Copenhagen, but then Joanna had been there, and----could it be? Yes,
it was like magic--she was here also! for the curtain rose, and Joanna
appeared, dressed in silk and gold, with a crown upon her head: she
sang as he thought none but angels could sing, and came far forward,
quite to the front of the stage, and smiled as only Joanna could
smile, and looked straight down at Knud. Poor Knud seized his master's
hand, and called out aloud, "Joanna!" but no one heard but the master,
who nodded his head, for the loud music sounded above everything.
"Yes, yes, her name is Joanna," said the master; and he drew forth a
printed playbill, and showed Knud her name--for the full name was
printed there.
No, it was not a dream! All the people applauded, and threw wreaths
and flowers to her, and every time she went away they called her back,
so that she was always going and coming.
In the street the people crowded round her carriage, and drew it away
in triumph. Knud was in the foremost row, and shouted as joyously as
any; and when the carriage stopped before her brilliantly lighted
house, Knud stood close beside the door of the carriage. It flew open,
and she stepped out: the light fell upon her dear face, as she smiled,
and made a kindly gesture of thanks, and appeared deeply moved. Knud
looked straight into her face, and she looked into his, but she did
not know him. A man, with a star glittering on his breast, gave her
his arm--and it was whispered about that the two were engaged.
Then Knud went home and packed his knapsack. He was determined to go
back to his own home, to the elder and the willow tree--ah, under the
willow tree! A whole life is sometimes lived through in a single hour.
The old couple begged him to remain, but no words could induce him to
stay. It was in vain they told him that winter was coming, and pointed
out that snow had already fallen in the mountains; he said he could
march on, with his knapsack on his back, in the wake of the
slow-moving carriage, for which they would have to clear a path.
So he went away towards the mountains, and marched up them and down
them. His strength was giving way, but still he saw no village, no
house; he marched on towards the north. The stars gleamed above him,
his feet stumbled, and his head grew dizzy. Deep in the valley stars
were shining too, and it seemed as if there were another sky below
him. He felt he was ill. The stars below him became more and more
numerous, and glowed brighter and brighter, and moved to and fro. It
was a little town whose lights beamed there; and when he understood
that, he exerted the remains of his strength, and at last reached the
shelter of a humble inn.
That night and the whole of the following day he remained there, for
his body required rest and refreshment. It was thawing; there was rain
in the valley. But early on the second morning came a man with an
organ, who played a tune of home; and now Knud could stay no longer.
He continued his journey towards the north, marching onward for many
days with haste and hurry, as if he were trying to get home before all
were dead there; but to no one did he speak of his longing, for no one
would have believed in the sorrow of his heart, the deepest a human
heart can feel. Such a grief is not for the world, for it is not
amusing; nor is it even for friends; and moreover he had no friends--a
stranger, he wandered through strange lands towards his home in the
north.
It was evening. He was walking on the public high-road. The frost
began to make itself felt, and the country soon became flatter,
containing mere field and meadow. By the road-side grew a great willow
tree. Everything reminded him of home, and he sat down under the tree:
he felt very tired, his head began to nod, and his eyes closed in
slumber, but still he was conscious that the tree stretched its arms
above him; and in his wandering fancy the tree itself appeared to be
an old, mighty man--it seemed as if the "Willow-father" himself had
taken up his tired son in his arms, and were carrying him back into
the land of home, to the bare bleak shore of Kjöge, to the garden of
his childhood. Yes, he dreamed it was the willow tree of Kjöge that
had travelled out into the world to seek him, and that now had found
him, and had led him back into the little garden by the streamlet, and
there stood Joanna, in all her splendour, with the golden crown on her
head, as he had seen her last, and she called out "welcome" to him.
And before him stood two remarkable shapes, which looked much more
human than he remembered them to have been in his childhood: they had
changed also, but they were still the two cakes that turned the right
side towards him, and looked very well.
"We thank you," they said to Knud. "You have loosened our tongues, and
have taught us that thoughts should be spoken out freely, or nothing
will come of them; and now something has indeed come of it--we are
betrothed."
Then they went hand in hand through the streets of Kjöge, and they
looked very respectable in every way: there was no fault to find with
_them_. And they went on, straight towards the church, and Knud and
Joanna followed them; they also were walking hand in hand; and the
church stood there as it had always stood, with its red walls, on
which the green ivy grew; and the great door of the church flew open,
and the organ sounded, and they walked up the long aisle of the
church. "Our master first," said the cake-couple, and made room for
Joanna and Knud, who knelt by the altar, and she bent her head over
him, and tears fell from her eyes, but they were icy cold, for it was
the ice around her heart that was melting--melting by his strong love;
and the tears fell upon his burning cheeks, and he awoke, and was
sitting under the old willow tree in the strange land, in the cold
wintry evening: an icy hail was falling from the clouds and beating on
his face.
[Illustration: KNUD AT REST--UNDER THE WILLOW TREE.]
"That was the most delicious hour of my life!" he said, "and it was
but a dream. Oh, let me dream again!" And he closed his eyes once
more, and slept and dreamed.
Towards morning there was a great fall of snow. The wind drifted the
snow over him, but he slept on. The villagers came forth to go to
church, and by the road-side sat a journeyman. He was dead--frozen to
death under the willow tree!
THE BEETLE.
The emperor's favourite horse was shod with gold. It had a golden shoe
on each of its feet.
And why was this?
He was a beautiful creature, with delicate legs, bright intelligent
eyes, and a mane that hung down over his neck like a veil. He had
carried his master through the fire and smoke of battle, and heard the
bullets whistling around him, had kicked, bitten, and taken part in
the fight when the enemy advanced, and had sprung with his master on
his back over the fallen foe, and had saved the crown of red gold, and
the life of the emperor, which was more valuable than the red gold;
and that is why the emperor's horse had golden shoes.
And a beetle came creeping forth.
"First the great ones," said he, "and then the little ones; but
greatness is not the only thing that does it." And so saying, he
stretched out his thin legs.
"And pray what do you want?" asked the smith.
"Golden shoes, to be sure," replied the beetle.
"Why, you must be out of your senses," cried the smith. "Do you want
to have golden shoes too?"
"Golden shoes? certainly," replied the beetle. "Am I not just as good
as that big creature yonder, that is waited on, and brushed, and has
meat and drink put before him? Don't I belong to the imperial stable?"
"But _why_ is the horse to have golden shoes? Don't you understand
that?" asked the smith.
"Understand? I understand that it is a personal slight offered to
myself," cried the beetle. "It is done to annoy me, and therefore I am
going into the world to seek my fortune."
"Go along!" said the smith.
"You're a rude fellow!" cried the beetle; and then he went out of the
stable, flew a little way, and soon afterwards found himself in a
beautiful flower garden, all fragrant with roses and lavender.
"Is it not beautiful here?" asked one of the little lady-birds that
flew about, with their delicate wings and their red-and-black shields
on their backs. "How sweet it is here--how beautiful it is!"
"I'm accustomed to better things," said the beetle. "Do you call
_this_ beautiful? Why, there is not so much as a dung-heap."
Then he went on, under the shadow of a great stack, and found a
caterpillar crawling along.
"How beautiful the world is!" said the caterpillar: "the sun is so
warm, and everything so enjoyable! And when I go to sleep, and die, as
they call it, I shall wake up as a butterfly, with beautiful wings to
fly with."
"How conceited you are!" exclaimed the stag-beetle. "Fly about as a
butterfly, indeed! I've come out of the stable of the emperor, and no
one there, not even the emperor's favourite horse--that by the way
wears my cast-off golden shoes--has any such idea. To have wings to
fly! why, we can fly now;" and he spread his wings and flew away. "I
don't want to be annoyed, and yet I am annoyed," he said, as he flew
off.
Soon afterwards he fell down upon a great lawn. For awhile he lay
there and feigned slumber; at last he fell asleep in earnest.
Suddenly a heavy shower of rain came falling from the clouds. The
beetle woke up at the noise, and wanted to escape into the earth, but
could not. He was tumbled over and over; sometimes he was swimming on
his stomach, sometimes on his back, and as for flying, that was out of
the question; he doubted whether he should escape from the place with
his life. He therefore remained lying where he was.
When the weather had moderated a little, and the beetle had rubbed the
water out of his eyes, he saw something gleaming. It was linen that
had been placed there to bleach. He managed to make his way up to it,
and crept into a fold of the damp linen. Certainly the place was not
so comfortable to lie in as the warm stable; but there was no better
to be had, and therefore he remained lying there for a whole day and a
whole night, and the rain kept on during all the time. Towards morning
he crept forth: he was very much out of temper about the climate.
On the linen two frogs were sitting. Their bright eyes absolutely
gleamed with pleasure.
"Wonderful weather this!" one of them cried. "How refreshing! And the
linen keeps the water together so beautifully. My hind legs seem to
quiver as if I were going to swim."
"I should like to know," said the second, "if the swallow, who flies
so far round, in her many journeys in foreign lands ever meets with a
better climate than this. What delicious dampness! It is really as if
one were lying in a wet ditch. Whoever does not rejoice in this,
certainly does not love his fatherland."
"Have you been in the emperor's stable?" asked the beetle: "there the
dampness is warm and refreshing. That's the climate for me; but I
cannot take it with me on my journey. Is there never a muck-heap, here
in the garden, where a person of rank, like myself, can feel himself
at home, and take up his quarters?"
But the frogs either did not or would not understand him.
"I never ask a question twice!" said the beetle, after he had already
asked this one three times without receiving any answer.
Then he went a little farther, and stumbled against a fragment of
pottery, that certainly ought not to have been lying there; but as it
was once there, it gave a good shelter against wind and weather. Here
dwelt several families of earwigs; and these did not require much,
only sociality. The female members of the community were full of the
purest maternal affection, and accordingly each one considered her own
child the most beautiful and cleverest of all.
"Our son has engaged himself," said one mother. "Dear, innocent boy!
His greatest hope is that he may creep one day into a clergyman's ear.
It's very artless and loveable, that; and being engaged will keep him
steady. What joy for a mother!"
"Our son," said another mother, "had scarcely crept out of the egg,
when he was already off on his travels. He's all life and spirits;
he'll run his horns off! What joy that is for a mother! Is it not so,
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 say, to come as far as he could under the bit of pottery.
"Now, you also see _my_ little earwig," observed a third mother and a
fourth; "they are lovely little things, and highly amusing. They are
never ill-behaved, except when they are uncomfortable in their inside;
but, unfortunately, one is very subject to that at their age."
Thus each mother spoke of her baby; and the babies talked among
themselves, and made use of the little nippers they have in their
tails to nip the beard of the beetle.
"Yes, they are always busy about something, the little rogues!" said
the mothers; and they quite beamed with maternal pride; but the beetle
felt bored by that, and therefore he inquired how far it was to the
nearest muck-heap.
"That is quite out in the big world, on the other side of the ditch,"
answered an earwig. "I hope none of my children will go so far, for it
would be the death of me."
"But I shall try to get so far," said the beetle; and he went off
without taking formal leave; for that is considered the polite thing
to do. And by the ditch he met several friends; beetles, all of them.
"Here we live," they said. "We are very comfortable here. Might we ask
you to step down into this rich mud? You must be fatigued after your
journey."
"Certainly," replied the beetle. "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 a
draught under a fragment of pottery. It is really quite refreshing to
be among one's companions once more."
"Perhaps you come from some muck-heap?" observed the oldest of them.
"Indeed, I come from a much higher 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. You must not ask me any
questions, for I can't betray my secret."
With this the beetle stepped down into the rich mud. There sat three
young maiden beetles; and they tittered, because they did not know
what to say.
"Not one of them is engaged yet," said their mother; and the beetle
maidens tittered again, this time from embarrassment.
"I have never seen greater beauties 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,
please, unless you have serious intentions. But of course your
intentions are serious, and therefore I give you my blessing."
"Hurrah!" cried all the other beetles together; and our friend was
engaged. Immediately after the betrothal came the marriage, for there
was no reason for delay.
The following day passed very pleasantly, and the next in tolerable
comfort; but on the third it was time to think of food for the wife,
and perhaps also for children.
"I have allowed myself to be taken in," said our beetle to himself.
"And now there's nothing for it but to take _them_ in, in turn."
So said, so done. Away he went, and he stayed away all day, and stayed
away all night; and his wife sat there, a forsaken widow.
"Oh," said the other beetles, "this fellow whom we received into our
family is nothing more than a thorough vagabond. He has gone away, and
has left his wife a burden upon our hands."
[Illustration: THE SCHOLARS FIND THE BEETLE.]
"Well, then, she shall be unmarried again, and sit here among my
daughters," said the mother. "Fie on the villain who forsook her!"
In the meantime the beetle had been journeying on, and had sailed
across the ditch on a cabbage leaf. In the morning two persons came to
the ditch. When they saw him, they took him up, and turned him over
and over, and looked very learned, especially one of them--a boy.
"Allah sees the black beetle in the black stone and in the black rock.
Is not that written in the Koran?" Then he translated the beetle's
name into Latin, and enlarged upon the creature's nature and history.
The second person, an older scholar, voted for carrying him home. He
said they wanted just such good specimens; and this seemed an uncivil
speech to our beetle, and in consequence he flew suddenly out of the
speaker's hand. As he had now dry wings, he flew a tolerable distance,
and reached a hot-bed, where a sash of the glass roof was partly open,
so he quietly slipped in and buried himself in the warm earth.
"Very comfortable it is here," said he.
Soon after he went to sleep, and dreamed that the emperor's favourite
horse had fallen, and had given him his golden shoes, with the promise
that he should have two more.
That was all very charming. When the beetle woke up, he crept forth
and looked around him. What splendour was in the hothouse! In the
background great palm trees growing up on high; the sun made them look
transparent; and beneath them what a luxuriance of green, and of
beaming flowers, red as fire, yellow as amber, or white as
fresh-fallen snow.
"This is an incomparable plenty of plants," cried the beetle. "How
good they will taste when they are decayed! A capital store-room this!
There must certainly be relations of mine living here. I will just see
if I can find any one with whom I may associate. I'm proud, certainly,
and I'm proud of being so." And so 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 pressed him, and turned him
round and round.
The gardener's little son and a companion had come to the hot-bed, had
espied the beetle, and wanted to have their fun with him. First he was
wrapped in a vine leaf, and then put into warm trousers-pocket. He
cribbled and crabbled about there with all his might; but he got a
good pressing from the boy's hand for this, which served as a hint to
him to keep quiet. Then the boy went rapidly towards the great lake
that lay at the end of the garden. Here the beetle was put in an old
broken wooden shoe, on which a little stick was placed upright for a
mast, and to this mast the beetle was bound with a woollen thread. 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 extent, that he fell over on his back and
kicked out with his legs.
The little ship sailed away. 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 the land.
But at length, just as it went merrily out again, the two boys were
called away, and very harshly, so that they hurried to obey the
summons, ran away from the lake, and left the little ship to its fate.
Thus it drove away from the shore, farther and farther into the open
sea: it was terrible work for the beetle, for he could not get away in
consequence of being bound to the mast.
Then a fly came and paid him a visit.
"What beautiful weather!" said the fly. "I'll rest here, and sun
myself. You have an agreeable time of it."
"You speak without knowing the facts," replied the beetle. "Don't you
see that I'm a prisoner?"
"Ah! but I'm not a prisoner," observed the fly; and he flew away
accordingly.
"Well, now I know the world," said the beetle to himself. "It is an
abominable world. I'm the only honest person in it. First, they refuse
me my golden shoes; then I have to lie on wet linen, and to stand in
the draught; and, to crown all, they fasten a wife upon me. Then, when
I've taken a quick step out into the world, and found out how one can
have it there, and how I wished to have it, one of those human boys
comes and ties me up, and leaves me to the mercy of the wild waves,
while the emperor's favourite horse prances about proudly in golden
shoes. That is what annoys me more than all. But one must not look for
sympathy in this world! My career has been very interesting; but
what's the use of that, if nobody knows it? The world does not deserve
to be made acquainted with my history, 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
become an ornament to the stable. Now the stable has lost me, and the
world has lost me. It is all over!"
But all was not over yet. A boat, in which there were a few young
girls, came rowing up.
"Look, yonder is an old wooden shoe sailing along," said one of the
girls.
"There's a little creature bound fast to it," said another.
The boat came quite close to our beetle's ship, and the young girls
fished him out of the water. One of them drew a small pair of scissors
from her pocket, and cut the woollen thread, without hurting the
beetle; and when she stepped on shore, she put him down on the grass.
"Creep, creep--fly, fly--if thou canst," she said. "Liberty is a
splendid thing."
And the beetle flew up, and straight through the open window of a
great building; there he sank down, tired and exhausted, exactly on
the mane of the emperor's favourite horse, who stood in the stable
when he was at home, and the beetle also. The beetle clung fast to the
mane, and sat there a short time to recover himself.
"Here I'm sitting on the emperor's favourite horse--sitting on him
just like the emperor himself!" he cried. "But what was I saying? Yes,
now I remember. That's a good thought, and quite correct. The smith
asked me why the golden shoes were given to the horse. Now I'm quite
clear about the answer. They were given to the horse on _my_ account."
And now the beetle was in a good temper again.
"Travelling expands the mind rarely," said he.
The sun's rays came streaming into the stable, and shone upon him, and
made the place lively and bright.
"The world is not so bad, upon the whole," said the beetle; "but one
must know how to take things as they come."
WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
I will tell you a story which was told to me when I was a little boy.
Every time I thought of the story, it seemed to me to become more and
more charming; for it is with stories as it is with many people--they
become better as they grow older.
I take it for granted 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 the thatch. There is a stork's nest on the summit of
the gable; for we can't do without the stork. The walls of the house
are sloping, and the windows are low, and only one of the latter is
made so that it will open. The baking-oven sticks out of the wall like
a little fat body. The elder tree hangs over the paling, 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 comers.
Just such a farmhouse stood out in the country; and in this house
dwelt an old couple--a peasant and his wife. Small as was their
property, there was one article among it that they could do
without--a horse, which made a living out of the grass it found by
the side of the high-road. The old peasant rode into the town on this
horse; and often his neighbours borrowed it of him, and rendered the
old couple some service in return for the loan of it. But they thought
it would be best if they sold the horse, or exchanged it for something
that might be more useful to them. But what might this _something_ be?
"You'll know that 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. Ride to the
fair."
And she fastened his neckerchief for him, for she could do that better
than he could; and she tied it in a double bow, for she could do that
very prettily. Then she brushed his hat round and round with the palm
of her hand, and gave him a kiss. So he rode away upon the horse that
was to be sold or to be bartered for something else. Yes, the old man
knew what he was about.
The sun shone hotly down, and not a cloud was to be seen in the sky.
The road was very dusty, for many people who were all bound for the
fair were driving, or riding, or walking upon it. There was no shelter
anywhere from the sunbeams.
Among the rest, a man was trudging along, and driving a cow to the
fair. The cow was as beautiful a creature as any cow can be.
"She gives good milk, I'm sure," said the peasant. "That would be a
very good exchange--the cow for the horse.
"Hallo, you there with the cow!" he said; "I tell you what--I fancy a
horse costs more than a cow, but I don't care for that; a cow would be
more useful to me. If you like, we'll exchange."
"To be sure I will," said the man; and they exchanged accordingly.
So that was settled, and the peasant might have turned back, for he
had done the business he came to do; but as he had once made up his
mind to go to the fair, he determined to proceed, merely to have a
look at it; and so he went on to the town with his cow.
Leading the animal, he strode sturdily on; and after a short time, he
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 our peasant to himself. "He
would find plenty of grass by our palings, and in the winter we could
keep him in the room with us. Perhaps it would be more practical to
have a sheep instead of a cow. Shall we exchange?"
The man with the sheep was quite ready, and the bargain was struck. So
our peasant went on in the high-road with his sheep.
Soon he overtook another man, who came into the road from a field,
carrying a great goose under his arm.
"That's a heavy thing you have there. It has plenty of feathers and
plenty of fat, and would look well tied to a string, and paddling in
the water at our place. That would be something for my old woman; she
could make all kinds of profit out of it. How often she has said, 'If
we only had a goose!' Now, perhaps, she can have one; and, if
possible, it shall be hers. Shall we exchange? I'll give you my sheep
for your goose, and thank you into the bargain."
The other man had not the least objection; and accordingly they
exchanged, and our peasant became proprietor of the goose.
By this time he was very near the town. The crowd on the high-road
became greater and greater; there was quite a crush of men and cattle.
They walked in the road, and close by the palings; and at the barrier
they even walked into the toll-man's potato-field, where his one fowl
was strutting about, with a string to its leg, lest it should take
fright at the crowd, and stray away, and so be lost. This fowl had
short tail-feathers, and winked with both its eyes, and looked very
cunning. "Cluck, cluck!" said the fowl. What it thought when it said
this I cannot tell you; but directly our good man saw it, he thought,
"That's the finest fowl I've ever seen in my life! Why, it's finer
than our parson's brood hen. On my word, I should like to have that
fowl. A fowl can always find a grain or two, and can almost keep
itself. I think it would be a good exchange if I could get that for my
goose.
"Shall we exchange?" he asked the toll-taker.
"Exchange!" repeated the man; "well, that would not be a bad thing."
And so they exchanged; the toll-taker at the barrier kept the goose,
and the peasant carried away the fowl.
Now, he had done a good deal of business on his way to the fair, and
he was hot and tired. He wanted something to eat, and a glass of
brandy to drink; and soon he was in front of the inn. He was just
about to step in, when the hostler came out, so they met at the door.
The hostler was carrying a sack.
"What have you in that sack?" asked the peasant.
"Rotten apples," answered the hostler; "a whole sackful of
them--enough to feed the pigs with."
[Illustration: THE OLD MAN RELATES HIS SUCCESS.]
"Why, that's terrible waste! I should like to take them to my old
woman at home. Last year the old tree by the turf-hole only bore a
single apple, and we kept it on the cupboard till it was quite rotten
and spoilt. 'It was always property,' my old woman said; but here she
could see a quantity of property--a whole sackful. Yes, I shall be
glad to show them to her."
"What will you give me for the sackful?" asked the hostler.
"What will I give? I will give my fowl in exchange."
And he gave the fowl accordingly, and received the apples, which he
carried into the guest-room. He leaned the sack carefully by the
stove, and then went to the table. But the stove was hot: he had not
thought of that. Many guests were present--horse dealers, ox-herds,
and two Englishmen--and the two Englishmen were so rich that their
pockets bulged out with gold coins, and almost burst; and they could
bet too, as you shall hear.
Hiss-s-s! hiss-s-s! What was that by the stove? The apples were
beginning to roast!
"What is that?"
"Why, do you know--," said our peasant.
And he told the whole story of the horse that he had changed 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 two Englishmen. "There will be a disturbance."
"What?--give me what?" said the peasant. "She will kiss me, and say,
'What the old man does is always right.'"
"Shall we wager?" said the Englishman. "We'll wager coined gold by the
ton--a hundred pounds to the hundredweight!"
"A bushel will be enough," replied the peasant. "I can only set the
bushel of apples against it; and I'll throw myself and my old woman
into the bargain--and I fancy that's piling up the measure."
"Done--taken!"
And the bet was made. The host's carriage came up, and the Englishmen
got in, and the peasant got in; away they went, and soon they stopped
before the peasant's hut.
"Good evening, old woman."
"Good evening, old man."
"I've made the exchange."
"Yes, you understand what you're about," said the woman.
And she embraced him, and paid no attention to the stranger guests,
nor did she notice the sack.
"I got a cow in exchange for the horse," said he.
"Heaven be thanked!" said she. "What glorious milk we shall have, and
butter and cheese on the table! That was a capital exchange!"
"Yes, but I changed the cow for a sheep."
"Ah, that's better still!" cried the wife. "You always think of
everything: we have just pasture enough for a sheep. Ewe's-milk and
cheese, and woollen jackets and stockings! The cow cannot give those,
and her hairs will only come off. How you think of everything!"
"But I changed away the sheep for a goose."
"Then this year we shall really have roast goose to eat, my dear old
man. You are always thinking of something to give me pleasure. How
charming that is! We can let the goose walk about with a string to her
leg, and she'll grow fatter still before we roast her."
"But I gave away the goose for a fowl," said the man.
"A fowl? That was a good exchange!" replied the woman. "The fowl will
lay eggs and hatch them, and we shall have chickens: we shall have a
whole poultry-yard! Oh, that's just what I was wishing for."
"Yes, but I exchanged the fowl for a sack of shrivelled apples."
"What!--I must positively kiss you for that," exclaimed the wife. "My
dear, good husband! Now, I'll tell you something. Do you know, you had
hardly left me this morning, before I began thinking how I could give
you something very nice this evening. I thought it should be pancakes
with savoury herbs. I had eggs, and bacon too; but I wanted herbs. So
I went over to the schoolmaster's--they have herbs there, I know--but
the schoolmistress is a mean woman, though she looks so sweet. I
begged her to lend me a handful of herbs. 'Lend!' she answered me;
'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. That I'm very glad of;
that makes me laugh!" And with that she gave him a sounding kiss.
"I like that!" exclaimed both the Englishmen together. "Always going
down-hill, and always merry; that's worth the money." So they paid a
hundredweight of gold to the peasant, who was not scolded, but kissed.
Yes, it always pays, when the wife sees and always asserts that her
husband knows best, and that whatever he does is right.
You see, that is my story. I heard it when I was a child; and now you
have heard it too, and know that "What the old man does is always
right."
THE WIND TELLS ABOUT WALDEMAR DAA AND HIS DAUGHTERS.
When the wind sweeps across the grass, the field has a ripple like a
pond, and when it sweeps across the corn the field waves to and fro
like a high sea. That is called the wind's dance; but the wind does
not dance only, he also tells stories; and how loudly he can sing out
of his deep chest, and how different it sounds in the tree-tops in the
forest, and through the loopholes and clefts and cracks in walls! Do
you see how the wind drives the clouds up yonder, like a frightened
flock of sheep? Do you hear how the wind howls down here through the
open valley, like a watchman blowing his horn? With wonderful tones he
whistles and screams down the chimney and into the fireplace. The fire
crackles and flares up, and shines far into the room, and the little
place is warm and snug, and it is pleasant to sit there listening to
the sounds. Let the wind speak, for he knows plenty of stories and
fairy tales, many more than are known to any of us. Just hear what the
wind can tell.
Huh--uh--ush! roar along! That is the burden of the song.
"By the shores of the Great Belt, one of the straits that unite the
Cattegut with the Baltic, lies an old mansion with thick red walls,"
says the Wind. "I know every stone in it; I saw it when it still
belonged to the castle of Marsk Stig on the promontory. But it had to
be pulled down, and the stone was used again for the walls of a new
mansion in another place, the baronial mansion of Borreby, which still
stands by the coast.
"I knew them, the noble lords and ladies, the changing races that
dwelt there, and now I'm going to tell about Waldemar Daa and his
daughters. How proudly he carried himself--he was of royal blood! He
could do more than merely hunt the stag and empty the wine-can. 'It
_shall_ be done,' he was accustomed to say.
"His wife walked proudly in gold-embroidered garments over the
polished marble floors. The tapestries were gorgeous, the furniture
was expensive and artistically carved. She had brought gold and silver
plate with her into the house, and there was German beer in the
cellar. Black fiery horses neighed in the stables. There was a wealthy
look about the house of Borreby at that time, when wealth was still at
home there.
"Four children dwelt there also; three delicate maidens, Ida, Joanna,
and Anna Dorothea: I have never forgotten their names.
"They were rich people, noble people, born in affluence, nurtured in
affluence.
"Huh--sh! roar along!" sang the Wind; and then he continued:
"I did not see here, as in other great noble houses, the high-born
lady sitting among her women in the great hall turning the
spinning-wheel: here she swept the sounding chords of the cithern, and
sang to the sound, but not always old Danish melodies, but songs of a
strange land. It was 'live and let live' here: stranger guests came
from far and near, the music sounded, the goblets clashed, and I was
not able to drown the noise," said the Wind. "Ostentation, and
haughtiness, and splendour, and display, and rule were there, but the
fear of the Lord was not there.
"And it was just on the evening of the first day of May," the Wind
continued. "I came from the west, and had seen how the ships were
being crushed by the waves, with all on board, and flung on the west
coast of Jutland. I had hurried across the heath, and over Jutland's
wood-girt eastern coast, and over the Island of Fünen, and now I drove
over the Great Belt, groaning and sighing.
"Then I lay down to rest on the shore of Seeland, in the neighbourhood
of the great house of Borreby, where the forest, the splendid oak
forest, still rose.
"The young men-servants of the neighbourhood were collecting branches
and brushwood under the oak trees; the largest and driest they could
find they carried into the village, and piled them up in a heap, and
set them on fire; and men and maids danced, singing in a circle round
the blazing pile.
"I lay quite quiet," continued the Wind; "but I silently touched a
branch, which had been brought by the handsomest of the men-servants,
and the wood blazed up brightly, blazed up higher than all the rest;
and now he was the chosen one, and bore the name the Street-goat, and
might choose his Street-lamb first from among the maids; and there was
mirth and rejoicing, greater than I had ever heard before in the halls
of the rich baronial mansion.
"And the noble lady drove towards the baronial mansion, with her three
daughters, in a gilded carriage drawn by six horses. The daughters
were young and fair--three charming blossoms, rose, lily, and pale
hyacinth. The mother was a proud tulip, and never acknowledged the
salutation of one of the men or maids who paused in their sport to do
her honour: the gracious lady seemed a flower that was rather stiff in
the stalk.
"Rose, lily, and pale hyacinth; yes, I saw them all three! Whose
lambkins will they one day become? thought I; their Street-goat will
be a gallant knight, perhaps a prince. Huh--sh! hurry along! hurry
along!
"Yes, the carriage rolled on with them, and the peasant people resumed
their dancing. They rode that summer through all the villages round
about. But in the night, when I rose again," said the Wind, "the very
noble lady lay down, to rise again no more: that thing came upon her
which comes upon all--there is nothing new in that.
"Waldemar Daa stood for a space silent and thoughtful. 'The proudest
tree can be bowed without being broken,' said a voice within him. His
daughters wept, and all the people in the mansion wiped their eyes;
but Lady Daa had driven away--and I drove away too, and rushed along,
huh--sh!" said the Wind.
* * * * *
"I returned again; I often returned again over the Island of Fünen,
and the shores of the Belt, and I sat down by Borreby, by the splendid
oak wood; there the heron made his nest, and wood-pigeons haunted the
place, and blue ravens, and even the black stork. It was still spring;
some of them were yet sitting on their eggs, others had already
hatched their young. But how they flew up, how they cried! The axe
sounded, blow on blow: the wood was to be felled. Waldemar Daa wanted
to build a noble ship, a man-of-war, a three-decker, which the king
would be sure to buy; and therefore the wood must be felled, the
landmark of the seamen, the refuge of the birds. 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 in anger: I
could well understand how they felt. Crows and ravens croaked aloud as
if in scorn. 'Crack, crack! the nest cracks, cracks, cracks!'
"Far in the interior of the wood, where the noisy swarm of labourers
were working, stood Waldemar Daa and his three daughters; and all
laughed at the wild cries of the birds; only one, the youngest, Anna
Dorothea, felt grieved in her heart; and when they made preparations
to fell a tree that was almost dead, and on whose naked branches the
black stork had built his nest, whence the little storks were
stretching out their heads, she begged for mercy for the little
things, and tears came into her eyes. Therefore the tree with the
black stork's nest was left standing. The tree was not worth speaking
of.
"There was a great hewing and sawing, and a three-decker was built.
The architect was of low origin, but of great pride; his eyes and
forehead told how clever he was, and Waldemar Daa was fond of
listening to him, and so was Waldemar's daughter Ida, the eldest, who
was now fifteen years old; and while he built a ship for the father,
he was building for himself an airy castle, into which he and Ida were
to go as a married couple--which might indeed have happened, if the
castle with stone walls, and ramparts, and moats had remained. But in
spite of his wise head, the architect remained but a poor bird; and,
indeed, what business has a sparrow to take part in a dance of
peacocks? Huh--sh! I careered away, and he careered away too, for he
was not allowed to stay; and little Ida got over it, because she was
obliged to get over it.
"The proud black horses were neighing in the stable; they were worth
looking at, and accordingly they _were_ looked at. The admiral, who
had been sent by the king himself to inspect the new ship and take
measures for its purchase, spoke loudly in admiration of the beautiful
horses.
"I heard all that," said the Wind. "I accompanied the gentlemen
through the open door, and strewed blades of straw like bars of gold
before their feet. Waldemar Daa wanted to have gold, and the admiral
wished for the proud black horses, and that is why he praised them so
much; but the hint was not taken, and consequently the ship was not
bought. It remained on the shore covered over with boards, a Noah's
ark that never got to the water--Huh--sh! rush away! away!--and that
was a pity.
"In the winter, when the fields were covered with snow, and the water
with large blocks of ice that I blew up on to the coast," continued
the Wind, "crows and ravens came, all as black as might be, great
flocks of them, and alighted on the dead, deserted, lonely ship by the
shore, and croaked in hoarse accents of the wood that was no more, of
the many pretty bird's 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 snow-flakes whirl, and the snow lay like a great lake high
around the ship, and drifted over it. I let it hear my voice, that it
might know what a storm has to say. Certainly I did my part towards
teaching it seamanship. Huh--sh! push along!
"And the winter passed away; winter and summer, both passed away, and
they are still passing away, even as I pass away; as the snow whirls
along, and the apple blossom whirls along, and the leaves fall--away!
away! away! and men are passing away too!
"But the daughters were still young, and little Ida was a rose, as
fair to look upon as on the day when the architect saw her. I often
seized her long brown hair, when she stood in the garden by the apple
tree, musing, and not heeding how I strewed blossoms on her hair, and
loosened it, while she was gazing at the red sun and the golden sky,
through the dark underwood and the trees of the garden.
"Her sister was bright and slender as a lily. Joanna had height and
deportment, but was like her mother, rather stiff in the stalk. She
was very fond of walking through the great hall, where hung the
portraits of her ancestors. The women were painted in dresses of silk
and velvet, with a tiny little hat, embroidered with pearls, on their
plaited hair. They were handsome women. The gentlemen were represented
clad in steel, or in costly cloaks lined with squirrel's skin; they
wore little ruffs, and swords at their sides, but not buckled to their
hips. Where would Joanna's picture find its place on that wall some
day? and how would _he_ look, her noble lord and husband? This is what
she thought of, and of this she spoke softly 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 great deep blue eyes had a musing look, but the
childlike smile still played around her lips: I was not able to blow
it away, nor did I wish to do so.
"We met in the garden, in the hollow lane, in the field and meadow;
she gathered herbs and flowers which she knew would be useful to her
father in concocting the drinks and drops he distilled. Waldemar Daa
was arrogant and proud, but he was also a learned man, and knew a
great deal. That was no secret, and many opinions were expressed
concerning it. In his chimney there was fire even in summer time. He
would lock the door of his room, and for days the fire would be poked
and raked; but of this he did not talk much--the forces of nature must
be conquered in silence; and soon he would discover the art of making
the best thing of all--the red gold.
"That is why the chimney was always smoking, therefore the flames
crackled so frequently. Yes, I was there too," said the Wind. "Let it
go, I sang down through the chimney: it will end in smoke, air, coals
and ashes! You will burn yourself! Hu-uh-ush! drive away! drive away!
But Waldemar Daa did _not_ drive it away."
"The splendid black horses in the stable--what became of them? what
became of the old gold and silver vessels in cupboards and chests, the
cows in the fields, and the house and home itself? Yes, they may melt,
may melt in the golden crucible, and yet yield no gold.
"Empty grew the barns and store-rooms, the cellars and magazines. The
servants decreased in number, and the mice multiplied. Then a window
broke, and then another, and I could get in elsewhere besides at the
door," said the Wind. "'Where the chimney smokes the meal is being
cooked,' the proverb says. But here the chimney smoked that devoured
all the meals, for the sake of the red gold.
"I blew through the courtyard-gate like a watchman blowing his horn,"
the Wind went on, "but no watchman was there. I twirled the
weathercock round on the summit of the tower, and it creaked like the
snoring of the warder, but no warder was there; only mice and rats
were there. Poverty laid the tablecloth; poverty sat in the wardrobe
and in the larder; the door fell off its hinges, cracks and fissures
made their appearance, and I went in and out at pleasure; and that is
how I know all about it.
"Amid smoke and ashes, amid sorrow and sleepless nights, the hair and
beard of the master turned grey, and deep furrows showed themselves
around his temples; his skin turned pale and yellow, as his eyes
looked greedily for the gold, the desired gold.
"I blew the smoke and ashes into his face and beard: the result of his
labour was debt instead of pelf. I sung through the burst window-panes
and the yawning clefts in the walls. I blew into the chests of drawers
belonging to the daughters, wherein lay the clothes that had become
faded and threadbare from being worn over and over again. That was not
the song that had been sung at the children's cradle. The lordly life
had changed to a life of penury. I was the only one who rejoiced aloud
in that castle," said the Wind. "I snowed them up, and they say snow
keeps people warm. They had no wood, and the forest from which they
might have brought it was cut down. It was a biting frost. I rushed in
through loopholes and passages, over gables and roofs, that I might be
brisk. They were lying in bed because of the cold, the three high-born
daughters; and their father was crouching under his leathern coverlet.
Nothing to bite, nothing to break, no fire on the hearth--there was a
life for high-born people! Huh-sh, let it go! But that is what my Lord
Daa could _not_ do--he could _not_ let it go.
"'After winter comes spring,' he said. 'After want, good times will
come: one must not lose patience; one must learn to wait! Now my house
and lands are mortgaged, it is indeed high time; and the gold will
soon come. At Easter!'
"I heard how he spoke thus, looking at a spider's web. 'Thou cunning
little weaver, thou dost teach me perseverance. Let them tear thy web,
and thou wilt begin it again, and complete it. Let them destroy it
again, and thou wilt resolutely begin to work again--again! That is
what we must do, and that will repay itself at last.'
"It was the morning of Easter-day. The bells sounded from the
neighbouring church, and the sun seemed to rejoice in the sky. The
master 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 was burnt out, but he did not notice it. I blew
at the fire of coals, and it threw its red glow upon his ghastly white
face, lighting it up with a glare, and his sunken eyes looked forth
wildly out of their deep sockets--but they became larger and larger,
as though they would burst.
"Look at the alchymic glass! It glows in the crucible, red-hot, and
pure and heavy! He lifted it with a trembling hand, and cried with a
trembling voice, 'Gold! gold!'
"He was quite dizzy--I could have blown him down," said the Wind; "but
I only fanned the glowing coals, and accompanied him through the door
to where his daughters sat shivering. His coat was powdered with
ashes, and there were ashes in his beard and in his tangled hair. He
stood straight up, and held his costly treasure on high, in the
brittle glass. 'Found, found!--Gold, gold!' he shouted, and again held
aloft the glass to let it flash in the sunshine; but his hand
trembled, and the alchymic glass fell clattering to the ground, and
broke into a thousand pieces; and the last bubble of his happiness had
burst! Hu-uh-ush! rushing away!--and I rushed away from the
gold-maker's house.
"Late in autumn, when the days are short, and the mist comes and
strews cold drops upon the berries and leafless branches, I came back
in fresh spirits, rushed through the air, swept the sky clear, and
snapped the dry twigs--which is certainly no great labour, but yet it
must be done. Then there was another kind of sweeping clean at
Waldemar Daa's, in the mansion of Borreby. His enemy, Owe Rainel, of
Basnäs, was there with the mortgage of the house and everything it
contained in his pocket. I drummed against the broken window-panes,
beat against the old rotten doors, and whistled through cracks and
rifts--huh-sh! Mr. Owe Rainel did not like staying there. Ida and Anna
Dorothea wept bitterly; Joanna stood pale and proud, and bit her thumb
till it bled--but what could that avail? Owe Rainel offered to allow
Waldemar Daa to remain in the mansion till the end of his life, but no
thanks were given him for his offer. I listened to hear what occurred.
I saw the ruined gentleman lift his head and throw it back prouder
than ever, and I rushed against the house and the old lime trees with
such force, that one of the thickest branches broke, one that was not
decayed; and the branch remained lying at the entrance as a broom
when any one wanted to sweep the place out: and a grand sweeping out
there was--I thought it would be so.
[Illustration: LEAVING THE OLD HOME.]
"It was hard on that day to preserve one's composure; but their will
was as hard as their fortune.
"There was nothing they could call their own except the clothes they
wore: yes, there was one thing more--the alchymist's glass, a new one
that had lately been bought, and filled with what had been gathered up
from the ground of the treasure which promised so much but never kept
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 cold upon his heated cheeks, I
stroked his grey beard and his long white hair, and I sang as well as
I could,--'Huh-sh! gone away! gone away!' And that was the end of the
wealth and splendour.
"Ida walked on one side of the old man, and Anna Dorothea on the
other. Joanna turned round at the entrance--why? Fortune would not
turn because she did so. She looked at the old walls of what had once
been the castle of Marsk Stig, and perhaps she thought of his
daughters:
'The eldest gave the youngest her hand.
And forth they went to the far-off land.'
Was she thinking of this old song? Here were three of them, and their
father was with them too. They walked along the road on which they had
once driven in their splendid carriage--they walked forth as beggars,
with their father, and wandered out into the open field, and into a
mud hut, which they rented for a dollar and a half a year--into their
new house with the empty rooms and empty vessels. Crows and magpies
fluttered above them, and cried, as if in contempt, 'Craw! craw! out
of the nest! craw! craw!' as they had done in the wood at Borreby when
the trees were felled.
"Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it. I blew about their
ears, for what use would it be that they should listen?
"And they went to live in the mud hut on the open field, and I wandered
away over moor and field, through bare bushes and leafless forests, to the
open waters, the free shores, to other lands--huh-uh-ush!--away, away! year
after year!"
* * * * *
And how did Waldemar Daa and his daughters prosper? The Wind tells us:
"The one I saw last, yes, for the last time, was Anna Dorothea, the
pale hyacinth: then she was old and bent, for it was fifty years
afterwards. She lived longer than the rest; she knew all.
"Yonder on the heath, by the Jutland town of Wiborg, stood the fine
new house of the canon, built of red bricks with projecting gables;
the smoke came up thickly from the chimney. 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 rested upon the stork's nest without, and
on the hut, which was almost falling in; the roof consisted of moss
and houseleek, in so far as a roof existed there at all--the stork's
nest covered the greater part of it, and that alone was in proper
condition, for it was kept in order by the stork himself.
"That is a house to be looked at, but not to be touched; I must deal
gently with it," said the Wind. "For the sake of the stork's nest the
hut has been allowed to stand, though it was a blot upon 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 was
allowed to stay: she had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was
it perchance her reward, because she had once interceded for the nest
of its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that time she, the
poor woman, was a young child, a pale hyacinth in the rich garden. She
remembered all that right well, did Anna Dorothea.
"'Oh! oh!' Yes, people can sigh like the wind moaning in the rushes
and reeds. 'Oh! oh!'" she sighed, "no bells sounded at thy burial,
Waldemar Daa! The poor schoolboys did not even sing a psalm when the
former lord of Borreby was laid in the earth to rest! Oh, everything
has an end, even misery. Sister Ida became the wife of a peasant. That
was the hardest trial that befell our father, that the husband of a
daughter of his should be a miserable serf, whom the proprietor could
mount on the wooden horse for punishment! I suppose he is under the
ground now. And thou, Ida? Alas, alas! it is not ended yet, wretch
that I am! Grant me that I may die, kind Heaven!'
"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut which was left
standing for the sake of the stork.
"I took pity on the fairest of the sisters," said the Wind. "Her
courage was like that of a man, and in man's clothes she took service
as a sailor on board of a ship. She was sparing of words, and of a
dark countenance, but willing at her work. But she did not know how to
climb; so I blew her overboard before anybody found out that she was a
woman, and according to my thinking that was well done!" said the
Wind.
* * * * *
"On such an Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa had fancied
that he had found the red gold, I heard the tones of a psalm under the
stork's nest, among the crumbling walls--it was Anna Dorothea's last
song.
"There was no window, only a hole in the wall. The sun rose up like a
mass of gold, and looked through. What a splendour he diffused! Her
eyes were breaking, and her heart was breaking--but that they would
have done, even if the sun had not shone that morning on Anna
Dorothea.
"The stork covered her hut till her death. I sang at her grave!" said
the Wind. "I sang at her father's grave; I know where his grave is,
and where hers is, and nobody else knows it.
"New times, changed times! The old high-road now runs through
cultivated fields; the new road winds among the trim ditches, and soon
the railway will come with its train of carriages, and rush over the
graves which are forgotten like the names--hu-ush! passed away, passed
away!
"That is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it better,
any of you, if you know how," said the Wind, and turned away--and he
was gone.
IB AND CHRISTINE.
Not far from the clear stream Gudenau, in North Jutland, in the forest
which extends by its banks and far into the country, a great ridge of
land rises and stretches along like a wall through the wood. By this
ridge, westward, stands a farmhouse, surrounded by poor land; the
sandy soil is seen through the spare rye and wheat-ears that grow upon
it. Some years have elapsed since the time of which we speak. The
people who lived here cultivated the fields, and moreover kept three
sheep, a pig, and two oxen; in fact, they supported themselves quite
comfortably, for they had enough to live on if they took things as
they came. Indeed, they could have managed to save enough to keep two
horses; but, like the other peasants of the neighbourhood, they said,
"The horse eats itself up"--that is to say, it eats as much as it
earns. Jeppe-Jäns cultivated his field in summer. In the winter he
made wooden shoes, and then he had an assistant, a journeyman, who
understood as well as he himself did how to make the wooden shoes
strong, and light, and graceful. They carved shoes and spoons, and
that brought in money. It would have been wronging the Jeppe-Jänses to
call them poor people.
Little Ib, a boy seven years old, the only child of the family, would
sit by, looking at the workmen, cutting at a stick, and occasionally
cutting his finger. But one day Ib succeeded so well with two pieces
of wood, that they really looked like little wooden shoes; and these
he wanted to give to little Christine. And who was little Christine?
She was the boatman's daughter, and was graceful and delicate as a
gentleman's child; had she been differently dressed, no one would have
imagined that she came out of the hut on the neighbouring heath. There
lived her father, who was a widower, and supported himself by carrying
firewood in his great boat out of the forest to the estate of
Silkeborg, with its great eel-pond and eel-weir, and sometimes even to
the distant little town of Randers. He had no one who could take care
of little Christine, and therefore the child was almost always with
him in his boat, or in the forest among the heath plants and barberry
bushes. Sometimes, when he had to go as far as the town, he would
bring little Christine, who was a year younger than Ib, to stay at the
Jeppe-Jänses.
Ib and Christine agreed very well in every particular: they divided
their bread and berries when they were hungry, they dug in the ground
together for treasures, and they ran, and crept, and played about
everywhere. And one day they ventured together up the high ridge, and
a long way into the forest; once they found a few snipes' eggs there,
and that was a great event for them.
Ib had never been on the heath where Christine's father lived, nor had
he ever been on the river. But even this was to happen; for
Christine's father once invited him to go with them; and on the
evening before the excursion, he followed the boatman over the heath
to the house of the latter.
Next morning early, the two children were sitting high up on the pile
of firewood in the boat, eating bread and whistleberries. Christine's
father and his assistant propelled the boat with staves. They had the
current with them, and swiftly they glided down the stream, through
the lakes it forms in its course, and which sometimes seemed shut in
by reeds and water plants, though there was always room for them to
pass, and though the old trees bent quite forward over the water, and
the old oaks bent down their bare branches, as if they had turned up
their sleeves and wanted to show their knotty naked arms. Old alder
trees, which the stream had washed away from the bank, clung with
their fibrous roots to the bottom of the stream, and looked like
little wooded islands. The water-lilies rocked themselves on the
river. It was a splendid excursion; and at last they came to the great
eel-weir, where the water rushed through the flood-gates; and Ib and
Christine thought this was beautiful to behold.
In those days there was no manufactory there, nor was there any town;
only the old great farmyard, with its scanty fields, with few
servants and a few head of cattle, could be seen there; and the
rushing of the water through the weir and the cry of the wild ducks
were the only signs of life in Silkeborg. After the firewood had been
unloaded, the father of Christine bought a whole bundle of eels and a
slaughtered sucking-pig, and all was put into a basket and placed in
the stern of the boat. Then they went back again up the stream; but
the wind was favourable, and when the sails were hoisted, it was as
good as if two horses had been harnessed to the boat.
When they had arrived at a point in the stream where the
assistant-boatman dwelt, a little way from the bank, the boat was
moored, and the two men landed, after exhorting the children to sit
still. But the children did not do that; or at least they obeyed only
for a very short time. They must be peeping into the basket in which
the eels and the sucking-pig had been placed, and they must needs pull
the sucking-pig out, and take it in their hands, and feel and touch it
all over; and as both wanted to hold it at the same time, it came to
pass that they let it fall into the water, and the sucking-pig drifted
away with the stream--and here was a terrible event!
Ib jumped ashore, and ran a little distance along the bank, and
Christine sprang after him.
"Take me with you!" she cried.
And in a few minutes they were deep in the thicket, and could no
longer see either the boat or the bank. They ran on a little farther,
and then Christine fell down on the ground and began to cry; but Ib
picked her up.
"Follow me!" he cried. "Yonder lies the house."
But the house was not yonder. They wandered on and on, over the dry,
rustling, last year's leaves, and over fallen branches that crackled
beneath their feet. Soon they heard a loud piercing scream. They stood
still and listened, and presently the scream of an eagle sounded
through the wood. It was an ugly scream, and they were frightened at
it; but before them, in the thick wood, the most beautiful blueberries
grew in wonderful profusion. They were so inviting, that the children
could not do otherwise than stop; and they lingered for some time,
eating the blueberries till they had quite blue mouths and blue
cheeks. Now again they heard the cry they had heard before.
"We shall get into trouble about the pig," said Christine.
"Come, let us go to our house," said Ib; "it is here in the wood."
[Illustration: IB AND CHRISTINE MEET THE GIPSY.]
And they went forward. They presently came to a wood, but it did not
lead them home; and darkness came on, and they were afraid. The
wonderful stillness that reigned around was interrupted now and then
by the shrill cries of the great horrid owl and of the birds that were
strange to them. At last they both lost themselves in a thicket.
Christine cried, and Ib cried too; and after they had bemoaned
themselves for a time, they threw themselves down on the dry leaves,
and went fast asleep.
The sun was high in the heavens when the two children awoke. They were
cold; but in the neighbourhood of this resting-place, on the hill, the
sun shone through the trees, and there they thought they would warm
themselves; and from there Ib fancied they would be able to see his
parents' house. But they were far away from the house in question, in
quite another part of the forest. They clambered to the top of the
rising ground, and found themselves on the summit of a slope running
down to the margin of a transparent lake. They could see fish in great
numbers in the pure water illumined by the sun's rays. This spectacle
was quite a sudden surprise for them; but close beside them grew a nut
bush covered with the finest nuts; and now they picked the nuts, and
cracked them, and ate the delicate young kernels, which had only just
become perfect. But there was another surprise and another fright in
store for them. Out of the thicket stepped a tall old woman; her face
was quite brown, and her hair was deep black and shining. The whites
of her eyes gleamed like a negro's; on her back she carried a bundle,
and in her hand she bore a knotted stick. She was a gipsy. The
children did not at once understand what she said. She brought three
nuts out of her pocket, and told them that in these nuts the most
beautiful, the loveliest things were hidden; for they were
wishing-nuts.
Ib looked at her, and she seemed so friendly, that he plucked up
courage and asked her if she would give him the nuts; and the woman
gave them to him, and gathered some more for herself, a whole
pocketful, from the nut bush.
And Ib and Christine looked at the wishing-nuts with great eyes.
"Is there a carriage with a pair of horses in this nut?" he asked.
"Yes, there's a golden carriage with two horses," answered the woman.
"Then give me the nut," said little Christine.
And Ib gave it to her, and the strange woman tied it in her
pocket-handkerchief for her.
"Is there in this nut a pretty little neckerchief, like the one
Christine wears round her neck?" inquired Ib.
"There are ten neckerchiefs in it," answered the woman. "There are
beautiful dresses in it, and stockings, and a hat with a veil."
"Then I will have that one too," cried little Christine.
And Ib gave her the second nut also. The third was a little black
thing.
"That one you can keep," said Christine; "and it is a pretty one too."
"What is in it?" inquired Ib.
"The best of all things for you," replied the gipsy-woman.
And Ib held the nut very tight. The woman promised to lead the
children into the right path, so that they might find their way home;
and now they went forward, certainly in quite a different direction
from the path they should have followed. But that is no reason why we
should suspect the gipsy-woman of wanting to steal the children. In
the wild wood-path they met the forest bailiff, who knew Ib; and by
his help, Ib and Christine both arrived at home, where their friends
had been very anxious about them. They were pardoned and forgiven,
although they had indeed both deserved "to get into trouble;" firstly,
because they had let the sucking-pig fall into the water, and
secondly, because they had run away.
Christine was taken back to her father on the heath, and Ib remained
in the farmhouse on the margin of the wood by the great ridge. The
first thing he did in the evening was to bring forth out of his pocket
the little black nut, in which "the best thing of all" was said to be
enclosed. He placed it carefully in the crack of the door, and then
shut the door so as to break the nut; but there was not much kernel in
it. The nut looked as if it were filled with tobacco or black rich
earth; it was what we call hollow, or worm-eaten.
"Yes, that's exactly what I thought," said Ib. "How could the very
best thing be contained in this little nut? And Christine will get
just as little out of her two nuts, and will have neither fine clothes
nor the golden carriage."
* * * * *
And winter came on, and the new year began; indeed, several years went
by.
Ib was at last to be confirmed; and for this reason he went during a
whole winter to the clergyman, far away in the nearest village, to
prepare. About this time the boatman one day visited Ib's parents, and
told them that Christine was now going into service, and that she had
been really fortunate in getting a remarkably good place, and falling
into worthy hands.
"Only think," he said; "she is going to the rich innkeeper's, in the
inn at Herning, far towards the west, many miles from here. She is to
assist the hostess in keeping the house; and afterwards, if she takes
to it well, and stays to be confirmed there, the people are going to
adopt her as their own daughter."
And Ib and Christine took leave of one another. People called them
"the betrothed;" and at parting, the girl showed Ib that she had still
the two nuts which he had given her long ago, during their wanderings
in the forest; and she told him, moreover, that in a drawer she had
carefully kept the little wooden shoes which he had carved as a
present for her in their childish days. And thereupon they parted.
Ib was confirmed. But he remained in his mother's house, for he had
become a clever maker of wooden shoes, and in summer he looked after
the field. He did it all alone, for his mother kept no farm-servant,
and his father had died long ago.
Only seldom he got news of Christine from some passing postillion or
eel-fisher. But she was well off at the rich innkeeper's; and after
she had been confirmed, she wrote a letter to her father, and sent a
kind message to Ib and his mother; and in the letter there was mention
made of certain linen garments and a fine new gown, which Christine
had received as a present from her employers. This was certainly good
news.
Next spring, there was a knock one day at the door of our Ibis old
mother, and behold, the boatman and Christine stepped into the room.
She had come on a visit to spend a day: a carriage had to come from
the Herning Inn to the next village, and she had taken the opportunity
to see her friends once again. She looked as handsome as a real lady,
and she had a pretty gown on, which had been well sewn, and made
expressly for her. There she stood, in grand array, and Ib was in his
working clothes. He could not utter a word: he certainly seized her
hand, and held it fast in his own, and was heartily glad; but he could
not get his tongue to obey him. Christine was not embarrassed,
however, for she went on talking and talking, and, moreover, kissed Ib
on his mouth in the heartiest manner.
"Did you know me again directly, Ib?" she asked; but even afterwards,
when they were left quite by themselves, and he stood there still
holding her hand in his, he could only say:
"You look quite like a real lady, and I am so uncouth. How often I
have thought of you, Christine, and of the old times!"
And arm in arm they sauntered up the great ridge, and looked across
the stream towards the heath, towards the great hills overgrown with
bloom. It was perfectly silent; but by the time they parted it had
grown quite clear to him that Christine must be his wife. Had they
not, even in their childhood, been called the betrothed pair? To him
they seemed to be really engaged to each other, though neither of them
had spoken a word on the subject. Only for a few more hours could they
remain together, for Christine was obliged to go back into the next
village, from whence the carriage was to start early next morning for
Herning. Her father and Ib escorted her as far as the village. It was
a fair moonlight evening, and when they reached their destination, and
Ib still held Christine's hand in his own, he could not make up his
mind to let her go. His eyes brightened, but still the words came
halting over his lips. Yet they came from the depths of his heart,
when he said:
"If you have not become too grand, Christine, and if you can make up
your mind to live with me in my mother's house as my wife, we must
become a wedded pair some day; but we can wait awhile yet."
"Yes, let us wait for a time, Ib," she replied; and he kissed her
lips. "I confide in you, Ib," said Christine; "and I think that I love
you--but I will sleep upon it."
And with that they parted. And on the way home Ib told the boatman
that he and Christine were as good as betrothed; and the boatman
declared he had always expected it would turn out so; and he went home
with Ib, and remained that night in the young man's house; but nothing
further was said of the betrothal.
A year passed by, in the course of which two letters were exchanged
between Ib and Christine. The signature was prefaced by the words,
"Faithful till death!" One day the boatman came into Ib, and brought
him a greeting from Christine. What he had further to say was brought
out in somewhat hesitating fashion, but it was to the effect that
Christine was almost more than prosperous, for she was a pretty girl,
courted and loved. The son of the host had been home on a visit; he
was employed in the office of some great institution in Copenhagen;
and he was very much pleased with Christine, and she had taken a fancy
to him: his parents were ready to give their consent, but Christine
was very anxious to retain Ib's good opinion; "and so she had thought
of refusing this great piece of good fortune," said the boatman.
At first Ib said not a word; but he became as white as the wall, and
slightly shook his head. Then he said slowly:
"Christine must not refuse this advantageous offer."
"Then do you write a few words to her," said the boatman.
And Ib sat down to write; but he could not manage it well: the words
would not come as he wished them; and first he altered, and then he
tore up the page; but the next morning a letter lay ready to be sent
to Christine, and it contained the following words:
"I have read the letter you have sent to your father, and
gather from it that you are prospering in all things, and
that there is a prospect of higher fortune for you. Ask your
heart, Christine, and ponder well the fate that awaits you,
if you take me for your husband; what I possess is but
little. Do not think of me, or my position, but think of
your own welfare. You are bound to me by no promise, and if
in your heart you have given me one, I release you from it.
May all treasures of happiness be poured out upon you,
Christine. Heaven will console me in its own good time.
"Ever your sincere friend,
"IB"
And the letter was dispatched, and Christine duly received it.
In the course of that November her banns were published in the church
on the heath, and in Copenhagen, where her bridegroom lived; and to
Copenhagen she proceeded, under the protection of her future
mother-in-law, because the bridegroom could not undertake the journey
into Jutland on account of his various occupations. On the journey,
Christine met her father in a certain village; and here the two took
leave of one another. A few words were mentioned concerning this fact,
but Ib made no remark upon it: his mother said he had grown very
silent of late; indeed, he had become very pensive, and thus the three
nuts came into his mind which the gipsy-woman had given him long ago,
and of which he had given two to Christine. Yes, it seemed right--they
were wishing-nuts, and in one of them lay a golden carriage with two
horses, and in the other very elegant clothes; all those luxuries
would now be Christine's in the capital. Her part had thus come true.
And to him, Ib, the nut had offered only black earth. The gipsy-woman
had said, this was "the best of all for him." Yes, it was right, that
also was coming true. The black earth was the best for him. Now he
understood clearly what had been the woman's meaning. In the black
earth, in the dark grave, would be the best happiness for him.
* * * * *
And once again years passed by, not very many, but they seemed long
years to Ib. The old innkeeper and his wife died, one after the other;
the whole of their property, many thousands of dollars, came to the
son. Yes, now Christine could have the golden carriage, and plenty of
fine clothes.
During the two long years that followed no letter came from Christine;
and when her father at length received one from her, it was not
written in prosperity, by any means. Poor Christine! neither she nor
her husband had understood how to keep the money together; and there
seemed to be no blessing with it, because they had not sought it.
And again the weather bloomed and faded. The winter had swept for many
years across the heath, and over the ridge beneath which Ib dwelt,
sheltered from the rough winds. The spring sun shone bright, and Ib
guided the plough across his field, when one day it glided over what
appeared to be a fire stone. Something like a great black ship came
out of the ground, and when Ib took it up it proved to be a piece of
metal; and the place from which the plough had cut the stone gleamed
brightly with ore. It was a great golden armlet of ancient workmanship
that he had found. He had disturbed a "Hun's Grave," and discovered
the costly treasure buried in it. Ib showed what he had found to the
clergyman, who explained its value to him, and then he betook himself
to the local judges, who reported the discovery to the keeper of the
museum, and recommended Ib to deliver up the treasure in person.
"You have found in the earth the best thing you could find," said the
judge.
"The best thing!" thought Ib. "The very best thing for me, and found
in the earth! Well, if that is the best, the gipsy-woman was correct
in what she prophesied to me."
So Ib travelled with the ferry-boat from Aarhus to Copenhagen. To him,
who had but once or twice passed beyond the river that rolled by his
home, this seemed like a voyage across the ocean. And he arrived in
Copenhagen.
The value of the gold he had found was paid over to him; it was a
large sum--six hundred dollars. And Ib of the heath wandered about in
the great capital.
On the day on which he had settled to go back with the captain, Ib
lost his way in the streets, and took quite a different direction from
the one he intended to follow. He had wandered into the suburb of
Christianhaven, into a poor little street. Not a human being was to be
seen. At last a very little girl came out of one of the wretched
houses. Ib inquired of the little one the way to the street which he
wanted; but she looked shyly at him, and began to cry bitterly. He
asked her what ailed her, but could not understand what she said in
reply. But as they went along the street together, they passed beneath
the light of a lamp; and when the light fell on the girl's face, he
felt a strange and sharp emotion, for Christine stood bodily before
him, just as he remembered her from the days of his childhood.
And he went with the little maiden into the wretched house, and
ascended the narrow, crazy staircase, which led to a little attic
chamber in the roof. The air in this chamber was heavy and almost
suffocating: no light was burning; but there was heavy sighing and
moaning in one corner. Ib struck a light with the help of a match. It
was the mother of the child who lay sighing on the miserable bed.
"Can I be of any service to you?" asked Ib. "This little girl has
brought me up here, but I am a stranger in this city. Are there no
neighbours or friends whom I could call to you?" And he raised the
sick woman's head, and smoothed her pillow.
It was Christine of the heath!
For years her name had not been mentioned yonder, for the mention of
her would have disturbed Ib's peace of mind, and rumour had told
nothing good concerning her. The wealth which her husband had
inherited from his parents had made him proud and arrogant. He had
given up his certain appointment, had travelled for half a year in
foreign lands, and on his return had incurred debts, and yet lived in
an expensive fashion. His carriage had bent over more and more, so to
speak, until at last it turned over completely. The many merry
companions and table-friends he had entertained declared it served him
right, for he had kept house like a madman; and one morning his corpse
was found in the canal.
The icy hand of death was already on Christine. Her youngest child,
only a few weeks old, expected in prosperity and born in misery, was
already in its grave, and it had come to this with Christine herself,
that she lay, sick to death and forsaken, in a miserable room, amid a
poverty that she might well have borne in her childish days, but which
now oppressed her painfully, since she had been accustomed to better
things. It was her eldest child, also a little Christine, that here
suffered hunger and poverty with her, and whom Ib had now brought
home.
"I am unhappy at the thought of dying and leaving the poor child here
alone," she said. "Ah, what is to become of the poor thing?" And not a
word more could she utter.
And Ib brought out another match, and lighted up a piece of candle he
found in the room, and the flame illumined the wretched dwelling. And
Ib looked at the little girl, and thought how Christine had looked
when she was young; and he felt that for her sake he would be fond of
this child, which was as yet a stranger to him. The dying woman gazed
at him, and her eyes opened wider and wider--did she recognize him? He
never knew, for no further word passed over her lips.
* * * * *
And it was in the forest by the river Gudenau, in the region of the
heath. The air was thick and dark, and there were no blossoms on the
heath plant; but the autumn tempests whirled the yellow leaves from
the wood into the stream, and out over the heath towards the hut of
the boatman, in which strangers now dwelt; but beneath the ridge, safe
beneath the protection of the high trees, stood the little farm,
trimly whitewashed and painted, and within it the turf blazed up
cheerily in the chimney; for within was sunlight, the beaming sunlight
of a child's two eyes; and the tones of the spring birds sounded in
the words that came from the child's rosy lips: she sat on Ib's knee,
and Ib was to her both father and mother, for her own parents were
dead, and had vanished from her as a dream vanishes alike from
children and grown men. Ib sat in the pretty neat house, for he was a
prosperous man, while the mother of the little girl rested in the
churchyard at Copenhagen, where she had died in poverty.
[Illustration: LITTLE CHRISTINE.]
Ib had money, and was said to have provided for the future. He had won
gold out of the black earth, and he had a Christine for his own, after
all.
OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER.
"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 way of what he read in books and in
himself. I often lent him books, good books; and you may know a man 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.
Among 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.
[Illustration: THE RIDE TO AMACK.]
"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 volumes of it, because they 're 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 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 Amack. 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
Amack 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 Amack. 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 Amack 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 Amack 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 sung
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 sang
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 the 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 Amack 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 Amack, 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 reappear 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 upon 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
south-west, 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 Flensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves of
Schleppegrell, Läslöes, and their comrades. One star also fell in the
midst of the land, fell upon Sorö, 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.
It 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 topers. 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 arbour
of health.
"If you take the _second glass_--from this a little bird soars
upwards, 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 VISIT.
On 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 bed straw 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 favourable 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.
"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.'
That 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.
[Illustration: THE REJECTED TRAVELLER.]
"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 this 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 saving's 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 arbour. 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 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 a 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 how, 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."
THE BOTTLE-NECK.
In a narrow crooked street, among other abodes of poverty, stood an
especially narrow and tall house built of timber, which time had
knocked about in such fashion that it seemed to be out of joint in
every direction. The house was inhabited by poor people, and the
deepest poverty was apparent in the garret lodging in the gable,
where, in front of the only window, hung an old bent birdcage, which
had not even a proper water-glass, but only a bottle-neck reversed,
with a cork stuck in the mouth, to do duty for one. An old maid stood
by the window: she had hung the cage with green chickweed; and a
little chaffinch hopped from perch to perch, and sang and twittered
merrily enough.
"Yes, it's all very well for you to sing," said the Bottle-neck; that
is to say, it did not pronounce the words as we can speak them, for a
bottle-neck can't speak; but that's what he thought to himself in his
own mind, like when we people talk quietly to ourselves. "Yes, it's
all very well for you to sing, you that have all your limbs uninjured.
You ought to feel what it's like to lose one's body, and to have only
mouth and neck left, and to be hampered with work into the bargain, as
in my case; and then I'm sure you would not sing. But after all it is
well that there should be somebody at least who is merry. I've no
reason to sing, and, moreover, I can't sing. Yes, when I was a whole
bottle, I sung out well if they rubbed me with a cork. They used to
call me a perfect lark, a magnificent lark! Ah, when I was out at a
picnic with the tanner's family, and his daughter was betrothed! Yes,
I remember it as if it had happened only yesterday. I have gone
through a great deal, when I come to recollect. I've been in the fire
and the water, have been deep in the black earth, and have mounted
higher than most of the others; and now I'm hanging here, outside the
birdcage, in the air and the sunshine! Oh, it would be quite worth
while to hear my history; but I don't speak aloud of it, because I
can't."
And now the Bottle-neck told its story, which was sufficiently
remarkable. It told the story to itself, or only thought it in its own
mind; and the little bird sang his song merrily, and down in the
street there was driving and hurrying, and every one thought of his
own affairs, or perhaps of nothing at all; and only the Bottle-neck
thought. It thought of the flaming furnace in the manufactory, where
it had been blown into life; it still remembered that it had been
quite warm, that it had glanced into the hissing furnace, the home of
its origin, and had felt a great desire to leap directly back again;
but that gradually it had become cooler, and had been very comfortable
in the place to which it was taken. It had stood in a rank with a
whole regiment of brothers and sisters, all out of the same furnace;
some of them had certainly been blown into champagne bottles, and
others into beer bottles, and that makes a difference. Later, out in
the world, it may well happen that a beer bottle may contain the most
precious wine, and a champagne bottle be filled with blacking; but
even in decay there is always something left by which people can see
what one has been--nobility is nobility, even when filled with
blacking.
All the bottles were packed up, and our bottle was among them. At that
time it did not think to finish its career as a bottle-neck, or that
it should work its way up to be a bird's glass, which is always an
honourable thing; for one is of some consequence, after all. The
bottle did not again behold the light of day till it was unpacked with
the other bottles in the cellar of the wine merchant, and rinsed out
for the first time; and that was a strange sensation. There it lay,
empty and without a cork, and felt strangely unwell, as if it wanted
something, it could not tell what. At last it was filled with good
costly wine, and was provided with a cork, and sealed down. A ticket
was placed on it, marked "first quality;" and it felt as if it had
carried off the first prize at an examination; for, you see, the wine
was good and the bottle was good. When one is young, that's the time
for poetry! There was a singing and sounding within it, of things
which it could not understand--of green sunny mountains, whereon the
grape grows, where many vine dressers, men and women, sing and dance
and rejoice. "Ah, how beautiful is life!" There was a singing and
sounding to all this in the bottle, as in a young poet's brain; and
many a young poet does not understand the meaning of the song that is
within him.
One morning the bottle was bought, for the tanner's apprentice was
dispatched for a bottle of wine--"of the best." And now it was put in
the provision basket, with ham and cheese and sausages; the finest
butter and the best bread were put into the basket too, the tanner's
daughter herself packed it. She was young and pretty; her brown eyes
laughed, and round her mouth played a smile as elegant as that in her
eyes. She had delicate hands, beautifully white, and her neck was
whiter still; you saw at once that she was one of the most beautiful
girls in the town: and still she was not engaged.
The provision basket was in the lap of the young girl when the family
drove out into the forest. The bottle-neck looked out from the folds
of the white napkin. There was red wax upon the cork, and the bottle
looked straight into the girl's face. It also looked at the young
sailor who sat next to the girl. He was a friend of old days, the son
of the portrait painter. Quite lately he had passed with honour
through his examination as mate, and to-morrow he was to sail away in
a ship, far off to a distant land. There had been much talk of this
while the basket was being packed; and certainly the eyes and mouth of
the tanner's pretty daughter did not wear a very joyous expression
just then.
The young people sauntered through the green wood, and talked to one
another. What were they talking of? No, the bottle could not hear
that, for it was in the provision basket. A long time passed before it
was drawn forth; but when that happened, there had been pleasant
things going on, for all were laughing, and the tanner's daughter
laughed too; but she spoke less than before, and her cheeks glowed
like two roses.
The father took the full bottle and the corkscrew in his hand. Yes,
it's a strange thing to be drawn thus, the first time! The bottle-neck
could never afterwards forget that impressive moment; and indeed there
was quite a convulsion within him when the cork flew out, and a great
throbbing as the wine poured forth into the glasses.
"Health to the betrothed pair!" cried the papa; and every glass was
emptied to the dregs, and the young mate kissed his beautiful bride.
"Happiness and blessing!" said the two old people, the father and
mother; and the young man filled the glasses again.
"Safe return, and a wedding this day next year!" he cried; and when
the glasses were emptied, he took the bottle, raised it on high, and
said, "Thou hast been present at the happiest day of my life, thou
shalt never serve another!"
And so saying he hurled it high into the air. The tanner's daughter
did not then think that she should see the bottle fly again; and yet
it was to be so. It then fell into the thick reeds on the margin of a
little woodland lake; and the bottle-neck could remember quite plainly
how it lay there for some time. "I gave them wine, and they gave me
marsh-water," he said; "but it was all meant for the best." He could
no longer see the betrothed couple and the cheerful old people; but
for a long time he could hear them rejoicing and singing. Then at last
came two peasant boys, and looked into the reeds; they spied out the
bottle, and took it up; and now it was provided for.
At their home, in the wood cottage, the eldest of these brothers, who
was a sailor, and about to start on a long voyage, had been the day
before to take leave: the mother was just engaged packing up various
things he was to take with him on his journey, and which the father
was going to carry into the town that evening to see his son once
more, and to give him a farewell greeting for the lad's mother and
himself. A little bottle of medicated brandy had already been wrapped
up in a parcel, when the boys came in with a larger and stronger
bottle which they had found. This bottle would hold more than the
little one, and they pronounced that the brandy would be capital for
a bad digestion, inasmuch as it was mixed with medical herbs. The
draught that was now poured into the bottle was not so good as the red
wine with which it had once been filled; these were bitter drops, but
even these are sometimes good. The new big bottle was to go, and not
the little one; and so the bottle went travelling again. It was taken
on board for Peter Jensen, in the very same ship in which the young
mate sailed. But he did not see the bottle; and, indeed, he would not
have known it, or thought it was the same one out of which they had
drunk a health to the betrothed pair, and to his own happy return.
[Illustration: THE BOTTLE IS PRESENT ON A JOYOUS OCCASION.]
Certainly it had no longer wine to give, but still it contained
something that was just as good. Accordingly, whenever Peter Jensen
brought it out, it was dubbed by his messmates The Apothecary. It
contained the best medicine, medicine that strengthened the weak, and
it gave liberally so long as it had a drop left. That was a pleasant
time, and the bottle sang when it was rubbed with the cork; and it was
called the Great Lark, "Peter Jensen's Lark."
Long days and months rolled on, and the bottle already stood empty in
a corner, when it happened--whether on the passage out or home the
bottle could not tell, for it had never been ashore--that a storm
arose; great waves came careering along, darkly and heavily, and
lifted and tossed the ship to and fro. The mainmast was shivered, and
a wave started one of the planks, and the pumps became useless. It was
black night. The ship sank; but at the last moment the young mate
wrote on a leaf of paper, "God's will be done! We are sinking!" He
wrote the name of his betrothed, and his own name, and that of the
ship, and put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at hand:
he corked it firmly down, and threw it out into the foaming sea. He
knew not that it was the very bottle from which the goblet of joy and
hope had once been filled for him; and now it was tossing on the waves
with his last greeting and the message of death.
The ship sank, and the crew sank with her. The bottle sped on like a
bird, for it bore a heart, a loving letter, within itself. And the sun
rose and set; and the bottle felt as at the time when it first came
into being in the red gleaming oven--it felt a strong desire to leap
back into the light.
It experienced calms and fresh storms; but it was hurled against no
rock, and was devoured by no shark; and thus it drifted on for a year
and a day, sometimes towards the north, sometimes towards the south,
just as the current carried it. Beyond this it was its own master, but
one may grow tired even of that.
The written page, the last farewell of the bridegroom to his
betrothed, would only bring sorrow if it came into her hands; but
where were the hands, so white and delicate, which had once spread the
cloth on the fresh grass in the greenwood, on the betrothal day? Where
was the tanner's daughter? Yes, where was the land, and which land
might be nearest to her dwelling? The bottle knew not; it drove onward
and onward, and was at last tired of wandering, because that was not
in its way; but yet it had to travel until at last it came to land--to
a strange land. It understood not a word of what was spoken here, for
this was not the language it had heard spoken before; and one loses a
good deal if one does not understand the language.
The bottle was fished out and examined on all sides. The leaf of paper
within it was discovered, and taken out, and turned over and over, but
the people did not understand what was written thereon. They saw that
the bottle must have been thrown overboard, and that something about
this was written on the paper, but what were the words? That question
remained unanswered, and the paper was put back into the bottle, and
the latter was deposited in a great cupboard, in a great room, in a
great house.
Whenever strangers came the paper was brought out, and turned over and
over, so that the inscription, which was only written in pencil,
became more and more illegible, so that at last no one could see that
there were letters on it. And for a whole year more the bottle
remained standing in the cupboard; and then it was put into the loft,
where it became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah, how often it
thought of the better days, the times when it had poured forth red
wine in the greenwood, when it had been rocked on the waves of the
sea, and when it had carried a secret, a letter, a parting sigh,
safely enclosed in its bosom.
For full twenty years it stood up in the loft; and it might have
remained there longer, but that the house was to be rebuilt. The roof
was taken off, and then the bottle was noticed, and they spoke about
it, but it did not understand their language; for one cannot learn a
language by being shut up in a loft, even if one stays there for
twenty years.
"If I had been down in the room," thought the Bottle, "I might have
learned it."
It was now washed and rinsed, and indeed this was requisite. It felt
quite transparent and fresh, and as if its youth had been renewed in
this its old age; but the paper it had carried so faithfully had been
destroyed in the washing.
The bottle was filled with seeds, though it scarcely knew what they
were. It was corked, and well wrapped up. No light nor lantern was it
vouchsafed to behold, much less the sun or the moon; and yet, it
thought, when one goes on a journey one ought to see something; but
though it saw nothing, it did what was most important--it travelled to
the place of its destination, and was there unpacked.
"What trouble they have taken over yonder with that bottle!" it heard
people say; "and yet it is most likely broken." But it was not broken.
The bottle understood every word that was now said; this was the
language it had heard at the furnace, and at the wine merchant's, and
in the forest, and in the ship, the only good old language it
understood: it had come back home, and the language was as a
salutation of welcome to it. For very joy it felt ready to jump out of
people's hands; hardly did it notice that its cork had been drawn,
and that it had been emptied and carried into the cellar, to be placed
there and forgotten. There's no place like home, even if it's in a
cellar! It never occurred to the bottle to think how long it would lie
there, for it felt comfortable, and accordingly lay there for years.
At last people came down into the cellar to carry off all the bottles,
and ours among the rest.
Out in the garden there was a great festival. Flaming lamps hung like
garlands, and paper lanterns shone transparent, like great tulips. The
evening was lovely, the weather still and clear, the stars twinkled;
it was the time of the new moon, but in reality the whole moon could
be seen as a bluish grey disc with a golden rim round half its
surface, which was a very beautiful sight for those who had good eyes.
The illumination extended even to the most retired of the garden
walks; at least so much of it, that one could find one's way there.
Among the leaves of the hedges stood bottles, with a light in each;
and among them was also the bottle we know, and which was destined one
day to finish its career as a bottle-neck, a bird's drinking-glass.
Everything here appeared lovely to our bottle, for it was once more in
the greenwood, amid joy and feasting, and heard song and music, and
the noise and murmur of a crowd, especially in that part of the garden
where the lamps blazed and the paper lanterns displayed their many
colours. Thus it stood, in a distant walk certainly, but that made it
the more important; for it bore its light, and was at once ornamental
and useful, and that is as it should be: in such an hour one forgets
twenty years spent in a loft, and it is right one should do so.
There passed close to it a pair, like the pair who had walked together
long ago in the wood, the sailor and the tanner's daughter; the bottle
seemed to experience all that over again. In the garden were walking
not only the guests, but other people who were allowed to view all the
splendour; and among these latter came an old maid who seemed to stand
alone in the world. She was just thinking, like the bottle, of the
greenwood, and of a young betrothed pair--of a pair which concerned
her very nearly, a pair in which she had an interest, and of which she
had been a part, in that happiest hour of her life--the hour one never
forgets, if one should become ever so old a maid. But she did not know
our bottle, nor did the bottle recognize the old maid: it is thus we
pass each other in the world, meeting again and again, as these two
met, now that they were together again in the same town.
From the garden the bottle was dispatched once more to the wine
merchant's, where it was filled with wine, and sold to the aëronaut,
who was to make an ascent in his balloon on the following Sunday. A
great crowd had assembled to witness the sight; military music had
been provided, and many other preparations had been made. The bottle
saw everything, from a basket in which it lay next to a live rabbit,
which latter was quite bewildered because he knew he was to be taken
up into the air, and let down again in a parachute; but the bottle
knew nothing of the "up" or the "down;" it only saw the balloon
swelling up bigger and bigger, and at last, when it could swell no
more, beginning to rise, and to grow more and more restless. The ropes
that held it were cut, and the huge machine floated aloft with the
aëronaut and the basket containing the bottle and the rabbit, and the
music sounded, and all the people cried, "Hurrah!"
"This is a wonderful passage, up into the air!" thought the Bottle;
"this is a new way of sailing; at any rate, up here we cannot strike
upon anything."
Thousands of people gazed up at the balloon, and the old maid looked
up at it also; she stood at the open window of the garret, in which
hung the cage with the little chaffinch, who had no water-glass as
yet, but was obliged to be content with an old cup. In the window
stood a myrtle in a pot; and it had been put a little aside that it
might not fall out, for the old maid was leaning out of the window to
look, and she distinctly saw the aëronaut in the balloon, and how he
let down the rabbit in the parachute, and then drank to the health of
all the spectators, and at length hurled the bottle high in the air;
she never thought that this was the identical bottle which she had
already once seen thrown aloft in honour of her and of her friend on
the day of rejoicing in the greenwood, in the time of her youth.
The bottle had no respite for thought; for it was quite startled at
thus suddenly reaching the highest point in its career. Steeples and
roofs lay far, far beneath, and the people looked like mites.
But now it began to descend with a much more rapid fall than that of
the rabbit; the bottle threw somersaults in the air, and felt quite
young, and quite free and unfettered; and yet it was half full of
wine, though it did not remain so long. What a journey! The sun shone
on the bottle, all the people were looking at it, the balloon was
already far away, and soon the bottle was far away too; for it fell
upon a roof and broke; but the pieces had got such an impetus that
they could not stop themselves, but went jumping and rolling on till
they came down into the courtyard and lay there in smaller pieces yet;
the bottle-neck only managed to keep whole, and that was cut off as
clean as if it had been done with a diamond.
"That would do capitally for a bird-glass," said the cellarmen; but
they had neither a bird nor a cage; and to expect them to provide both
because they had found a bottle-neck that might be made available for
a glass, would have been expecting too much; but the old maid in the
garret, perhaps it might be useful to her; and now the bottle-neck was
taken up to her, and was provided with a cork. The part that had been
uppermost was now turned downwards, as often happens when changes take
place; fresh water was poured into it, and it was fastened to the cage
of the little bird, which sung and twittered right merrily.
"Yes, it's very well for you to sing," said the Bottle-neck; and it
was considered remarkable for having been in the balloon--for that was
all they knew of its history. Now it hung there as a bird-glass, and
heard the murmuring and noise of the people in the street below, and
also the words of the old maid in the room within. An old friend had
just come to visit her, and they talked--not of the bottle-neck, but
about the myrtle in the window.
"No, you certainly must not spend a dollar for your daughter's bridal
wreath," said the old maid. "You shall have a beautiful little nosegay
from me, full of blossoms. Do you see how splendidly that tree has
come on? yes, that has been raised from a spray of the myrtle you gave
me on the day after my betrothal, and from which I was to have made my
own wreath when the year was past; but that day never came! The eyes
closed that were to have been my joy and delight through life. In the
depths of the sea he sleeps sweetly, my dear one! The myrtle has
become an old tree, and I become a yet older woman; and when it faded
at last, I took the last green shoot, and planted it in the ground,
and it has become a great tree; and now at length the myrtle will
serve at the wedding--as a wreath for your daughter."
There were tears in the eyes of the old maid. She spoke of the beloved
of her youth, of their betrothal in the wood; many thoughts came to
her, but the thought never came, that quite close to her, before the
very window, was a remembrance of those times; the neck of the bottle
which had shouted for joy when the cork flew out with a bang on the
betrothal day. But the bottle-neck did not recognize her, for he was
not listening to what this old maid said--and still that was because
he was thinking of her.
GOOD HUMOUR.
My father left me the best inheritance; to wit--good humour. And who
was my father? Why, that has nothing to do with the humour. He was
lively and stout, round and fat; and his outer and inner man were in
direct contradiction to his calling. And pray what was he by
profession and calling in civil society? Yes, if this were to be
written down and printed in the very beginning of a book, it is
probable that many when they read it would lay the book aside, and
say, "It looks so uncomfortable; I don't like anything of that sort."
And yet my father was neither a horse slaughterer nor an executioner;
on the contrary, his office placed him at the head of the most
respectable gentry of the town; and he held his place by right, for it
was his right place. He had to go first before the bishop even, and
before the princes of the blood. He always went first--for he was the
driver of the hearse!
There, now it's out! And I will confess that when people saw my father
sitting perched up on the omnibus of death, dressed in his long, wide,
black cloak, with his black-bordered three-cornered hat on his
head--and then his face, exactly as the sun is drawn, round and
jocund--it was difficult for them to think of the grave and of sorrow.
The face said, "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter; it will be
better than one thinks."
You see, I have inherited my good humour from him, and also the habit
of going often to the churchyard, which is a good thing to do if it be
done in the right spirit; and then I take in the _Intelligencer_, just
as he used to do.
I am not quite young. I have neither wife, nor children, nor a
library; but, as aforesaid, I take in the _Intelligencer_, and that's
my favourite newspaper, as it was also my father's. It is very useful,
and contains everything that a man needs to know--such as who preaches
in the church and in the new books. And then what a lot of charity,
and what a number of innocent, harmless verses are found in it!
Advertisements for husbands and wives, and requests for
interviews--all quite simple and natural. Certainly, one may live
merrily and be contentedly buried if one takes in the _Intelligencer_.
And, as a concluding advantage, by the end of his life a man will have
such a capital store of paper, that he may use it as a soft bed,
unless he prefers to rest upon wood-shavings.
The newspaper and my walk to the churchyard were always my most
exciting occupations--they were like bathing-places for my good
humour.
The newspaper every one can read for himself. But please come with me
to the churchyard; let us wander there where the sun shines and the
trees grow green. Each of the narrow houses is like a closed book,
with the back placed uppermost, so that one can only read the title
and judge what the book contains, but can tell nothing about it; but I
know something of them. I heard it from my father, or found it out
myself. I have it all down in my record that I wrote out for my own
use and pleasure: all that lie here, and a few more too, are
chronicled in it.
Now we are in the churchyard.
Here, behind this white railing, where once a rose tree grew--it is
gone now, but a little evergreen from the next grave stretches out its
green fingers to make a show--there rests a very unhappy man; and yet,
when he lived, he was in what they call a good position. He had enough
to live upon, and something over; but worldly cares, or to speak more
correctly, his artistic taste, weighed heavily upon him. If in the
evening he sat in the theatre to enjoy himself thoroughly, he would be
quite put out if the machinist had put too strong a light into one
side of the moon, or if the sky-pieces hung down over the scenes when
they ought to have hung behind them, or when a palm tree was
introduced into a scene representing the Berlin Zoological Gardens, or
a cactus in a view of the Tyrol, or a beech tree in the far north of
Norway. As if that was of any consequence. Is it not quite immaterial?
Who would fidget about such a trifle? It's only make-believe, after
all, and every one is expected to be amused. Then sometimes the public
applauded too much to suit his taste, and sometimes too little.
"They're like wet wood this evening," he would say; "they won't kindle
at all!" And then he would look round to see what kind of people they
were; and sometimes he would find them laughing at the wrong time,
when they ought not to have laughed, and that vexed him; and he
fretted, and was an unhappy man, and at last fretted himself into his
grave.
Here rests a very happy man. That is to say, a very grand man. He was
of high birth, and that was lucky for him, for otherwise he would
never have been anything worth speaking of; and nature orders all that
very wisely, so that it's quite charming when we think of it. He used
to go about in a coat embroidered back and front, and appeared in the
saloons of society just like one of those costly, pearl-embroidered
bell-pulls, which have always a good, thick, serviceable cord behind
them to do the work. He likewise had a good stout cord behind him, in
the shape of a substitute, who did his duty, and who still continues
to do it behind another embroidered bell-pull. Everything is so nicely
managed, it's enough to put one into a good humour.
[Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD NARRATION.]
Here rests--well, it's a very mournful reflection--here rests a man
who spent sixty-seven years considering how he should get a good idea.
The object of his life was to say a good thing, and at last he felt
convinced in his own mind that he had got one, and was so glad of it
that he died of pure joy at having caught an idea at last. Nobody
derived any benefit from it, and no one even heard what the good thing
was. Now, I can fancy that this same good thing won't let him live
quiet in his grave; for let us suppose that it is a good thing which
can only be brought out at breakfast if it is to make an effect, and
that he, according to the received opinion concerning ghosts, can only
rise and walk at midnight. Why, then the good thing would not suit the
time, and the man must carry his good idea down with him again. What
an unhappy man he must be!
Here rests a remarkably stingy woman. During her lifetime she used to
get up at night and mew, so that the neighbours might think she kept a
cat--she was so remarkably stingy.
Here is a maiden of another kind. When the canary bird of the heart
begins to chirp, reason puts her fingers in her ears. The maiden was
going to be married, but--well, it's an every-day story, and we will
let the dead rest.
Here sleeps a widow who carried melody in her mouth and gall in her
heart. She used to go out for prey in the families round about; and
the prey she hunted was her neighbours' faults, and she was an
indefatigable hunter.
Here's a family sepulchre. Every member of this family held so firmly
to the opinions of the rest, that if all the world, and the newspapers
into the bargain, said of a certain thing it is so and so, and the
little boy came home from school and said, "I've learned it thus and
thus," they declared his opinion to be the only true one, because he
belonged to the family. And it is an acknowledged fact, that if the
yard-cock of the family crowed at midnight, they would declare it was
morning, though the watchmen and all the clocks in the city were
crying out that it was twelve o'clock at night.
The great poet Goëthe concludes his "Faust" with the words "may be
continued;" and our wanderings in the churchyard may be continued too.
If any of my friends, or my non-friends, go on too fast for me, I go
out to my favourite spot and select a mound, and bury him or her
there--bury that person who is yet alive; and there those I bury must
stay till they come back as new and improved characters. I inscribe
their life and their deeds, looked at in my fashion, in my record; and
that's what all people ought to do. They ought not to be vexed when
any one goes on ridiculously, but bury him directly, and maintain
their good humour, and keep to the _Intelligencer_, which is often a
book written by the people with its hand guided.
When the time comes for me to be bound with my history in the boards
of the grave, I hope they will put up as my epitaph, "A good-humoured
one." And that's my story.
A LEAF FROM THE SKY.
High up yonder, in the thin clear air, flew an angel with a flower
from the heavenly garden. As he was kissing the flower, a very little
leaf fell down into the soft soil in the midst of the wood, and
immediately took root, and sprouted, and sent forth shoots among the
other plants.
"A funny kind of slip that," said the plants.
And neither thistle nor stinging-nettle would recognize the stranger.
"That must be a kind of garden plant," said they.
And they sneered; and the plant was despised by them as being a thing
out of the garden.
"Where are you coming?" cried the lofty thistles, whose leaves are all
armed with thorns.
"You give yourself a good deal of space. That's all nonsense--we are
not here to support you!" they grumbled.
And winter came, and snow covered the plant; but the plant imparted to
the snowy covering a lustre as if the sun was shining upon it from
below as from above. When spring came, the plant appeared as a
blooming object, more beautiful than any production of the forest.
And now appeared on the scene the botanical professor, who could show
what he was in black and white. He inspected the plant and tested it,
but found it was not included in his botanical system; and he could
not possibly find out to what class it belonged.
"That must be some subordinate species," he said. "I don't know it.
It's not included in any system."
"Not included in any system!" repeated the thistles and the nettles.
The great trees that stood round about saw and heard it; but they
said not a word, good or bad, which is the wisest thing to do for
people who are stupid.
There came through the forest a poor innocent girl. Her heart was
pure, and her understanding was enlarged by faith. Her whole
inheritance was an old Bible; but out of its pages a voice said to
her, "If people wish to do us evil, remember how it was said of
Joseph. They imagined evil in their hearts, but God turned it to good.
If we suffer wrong--if we are misunderstood and despised--then we may
recall the words of Him who was purity and goodness itself, and who
forgave and prayed for those who buffeted Him and nailed Him to the
cross." The girl stood still in front of the wonderful plant, whose
great leaves exhaled a sweet and refreshing fragrance, and whose
flowers glittered like a coloured flame in the sun; and from each
flower there came a sound as though it concealed within itself a deep
fount of melody that thousands of years could not exhaust. With pious
gratitude the girl looked on this beautiful work of the Creator, and
bent down one of the branches towards herself to breathe in its
sweetness; and a light arose in her soul. It seemed to do her heart
good; and gladly would she have plucked a flower, but she could not
make up her mind to break one off, for it would soon fade if she did
so. Therefore the girl only took a single leaf, and laid it in her
Bible at home; and it lay there quite fresh, always green, and never
fading.
Among the pages of the Bible it was kept; and, with the Bible, it was
laid under the young girl's head when, a few weeks afterwards, she lay
in her coffin, with the solemn calm of death on her gentle face, as if
the earthly remains bore the impress of the truth that she now stood
before her Creator.
But the wonderful plant still bloomed without in the forest. It was
almost like a tree to look upon; and all the birds of passage bowed
before it.
"That's giving itself foreign airs now," said the thistles and the
burdocks; "we never behave like that here."
And the black snails actually spat at the flower.
Then came the swineherd. He was collecting thistles and shrubs, to
burn them for the ashes. The wonderful plant was placed bodily in his
bundle.
"It shall be made useful," he said; and so said, so done.
[Illustration: THE POOR GIRL'S TREASURE.]
But soon afterwards, the king of the country was troubled with a
terrible depression of spirits. He was busy and industrious, but that
did him no good. They read him deep and learned books, and then they
read from the lightest and most superficial that they could find; but
it was of no use. Then one of the wise men of the world, to whom they
had applied, sent a messenger to tell the king that there was one
remedy to give him relief and to cure him. He said:
"In the king's own country there grows in a forest a plant of heavenly
origin. Its appearance is thus and thus. It cannot be mistaken."
"I fancy it was taken up in my bundle, and burnt to ashes long ago,"
said the swineherd; "but I did not know any better."
"You didn't know any better! Ignorance of ignorances!"
And those words the swineherd might well take to himself, for they
were meant for him, and for no one else.
Not another leaf was to be found; the only one lay in the coffin of
the dead girl, and no one knew anything about that.
And the king himself, in his melancholy, wandered out to the spot in
the wood.
"Here is where the plant stood," he said; "it is a sacred place."
And the place was surrounded with a golden railing, and a sentry was
posted there.
The botanical professor wrote a long treatise upon the heavenly plant.
For this he was gilded all over, and this gilding suited him and his
family very well. And indeed that was the most agreeable part of the
whole story. But the king remained as low-spirited as before; but that
he had always been, at least so the sentry said.
THE DUMB BOOK.
By the high-road in the forest lay a lonely peasant's hut; the road
went right through the farmyard. The sun shone down, and all the
windows were open. In the house was bustle and movement; but in the
garden, in an arbour of blossoming elder, stood an open coffin. A dead
man had been carried out here, and he was to be buried this morning.
Nobody stood by the coffin and looked sorrowfully at the dead man; no
one shed a tear for him: his face was covered with a white cloth, and
under his head lay a great thick book, whose leaves consisted of whole
sheets of blotting paper, and on each leaf lay a faded flower. It was
a complete herbanum, gathered by him in various places; it was to be
buried with him, for so he had wished it. With each flower a chapter
in his life was associated.
[Illustration: THE POWER OF THE BOOK.]
"Who is the dead man?" we asked; and the answer was:
"The Old Student. They say he was once a brisk lad, and studied the
old languages, and sang, and even wrote poems. Then something happened
to him that made him turn his thoughts to brandy, and take to it; and
when at last he had ruined his health, he came out here into the
country, where somebody paid for his board and lodging. He was as
gentle as a child, except when the dark mood came upon him; but when
it came he became like a giant, and then ran about in the woods like a
hunted stag; but when we once got him home again, and prevailed with
him so far that he opened the book with the dried plants, he often sat
whole days, and looked sometimes at one plant and sometimes at
another, and at times the tears rolled over his cheeks: Heaven knows
what he was thinking of. But he begged us to put the book into the
coffin, and now he lies there, and in a little while the lid will be
nailed down, and he will have his quiet rest in the grave."
The face-cloth was raised, and there was peace upon the features of
the dead man, and a sunbeam played upon it; a swallow shot with arrowy
flight into the arbour, and turned rapidly, and twittered over the
dead man's head.
What a strange feeling it is--and we have doubtless all experienced
it--that of turning over old letters of the days of our youth! a new
life seems to come up with them, with all its hopes and sorrows. How
many persons with whom we were intimate in those days, are as it were
dead to us! and yet they are alive, but for a long time we have not
thought of them--of them whom we then thought to hold fast for ages,
and with whom we were to share sorrow and joy.
Here the withered oak-leaf in the book reminded the owner of the
friend, the school-fellow, who was to be a friend for life: he
fastened the green leaf in the student's cap in the green wood, when
the bond was made "for life:" where does he live now? The leaf is
preserved, but the friendship has perished! And here is a foreign
hothouse plant, too delicate for the gardens of the North; the leaves
almost seem to keep their fragrance still. She gave it to him, the
young lady in the nobleman's garden. Here is the water rose, which he
plucked himself, and moistened with salt tears--the roses of the sweet
waters. And here is a nettle--what tale may its leaves have to tell?
What were his thoughts when he plucked it and kept it? Here is a lily
of the valley, from the solitudes of the forest. Here's an evergreen
from the flower-pot of the tavern; and here's a naked sharp blade of
grass.
The blooming elder waves its fresh fragrant blossoms over the dead
man's head, and the swallow flies past again. "Pee-wit! pee-wit!" And
now the men come with nails and hammers, and the lid is laid over the
dead man, that his head may rest upon the dumb book--vanished and
scattered!
THE JEWISH GIRL.
Among the children in a charity school sat a little Jewish girl. She
was a good, intelligent child, the quickest in all the school; but she
had to be excluded from one lesson, for she was not allowed to take
part in the scripture-lesson, for it was a Christian school.
In that hour the girl was allowed to open the geography book, or to do
her sum for the next day; but that was soon done; and when she had
mastered her lesson in geography, the book indeed remained open before
her, but the little one read no more in it; she listened silently to
the words of the Christian teacher, who soon became aware that she was
listening more intently than almost any of the other children.
"Read your book, Sara," the teacher said, in mild reproof; but her
dark beaming eye remained fixed upon him; and once when he addressed a
question to her, she knew how to answer better than any of the others
could have done. She had heard and understood, and had kept his words
in her heart.
When her father, a poor honest man, first brought the girl to the
school, he had stipulated that she should be excluded from the lessons
on the Christian faith. But it would have caused disturbance, and
perhaps might have awakened discontent in the minds of the others, if
she had been sent from the room during the hours in question, and
consequently she stayed; but this could not go on any longer.
The teacher betook himself to the father, and exhorted him either to
remove his daughter from the school, or to consent that Sara should
become a Christian.
"I can no longer be a silent spectator of the gleaming eyes of the
child, and of her deep and earnest longing for the words of the
Gospel," said the teacher.
Then the father burst into tears.
"I know but little of the commandment given to my fathers," he said;
"but Sara's mother was steadfast in the faith, a true daughter of
Israel, and I vowed to her as she lay dying that our child should
never be baptized. I must keep my vow, for it is even as a covenant
with God Himself."
And accordingly the little Jewish maiden quitted the Christian
school.
Years have rolled on.
In one of the smallest provincial towns there dwelt, as a servant in a
humble household, a maiden who held the Mosaic faith. Her hair was
black as ebony, her eye dark as night, and yet full of splendour and
light, as is usual with the daughters of Israel. It was Sara. The
expression in the countenance of the now grown-up maiden was still
that of the child sitting upon the school-room bench and listening
with thoughtful eyes to the words of the Christian teacher.
Every Sunday there pealed from the church the sounds of the organ and
the song of the congregation. The strains penetrated into the house
where the Jewish girl, industrious and faithful in all things, stood
at her work.
"Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath-day," said a voice within her, the
voice of the Law; but her Sabbath-day was a working day among the
Christians, and that seemed unfortunate to her. But then the thought
arose in her soul: "Doth God reckon by days and hours?" And when this
thought grew strong within her, it seemed a comfort that on the Sunday
of the Christians the hour of prayer remained undisturbed; and when
the sound of the organ and the songs of the congregation sounded
across to her as she stood in the kitchen at her work, then even that
place seemed to become a sacred one to her. Then she would read in the
Old Testament, the treasure and comfort of her people, and it was only
in this one she could read; for she kept faithfully in the depths of
her heart the words the teacher had spoken when she left the school,
and the promise her father had given to her dying mother, that she
should never receive Christian baptism, or deny the faith of her
ancestors. The New Testament was to be a sealed book to her; and yet
she knew much of it, and the Gospel echoed faintly among the
recollections of her youth.
[Illustration: SARA LISTENING TO THE SINGING IN THE CHURCH.]
One evening she was sitting in a corner of the living-room. Her master
was reading aloud; and she might listen to him, for it was not the
Gospel that he read, but an old story-book, therefore she might stay.
The book told of a Hungarian knight who was taken prisoner by a
Turkish pasha, who caused him to be yoked with his oxen to the plough,
and driven with blows of the whip till the blood came, and he almost
sank under the pain and ignominy he endured. The faithful wife of the
knight at home parted with all her jewels, and pledged castle and
land. The knight's friends amassed large sums, for the ransom demanded
was almost unattainably high: but it was collected at last, and the
knight was freed from servitude and misery. Sick and exhausted, he
reached his home. But soon another summons came to war against the
foes of Christianity: the knight heard the cry, and he could stay no
longer, for he had neither peace nor rest. He caused himself to be
lifted on his war-horse; and the blood came back to his cheek, his
strength appeared to return, and he went forth to battle and to
victory. The very same pasha who had yoked him to the plough became
his prisoner, and was dragged to his castle. But not an hour had
passed when the knight stood before the captive pasha, and said to
him:
"What dost thou suppose awaiteth thee?"
"I know it," replied the Turk. "Retribution."
"Yes, the retribution of the Christian!" resumed the knight. "The
doctrine of Christ commands us to forgive our enemies, and to love our
fellow-man, for it teaches us that God is love. Depart in peace,
depart to thy home: I will restore thee to thy dear ones; but in
future be mild and merciful to all who are unfortunate."
Then the prisoner broke out into tears, and exclaimed:
"How could I believe in the possibility of such mercy! Misery and
torment seemed to await me, they seemed inevitable; therefore I took
poison, which I secretly carried about me, and in a few hours its
effects will slay me. I must die--there is no remedy! But before I
die, do thou expound to me the teaching which includes so great a
measure of love and mercy, for it is great and godlike! Grant me to
hear this teaching, and to die a Christian!" And his prayer was
fulfilled.
That was the legend which the master read out of the old story-book.
All the audience listened with sympathy and pleasure; but Sara, the
Jewish girl, sitting alone in her corner, listened with a burning
heart; great tears came into her gleaming black eyes, and she sat
there with a gentle and lowly spirit as she had once sat on the school
bench, and felt the grandeur of the Gospel; and the tears rolled down
over her cheeks.
But again the dying words of her mother rose up within her:
"Let not my daughter become a Christian," the voice cried; and
together with it arose the word of the Law: "Thou shalt honour thy
father and thy mother."
"I am not admitted into the community of the Christians," she said;
"they abuse me for being a Jew girl--our neighbour's boys hooted me
last Sunday, when I stood at the open church-door, and looked in at
the flaming candles on the altar, and listened to the song of the
congregation. Ever since I sat upon the school bench I have felt the
force of Christianity, a force like that of a sunbeam, which streams
into my soul, however firmly I may shut my eyes against it. But I will
not pain thee in thy grave, O my mother, I will not be unfaithful to
the oath of my father, I will not read the Bible of the Christians. I
have the religion of my people, and to that will I hold!"
And years rolled on again.
The master died. His widow fell into poverty; and the servant girl was
to be dismissed. But Sara refused to leave the house: she became the
staff in time of trouble, and kept the household together, working
till late in the night to earn the daily bread through the labour of
her hands; for no relative came forward to assist the family, and the
widow become weaker every day, and lay for months together on the bed
of sickness. Sara worked hard, and in the intervals sat kindly
ministering by the sick-bed: she was gentle and pious, an angel of
blessing in the poverty-stricken house.
"Yonder on the table lies the Bible," said the sick woman to Sara.
"Read me something from it, for the night appears to be so long--oh,
so long!--and my soul thirsts for the word of the Lord."
And Sara bowed her head. She took the book, and folded her hands over
the Bible of the Christians, and opened it, and read to the sick
woman. Tears stood in her eyes, which gleamed and shone with ecstacy,
and light shone in her heart.
"O my mother," she whispered to herself; "thy child may not receive the
baptism of the Christians, or be admitted into the congregation--thou hast
willed it so, and I shall respect thy command: we will remain in union
together here on earth; but beyond this earth there is a higher union, even
union in God! He will be at our side, and lead us through the valley of
death. It is He that descendeth upon the earth when it is athirst, and
covers it with fruitfulness. I understand it--I know not how I came to
learn the truth; but it is through Him, through Christ!"
And she started as she pronounced the sacred name, and there came upon
her a baptism as of flames of fire, and her frame shook, and her limbs
tottered so that she sank down fainting, weaker even than the sick
woman by whose couch she had watched.
"Poor Sara!" said the people; "she is overcome with night watching and
toil!"
They carried her out into the hospital for the sick poor. There she
died; and from thence they carried her to the grave, but not to the
churchyard of the Christians, for yonder was no room for the Jewish
girl; outside, by the wall, her grave was dug.
But God's sun, that shines upon the graves of the Christians, throws
its beams also upon the grave of the Jewish girl beyond the wall; and
when the psalms are sung in the churchyard of the Christians, they
echo likewise over her lonely resting-place; and she who sleeps
beneath is included in the call to the resurrection, in the name of
Him who spake to his disciples:
"John baptized you with water, but I will baptize you with the Holy
Ghost!"
THE THORNY ROAD OF HONOUR
An old story yet lives of the "Thorny Road of Honour," of a marksman,
who indeed attained to rank and office, but only after a lifelong and
weary strife against difficulties. Who has not, in reading this story,
thought of his own strife, and of his own numerous "difficulties?" The
story is very closely akin to reality; but still it has its harmonious
explanation here on earth, while reality often points beyond the
confines of life to the regions of eternity. The history of the world
is like a magic lantern that displays to us, in light pictures upon
the dark ground of the present, how the benefactors of mankind, the
martyrs of genius, wandered along the thorny road of honour.
From all periods, and from every country, these shining pictures
display themselves to us; each only appears for a few moments, but
each represents a whole life, sometimes a whole age, with its
conflicts and victories. Let us contemplate here and there one of the
company of martyrs--the company which will receive new members until
the world itself shall pass away.
We look down upon a crowded amphitheatre. Out of the "Clouds" of
Aristophanes, satire and humour are pouring down in streams upon the
audience; on the stage Socrates, the most remarkable man in Athens, he
who had been the shield and defence of the people against the thirty
tyrants, is held up mentally and bodily to ridicule--Socrates, who
saved Alcibiades and Xenophon in the turmoil of battle, and whose
genius soared far above the gods of the ancients. He himself is
present; he has risen from the spectator's bench, and has stepped
forward, that the laughing Athenians may well appreciate the likeness
between himself and the caricature on the stage: there he stands
before them, towering high above them all.
Thou juicy, green, poisonous hemlock, throw thy shadow over
Athens--not thou, olive tree of fame!
Seven cities contended for the honour of giving birth to Homer--that
is to say, they contended after his death! Let us look at him as he
was in his lifetime. He wanders on foot through the cities, and
recites his verses for a livelihood; the thought for the morrow turns
his hair grey! He, the great seer, is blind, and painfully pursues his
way--the sharp thorn tears the mantle of the king of poets. His song
yet lives, and through that alone live all the heroes and gods of
antiquity.
[Illustration: THE KING OF POETS.]
One picture after another springs up from the east, from the west, far
removed from each other in time and place, and yet each one forming a
portion of the thorny road of honour, on which the thistle indeed
displays a flower, but only to adorn the grave.
The camels pass along under the palm trees; they are richly laden with
indigo and other treasures of price, sent by the ruler of the land to
him whose songs are the delight of the people, the fame of the
country: he whom envy and falsehood have driven into exile has been
found, and the caravan approaches the little town in which he has
taken refuge. A poor corpse is carried out of the town-gate, and the
funeral procession causes the caravan to halt. The dead man is he whom
they have been sent to seek--Firdusi--who has wandered the thorny road
of honour even to the end.
The African, with blunt features, thick lips, and woolly hair, sits on
the marble steps of the palace in the capital of Portugal, and begs:
he is the submissive slave of Camoens, and but for him, and for the
copper coins thrown to him by the passers by, his master, the poet of
the "Lusiad," would die of hunger. Now, a costly monument marks the
grave of Camoens.
There is a new picture.
Behind the iron grating a man appears, pale as death, with long
unkempt beard.
"I have made a discovery," he says, "the greatest that has been made
for centuries; and they have kept me locked up here for more than
twenty years!"
"Who is the man?
"A madman," replies the keeper of the madhouse. "What whimsical ideas
these lunatics have! He imagines that one can propel things by means
of steam. It is Solomon de Cares, the discoverer of the power of
steam, whose theory, expressed in dark words, is not understood by
Richelieu--and he dies in the madhouse!"
Here stands Columbus, whom the street boys used once to follow and
jeer, because he wanted to discover a new world--and he has discovered
it. Shouts of joy greet him from the breasts of all, and the clash of
bells sounds to celebrate his triumphant return; but the clash of the
bells of envy soon drowns the others. The discoverer of a world, he
who lifted the American gold land from the sea, and gave it to his
king--he is rewarded with iron chains. He wishes that these chains may
be placed in his coffin, for they witness of the world, and of the way
in which a man's contemporaries reward good service.
One picture after another comes crowding on; the thorny path of honour
and of fame is over-filled.
Here in dark night sits the man who measured the mountains in the
moon; he who forced his way out into the endless space, among stars
and planets; he, the mighty man who understood the spirit of nature,
and felt the earth moving beneath his feet--Galileo. Blind and deaf he
sits--an old man thrust through with the spear of suffering, and amid
the torments of neglect, scarcely able to lift his foot--that foot
with which, in the anguish of his soul, when men denied the truth, he
stamped upon the ground with the exclamation, "_Yet_ it moves!"
Here stands a woman of childlike mind, yet full of faith and
inspiration; she carries the banner in front of the combating army,
and brings victory and salvation to her fatherland. The sound of
shouting arises, and the pile flames up: they are burning the witch,
Joan of Arc. Yes, and a future century jeers at the white lily.
Voltaire, the satyr of human intellect, writes "_La Pucelle_."
At the _Thing_ or assembly at Viborg, the Danish nobles burn the laws
of the king--they flame up high, illuminating the period and the
lawgiver, and throw a glory into the dark prison tower, where an old
man is growing grey and bent. With his finger he marks out a groove in
the stone table. It is the popular king who sits there, once the ruler
of three kingdoms, the friend of the citizen and the peasant: it is
Christian the Second. Enemies wrote his history. Let us remember his
improvements of seven and twenty years, if we cannot forget his crime.
A ship sails away, quitting the Danish shores; a man leans against the
mast, casting a last glance towards the Island Hueen. It is Tycho
Brahé. He raised the name of Denmark to the stars, and was rewarded
with injury, loss, and sorrow. He is going to a strange country.
"The vault of heaven is above me everywhere," he says, "and what do I
want more?" And away sails the famous Dane, the astronomer, to live
honoured and free in a strange land.
"Ay, free, if only from the unbearable sufferings of the body!" comes
in a sigh through time, and strikes upon our ear. What a picture!
Griffenfeldt, a Danish Prometheus, bound to the rocky island of
Munkholm.
We are in America, on the margin of one of the largest rivers; an
innumerable crowd has gathered, for it is said that a ship is to sail
against wind and weather, bidding defiance to the elements; the man
who thinks he can solve the problem is named Robert Fulton. The ship
begins its passage, but suddenly it stops. The crowd begins to laugh
and whistle and hiss--the very father of the man whistles with the
rest.
"Conceit! Foolery!" is the cry. "It has happened just as he deserved:
put the crack-brain under lock and key!"
Then suddenly a little nail breaks, which had stopped the machine for
a few moments; and now the wheels turn again, the floats break the
force of the waters, and the ship continues its course--and the beam
of the steam-engine shortens the distance between far lands from hours
into minutes.
O human race, canst thou grasp the happiness of such a minute of
consciousness, this penetration of the soul by its mission, the moment
in which all dejection, and every wound--even those caused by own
fault--is changed into health and strength and clearness--when discord
is converted to harmony--the minute in which men seem to recognize the
manifestation of the heavenly grace in one man, and feel how this one
imparts it to all?
Thus the thorny path of honour shows itself as a glory, surrounding
the earth with its beams: thrice happy he who is chosen to be a
wanderer there, and, without merit of his own, to be placed between
the builder of the bridge and the earth, between Providence and the
human race!
On mighty wings the spirit of history floats through the ages, and
shows--giving courage and comfort, and awakening gentle thoughts--on
the dark nightly background, but in gleaming pictures, the thorny path
of honour; which does not, like a fairy tale, end in brilliancy and
joy here on earth, but stretches out beyond all time, even into
eternity!
THE OLD GRAVESTONE
In a little provincial town, in the time of the year when people say
"the evenings are drawing in," there was one evening quite a social
gathering in the home of a father of a family. The weather was still
mild and warm. The lamp gleamed on the table; the long curtains hung
down in folds before the open windows, by which stood many
flower-pots; and outside, beneath the dark blue sky, was the most
beautiful moonshine. But they were not talking about this. They were
talking about the old great stone which lay below in the courtyard,
close by the kitchen door, and on which the maids often laid the
cleaned copper kitchen utensils that they might dry in the sun, and
where the children were fond of playing. It was, in fact, an old
gravestone.
"Yes," said the master of the house, "I believe the stone comes from
the old convent churchyard; for from the church yonder, the pulpit,
the memorial boards, and the gravestones were sold. My father bought
the latter, and they were cut in two to be used as paving-stones; but
that old stone was kept back, and has been lying in the courtyard ever
since."
[Illustration: PREBEN SCHWANE AND HIS WIFE MARTHA.]
"One can very well see that it is a gravestone," observed the eldest
of the children; "we can still decipher on it an hour-glass and a
piece of an angel; but the inscription which stood below it is quite
effaced, except that you may read the name of _Preben_, and a great
_S_ close behind it, and a little farther down the name of _Martha_.
But nothing more can be distinguished, and even that is only plain
when it has been raining, or when we have washed the stone.
"On my word, that must be the gravestone of Preben Schwane and his
wife!"
These words were spoken by an old man; so old, that he might well have
been the grandfather of all who were present in the room.
"Yes, they were one of the last pairs that were buried in the old
churchyard of the convent. They were an honest old couple. I can
remember them from the days of my boyhood. Every one knew them, and
every one esteemed them. They were the oldest pair here in the town.
The people declared that they had more than a tubful of gold; and yet
they went about very plainly dressed, in the coarsest stuffs, but
always with splendidly clean linen. They were a fine old pair, Preben
and Martha! When both of them sat on the bench at the top of the steep
stone stairs in front of the house, with the old linden tree spreading
its branches above them, and nodded at one in their kind gentle way,
it seemed quite to do one good. They were very kind to the poor; they
fed them and clothed them; and there was judgment in their benevolence
and true Christianity. The old woman died first: that day is still
quite clear before my mind. I was a little boy, and had accompanied my
father over there, and we were just there when she fell asleep. The
old man was very much moved, and wept like a child. The corpse lay in
the room next to the one where we sat; and he spoke to my father and
to a few neighbours who were there, and said how lonely it would be
now in his house, and how good and faithful she (his dead wife) had
been, how many years they had wandered together through life, and how
it had come about that they came to know each other and to fall in
love. I was, as I have told you, a boy, and only stood by and listened
to what the others said; but it filled me with quite a strange emotion
to listen to the old man, and to watch how his cheeks gradually
flushed red when he spoke of the days of their courtship, and told how
beautiful she was, and how many little innocent pretexts he had
invented to meet her. And then he talked of the wedding-day, and his
eyes gleamed; he seemed to talk himself back into that time of joy.
And yet she was lying in the next room--dead--an old woman; and he was
an old man, speaking of the past days of hope! Yes, yes, thus it is!
Then I was but a child, and now I am old--as old as Preben Schwane was
then. Time passes away, and all things change. I can very well
remember the day when she was buried, and how Preben Schwane walked
close behind the coffin. A few years before, the couple had caused
their gravestone to be prepared, and their names to be engraved on it,
with the inscription, all but the date. In the evening the stone was
taken to the churchyard, and laid over the grave; and the year
afterwards it was taken up, that old Preben Schwane might be laid to
rest beside his wife. They did not leave behind them anything like the
wealth people had attributed to them: what there was went to families
distantly related to them--to people of whom until then one had known
nothing. The old wooden house, with the seat at the top of the steps,
beneath the lime tree, was taken down by the corporation; it was too
old and rotten to be left standing. Afterwards, when the same fate
befell the convent church, and the graveyard was levelled, Preben's
and Martha's tombstone was sold, like everything else, to any one who
would buy it; and that is how it has happened that this stone was not
hewn in two, as many another has been, but that it still lies below in
the yard as a scouring-bench for the maids and a plaything for the
children. The high-road now goes over the resting-place of old Preben
and his wife. No one thinks of them any more."
And the old man who had told all this shook his head scornfully.
"Forgotten! Everything will be forgotten!" he said.
And then they spoke in the room of other things; but the youngest
child, a boy with great serious eyes, mounted up on a chair behind the
window-curtains, and looked out into the yard, where the moon was
pouring its radiance over the old stone--the old stone that had always
appeared to him so tame and flat, but which lay there now like a great
leaf out of a book of chronicles. All that the boy had heard about old
Preben and his wife seemed concentrated in the stone; and he gazed at
it, and looked at the pure bright moon and up into the clear air, and
it seemed as though the countenance of the Creator was beaming over
His world.
"Forgotten! Everything will be forgotten!" was repeated in the room.
But in that moment an invisible angel kissed the boy's forehead, and
whispered to him:
"Preserve the seed-corn that has been entrusted to thee, that it may
bear fruit. Guard it well! Through thee, my child, the obliterated
inscription on the old tombstone shall be chronicled in golden letters
to future generations! The old pair shall wander again arm-in-arm
through the streets, and smile, and sit with their fresh healthy faces
under the lime tree on the bench by the steep stairs, and nod at rich
and poor. The seed-corn of this hour shall ripen in the course of time
to a blooming poem. The beautiful and the good shall not be forgotten;
it shall live on in legend and in song."
THE OLD BACHELOR'S NIGHTCAP.
There is a street in Copenhagen that has this strange name--"Hysken
Sträde." Whence comes this name, and what is its meaning? It is said
to be German; but injustice has been done to the Germans in this
matter, for it would have to be "Häuschen," and not "Hysken." For here
stood, once upon a time, and indeed for a great many years, a few
little houses, which were principally nothing more than wooden booths,
just as we see now in the market-places at fair-time. They were,
perhaps, a little larger, and had windows; but the panes consisted of
horn or bladder, for glass was then too expensive to be used in every
house. But then we are speaking of a long time ago--so long since,
that grandfather and great-grandfather, when they talked about them,
used to speak of them as "the old times"--in fact, it is several
centuries ago.
The rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck carried on trade with
Copenhagen. They did not reside in the town themselves, but sent their
clerks, who lived in the wooden booths in the Häuschen Street, and
sold beer and spices. The German beer was good, and there were many
kinds of it, as there were, for instance, Bremen, and Prussinger, and
Sous beer, and even Brunswick mumm; and quantities of spices were
sold--saffron, and aniseed, and ginger, and especially pepper. Yes,
pepper was the chief article here, and so it happened that the German
clerks got the nickname "pepper gentry;" and there was a condition
made with them in Lubeck and in Bremen, that they would not marry at
Copenhagen, and many of them became very old. They had to care for
themselves, and to look after their own comforts, and to put out their
own fires--when they had any; and some of them became very solitary
old boys, with eccentric ideas and eccentric habits. From them all
unmarried men, who have attained a certain age, are called in Denmark
"pepper gentry;" and this must be understood by all who wish to
comprehend this history.
The "pepper gentleman" becomes a butt for ridicule, and is continually
told that he ought to put on his nightcap, and draw it down over his
eyes, and do nothing but sleep. The boys sing,
"Cut, cut wood!
Poor bachelor so good.
Go, take your nightcap, go to rest,
For 'tis the nightcap suits you best!"
Yes, that's what they sing about the "pepperer"--thus they make game
of the poor bachelor and his nightcap, and turn it into ridicule, just
because they know very little about either. Ah, that kind of nightcap
no one should wish to earn! And why not?--We shall hear.
[Illustration: THE PEPPERER'S BOOTH.]
In the old times the "Housekin Street" was not paved, and the people
stumbled out of one hole into another, as in a neglected bye-way; and
it was narrow too. The booths leaned side by side, and stood so close
together that in the summer time a sail was often stretched from one
booth to its opposite neighbour, on which occasion the fragrance of
pepper, saffron, and ginger became doubly powerful. Behind the
counters young men were seldom seen. The clerks were generally old
boys; but they did not look like what we should fancy them, namely,
with wig, and nightcap, and plush small-clothes, and with waistcoat
and coat buttoned up to the chin. No, grandfather's great-grandfather
may look like that, and has been thus portrayed, but the "pepper
gentry" had no superfluous means, and accordingly did not have their
portraits taken; though, indeed, it would be interesting now to have a
picture of one of them, as he stood behind the counter or went to
church on holy days. His hat was high-crowned and broad-brimmed, and
sometimes one of the youngest clerks would mount a feather. The
woollen shirt was hidden behind a broad linen collar, the close jacket
was buttoned up to the chin, and the cloak hung loose over it; and the
trousers were tucked into the broad-toed shoes, for the clerks did not
wear stockings. In their girdles they sported a dinner-knife and
spoon, and a larger knife was placed there also for the defence of the
owner; and this weapon was often very necessary. Just so was Anthony,
one of the oldest clerks, clad on high days and holy days, except
that, instead of a high-crowned hat, he wore a low bonnet, and under
it a knitted cap (a regular nightcap), to which he had grown so
accustomed that it was always on his head; and he had two of
them--nightcaps, of course. The old fellow was a subject for a
painter. He was as thin as a lath, had wrinkles clustering round his
eyes and mouth, and long bony fingers, and bushy grey eyebrows: over
the left eye hung quite a tuft of hair, and that did not look very
handsome, though it made him very noticeable. People knew that he came
from Bremen; but that was not his native place, though his master
lived there. His own native place was in Thuringia, the town of
Eisenach, close by the Wartburg. Old Anthony did not speak much of
this, but he thought of it all the more.
The old clerks of the Häuschen Street did not often come together.
Each one remained in his booth, which was closed early in the evening;
and then it looked dark enough in the street: only a faint glimmer of
light forced its way through the little horn-pane in the roof; and in
the booth sat, generally on his bed, the old bachelor, his German
hymn-book in his hand, singing an evening psalm in a low voice; or he
went about in the booth till late into the night, and busied himself
about all sorts of things. It was certainly not an amusing life. To be
a stranger in a strange land is a bitter lot: nobody cares for you,
unless you happen to get in anybody's way.
Often when it was dark night outside, with snow and rain, the place
looked very gloomy and lonely. No lamps were to be seen, with the
exception of one solitary light hanging before the picture of the
Virgin that was fastened against the wall. The plash of the water
against the neighbouring rampart at the castle wharf could be plainly
heard. Such evenings are long and dreary, unless people devise some
employment for themselves. There is not always packing or unpacking to
do, nor can the scales be polished or paper bags be made continually;
and, failing these, people should devise other employment for
themselves. And that is just what old Anthony did; for he used to mend
his clothes and put pieces on his boots. When he at last sought his
couch, he used from habit to keep his nightcap on. He drew it down a
little closer; but soon he would push it up again, to see if the light
had been properly extinguished. He would touch it, press the wick
together, and then lie down on the other side, and draw his nightcap
down again; but then a doubt would come upon him, if every coal in the
little fire-pan below had been properly deadened and put out--a tiny
spark might have been left burning, and might set fire to something
and cause damage. And therefore he rose from his bed, and crept down
the ladder, for it could scarcely be called a stair. And when he came
to the fire-pan not a spark was to be discovered, and he might just go
back again. But often, when he had gone half of the way back, it would
occur to him that the shutters might not be securely fastened; yes,
then his thin legs must carry him downstairs once more. He was cold,
and his teeth chattered in his mouth when he crept back again to bed;
for the cold seems to become doubly severe when it knows it cannot
stay much longer. He drew up the coverlet closer around him, and
pulled down the nightcap lower over his brows, and turned his thoughts
away from trade and from the labours of the day. But that did not
procure him agreeable entertainment; for now old thoughts came and put
up their curtains, and these curtains have sometimes pins in them,
with which one pricks oneself, and one cries out "Oh!" and they prick
into one's flesh and burn so, that the tears sometimes come into one's
eyes; and that often happened to old Anthony--hot tears. The largest
pearls streamed forth, and fell on the coverlet or on the floor, and
then they sounded as if one of his heart-strings had broken. Sometimes
again they seemed to rise up in flame, illuminating a picture of life
that never faded out of his heart. If he then dried his eyes with his
nightcap, the tear and the picture were indeed crushed, but the source
of the tears remained, and welled up afresh from his heart. The
pictures did not come up in the order in which the scenes had occurred
in reality, for very often the most painful would come together; then
again the most joyful would come, but these had the deepest shadows of
all.
The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged to be fine, but the woods
of Thuringia arose far more beautiful in the eyes of Anthony. More
mighty and more venerable seemed to him the old oaks around the proud
knightly castle, where the creeping plants hung down over the stony
blocks of the rock; sweeter there bloomed the flowers of the apple
tree than in the Danish land. This he remembered very vividly. A
glittering tear rolled down over his cheek; and in this tear he could
plainly see two children playing--a boy and a girl. The boy had red
cheeks, and yellow curling hair, and honest blue eyes. He was the son
of the merchant Anthony--it was himself. The little girl had brown
eyes and black hair, and had a bright clever look. She was the
burgomaster's daughter Molly. The two were playing with an apple. They
shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it. Then they cut the
apple in two, and each of them took a half; they divided even the
pips, and ate them all but one, which the little girl proposed that
they should lay in the earth.
"Then you shall see," she said, "what will come out. It will be
something you don't at all expect. A whole apple tree will come out,
but not directly."
And she put the pip in a flower-pot, and both were very busy and eager
about it. The boy made a hole in the earth with his finger, and the
little girl dropped the pip in it, and they both covered it with
earth.
"Now, you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has struck
root," said Molly. "That won't do at all. I did it with my flowers;
but only twice. I wanted to see if they were growing--and I didn't
know any better then--and the plants withered."
Anthony took away the flower-pot, and every morning, the whole winter
through, he looked at it; but nothing was to be seen but the black
earth. At length, however, the spring came, and the sun shone warm
again; and two little green leaves came up out of the pot.
"Those are for me and Molly," said the boy. "That's beautiful--that's
marvellously beautiful!"
Soon a third leaf made its appearance. Whom did that represent? Yes,
and there came another, and yet another. Day by day and week by week
they grew larger, and the plant began to take the form of a real tree.
And all this was now mirrored in a single tear, which was wiped away
and disappeared; but it might come again from its source in the heart
of old Anthony.
In the neighbourhood of Eisenach a row of stony mountains rises up.
One of these mountains is round in outline, and lifts itself above the
rest, naked and without tree, bush, or grass. It is called the Venus
Mount. In this mountain dwells Lady Venus, one of the deities of the
heathen times. She is also called Lady Holle; and every child in and
around Eisenach has heard about her. She it was who lured Tannhauser,
the noble knight and minstrel, from the circle of the singers of the
Wartburg into her mountain.
[Illustration: IMPERTINENT MOLLY.]
Little Molly and Anthony often stood by this mountain; and once Molly
said:
"You may knock and say, 'Lady Holle, open the door--Tannhauser is
here!"
But Anthony did not dare. Molly, however, did it, though she only said
the words "Lady Holle, Lady Holle!" aloud and distinctly; the rest she
muttered so indistinctly that Anthony felt convinced she had not
really said anything; and yet she looked as bold and saucy as
possible--as saucy as when she sometimes came round him with other
little girls in the garden, and all wanted to kiss him because he did
not like to be kissed and tried to keep them off; and she was the only
one who dared to kiss him in spite of his resistance.
"_I_ may kiss him!" she would say proudly.
That was her vanity; and Anthony submitted, and thought no more about
it.
How charming and how teasing Molly was! It was said that Lady Holle in
the mountain was beautiful also, but that her beauty was like that of
a tempting fiend. The greatest beauty and grace was possessed by Saint
Elizabeth, the patron of the country, the pious Princess of Thuringia,
whose good actions have been immortalized in many places in legends
and stories. In the chapel her picture was hanging, surrounded by
silver lamps; but it was not in the least like Molly.
The apple tree which the two children had planted grew year by year,
and became taller and taller--so tall, that it had to be transplanted
into the garden, into the fresh air, where the dew fell and the sun
shone warm. And the tree developed itself strongly, so that it could
resist the winter. And it seemed as if, after the rigour of the cold
season was past, it put forth blossoms in spring for very joy. In the
autumn it brought two apples--one for Molly and one for Anthony. It
could not well have produced less.
The tree had grown apace, and Molly grew like the tree. She was as
fresh as an apple-blossom; but Anthony was not long to behold this
flower. All things change! Molly's father left his old home, and Molly
went with him, far away. Yes, in our time steam has made the journey
they took a matter of a few hours, but then more than a day and a
night were necessary to go so far eastward from Eisenach to the
furthest border of Thuringia, to the city which is still called
Weimar.
And Molly wept, and Anthony wept; but all their tears melted into one,
and this tear had the rosy, charming hue of joy. For Molly told him
she loved him--loved him more than all the splendours of Weimar.
One, two, three years went by, and during this period two letters were
received. One came by a carrier, and a traveller brought the other.
The way was long and difficult, and passed through many windings by
towns and villages.
Often had Molly and Anthony heard of Tristram and Iseult, and often
had the boy applied the story to himself and Molly, though the name
Tristram was said to mean "born in tribulation," and that did not
apply to Anthony, nor would he ever be able to think, like Tristram,
"She has forgotten me." But, indeed, Iseult did not forget her
faithful knight; and when both were laid to rest in the earth, one on
each side of the church, the linden trees grew from their graves over
the church roof, and there encountered each other in bloom. Anthony
thought that was beautiful, but mournful; but it could not become
mournful between him and Molly: and he whistled a song of the old
minne-singer, Walter of the Vogelverde:
"Under the lindens
Upon the heath."
And especially that passage appeared charming to him:
"From the forest, down in the vale,
Sang her sweet song the nightingale."
This song was often in his mouth, and he sang and whistled it in the
moonlight nights, when he rode along the deep hollow way on horseback
to get to Weimar and visit Molly. He wished to come unexpectedly, and
he came unexpectedly.
He was made welcome with full goblets of wine, with jovial company,
fine company, and a pretty room and a good bed were provided for him;
and yet his reception was not what he had dreamt and fancied it would
be. He could not understand himself--he could not understand the
others: but _we_ can understand it. One may be admitted into a house
and associate with a family without becoming one of them. One may
converse together as one would converse in a post-carriage, and know
one another as people know each other on a journey, each incommoding
the other and wishing that either oneself or the good neighbour were
away. Yes, this was the kind of thing Anthony felt.
"I am an honest girl," said Molly; "and I myself will tell you what it
is. Much has changed since we were children together--changed inwardly
and outwardly. Habit and will have no power over our hearts. Anthony,
I should not like to have an enemy in you, now that I shall soon be
far away from here. Believe me, I entertain the best wishes for you;
but to feel for you what I know now one may feel for a man, has never
been the case with me. You must reconcile yourself to this. Farewell,
Anthony!"
And Anthony bade her farewell. No tear came into his eye, but he felt
that he was no longer Molly's friend. Hot iron and cold iron alike
take the skin from our lips, and we have the same feeling when we kiss
it: and he kissed himself into hatred as into love.
Within twenty-four hours Anthony was back in Eisenach, though
certainly the horse on which he rode was ruined.
"What matter!" he said: "I am ruined too; and I will destroy
everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady Holle, or Venus the
heathen woman! I will break down the apple tree and tear it up by the
roots, so that it shall never bear flower or fruit more!"
But the apple tree was not broken down, though he himself was broken
down, and bound on a couch by fever. What was it that raised him up
again? A medicine was presented to him which had strength to do
this--the bitterest of medicines, that shakes up body and spirit
together. Anthony's father ceased to be the richest of merchants.
Heavy days--days of trial--were at the door; misfortune came rolling
into the house like great waves of the sea. The father became a poor
man. Sorrow and suffering took away his strength. Then Anthony had to
think of something else besides nursing his love-sorrows and his anger
against Molly. He had to take his father's place--to give orders, to
help, to act energetically, and at last to go out into the world and
earn his bread.
Anthony went to Bremen. There he learned what poverty and hard living
meant; and these sometimes make the heart hard, and sometimes soften
it, even too much.
How different the world was, and how different the people were from
what he had supposed them to be in his childhood! What were the
minne-singer's songs to him now?--an echo, a vanishing sound! Yes,
that is what he thought sometimes; but again the songs would sound in
his soul, and his heart became gentle.
"God's will is best!" he would say then. "It was well that I was not
permitted to keep Molly's heart--that she did not remain true to me.
What would it have led to now, when fortune has turned away from me?
She quitted me before she knew of this loss of prosperity, or had any
notion of what awaited me. That was a mercy of Providence towards me.
Everything has happened for the best. It was not her fault--and I have
been so bitter, and have shown so much rancour towards her!"
And years went by. Anthony's father was dead, and strangers lived in
the old house. But Anthony was destined to see it again. His rich
employer sent him on commercial journeys, and his duty led him into
his native town of Eisenach. The old Wartburg stood unchanged on the
mountain, with "the monk and the nun" hewn out in stone. The great
oaks gave to the scene the outlines it had possessed in his childish
days. The Venus Mount glimmered grey and naked over the valley. He
would have been glad to cry, "Lady Holle, Lady Holle, unlock the door,
and I shall enter and remain in my native earth!"
That was a sinful thought, and he blessed himself to drive it away.
Then a little bird out of the thicket sang clearly, and the old
minne-song came into his mind:
"From the forest, down in the vale,
Sang her sweet song the nightingale."
And here in the town of his childhood, which he thus saw again through
tears, much came back into his remembrance. The paternal house stood
as in the old times; but the garden was altered, and a field-path led
over a portion of the old ground, and the apple tree that he had not
broken down stood there, but outside the garden, on the farther side
of the path. But the sun threw its rays on the apple tree as in the
old days, the dew descended gently upon it as then, and it bore such a
burden of fruit that the branches were bent down towards the earth.
"That flourishes!" he said. "The tree can grow!"
Nevertheless, one of the branches of the tree was broken. Mischievous
hands had torn it down towards the ground; for now the tree stood by
the public way.
"They break its blossoms off without a feeling of thankfulness--they
steal its fruit and break the branches. One might say of the tree as
has been said of some men--'It was not sung at his cradle that it
should come thus.' How brightly its history began, and what has it
come to? Forsaken and forgotten--a garden tree by the hedge, in the
field, and on the public way! There it stands unprotected, plundered,
and broken! It has certainly not died, but in the course of years the
number of blossoms will diminish; at last the fruit will cease
altogether; and at last--at last all will be over!"
Such were Anthony's thoughts under the tree; such were his thoughts
during many a night in the lonely chamber of the wooden house in the
distant land--in the Häuschen Street in Copenhagen, whither his rich
employer, the Bremen merchant, had sent him, first making it a
condition that he should not marry.
"Marry! Ha, ha!" he laughed bitterly to himself.
Winter had set in early; it was freezing hard. Without, a snow-storm
was raging, so that every one who could do so remained at home; thus,
too, it happened that those who lived opposite to Anthony did not
notice that for two days his house had not been unlocked, and that he
did not show himself; for who would go out unnecessarily in such
weather?
They were grey, gloomy days; and in the house, whose windows were not
of glass, twilight only alternated with dark night. Old Anthony had
not left his bed during the two days, for he had not the strength to
rise; he had for a long time felt in his limbs the hardness of the
weather. Forsaken by all, lay the old bachelor, unable to help
himself. He could scarcely reach the water-jug that he had placed by
his bedside, and the last drop it contained had been consumed. It was
not fever, nor sickness, but old age that had struck him down. Up
yonder, where his couch was placed, he was overshadowed as it were by
continual night. A little spider, which, however, he could not see,
busily and cheerfully span its web around him, as if it were weaving a
little crape banner that should wave when the old man closed his eyes.
The time was very slow, and long, and dreary. Tears he had none to
shed, nor did he feel pain. The thought of Molly never came into his
mind. He felt as if the world and its noise concerned him no
longer--as if he were lying outside the world, and no one were
thinking of him. For a moment he felt a sensation of hunger--of
thirst. Yes, he felt them both. But nobody came to tend him--nobody.
He thought of those who had once suffered want; of Saint Elizabeth, as
she had once wandered on earth; of her, the saint of his home and of
his childhood, the noble Duchess of Thuringia, the benevolent lady who
had been accustomed to visit the lowliest cottages, bringing to the
inmates refreshment and comfort. Her pious deeds shone bright upon his
soul. He thought of her as she had come to distribute words of
comfort, binding up the wounds of the afflicted, giving meat to the
hungry; though her stern husband had chidden her for it. He thought of
the legend told of her, how she had been carrying the full basket
containing food and wine, when her husband, who watched her footsteps,
came forth and asked angrily what she was carrying, whereupon she
answered, in fear and trembling, that the basket contained roses which
she had plucked in the garden; how he had torn away the white cloth
from the basket, and a miracle had been performed for the pious lady;
for bread, and wine, and everything in the basket had been transformed
into roses!
Thus the saint's memory dwelt in Anthony's quiet mind; thus she stood
bodily before his downcast face, before his warehouse in the simple
booth in the Danish land. He uncovered his head, and looked into her
gentle eyes, and everything around him was beautiful and roseate. Yes,
the roses seemed to unfold themselves in fragrance. There came to him
a sweet, peculiar odour of apples, and he saw a blooming apple tree,
which spread its branches above him--it was the tree which Molly and
he had planted together.
And the tree strewed down its fragrant leaves upon him, cooling his
burning brow. The leaves fell upon his parched lips, and were like
strengthening bread and wine; and they fell upon his breast, and he
felt reassured and calm, and inclined to sleep peacefully.
"Now I shall sleep," he whispered to himself. "Sleep is refreshing.
To-morrow I shall be upon my feet again, and strong and
well--glorious, wonderful! That apple tree, planted in true affection,
now stands before me in heavenly radiance----"
[Illustration: THE OPPOSITE NEIGHBOUR LOOKS AFTER OLD ANTHONY.]
And he slept.
The day afterwards--it was the third day that his shop had remained
closed--the snow-storm had ceased, and a neighbour from the opposite
house came over towards the booth where dwelt old Anthony, who had not
yet shown himself. Anthony lay stretched upon his bed--dead--with his
old cap clutched tightly in his two hands! They did not put that cap
on his head in his coffin, for he had a new white one.
Where were now the tears that he had wept? What had become of the
pearls? They remained in the nightcap--and the true ones do not come
out in the wash--they were preserved in the nightcap, and in time
forgotten; but the old thoughts and the old dreams still remained in
the "bachelor's nightcap." Don't wish for such a cap for yourself. It
would make your forehead very hot, would make your pulse beat
feverishly, and conjure up dreams which appear like reality. The first
who wore that identical cap afterwards felt all that at once, though
it was half a century afterwards; and that man was the burgomaster
himself, who, with his wife and eleven children, was well and firmly
established, and had amassed a very tolerable amount of wealth. He was
immediately seized with dreams of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and
of heavy times.
"Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he cried out, and tore it from his
head.
And a pearl rolled out, and another, and another, and they sounded and
glittered.
"This must be gout," said the burgomaster. "Something dazzles my
eyes!"
They were tears, shed half a century before by old Anthony from
Eisenach.
Every one who afterwards put that nightcap upon his head had visions
and dreams which excited him not a little. His own history was changed
into that of Anthony, and became a story; in fact, many stories. But
some one else may tell _them_. We have told the first. And our last
word is--don't wish for "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap."
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER.
The storks tell their little ones very many stories, all of the moor
and the marsh. These stories are generally adapted to the age and
capacity of the hearers. The youngest are content if they are told
"Kribble-krabble, plurre-murre" as a story, and find it charming; but
the older ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at any rate
something relating to the family. Of the two oldest and longest
stories that have been preserved among the storks, we are only
acquainted with one, namely, that of Moses, who was exposed by his
mother on the banks of the Nile, and whom the king's daughter found,
and who afterwards became a great man and a prophet. That history is
very well known.
The second is not known yet, perhaps, because it is quite an inland
story. It has been handed down from mouth to mouth, from stork-mamma
to stork-mamma, for thousands of years, and each of them has told it
better and better; and now _we_'ll tell it best of all.
The first stork pair who told the story had their summer residence on
the wooden house of the Viking, which lay by the wild moor in
Wendsyssel; that is to say, if we are to speak out of the abundance of
our knowledge, hard by the great moor in the circle of Hjörring, high
up by the Skagen, the northern point of Jutland. The wilderness there
is still a great wide moor-heath, about which we can read in the
official description of districts. It is said that in old times there
was here a sea, whose bottom was upheaved; now the moorland extends
for miles on all sides, surrounded by damp meadows, and unsteady
shaking swamp, and turfy moor, with blueberries and stunted trees.
Mists are almost always hovering over this region, which seventy years
ago was still inhabited by wolves. It is certainly rightly called the
"wild moor;" and one can easily think how dreary and lonely it must
have been, and how much marsh and lake there was here a thousand years
ago. Yes, in detail, exactly the same things were seen then that may
yet be beheld. The reeds had the same height, and bore the same kind
of long leaves and bluish-brown feathery plumes that they bear now;
the birch stood there, with its white bark and its fine
loosely-hanging leaves, just as now; and as regards the living
creatures that dwelt here--why, the fly wore its gauzy dress of the
same cut that it wears now; and the favourite colours of the stork
were white picked out with black, and red stockings. The people
certainly wore coats of a different cut to those they now wear; but
whoever stepped out on the shaking moorland, be he huntsman or
follower, master or servant, met with the same fate a thousand years
ago that he would meet with to-day. He sank and went down to the
"marsh king," as they called him, who ruled below in the great
moorland empire. They also called him "gungel king;" but we like the
name "marsh king" better, and by that we'll call him, as the storks
did. Very little is known of the marsh king's rule; but perhaps that
is a good thing.
In the neighbourhood of the moorland, hard by the great arm of the
German Ocean and the Cattegat, which is called the Lümfjorden, lay the
wooden house of the Viking, with its stone water-tight cellars, with
its tower and its three projecting stories. On the roof the stork had
built his nest; and stork-mamma there hatched the eggs, and felt sure
that her hatching would come to something.
One evening stork-papa stayed out very long; and when he came home he
looked very bustling and important.
"I've something very terrible to tell you," he said to the
stork-mamma.
"Let that be," she replied. "Remember that I'm hatching the eggs, and
you might agitate me, and I might do them a mischief."
"You must know it," he continued. "She has arrived here--the daughter
of our host in Egypt--she has dared to undertake the journey here--and
she's gone!"
"She who came from the race of the fairies? Oh, tell me all about it!
You know I can't bear to be kept long in suspense when I'm hatching
eggs."
"You see, mother, she believed in what the doctor said, and you told
me true. She believed that the moor flowers would bring healing to her
sick father, and she has flown here in swan's plumage, in company with
the other swan-princesses, who come to the North every year to renew
their youth. She has come here, and she is gone!"
"You are much too long-winded!" exclaimed the stork-mamma, "and the
eggs might catch cold. I can't bear being kept in such suspense!"
"I have kept watch," said the stork-papa; "and to-night, when I went
into the reeds--there where the marsh ground will bear me--three swans
came. Something in their flight seemed to say to me, 'Look out! That's
not altogether swan; it's only swan's feathers!' Yes, mother, you have
a feeling of intuition just as I have; you know whether a thing is
right or wrong."
"Yes, certainly," she replied; "but tell me about the princess. I'm
sick of hearing of the swan's feathers."
"Well, you know that in the middle of the moor there is something like
a lake," continued stork-papa. "You can see one corner of it if you
raise yourself a little. There, by the reeds and the green mud, lay a
great alder stump; and on this the three swans sat, flapping their
wings and looking about them. One of them threw off her plumage, and I
immediately recognized her as our house princess from Egypt! There she
sat, with no covering but her long black hair. I heard her tell the
others to pay good heed to the swan's plumage, while she dived down
into the water to pluck the flowers which she fancied she saw growing
there. The others nodded, and picked up the empty feather dress and
took care of it. 'I wonder what they will do with it?' thought I; and
perhaps she asked herself the same question. If so, she got an
answer--a very practical answer--for the two rose up and flew away
with her swan's plumage. 'Do thou dive down,' they cried; 'thou shalt
never see Egypt again! Remain thou here in the moor!' And so saying,
they tore the swan's plumage into a thousand pieces, so that the
feathers whirled about like a snow-storm; and away they flew--the two
faithless princesses!"
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS LEFT IN THE MARSH.]
"Why, that is terrible!" said stork-mamma. "I can't bear to hear any
more of it. But now tell me what happened next."
"The princess wept and lamented aloud. Her tears fell fast on the
alder stump, and the latter moved; for it was not a regular alder
stump, but the marsh king--he who lives and rules in the depths of the
moor! I myself saw it--how the stump of the tree turned round, and
ceased to be a tree stump; long thin branches grew forth from it like
arms. Then the poor child was terribly frightened, and sprang up to
flee away. She hurried across to the green slimy ground; but that
cannot even carry me, much less her. She sank immediately, and the
alder stump dived down too; and it was he who drew her down. Great
black bubbles rose up out of the moor-slime, and the last trace of
both of them vanished when these burst. Now the princess is buried in
the wild moor, and never more will she bear away a flower to Egypt.
Your heart would have burst, mother, if you had seen it."
"You ought not to tell me anything of the kind at such a time as
this," said stork-mamma; "the eggs might suffer by it. The princess
will find some way of escape; some one will come to help her. If it
had been you or I, or one of our people, it would certainly have been
all over with us."
"But I shall go and look every day to see if anything happens," said
stork-papa.
And he was as good as his word.
A long time had passed, when at last he saw a green stalk shooting up
out of the deep moor-ground. When it reached the surface, a leaf
spread out and unfolded itself broader and broader; close by it, a bud
came out. And one morning, when stork-papa flew over the stalk, the
bud opened through the power of the strong sunbeams, and in the cup of
the flower lay a beautiful child--a little girl--looking just as if
she had risen out of the bath. The little one so closely resembled the
princess from Egypt, that at the first moment the stork thought it
must be the princess herself; but, on second thoughts, it appeared
more probable that it must be the daughter of the princess and of the
marsh king; and that also explained her being placed in the cup of the
water-lily.
"But she cannot possibly be left lying there," thought stork-papa;
"and in my nest there are so many persons already. But stay, I have a
thought. The wife of the Viking has no children, and how often has she
not wished for a little one! People always say, 'The stork has brought
a little one;' and I will do so in earnest this time. I shall fly with
the child to the Viking's wife. What rejoicing there will be yonder!"
And the stork lifted the little girl out of the flower-cup, flew to
the wooden house, picked a hole with his beak in the bladder-covered
window, laid the charming child on the bosom of the Viking's wife, and
then hurried up to the stork-mamma, and told her what he had seen and
done; and the little storks listened to the story, for they were big
enough to do so now.
"So you see," he concluded, "the princess is not dead, for she must
have sent the little one up here; and now that is provided for too."
"Ah, I said it would be so, from the very beginning!" said the
stork-mamma; "but now think a little of your own family. Our
travelling time is drawing on; sometimes I feel quite restless in my
wings already. The cuckoo and the nightingale have started; and I
heard the quails saying that they were going too, so soon as the wind
was favourable. Our young ones will behave well at the exercising, or
I am much deceived in them."
The Viking's wife was extremely glad when she woke next morning and
found the charming infant lying in her arms. She kissed and caressed
it; but it cried violently, and struggled with its arms and legs, and
did not seem rejoiced at all. At length it cried itself to sleep; and
as it lay there still and tranquil, it looked exceedingly beautiful.
The Viking's wife was in high glee: she felt light in body and soul;
her heart leapt within her; and it seemed to her as if her husband and
his warriors, who were absent, must return quite as suddenly and
unexpectedly as the little one had come.
Therefore she and the whole household had enough to do in preparing
everything for the reception of her lord. The long coloured curtains
of tapestry, which she and her maids had worked, and on which they had
woven pictures of their idols, Odin, Thor, and Freya, were hung up;
the slaves polished the old shields, that served as ornaments; and
cushions were placed on the benches, and dry wood laid on the
fireplace in the midst of the hall, so that the flame might be fanned
up at a moment's notice. The Viking's wife herself assisted in the
work, so that towards evening she was very tired, and went to sleep
quickly and lightly.
When she awoke towards morning, she was violently alarmed, for the
infant had vanished! She sprang from her couch, lighted a pine-torch,
and searched all round about; and, behold, in the part of the bed
where she had stretched her feet, lay, not the child, but a great ugly
frog! She was horror-struck at the sight, and seized a heavy stick to
kill the frog; but the creature looked at her with such strange,
mournful eyes, that she was not able to strike the blow. Once more she
looked round the room--the frog uttered a low, wailing croak, and she
started, sprang from the couch, and ran to the window and opened it.
At that moment the sun shone forth, and flung its beams through the
window on the couch and on the great frog; and suddenly it appeared as
though the frog's great mouth contracted and became small and red, and
its limbs moved and stretched and became beautifully symmetrical, and
it was no longer an ugly frog which lay there, but her pretty child!
"What is this?" she said. "Have I had a bad dream? Is it not my own
lovely cherub lying there?"
And she kissed and hugged it; but the child struggled and fought like
a little wild cat.
Not on this day nor on the morrow did the Viking return, although he
certainly was on his way home; but the wind was against him, for it
blew towards the south, favourably for the storks. A good wind for one
is a contrary wind for another.
When one or two more days and nights had gone, the Viking's wife
clearly understood how the case was with her child, that a terrible
power of sorcery was upon it. By day it was charming as an angel of
light, though it had a wild, savage temper; but at night it became an
ugly frog, quiet and mournful, with sorrowful eyes. Here were two
natures changing inwardly as well as outwardly with the sunlight. The
reason of this was that by day the child had the form of its mother,
but the disposition of its father; while, on the contrary, at night
the paternal descent became manifest in its bodily appearance, though
the mind and heart of the mother then became dominant in the child.
Who might be able to loosen this charm that wicked sorcery had worked?
The wife of the Viking lived in care and sorrow about it; and yet her
heart yearned towards the little creature, of whose condition she felt
she should not dare tell her husband on his return; for he would
probably, according to the custom which then prevailed, expose the
child on the public highway, and let whoever listed take it away. The
good Viking woman could not find it in her heart to allow this, and
she therefore determined that the Viking should never see the child
except by daylight.
One morning the wings of storks were heard rushing over the roof; more
than a hundred pairs of those birds had rested from their exercise
during the previous night, and now they soared aloft, to travel
southwards.
"All males here, and ready," they cried; "and the wives and children
too."
"How light we feel!" screamed the young storks in chorus: "it seems to
be creeping all over us, down into our very toes, as if we were filled
with frogs. Ah, how charming it is, travelling to foreign lands!"
"Mind you keep close to us during your flight," said papa and mamma.
"Don't use your beaks too much, for that tires the chest."
And the storks flew away.
At the same time the sound of the trumpets rolled across the heath,
for the Viking had landed with his warriors; they were returning
home, richly laden with spoil, from the Gallic coast, where the
people, as in the land of the Britons, sang in frightened accents:
"Deliver us from the wild Northmen!"
[Illustration: THE VIKING'S FEAST.]
And life and tumultuous joy came with them into the Viking's castle on
the moorland. The great mead tub was brought into the hall, the pile
of wood was set ablaze, horses were killed, and a great feast was to
begin. The officiating priest sprinkled the slaves with the warm
blood; the fire crackled, the smoke rolled along beneath the roof; but
they were accustomed to that. Guests were invited, and received
handsome gifts: all feuds and all malice were forgotten. And the
company drank deep, and threw the bones of the feast in each others'
faces, and this was considered a sign of good humour. The bard, a kind
of minstrel, but who was also a warrior, and had been on the
expedition with the rest, sang them a song, in which they heard all
their warlike deeds praised, and everything remarkable specially
noticed. Every verse ended with the burden:
"Goods and gold, friends and foes will die; every man must one day die;
But a famous name will never die!"
And with that they beat upon their shields, and hammered the table in
glorious fashion with bones and knives.
The Viking's wife sat upon the high seat in the open hall. She wore a
silken dress, and golden armlets, and great amber beads: she was in
her costliest garb. And the bard mentioned her in his song, and sang
of the rich treasure she had brought her rich husband. The latter was
delighted with the beautiful child, which he had seen in the daytime
in all its loveliness; and the savage ways of the little creature
pleased him especially. He declared that the girl might grow up to be
a stately heroine, strong and determined as a man. She would not wink
her eyes when a practised hand cut off her eyebrows with a sword by
way of a jest.
The full mead barrel was emptied, and a fresh one brought in; for
these were people who liked to enjoy all things plentifully. The old
proverb was indeed well known, which says, "The cattle know when they
should quit the pasture, but a foolish man knoweth not the measure of
his own appetite." Yes, they knew it well enough; but one _knows_ one
thing, and one _does_ another. They also knew that "even the welcome
guest becomes wearisome when he sitteth long in the house;" but for
all that they sat still, for pork and mead are good things; and there
was high carousing, and at night the bondmen slept among the warm
ashes, and dipped their fingers in the fat grease and licked them.
Those were glorious times!
Once more in the year the Viking sallied forth, though the storms of
autumn already began to roar: he went with his warriors to the shores
of Britain, for he declared that was but an excursion across the
water; and his wife stayed at home with the little girl. And thus
much is certain, that the poor lady soon got to love the frog with its
gentle eyes and its sorrowful sighs, almost better than the pretty
child that bit and beat all around her.
The rough damp mist of autumn, which devours the leaves of the forest,
had already descended upon thicket and heath. "Birds feather-less," as
they called the snow, flew in thick masses, and winter was coming on
fast. The sparrows took possession of the storks' nests, and talked
about the absent proprietors according to their fashion; but
these--the stork pair, with all the young ones--what had become of
them?
* * * * *
The storks were now in the land of Egypt, where the sun sent forth
warm rays, as it does here on a fine midsummer day. Tamarinds and
acacias bloomed in the country all around; the crescent of Mahomet
glittered from the cupolas of the temples, and on the slender towers
sat many a stork pair resting after the long journey. Great troops
divided the nests, built close together on venerable pillars and in
fallen temple arches of forgotten cities. The date-palm lifted up its
screen as if it would be a sunshade; the greyish-white pyramids stood
like masses of shadow in the clear air of the far desert, where the
ostrich ran his swift career, and the lion gazed with his great grave
eyes at the marble sphinx which lay half buried in the sand. The
waters of the Nile had fallen, and the whole river bed was crowded
with frogs, and this spectacle was just according to the taste of the
stork family. The young storks thought it was optical illusion, they
found everything so glorious.
"Yes, it's delightful here; and it's always like this in our warm
country," said the stork-mamma; and the young ones felt quite frisky
on the strength of it.
"Is there anything more to be seen?" they asked. "Are we to go much
farther into the country?"
"There's nothing further to be seen," answered stork-mamma. "Behind
this delightful region there are luxuriant forests, whose branches are
interlaced with one another, while prickly climbing plants close up
the paths--only the elephant can force a way for himself with his
great feet; and the snakes are too big, and the lizards too quick for
us. If you go into the desert, you'll get your eyes full of sand when
there's a light breeze, but when it blows great guns you may get into
the middle of a pillar of sand. It is best to stay here, where there
are frogs and locusts. I shall stay here, and you shall stay too."
And there they remained. The parents sat in the nest on the slender
minaret, and rested, and yet were busily employed smoothing and
cleaning their feathers, and whetting their beaks against their red
stockings. Now and then they stretched out their necks, and bowed
gravely, and lifted their heads, with their high foreheads and fine
smooth feathers, and looked very clever with their brown eyes. The
female young ones strutted about in the juicy reeds, looked slyly at
the other young storks, made acquaintances, and swallowed a frog at
every third step, or rolled a little snake to and fro in their bills,
which they thought became them well, and, moreover, tasted nice. The
male young ones began a quarrel, beat each other with their wings,
struck with their beaks, and even pricked each other till the blood
came. And in this way sometimes one couple was betrothed, and
sometimes another, of the young ladies and gentlemen, and that was
just what they wanted, and their chief object in life: then they took
to a new nest, and began new quarrels, for in hot countries people are
generally hot-tempered and passionate. But it was pleasant for all
that, and the old people especially were much rejoiced, for all that
young people do seems to suit them well. There was sunshine every day,
and every day plenty to eat, and nothing to think of but pleasure. But
in the rich castle at the Egyptian host's, as they called him, there
was no pleasure to be found.
The rich mighty lord reclined on his divan, in the midst of the great
hall of the many-coloured walls, looking as if he were sitting in a
tulip; but he was stiff and powerless in all his limbs, and lay
stretched out like a mummy. His family and servants surrounded him,
for he was not dead, though one could not exactly say that he was
alive. The healing moor flower from the North, which was to have been
found and brought home by her who loved him best, never appeared. His
beauteous young daughter, who had flown in the swan's plumage over sea
and land, to the far North, was never to come back. "She is dead!" the
two returning swan-maidens had said, and they had concocted a complete
story, which ran as follows:
"We three together flew high in the air: a hunter saw us, and shot his
arrow at us; it struck our young companion and friend; and slowly,
singing her farewell song, she sunk down, a dying swan, into the
woodland lake. By the shore of the lake, under a weeping birch tree,
we laid her in the cool earth. But we had our revenge. We bound fire
under the wings of the swallow who had her nest beneath the huntsman's
thatch; the house burst into flames, the huntsman was burnt in the
house, and the glare shone over the sea as far as the hanging birch
beneath which she sleeps. Never will she return to the land of Egypt."
And then the two wept. And when stork-papa heard the story, he clapped
with his beak so that it could be heard a long way off.
[Illustration: THE KING OF EGYPT DECEIVED BY THE PRINCESSES.]
"Treachery and lies!" he cried. "I should like to run my beak deep
into their chests."
"And perhaps break it off," interposed the stork-mamma; "and then you
would look well. Think first of yourself, and then of your family, and
all the rest does not concern you."
"But to-morrow I shall seat myself at the edge of the open cupola,
when the wise and learned men assemble, to consult on the sick man's
state: perhaps they may come a little nearer the truth."
And the learned and wise men came together and spoke a great deal, out
of which the stork could make no sense--and it had no result, either
for the sick man or for the daughter in the swampy waste. But for all
that we may listen to what the people said, for we have to listen to a
great deal of talk in the world.
But then it's an advantage to hear what went before, what has been
said; and in this case we are well informed, for we know just as much
about it as stork-papa.
"Love gives life! the highest love gives the highest life! Only
through love can his life be preserved." That is what they all said,
and the learned men said it was very cleverly and beautifully spoken.
"That is a beautiful thought!" stork-papa said immediately.
"I don't quite understand it," stork-mamma replied: "and that's not my
fault, but the fault of the thought. But let it be as it will, I've
something else to think of."
And now the learned men had spoken of love to this one and that one,
and of the difference between the love of one's neighbour and love
between parents and children, of the love of plants for the light,
when the sunbeam kisses the ground and the germ springs forth from
it,--everything was so fully and elaborately explained that it was
quite impossible for stork-papa to take it in, much less to repeat it.
He felt quite weighed down with thought, and half shut his eyes, and
the whole of the following day he stood thoughtfully on one leg: it
was quite heavy for him to carry, all that learning.
But one thing stork-papa understood. All, high and low, had spoken out
of their inmost hearts, and said that it was a great misfortune for
thousands of people, yes, for the whole country, that this man was
lying sick, and could not get well, and that it would spread joy and
pleasure abroad if he should recover. But where grew the flower that
could restore him to health? They had all searched for it, consulted
learned books, the twinkling stars, the weather and the wind; they had
made inquiries in every byway of which they could think; and at length
the wise men and the learned men had said, as we have already told,
that "Love begets life--will restore a father's life;" and on this
occasion they had surpassed themselves, and said more than they
understood. They repeated it, and wrote down as a recipe, "Love
begets life." But how was the thing to be prepared according to the
recipe? that was a point they could not get over. At last they were
decided upon the point that help must come by means of the princess,
through her who clave to her father with her whole soul; and at last a
method had been devised whereby help could be procured in this
dilemma. Yes, it was already more than a year ago since the princess
had sallied forth by night, when the brief rays of the new moon were
waning: she had gone out to the marble sphinx, had shaken the dust
from her sandals, and gone onward through the long passage which leads
into the midst of one of the great pyramids, where one of the mighty
kings of antiquity, surrounded by pomp and treasure, lay swathed in
mummy cloths. There she was to incline her ear to the breast of the
dead king; for thus, said the wise men, it should be made manifest to
her where she might find life and health for her father. She had
fulfilled all these injunctions, and had seen in a vision that she was
to bring home from the deep lake in the northern moorland--the very
place had been accurately described to her--the lotos flower which
grows in the depths of the waters, and then her father would regain
health and strength.
And therefore she had gone forth in the swan's plumage out of the land
of Egypt to the open heath, to the woodland moor. And the stork-papa
and stork-mamma knew all this; and now we also know it more accurately
than we knew it before. We know that the marsh king had drawn her down
to himself, and know that to her loved ones at home she is dead for
ever. One of the wisest of them said, as the stork-mamma said too,
"She will manage to help herself;" and at last they quieted their
minds with that, and resolved to wait and see what would happen, for
they knew of nothing better that they could do.
"I should like to take away the swan's feathers from the two faithless
princesses," said the stork-papa; "then, at any rate, they will not be
able to fly up again to the wild moor and do mischief. I'll hide the
two swan-feather suits up there, till somebody has occasion for them."
"But where do you intend to hide them?" asked stork-mamma.
"Up in our nest in the moor," answered he. "I and our young ones will
take turns in carrying them up yonder, on our return, and if that
should prove too difficult for us, there are places enough on the way
where 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
wraps."
"No one will thank you for it," quoth stork-mamma; "but you're the
master. Except at breeding-time, I have nothing to say."
In the Viking's castle by the wild moor, whither the storks bent their
flight when the spring approached, they had given the little girl the
name of Helga; but this name was too soft for a temper like that which
was associated with her beauteous form. Every month this temper showed
itself in sharper outlines; and in the course of years--during which
the storks made the same journey over and over again, in autumn to the
Nile, in spring back to the moorland lake--the child grew to be a
great girl; and before people were aware of it, she was a beautiful
maiden in her sixteenth year. The shell was splendid, but the kernel
was harsh and hard; and she was hard, as indeed were most people in
those dark, gloomy times. It was a pleasure to her to splash about
with her white hands in the blood of the horse that had been slain in
sacrifice. In her wild mood she bit off the neck of the black cock the
priest was about to offer up; and to her father she said in perfect
seriousness,
"If thy enemy should pull down the roof of thy house, while thou wert
sleeping in careless safety; if I felt it or heard it, I would not
wake thee even if I had the power. I should never do it, for my ears
still tingle with the blow that thou gavest me years ago--thou! I have
never forgotten it."
But the Viking took her words in jest; for, like all others, he was
bewitched with her beauty, and he knew not how temper and form changed
in Helga. Without a saddle she sat upon a horse, as if she were part
of it, while it rushed along in full career; nor would she spring from
the horse when it quarrelled and fought with other horses. Often she
would throw herself, in her clothes, from the high shore into the sea,
and swim to meet the Viking when his boat steered near home; and she
cut the longest lock of her hair, and twisted it into a string for her
bow.
"Self-achieved is well-achieved," she said.
The Viking's wife was strong of character and of will, according to
the custom of the times; but, compared to her daughter, she appeared
as a feeble, timid woman; for she knew that an evil charm weighed
heavily upon the unfortunate child.
It seemed as if, out of mere malice, when her mother stood on the
threshold or came out into the yard, Helga, would often seat herself
on the margin of the well, and wave her arms in the air; then suddenly
she would dive into the deep well, when her frog nature enabled her to
dive and rise, down and up, until she climbed forth again like a cat,
and came back into the hall dripping with water, so that the green
leaves strewn upon the ground floated and turned in the streams that
flowed from her garments.
[Illustration: THE TRANSFORMED PRINCESS.]
But there was one thing that imposed a check upon Helga, and that was
the evening twilight. When that came she was quiet and thoughtful, and
would listen to reproof and advice; and then a secret feeling seemed
to draw her towards her mother. And when the sun sank, and the usual
transformation of body and spirit took place in her, she would sit
quiet and mournful, shrunk to the shape of the frog, her body indeed
much larger than that of the animal whose likeness she took, and for
that reason much more hideous to behold; for she looked like a
wretched dwarf with a frog's head and webbed fingers. Her eyes then
assumed a very melancholy expression. She had no voice, and could only
utter a hollow croaking that sounded like the stifled sob 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 said,
"I could almost wish that thou wert always my poor dumb frog-child;
for thou art only the more terrible when thy nature is veiled 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 she could not
see that they worked any good.
"One can scarcely believe that she was ever so small that she could
lie in the cup of a water-lily," said stork-papa, "now she's grown up
the image of her Egyptian mother. Ah, we shall never see that poor
lady again! Probably she did not know how to help herself, as you and
the learned men said. Year after year I have flown to and fro, across
and across the great moorland, and she has never once given a sign
that she was still alive. Yes, I may as well tell you, that every
year, when I came here a few days before you, to repair the nest and
attend to various matters, I spent a whole night in flying to and fro
over the lake, as if I had been an owl or a bat, but every time in
vain. The two suits of swan feathers which I and the young ones
dragged up here out of the land of the Nile have consequently not been
used: we had trouble enough with them to bring them hither in three
journeys; and now they lie down here in the nest, and if it should
happen that a fire broke out, and the wooden house were burned, they
would be destroyed."
"And our good nest would be destroyed too," said stork-mamma; "but you
think less of that than of your plumage stuff and of your
moor-princess. You'd best go down into the mud and stay there with
her. You're a bad father to your own children, as I said already when
I hatched our first brood. I only hope neither we nor our children
will get an arrow in our wings through that wild girl. Helga doesn't
know in the least what she does. I wish she would only remember that
we have lived here longer than she, and that we have never forgotten
our duty, and have given our toll every year, a feather, an egg, and a
young one, as it was right we should do. Do you think I can now wander
about in the courtyard and everywhere, as I was wont in former days,
and as I still do in Egypt, where I am almost the playfellow of the
people, and that I can press into pot and kettle as I can yonder? No,
I sit up here and am angry at her, the stupid chit! And I am angry at
you too. You should have just left her lying in the water-lily, and
she would have been dead long ago."
"You are much better than your words," said stork-papa. "I know you
better than you know yourself."
And with that he gave a hop, and flapped his wings heavily twice,
stretched out his legs behind him, and flew away, or rather sailed
away, without moving his wings. He had already gone some distance,
when he gave a great _flap_! The sun shone upon his grand plumage, and
his head and neck were stretched forth proudly. There was power in it,
and dash!
"After all, he's handsomer than any of them," said stork-mamma to
herself; "but I won't tell him so."
* * * * *
Early in that autumn the Viking came home, laden with booty, and
bringing prisoners with him. Among these was a young Christian priest,
one of those who contemned the gods of the North.
Often in those later times there had been a talk, in hall and chamber,
of the new faith that was spreading far and wide in the South, and
which, by means of Saint Ansgarius, had penetrated as far as Hedeby on
the Schlei. Even Helga had heard of this belief in One who, from love
to men and for their redemption, had sacrificed His life; but with her
all this had, as the saying is, gone in at one ear and come out at the
other. It seemed as if she only understood the meaning of the word
"love," when she crouched in a corner of the chamber in the form of a
miserable frog; but the Viking's wife had listened to the mighty
history that was told throughout the lands, and had felt strangely
moved thereby.
On their return from their voyage, the men told of the splendid
temples, of their hewn stones, raised for the worship of Him whose
worship is love. Some massive vessels, made with cunning art, of gold,
had been brought home among the booty, and each one had a peculiar
fragrance; for they were incense vessels, which had been swung by
Christian priests before the altar.
In the deep cellars of the Viking's house the young priest had been
immured, his hands and feet bound with strips of bark. The Viking's
wife declared that he was beautiful as Bulder to behold, and his
misfortune touched her heart; but Helga declared that it would be
right to tie ropes to his heels, and fasten him to the tails of wild
oxen. And she exclaimed,
"Then I would let loose the dogs--hurrah! over the moor and across the
swamp! That would be a spectacle for the gods! And yet finer would it
be to follow him in his career."
But the Viking would not suffer him to die such a death: he purposed
to sacrifice the priest on the morrow, on the death-stone in the
grove, as a despiser and foe of the high gods.
For the first time a man was to be sacrificed here.
Helga begged, as a boon, that she might sprinkle the image of the god
and the assembled multitude with the blood of the priest. She
sharpened her glittering knife, and when one of the great savage dogs,
of whom a number were running about near the Viking's abode, ran by
her, she thrust the knife into his side, "merely to try its
sharpness," as she said. And the Viking's wife looked mournfully at
the wild, evil-disposed girl; and when night came on and the maiden
exchanged beauty of form for gentleness of soul, she spoke in eloquent
words to Helga of the sorrow that was deep in her heart.
The ugly frog, in its monstrous form, stood before her, and fixed its
brown eyes upon her face, listening to her words, and seeming to
comprehend them with human intelligence.
"Never, not even to my lord and husband, have I allowed my lips to
utter a word concerning the sufferings I have to undergo through
thee," said the Viking's wife; "my heart is full of woe concerning
thee: more powerful, and greater than I ever fancied it, is the love
of a mother! But love never entered into thy heart--thy heart that is
like the wet, cold moorland plants."
Then the miserable form trembled, and it was as though these words
touched an invisible bond between body and soul, and great tears came
into the mournful eyes.
"Thy hard time will come," said the Viking's wife; "and it will be
terrible to me too. It had been better if thou hadst been set out by
the high-road, and the night wind had lulled thee to sleep."
And the Viking's wife wept bitter tears, and went away full of wrath
and bitterness of spirit, vanishing behind the curtain of furs that
hung loose over the beam and divided the hall.
The wrinkled frog crouched in the corner alone. A deep silence reigned
around; but at intervals a half-stifled sigh escaped from its breast,
from the breast of Helga. It seemed as though a painful new life were
arising in her inmost heart. She came forward and listened; and,
stepping forward again, grasped with her clumsy hands the heavy pole
that was laid across before the door. Silently and laboriously she
pushed back the pole, silently drew back the bolt, and took up the
flickering lamp which stood in the antechamber of the hall. It seemed
as if a strong hidden will gave her strength. She drew back the iron
bolt from the closed cellar door, and crept in to the captive. He was
asleep; and when he awoke and saw the hideous form, he shuddered as
though he had beheld a wicked apparition. She drew her knife, cut the
bonds that confined his hands and feet, and beckoned him to follow
her.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT.]
He uttered some holy names, and made the sign of the cross; and when
the form remained motionless at his side, he said,
"Who art thou? Whence this animal shape that thou bearest, while yet
thou art full of gentle mercy?"
The frog-woman beckoned him to follow, and led him through corridors
shrouded with curtains, into the stables, and there pointed to a
horse. He mounted on its back; but she also sprang up before him,
holding fast by the horse's mane. The prisoner understood her meaning,
and in a rapid trot they rode on a way which he would never have
found, out on to the open heath.
He thought not of her hideous form, but felt how the mercy and
loving-kindness of the Almighty were working by means of this
monstrous apparition; he prayed pious prayers, and sang songs of
praise. Then she trembled. Was it the power of song and of prayer that
worked in her, or was she shuddering at the cold morning twilight that
was approaching? What were her feelings? She raised herself up, and
wanted to stop the horse and to alight; but the Christian priest held
her back with all his strength, and sang a pious song, as if that
would have the power to loosen the charm that turned her into the
hideous semblance of a frog. And the horse gallopped on more wildly
than ever; the sky turned red, the first sunbeam pierced through the
clouds, and as the flood of light came streaming down, the frog
changed its nature. Helga was again the beautiful maiden with the
wicked, demoniac spirit. He held a beautiful maiden in his arms, but
was horrified at the sight: he swung himself from the horse, and
compelled it to stand. This seemed to him a new and terrible sorcery;
but Helga likewise leaped from the saddle, and stood on the ground.
The child's short garment reached only to her knee. She plucked the
sharp knife from her girdle, and quick as lightning she rushed in upon
the astonished priest.
"Let me get at thee!" she screamed; "let me get at thee, and plunge
this knife in thy body! Thou art pale as straw, thou beardless slave!"
She pressed in upon him. They struggled together in a hard strife, but
an invisible power seemed given to the Christian captive. He held her
fast; and the old oak tree beneath which they stood came to his
assistance; for its roots, which projected over the ground, held fast
the maiden's feet that had become entangled in it. Quite close to them
gushed a spring; and he sprinkled Helga's face and neck with the fresh
water, and commanded the unclean spirit to come forth, and blessed her
in the Christian fashion; but the water of faith has no power when the
well-spring of faith flows not from within.
And yet the Christian showed his power even now, and opposed more than
the mere might of a man against the evil that struggled within the
girl. His holy action seemed to overpower her: she dropped her hands,
and gazed with frightened eyes and pale cheeks upon him who appeared
to her a mighty magician learned in secret arts; he seemed to her to
speak in a dark Runic tongue, and to be making cabalistic signs in the
air. She would not have winked had he swung a sharp knife or a
glittering axe against her; but she trembled when he signed her with
the sign of the cross on her brow and her bosom, and she sat there
like a tame bird with bowed head.
[Illustration: THE CHRISTIAN PRIEST'S SPELL.]
Then he spoke to her in gentle words of the kindly deed she had done
for him in the past night, when she came to him in the form of the
hideous frog, to loosen his bonds, and to lead him out to life and
light; and he told her that she too was bound in closer bonds than
those that had confined him, and that she should be released by his
means. He would take her to Hedeby (Schleswig), to the holy Ansgarius,
and yonder in the Christian city the spell that bound her would be
loosed. But he would not let her sit before him on the horse, though
of her own accord she offered to do so.
"Thou must sit behind me, not before me," he said. "Thy magic beauty
hath a power that comes of evil, and I fear it; and yet I feel that
the victory is sure to him who hath faith."
And he knelt down and prayed fervently. It seemed as though the
woodland scenes were consecrated as a holy church by his prayer. The
birds sang as though they belonged to the new congregation, the wild
flowers smelt sweet as incense; and while he spoke the horse that had
carried them both in headlong career stood still before the tall
bramble bushes, and plucked at them, so that the ripe juicy berries
fell down upon Helga's hands, offering themselves for her refreshment.
Patiently she suffered the priest to lift her on the horse, and sat
like a somnambulist, neither completely asleep nor wholly awake. The
Christian bound two branches together with bark, in the form of a
cross, which he held up high as they rode through the forest. The wood
became thicker as they went on, and at last became a trackless
wilderness.
The wild sloe grew across the way, so that they had to ride round the
bushes. The bubbling spring became not a stream but a standing marsh,
round which likewise they were obliged to lead the horse. There was
strength and refreshment in the cool forest breeze; and no small power
lay in the gentle words, which were spoken in faith and in Christian
love, from a strong inward yearning to lead the poor lost one into the
way of light and life.
They say the rain-drops can hollow the hard stone, and the waves of
the sea can smooth and round the sharp edges of the rocks. Thus did
the dew of mercy, that dropped upon Helga, smooth what was rough, and
penetrate what was hard in her. The effects did not yet appear, nor
was she aware of them herself; but doth the seed in the bosom of earth
know, when the refreshing dew and the quickening sunbeams fall upon
it, that it hath within itself the power of growth and blossoming? As
the song of the mother penetrates into the heart of the child, and it
babbles the words after her, without understanding their import, until
they afterwards engender thought, and come forward in due time clearer
and more clearly, so here also did the Word work, that is powerful to
create.
They rode forth from the dense forest, across the heath, and then
again through pathless roads; and towards evening they encountered a
band of robbers.
[Illustration: HELGA AND THE PRIEST ATTACKED BY ROBBERS.]
"Where hast thou stolen that beauteous maiden?" cried the robbers; and
they seized the horse's bridle, and dragged the two riders from its
back. The priest had no weapon save the knife he had taken from
Helga; and with this he tried to defend himself. One of the robbers
lifted his axe to slay him, but the young priest sprang aside and
eluded the blow, which struck deep into the horse's neck, so that the
blood spurted forth, and the creature sank down on the ground. Then
Helga seemed suddenly to wake from her long reverie, and threw
herself hastily upon the gasping animal. The priest stood before her
to protect and defend her, but one of the robbers swung his iron
hammer over the Christian's head, and brought it down with such a
crash that blood and brains were scattered around, and the priest sank
to the earth, dead.
Then the robber's seized beautiful Helga by her white arms and her
slender waist; but the sun went down, and its last ray disappeared at
that moment, and she was changed into the form of a frog. A
white-green mouth spread over half her face, her arms became thin and
slimy, and broad hands with webbed fingers spread out upon them like
fans. Then the robbers were seized with terror, and let her go. She
stood, a hideous monster, among them; and as it is the nature of the
frog to do, she hopped up high, and disappeared in the thicket. Then
the robbers saw that this must be a bad prank of the spirit Loke, or
the evil power of magic, and in great affright they hurried away from
the spot.
The full moon was already rising. Presently it shone with splendid
radiance over the earth, and poor Helga crept forth from the thicket
in the wretched frog's shape. She stood still beside the corpse of the
priest and the carcase of the slain horse. She looked at them with
eyes that appeared to weep, and from the frog-mouth came forth a
croaking like the voice of a child bursting into tears. She leant
first over the one, then over the other, brought water in her hollow
hand, which had become larger and more capacious by the webbed skin,
and poured it over them; but dead they were, and dead they would
remain, she at last understood. Soon wild beasts would come and tear
their dead bodies; but no, that must not be! so she dug up the earth
as well as she could, in the endeavour to prepare a grave for them.
She had nothing to work with but a stake and her two hands encumbered
with the webbed skin that grew between the fingers, and which were
torn by the labour, so that the blood flowed over them. At last she
saw that her endeavours would not succeed. Then she brought water and
washed the dead man's face, and covered it with fresh green leaves;
she brought green boughs and laid them upon him, scattering dead
leaves in the spaces between. Then she brought the heaviest stones she
could carry and laid them over the dead body, stopping up the
interstices with moss. And now she thought the grave-hill would be
strong and secure. The night had passed away in this difficult
work--the sun broke through the clouds, and beautiful Helga stood
there in all her loveliness, with bleeding hands, and with the first
tears flowing that had ever bedewed her maiden cheeks.
[Illustration: HELGA IN THE TREE.]
Then in this transformation it seemed as if two natures were striving
within her. Her whole frame trembled, and she looked around, as if she
had just awoke from a troubled dream. Then she ran towards the slender
tree, clung to it for support, and in another moment she had climbed
to the summit of the tree, and held fast. There she sat like a
startled squirrel, and remained the whole day long in the silent
solitude of the wood, where everything is quiet, and, as they say,
dead. Butterflies fluttered around in sport, and in the neighbourhood
were several ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little
occupants moving briskly to and fro. In the air danced a number of
gnats, swarm upon swarm, and hosts of buzzing flies, lady-birds, gold
beetles, and other little winged creatures; the worm crept forth from
the damp ground, the moles came out; but except these all was silent
around--silent, and, as people say, dead--for they speak of things as
they understand them. No one noticed Helga, but some flocks of crows,
that flew screaming about the top of the tree on which she sat: the
birds hopped close up to her on the twigs with pert curiosity; but
when the glance of her eye fell upon them, it was a signal for their
flight. But they could not understand her--nor, indeed, could she
understand herself.
When the evening twilight came on, and the sun was sinking, the time
of her transformation roused her to fresh activity. She glided down
from the tree, and as the last sunbeam vanished she stood in the
wrinkled form of the frog, with the torn webbed skin on her hands; but
her eyes now gleamed with a splendour of beauty that had scarcely been
theirs when she wore her garb of loveliness, for they were a pair of
pure, pious, maidenly eyes that shone out of the frog-face. They bore
witness of depth of feeling, of the gentle human heart; and the
beauteous eyes overflowed in tears, weeping precious drops that
lightened the heart.
On the sepulchral mound she had raised there yet lay the cross of
boughs, the last work of him who slept beneath. Helga lifted up the
cross, in pursuance of a sudden thought that came upon her. She
planted it upon the burial mound, over the priest and the dead horse.
The sorrowful remembrance of him called fresh tears into her eyes; and
in this tender frame of mind she marked the same sign in the sand
around the grave; and as she wrote the sign with both her hands, the
webbed skin fell from them like a torn glove; and when she washed her
hands in the woodland spring, and gazed in wonder at their snowy
whiteness, she again made the holy sign in the air between herself and
the dead man; then her lips trembled, the holy name that had been
preached to her during the ride from the forest came to her mouth, and
she pronounced it audibly.
Then the frog-skin fell from her, and she was once more the beauteous
maiden. But her head sank wearily, her tired limbs required rest, and
she fell into a deep slumber.
Her sleep, however, was short. Towards midnight she awoke. Before her
stood the dead horse, beaming and full of life, which gleamed forth
from his eyes and from his wounded neck; close beside the creature
stood the murdered Christian priest, "more beautiful than Bulder," the
Viking woman would have said; and yet he seemed to stand in a flame of
fire.
Such gravity, such an air of justice, such a piercing look shone out
of his great mild eyes, that their glance seemed to penetrate every
corner of her heart. Beautiful Helga trembled at the look, and her
remembrance awoke as though she stood before the tribunal of
judgment.
[Illustration: HELGA IS TAKEN BACK TO THE MARSH.]
Every good deed that had been done for her, every loving word that had
been spoken, seemed endowed with life: she understood that it had been
love that kept her here during the days of trial, during which the
creature formed of dust and spirit, soul and earth, combats and
struggles; she acknowledged that she had only followed the leading of
temper, and had done nothing for herself; everything had been given
her, everything had happened as it were by the interposition of
Providence. She bowed herself humbly, confessing her own deep
imperfection in the presence of the Power that can read every thought
of the heart--and then the priest spoke.
"Thou daughter of the moorland," he said, "out of the earth, out of
the moor, thou camest; but from the earth thou shalt arise. I come
from the land of the dead. Thou, too, shalt pass through the deep
valleys into the beaming mountain region, where dwell mercy and
completeness. I cannot lead thee to Hedeby, that thou mayest receive
Christian baptism; for, first, thou must burst the veil of waters over
the deep moorland, and draw forth the living source of thy being and
of thy birth; thou must exercise thy faculties in deeds before the
consecration can be given thee."
And he lifted her upon the horse, and gave her a golden censer similar
to the one she had seen in the Viking's castle. The open wound in the
forehead of the slain Christian shone like a diadem. He took the cross
from the grave and held it aloft. And now they rode through the air,
over the rustling wood, over the hills where the old heroes lay
buried, each on his dead war-horse; and the iron figures rose up and
gallopped forth, and stationed themselves on the summits of the hills.
The golden hoop on the forehead of each gleamed in the moonlight, and
their mantles floated in the night breeze. The dragon that guards
buried treasures likewise lifted up his head and gazed after the
riders. The gnomes and wood-spirits peeped forth from beneath the
hills and from between the furrows of the fields, and flitted to and
fro with red, blue, and green torches, like the sparks in the ashes of
a burnt paper.
Over woodland and heath, over river and marsh they fled away, up to
the wild moor; and over this they hovered in wide circles. The
Christian priest held the cross aloft; it gleamed like gold; and from
his lips dropped pious prayers. Beautiful Helga joined in the hymns he
sang, like a child joining in its mother's song. She swung the censer,
and a wondrous fragrance of incense streamed forth thence, so that the
reeds and grass of the moor burst forth into blossom. Every germ came
forth from the deep ground. All that had life lifted itself up. A veil
of water-lilies spread itself forth like a carpet of wrought flowers,
and upon this carpet lay a sleeping woman, young and beautiful. Helga
thought it was her own likeness she saw upon the mirror of the calm
waters. But it was her mother whom she beheld, the moor king's wife,
the princess from the banks of the Nile.
The dead priest commanded that the slumbering woman should be lifted
upon the horse; but the horse sank under the burden, as though its
body had been a cloth fluttering in the wind. But the holy sign gave
strength to the airy phantom, and then the three rode from the moor to
the firm land.
[Illustration: HELGA MEETS WITH HER MOTHER IN THE MARSH.]
Then the cock crowed in the Viking's castle, and the phantom shapes
dissolved and floated away in air; but mother and daughter stood
opposite each other.
"Am I really looking at my own image from beneath the deep waters?"
asked the mother.
"Is it myself that I see reflected on the clear mirror?" exclaimed the
daughter.
And they approached one another, and embraced. The heart of the mother
beat quickest, and she understood the quickening pulses.
"My child! thou flower of my own heart! my lotos-flower of the deep
waters!"
And she embraced her child anew, and wept; and the tears were as a new
baptism of life and love to Helga.
"In the swan's plumage came I hither," said the mother; "and here also I
threw off my dress of feathers. I sank through the shaking moorland, far
down into the black slime, which closed like a wall around me. But soon I
felt a fresher stream; a power drew me down, deeper and ever deeper. I felt
the weight of sleep upon my eyelids; I slumbered, and dreams hovered round
me. It seemed to me that I was again in the pyramid in Egypt, and yet the
waving willow trunk that had frightened me up in the moor was ever before
me. I looked at the clefts and wrinkles in the stem, and they shone forth
in colours, and took the form of hieroglyphics: it was the case of the
mummy at which I was gazing; at last the case burst, and forth stepped the
thousand-year-old king, the mummied form, black as pitch, shining black as
the wood-snail or the fat mud of the swamp; whether it was the marsh king
or the mummy of the pyramids I knew not. He seized me in his arms, and I
felt as if I must die. When I returned to consciousness a little bird was
sitting on my bosom, beating with its wings, and twittering and singing.
The bird flew away from me up towards the heavy, dark covering; but a long
green band still fastened him to me. I heard and understood his longing
tones: 'Freedom! Sunlight! to my father!' Then I thought of my father and
the sunny land of my birth, my life, and my love; and I loosened the band
and let the bird soar away home to the father. Since that hour I have
dreamed no more. I have slept a sleep, a long and heavy sleep, till within
this hour; harmony and incense awoke me and set me free."
The green band from the heart of the mother to the bird's wings, where
did it flutter now? whither had it been wafted? Only the stork had
seen it. The band was the green stalk, the bow at the end, the
beauteous flower, the cradle of the child that had now bloomed into
beauty, and was once more resting on its mother's heart.
And while the two were locked in each other's embrace, the old stork
flew around them in smaller and smaller circles, and at length shot
away in swift flight towards his nest, whence he brought out the
swan-feather suits he had preserved there for years, throwing one to
each of them, and the feathers closed around them, so that they soared
up from the earth in the semblance of two white swans.
"And now we will speak with one another," quoth stork-papa, "now we
understand each other, though the beak of one bird is differently
shaped from that of another. It happens more than fortunately that you
came to-night. To-morrow we should have been gone--mother, myself, and
the young ones; for we're flying southward. Yes, only look at me! I am
an old friend from the land of the Nile, and mother has a heart larger
than her beak. She always declared the princess would find a way to
help herself; and I and the young ones carried the swan's feathers up
here. But how glad I am! and how fortunate that I'm here still! At
dawn of day we shall move hence, a great company of storks. We'll fly
first, and do you follow us; thus you cannot miss your way; moreover,
I and the youngsters will keep a sharp eye upon you."
"And the lotos-flower which I was to bring with me," said the Egyptian
princess, "she is flying by my side in the swan's plumage! I bring
with me the flower of my heart; and thus the riddle has been read.
Homeward! homeward!"
But Helga declared she could not quit the Danish land before she had
once more seen her foster-mother, the affectionate Viking woman. Every
beautiful recollection, every kind word, every tear that her
foster-mother had wept for her, rose up in her memory, and in that
moment she almost felt as if she loved the Viking woman best of all.
"Yes, we must go to the Viking's castle," said stork-papa; "mother and
the youngsters are waiting for us there. How they will turn up their
eyes and flap their wings! Yes, you see mother doesn't speak
much--she's short and dry, but she means all the better. I'll begin
clapping at once, that they may know we're coming." And stork-papa
clapped in first-rate style, and they all flew away towards the
Viking's castle.
In the castle every one was sunk in deep sleep. The Viking's wife had
not retired to rest until it was late. She was anxious about Helga,
who had vanished with a Christian priest three days before: she knew
Helga must have assisted him in his flight, for it was the girl's
horse that had been missed from the stables; but how all this had been
effected was a mystery to her. The Viking woman had heard of the
miracles told of the Christian priest, and which were said to be
wrought by him and by those who believed in his words and followed
him. Her passing thoughts formed themselves into a dream, and it
seemed to her that she was still lying awake on her couch, and that
deep darkness reigned without. The storm drew near: she heard the sea
roaring and rolling to the east and to the west, like the waves of the
North Sea and the Cattegat. The immense snake which was believed to
surround the span of the earth in the depths of the ocean was
trembling in convulsions; she dreamed that the night of the fall of
the gods had come--Ragnarok, as the heathen called the last day, when
everything was to pass away, even the great gods themselves. The
war-trumpet sounded, and the gods rode over the rainbow, clad in
steel, to fight the last battle. The winged Valkyrs rode before them,
and the dead warriors closed the train. The whole firmament was ablaze
with northern lights, and yet the darkness seemed to predominate. It
was a terrible hour.
And close by the terrified Viking woman Helga seemed to be crouching
on the floor in the hideous frog form, trembling and pressing close to
her foster-mother, who took her on her lap and embraced her
affectionately, hideous though she was. The air resounded with the
blows of clubs and swords, and with the hissing of arrows, as if a
hailstorm were passing across it. The hour was come when earth and sky
were to burst, the stars to fall, and all things to be swallowed up in
Surtur's sea of fire; but she knew that there would be a new heaven
and a new earth, that the corn fields then would wave where now the
ocean rolled over the desolate tracts of sand, and that the
unutterable God would reign; and up to Him rose Bulder the gentle, the
affectionate, delivered from the kingdom of the dead; he came; the
Viking woman saw him, and recognized his countenance; it was that of
the captive Christian priest. "White Christian!" she cried aloud, and
with these words she pressed a kiss upon the forehead of the hideous
frog-child. Then the frog-skin fell off, and Helga stood revealed in
all her beauty, lovely and gentle as she had never appeared, and with
beaming eyes. She kissed her foster-mother's hands, blessed her for
all the care and affection lavished during the days of bitterness and
trial, for the thought she had awakened and cherished in her, for
naming the name, which she repeated, "White Christian;" and beauteous
Helga arose in the form of a mighty swan, and spread her white wings
with a rushing like the sound of a troop of birds of passage winging
their way through the air.
The Viking woman woke; and she heard the same noise without still
continuing. She knew it was the time for the storks to depart, and
that it must be those birds whose wings she heard. She wished to see
them once more, and to bid them farewell as they set forth on their
journey. Therefore she rose from her couch and stepped out upon the
threshold, and on the top of the gable she saw stork ranged behind
stork, and around the castle, over the high trees, flew bands of
storks wheeling in wide circles; but opposite the threshold where she
stood, by the well where Helga had often sat and alarmed her with her
wildness, sat two white swans gazing at her with intelligent eyes. And
she remembered her dream, which still filled her soul as if it were
reality. She thought of Helga in the shape of a swan, and of the
Christian priest; and suddenly she felt her heart rejoice within her.
[Illustration: THE DISGUISED PRINCESSES BID FAREWELL TO THE VIKING
WOMAN.]
The swans flapped their wings and arched their necks, as if they would
send her a greeting, and the Viking's wife spread out her arms
towards them, as if she felt all this; and smiled through her tears,
and then stood sunk in deep thought.
Then all the storks arose, flapping their wings and clapping with
their beaks, to start on their voyage towards the South.
"We will not wait for the swans," said stork-mamma: "if they want to
go with us they had better come. We can't sit here till the plovers
start. It is a fine thing, after all, to travel in this way, in
families, not like the finches and partridges, where the male and
female birds fly in separate bodies, which appears to me a very
unbecoming thing. What are yonder swans flapping their wings for?"
"Well, everyone flies in his own fashion," said stork-papa: "the swans
in an oblique line, the cranes in a triangle, and the plovers in a
snake's line."
"Don't talk about snakes while we are flying up here," said
stork-mamma. "It only puts ideas into the children's heads which can't
be gratified."
* * * * *
"Are those the high mountains of which I heard tell?" asked Helga, in
the swan's plumage.
"They are storm clouds driving on beneath us," replied her mother.
"What are yonder white clouds that rise so high?" asked Helga again.
"Those are the mountains covered with perpetual snow which you see
yonder," replied her mother.
And they flew across the lofty Alps towards the blue Mediterranean.
"Africa's land! Egypt's strand!" sang, rejoicingly, in her swan's
plumage, the daughter of the Nile, as from the lofty air she saw her
native land looming in the form of a yellowish wavy stripe of shore.
And all the birds caught sight of it, and hastened their flight.
"I can scent the Nile mud and wet frogs," said stork-mamma; "I begin
to feel quite hungry. Yes; now you shall taste something nice; and you
will see the maraboo bird, the crane, and the ibis. They all belong to
our family, though they are not nearly so beautiful as we. They give
themselves great airs, especially the ibis. He has been quite spoilt
by the Egyptians, for 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 one's inside while one is
alive than to be made a fuss with after one is dead. That's my
opinion, and I am always right."
"Now the storks are come," said the people in the rich house on the
banks of the Nile, where the royal lord lay in the open hall on the
downy cushions, covered with a leopard skin, not alive and yet not
dead, but waiting and hoping for the lotos-flower from the deep
moorland, in the far North. Friends and servants stood around his
couch.
[Illustration: THE KING OF EGYPT'S RECOVERY.]
And into the hall flew two beauteous swans. They had come with the
storks. They threw off their dazzling white plumage, and two lovely
female forms were revealed, as like each other as two dewdrops. They
bent over the old, pale, sick man, they put back their long hair, and
while Helga bent over her grandfather, his white cheeks reddened, his
eyes brightened, and life came back to his wasted limbs. The old man
rose up cheerful and well; and daughter and granddaughter embraced him
joyfully, as if they were giving him a morning greeting after a long
heavy dream.
And joy reigned through the whole house, and likewise in the stork's
nest, though there the chief cause was certainly the good food,
especially the numberless frogs, which seemed to spring up in heaps
out of the ground; and while the learned men wrote down hastily, in
flying characters, a sketch of the history of the two princesses, and
of the flower of health that had been a source of joy for the home and
the land, the stork pair told the story to their family in their own
fashion, but not till all had eaten their fill, otherwise the
youngsters would have found something more interesting to do than to
listen to stories.
"Now, at last, you will become something," whispered stork-mamma,
"there's no doubt about that."
"What should I become?" asked stork-papa. "What have I done? Nothing
at all!"
"You have done more than the rest! But for you and the youngsters the
two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, or have effected the
old man's cure. You will turn out something! They must certainly give
you a doctor's degree, and our youngsters will inherit it, and so will
their children after them, and so on. You already look like an
Egyptian doctor; at least in my eyes."
"I cannot quite repeat the words as they were spoken," said
stork-papa, who had listened from the roof to the report of these
events, made by the learned men, and was now telling it again to his
own family. "What they said was so confused, it was so wise and
learned, that they immediately received rank and presents--even the
head cook received an especial mark of distinction--probably for the
soup."
"And what did you receive?" asked stork-mamma. "Surely they ought not
to forget the most important person of all, and you are certainly he!
The learned men have done nothing throughout the whole affair but used
their tongues; but you will doubtless receive what is due to you."
Late in the night, when the gentle peace of sleep rested upon the now
happy house, there was one who still watched. It was not stork-papa,
though he stood upon one leg, and slept on guard--it was Helga who
watched. She bowed herself forward over the balcony, and looked into
the clear air, gazed at the great gleaming stars, greater and purer in
their lustre than she had ever seen them in the North, and yet the
same orbs. She thought of the Viking woman in the wild moorland, of
the gentle eyes of her foster-mother, and of the tears which the kind
soul had wept over the poor frog-child that now lived in splendour
under the gleaming stars, in the beauteous spring air on the banks of
the Nile. She thought of the love that dwelt in the breast of the
heathen woman, the love that had been shown to a wretched creature,
hateful in human form, and hideous in its transformation. She looked
at the gleaming stars, and thought of the glory that had shone upon
the forehead of the dead man, when she flew with him through the
forest and across the moorland; sounds passed through her memory,
words she had heard pronounced as they rode onward, and when she was
borne wondering and trembling through the air, words from the great
Fountain of love that embraces all human kind.
Yes, great things had been achieved and won! Day and night beautiful
Helga was absorbed in the contemplation of the great sum of her
happiness, and stood in the contemplation of it like a child that
turns hurriedly from the giver to gaze on the splendours of the gifts
it has received. She seemed to lose herself in the increasing
happiness, in contemplation of what might come, of what would come.
Had she not been borne by miracle to greater and greater bliss? And in
this idea she one day lost herself so completely, that she thought no
more of the Giver. It was the exuberance of youthful courage,
unfolding its wings for a bold flight! Her eyes were gleaming with
courage, when suddenly a loud noise in the courtyard below recalled
her thoughts from their wandering flight. There she saw two great
ostriches running round rapidly in a narrow circle. Never before had
she seen such creatures--great clumsy things they were, with wings
that looked as if they had been clipped, and the birds themselves
looking as if they had suffered violence of some kind; and now for the
first time she heard the legend which the Egyptians tell of the
ostrich.
Once, they say, the ostriches were a beautiful, glorious race of
birds, with strong large wings; and one evening the larger birds of
the forest said to the ostrich, "Brother, shall we fly to-morrow, _God
willing_, to the river to drink?" And the ostrich answered, "I will."
At daybreak, accordingly, they winged their flight from thence, flying
first up on high, towards the sun, that gleamed like the eye of
God--higher and higher, the ostrich far in advance of all the other
birds. Proudly the ostrich flew straight towards the light, boasting
of his strength, and not thinking of the Giver or saying, "God
willing!" Then suddenly the avenging angel drew aside the veil from
the flaming ocean of sunlight, and in a moment the wings of the proud
bird were scorched and shrivelled up, and he sank miserably to the
ground. Since that time, the ostrich has never again been able to
raise himself in the air, but flees timidly along the ground, and runs
round in a narrow circle. And this is a warning for us men, that in
all our thoughts and schemes, in all our doings and devices, we should
say, "God willing." And Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and gravely,
and looked at the circling ostrich, noticing its timid fear, and its
stupid pleasure at sight of its own great shadow cast upon the white
sunlit wall. And seriousness struck its roots deep into her mind and
heart. A rich life in present and future happiness was given and won;
and what was yet to come? the best of all, "_God willing_."
In early spring, when the storks flew again towards the North,
beautiful Helga took off her golden bracelet, and scratched her name
upon it; and beckoning to the stork-father, she placed the golden hoop
around his neck, and begged him to deliver it to the Viking woman, so
that the latter might see that her adopted daughter was well, and had
not forgotten her.
"That's heavy to carry," thought the stork-papa, when he had the
golden ring round his neck; "but gold and honour are not to be flung
into the street. The stork brings good fortune; they'll be obliged to
acknowledge that over yonder."
"You lay gold and I lay eggs," said the stork-mamma. "But with you
it's only once in a way, whereas I lay eggs every year; but neither of
us is appreciated--that's very disheartening."
"Still one has one's inward consciousness, mother," replied
stork-papa.
"But you can't hang that round your neck," stork-mamma retorted; "and
it won't give you a good wind or a good meal."
The little nightingale, singing yonder in the tamarind tree, will soon
be going north too. Helga the fair had often heard the sweet bird sing
up yonder by the wild moor; now she wanted to give it a message to
carry, for she had learned the language of birds when she flew in the
swan's plumage; she had often conversed with stork and with swallow,
and she knew the nightingale would understand her. So she begged the
little bird to fly to the beech wood, on the peninsula of Jutland,
where the grave-hill had been reared with stones and branches, and
begged the nightingale to persuade all other little birds that they
might build their nests around the place, so that the song of birds
should resound over that sepulchre for evermore. And the nightingale
flew away--and time flew away.
[Illustration: A MESSAGE TO THE VIKING WOMAN.]
In autumn the eagle stood upon the pyramid and saw a stately train of
richly laden camels approaching, and richly attired armed men on
foaming Arab steeds, shining white as silver, with pink trembling
nostrils, and great thick manes hanging down almost over their slender
legs. Wealthy guests, a royal prince of Arabia, handsome as a prince
should be, came into the proud mansion on whose roof the stork's nests
now stood empty: those who had inhabited the nest were away now, in
the far north; but they would soon return. And, indeed, they returned
on that very day that was so rich in joy and gladness. Here a marriage
was celebrated, and fair Helga was the bride, shining in jewels and
silk. The bridegroom was the young Arab prince, and bride and
bridegroom sat together at the upper end of the table, between mother
and grandfather.
But her gaze was not fixed upon the bridegroom, with his manly
sun-browned cheeks, round which a black beard curled; she gazed not at
his dark fiery eyes that were fixed upon her--but far away at a
gleaming star that shone down from the sky.
Then strong wings were heard beating the air. The storks were coming
home, and however tired the old stork pair might be from the journey,
and however much they needed repose, they did not fail to come down at
once to the balustrades of the verandah; for they knew what feast was
being celebrated. Already on the frontier of the land they had heard
that Helga had caused their figures to be painted on the wall--for did
they not belong to her history?
"That's very pretty and suggestive," said stork-papa.
"But it's very little," observed stork-mamma. "They could not possibly
have done less."
And when Helga saw them, she rose and came on to the verandah, to
stroke the backs of the storks. The old pair waved their heads and
bowed their necks, and even the youngest among the young ones felt
highly honoured by the reception.
And Helga looked up to the gleaming star, which seemed to glow purer
and purer; and between the star and herself there floated a form,
purer than the air, and visible through it: it floated quite close to
her. It was the spirit of the dead Christian priest; he too was coming
to her wedding feast--coming from heaven.
"The glory and brightness yonder outshines everything that is known on
earth!" he said.
And fair Helga begged so fervently, so beseechingly, as she had never
yet prayed, that it might be permitted her to gaze in there for one
single moment, that she might be allowed to cast but a single glance
into the brightness that beamed in the kingdom.
Then he bore her up amid splendour and glory. Not only around her, but
within her, sounded voices and beamed a brightness that words cannot
express.
"Now we must go back; thou wilt be missed," he said.
"Only one more look!" she begged. "But one short minute more!"
"We must go back to the earth. The guests will all depart."
"Only one more look--the last."
And Helga stood again in the verandah; but the marriage lights without
had vanished, and the lamps in the hall were extinguished, and the
storks were gone--nowhere a guest to be seen--no bridegroom--all
seemed to have been swept away in those few short minutes!
Then a great dread came upon her. Alone she went through the empty
great hall into the next chamber. Strange warriors slept yonder. She
opened a side door which led into her own chamber; and, as she thought
to step in there, she suddenly found herself in the garden; but yet it
had not looked thus here before--the sky gleamed red--the morning dawn
was come.
Three minutes only in heaven and a whole night on earth had passed
away!
Then she saw the storks again. She called to them, spoke their
language; and stork-papa turned his head towards her, listened to her
words, and drew near.
"You speak our language," he said; "what do you wish? Why do you
appear here--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's a mistake," said the stork; "you must have dreamt all that!"
"No, no!" she persisted. And she reminded him of the Viking's castle,
and of the great ocean, and of the journey hither.
Then stork-papa winked with his eyes, and said:
"Why, that's an old story, which I heard from the time of my
great-grandfather. There certainly was here in Egypt a princess of
that kind 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 the monument in the garden; there you'll
find swans and storks sculptured, and at the top you are yourself in
white marble!"
And thus it was. Helga saw it, and understood it, and sank on her
knees.
The sun burst forth in glory; and as, in time of yore, the frog-shape
had vanished in its beams, and the beautiful form had stood displayed,
so now in the light a beauteous form, clearer, purer than air--a beam
of brightness--flew up into heaven!
The body crumbled to dust; and a faded lotos-flower lay on the spot
where Helga had stood.
* * * * *
"Well, that's a new ending to the story," said stork-papa. "I had
certainly not expected it. But I like it very well."
"But what will the young ones say to it?" said stork-mamma.
"Yes, certainly, that's the important point," replied he.
THE LAST DREAM OF THE OLD OAK TREE.
A CHRISTMAS TALE.
In the forest, high up on the steep shore, hard by the open sea coast,
stood a very old oak tree. It was exactly three hundred and sixty-five
years old, but that long time was not more for the tree than just as
many days would be to us men. We wake by day and sleep through the
night, and then we have our dreams: it is different with the tree,
which keeps awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get
its sleep till winter comes. Winter is its time for rest, its night
after the long day which is called spring, summer, and autumn.
On many a warm summer day the Ephemera, the fly that lives but for a
day, had danced around his crown--had lived, enjoyed, and felt happy;
and then rested for a moment in quiet bliss the tiny creature, on one
of the great fresh oak leaves; and then the tree always said:
"Poor little thing! Your whole life is but a single day! How very
short! It's quite melancholy!"
"Melancholy! Why do you say that?" the Ephemera would then always
reply. "It's wonderfully bright, warm, and beautiful all around me,
and that makes me rejoice!"
"But only one day, and then it's all done!"
"Done!" repeated the Ephemera. "What's the meaning of _done_? Are you
_done_, too?"
"No; I shall perhaps live for thousands of your days, and my day is
whole seasons long! It's something so long, that you can't at all
manage to reckon it out."
"No? then I don't understand you. You say you have thousands of my
days; but I have thousands of moments, in which I can be merry and
happy. Does all the beauty of this world cease when you die?"
"No," replied the Tree; "it will certainly last much longer--far
longer than I can possibly think."
"Well, then, we have the same time, only that we reckon differently."
And the Ephemera danced and floated in the air, and rejoiced in her
delicate wings of gauze and velvet, and rejoiced in the balmy breezes
laden with the fragrance of meadows and of wild roses and
elder-flowers, of the garden hedges, wild thyme, and mint, and
daisies; the scent of these was all so strong that the Ephemera was
almost intoxicated. The day was long and beautiful, full of joy and of
sweet feeling, and when the sun sank low the little fly felt very
agreeably tired of all its happiness and enjoyment. The delicate wings
would not carry it any more, and quietly and slowly it glided down
upon the soft grass blade, nodded its head as well as it could nod,
and went quietly to sleep--and was dead.
"Poor little Ephemera!" said the Oak. "That was a terribly short
life!"
And on every summer day the same dance was repeated, the same question
and answer, and the same sleep. The same thing was repeated through
whole generations of ephemera, and all of them felt equally merry and
equally happy.
The Oak stood there awake through the spring morning, the noon of
summer, and the evening of autumn; and its time of rest, its night,
was coming on apace. Winter was approaching.
Already the storms were singing their "good night, good night!" Here
fell a leaf, and there fell a leaf.
"We'll rock you, and dandle you! Go to sleep, go to sleep! We sing you
to sleep, we shake you to sleep, but it does you good in your old
twigs, does it not? They seem to crack for very joy! Sleep sweetly,
sleep sweetly! It's your three hundred and sixty-fifth night. Properly
speaking, you're only a stripling as yet! Sleep sweetly! The clouds
strew down snow, there will be quite a coverlet, warm and protecting,
around your feet. Sweet sleep to you, and pleasant dreams!"
And the Oak Tree stood there, denuded of all its leaves, to sleep
through the long winter, and to dream many a dream, always about
something that had happened to it, just as in the dreams of men.
The great Oak had once been small--indeed, an acorn had been its
cradle. According to human computation, it was now in its fourth
century. It was the greatest and best tree in the forest; its crown
towered far above all the other trees, and could be descried from
afar across the sea, so that it served as a landmark to the sailors:
the tree had no idea how many eyes were in the habit of seeking it.
High up in its green summit the wood-pigeon built her nest, and the
cuckoo sat in its boughs, and sang his song; and in autumn, when the
leaves looked like thin plates of copper, the birds of passage came
and rested there, before they flew away across the sea; but now it was
winter, and the tree stood there leafless, so that every one could see
how gnarled and crooked the branches were that shot forth from its
trunk. Crows and rooks came and took their seat by turns in the
boughs, and spoke of the hard times which were beginning, and of the
difficulty of getting a living in winter.
It was just at the holy Christmas time, when the tree dreamed its most
glorious dream.
The tree had a distinct feeling of the festive time, and fancied he
heard the bells ringing from the churches all around; and yet it
seemed as if it were a fine summer's day, mild and warm. Fresh and
green he spread out his mighty crown; the sunbeams played among the
twigs and the leaves; the air was full of the fragrance of herbs and
blossoms; gay butterflies chased each other to and fro. The ephemeral
insects danced as if all the world were created merely for them to
dance and be merry in. All that the tree had experienced for years and
years, and that had happened around him, seemed to pass by him again,
as in a festive pageant. He saw the knights of ancient days ride by
with their noble dames on gallant steeds, with plumes waving in their
bonnets and falcons on their wrists. The hunting horn sounded, and the
dogs barked. He saw hostile warriors in coloured jerkins and with
shining weapons, with spear and halbert, pitching their tents and
striking them again. The watch-fires flamed up anew, and men sang and
slept under the branches of the tree. He saw loving couples meeting
near his trunk, happily, in the moonshine; and they cut the initials
of their names in the grey-green bark of his stem. Once--but long
years had rolled by since then--citherns and Æolian harps had been
hung up on his boughs by merry wanderers, now they hung there again,
and once again they sounded in tones of marvellous sweetness. The
wood-pigeons cooed, as if they were telling what the tree felt in all
this, and the cuckoo called out to tell him how many summer days he
had yet to live.
Then it appeared to him as if new life were rippling down into the
remotest fibre of his root, and mounting up into his highest branches,
to the tops of the leaves. The tree felt that he was stretching and
spreading himself, and through his root he felt that there was life
and motion even in the ground itself. He felt his strength increase,
he grew higher, his stem shot up unceasingly, and he grew more and
more, his crown became fuller, and spread out; and in proportion as
the tree grew, he felt his happiness increase, and his joyous hope
that he should reach even higher--quite up to the warm brilliant sun.
[Illustration: THE LOVERS AT THE OLD OAK TREE.]
Already had he grown high above the clouds, which floated past beneath
his crown like dark troops of passage-birds, or like great white
swans. And every leaf of the tree had the gift of sight, as if it had
eyes wherewith to see; the stars became visible in broad daylight,
great and sparkling; each of them sparkled like a pair of eyes, mild
and clear. They recalled to his memory well-known gentle eyes, eyes of
children, eyes of lovers who had met beneath his boughs.
It was a marvellous spectacle, and one full of happiness and joy! And
yet amid all this happiness the tree felt a longing, a yearning desire
that all other trees of the wood beneath him, and all the bushes, and
herbs, and flowers, might be able to rise with him, that they too
might see this splendour, and experience this joy. The great majestic
oak was not quite happy in his happiness, while he had not them all,
great and little, about him; and this feeling of yearning trembled
through his every twig, through his every leaf, warmly and fervently
as through a human heart.
The crown of the tree waved to and fro, as if he sought something in
his silent longing, and he looked down. Then he felt the fragrance of
thyme, and soon afterwards the more powerful scent of honeysuckle and
violets; and he fancied he heard the cuckoo answering him.
Yes, through the clouds the green summits of the forest came peering
up, and under himself the Oak saw the other trees, as they grew and
raised themselves aloft. Bushes and herbs shot up high, and some tore
themselves up bodily by the roots to rise the quicker. The birch was
the quickest of all. Like a white streak of lightning, its slender
stem shot upwards in a zigzag line, and the branches spread around it
like green gauze and like banners; the whole woodland natives, even to
the brown plumed rushes, grew up with the rest, and the birds came
too, and sang; and on the grass blade that fluttered aloft like a long
silken ribbon into the air, sat the grasshopper cleaning his wings
with his leg; the May beetles hummed, and the bees murmured, and every
bird sang in his appointed manner; all was song and sound of gladness
up into the high heaven.
"But the little blue flower by the water-side, where is that?" said
the Oak; "and the purple bell-flower and the daisy?" for, you see, the
old Oak Tree wanted to have them all about him.
"We are here--we are here!" was shouted and sung in reply.
"But the beautiful thyme of last summer--and in the last year there
was certainly a place here covered with lilies of the valley! and the
wild apple tree that blossomed so splendidly! and all the glory of the
wood that came year by year--if that had only just been born, it might
have been here now!"
"We are here, we are here!" replied voices still higher in the air. It
seemed as if they had flown on before.
"Why, that is beautiful, indescribably beautiful!" exclaimed the old
Oak Tree, rejoicingly. "I have them all around me, great and small;
not one has been forgotten! How can so much happiness be imagined? How
can it be possible?"
"In heaven, in the better land, it can be imagined, and it is
possible!" the reply sounded through the air.
And the old tree, who grew on and on, felt how his roots were tearing
themselves free from the ground.
"That's right, that's better than all!" said the tree. "Now no fetters
hold me! I can fly up now, to the very highest, in glory and in light!
And all my beloved ones are with me, great and small--all of them,
all!"
That was the dream of the old Oak Tree; and while he dreamt thus a
mighty storm came rushing over land and sea--at the holy Christmas
tide. The sea rolled great billows towards the shore; there was a
cracking and crashing in the tree--his root was torn out of the ground
in the very moment while he was dreaming that his root freed itself
from the earth. He fell. His three hundred and sixty-five years were
now as the single day of the Ephemera.
On the morning of the Christmas festival, when the sun rose, the storm
had subsided. From all the churches sounded the festive bells, and
from every hearth, even from the smallest hut, arose the smoke in blue
clouds, like the smoke from the altars of the druids of old at the
feast of thanks offerings. The sea became gradually calm, and on board
a great ship in the offing, that had fought successfully with the
tempest, all the flags were displayed, as a token of joy suitable to
the festive day.
"The tree is down--the old Oak Tree, our landmark on the coast!" said
the sailors. "It fell in the storm of last night. Who can replace it?
No one can."
This was the funeral oration, short but well meant, that was given to
the tree, which lay stretched on the snowy covering on the sea shore;
and over its prostrate form sounded the notes of a song from the ship,
a carol of the joys of Christmas, and of the redemption of the soul of
man by His blood, and of eternal life.
"Sing, sing aloud, this blessed morn--
It is fulfilled--and He is born,
Oh, joy without compare!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
Thus sounded the old psalm tune, and every one on board the ship felt
lifted up in his own way, through the song and the prayer, just as the
old tree had felt lifted up in its last, its most beauteous dream in
the Christmas night.
THE BELL-DEEP.
"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" It sounds up from the "bell-deep," in the
Odense-Au. Every child in the old town of Odense, on the island of
Fünen, knows the Au, which washes the gardens round about the town,
and flows on under the wooden bridges from the dam to the water-mill.
In the Au grow the yellow water-lilies and brown feathery reeds; the
dark velvety flag grows there, high and thick; old, decayed willows,
slanting and tottering, hang far out over the stream beside the monks'
meadow and by the bleaching-ground; but opposite there are gardens
upon gardens, each different from the rest, some with pretty flowers
and bowers like little dolls' pleasure-grounds, often displaying only
cabbage and other kitchen plants; and here and there the gardens
cannot be seen at all, for the great elder trees that spread
themselves out by the bank, and hang far out over the streaming
waters, which are deeper here and there than an oar can fathom.
Opposite the old nunnery is the deepest place, which is called the
"bell-deep," and there dwells the old water spirit, the "Au-mann."
This spirit sleeps through the day while the sun shines down upon the
water; but in starry and moonlit nights he shows himself. He is very
old: grandmother says that she has heard her own grandmother tell of
him; he is said to lead a solitary life, and to have nobody with whom
he can converse save the great old church bell. Once the bell hung in
the church tower; but now there is no trace left of the tower or of
the church, which was called St. Alban's.
"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" sounded the bell, when the tower still stood
there; and one evening, while the sun was setting, and the bell was
swinging away bravely, it broke loose and came flying down through the
air, the brilliant metal shining in the ruddy beam.
"Ding-dong! ding-dong! Now I'll retire to rest!" sang the bell, and
flew down into the Odense-Au where it is deepest; and that is why the
place is called the "bell-deep." But the bell got neither rest nor
sleep. Down in the Au-mann's haunt it sounds and rings, so that the
tones sometimes pierce upward through the waters; and many people
maintain that its strains forebode the death of some one; but that is
not true, for then the bell is only talking with the Au-mann, who is
now no longer alone.
And what is the bell telling? It is old, very old, as we have already
observed; it was there long before grandmother's grandmother was born;
and yet it is but a child in comparison with the Au-mann, who is an
old quiet personage, an oddity, with his hose of eel-skin, and his
scaly jacket with the yellow lilies for buttons, and a wreath of reed
in his hair and seaweed in his beard; but he looks very pretty for all
that.
[Illustration: THE AU-MANN LISTENING TO THE BELL.]
What the bell tells? To repeat it all would require years and days;
for year by year it is telling the old stories, sometimes short ones,
sometimes long ones, according to its whim; it tells of old times, of
the dark hard times, thus:
"In the church of St. Alban, the monk mounted up into the tower. He
was young and handsome, but thoughtful exceedingly. He looked through
the loophole out upon the Odense-Au, when the bed of the water was yet
broad, and the monks' meadow was still a lake; he looked out over it,
and over the rampart, and over the nuns' hill opposite, where the
convent lay, and the light gleamed forth from the nun's cell; he had
known the nun right well, and he thought of her, and his heart beat
quicker as he thought. Ding-dong! ding-dong!"
Yes, this was the story the bell told.
"Into the tower came also the dapper man-servant of the bishop; and
when I, the bell, who am made of metal, rang hard and loud, and swung
to and fro, I might have beaten out his brains. He sat down close
under me, and played with two little sticks as if they had been a
stringed instrument; and he sang to it. 'Now I may sing it out aloud,
though at other times I may not whisper it. I may sing of everything
that is kept concealed behind lock and bars. Yonder it is cold and
wet. The rats are eating her up alive! Nobody knows of it! Nobody
hears of it! Not even now, for the bell is ringing and singing its
loud Ding-dong! ding-dong.'
"There was a king in those days; they called him Canute. He bowed
himself before bishop and monk; but when he offended the free peasants
with heavy taxes and hard words, they seized their weapons and put him
to flight like a wild beast. He sought shelter in the church, and shut
gate and door behind him. The violent band surrounded the church; I
heard tell of it. The crows, ravens, and magpies started up in terror
at the yelling and shouting that sounded around. They flew into the
tower and out again, they looked down upon the throng below, and they
also looked into the windows of the church, and screamed out aloud
what they saw there. King Canute knelt before the altar in prayer, his
brothers Eric and Benedict stood by him as a guard with drawn swords;
but the king's servant, the treacherous Blake, betrayed his master;
the throng in front of the church knew where they could hit the king,
and one of them flung a stone through a pane of glass, and the king
lay there dead! The cries and screams of the savage horde and of the
birds sounded through the air, and I joined in it also; for I sang
'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'
"The church bell hangs high and looks far around, and sees the birds
around it, and understands their language; the wind roars in upon it
through windows and loopholes; and the wind knows everything, for he
gets it from the air, which encircles all things, and the church bell
understands his tongue, and rings it out into the world, 'Ding-dong!
ding-dong!'
"But it was too much for me to hear and to know; I was not able any
longer to ring it out. I became so tired, so heavy, that the beam
broke, and I flew out into the gleaming Au where the water is
deepest, and where the Au-mann lives, solitary and alone; and year by
year I tell him what I have heard and what I know. Ding-dong!
ding-dong!"
Thus it sounds complainingly out of the bell-deep in the Odense-Au:
that is what grandmother told us.
But the schoolmaster says that there was not any bell that rung down
there, for that it could not do so; and that no Au-mann dwelt yonder,
for there was no Au-mann at all! And when all the other church bells
are sounding sweetly, he says that it is not really the bells that are
sounding, but that it is the air itself which sends forth the notes;
and grandmother said to us that the bell itself said it was the air
who told it him, consequently they are agreed on that point, and this
much is sure. "Be cautious, cautious, and take good heed to thyself,"
they both say.
The air knows everything. It is around us, it is in us, it talks of
our thoughts and of our deeds, and it speaks longer of them than does
the bell down in the depths of the Odense-Au where the Au-mann dwells;
it rings it out into the vault of heaven, far, far out, for ever and
ever, till the heaven bells sound "Ding-dong! ding-dong!"
THE PUPPET SHOWMAN.
On board the steamer was an elderly man with such a merry face that,
if it did not belie him, he must have been the happiest fellow in
creation. And, indeed, he declared he was the happiest man; I heard it
out of his own mouth. He was a Dane, a travelling theatre director. He
had all his company with him in a large box, for he was proprietor of
a puppet-show. His inborn cheerfulness, he said, had been _purified_
by a Polytechnic candidate, and the experiment had made him completely
happy. I did not at first understand all this, but afterwards he
explained the whole story to me, and here it is. He told me:
[Illustration: THE ANIMATED PUPPETS.]
"It was in the little town of Slagelse I gave a representation in the
hall of the posting-house, and had a brilliant audience, entirely a
juvenile one, with the exception of two respectable matrons. All at
once a person in black, of student-like appearance, came into the room
and sat down; he laughed aloud at the telling parts, and applauded
quite appropriately. That was quite an unusual spectator for me! I
felt anxious to know who he was, and I heard he was a candidate from
the Polytechnic Institution in Copenhagen, who had been sent out to
instruct the folks in the provinces. Punctually at eight o'clock my
performance closed; for children must go early to bed, and a manager
must consult the convenience of his public. At nine o'clock the
candidate commenced his lecture, with experiments, and now I formed
part of _his_ audience. It was wonderful to hear and to see. The
greater part of it was beyond my scope; but still it made me think
that if we men can find out so much, we must be surely intended to
last longer than the little span until we are hidden away in the
earth. They were quite miracles in a small way that he showed, and yet
everything flowed as naturally as water! At the time of Moses and the
prophets such a man would have been received among the sages of the
land; in the middle ages they would have burned him at a stake. All
night long I could not go to sleep. And the next evening, when I gave
another performance, and the candidate was again present, I felt
fairly overflowing with humour. I once heard from a player that when
he acted a lover he always thought of one particular lady among the
audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of the
house; and now the Polytechnic candidate was my 'she,' my only
auditor, for whom alone I played. And when the performance was over,
all the puppets were called before the curtain, and the Polytechnic
candidate invited me into his room to take a glass of wine; and he
spoke of my comedies, and I of his science; and I believe we were both
equally pleased. But I had the best of it, for there was much in what
he did of which he could not always give me an explanation. For
instance, that a piece of iron that falls through a spiral should
become magnetic. Now, how does that happen? The spirit comes upon it;
but whence does it come? It is as with people in this world; they are
made to tumble through the spiral of this world, and the spirit comes
upon them, and there stands a Napoleon, or a Luther, or a person of
that kind. 'The whole world is a series of miracles,' said the
candidate; 'but we are so accustomed to them that we call them
every-day matters.' And he went on explaining things to me until my
skull seemed lifted up over my brain, and I declared that if I were
not an old fellow I would at once visit the Polytechnic Institution,
that I might learn to look at the sunny side of the world, though I am
one of the happiest of men. 'One of the happiest!' said the candidate,
and he seemed to take real pleasure in it. 'Are you happy?' 'Yes,' I
replied, 'and they welcome me in all the towns where I come with my
company; but I certainly have _one_ wish, which sometimes lies like
lead, like an Alp, upon my good humour: I should like to become a real
theatrical manager, the director of a real troupe of men and women!'
'I see,' he said, 'you would like to have life breathed into your
puppets, so that they might be real actors, and you their director;
and would you then be quite happy?' He did not believe it; but I
believed it, and we talked it over all manner of ways without coming
any nearer to an agreement; but we clanked our glasses together, and
the wine was excellent. There was some magic in it, or I should
certainly have become tipsy. But that did not happen; I retained my
clear view of things, and somehow there was sunshine in the room, and
sunshine beamed out of the eyes of the Polytechnic candidate. It made
me think of the old stories of the gods, in their eternal youth, when
they still wandered upon earth and paid visits to the mortals; and I
said so to him, and he smiled, and I could have sworn he was one of
the ancient gods in disguise, or that, at any rate, he belonged to the
family! and certainly he must have been something of the kind, for my
highest wish was to have been fulfilled, the puppets were to be gifted
with life, and I was to be director of a real company. We drank to my
success and clinked our glasses. He packed all my dolls into a box,
bound the box on my back, and then let me fall through a spiral. I
heard myself tumbling, and then I was lying on the floor--I know that
quite well--and the whole company sprang out of the box. The spirit
had come upon all of us: all the puppets had become distinguished
artists, so they said themselves, and I was the director. All was
ready for the first representation; the whole company wanted to speak
to me, and the public also. The dancing lady said the house would fall
down if she did not keep it up by standing on one leg; for she was the
great genius, and begged to be treated as such. The lady who acted the
queen wished to be treated off the stage as a queen, or else she
should get out of practice. The man who was only employed to deliver a
letter gave himself just as many airs as the first lover, for he
declared the little ones were just as important as the great ones, and
that all were of equal consequence, considered as an artistic whole.
The hero would only play parts composed of nothing but points; for
those brought him down the applause. The prima donna would only play
in a red light; for she declared that a blue one did not suit her
complexion. It was like a company of flies in a bottle; and I was in
the bottle with them, for I was the director. My breath stopped and my
head whirled round; I was as miserable as a man can be. It was quite a
novel kind of men among whom I now found myself. I only wished I had
them all in the box again, and that I had never been a director at
all; so I told them roundly that after all they were nothing but
puppets; and then they killed me. I found myself lying on my bed in my
room; and how I got there, and how I got away at all from the
Polytechnic candidate, he may perhaps know, for I don't. The moon
shone upon the floor where the box lay open, and the dolls all in a
confusion together--great and small all scattered about; but I was not
idle. Out of bed I jumped, and into the box they had all to go, some
on their heads, some on their feet, and I shut down the lid and seated
myself upon the box. 'Now you'll just have to stay there,' said I,
'and I shall beware how I wish you flesh and blood again.' I felt
quite light, my good humour had come back, and I was the happiest of
mortals. The Polytechnic student had fully purified me. I sat as happy
as a king, and went to sleep on the box. The next morning--strictly
speaking it was noon, for I slept wonderfully late that day--I was
still sitting there, happy and conscious that my former wish had been
a foolish one. I inquired for the Polytechnic candidate, but he was
gone, like the Greek and Roman gods; and from that time I've been the
happiest of men. I am a happy director: none of my company ever
grumble, nor my public either, for they are always merry. I can put my
pieces together just as I please. I take out of every comedy what
pleases me best, and no one is angry at it. Pieces that are neglected
now-a-days by the great public, but which it used to run after thirty
years ago, and at which it used to cry till the tears ran down its
cheeks, these pieces I now take up; I put them before the little ones,
and the little ones cry just as papa and mamma used to cry thirty
years ago; but I shorten them, for the youngsters don't like a long
palaver; what they want is something mournful, but quick."
THE PIGS.
Charles Dickens once told us about a pig, and since that time we are
in a good humour if we only hear one grunt. St. Antony took the pig
under his protection; and when we think of the prodigal son we always
associate with him the idea of feeding swine; and it was in front of a
pig-sty that a certain carriage stopped in Sweden, about which I am
going to talk. The farmer had his pig-sty built out towards the high
road, close by his house, and it was a wonderful pig-sty. It was an
old state carriage. The seats had been taken out and the wheels taken
off, and so the body of the old coach lay on the ground, and four pigs
were shut up inside it. I wonder if these were the first that had ever
been there? That point could not certainly be determined; but that it
had been a real state coach everything bore witness, even to the
damask rag that hung down from the roof; everything spoke of better
days.
"Humph! humph!" said the occupants, and the coach creaked and groaned;
for it had come to a mournful end. "The beautiful has departed," it
sighed--or at least it might have done so.
We came back in autumn. The coach was there still, but the pigs were
gone. They were playing the grand lords out in the woods. Blossoms
and leaves were gone from all the trees, and storm and rain ruled, and
gave them neither peace nor rest; and the birds of passage had flown.
"The beautiful has departed! This was the glorious green wood, but the
song of the birds and the warm sunshine are gone! gone!" Thus said the
mournful voice that creaked in the lofty branches of the trees, and it
sounded like a deep-drawn sigh, a sigh from the bosom of the wild rose
tree, and of him who sat there; it was the rose king. Do you know him?
He is all beard, the finest reddish-green beard; he is easily
recognized. Go up to the wild rose bushes, and when in autumn all the
flowers have faded from them, and only the wild hips remain, you will
often find under them a great red-green moss flower; and that is the
rose king. A little green leaf grows up out of his head, and that's
his feather. He is the only man of his kind on the rose bush; and he
it was who sighed.
[Illustration: THE PIGS AT HOME IN THE OLD STATE COACH.]
"Gone! gone! The beautiful is gone! The roses have faded, and the
leaves fall down! It's wet here! it's boisterous here! The birds who
used to sing are dumb, and the pigs go out hunting for acorns, and the
pigs are the lords of the forest!"
The nights were cold and the days were misty; but, for all that, the
raven sat on the branch and sang, "Good! good!" Raven and crow sat on
the high bough; and they had a large family, who all said, "Good!
good!" and the majority is always right.
Under the high trees, in the hollow, was a great puddle, and here the
pigs reclined, great and small. They found the place so inexpressibly
lovely! "Oui! oui!" they all exclaimed. That was all the French they
knew, but even that was something; and they were so clever and so fat!
The old ones lay quite still, and reflected; the young ones were very
busy, and were not quiet a moment. One little porker had a twist in
his tail like a ring, and this ring was his mothers's pride: she
thought all the rest were looking at the ring, and thinking only of
the ring; but that they were not doing; they were thinking of
themselves and of what was useful, and what was the use of the wood.
They had always heard that the acorns they ate grew at the roots of
the trees, and accordingly they had grubbed up the ground; but there
came quite a little pig--it's always the young ones who come out with
their new-fangled notions--who declared that the acorns fell down from
the branches, for one had just fallen down on his head, and the idea
had struck him at once, afterwards he had made observations, and now
was quite certain on the point. The old ones put their heads together.
"Umph!" they said, "umph! The glory has departed: the twittering of
the birds is all over: we want fruit; whatever's good to eat is good,
and we eat everything."
"Oui! oui!" chimed in all the rest.
But the mother now looked at her little porker, the one with the ring
in his tail, "One must not overlook the beautiful," she said. "Good!
good!" cried the crow, and flew down from the tree to try and get an
appointment as nightingale; for some one must be appointed; and the
crow obtained the office directly.
"Gone! gone!" sighed the rose king. "All the beautiful is gone!"
It was boisterous, it was grey, cold, and windy; and through the
forest and over the field swept the rain in long dark streaks. Where
is the bird who sang, where are the flowers upon the meadow, and the
sweet berries of the wood? Gone! gone!
Then a light gleamed from the forester's house. It was lit up like a
star, and threw its long ray among the trees. A song sounded forth
out of the house! Beautiful children played there round the old
grandfather. He sat with the Bible on his knee, and read of the
Creator and of a better world, and spoke of spring that would return,
of the forest that would array itself in fresh green, of the roses
that would bloom, the nightingale that would sing, and of the
beautiful that would reign in its glory again.
But the rose king heard it not, for he sat in the cold, damp weather,
and sighed, "Gone! gone!" And the pigs were the lords of the forest,
and the old mother sow looked proudly at her little porker with the
twist in his tail. "There is always somebody who has a soul for the
beautiful!" she said.
ANNE LISBETH.
Anne Lisbeth had a colour like milk and blood; young, fresh, and
merry, she looked beautiful, with gleaming white teeth and clear eyes;
her footstep was light in the dance, and her mind was lighter still.
And what came of it all? Her son was an ugly brat! Yes, he was not
pretty; so he was put out to be nursed by the labourer's wife. Anne
Lisbeth was taken into the count's castle, and sat there in the
splendid room arrayed in silks and velvets; not a breath of wind might
blow upon her, and no one was allowed to speak a harsh word to her.
No, that might not be; for she was nurse to the count's child, which
was delicate and fair as a prince, and beautiful as an angel; and how
she loved this child! Her own boy was provided for at the labourer's,
where the mouth boiled over more frequently than the pot, and where,
in general, no one was at home to take care of the child. Then he
would cry; but what nobody knows, that nobody cares for, and he would
cry till he was tired, and then he fell asleep; and in sleep one feels
neither hunger nor thirst. A capital invention is sleep.
With years, just as weeds shoot up, Anne Lisbeth's child grew, but yet
they said his growth was stunted; but he had quite become a member of
the family in which he dwelt; they had received money to keep him.
Anne Lisbeth was rid of him for good. She had become a town lady, and
had a comfortable home of her own; and out of doors she wore a bonnet,
when she went out for a walk; but she never walked out to see the
labourer--that was too far from the town; and indeed she had nothing
to go for; the boy belonged to the labouring people, and she said he
could eat his food, and he should do something to earn his food, and
consequently he kept Matz's red cow. He could already tend cattle and
make himself useful.
The big dog, by the yard gate of the nobleman's mansion, sits proudly
in the sunshine on the top of the kennel, and barks at every one who
goes by: if it rains he creeps into his house, and there he is warm
and dry. Ann Lisbeth's boy sat in the sunshine on the fence of the
field, and cut out a pole-pin. In the spring he knew of three
strawberry plants that were in blossom, and would certainly bear
fruit, and that was his most hopeful thought; but they came to
nothing. He sat out in the rain in foul weather, and was wet to the
skin, and afterwards the cold wind dried the clothes on his back. When
he came to the lordly farmyard he was hustled and cuffed, for the men
and maids declared he was horribly ugly; but he was used to
that--loved by nobody!
That was how it went with Anne Lisbeth's boy; and how could it go
otherwise? It was, once for all, his fate to be beloved by nobody.
Till now a "land crab," the land at last threw him overboard. He went
to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat by the helm, while the skipper
sat over the grog-can. He was dirty and ugly, half frozen and half
starved: one would have thought he had never had enough; and that
really was the case.
It was late in autumn, rough, wet, windy weather; the wind cut cold
through the thickest clothing, especially at sea; and out to sea went
a wretched boat, with only two men on board, or, properly speaking,
with only a man and a half, the skipper and his boy. It had only been
a kind of twilight all day, and now it became dark; and it was bitter
cold. The skipper drank a dram, which was to warm him from within. The
bottle was old, and the glass too; it was whole at the top, but the
foot was broken off, and therefore it stood upon a little carved block
of wood painted blue. "A dram comforts one, and two are better still,"
thought the skipper. 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; he was the field labourer's boy, though
in the church register he was entered as Anne Lisbeth's son.
The wind cut its way through the rigging, and the boat cut through the
sea. The sail blew out, filled by the wind, and they drove on in wild
career. It was rough and wet around and above, and it might come worse
still. Hold! what was that? what struck there? what burst yonder? what
seized the boat? It heeled, and lay on its beam ends! Was it a
waterspout? Was it a heavy sea coming suddenly down? The boy at the
helm cried out aloud, "Heaven help us!" The boat had struck on a
great rock standing up from the depths of the sea, and it sank like an
old shoe in a puddle; it sank "with man and mouse," as the saying is;
and there were mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper
and the labourer's boy. No one saw it but the swimming seagulls, and
the fishes down yonder, and even they did not see it rightly, for they
started back in terror when the water rushed into the ship, and it
sank. There it lay scarce a fathom below the surface, and those two
were provided for, buried and forgotten! Only the glass with the foot
of blue wood did not sink; for the wood kept it up; the glass drifted
away, to be broken and cast upon the shore--where and when? But,
indeed, that is of no consequence. It had served its time, 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 lived in the city for many years. She was called
Madame, and felt her dignity, when she remembered the old "noble" days
in which she had driven in the carriage, and had associated with
countesses and baronesses. Her beautiful noble-child was the dearest
angel, 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 so tall, and was fourteen
years old, handsome and clever: she had not seen him since she carried
him in her arms; for many years she had not been in the count's
palace, for indeed it was quite a journey thither.
"I must once make an effort and go," said Anne Lisbeth. "I must go to
my darling, to my sweet count's child. Yes, he certainly must long to
see me too, the young count; he thinks of me and loves me as in those
days when he flung his angel arms round my neck and cried 'Anne Liz.!'
It sounded like music. Yes, I must make an effort and 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 great and magnificent as it had always been, and the garden looked
the same as ever; but all the people there were strangers to her; not
one of them knew Anne Lisbeth, and they did not know of what
consequence she had once been there, but she felt sure the countess
would let them know it, and her darling boy too. How she longed to see
him!
Now, Anne Lisbeth was at her journey's end. She was kept waiting a
considerable time, and for those who wait time passes slowly. But
before the great people went to table she was called in and accosted
very graciously. She was to see her sweet boy after dinner, and then
she was to be called in again.
How tall and slender and thin he had grown! But he had still his
beautiful eyes, and the angel-sweet mouth! He looked at her, but he
said not a word: certainly he did not know her. He turned round, and
was about to go away, but she seized his hand and pressed it to her
mouth. "Good, good!" said he; and with that he went out of the
room--he who filled her every thought--he whom she had loved best, and
who was her whole earthly pride. Anne Lisbeth went out of the castle
into the open highway, and she felt very mournful; he had been so cold
and strange to her, had not a word nor a thought for her, he whom she
had once carried day and night, and whom she still carried in her
dreams.
[Illustration: ANNE LISBETH'S BOY.]
A great black raven shot down in front of her on to the high road, and
croaked and croaked again. "Ha!" she said, "what bird of ill omen art
thou?"
She came past the hut of the labourer; the wife stood at the door, and
the two women spoke to one another.
"You look well," said the woman. "You are plump and fat; you're well
off."
"Oh, yes," answered Anne Lisbeth.
"The boat went down with them," continued the woman. "Hans skipper and
the boy were both drowned. There's an end of them. I always thought
the boy would be able to help me out with a few dollars. He'll never
cost _you_ anything more, Anne Lisbeth."
"So they were drowned?" Anne Lisbeth repeated; and then nothing more
was said on the subject.
Anne Lisbeth was very low-spirited because her count-child had shown
no disposition to talk with her who loved him so well, and who had
journeyed all that way to get a sight of him; and the journey had cost
money too, though the pleasure she had derived from it was not great.
Still she said not a word about this. She would not relieve her heart
by telling the labourer's wife about it, lest the latter should think
she did not enjoy her former position at the castle. Then the raven
screamed again, and flew past over her once more.
"The black wretch!" said Anne Lisbeth; "he'll end by frightening me
to-day."
She had brought coffee and chicory with her, for she thought it would
be a charity towards the poor woman to give them to her to boil a cup
of coffee, and then she herself would take a cup too. The woman
prepared the coffee, and in the meantime Anne Lisbeth sat down upon a
chair and fell asleep. There she dreamed of something she had never
dreamed before; singularly enough, she dreamed of her own child that
had wept and hungered there in the labourer's hut, had been hustled
about in heat and in cold, and was now lying in the depths of the sea,
Heaven knows where. She dreamed she was sitting in the hut, where the
woman was busy preparing the coffee--she could smell the roasting
coffee beans. 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 its hand to her; and
there was a terrible crash, for the world was going to pieces, and the
angel was raising himself above the earth, and holding her by the
sleeve so tightly, it seemed to her, that she was lifted up from the
ground; but, on the other hand, something heavy hung at her feet and
dragged her down, and it seemed to her that hundreds of women clung to
her, and cried, "If thou art to be saved, we must be saved too! Hold
fast, hold fast!" And then they all hung on to her; but there were too
many of them, and--_ritsch, ratsch!_--the sleeve tore, and Anne
Lisbeth fell down in horror--and awoke. And indeed she was on the
point of falling over, with the chair on which she sat; she was so
startled and alarmed that she could not recollect what it was she had
dreamed, but she remembered that it had been something dreadful.
[Illustration: ANNE LISBETH AT THE LABOURER'S COTTAGE.]
The coffee was taken, and they had a chat together; and then Anne
Lisbeth went away towards the little town where she was to meet the
carrier, and to drive back with him to her own home. But when she came
to speak to him, he said he should not be ready to start before the
evening of the next day. She began to think about the expense and the
length of the way, and when she considered that the route by the sea
shore was shorter by two miles than the other, and that the weather
was clear and the moon shone, she determined to make her way on foot,
and to start at once, that she might be at home by next day.
The sun had set, and the evening bells, tolled in the towers of the
village churches, still sounded through the air; but no, it was not
the bells, but the cry of the frogs in the marshes. Now they were
silent, and all around was still; not a bird was heard, for they were
all gone to rest; and even the owl seemed to be at home; deep silence
reigned on the margin of the forest and by the sea shore: as Anne
Lisbeth walked on she could hear her own footsteps on the sand; there
was no sound of waves in the sea; everything out in the deep waters
had sunk to silence. All was quiet there, the living and the dead
creatures of the sea.
Anne Lisbeth walked on "thinking of nothing at all," as the saying is,
or rather, her thoughts wandered; but thoughts had not wandered away
from her, for they are never absent from us, they only slumber. But
those that have not yet stirred come forth at their time, and begin to
stir sometimes in the heart and sometimes in the head, and seem to
come upon us as if from above.
It is written that a good deed bears its fruit of blessing, and it is
also written that sin is death. Much has been written and much has
been said which one does not know or think of in general; and thus it
was with Anne Lisbeth. But it may happen that a light arises within
one, and that the forgotten things may approach.
All virtues and all vices lie in our hearts. They are in mine and in
thine; they lie there like little grains of seed; and then from
without comes a ray of sunshine or the touch of an evil hand, or maybe
you turn the corner and go to the right or to the left, and that may
be decisive; for the little seed-corn perhaps is stirred, and it
swells and shoots up, and it bursts, and pours its sap into all your
blood, and then your career has commenced. There are tormenting
thoughts, which one does not feel when one walks on with slumbering
senses, but they are there, fermenting in the heart. Anne Lisbeth
walked on thus with her senses half in slumber, but the thoughts were
fermenting within her. From one Shrove Tuesday to the next there comes
much that weighs upon the heart--the reckoning of a whole year: much
is forgotten, sins against Heaven in word and in thought, against our
neighbour, and against our own conscience. We don't think of these
things, and Anne Lisbeth did not think of them. She had committed no
crime against the law of the land, she was very respectable, an
honoured and well-placed person, that she knew. And as she walked
along by the margin of the sea, what was it she saw lying there? An
old hat, a man's hat. Now, where might that have been washed
overboard? She came nearer, and stopped to look at the hat. Ha! what
was lying yonder? She shuddered; but it was nothing save a heap of sea
grass and tangle flung across a long stone; but it looked just like a
corpse: it was only sea grass and tangle, and yet she was frightened
at it, and as she turned away to walk on 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
have been washed up on to the desert shore. The body, she had heard,
could do harm to none, but the spirit could pursue the lonely
wanderer, and 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 then cry; and while Anne Lisbeth murmured the
words to herself, her whole dream suddenly stood before her just as
she had dreamed it, when the mothers clung to her and had repeated
this word, amid the crash of the world, when her sleeve was torn and
she slipped out of 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 earth."
And as these thoughts passed through her mind, fear gave speed to her
feet, so that she walked on faster and faster; fear came upon her like
the touch of a cold wet hand that was laid upon her heart, so that she
almost fainted; and as she looked out across the sea, all there grew
darker and darker; a heavy mist came rolling onward, and clung round
bush and tree, twisting them into fantastic shapes. She turned round,
and glanced up at the moon, which had risen behind her. It looked like
a pale, rayless surface; and a deadly weight appeared to cling to her
limbs. "Hold fast!" thought she; and when she turned round a second
time and looked at the moon, its white face seemed quite close to her,
and the mist hung like a pale garment from her shoulders. "Hold fast!
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
any such creatures. "A grave, dig me a grave!" was repeated quite
loud. Yes, it was the spectre of her child, the child that lay in 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. Thither she would go, and there she would dig; and she went on
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. "Hold fast! hold fast!" 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 cold and damp with
horror; a heavy weight again seized her and clung to her, and in her
mind a great space opened for thoughts that had never before been
there.
Here in the North the beech wood often buds in a single night, and in
the morning sunlight it appears in its full glory of youthful green;
and thus in a single instant can the consciousness unfold itself of
the sin that has been contained in the thoughts, words, and works of
our past life. It springs up and unfolds itself in a single second
when once the conscience is awakened; and God wakens it when we least
expect it. Then we 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 have not stifled over what we have
sown in our thoughtlessness and pride. The heart hides within itself
all the virtues and likewise all the vices, and they grow even in the
shallowest ground.
Anne Lisbeth now experienced all the thoughts 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!" it sounded
again in her ears; and she would gladly have buried herself if in the
grave there had been forgetfulness of every deed. It was the first
hour of her awakening; full of anguish and horror. Superstition
alternately made her shudder with cold and made her blood burn with
the heat of fever. Many things of which she had never liked to speak
came into her mind. Silent as the cloud shadows in the bright
moonshine, a spectral apparition flitted by her: she had heard of it
before. Close by her gallopped four snorting steeds, with fire
spurting from their eyes and nostrils; they dragged a red-hot coach,
and within it sat the wicked proprietor who had ruled here a hundred
years ago. The legend said that every night at twelve o'clock he drove
into his castle yard and out again. There! there! He was not pale as
dead men are said to be, but black as a coal. He nodded at Anne
Lisbeth and beckoned to her. "Hold fast! hold fast! then you may ride
again in a nobleman's carriage, and forget your child!"
She gathered herself up, and hastened to the churchyard; but the black
crosses and the black ravens danced before her eyes, and she could not
distinguish one from the other. The ravens croaked, as the raven had
done that 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 now understood that the name also applied
to her; and she fancied she should be transformed into a black bird,
and be obliged to cry what they cried if she did not dig the grave.
[Illustration: ANNE LISBETH FOUND ON THE SEA SHORE.]
And she threw herself on 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!" it still sounded; 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 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 forsook her.
It was 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 against a
broken glass, whose sharp stem was stuck in a little painted block of
wood. Anne Lisbeth was in a fever. Conscience had shuffled the cards
of superstition, and had laid out these cards, and 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 swing herself aloft to the
mercy of Heaven, till she had recovered this other half, which was now
held fast in the deep water. Anne Lisbeth got back to her former home,
but was no longer the woman she had been: her thoughts were confused
like a tangled skein; only one thread, only one thought she had
disentangled, namely, that she must carry the spectre of the sea shore
to the churchyard, and dig a grave for him, that thus she might win
back her soul.
Many a night she was missed from her home; and she was always found on
the sea shore, waiting for the spectre. In this way a whole year
passed by; and then one night she vanished again, and was not to be
found; the whole of the next day was wasted in fruitless search.
Towards evening, when the clerk came into the church to toll the
vesper bell, he saw by the altar Anne Lisbeth, who had spent the whole
day there. Her physical forces were almost exhausted, but her eyes
gleamed brightly, and her cheeks had a rosy flush. The last rays of
the sun shone upon her, and gleamed over the altar on the bright
buckles of the Bible which lay there, opened at the words of the
prophet Joel: "Bend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto
the Lord!" That was just a chance, the people said; as many things
happen by chance.
In the face of Anne Lisbeth, illumined by the sun, peace and rest were
to be seen. She said she was happy, for now she had conquered. Last
night the spectre of the shore, her own child, had come to her, 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 that a mother can best hide her child!" And then he gave her
her lost soul back again, and brought her here into the church.
"Now I am in the house of God," she said, "and in that house we are
happy."
And when the sun had set, Anne Lisbeth's soul had risen to that region
where there is no more anguish, and Anne Lisbeth's troubles were over.
CHARMING.
Alfred the sculptor--you know him? We all know him: he won the great
gold medal, and got a travelling scholarship, went to Italy, and then
came back to his native land. He was young in those days, and indeed
he is young yet, though he is ten years older than he was then.
After his return he visited one of the little provincial towns on the
island of Seeland. The whole town knew who the stranger was, and one
of the richest persons gave a party in honour of him, and all who were
of any consequence, or possessed any property, were invited. It was
quite an event, and all the town knew of it without its being
announced by beat of drum. Apprentice boys, and children of poor
people, and even some of the poor people themselves, stood in front of
the house, and looked at the lighted curtain; and the watchman could
fancy that _he_ was giving a party, so many people were in the
streets. There was quite an air of festivity about, and in the house
was festivity also, for Mr. Alfred the sculptor was there.
He talked, and told anecdotes, and all listened to him with pleasure
and a certain kind of awe; but none felt such respect for him as did
the elderly widow of an official: she seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was
concerned, like a fresh piece of blotting paper, that absorbed all
that was spoken, and asked for more. She was very appreciative, and
incredibly ignorant--a kind of female Caspar Hauser.
"I should like to see Rome," she said. "It must be a lovely city, with
all the strangers who are continually arriving there. Now, do give us
a description of Rome. How does the city look when you come in by the
gate?"
"I cannot very well describe it," replied the sculptor. "A great open
place, and in the midst of it an obelisk, which is a thousand years
old."
"An organist!" exclaimed the lady, who had never met with the word
_obelisk_. A few of the guests could hardly keep from laughing, nor
could the sculptor quite keep his countenance; but the smile that rose
to his lips faded away, for he saw, close by the inquisitive dame, a
pair of dark blue eyes--they belonged to the daughter of the speaker,
and any one who has such a daughter cannot be silly! The mother was
like a fountain of questions, and the daughter, who listened, but
never spoke, might pass for the beautiful Naiad of the fountain. How
charming she was! She was a study for the sculptor to contemplate, but
not to converse with; and, indeed, she did not speak, or only very
seldom.
"Has the Pope a large family?" asked the lady.
And the young man considerately answered, as if the question had been
better put, "No, he does not come of a great family."
"That's not what I mean," the widow persisted. "I mean, has he a wife
and children?"
"The Pope is not allowed to marry," said the gentleman.
"I don't like that," was the lady's comment.
She certainly might have put more sensible questions; but if she had
not spoken in just the manner she used, would her daughter have leant
so gracefully on her shoulder, looking straight out with the almost
mournful smile upon her face?
Then Mr. Alfred spoke again, and told of the glory of colour in Italy,
of the purple hills, the blue Mediterranean, the azure sky of the
South, whose brightness and glory was only surpassed in the North by a
maiden's deep blue eyes. And this he said with a peculiar application;
but she who should have understood his meaning, looked as if she were
quite unconscious of it, and that again was charming!
"Italy!" sighed a few of the guests. "Oh, to travel!" sighed others.
"Charming, charming!" chorused they all.
"Yes, if I win a hundred thousand dollars in the lottery," said the
head tax-collector's lady, "then we will travel. I and my daughter,
and you, Mr. Alfred; you must be our guide. We'll all three travel
together, and one or two good friends more." And she nodded in such a
friendly way at the company, that each one might imagine he or she was
the person who was to be taken to Italy. "Yes, we will go to Italy!
but not to those parts where there are robbers--we'll keep to Rome,
and to the great high roads where one is safe."
And the daughter sighed very quietly. And how much may lie in one
little sigh, or be placed in it! The young man placed a great deal in
it. The two blue eyes, lit up that evening in honour of him, must
conceal treasures--treasures of the heart and mind--richer than all
the glories of Rome; and when he left the party that night he had lost
_his_ heart--lost it completely, to the young lady.
The house of the head tax-collector's widow was the one which Mr.
Alfred the sculptor most assiduously frequented; and it was understood
that his visits were not intended for that lady, though he and she
were the people who kept up the conversation; he came for the
daughter's sake. They called her Kala. Her name was really Calen
Malena, and these two names had been contracted into the one name,
Kala. She was beautiful; but a few said she was rather dull, and
probably slept late of a morning.
"She has been always accustomed to that," her mother said. "She's a
beauty, and they always are easily tired. She sleeps rather late, but
that makes her eyes so clear."
What a power lay in the depths of these dark blue eyes! "Still waters
run deep." The young man felt the truth of this proverb; and his heart
had sunk into the depths. He spoke and told his adventures, and the
mamma was as simple and eager in her questioning as on the first
evening of their meeting.
It was a pleasure to hear Alfred describe anything. He spoke of
Naples, of excursions to Mount Vesuvius, and showed coloured prints of
several of the eruptions. And the head tax-collector's widow had never
heard of them before, or taken time to consider the question.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "So that is a burning mountain! But is
it not dangerous to the people round about?"
"Whole cities have been destroyed," he answered; "for instance,
Pompeii and Herculaneum."
"But the poor people!--And you saw all that with your own eyes?"
"No, I did not see any of the eruptions represented in these pictures,
but I will show you a picture of my own, of an eruption I saw."
He laid a pencil sketch upon the table, and mamma, who had been
absorbed in the contemplation of the highly coloured prints, threw a
glance at the pale drawing, and cried in astonishment,
"Did you see it throw up white fire?"
For a moment Alfred's respect for Kala's mamma suffered a sudden
diminution; but, dazzled by the light that illumined Kala, he soon
found it quite natural that the old lady should have no eye for
colour. After all, it was of no consequence, for Kala's mamma had the
best of all things--namely, Kala herself.
And Alfred and Kala were betrothed, which was natural enough, and the
betrothal was announced in the little newspaper of the town. Mamma
purchased thirty copies of the paper, that she might cut out the
paragraph and send it to friends and acquaintances. And the betrothed
pair were happy, and the mother-in-law elect was happy too; for it
seemed like connecting herself with Thorwaldsen.
"For you are a continuation of Thorwaldsen," she said to Alfred. And
it seemed to Alfred that mamma had in this instance said a clever
thing. Kala said nothing; but her eyes shone, her lips smiled, her
every movement was graceful: yes, she was beautiful; that cannot be
too often repeated.
Alfred undertook to take a bust of Kala and of his mother-in-law. They
sat to him accordingly, and saw how he moulded and smoothed the soft
clay with his fingers.
"I suppose it's only on our account," said mamma-in-law, "that you
undertake this commonplace work, and don't leave your servant to do
all that sticking together."
"It is highly necessary that I should mould the clay myself," he
replied.
"Ah, yes, you are so very polite," retorted mamma; and Kala silently
pressed his hand, still soiled by the clay.
And he unfolded to both of them the loveliness of nature in creation,
pointing out how the living stood higher in the scale than the dead
creature, how the plant was developed beyond the mineral, the animal
beyond the plant, and man beyond the animal. He strove to show them
how mind and beauty become manifest in outward form, and how it was
the sculptor's task to seize that beauty and to manifest it in his
works.
Kala stood silent, and nodded approbation of the expressed thought,
while mamma-in-law made the following confession:
"It's difficult to follow all that. But I manage to hobble after you
with my thoughts, though they whirl round and round, but I contrive to
hold them fast."
And Kala's beauty held Alfred fast, filled his soul, and seized and
mastered him. Beauty gleamed forth from Kala's every feature--gleamed
from her eyes, lurked in the corners of her mouth, and in every
movement of her fingers. Alfred the sculptor saw this: he spoke only
of her, thought only of her, and the two became one; and thus it may
be said that she spoke much, for he and she were one, and he was
always talking of her.
Such was the betrothal; and now came the wedding, with bridesmaids and
wedding presents, all duly mentioned in the wedding speech.
Mamma-in-law had set up Thorwaldsen's bust at the end of the table,
attired in a dressing-gown, for he was to be a guest; such was her
whim. Songs were sung and cheers were given, for it was a gay wedding,
and they were a handsome pair. "Pygmalion received his Galatea," so
one of the songs said.
[Illustration: KALA'S BUST.]
"Ah, that's 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 take care of the
commonplace," as she said, meaning the domestic economy. Kala was
like a doll in a doll's house, all was so bright, so new, and so fine.
There they sat, all three; and as for Alfred, to use a proverb that
will describe his position, we may say that he sat like the friar in
the goose-yard.
The magic of form had enchanted him. He had looked at the case, and
cared not to inquire what the case contained, and that omission brings
unhappiness, much unhappiness, into married life; for the case may be
broken, and the gilt may come off; and then the purchaser may repent
his bargain. In a large party it is very disagreeable to observe that
one's buttons are giving way, and that there are no buckles to fall
back upon; but it is worse still in a great company to become aware
that wife and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that one cannot
depend upon oneself for a happy piece of wit to carry off the
stupidity of the thing.
The young married pair often sat hand in hand, he speaking and she
letting fall a word here and there--the same melody, the same clear,
bell-like sounds. It was a mental relief when Sophy, one of her
friends, came to pay a visit.
Sophy was not pretty. She was certainly free from bodily deformity,
though Kala always asserted she was a little crooked; but no eye save
a friend's would have remarked it. She was a very sensible girl, and
it never occurred to her that she might become at all dangerous here.
Her appearance was like a pleasant breath of air in the doll's house;
and air was certainly required here, as they all acknowledged. They
felt they wanted airing, and consequently they came out into the air,
and mamma-in-law and the young couple travelled to Italy.
* * * * *
"Thank Heaven that we are in our own four walls again," was the
exclamation of mother and daughter when they came home, a year after.
"There's no pleasure in travelling," said mamma-in-law. "To tell the
truth, it's very wearisome--I beg pardon for saying so. I found the
time hang heavy, though I had my children with me; and it's expensive
work, travelling, very expensive! And all those galleries one has to
see, and the quantity of things you are obliged to run after! You must
do it for decency's sake, for you're sure to be asked when you come
back; and then you're sure to be told that you've omitted to see what
was best worth seeing. I got tired at last of those endless Madonnas;
one seemed to be turning a Madonna oneself!"
"And what bad living you get!" said Kala.
"Yes," replied mamma, "no such thing as an honest meat soup. It's
miserable trash, their cookery."
And the travelling fatigued Kala: she was always fatigued, that was
the worst of it. Sophy was taken into the house, where her presence
was a real advantage.
Mamma-in-law acknowledged that Sophy understood both housewifery and
art, though a knowledge of the latter could not be expected from a
person of her limited means; and she was, moreover, an honest,
faithful girl; she showed that thoroughly while Kala lay sick--fading
away.
Where the case is everything, the case should be strong, or else all
is over. And all _was_ over with the case--Kala died.
"She was beautiful," said mamma, "she was quite different from the
antiques, for they are so damaged. A beauty ought to be perfect, and
Kala was a perfect beauty."
Alfred wept, and mamma wept, and both of them wore mourning. The black
dress suited mamma very well, and she wore mourning the longest.
Moreover, she had to experience another grief in seeing Alfred marry
again--marry Sophy, who had no appearance at all.
"He's gone to the very extreme," cried mamma-in-law; "he has gone from
the most beautiful to the ugliest, and he has forgotten his first
wife. Men have no endurance. My husband was of a different stamp, and
he died before me."
"Pygmalion received his Galatea," said Alfred: "yes, that's what they
said in the wedding song. I had once really fallen in love with the
beautiful statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the kindred soul
which Heaven sends down to us, the angel who can feel and sympathise
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 fair, fairer
than is needful. The chief thing remains the chief. You came to teach
the sculptor that his work is but clay and dust, only an outward form
in a fabric that passes away, and that we must seek the essence, the
internal spirit. Poor Kala! ours was but wayfarers' life. Yonder,
where we shall know each other by sympathy, we shall be half
strangers."
"That was not lovingly spoken," said Sophy, "not spoken like a
Christian. Yonder, where there is no giving in marriage, but where, as
you say, souls attract each other by sympathy; there where everything
beautiful develops itself and is elevated, her soul may acquire such
completeness that it may sound more harmoniously than mine; and you
will then once more utter the first raptured exclamation of your love,
Beautiful--most beautiful!"
IN THE DUCK-YARD.
A duck arrived from Portugal. Some said she came from Spain, but
that's all the same. At any rate she was called the Portuguese, and
laid eggs, and was killed and cooked, and that was _her_ career. But
the ducklings which crept forth from her eggs were afterwards also
called Portuguese, and there is something in that. Now, of the whole
family there was only one left in the duck-yard, a yard to which the
chickens had access likewise, and where the cock strutted about in a
very aggressive manner.
"He annoys me with his loud crowing!" observed the Portuguese duck.
"But he's a handsome bird, there's no denying that, though he is not a
drake. He ought to moderate his voice, but that's an art inseparable
from polite education, like that possessed by the little singing birds
over in the lime trees in the neighbour's garden. How charmingly they
sing! There's something quite pretty in their warbling. I call it
Portugal. If I had only such a little singing bird, I'd be a mother to
him, kind and good, for that's in my blood, my Portuguese blood!"
And while she was still speaking, a little singing bird came head over
heels from the roof into the yard. The cat was behind him, but the
bird escaped with a broken wing, and that's how he 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. That such a
creature should be allowed to live, and to wander about upon the
roofs! I don't think they do such things in Portugal!"
And she pitied the little singing bird, and the other ducks who were
not of Portuguese descent pitied him too.
"Poor little creature!" they said, as one after another came up. "We
certainly can't sing," they said, "but we have a sounding board, or
something of the kind, within us; we can feel that, though we don't
talk of it."
"But I can talk of it," said the Portuguese duck; "and I'll do
something for the little fellow, for that's my duty!" And she stepped
into the water-trough, and beat her wings upon the water so heartily,
that the little singing bird was almost drowned by the bath she got,
but the duck meant it kindly. "That's a good deed," she said: "the
others may take example by it."
"Piep!" said the little bird; one of his wings was broken, and he
found it difficult to shake himself; but he quite understood that the
bath was kindly meant. "You are very kind-hearted, madam," he said;
but he did not wish for a second bath.
"I have never thought about my heart," continued the Portuguese duck,
"but I know this much, that I love all my fellow-creatures except the
cat; but nobody can expect me to love her, for she ate up two of my
ducklings. But pray make yourself at home, for one can make oneself
comfortable. I myself am from a strange country, as you may see from
my bearing, and from my feathery dress. My drake is a native of these
parts, he's not of my race; but for all that I'm not proud! If any one
here in the yard can understand you, I may assert that I am that
person."
"She's quite full of Portulak," said a little common duck, who was
witty; and all the other common ducks considered the word _Portulak_
quite a good joke, for it sounded like Portugal; and they nudged each
other and said "Rapp!" It was too witty! And all the other ducks now
began to notice the little singing bird.
"The Portuguese has certainly a greater command of language," they
said. "For our part, we don't care to fill our beaks with such long
words, but our sympathy is just as great. If we don't do anything for
you, we march about with you everywhere; and we think that the best
thing we can do."
"You have a lovely voice," said one of the oldest. "It must be a great
satisfaction to be able to give so much pleasure as you are able to
impart. I certainly am no great judge of your song, and consequently I
keep my beak shut; and even that is better than talking nonsense to
you, 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! pray let me be dry!" was the little bird's petition.
"The water-cure is the only remedy for me when I am unwell," quoth the
Portuguese. "Amusement is beneficial too! The neighbouring fowls will
soon come to pay their visit. There are two Cochin Chinese among them.
They wear feathers on their legs, are well educated, and have been
brought from afar, consequently they stand higher than the others in
my regard."
And the fowls came, and the cock came; to-day he was polite enough to
abstain from being rude.
"You are a true singing bird," he said, "and you do as much with your
little voice as can possibly be done with it. But one requires a
little more shrillness, that every hearer may hear that one is a
male."
The two Chinese stood quite enchanted with the appearance of the
singing bird. He looked very much rumpled after his bath, so that he
seemed to them to have quite the appearance of a little Cochin China
fowl. "He's charming," they cried, and began a conversation with him,
speaking in whispers, and using the most aristocratic Chinese dialect.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE SINGING BIRD RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED
PATRONAGE.]
"We are of your race," they continued. "The ducks, even the
Portuguese, are swimming birds, as you cannot fail to 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 on the ladder than most of the rest.
But that does not disturb us: we quietly pursue our path amid the
others, whose principles are certainly not ours; for we look at things
on the favourable side, and only speak of what is good, though it is
difficult sometimes to find something when nothing exists. Except us
two and the cock, there's no one in the whole poultry-yard who is at
once talented and polite. It cannot even be said of the inhabitants of
the duck-yard. We warn you, little singing bird: don't trust that one
yonder with the short tail feathers, for she's cunning. The pied one
there, with the crooked stripes on her wings, is a strife-seeker, and
lets nobody have the last word, though she's always in the wrong. The
fat duck yonder speaks evil of every one, and that's against our
principles: if we have nothing good to tell, we should hold our beaks.
The Portuguese is the only one who has any education, and with whom
one can associate, but she is passionate, and talks too much about
Portugal."
"I wonder what those two Chinese are always whispering to one another
about," whispered one duck to her friend. "They annoy me--we have
never spoken to them."
Now the drake came up. He thought the little singing bird was a
sparrow.
"Well, I don't understand the difference," he said; "and indeed it's
all the same thing. He's only a plaything, and if one has them, why,
one has them."
"Don't attach any value to what he says," the Portuguese whispered.
"He's very respectable in business matters; and with him business
takes precedence of everything. But now I shall lie down for a rest.
One owes that to oneself, that one may be nice and fat when one is to
be embalmed with apples and plums."
And accordingly she lay down in the sun, and winked with one eye; and
she lay very comfortably, and she felt very comfortable, and she slept
very comfortably.
The little singing bird busied himself with his broken wing. At last
he lay down too, and pressed close to his protectress: the sun shone
warm and bright, and he had found a very good place.
But the neighbour's fowls were awake. They went about scratching up
the earth; and, to tell the truth, they had paid the visit simply and
solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to
leave the duck-yard; and the other fowls soon followed them. The witty
little duck said of the Portuguese that the old lady was becoming a
ducky dotard. At this the other ducks laughed and cackled aloud.
"Ducky dotard," they whispered; "that's too witty!" and then they
repeated the former joke about Portulak, and declared that it was
vastly amusing. And then they lay down.
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 thwack,
that the whole company started up from sleep and clapped their wings.
The Portuguese awoke too, and threw herself over on the other side,
pressing the little singing bird very hard as she did so.
"Piep!" he cried; "you trod very hard upon me, madam."
"Well, why do you lie in my way?" the duck retorted. "You must not be
so touchy. I have nerves of my own, but yet I never called out 'Piep!'
"Don't be angry," said the little bird "the 'piep' came 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 this was ended, and she lay down
again, the little bird came up, and wanted to be amiable, and sang:
"Tillee-lilly lee,
Of the good spring time,
I'll sing so fine
As far away I flee."
"Now I want to rest after my dinner," said the Portuguese. "You must
conform to the rules of the house while you're here. I want to sleep
now."
The little singing bird was quite taken aback, for he had meant it
kindly. When Madam afterwards awoke, he stood before her again with a
little corn that he had found, and laid it at her feet; but as she had
not slept well, she was naturally in a very bad humour.
"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 expression is not
exactly genteel; a fact to which I must call your attention."
"Yesterday it was sunshine here," said the little bird, "but to-day
it's cloudy and the air is close."
"You don't know much about the weather, I fancy," retorted the
Portuguese. "The day is not done 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 will teach you good
manners."
And so saying, she bit off the singing bird's head, and he lay dead on
the ground.
"Now, what's the meaning of this?" she said, "could he not bear even
that? 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 neighbour's cock stuck his head into the yard, and crowed
with steam-engine power.
"You'll kill me with your crowing!" she cried. "It's all your fault.
He's lost his head, and I am very near losing mine."
"There's not much lying where he fell!" observed the cock.
"Speak of him with respect," retorted the Portuguese duck, "for he had
song, manners, and education. He was affectionate and soft, and that's
as good in animals, as in your so-called human beings."
And all the ducks came crowding round the little dead singing bird.
Ducks have strong passions, whether they feel envy or pity; and as
there was nothing here to envy, pity manifested itself, even in the
two Chinese.
"We shall never get such a singing bird again; he was almost a
Chinese," they whispered, and they wept with a mighty clucking sound,
and all the fowls clucked too; but the ducks went about with the
redder eyes.
"We've hearts of our own," they said; "nobody can deny that."
"Hearts!" repeated the Portuguese, "yes, that we have, almost as much
as in Portugal."
"Let us think of getting something to satisfy our hunger," said the
drake, "for that's the most important point. If one of our toys is
broken, why, we have plenty more!"
THE GIRL WHO TROD ON THE LOAF.
The story of the girl who trod on the loaf, to avoid soiling her
shoes, and of the misfortunes that befell this girl, is well known. It
has been written, and even printed.
The girl's name was Ingé; she was a poor child, but proud and
presumptuous; there was a bad foundation in her, as the saying is.
When she was quite a little child, it was her delight to catch flies,
and tear off their wings, so as to convert them into creeping things.
Grown older, she would take cockchafers and beetles, and spit them on
pins. Then she pushed a green leaf or a little scrap of paper towards
their feet, and the poor creatures seized it, and held it fast, and
turned it over and over, struggling to get free from the pin.
"The cockchafer is reading," Ingé would say. "See how he turns the
leaf round and round!"
With years she grew worse rather than better; but she was pretty, and
that was her misfortune; otherwise she would have been more sharply
reproved than she was.
"Your headstrong will requires something strong to break it!" her own
mother often said. "As a little child, you used to trample on my
apron; but I fear you will one day trample on my heart."
And that is what she really did.
She was sent into the country, into service in the house of rich
people, who kept her as their own child, and dressed her in
corresponding style. She looked well, and her presumption increased.
When she had been there about a year, her mistress said to her, "You
ought once to visit your parents, Ingé."
And Ingé set out to visit her parents, but it was only to show herself
in her native place, and that the people there might see how grand she
had become; but when she came to the entrance of the village, and the
young husbandmen and maids stood there chatting, and her own mother
appeared among them, sitting on a stone to rest, and with a faggot of
sticks before her that she had picked up in the wood, then Ingé turned
back, for she felt ashamed that she, who was so finely dressed, should
have for a mother a ragged woman, who picked up wood in the forest.
She did not turn back out of pity for her mother's poverty, she was
only angry.
And another half-year went by, and her mistress said again, "You ought
to go to your home, and visit your old parents, Ingé. I'll make you a
present of a great wheaten loaf that you may give to them; they will
certainly be glad to see you again."
And Ingé put on her best clothes, and her new shoes, and drew her
skirts around her, and set out, stepping very carefully, that she
might be clean and neat about the feet; and there was no harm in that.
But when she came to the place where the footway led across the moor,
and where there was mud and puddles, she threw the loaf into the mud,
and trod upon it to pass over without wetting her feet. But as she
stood there with one foot upon the loaf and the other uplifted to step
farther, the loaf sank with her, deeper and deeper, till she
disappeared altogether, and only a great puddle, from which the
bubbles rose, remained where she had been.
And that's the story.
[Illustration: INGÉ TURNS BACK AT THE SIGHT OF HER POOR MOTHER.]
But whither did Ingé go? She sank into the moor ground, and went down to
the moor woman, who is always brewing there. The moor woman is cousin to
the elf maidens, who are well enough known, of whom songs are sung, and
whose pictures are painted; but concerning the moor woman it is only known
that when the meadows steam in summer-time it is because she is brewing.
Into the moor woman's brewery did Ingé sink down; and no one can endure
that place long. A box of mud is a palace compared with the moor woman's
brewery. Every barrel there has an odour that almost takes away one's
senses; and the barrels stand close to each other; and wherever there is a
little opening among them, through which one might push one's way, the
passage becomes impracticable from the number of damp toads and fat snakes
who sit out their time there. Among this company did Ingé fall; and all the
horrible mass of living creeping things was so icy cold, that she shuddered
in all her limbs, and became stark and stiff. She continued fastened to the
loaf, and the loaf drew her down as an amber button draws a fragment of
straw.
The moor woman was at home, and on that day there were visitors in the
brewery. These visitors were old Bogey and his grandmother, who came
to inspect it; and Bogey's grandmother is a venomous old woman, who is
never idle: she never rides out to pay a visit without taking her work
with her; and, accordingly, she had brought it on the day in question.
She sewed biting-leather to be worked into men's shoes, and which
makes them wander about unable to settle anywhere. She wove webs of
lies, and strung together hastily-spoken words that had fallen to the
ground; and all this was done for the injury and ruin of mankind. Yes,
indeed, she knew how to sew, to weave, and to string, this old
grandmother!
Catching sight of Ingé, she put up her double eye-glass, and took
another look at the girl. "That's a girl who has ability!" she
observed, "and I beg you will give me the little one as a memento of
my visit here. She'll make a capital statue to stand in my grandson's
antechamber."
And Ingé was given up to her, and this is how Ingé came into Bogey's
domain. People don't always go there by the direct path, but they can
get there by roundabout routes if they have a tendency in that
direction.
That was a never-ending antechamber. The visitor became giddy who
looked forward, and doubly giddy when he looked back, and saw a whole
crowd of people, almost utterly exhausted, waiting till the gate of
mercy should be opened to them--they had to wait a long time! Great
fat waddling spiders spun webs of a thousand years over their feet,
and these webs cut like wire, and bound them like bronze fetters; and,
moreover, there was an eternal unrest working in every heart--a
miserable unrest. The miser stood there, and had forgotten the key of
his strong box, and he knew the key was sticking in the lock. It would
take too long to describe the various sorts of torture that were
found there together. Ingé felt a terrible pain while she had to
stand there as a statue, for she was tied fast to the loaf.
"That's the fruit of wishing to keep one's feet neat and tidy," she
said to herself. "Just look how they're all staring at me!" Yes,
certainly, the eyes of all were fixed upon her, and their evil
thoughts gleamed forth from their eyes, and they spoke to one another,
moving their lips, from which no sound whatever came forth: they were
very horrible to behold.
"It must be a great pleasure to look at me!" thought Ingé, "and indeed
I have a pretty face and fine clothes." And she turned her eyes, for
she could not turn her head; her neck was too stiff for that. But she
had not considered how her clothes had been soiled in the moor woman's
brewhouse. Her garments were covered with mud; a snake had fastened in
her hair, and dangled down her back; and out of each fold of her frock
a great toad looked forth, croaking like an asthmatic poodle. That was
very disconcerting. "But all the rest of them down here look
horrible," she observed to herself, and derived consolation from the
thought.
The worst of all was the terrible hunger that tormented her. But could
she not stoop and break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood?
No, her back was too stiff, her hands and arms were benumbed, and her
whole body was like a pillar of stone; only she was able to turn her
eyes in her head, to turn them quite round so that she could see
backwards: it was an ugly sight. And then the flies came up, and crept
to and fro over her eyes, and she blinked her eyes, but the flies
would not go away, for they could not fly: their wings had been pulled
out, so that they were converted into creeping insects: it was
horrible torment added to the hunger, for she felt empty, quite,
entirely empty. "If this lasts much longer," she said, "I shall not be
able to bear it." But she had to bear it, and it lasted on and on.
Then a hot tear fell down upon her head, rolled over her face and
neck, down on to the loaf on which she stood; and then another tear
rolled down, followed by many more. Who might be weeping for Ingé? Had
she not still a mother in the world? The tears of sorrow which a
mother weeps for her child always make their way to the child; but
they do not relieve it, they only increase its torment. And now to
bear this unendurable hunger, and yet not to be able to touch the loaf
on which she stood! She felt as if she had been feeding on herself,
and had become like a thin, hollow reed that takes in every sound, for
she heard everything that was said of her up in the world, and all
that she heard was hard and evil. Her mother, indeed, wept much and
sorrowed for her, but for all that she said, "A haughty spirit goes
before a fall. That was thy ruin, Ingé. Thou hast sorely grieved thy
mother."
Her mother and all on earth knew of the sin she had committed; knew
that she had trodden upon the loaf, and had sunk and disappeared; for
the cowherd had seen it from the hill beside the moor.
"Greatly hast thou grieved thy mother, Ingé," said the mother; "yes,
yes, I thought it would be thus."
"Oh that I never had been born!" thought Ingé; "it would have been far
better. But what use is my mother's weeping now?"
And she heard how her master and mistress, who had kept and cherished
her like kind parents, now said she was a sinful child, and did not
value the gifts of God, but trampled them under her feet, and that the
gates of mercy would only open slowly to her.
"They should have punished me," thought Ingé, "and have driven out the
whims I had in my head."
She heard how a complete song was made about her, a song of the proud
girl who trod upon the loaf to keep her shoes clean, and she heard how
the song was sung everywhere.
"That I should have to bear so much evil for this!" thought Ingé; "the
others ought to be punished, too, for their sins. Yes, then there
would be plenty of punishing to do. Ah, how I'm being tortured!" And
her heart became harder than her outward form.
"Here in this company one can't even become better," she said, "and I
don't want to become better! Look, how they're all staring at me!"
And her heart was full of anger and malice against all men. "Now
they've something to talk about at last up yonder. Ah, how I'm being
tortured!"
And then she heard how her story was told to the little children, and
the little ones called her the godless Ingé, and said she was so
naughty and ugly that she must be well punished.
Thus, even the children's mouths spoke hard words of her.
But one day, while grief and hunger gnawed her hollow frame, and she
heard her name mentioned and her story told to an innocent child, a
little girl, she became aware that the little one burst into tears at
the tale of the haughty, vain Ingé.
"But will Ingé never come up here again?" asked the little girl.
And the reply was, "She will never come up again."
"But if she were to say she was sorry, and to beg pardon, and say she
would never do so again?"
"Yes, then she might come; but she will not beg pardon," was the
reply.
"I should be so glad if she would," said the little girl; and she was
quite inconsolable. "I'll give my doll and all my playthings if she
may only come up. It's too dreadful--poor Ingé!"
And these words penetrated to Ingé's inmost heart, and seemed to do
her good. It was the first time any one had said, "Poor Ingé," without
adding anything about her faults: a little innocent child was weeping
and praying for mercy for her. It made her feel quite strangely, and
she herself would gladly have wept, but she could not weep, and that
was a torment in itself.
While years were passing above her, for where she was there was no
change, she heard herself spoken of more and more seldom. At last, one
day a sigh struck on her ear: "Ingé, Ingé, how you have grieved me! I
said how it would be!" It was the last sigh of her dying mother.
Occasionally she heard her name spoken by her former employers, and
they were pleasant words when the woman said, "Shall I ever see thee
again, Ingé? One knows not what may happen."
But Ingé knew right well that her good mistress would never come to
the place where she was.
And again time went on--a long, bitter time. Then Ingé heard her name
pronounced once more, and saw two bright stars that seemed gleaming
above her. They were two gentle eyes closing upon earth. So many years
had gone by since the little girl had been inconsolable and wept about
"poor Ingé," that the child had become an old woman, who was now to be
called home to heaven; and in the last hour of existence, when the
events of the whole life stand at once before us, the old woman
remembered how as a child she had cried heartily at the story of Ingé.
And the eyes of the old woman closed, and the eye of her soul was
opened to look upon the hidden things. She, in whose last thoughts
Ingé had been present so vividly, saw how deeply the poor girl had
sunk, and burst into tears at the sight; in heaven she stood like a
child, and wept for poor Ingé. And her tears and prayers sounded like
an echo in the dark empty space that surrounded the tormented captive
soul, and the unhoped-for love from above conquered her, for an angel
was weeping for her. Why was this vouchsafed to her? The tormented
soul seemed to gather in her thoughts every deed she had done on
earth, and she, Ingé, trembled and wept such tears as she had never
yet wept. She was filled with sorrow about herself: it seemed as
though the gate of mercy could never open to her; and while in deep
penitence she acknowledged this, a beam, of light shot radiantly down
into the depths to her, with a greater force than that of the sunbeam
which melts the snow man the boys have built up; and quicker than the
snow-flake melts, and becomes a drop of water that falls on the warm
lips of a child, the stony form of Ingé was changed to mist, and a
little bird soared with the speed of lightning upward into the world
of men. But the bird was timid and shy towards all things around; he
was ashamed of himself, ashamed to encounter any living thing, and
hurriedly sought to conceal himself in a dark hole in an old crumbling
wall; there he sat cowering, trembling through his whole frame, and
unable to utter a sound, for he had no voice. Long he sat there,
before he could rightly see all the beauty around him; for it was
beautiful. The air was fresh and mild, the moon cast its mild radiance
over the earth; trees and bushes exhaled fragrance, and it was right
pleasant where he sat, and his coat of feathers was clean and pure.
How all creation seemed to speak of beneficence and love! The bird
wanted to sing of the thoughts that stirred in his breast, but he
could not; gladly would he have sung as the cuckoo and the nightingale
sung in spring-time. But Heaven, that hears the mute song of praise of
the worm, could hear the notes of praise which now trembled in the
breast of the bird, as David's psalms were heard before they had
fashioned themselves into words and song.
For weeks these toneless songs stirred within the bird; at last, the
holy Christmas-time approached. The peasant who dwelt near set up a
pole by the old wall with, some ears of corn bound to the top, that
the birds of heaven might have a good meal, and rejoice in the happy,
blessed time.
And on Christmas morning the sun arose and shone upon the ears of
corn, which were surrounded by a number of twittering birds. Then out
of the hole in the wall streamed forth the voice of another bird, and
the bird soared forth from its hiding-place; and in heaven it was well
known what bird this was.
It was a hard winter. The ponds were covered with ice, and the beasts
of the field and the birds of the air were stinted for food. Our
little bird soared away over the high road, and in the ruts of the
sledges he found here and there a grain of corn, and at the
halting-places some crumbs. Of these he ate only a few, but he called
all the other hungry sparrows around him, that they, too, might have
some food. He flew into the towns, and looked round about; and
wherever a kind hand had strewn bread on the window-sill for the
birds, he only ate a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest to
the other birds.
In the course of the winter, the bird had collected so many bread
crumbs, and given them to the other birds, that they equalled the
weight of the loaf on which Ingé had trod to keep her shoes clean; and
when the last bread crumb had been found and given, the grey wings of
the bird became white, and spread far out.
"Yonder is a sea-swallow, flying away across the water," said the
children when they saw the white bird. Now it dived into the sea, and
now it rose again into the clear sunlight. It gleamed white; but no
one could tell whither it went, though some asserted that it flew
straight into the sun.
A STORY FROM THE SAND-DUNES.
This is a story from the sand-dunes or sand-hills of Jutland; though
it does not begin in Jutland, the northern peninsula, but far away in
the south, in Spain. The ocean is the high road between the
nations--transport thyself thither in thought to sunny Spain. There it
is warm and beautiful, there the fiery pomegranate blossoms flourish
among the dark laurels; from the mountains a cool refreshing wind
blows down, upon, and over the orange gardens, over the gorgeous
Moorish halls with their golden cupolas and coloured walls: through
the streets go children in procession, with candles and with waving
flags, and over them, lofty and clear, rises the sky with its gleaming
stars. There is a sound of song and of castagnettes, and youths and
maidens join in the dance under the blooming acacias, while the
mendicant sits upon the hewn marble stone, refreshing himself with the
juicy melon, and dreamily enjoying life. The whole is like a glorious
dream. And there was a newly married couple who completely gave
themselves up to its charm; moreover, they possessed the good things
of this life, health and cheerfulness of soul, riches and honour.
"We are as happy as it is possible to be," exclaimed the young couple,
from the depths of their hearts They had indeed but one step more to
mount in the ladder of happiness, in the hope that God would give them
a child; a son like them in form and in spirit.
The happy child would be welcomed with rejoicing, would be tended with
all care and love, and enjoy every advantage that wealth and ease
possessed by an influential family could give.
And the days went by like a glad festival.
"Life is a gracious gift of Providence, an almost inappreciable gift!"
said the young wife, "and yet they tell us that fulness of joy is
found only in the future life, for ever and ever. I cannot compass the
thought."
"And perhaps the thought arises 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 these not the words of the
serpent, the origin of falsehood?"
"Surely you do not doubt the future life?" exclaimed the young wife;
and it seemed as if one of the first shadows flitted over the sunny
heaven of her thoughts.
"Faith promises it, and the priests tells us so!" replied the man;
"but amid all my happiness, I feel that it is arrogance to demand a
continued happiness, another life after this. Has not so much been
given us in this state of existence, that we ought to be, that we
_must_ be, contented with it?"
"Yes, it has been given to _us_," said the young wife, "but to how
many thousands is not this life one scene of hard trial? How many have
been thrown into this world, as if only to suffer poverty and shame
and sickness and misfortune? If there were no life after this,
everything on earth would be too unequally distributed, and the
Almighty would not be justice itself."
"Yonder beggar," replied the man, "has his joys which seem to him
great, and which rejoice him as much as the king is rejoiced in the
splendour 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 from its heavy fate? The dumb beast might likewise demand a
future life, and declare the decree unjust that does not admit it into
a higher place of creation."
"HE has said, 'In my Father's house are many mansions,'" replied the
young wife: "heaven is immeasurable, as the love of our Maker is
immeasurable. Even the dumb beast is His creature; and I firmly
believe that no life will be lost, but that each will receive that
amount of happiness which he can enjoy, and which is sufficient for
him."
"This world is sufficient for me!" said the man, and he threw his arms
round his beautiful, amiable wife, and then smoked his cigarette on
the open balcony, where the cool air was filled with the fragrance of
oranges and pinks. The sound of music and the clatter of castagnettes
came up from the road, the stars gleamed above, and two eyes full of
affection, the eyes of his wife, looked on him with the undying glance
of love.
[Illustration: IN SPAIN.]
"Such a moment," he said, "makes it worth while to be born, to fall,
and to disappear!" and he smiled. The young wife raised her hand in
mild reproach, and the shadow passed away from her world, and they
were happy--quite happy.
Everything seemed to work together for them. They advanced in honour,
in prosperity, and in joy. There was a change, indeed, but only a
change of place; not in enjoyment of life and of happiness. The young
man was sent by his sovereign as ambassador to the court of Russia.
This was an honourable office, and his birth and his acquirements gave
him a title to be thus honoured. He possessed a great 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 dispatched during that year to Stockholm, and
it was arranged that the dear young people, the daughter and the
son-in-law, should travel in it to St. Petersburg. And all the
arrangements on board were princely--rich carpets for the feet, and
silk and luxury on all sides.
In an old heroic song, "The King's Son of England," it says,
"Moreover, he sailed in a gallant ship, and the anchor was gilded with
ruddy gold, and each rope was woven through with silk," And this ship
involuntarily rose in the mind of him who saw the vessel from Spain,
for here was the same pomp, and the same parting thought naturally
arose--the thought:
"God grant that we all in joy
Once more may meet again."
And the wind blew fairly seaward from the Spanish shore, and the
parting was to be but a brief one, for in a few weeks the voyagers
would reach their destination; but when they came out upon the high
seas, the wind sank, the sea became calm and shining, the stars of
heaven gleamed brightly, and they were festive evenings that were
spent in the sumptuous cabin.
At length the voyagers began to wish for wind, for a favouring breeze;
but the breeze would not blow, or, if it did arise, it was contrary.
Thus weeks passed away, two full months; and then at last the fair
wind blew--it blew from the south-west. The ship sailed on the high
seas between Scotland and Jutland, and the wind increased just as in
the old song of "The King's Son of England."
"And it blew a storm, and the rain came down,
And they found not land nor shelter,
And forth they threw their anchor of gold,
As the wind blew westward, toward Denmark."
This all happened a long, long while ago. King Christian VII. then sat
on the Danish throne, and he was still a young man. Much has happened
since that time, much has changed or has been changed. Sea and
moorland have been converted into green meadows, heath has become
arable land, and in the shelter of the West Jute huts grow apple trees
and rose bushes, though they certainly require to be sought for, as
they bend beneath the sharp west wind. In Western Jutland one may go
back in thought to the old times, farther back than the days when
Christian VII. bore rule. As it did then, in Jutland, the brown heath
now also extends for miles, with its "Hun's Graves," its aërial
spectacles, and its crossing, sandy, uneven roads; westward, where
large rivulets run into the bays, extend marshes and meadow land,
girdled with lofty sand-hills, which, like a row of Alps, raise their
peaked summits towards the sea, only broken by the high clayey ridges,
from which the waves year by year bite out huge mouthfuls, so that the
impending shores fall down as if by the shock of an earthquake. Thus
it is there to-day, and thus it was many, many years ago, when the
happy pair were sailing in the gorgeous ship.
It was in the last days of September, a Sunday, and sunny weather; the
chiming of the church bells in the bay of Nissum was wafted along like
a chain of sounds. The churches there are erected almost entirely of
hewn boulder stones, each like a piece of rock; the North Sea might
foam over them, and they would not be overthrown. Most of them are
without steeples, and the bells are hung between two beams in the open
air. The service was over, and the congregation thronged out into the
churchyard, where then, as now, not a tree nor a bush was to be seen;
not a single flower had been planted there, nor had a wreath been laid
upon the graves. Rough mounds show where the dead had been buried, and
rank grass, tossed by the wind, grows thickly over the whole
churchyard. Here and there a grave had a monument to show, in the
shape of a half-decayed block of wood rudely shaped into the form of a
coffin, the said block having been brought from the forest of West
Jutland; but the forest of West Jutland is the wild sea itself, where
the inhabitants find the hewn beams and planks and fragments which the
breakers cast ashore. The wind and the sea fog soon destroy the wood.
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, stepped
towards it. She stood still in front of it, and let her glance rest on
the discoloured memorial. A few moments afterwards her husband stepped
up to her. Neither of them spoke a word, but he took her hand, and
they wandered across the brown heath, over moor and meadow, towards
the sand-hills; for a long time they thus walked silently side by
side.
"That was a good sermon to-day," the man said at length. "If we had
not God to look to, we should have nothing!"
"Yes," observed the woman, "He sends joy and sorrow, and He has a
right to send them. To-morrow our little boy would have been five
years old, if we had been allowed to keep him."
"You will gain nothing by fretting, wife," said the man. "The boy is
well provided for. He is there whither we pray to go."
And they said nothing more, but went forward to their house among the
sand-hills. Suddenly, in front of one of the houses where the sea
grass did not keep the sand down with its twining roots, there arose
what appeared to be a column of smoke rising into the air. A gust of
wind swept in among the hills, whirling the particles of sand high in
the air. Another, and the strings of fish hung up to dry flapped and
beat violently against the wall of the hut; and then all was still
again, and the sun shone down hotly.
Man and wife stepped into the house. They had soon taken off their
Sunday clothes, and emerging again, they hurried away over the dunes,
which stood there like huge waves of sand suddenly arrested in their
course, while the sandweeds and the dunegrass with its bluish stalks
spread a changing colour over them. A few neighbours came up, and
helped one another to draw the boats higher up on the sand. The wind
now blew more sharply than before; it was cutting and cold: and when
they went back over the sand-hills, sand and little pointed stones
blew into their faces. The waves reared themselves up with their white
crowns of foam, and the wind cut off their crests, flinging the foam
far around.
The evening came on. In the air was a swelling roar, moaning and
complaining like a troop of despairing spirits, that sounded above the
hoarse rolling of the sea; for the fisher's little hut was on the very
margin. The sand rattled against the window panes, and every now and
then came a violent gust of wind, that shook the house to its
foundations. It was dark, but towards midnight the moon would rise.
The air became clearer, but the storm swept in all its gigantic force
over the perturbed sea. The fisher people had long gone to bed, but in
such weather there was no chance of closing an eye. Presently there
was a knocking at the window, and the door was opened, and a voice
said:
"There's a great ship fast stranded on the outermost reef."
In a moment the fish people had sprung from their couch, and hastily
arrayed themselves.
The moon had risen, it was light enough to make the surrounding
objects visible, to those who could open their eyes for the blinding
clouds of sand. The violence of the wind was terrible; and only by
creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the
sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down,
while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It
required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The
vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef,
three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove
towards the land, struck against the second reef, and remained fixed.
[Illustration: SAVED FROM THE WRECK.]
To render assistance was impossible; the sea rolled fairly in upon the
vessel, making a clean breach over her. Those on shore fancied they
heard the cries of help from on board, and could plainly descry the
busy useless efforts made by the stranded crew. Now a wave came
rolling onward, falling like a rock upon the bowsprit, and tearing it
from the brig. The stern was lifted high above the flood. Two people
were seen to embrace and plunge together into the sea; in a moment
more, and one of the largest waves that rolled towards the sand-hills
threw a body upon the shore. It was a woman, and appeared quite dead,
said the sailors; but some women thought they discerned signs of life
in her, and the stranger was carried across the sand-hills into the
fisherman's hut. How beautiful and fair she was! certainly she must
be a great lady.
They laid her upon the humble bed that boasted not a yard of linen;
but there was a woollen coverlet, and that would 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. It was with her ship as
with the vessel in the song of "The King's Son of England."
"Alas, it was a grief to see
How the gallant ship sank speedily."
Portions of wreck and fragments of wood drifted ashore, and they were
all that remained of what had been the ship. The wind still drove
howling over the coast. For a few moments the strange lady seemed to
rest; but she awoke in pain, and cries of anguish and fear came from
her lips. She opened her wonderfully beautiful eyes, and spoke a few
words, but none understood her.
And behold, as a reward for the pain and sorrow she had undergone, she
held in her arms a new-born child, the child that was to have rested
upon a gorgeous couch, surrounded by silken curtains, in the sumptuous
home. It was to have been welcomed with joy to a life rich in all the
goods of the earth; and now Providence had caused it to be born in
this humble retreat, and not even a kiss did it receive from its
mother.
The fisher's wife laid the child upon the mother's bosom, and it
rested on a heart that beat no more, for she was dead. The child who
was to be nursed by wealth and fortune, was cast into the world,
washed by the sea among the sand-hills, to partake the fate and heavy
days of the poor. And here again comes into our mind the old song of
the English king's son, in which mention is made of the customs
prevalent at that time, when knights and squires plundered those who
had been saved from shipwreck.
The ship had been stranded some distance south of Nissum Bay. The
hard, inhuman days in which, as we have stated, the inhabitants of the
Jutland shores did evil to the shipwrecked, were long past. Affection
and sympathy and self-sacrifice for the unfortunate were to be found,
as they are to be found in our own time, in many a brilliant example.
The dying mother and the unfortunate child would have found succour
and help wherever the wind blew them; but nowhere could they have
found more earnest care than in the hut of the poor fisherwife; who
had stood but yesterday, with a heavy heart, beside the grave which
covered her child, which would have been five years old that day, if
God had spared it to her.
No one knew who the dead stranger was, or could even form a
conjecture. The pieces of wreck said nothing on the subject.
Into the rich house in Spain no tidings penetrated of the fate of the
daughter and the son-in-law. They had not arrived at their destined
post, and violent storms had raged during the past weeks. At last the
verdict was given, "Foundered at sea--all lost."
But in the sand-hills near Hunsby, in the fisherman's hut, lived a
little scion of the rich Spanish family.
Where Heaven sends food for two, a third can manage to make a meal,
and in the depths of the sea is many a dish of fish for the hungry.
And they called the boy Jürgen.
"It must certainly be a Jewish child," the people said, "it looks so
swarthy."
"It might be an Italian or a Spaniard," observed the clergyman.
But to the fisherwoman these three nations seemed all the same, and
she consoled herself with the idea 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 house, and the
Danish dialect spoken by the West Jutes became his language. The
pomegranate seed from Spanish soil became a hardy plant on the coast
of West Jutland. Such may be a man's fate! To this home he clung with
the roots of his whole being. He was to have experience of cold and
hunger, and the misfortunes and hardships that surrounded the humble;
but he tasted also of the poor man's joys.
Childhood has sunny heights for all, whose memory gleams through the
whole after life. The boy had many opportunities for pleasure and
play. The whole coast, for miles and miles, was full of playthings;
for it was a mosaic of pebbles, red as coral, yellow as amber, and
others again white and rounded like birds' eggs; and all smoothed and
prepared by the sea. Even the bleached fish skeletons, the water
plants dried by the wind, seaweed, white, gleaming, and long
linen-like bands, waving among the stones, all these seemed made to
give pleasure and amusement to the eye and the thoughts; and the boy
had an intelligent mind--many and great faculties lay dormant in him.
How readily he retained in his mind the stories and songs he heard,
and how neat-handed he was! With stones and mussel shells he put
together pictures and ships with which one could decorate the room;
and he could cut out his thoughts wonderfully on a stick, his
foster-mother said, though the boy was still so young and little! His
voice sounded sweetly; every melody flowed at once from his lips. Many
chords were attained in his heart which might have sounded out into
the world, if he had been placed elsewhere than in the fisherman's hut
by the North Sea.
One day another ship was stranded there. Among other things, a chest
of rare flower bulbs floated ashore. Some were put into the cooking
pots, for they were thought to be eatable, and others lay and
shrivelled in the sand, but they did not accomplish their purpose, or
unfold the richness of colour whose germ was within them. Would it be
better with Jürgen? The flower bulbs had soon played their part, but
he had still years of apprenticeship before him.
Neither he nor his friends remarked in what a solitary and uniform way
one day succeeded another; for there was plenty to do and to see. The
sea itself was a great lesson book, unfolding a new leaf every day,
such as calm and storm, breakers and waifs. The visits to the church
were festal visits. But among the festal visits in the fisherman's
house, one was particularly distinguished. It was repeated twice in
the year, and was, in fact, the visit of the brother of Jürgen's
foster-mother, the eel breeder from Zjaltring, upon the neighbourhood
of the "Bow Hill." He used to come in a cart painted red, and filled
with eels. The cart was covered and locked like a box, and painted all
over with blue and white tulips. It was drawn by two dun oxen, and
Jürgen was allowed to guide them.
The eel breeder was a witty fellow, a merry guest, and brought a
measure of brandy with him. Every one received a small glassful, or a
cupful when there was a scarcity of glasses: even Jürgen had as much
as a large thimbleful, that he might digest the fat eel, the eel
breeder said, who always told the same story over again, and when his
hearers laughed he immediately told it over again to the same
audience. As, during his childhood, and even later, Jürgen used many
expressions from this story of the eel breeder's, and made use of it
in various ways, it is as well that we should listen to it too. Here
it is:
"The eels went into the bay; and the mother-eel said to her daughters,
who begged leave to go a little way up the bay, 'Don't go too far: 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 eel-mother,
and these wept and said, 'We only went a little way before the door,
and the ugly eel spearer came directly, and stabbed five of our party
to death.' 'They'll come again,' said the mother-eel. 'Oh no,'
exclaimed the daughters, 'for he skinned them, and cut them in two,
and fried them.' 'Oh, they'll come again,' the mother-eel persisted.
'No,' replied the daughters, 'for he ate them up.' 'They'll come
again,' repeated the mother-eel. 'But he drank brandy after them,'
continued 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
right to take brandy after eating eels."
[Illustration: THE EEL BREEDER'S VISIT.]
And this story was the tinsel thread, the most humorous recollection
of Jürgen's life. _He_ likewise wanted to go a little way outside the
door, and up the bay--that is to say, out into the world in a ship;
and his mother said, like the eel breeder, "There are so many bad
people--eel spearers!" But he wished to go a little way past the
sand-hills, a little way into the dunes, and he succeeded in doing so.
Four merry days, the happiest of his childhood, unrolled themselves,
and the whole beauty and splendour of Jutland, all the joy and
sunshine of his home, was concentrated in these. He was to go to a
festival--though it was certainly a burial feast.
A wealthy relative of the fisherman's family had died. The farm lay
deep in the country, eastward, and a point towards the north, as the
saying is. Jürgen's foster-parents were to go, and he was to accompany
them from the dunes, across heath and moor. They came to the green
meadows where the river Skjärn rolls its course, the river of many
eels, where mother-eels dwell with their daughters, who are caught and
eaten up by wicked people. But men were said sometimes to have acted
no better towards their own fellow men; for had not the knight, Sir
Bugge, been murdered by wicked people? and though he was well spoken
of, had he not wanted to kill the architect, as the legend tells us,
who had built for him the castle, with the thick walls and tower,
where Jürgen and his parents now stood, and where the river falls into
the bay? The wall on the ramparts still remained, and red crumbling
fragments lay strewn around. Here it was that Sir Bugge, after the
architect had left him, said to one of his men, "Go thou after him,
and say, 'Master, the tower shakes.' If he turns round, you are to
kill him, and take from him the money I paid him; but if he does not
turn round, let him depart in peace." The man obeyed, and the
architect never turned round, but called back, "The tower does not
shake in the least, but one day there will come a man from the west,
in a blue cloak, who will cause it to shake!" And indeed so it
chanced, a hundred years later; for the North Sea broke in, and the
tower was cast down, but the man who then possessed the castle,
Prebjörn Gyldenstjerne, built a new castle higher up, at the end of
the meadow, and that stands to this day, and is called Nörre Vosborg.
Past this castle went Jürgen and his foster-parents. They had told him
its story during the long winter evenings, and now he saw the lordly
castle, with its double moat, and trees, and bushes; the wall, covered
with ferns, rose within the moat; but most beautiful of all were the
lofty lime trees, which grew up to the highest windows, and filled the
air with sweet fragrance. In a corner of the garden towards the
north-west stood a great bush full of blossom like winter snow amid
the summer's green: it was a juniper bush, the first that Jürgen had
seen thus in bloom. He never forgot it, nor the lime tree: the child's
soul treasured up these remembrances of beauty and fragrance to
gladden the old man.
From Nörre Vosborg, where the juniper blossomed, the way went more
easily; for they encountered other guests who were also bound for the
burial, 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 was
preferable to walking, they thought. So they pursued their journey in
the waggon across the rugged heath. The oxen which drew the vehicle
slipped every now and then, where a patch of fresh grass appeared amid
the heather. The sun shone warm, and it was wonderful to behold how in
the far distance something like smoke seemed to be rising; and yet
this smoke was clearer than the mist; 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 the fancy of Jürgen. It seemed to him as if they were
now going to enter fairyland, though everything was still real.
How quiet it was! Far and wide the heath extended around them like a
beautiful carpet. The heather bloomed; the juniper bushes and the
fresh oak saplings stood up like nosegays from the earth. An inviting
place for a frolic, if it were not for the number of poisonous adders
of which the travellers spoke, as they did also of the wolves which
formerly infested the place, from which circumstance the region was
still called the Wolfsborg region. The old man who guided the oxen
related how, in the lifetime of his father, the horses had to sustain
many a hard fight with the wild beasts that were now extinct; and how
he himself, when he went out one morning to bring in the horses, had
found one of them standing with its fore-feet on a wolf it had killed,
after the savage beast had torn and lacerated the legs of the brave
horse.
The journey over the heath and the deep sand was only too quickly
accomplished. They stopped before the house of mourning, where they
found plenty of guests within and without. Waggon after waggon stood
ranged in a row, and horses and oxen went out to crop the scanty
pasture. Great sand-hills, like those at home in the North Sea, rose
behind the house, and extended far and wide. How had they come here,
miles into the interior of the land, and as large and high as those on
the coast? The wind had lifted and carried them hither, and to them
also a history was attached.
Psalms were sung, and a few of the old people shed tears; beyond this,
the guests were cheerful enough, as it appeared to Jürgen, and there
was plenty to eat and drink. Eels there were of the fattest, upon
which brandy should be poured to bury them, as the eel breeder said;
and certainly his maxim was here carried out.
Jürgen went to and fro in the house. On the third day he felt quite at
home, like as in the fisherman's hut on the sand-hills where he had
passed his early days. Here on the heath there was certainly an
unheard-of wealth, for the flowers and blackberries and bilberries
were to be found in plenty, so large and sweet, that when they were
crushed beneath the tread of the passers by, the heath was coloured
with their red juice.
Here was a Hun's Grave, and yonder another. Columns of smoke rose into
the still air; it was a heath-fire, he was told, that shone so
splendidly in the dark evening.
Now came the fourth day, and the funeral festivities were to conclude,
and they were to go back from the land-dunes to the sand-dunes.
"Ours are the best," said the old fisherman, Jürgen's foster-father;
"these have no strength."
And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come into the
country, and it seemed all very intelligible. This was the explanation
they gave:
A corpse had been found on the coast, and the peasants had buried it
in the churchyard; and from that time the sand began to fly, and the
sea broke in violently. A wise man in the parish advised them to open
the grave and to look if the buried man was not lying sucking his
thumb; for if so, he was a man of the sea, and the sea would not rest
until it had got him back. So 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 before it; and as if stung by an adder, the oxen
ran away with the man of the sea over heath and moorland to the ocean;
and then the sand ceased flying inland, but the hills that had been
heaped up still remained there. All this Jürgen heard and treasured in
his memory from the happiest days of his childhood, the days of the
burial feast. How glorious it was to get out into strange regions, and
to see strange people! And he was to go farther still. He was not yet
fourteen years old when he went out in a ship to see what the world
could show him: bad weather, heavy seas, malice, and hard men--these
were his experiences, for he became a ship boy. There were cold
nights, and bad living, and blows to be endured; then he felt as if
his noble Spanish blood boiled within him, and bitter wicked words
seethed up to his lips; but it was better to gulp them down, though he
felt as the eel must feel when it is flayed and cut up, and put into
the frying-pan.
"I shall come again!" 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 happiness and prosperity; but he knew nothing of his home
or race, and his race knew just as little about him.
The poor ship boy was not allowed 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 to carry them on board.
There stood Jürgen in his shabby clothes, which looked as if they had
been washed in the ditch and dried in the chimney: for the first time
he, the inhabitant of the dunes, saw a great city. How lofty the
houses seemed, and how full of people were the streets! some pushing
this way, some that--a perfect maelstrom of citizens and peasants,
monks and soldiers--a calling and shouting, and jingling of
bell-harnessed asses and mules, and the church bells chiming between
song and sound, hammering and knocking, all going on at once. Every
handicraft had its home in the basements of the houses or in the
lanes; and the sun shone so hotly, and the air was so close, that one
seemed to be in an oven full of beetles, cockchafers, bees, and flies,
all humming and murmuring together. Jürgen hardly knew where he was or
which way he went. Then he saw just in front of him the mighty portal
of the cathedral; the lights were gleaming in the dark aisles, and a
fragrance of incense was wafted towards him. Even the poorest beggar
ventured up the steps into the temple. The sailor with whom Jürgen
went took his way through the church; and Jürgen stood in the
sanctuary. Coloured pictures gleamed from their golden ground. On the
altar stood the figure of the Virgin with the child Jesus, surrounded
by lights and flowers; priests in festive garb were chanting, and
choir boys, beautifully attired, swung the silver censer. What
splendour, what magnificence did he see here! It streamed through his
soul and overpowered him; the church and the faith of his parents
surrounded him, and touched a chord in his soul, so that the tears
overflowed his eyes.
From the church they went to the market-place. Here a quantity of
provisions were given him to carry. The way to the harbour was long,
and, tired and overpowered by various emotions, he rested for a few
moments before a splendid house, with marble pillars, statues, and
broad staircases. Here he rested his burden against the wall. Then a
liveried porter came out, lifted up a silver-headed cane, and drove
him away--him, the grandson of the house. But no one there knew that,
and he just as little as any one. And afterwards he went on board
again, and there were hard words and cuffs, little sleep and much
work; such were his experiences. They say that it is well to suffer in
youth, if age brings something to make up for it.
His time of servitude on shipboard had expired, and the vessel lay
once more at Ringkjöbing, in Jutland: he came ashore and went home to
the sand-dunes by Hunsby; but his foster-mother had died while he was
away on his voyage.
A hard winter followed that summer. Snowstorms swept over land and
sea, and there was a difficulty in getting about. How variously things
were distributed in the world! here biting cold and snowstorms, while
in the Spanish land there was burning sunshine and oppressive heat.
And yet, when here at home there came a clear frosty day, and Jürgen
saw the swans flying in numbers from the sea towards the land, and
across to Vosborg, it appeared to him that people could breathe most
freely here; and here too was a splendid summer! In imagination he saw
the heath bloom and grow purple with rich juicy berries, and saw the
elder trees and the lime trees at Vosborg in blossom. He determined to
go there once more.
Spring came on, and the fishery began. Jürgen was an active assistant
in this; he had grown in the last year, and was quick at work. He was
full of life, he understood how to swim, to tread water, to turn over
and tumble in the flood. They often warned him to beware of the troops
of dogfish, which could seize the best swimmer, and draw him down, and
devour him; but such was not Jürgen's fate.
At the neighbour's on the dune was a boy named Martin, with whom
Jürgen was very friendly, and the two took service in the same ship to
Norway, and also went together to Holland; and they had never had any
quarrel; but a quarrel can easily come, for when a person is hot by
nature, he often uses strong gestures, and that is what Jürgen did one
day on board when they had a quarrel about nothing at all. They were
sitting behind the cabin door, eating out of a delf plate which they
had placed between them. Jürgen held his pocket-knife in his hand, and
lifted it against Martin, and at the same time became ashy pale in the
face, and his eyes had an ugly look. Martin only said,
"Ah! ha! you 're one of that sort, who are fond of using the knife!"
Hardly were the words spoken, when Jürgen's hand sank down. He
answered not a syllable, but went on eating, and afterwards walked
away to his work. When they were resting again, he stepped up to
Martin, and said,
"You may hit me in the face! I have deserved it. But I feel as if I
had a pot in me that boiled over."
"There let the thing rest," replied Martin; and after that they were
almost doubly as good friends as before; and when afterwards they got
back to the dunes and began telling their adventures, this was told
among the rest; and Martin said that Jürgen was certainly passionate,
but a good fellow for all that.
They were both young and strong, well-grown and stalwart; but Jürgen
was the cleverer of the two.
In Norway the peasants go into the mountains, and lead out the cattle
there to pasture. On the west coast of Jutland, huts have been erected
among the sand-hills; they are built of pieces of wreck, and roofed
with turf and heather. There are sleeping-places around the walls, and
here the fisher people live and sleep during the early spring. Every
fisherman has his female helper, his manager, as she is called, whose
business consists in baiting the hooks, preparing the warm beer for
the fishermen when they come ashore, and getting their dinners cooked
when they come back into the hut tired and hungry. Moreover, the
managers bring up the fish from the boat, cut them open, prepare them,
and have generally a great deal to do.
Jürgen, his father, and several other fishermen and their managers
inhabited the same hut; Martin lived in the next one.
One of the girls, Else by name, had known Jürgen from childhood: they
were glad to see each other, and in many things were of the same mind;
but in outward appearance they were entirely opposite; for he was
brown, whereas she was pale and had flaxen hair, and eyes as blue as
the sea in sunshine.
One day as they were walking together, and Jürgen held her hand in his
very firmly and warmly, she said to him,
"Jürgen, I have something weighing upon my heart! Let me be your
manager, for you are like a brother to me, whereas Martin, who has
engaged me--he and I are lovers----but you need not tell that to the
rest."
And it seemed to Jürgen as if the loose sand were giving way under his
feet. He spoke not a word, but only nodded his head, which signified
"yes." More was not required; but suddenly he felt in his heart that
he detested Martin; and the longer he considered of this--for he had
never thought of Else in this way before--the more did it become clear
to him that Martin had stolen from him the only being he loved; and
now it was all at once plain to him, that Else was the being in
question.
When the sea is somewhat disturbed, and the fishermen come home in
their great boat, it is a sight to behold how they cross the reefs.
One of the men stands upright in the bow of the boat, and the others
watch him, sitting with the oars in their hands. Outside the reef they
appear to be rowing not towards the land, but backing out to sea, till
the man standing in the boat gives them the sign that the great wave
is coming which is to float them across the reef; and accordingly the
boat is lifted--lifted high in the air, so that its keel is seen from
the shore; and in the next minute the whole boat is hidden from the
eye; neither mast nor keel nor people can be seen, 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 the third reef are passed in the same manner; and
now the fishermen jump into the water; every wave helps them, and
pushes the boat well forward, till at length they have drawn it beyond
the range of the breakers.
A wrong order given in front of the reef--the slightest
hesitation--and the boat must founder.
"Then it would be all over with me, and Martin too!" This thought
struck Jürgen while they were out at sea, where his foster-father had
been taken alarmingly ill. The fever had seized him. They were only a
few oars' strokes from the reef, and Jürgen sprang from his seat, and
stood up in the bow.
"Father--let me come!" he said; and his eye glanced towards Martin,
and across the waves: but while every oar bent with the exertions of
the rowers, as the great wave came towering towards them, he beheld
the pale face of his father, and dare not obey the evil impulse that
had seized him. The boat came safely across the reef to land, but the
evil thought remained in his blood, and roused up every little fibre
of bitterness which had remained in his memory since he and Martin had
been comrades. But he could not weave the fibres together, nor did he
endeavour to do so. He felt that Martin had despoiled him, and this
was enough to make him detest his former friend. Several of the
fishermen noticed this, but not Martin, who continued obliging and
talkative--the latter a little too much.
Jürgen's adopted father had to keep his bed, which became his
deathbed, for in the next week he died; and now Jürgen was installed
as heir in the little house behind the sand-hills. It was but a little
house, certainly, but still it was something, and Martin had nothing
of the kind.
"You will not take sea service again, Jürgen?" observed one of the old
fishermen. "You will always stay with us, now."
But this was not Jürgen's intention, for he was just thinking of
looking about him a little in the world. The eel breeder of Zjaltring
had an uncle in Alt-Skage, who was a fisherman, but at the same time a
prosperous merchant, who had ships upon the sea; he was said to be a
good old man, and it would not be amiss to enter his service.
Alt-Skage lies in the extreme north of Jutland, as far removed from
the Hunsby dunes as one can travel in that country; and this is just
what pleased Jürgen, for he did not want to remain till the wedding of
Martin and Else, which was to be celebrated in a few weeks.
[Illustration: ELSE AFFIRMS HER PREFERENCE FOR MARTIN.]
The old fisherman asserted that it was foolish now to quit the
neighbourhood; for that Jürgen had a home, and Else would probably be
inclined to take him rather than Martin.
Jürgen answered so much at random, that it was not easy to understand
what he meant; but the old man brought Else to him, and she said, "You
have a home now; that ought to be well considered."
And Jürgen thought of many things.
The sea has heavy waves, but there are heavier waves in the human
heart. Many thoughts, strong and weak, thronged through Jürgen's
brain; and he said to Else,
"If Martin had a house like mine, whom would you rather have?"
"But Martin has no house, and cannot get one."
"But let us suppose he had one."
"Why then I would certainly take Martin, for that's what my heart
tells me; but one can't live upon that."
And Jürgen thought of these things all night through. Something was
working within him, he could not understand what it was, but he had a
thought that was stronger than his love for Else; and so he went to
Martin, and what he said and did there was well considered. He let the
house to Martin on the most liberal terms, saying that he wished to go
to sea again, because it pleased him to do so. And Else kissed him on
the mouth when she heard that, for she loved Martin best.
In the early morning Jürgen purposed to start. On the evening before
his departure, when it was already growing late, he felt a wish to
visit Martin once more; he started, and among the dunes the old fisher
met him, who was angry at his going. The old man made jokes about
Martin, and declared there must be some magic about that fellow, "of
whom all the girls were so fond." Jürgen paid no heed to this speech,
but said farewell to the old man, and went on towards the house where
Martin dwelt. He heard loud talking within. Martin was not alone, and
this made Jürgen waver in his determination, for he did not wish to
encounter Else; and on second consideration, he thought it better not
to hear Martin thank him again, and therefore turned back.
On the following morning, before break of day, he fastened his
knapsack, took his wooden provision box in his hand, and went away
among the sand-hills towards the coast path. The way was easier to
traverse than the heavy sand road, and moreover shorter; for he
intended to go in the first instance to Zjaltring, by Bowberg, where
the eel breeder lived, to whom he had promised a visit.
The sea lay pure and blue before him, and mussel shells and sea
pebbles, the playthings of his youth, crunched under his feet. While
he was thus marching on, his nose suddenly began to bleed: it was a
trifling incident, but little things can have great significances. 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. In the sand the sea-eringa was
blooming here and there. He broke off a stalk and stuck it in his hat;
he determined to be merry and of good cheer, for he was going into the
wide world--"a little way outside the door, in front of the hay," as
the young eels had said. "Beware of bad people, who will catch you and
flay you, cut you in two, 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 already stood high when he approached the narrow entrance to
Nissum Bay. He looked back, and saw a couple of horsemen gallopping a
long distance behind him, and they were accompanied by other people.
But this concerned him nothing.
The ferry was on the opposite side of the bay. Jürgen called to the
ferryman; and when the latter came over with the boat, Jürgen stepped
in; but before they had gone half-way across, the men whom he had seen
riding so hastily behind him, hailed the ferryman, and summoned him to
return in the name of the law. Jürgen did not understand the reason of
this, but he thought it would be best to turn back, and therefore
himself took an oar and returned. The moment the boat touched the
shore, the men sprang on board, and, before he was aware, they had
bound his hands with a rope.
"Thy wicked deed will cost thee thy life," they said. "It is well that
we caught thee."
He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had been found
dead, with a knife thrust through his neck. One of the fishermen had
(late on the previous evening) met Jürgen going towards Martin's
house; and this was not the first time Jürgen had raised his knife
against Martin--so they knew that he was the murderer. The town in
which the prison was built was a long way off, and the wind was
contrary for going there; but not half an hour would be required to
get across the bay, and a quarter of an hour would bring them from
thence to Nörre Vosborg, a great castle with walls and ditches. One of
Jürgen's captors was a fisherman, a brother of the keeper of the
castle; and he declared it might be managed that Jürgen should for the
present be put into the dungeon at Vosborg, where Long Martha the
gipsy had been shut up till her execution.
No attention was paid to the defence made by Jürgen; the few drops of
blood upon his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against him. But Jürgen
was conscious of innocence; and as there was no chance of immediately
righting himself, he submitted to his fate.
The party landed just at the spot where Sir Bugge's castle had stood
and where Jürgen had walked with his foster-parents after the burial
feast, during the four happiest days of his childhood. He was led by
the old path over the meadow to Vosborg; and again the elder
blossomed and the lofty lindens smelt sweet, and it seemed but
yesterday that he had left the spot.
In the two wings of the castle a staircase leads down to a spot below
the entrance, and from thence there is access to a low vaulted cellar.
Here Long Martha had been imprisoned, and hence she had been led away
to the scaffold. She had eaten the hearts of five children, and had
been under the delusion that if she could obtain two more, she would
be able to fly and to make herself invisible. In the midst of the
cellar roof was a little narrow air-hole, but no window. The blooming
lindens could not waft a breath of comforting fragrance into that
abode, where all was dark and mouldy. Only a rough bench stood in the
prison; but "a good conscience is a soft pillow," and consequently
Jürgen 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
the baron's castle just as into the fisherman's hut; and wherefore
should he not creep in here, where Jürgen sat thinking of Long Martha
and her evil deeds? Her last thought on the night before her execution
had filled this space; and all the magic came into Jürgen's mind which
tradition asserted to have been practised there in the old times, when
Sir Schwanwedel dwelt there. All this passed through Jürgen'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
blooming elder and the fragrant lime trees.
He was not left there long. They carried him off to the town of
Ringkjöbing, where his imprisonment was just as hard.
Those times were not like ours. Hard measure was dealt out to the
"common" people; and it was just after the days when farms were
converted into knights' estates, on which occasions coachmen and
servants were often made magistrates, and had it in their power to
sentence a poor man, for a small offence, to lose his property and to
corporal punishment. Judges of this kind were still to be found; and
in Jutland, far from the capital and from the enlightened well-meaning
head of the government, the law was still sometimes very loosely
administered; and the smallest grievance that Jürgen had to expect was
that his case would be protracted.
Cold and cheerless was his abode--and when would this state of things
end? He had innocently sunk into misfortune and sorrow--that was his
fate. He had leisure now to ponder on the difference of fortune on
earth, and to wonder why this fate had been allotted to him; and he
felt sure that the question would be answered in the next life--the
existence that awaits us when this is over. This faith had grown
strong in him in the poor fisherman's hut; that which had never shone
into his father's mind, in all the richness and sunshine of Spain, was
vouchsafed as a light of comfort in his poverty and distress--a sign
of mercy from God that never deceives.
The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of the North
Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was lulled; for then
it sounded like the rushing of a thousand waggons over a hard road
with a mine beneath. Jürgen, in his prison, heard these sounds, and it
was a relief to him. No melody could have appealed so directly to 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 is driven, just as the
snail carries its home even into a strange land.
How he listened to the deep moaning, and how the thought arose in
him--"Free! free! How happy to be free, even without shoes 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 a vagabond--Niels, the
thief, called also the horse couper--was arrested; and now the better
times came, and it was seen what wrong Jürgen had endured.
In the neighbourhood of Ringkjöbing, at a beer-house, Niels, the
thief, had met Martin on the afternoon before Jürgen's departure from
home and before the murder. A few glasses were drunk--not enough to
cloud any one's brain, but yet enough to loosen Martin's tongue; and
he began to boast, and to say that he had obtained a house, and
intended to marry; and when Niels asked where he intended to get the
money, Martin shook his pocket proudly, and said,
"The money is there, where it ought to be."
This boast cost him his life; for when he went home, Niels went after
him, and thrust a knife through his throat, to rob the murdered man of
the expected gold, which did not exist.
This was circumstantially explained; but for us it is enough to know
that Jürgen was set at liberty. But what amends did he get for having
been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out from all communion with
men? 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 men, not all "grind and flay." But the best of all
was, that the merchant Brönne of Skjagen, the same into whose service
Jürgen intended to go a year since, was just at that time on business
in the town of Ringkjöbing. Brönne heard the whole story; and the man
had a good heart, and understood what Jürgen must have felt and
suffered. He therefore 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 Jürgen went forth from the prison as if to Paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this road now; for no
goblet of life is all bitterness: no good man would pour out such
measure to his fellow man, and how should He do it, who is love
itself?
"Let all that be buried and forgotten," said Brönne the merchant. "Let
us draw a thick line through last year; and we will even burn the
calendar. And in two days we'll start for dear, friendly, peaceful
Skjagen. They call Skjagen an out-of-the-way corner; but it's a good
warm chimney-corner, and its windows open towards every part of the
world."
That was a journey!--it was like taking fresh breath--out of the cold
dungeon air into the warm sunshine! The heath stood blooming in its
greatest pride, and the herd-boy sat on the Hun's Grave and blew his
pipe, which he had carved for himself out of the sheep's bone. Fata
Morgana, the beautiful aërial phenomenon of the desert, showed itself
with hanging gardens and swaying forests, and the wonderful cloud
phenomenon, called here the "Lokeman driving his flock," was seen
likewise.
Up through the land of the Wendels, up towards Skjagen, they went,
from whence the men with the long beards (the Longobardi, or Lombards)
had emigrated in the days when, in the reign of King Snio, all the
children and the old people were to have been killed, till the noble
Dame Gambaruk proposed that the young people had better emigrate. All
this was known to Jürgen--thus much knowledge he had; and even if he
did not know the land of the Lombards beyond the high Alps, he had an
idea how it must be there, for in his boyhood he had been in the
south, in Spain. He thought of the southern fruits piled up there; of
the red pomegranate blossoms; of the humming, murmuring, and toiling
in the great beehive of a city he had seen; but, after all, home is
best; and Jürgen's home was Denmark.
[Illustration: JÜRGEN'S BETTER FORTUNE.]
At length they reached "Wendelskajn," as Skjagen is called in the old
Norwegian and Icelandic writings. Then already Old Skjagen, with the
western and eastern town, extended for miles, with sand-hills and
arable land, as far as the lighthouse near the "Skjagenzweig." Then,
as now, the houses were strewn among the wind-raised sand-hills--a
desert where the wind sports with the sand, and where the voices of
the seamen and the wild swans strike harshly on the ear. In the
south-west, a mile from the sea, lies Old Skjagen; and here dwelt
merchant Brönne, and here Jürgen was henceforth to dwell. The great
house was painted with tar; the smaller buildings had each an
overturned boat for a roof; the pig-sty had been put together of
pieces of wreck. There was no fence here, for indeed there was nothing
to fence in; but long rows of fishes were hung upon lines, one above
the other, to dry in the wind. The whole coast was strewn with spoilt
herrings; for there were so many of those fish, that a net was
scarcely thrown into the sea before they were caught by cartloads;
there were so many, that often they were thrown back into the sea, or
left to lie on the shore.
The old man's wife and daughter, and his servants too, came
rejoicingly to meet him. There was a great pressing of hands, and
talking, and questioning. And the daughter, what a lovely face and
bright eyes she had!
The interior of the house was roomy and comfortable. Fritters that a
king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed on the
table; and there was wine from the vineyard of Skjagen--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 Jürgen was, and how innocently
he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more friendly way; and
the eyes of the charming Clara were the friendliest of all. Jürgen
found a happy home in Old Skjagen. It did his heart good; and his
heart had been sorely tried, and had drunk the bitter goblet of love,
which softens or hardens according to circumstances. Jürgen's heart
was still soft--it was young, and there was still room in it; and
therefore it was well that Mistress Clara was going in three weeks in
her father's ship to Christiansand, in Norway, to visit an aunt, and
to stay there the whole winter.
On the Sunday before her departure they all went to church, to the
holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and had been built
centuries before by Scotchmen and Hollanders; it lay at a little
distance from the town. It was certainly somewhat ruinous, and the
road to it was heavy, through the deep sand; but the people gladly
went through the difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing
psalms and 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 Limfjord. The Virgin Mary, with
the golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her arms, stood
life-like upon the altar; the holy Apostles had been carved in the
choir; and on the wall hung portraits of the old burgomasters and
councillors of Skjagen; 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.
Jürgen felt as if overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that
which possessed him when, as a boy, he had 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 the holy Communion. He partook of the bread
and wine, and it happened that he knelt beside Mistress Clara; but his
thoughts were so fixed upon Heaven and the holy service, that he did
not notice his neighbour until he rose from his knees, and then he saw
tears rolling down her cheeks.
Two days later she left Skjagen and went to Norway. He stayed behind,
and made himself useful in the house and in the business. He went out
fishing, and at that time fish were more plentiful and larger than
now. Every Sunday when he sat in the church, and his eye rested on the
statue of the Virgin on the altar, his glance rested for a time on the
spot where Mistress Clara had knelt beside him, and he thought of her,
how hearty and kind she had been to him.
And so the autumn and the winter time passed away. There was wealth
here, and a real family life; even down to the domestic animals, who
were all well kept. The kitchen glittered with copper and tin and
white plates, and from the roof hung hams and beef, and winter stores
in plenty. All this is still to be seen in many rich farms of the west
coast of Jutland: plenty to eat and drink, clean decorated rooms,
clever heads, happy tempers, and hospitality prevail there as in an
Arab tent.
Never since the famous burial feast had Jürgen spent such a happy
time; and yet Mistress Clara was absent, except in the thoughts and
memory of all.
In April a ship was to start for Norway, and Jürgen was to sail in it.
He was full of life and spirits, and looked so stout and jovial that
Dame Brönne declared it did her good to see him.
"And it's a pleasure to see you too, old wife," said the old merchant.
"Jürgen has brought life into our winter evenings, and into you too,
mother. You look younger this year, and you seem well and bonny. But
then you were once the prettiest girl in Wiborg, and that's saying a
great deal, for I have always found the Wiborg girls the prettiest of
any."
Jürgen said nothing to this, but he thought of a certain maiden of
Skjagen; and he sailed to visit that maiden, for the ship steered to
Christiansand, in Norway, and a favouring wind bore it rapidly to that
town.
One morning merchant Brönne went out to the lighthouse that stands far
away from Old Skjagen: the coal fire had long gone out, and the sun
was already high when he mounted the tower. The sand-banks extend
under the water a whole mile from the shore. Outside these banks many
ships were seen that day; and with the help of his telescope the old
man thought he descried his own vessel, the "Karen Brönne."
Yes, surely there she was; and the ship was sailing up with Jürgen and
Clara on board. The church and the lighthouse appeared to them as a
heron and a swan rising from the blue waters. Clara sat on deck, and
saw the sand-hills gradually looming forth: if the wind held she might
reach her home in about an hour--so near were they to home and its
joys--so near were they to death and its terrors. For a plank in the
ship gave way, and the water rushed in. The crew flew to the pumps,
and attempted to stop the leak. A signal of distress was hoisted; but
they were still a full mile from the shore. Fishing boats were in
sight, but they were still far distant. The wind blew shoreward, and
the tide was in their favour too; but all was insufficient, for the
ship sank. Jürgen threw his right arm about Clara, and pressed her
close to him.
With what a look she gazed in his face! As he threw himself in God's
name into the water with her, she uttered a cry; but still she felt
safe, certain that he would not let her sink.
And now, in the hour of terror and danger, Jürgen experienced what the
old song told:
"And written it stood, how the brave king's son
Embraced the bride his valour had won."
How rejoiced he felt that he was a good swimmer! He worked his way
onward with his feet and with one hand, while with the other he
tightly held the young girl. He rested upon the waves, he trod the
water, he practised all the arts he knew, so as to reserve strength
enough to reach the shore. He heard how Clara uttered a sigh, and felt
a convulsive shudder pass through her, and he pressed her to him
closer than ever. Now and then a wave rolled over her; and he was
still a few cables' lengths from the land, when help came in the shape
of an approaching boat. But under the water--he could see it
clearly--stood a white form gazing at him: a wave lifted him up, and
the form approached him: he felt a shock, and it grew dark, and
everything vanished from his gaze.
On the sand-reef lay the wreck of a ship, the sea washed over it; the
white figure-head leant against an anchor, the sharp iron extended
just to the surface. Jürgen had come in contact with this, and the
tide had driven him against it with double force. He sank down
fainting with his load; but the next wave lifted him and the young
girl aloft again.
The fishermen grasped them, and lifted them into the boat. The blood
streamed down over Jürgen's face; he seemed dead, but he still
clutched the girl so tightly that they were obliged to loosen her by
force from his grasp. And Clara lay pale and lifeless in the boat,
that now made for the shore.
All means were tried to restore Clara to life; but she was dead! For
some time he had been swimming onward with a corpse, and had exerted
himself to exhaustion for one who was dead.
Jürgen was still breathing. The fishermen carried him into the nearest
house upon the sand-hills. A kind of surgeon who lived there, and was
at the same time a smith and a general dealer, bound up Jürgen's
wounds in a temporary way, till a physician could be got next day from
the nearest town.
The brain of the sick man was affected. In delirium he uttered wild
cries; but on the third day he lay quiet and exhausted on his couch,
and his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the physician said it
would be best if this string snapped.
"Let us pray that God may take him to Himself; he will never be a sane
man again!"
But life would not depart from him--the thread would not snap; but the
thread of memory broke: the thread of all his mental power had been
cut through; and, what was most terrible, a body remained--a living
healthy body--that wandered about like a spectre.
Jürgen remained in the house of the merchant Brönne.
"He contracted his illness in his endeavour to save our child," said
the old man, "and now he is our son."
People called Jürgen imbecile; but that was not the right expression.
He was like an instrument, in which the strings are loose and will
sound no more; only at times for a few minutes they regained their
power, and then they sounded anew: old melodies were heard, snatches
of song; pictures unrolled themselves, and then disappeared again in
the mist, and once more he sat staring before him, without a thought.
We may believe that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked only like black clouded glass.
"Poor imbecile Jürgen!" said the people.
He it was whose life was to have been so pleasant that it would be
"presumption and pride" to expect or believe in a higher existence
hereafter. All his great mental faculties had been lost; only hard
days, pain, and disappointment had been his lot. He was like a rare
plant torn from its native soil, and thrown upon the sand, to wither
there. And was the image, fashioned in God's likeness, to have no
better destination? Was it to be merely the sport of chance? No. The
all-loving God 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." These words from the Psalms of David,
the old pious wife of the merchant repeated in patience and hope, and
the prayer of her heart was that Jürgen might soon be summoned to
enter into the life eternal.
In the churchyard where the sand blows across the walls, Clara lay
buried. It seemed as if Jürgen knew nothing of this--it did not come
within the compass of his thoughts, which comprised only fragments of
a past time. Every Sunday he went with the old people to church, and
sat silent there with vacant gaze. One day, while the Psalms were
being sung, he uttered a deep sigh, and his eyes gleamed: they were
fixed upon the altar, upon the place where he had knelt with his
friend who was dead. He uttered her name, and became pale as death,
and tears rolled over his cheeks.
They led him out of the church; and he said to the bystanders that he
was well, and had never been ill: he, the heavily afflicted, the waif
cast forth upon the world, remembered nothing of his sufferings. And
the Lord our Creator is wise and full of loving-kindness--who can
doubt it?
In Spain, where the warm breezes blow over the Moorish cupola, among
the orange trees and laurels, where song and the sound of castagnettes
are always heard, sat in the sumptuous house a childish old man, the
richest merchant in the place, while children marched in procession
through the streets, with waving flags and lighted tapers. How much of
his wealth would the old man not have given to be able to press his
children to his heart! his daughter, or her child, that had perhaps
never seen the light in this world, far less a Paradise.
"Poor child!"
Yes, poor child--a child still, and yet more than thirty years old;
for to that age Jürgen had attained in Old Skjagen.
The drifting sand had covered the graves in the churchyard quite up to
the walls of the church; but yet the dead must be buried among their
relations and loved ones who had gone before them. Merchant Brönne and
his wife now rested here with their children, under the white sand.
It was spring-time, the season of storms. The sand-hills whirled up in
clouds, and the sea ran high, and flocks of birds flew like clouds in
the storms, shrieking across the dunes; and shipwreck followed
shipwreck on the reefs of "Skjagenzweig" from towards the Hunsby
dunes. One evening Jürgen was sitting alone in the room. Suddenly his
mind seemed to become clearer, and a feeling of unrest came upon him,
which in his younger years had often driven him forth upon the heath
and the sand-hills.
"Home! home!" he exclaimed. No one heard him. He went out of the house
towards the dunes. Sand and stones blew into his face and whirled
around him. He went on farther and farther, towards the church: the
sand lay high around the walls, half over the windows; but the heap
had been shovelled away from the door, and the entrance was free and
easy to open; and Jürgen went into the church.
The storm went howling over the town of Skjagen. Within the memory of
man the sea had not run so high--a terrible tempest! but Jürgen was in
the temple of God, and while black night reigned without, a light
arose in his soul, a light that was never to be extinguished; he felt
the heavy stone which seemed to weigh upon his head burst asunder. He
thought he heard the sound of the organ, but it was the storm and the
moaning of the sea. He sat down on one of the seats; and behold, the
candles were lighted up one by one; a richness was displayed such as
he had only seen in the church in Spain; and all the pictures of the
old councillors were endued with life, and stepped forth from the
walls against which they had stood for centuries, and seated
themselves in the entrance of the church. The gates and doors flew
open, and in came all the dead people, festively clad, and sat down to
the sound of beautiful music, and filled the seats in the church. Then
the psalm tune rolled forth like a sounding sea; and his old
foster-parents from the Hunsby dunes were here, and the old merchant
Brönne and his wife; and at their side, close to Jürgen, sat their
friendly, lovely daughter Clara, who gave her hand to Jürgen, and they
both went to the altar, where they had once knelt together, and the
priest joined their hands and joined them together for life. Then the
sound of music was heard again, wonderful, like a child's voice full
of joy and expectation, and it swelled on to an organ's sound, to a
tempest of full, noble sounds, lovely and elevating to hear, and yet
strong enough to burst the stone tombs.
And the little ship that hung down from the roof of the choir came
down, and became wonderfully large and beautiful, with silken sails
and golden yards, "and every rope wrought through with silk," as the
old song said. The married pair went on board, and the whole
congregation with them, for there was room and joyfulness for all. And
the walls and arches of the church bloomed like the juniper and the
fragrant lime trees, and the leaves and branches waved and distributed
coolness; then they bent and parted, and the ship sailed through the
midst of them, through the sea, and through the air; and every church
taper became a star, and the wind sang a psalm tune, and all sang
with the wind:
"In love, to glory--no life shall be lost. Full of blessedness and
joy. Hallelujah!"
And these words were the last that Jürgen spoke in this world. The
thread snapped that bound the immortal soul, and nothing but a dead
body lay in the dark church, around which the storm raged, covering it
with loose sand.
* * * * *
The next morning was Sunday, and the congregation and their pastor
went forth to the service. The road to church had been heavy; the sand
made the way almost impassable; and now, when they at last reached
their goal, a great hill of sand was piled up before the entrance, and
the church itself was buried. The priest spoke a short prayer, and
said that God had closed the door of this house, and the congregation
must go and build a new one for Him elsewhere.
So they sang a psalm under the open sky, and went back to their homes.
Jürgen was nowhere to be found in the town of Skjagen, or in the
dunes, however much they sought for him. It was thought that the
waves, which had rolled far up on the sand, had swept him away.
His body lay buried in a great sepulchre, in the church itself. In the
storm the Lord's hand had thrown a handful of earth on his grave; and
the heavy mound of sand lay upon it, and lies there to this day.
The whirling sand had covered the high vaulted passages; whitethorn
and wild rose trees grow over the church, over which the wanderer now
walks; while the tower, standing forth like a gigantic tombstone over
a grave, is to be seen for miles around: no king has a more splendid
tombstone. No one disturbs the rest of the dead; no one knew of this,
and we are the first who know of this grave--the storm sang the tale
to me among the sand-hills.
THE BISHOP OF BÖRGLUM AND HIS WARRIORS.
Our scene is 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 Börglum. 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. The eye can range far, far over field and
moor to the bay of Aalborg, over heath and meadow, and far across the
dark 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 luxuriously 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 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 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 Börglum 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 long been
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 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 Börglum, 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 Börglum.
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,
though the land had been cursed by the Pope and the bishop.
"Thou child of hell, I will yet carry out my purpose!" cries the
Bishop of Börglum. "Now will I lay the hand of the Pope upon thee, to
summon thee before the tribunal that shall condemn thee!"
[Illustration: JENS GLOB MEETS HIS MOTHER.]
Then did the widow yoke the two last oxen that remained to her to a
waggon, and mounted upon the waggon, 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 waggons 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 Börglum 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, of 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 Börglum 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 Börglum 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 foxskin! 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.
Börglum's bishop reaches the church; but Olaf Hase will scarce do so,
hard as he may ride. He journeys with his warriors on the farther side
of the bay, to 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 Börglum. 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 crosier 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 Börglum 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 Börglum. It is heard by the
sleepless listener in the thickly-walled rooms at Börglum. 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 splendour; 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 Lökken, 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 imbedded 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 were saved,
and reached the land, and were wrapped in warm blankets; and to-day
they are invited to the farm at the convent of Börglum. 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, and 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 Börglum. 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 SNOW MAN.
"It's so wonderfully cold that my whole body crackles!" said the Snow
Man. "This is a kind of wind that can blow life into one; and how the
gleaming one up yonder is staring at me." He meant the sun, which was
just about to set. "It shall not make _me_ wink--I shall manage to
keep the pieces."
He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head instead of eyes. His
mouth was made of an old rake, and consequently was furnished with
teeth.
He had been born amid the joyous shouts of the boys, and welcomed by
the sound of sledge bells and the slashing of whips.
The sun went down, and the full moon rose, round, large, clear, and
beautiful in the blue air.
"There it comes again from the other side," said the Snow Man. He
intended to say the sun is showing himself again. "Ah! I have cured
him of staring. Now let him hang up there and shine, that I may see
myself. If I only knew how I could manage to move from this place, I
should like so much to move. If I could, I would slide along yonder on
the ice, just as I see the boys slide; but I don't understand it; I
don't know how to run."
"Away! away!" barked the old Yard Dog. He was quite hoarse, and could
not pronounce the genuine "bow, wow." He had got the hoarseness from
the time when he was an indoor dog, and lay by the fire. "The sun will
teach you to run! I saw that last winter, in your predecessor, and
before that in _his_ predecessor. Away! away!--and away they all go."
"I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "That thing up
yonder is to teach me to run?" He meant the moon. "Yes, it was running
itself, when I saw it a little while ago, and now it comes creeping
from the other side."
"You know nothing at all," retorted the Yard Dog. "But then you've
only just been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and the
one that went before was the sun. It will come again to-morrow, and
will teach you to run down into the ditch by the wall. We shall soon
have a change of weather; I can feel that in my left hind leg, for it
pricks and pains me: the weather is going to change."
"I don't understand him," said the Snow Man; "but I have a feeling
that he's talking about something disagreeable. The one who stared so
just now, and whom he called the sun, is not my friend. I can feel
that too."
"Away! away!" barked the Yard Dog; and he turned round three times,
and then crept into his kennel to sleep.
The weather really changed. Towards morning, a thick damp fog lay over
the whole region; later there came a wind, an icy wind. The cold
seemed quite to seize upon one; but when the sun rose, what splendour!
Trees and bushes were covered with hoar frost, and looked like a
complete forest of coral, and every twig seemed covered with gleaming
white buds. The many delicate ramifications, concealed in summer by
the wreath of leaves, now made their appearance: it seemed like a
lace-work, gleaming white. A snowy radiance sprang from every twig.
The birch waved in the wind--it had life, like the rest of the trees
in summer. It was wonderfully beautiful. And when the sun shone, how
it all gleamed and sparkled, as if diamond dust had been strewn
everywhere, and big diamonds had been dropped on the snowy carpet of
the earth! or one could imagine that countless little lights were
gleaming, whiter than even the snow itself.
"That is wonderfully beautiful," said a young girl, who came with a
young man into the garden. They both stood still near the Snow Man,
and contemplated the glittering trees. "Summer cannot show a more
beautiful sight," said she; and her eyes sparkled.
"And we can't have such a fellow as this in summer-time," replied the
young man, and he pointed to the Snow Man. "He is capital."
The girl laughed, nodded at the Snow Man, and then danced away over
the snow with her friend--over the snow that cracked and crackled
under her tread as if she were walking on starch.
"Who were those two?" the Snow Man inquired of the Yard Dog. "You've
been longer in the yard than I. Do you know them?"
"Of course I know them," replied the Yard Dog. "She has stroked me,
and he has thrown me a meat bone. I don't bite those two."
"But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.
"Lovers!" replied the Yard Dog. "They will go to live in the same
kennel, and gnaw at the same bone. Away! away!"
[Illustration: THE SNOW MAN AND THE YARD DOG.]
"Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the Snow Man.
"Why, they belong to the master," retorted the Yard Dog. "People
certainly know very little who were only born yesterday. I can see
that in you. I have age, and information. I know every one here in the
house, and I know a time when I did not lie out here in the cold,
fastened to a chain. Away! away!"
"The cold is charming," said the Snow Man. "Tell me, tell me.--But you
must not clank with your chain, for it jars within me when you do
that."
"Away! away!" barked the Yard Dog. "They told me I was a pretty
little fellow: then I used to lie in a chair covered with velvet, up
in master's house, and sit in the lap of the mistress of all. They
used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an embroidered
handkerchief. I was called 'Ami--dear Ami--sweet Ami.' But afterwards
I grew too big for them, and they gave me away to the housekeeper. So
I came to live in the basement storey. You can look into that from
where you are standing, and you can see into the room where I was
master; for I was master at the housekeeper's. It was certainly a
smaller place than upstairs, but I was more comfortable, and was not
continually taken hold of and pulled about by children as I had been.
I received just as good food as ever, and even better. I had my own
cushion, and there was a stove, the finest thing in the world at this
season. I went under the stove, and could lie down quite beneath it.
Ah! I still dream of that stove. Away! away!"
"Does a stove look so beautiful?" asked the Snow Man. "Is it at all
like me?"
"It's just the reverse of you. It's as black as a crow, and has a long
neck and a brazen drum. It eats firewood, so that the fire spurts out
of its mouth. One must keep at its side, or under it, and there one is
very comfortable. You can see it through the window from where you
stand."
And the Snow Man looked and saw a bright polished thing with a brazen
drum, and the fire gleamed from the lower part of it. The Snow Man
felt quite strangely: an odd emotion came over him, he knew not what
it meant, and could not account for it; but all people who are not
snow men know the feeling.
"And why did you leave her?" asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him
that the stove must be of the female sex. "How could you quit such a
comfortable place?"
"I was obliged," replied the Yard Dog. "They turned me out of doors,
and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest young master in the
leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I
thought. They took that very much amiss, and from that time I have
been fastened to a chain and have lost my voice. Don't you hear how
hoarse I am? Away! away! I can't talk any more like other dogs. Away!
away! that was the end of the affair."
But the Snow Man was no longer listening to him. He was looking in at
the housekeeper's basement lodging, into the room where the stove
stood on its four iron legs, just the same size as the Snow Man
himself.
"What a strange crackling within me!" he said. "Shall I ever get in
there? It is an innocent wish, and our innocent wishes are certain to
be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against her, even if I have
to break through the window."
"You will never get in there," said the Yard Dog; "and if you approach
the stove you'll melt away--away!"
"I am as good as gone," replied the Snow Man. "I think I am breaking
up."
The whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the window. In the
twilight hour the room became still more inviting: from the stove came
a mild gleam, not like the sun nor like the moon; no, it was only as
the stove can glow when he has something to eat. When the room-door
opened, the flame started out of his mouth; this was a habit the stove
had. The flame fell distinctly on the white face of the Snow Man, and
gleamed red upon his bosom.
"I can endure it no longer," said he; "how beautiful it looks when it
stretches out its tongue!"
The night was long; but it did not appear long to the Snow Man, who
stood there lost in his own charming reflections, crackling with the
cold.
In the morning the window-panes of the basement lodging were covered
with ice. They bore the most beautiful ice-flowers that any snow man
could desire; but they concealed the stove. The window-panes would not
thaw; he could not see the stove, which he pictured to himself as a
lovely female being. It crackled and whistled in him and around him;
it was just the kind of frosty weather a snow man must thoroughly
enjoy. But he did not enjoy it; and, indeed, how could he enjoy
himself when he was stove-sick?
"That's a terrible disease for a Snow Man," said the Yard Dog. "I have
suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away! away!" he barked;
and he added, "the weather is going to change."
And the weather did change; it began to thaw.
The warmth increased, and the Snow Man decreased. He said nothing, and
made no complaint--and that's an infallible sign.
One morning he broke down. And behold, where he had stood, something
like a broomstick remained sticking up out of the ground. It was the
pole round which the boys had built him up.
"Ah! now I can understand why he had such an intense longing," said
the Yard Dog. "Why, there's a shovel for cleaning out the stove
fastened to the pole. The Snow Man had a stove-rake in his body, and
that's what moved within him. Now he has got over that too. Away!
away!"
And soon they had got over the winter.
"Away! away!" barked the hoarse Yard Dog; but the girls in the house
sang:
"Green thyme! from your house come out;
Willow, your woolly fingers stretch out;
Lark and cuckoo cheerfully sing,
For in February is coming the spring.
And with the cuckoo I'll sing too,
Come thou, dear sun, come out, cuckoo!"
And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.
TWO MAIDENS.
Have you ever seen a maiden? I mean what our paviours call a maiden, a
thing with which they ram down the paving-stones in the roads. A
maiden of this kind is made altogether of wood, broad below, and girt
round with iron rings; at the top she is narrow, and has a stick
passed across through her waist; and this stick forms the arms of the
maiden.
In the shed stood two maidens of this kind. They had their place among
shovels, hand-carts, wheelbarrows, and measuring tapes; and to all
this company the news had come that the maidens were no longer to be
called "maidens," but "hand-rammers;" which word was the newest and
the only correct designation among the paviours for the thing we all
know from the old times by the name of "the maiden."
Now, there are among us human creatures certain individuals who are
known as "emancipated women;" as, for instance, principals of
institutions, dancers who stand professionally on one leg, milliners,
and sick nurses; and with this class of emancipated women the two
maidens in the shed associated themselves. They were "maidens" among
the paviour folk, and determined not to give up this honourable
appellation, and let themselves be miscalled rammers.
"Maiden is a human name, but hand-rammer is a _thing_, and we won't be
called _things_--that's insulting us."
"My lover would be ready to give up his engagement," said the
youngest, who was betrothed to a paviour's hammer; and the hammer is
the thing which drives great piles into the earth, like a machine, and
therefore does on a large scale what ten maidens effect in a smaller
way. "He wants to marry me as a maiden, but whether he would have me,
were I a hand-rammer, is a question; so I won't have my name changed."
"And I," said the elder one, "would rather have both my arms broken
off."
But the wheelbarrow was of a different opinion; and the wheelbarrow
was looked upon as of some consequence, for he considered himself a
quarter of a coach, because he went about upon one wheel.
"I must submit to your notice," he said, "that the name 'maiden' is
common enough, and not nearly so refined as 'hand-rammer,' or
'stamper,' which latter has also been proposed, and through which you
would be introduced into the category of seals; and only think of the
great stamp of state, which impresses the royal seal that gives effect
to the laws! No, in your case I would surrender my maiden name."
"No, certainly not!" exclaimed the elder. "I am too old for that."
"I presume you have never heard of what is called 'European
necessity?'" observed the honest Measuring Tape. "One must be able to
adapt oneself to time and circumstances, and if there is a law that
the 'maiden' is to be called 'hand-rammer,' why, she must be called
'hand-rammer,' and no pouting will avail, for everything has its
measure."
"No; if there must be a change," said the younger, "I should prefer to
be called 'Missy,' for that reminds one a little of maidens."
"But I would rather be chopped to chips," said the elder.
At last they all went to work. The maidens rode--that is, they were
put in a wheelbarrow, and that was a distinction; but still they were
called "hand-rammers." "Mai----!" they said, as they were bumped upon
the pavement. "Mai----!" and they were very nearly pronouncing the
whole word "maiden;" but they broke off short, and swallowed the last
syllable; for after mature deliberation they considered it beneath
their dignity to protest. But they always called each other "maiden,"
and praised the good old days in which everything had been called by
its right name, and those who were maidens were called maidens. And
they remained as they were; for the hammer really broke off his
engagement with the younger one, for nothing would suit him but he
must have a maiden for his bride.
THE FARMYARD COCK AND THE WEATHERCOCK.
There were two Cocks--one on the dunghill, the other on the roof. Both
were conceited; but which of the two effected most? Tell us your
opinion; but we shall keep our own nevertheless.
The poultry-yard was divided by a partition of boards from another
yard, in which lay a manure-heap, whereon lay and grew a great
Cucumber, which was fully conscious of being a forcing-bed plant.
"That's a privilege of birth," the Cucumber said to herself. "Not all
can be born cucumbers; there must be other kinds too. The fowls, the
ducks, and all the cattle in the neighbouring yard are creatures too.
I now look up to the Yard Cock on the partition. He certainly is of
much greater consequence than the Weathercock, who is so highly
placed, and who can't even creak, much less crow; and he has neither
hens nor chickens, and thinks only of himself, and perspires
verdigris. But the Yard Cock--he's something like a cock! His gait is
like a dance, his crowing is music; and wherever he comes, it is known
directly. What a trumpeter he is! If he would only come in here! Even
if he were to eat me up, stalk and all, it would be a blissful death,"
said the Cucumber.
In the night the weather became very bad. Hens, chickens, and even the
Cock himself sought shelter. The wind blew down the partition between
the two yards with a crash; the tiles came tumbling down, but the
Weathercock sat firm. He did not even turn round; he could not turn
round, and yet he was young and newly cast, but steady and sedate. He
had been "born old," and did not at all resemble the birds that fly
beneath the vault of heaven, such as the sparrows and the swallows. He
despised those, considering them piping birds of trifling
stature--ordinary song birds. The pigeons, he allowed, were big and
shining, and gleamed like mother-o'-pearl, and looked like a kind of
weathercocks; but then they were fat and stupid, and their whole
endeavour was to fill themselves with food. "Moreover, they are
tedious things to converse with," said the Weathercock.
The birds of passage had also paid a visit to the Weathercock, and
told him tales of foreign lands, of airy caravans, and exciting robber
stories; of encounters with birds of prey; and that was interesting
for the first time, but the Weathercock knew that afterwards they
always repeated themselves, and that was tedious. "They are tedious,
and all is tedious," he said. "No one is fit to associate with, and
one and all of them are wearisome and stupid."
"The world is worth nothing," he cried. "The whole thing is a
stupidity."
The Weathercock was what is called "used up;" and that quality would
certainly have made him interesting in the eyes of the Cucumber if she
had known it; but she had only eyes for the Yard Cock, who had now
actually come into her own yard.
The wind had blown down the plank, but the storm had passed over.
[Illustration: THE WEATHERCOCK.]
"What do you think of _that_ crowing?" the Yard Cock inquired of his
hens and chickens. "It was a little rough--the elegance was wanting."
And hens and chickens stepped upon the muck-heap, and the Cock
strutted to and fro on it like a knight.
"Garden plant!" he cried out to the Cucumber; and in this one word she
understood his deep feeling, and forgot that he was pecking at her and
eating her up--a happy death!
And the hens came, and the chickens came, and when one of them runs
the rest run also; and they clucked and chirped, and looked at the
Cock, and were proud that he was of their kind.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" he crowed. "The chickens will grow up large fowls
if I make a noise in the poultry-yard of the world."
And hens and chickens clucked and chirped, and the Cock told them a
great piece of news:
"A cock can lay an egg; and do you know what there is in that egg? In
that egg lies a basilisk. No one can stand the sight of a basilisk.
Men know that, and now you know it too--you know what is in me, and
what a cock of the world I am."
And with this the Yard Cock flapped his wings, and made his comb swell
up, and crowed again; and all of them shuddered--all the hens and the
chickens; but they were proud that one of their people should be such
a cock of the world. They clucked and chirped, so that the Weathercock
heard it; and he heard it, but he never stirred.
"It's all stupid stuff!" said a voice within the Weathercock. "The
Yard Cock does not lay eggs, and I am too lazy to lay any. If I liked,
I could lay a wind-egg; but the world is not worth a wind-egg. And now
I don't like even to sit here any longer."
And with this the Weathercock broke off; but he did not kill the Yard
Cock, though he intended to do so, as the hens declared. And what does
the moral say?--"Better to crow than to be 'used up' and break off."
THE PEN AND INKSTAND.
In the room of a poet, where his inkstand stood upon the table, it was
said, "It is wonderful what can come out of an inkstand. What will the
next thing be? It is wonderful!"
"Yes, certainly," said the Inkstand. "It's extraordinary--that's what
I always say," he exclaimed to the pen and to the other articles on
the table that were near enough to hear. "It is wonderful what a
number of things can come out of me. It's quite incredible. And I
really don't myself know what will be the next thing, when that man
begins to dip into me. One drop out of me is enough for half a page of
paper; and what cannot be contained in half a page? From me all the
works of the poet go forth--all these living men, whom people can
imagine they have met--all the deep feeling, the humour, the vivid
pictures of nature. I myself don't understand how it is, for I am not
acquainted with nature, but it certainly is in me. From me all these
things have gone forth, and from me proceed the troops of charming
maidens, and of brave knights on prancing steeds, and all the lame and
the blind, and I don't know what more--I assure you I don't think of
anything."
"There you are right," said the Pen; "you don't think at all; for if
you did, you would comprehend that you only furnish the fluid. You
give the fluid, that I may exhibit upon the paper what dwells in me,
and what I would bring to the day. It is the pen that writes. No man
doubts that; and, indeed, most people have about as much insight into
poetry as an old inkstand."
"You have but little experience," replied the Inkstand. "You've hardly
been in service a week, and are already half worn out. Do you fancy
you are the poet? You are only a servant; and before you came I had
many of your sort, some of the goose family, and others of English
manufacture. I know the quill as well as the steel pen. Many have been
in my service, and I shall have many more when _he_ comes--the man who
goes through the motions for me, and writes down what he derives from
me. I should like to know what will be the next thing he'll take out
of me."
"Inkpot!" exclaimed the Pen.
Late in the evening the poet came home. He had been to a concert,
where he had heard a famous violinist, with whose admirable
performances he was quite enchanted. The player had drawn a wonderful
wealth of tone from the instrument: sometimes it had sounded like
tinkling water-drops, like rolling pearls, sometimes like birds
twittering in chorus, and then again it went swelling on like the wind
through the fir trees. The poet thought he heard his own heart
weeping, but weeping melodiously, like the sound of woman's voice. It
seemed as though not only the strings sounded, but every part of the
instrument. It was a wonderful performance; and difficult as the piece
was, the bow seemed to glide easily to and fro over the strings, and
it looked as though every one might do it. The violin seemed to sound
of itself, and the bow to move of itself--those two appeared to do
everything; and the audience forgot the master who guided them and
breathed soul and spirit into them. The master was forgotten; but the
poet remembered him, and named him, and wrote down his thoughts
concerning the subject:
"How foolish it would be of the violin and the bow to boast of their
achievements. And yet we men often commit this folly--the poet, the
artist, the labourer in the domain of science, the general--we all do
it. We are only the instruments which the Almighty uses: to Him alone
be the honour! We have nothing of which we should be proud."
Yes, that is what the poet wrote down. He wrote it in the form of a
parable, which he called "The Master and the Instruments."
"That is what you get, madam," said the Pen to the Inkstand, when the
two were alone again. "Did you not hear him read aloud what I have
written down?"
"Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the Inkstand. "That was a
cut at you, because of your conceit. That you should not even have
understood that you were being quizzed! I gave you a cut from within
me--surely I must know my own satire!"
"Ink-pipkin!" cried the Pen.
"Writing-stick!" cried the Inkstand.
And each of them felt a conviction that he had answered well; and it
is a pleasing conviction to feel that one has given a good answer--a
conviction on which one can sleep; and accordingly they slept upon it.
But the poet did not sleep. Thoughts welled up from within him, like
the tones from the violin, falling like pearls, rushing like the
storm-wind through the forests. He understood his own heart in these
thoughts, and caught a ray from the Eternal Master.
To _Him_ be all the honour!
THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE.
There was mourning in the house, sorrow in every heart. The youngest
child, a boy four years old, the joy and hope of his parents, had
died. There still remained to them two daughters, the elder of whom
was about to be confirmed--good, charming girls both; but the child
that one has lost always seems the dearest; and here it was the
youngest, and a son. It was a heavy trial. The sisters mourned as
young hearts can, and were especially moved at the sight of their
parents' sorrow. The father was bowed down, and the mother completely
struck down by the great grief. Day and night she had been busy about
the sick child, and had tended, lifted, and carried it; she had felt
how it was a part of herself. She could not realize that the child was
dead, and that it must be laid in a coffin and sleep in the ground.
She thought God _could not_ take this child from her; and when it was
so, nevertheless, and there could be no more doubt on the subject, she
said in her feverish pain:
"God did not know it. He has heartless servants here on earth, who do
according to their own liking, and hear not the prayers of a mother."
In her grief she fell away from God, and then there came dark
thoughts, thoughts of death, of everlasting death, that man was but
dust in the dust, and that with this life all was ended. But these
thoughts gave her no stay, nothing on which she could take hold; and
she sank into the fathomless abyss of despair.
In her heaviest hours she could weep no more, and she thought not of
the young daughters who were still left to her. The tears of her
husband fell upon her forehead, but she did not look at him. Her
thoughts were with the dead child; her whole thought and being were
fixed upon it, to call back every remembrance of the little one, every
innocent childish word it had uttered.
The day of the funeral came. For nights before the mother had not
slept; but in the morning twilight she now slept, overcome by
weariness; and in the meantime 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 said,
"We have nailed down the coffin. It was necessary to do so."
"When God is hard towards me, how should men be better?" she said,
with sobs and groans.
The coffin was carried to the grave. The disconsolate mother sat with
her young daughters. She looked at her daughters, and yet did not see
them, for her thoughts were no longer busy at the domestic hearth. She
gave herself up to her grief, and grief 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, wearying pain. With
moist 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 words of comfort could they speak to her,
when they themselves were heavily bowed down?
It seemed as though she knew sleep no more; and yet he would now have
been her best friend, who would have strengthened her body, and poured
peace into her soul. They persuaded her to seek her couch, and she lay
still there, like one who slept. One night her husband was listening,
as he often did, to her breathing, and fully believed that she had now
found rest and relief. He folded his arms and prayed, and soon sank
into a deep healthy sleep; and thus he did not notice that his wife
rose, threw on her clothes, and silently glided from the house, to go
where her thoughts always lingered--to the grave which held her child.
She stepped through the garden of the house, and over the fields,
where a path led to the churchyard. No one saw her on her walk--she
had seen nobody, for her eyes were fixed upon the one goal of her
journey.
It was a lovely starlight night; the air was still mild; it was in the
beginning of September. She entered the churchyard, and stood by the
little grave, which looked like a great nosegay of fragrant flowers.
She sat down, and bowed her head low over the grave, as if she could
have seen her child through the intervening earth, her little boy,
whose smile rose so vividly before her--the gentle expression of whose
eyes, even on the sick bed, she could never forget. How eloquent had
that glance been, when she had bent over him, and seized his delicate
hand, which he had no longer strength to raise! As she had sat by his
crib, so she now sat by his grave, but here her tears had free course,
and fell thick upon the grave.
"Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child," said a voice
quite close to her, a voice that sounded so clear and deep, it went
straight to her heart. She looked up; and near her stood a man wrapped
in a black cloak, with a hood drawn closely down over his face. But
she glanced keenly up, and saw his face under his hood. It was stern,
but yet awakened confidence, and his eyes beamed with the radiance of
youth.
"Down to my child!" she repeated; and a despairing supplication spoke
out of her words.
"Darest thou follow me?" asked the form. "I am Death."
And she bowed her head in acquiescence. Then suddenly it seemed as
though all the stars were shining with the radiance of the full moon;
she saw the varied colours of the flowers on the grave, and the
covering of earth was gradually withdrawn like a floating drapery; and
she sank down, and the apparition covered her with a black cloak;
night closed around her, the night of death, and she sank deeper than
the sexton's spade can penetrate; and the churchyard was as a roof
over her head.
A corner of the cloak was removed, and she stood in a great hall which
spread wide and pleasantly around. It was twilight. But in a moment
her child appeared, and was pressed to her heart, smiling at her in
greater beauty than he had ever possessed. She uttered a cry, but it
was inaudible. A glorious swelling strain of music sounded in the
distance, and then near to her, and then again in the distance: never
had such tones fallen on her ear; they came from beyond the great dark
curtain which separated the hall from the great land of eternity
beyond.
"My sweet darling mother," she heard her child say. It was the
well-known, much-loved voice, and kiss followed kiss in boundless
felicity; and the child pointed to the dark curtain.
"It is not so beautiful on earth. Do you see, mother--do you see them
all? Oh, that is happiness!"
[Illustration: THE MOTHER AT THE GRAVE.]
But the mother saw nothing which the child pointed out--nothing but
the dark night. She looked with earthly eyes, and could not see as the
child saw, which God had called to Himself. She could hear the sounds
of the music, but she heard not the word--_the Word_ in which she was
to believe.
"Now I can fly, mother--I can fly with all the other happy children
into the presence of the Almighty. I would fain fly; but, if you weep
as you are weeping now, I might be lost to you--and yet I would go so
gladly. May I not fly? And you will come to me soon--will you not,
dear mother?"
"Oh, stay! stay!" entreated the mother. "Only one moment more--only
once more I should wish to look at thee, and kiss thee, and press thee
in my arms."
And she kissed and fondled the child. Then her name was called from
above--called in a plaintive voice. What might this mean?
"Hearest thou?" asked the child. "It is my father who calls thee."
And in a few moments deep sighs were heard, as of weeping children.
"They are my sisters," said the child. "Mother, you surely have not
forgotten them?"
And then she remembered those she had left behind. A great terror came
upon her. She looked out into the night, and above her dim forms were
flitting past. She seemed to recognize a few more of these. They
floated through the Hall of Death towards the dark curtain, and there
they vanished. Would her husband and her daughter thus flit past? No,
their sighs and lamentations still sounded from above:--and she had
been nearly forgetting them for the sake of him who was dead!
"Mother, now the bells of heaven are ringing," said the child.
"Mother, now the sun is going to rise."
And an overpowering light streamed in upon her. The child had
vanished, and she was borne upwards. It became cold round about her,
and she lifted up her head, and saw that she was lying in the
churchyard, on the grave of her child.
But the Lord had been a stay unto her feet, in a dream, and a light to
her spirit; and she bowed her knees and prayed for forgiveness that
she had wished to keep back a soul from its immortal flight, and that
she had forgotten her duties towards the living who were left to her.
And when she had spoken those words, it was as if her heart were
lightened. Then the sun burst forth, and over her head a little bird
sang out, and the church bells sounded for early service. Everything
was holy around her, and her heart was chastened. She acknowledged the
goodness of God, she acknowledged the duties she had to perform, and
eagerly she went home. She bent over her husband, who still slept; her
warm devoted kiss awakened him, and heart-felt words of love came from
the lips of both. And she was gentle and strong, as a wife can be; and
from her came the consoling words,
"God's will is always the best."
Then her husband asked her,
"From whence hast thou all at once derived this strength--this feeling
of consolation?"
And she kissed him, and kissed her children, and said, "They came from
God, through the child in the grave."
SOUP ON A SAUSAGE-PEG.
I.
"That was a remarkably fine dinner yesterday," observed an old Mouse
of the female sex to another who had not been at the festive
gathering. "I sat number twenty-one from the old mouse king, so that I
was not badly placed. Should you like to hear the order of the
banquet? The courses were very well arranged--mouldy bread,
bacon-rind, tallow candle, and sausage--and then the same dishes over
again from the beginning: it was just as good as having two banquets
in succession. There was as much joviality and agreeable jesting as in
the family circle. Nothing was left but the pegs at the ends of the
sausages. And the discourse turned upon these; and at last the
expression, 'Soup on sausage-rinds,' or, as they have the proverb in
the neighbouring country, 'Soup on a sausage-peg,' was mentioned.
Every one had heard the proverb, but no one had ever tasted the
sausage-peg soup, much less prepared it. A capital toast was drunk to
the inventor of the soup, and it was said he deserved to be a
relieving officer. Was not that witty? And the old mouse king stood
up, and promised that the young female mouse who could best prepare
that soup should be his queen; and a year was allowed for the trial."
"That was not at all bad," said the other Mouse; "but how does one
prepare this soup?"
"Ah, how is it prepared? That is just what all the young female mice,
and the old ones too, are asking. They would all very much like to be
queen; but they don't want to take the trouble to go out into the
world to learn how to prepare the soup, and that they would certainly
have to do. But every one has not the gift of leaving the family
circle and the chimney corner. In foreign parts one can't get
cheese-rinds and bacon every day. No, one must bear hunger, and
perhaps be eaten up alive by a cat."
Such were probably the considerations by which the majority were
deterred from going out into the wide world and gaining information.
Only four mice announced themselves ready to depart. They were young
and brisk, but poor. Each of them wished to proceed to one of the four
quarters of the globe, and then it would become manifest which of them
was favoured by fortune. Every one took a sausage-peg, so as to keep
in mind the object of the journey. The stiff sausage-peg was to be to
them as a pilgrim's staff.
It was at the beginning of May that they set out, and they did not
return till the May of the following year; and then only three of them
appeared. The fourth did not report herself, nor was there any
intelligence of her, though the day of trial was close at hand.
"Yes, there's always some drawback in even the pleasantest affair,"
said the Mouse King.
And then he gave orders that all mice within a circuit of many miles
should be invited. They were to assemble in the kitchen, where the
three travelled mice would stand up in a row, while a sausage-peg,
shrouded in crape, was set up as a memento of the fourth, who was
missing. No one was to proclaim his opinion till the mouse king had
settled what was to be said. And now let us hear.
II.
_What the first little Mouse had seen and learnt in her travels._
"When I went out into the wide world," said the little Mouse, "I
thought, as many think at my age, that I had already learnt
everything; but that was not the case. Years must pass before one gets
so far. I went to sea at once. I went in a ship that steered towards
the north. They had told me that the ship's cook must know how to
manage things at sea; but it is easy enough to manage things when one
has plenty of sides of bacon, and whole tubs of salt pork, and mouldy
flour. One has delicate living on board; but one does not learn to
prepare soup on a sausage-peg. We sailed along for many days and
nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and we did not get off without a
wetting. When we at last reached the port to which we were bound, I
left the ship; and it was high up in the far north.
"It is a wonderful thing, to go out of one's own corner at home, and
sail in a ship, where one has a sort of corner too, and then suddenly
to find oneself hundreds of miles away in a strange land. I saw great
pathless forests of pine and birch, which smelt so strong that I
sneezed, and thought of sausage. There were great lakes there too.
When I came close to them the waters were quite clear, but from a
distance they looked black as ink. Great swans floated upon them: I
thought at first they were spots of foam, they lay so still; but then
I saw them walk and fly, and I recognized them. They belong to the
goose family--one can see that by their walk; for no one can deny his
parentage. I kept with my own kind. I associated with the forest and
field mice, who, by the way, know very little, especially as regards
cookery, though this was the very subject that had brought me abroad.
The thought that soup might be boiled on a sausage-peg was such a
startling statement to them, that it flew at once from mouth to mouth
through the whole forest. They declared the problem could never be
solved; and little did I think that there, in the very first night, I
should be initiated into the method of its preparation. It was in the
height of summer, and that, the mice said, was the reason why the wood
smelt so strongly, and why the herbs were so fragrant, and the lakes
so transparent and yet so dark, with their white swimming swans.
"On the margin of the wood, among three or four houses, a pole as tall
as the mainmast of a ship had been erected, and from its summit hung
wreaths and fluttering ribbons: this was called a maypole. Men and
maids danced round the tree, and sang as loudly as they could, to the
violin of the fiddler. There were merry doings at sundown and in the
moonlight, but I took no part in them--what has a little mouse to do
with a May dance? I sat in the soft moss and held my sausage-peg fast.
The moon threw its beams especially upon one spot, where a tree stood,
covered with moss so exceedingly fine, I may almost venture to say it
was as fine as the skin of the mouse king; but it was of a green
colour, and that is a great relief to the eye.
"All at once, the most charming little people came marching forth.
They were only tall enough to reach to my knee. They looked like men,
but were better proportioned: they called themselves elves, and had
delicate clothes on, of flower leaves trimmed with the wings of flies
and gnats, which had a very good appearance. Directly they appeared,
they seemed to be seeking for something--I know not what; but at last
some of them came towards me, and the chief pointed to my sausage-peg,
and said, 'That is just such a one as we want--it is pointed--it is
capital!' and the longer he looked at my pilgrim's staff the more
delighted he became.
"'I will lend it,' I said, 'but not to keep.'
"'Not to keep!' they all repeated; and they seized the sausage-peg,
which I gave up to them, and danced away to the spot where the fine
moss grew; and here they set up the peg in the midst of the green.
They wanted to have a maypole of their own, and the one they now had
seemed cut out for them; and they decorated it so that it was
beautiful to behold.
"First, little spiders spun it round with gold thread, and hung it all
over with fluttering veils and flags, so finely woven, bleached so
snowy white in the moonshine, that they dazzled my eyes. They took
colours from the butterfly's wing, and strewed these over the white
linen, and flowers and diamonds gleamed upon it, so that I did not
know my sausage-peg again: there is not in all the world such a
maypole as they had made of it. And now came the real great party of
elves. They were quite without clothes, and looked as genteel as
possible; and they invited me to be present at the feast; but I was to
keep at a certain distance, for I was too large for them.
"And now began such music! It sounded like thousands of glass bells,
so full, so rich, that I thought the swans were singing. I fancied
also that I heard the voice of the cuckoo and the blackbird, and at
last the whole forest seemed to join in. I heard children's voices,
the sound of bells, and the song of birds; the most glorious
melodies--and all came from the elves' maypole, namely, my
sausage-peg. I should never have believed that so much could come out
of it; but that depends very much upon the hands into which it falls.
I was quite touched. I wept, as a little mouse may weep, with pure
pleasure.
"The night was far too short; but it is not longer up yonder at that
season. In the morning dawn the breeze began to blow, the mirror of
the forest lake was covered with ripples, and all the delicate veils
and flags fluttered away in the air. The waving garlands of spider's
web, the hanging bridges and balustrades, and whatever else they are
called, flew away as if they were nothing at all. Six elves brought me
back my sausage-peg, and asked me at the same time if I had any wish
that they could gratify; so I asked them if they could tell me how
soup was made on a sausage-peg.
"'How _we_ do it?' asked the chief of the elves, with a smile. 'Why,
you have just seen it. I fancy you hardly knew your sausage-peg
again?'
"'You only mean that as a joke," I replied. And then I told them in so
many words, why I had undertaken a journey, and what great hopes were
founded on the operation at home. 'What advantage,' I asked, 'can
accrue to our mouse king, and to our whole powerful state, from the
fact of my having witnessed all this festivity? I cannot shake it out
of the sausage-peg, and say, "Look, here is the peg, now the soup will
come." That would be a dish that could only be put on the table when
the guests had dined.'
[Illustration: THE ELVES APPLY FOR THE LOAN OF THE SAUSAGE-PEG.]
"Then the elf dipped his little finger into the cup of a blue violet,
and said to me:
"'See here! I will anoint your pilgrim's staff; and when you go back
to your country, and come to the castle of the mouse king, you have
but to touch him with the staff, and violets will spring forth and
cover its whole surface, even in the coldest winter-time. And so I
think I've given you something to carry home, and a little more than
something!'"
But before the little Mouse said what this "something more" was, she
stretched her staff out towards the king, and in very truth the most
beautiful bunch of violets burst forth; and the scent was so powerful,
that the mouse king incontinently ordered the mice who stood nearest
the chimney to thrust their tails into the fire and create a smell of
burning, for the odour of the violets was not to be borne, and was not
of the kind he liked.
"But what was the 'something more,' of which you spoke?" asked the
Mouse King.
"Why," the little Mouse answered, "I think it is what they call
effect!" and herewith she turned the staff round, and lo! there was
not a single flower to be seen upon it; she only held the naked
skewer, and lifted this up, as a musical conductor lifts his _bâton_.
"'Violets,' the elf said to me, 'are for sight, and smell, and touch.
Therefore it yet remains to provide for hearing and taste!'" And now
the little Mouse began to beat time; and music was heard, not such as
sounded in the forest among the elves, but such as is heard in the
kitchen. There was a bubbling sound of boiling and roasting; and all
at once it seemed as if the sound were rushing through every chimney,
and pots and kettles were boiling over. The fire-shovel hammered upon
the brass kettle, and then, on a sudden, all was quiet again. They
heard the quiet subdued song of the tea-kettle, and it was wonderful
to hear--they could not quite tell if the kettle were beginning to
sing or leaving off; and the little pot simmered, and the big pot
simmered, and neither cared for the other: there seemed to be no
reason at all in the pots. And the little Mouse flourished her _bâton_
more and more wildly; the pots foamed, threw up large bubbles, boiled
over, and the wind roared and whistled through the chimney. Oh! it
became so terrible, that the little Mouse lost her stick at last.
"That was a heavy soup!" said the Mouse King. "Shall we not soon hear
about the preparation?"
"That was all," said the little Mouse, with a bow.
"That is all! Then we should be glad to hear what the next has to
relate," said the Mouse King.
III.
_What the second little Mouse had to tell._
"I was born in the palace library," said the second Mouse. "I and
several members of our family never knew the happiness of getting into
the dining-room, much less into the store-room; on my journey, and
here to-day, are the only times I have seen a kitchen. We have indeed
often been compelled to suffer hunger in the library, but we got a
good deal of knowledge. The rumour penetrated even to us, of the royal
prize offered to those who could cook soup upon a sausage-peg; and it
was my old grandmother who thereupon ferreted out a manuscript, which
she certainly could not read, but which she had heard read out, and in
which it was written: 'Those who are poets can boil soup upon a
sausage-peg.' She asked me if I were a poet. I felt quite innocent on
the subject, and then she told me I must go out, and manage to become
one. I again asked what was requisite in that particular, for it was
as difficult for me to find that out, as to prepare the soup; but
grandmother had heard a good deal of reading, and she said that three
things were especially necessary: 'Understanding, imagination,
feeling--if you can manage to obtain these three, you are a poet, and
the sausage-wide peg affair will be quite easy to you.'
"And I went forth, and marched towards the west, away into the world,
to become a poet.
"Understanding is the most important thing in every affair. I knew
that, for the two other things are not held in half such respect, and
consequently I went out first to seek understanding. Yes, where does
he dwell? 'Go to the ant and be wise,' said the great King of the
Jews; I knew that from my library experience; and I never stopped till
I came to the first great ant-hill, and there I placed myself on the
watch, to become wise.
"The ants are a respectable people. They are understanding itself.
Everything with them is like a well-worked sum, that comes right. To
work and to lay eggs, they say, is to live while you live, and to
provide for posterity; and accordingly that is what they do. They were
divided into the clean and the dirty ants. The rank of each is
indicated by a number, and the ant queen is number ONE; and her view
is the only correct one, she is the receptacle of all wisdom; and that
was important for me to know. She spoke so much, and it was all so
clever, that it sounded to me like nonsense. She declared her ant-hill
was the loftiest thing in the world; though close by it grew a tree,
which was certainly loftier, much loftier, that could not be denied,
and therefore it was never mentioned. One evening an ant had lost
herself upon the tree: she had crept up the stem--not up to the crown,
but higher than any ant had climbed until then; and when she turned,
and came back home, she talked of something far higher than the
ant-hill that she had found in her travels; but the other ants
considered that an insult to the whole community, and consequently she
was condemned to wear a muzzle, and to continual solitary confinement.
But a short time afterwards another ant got on the tree, and made the
same journey and the same discovery; and this one spoke with emphasis,
and indistinctly, they said; and as, moreover, she was one of the pure
ants and very much respected, they believed her; and when she died
they erected an egg-shell as a memorial of her, for they had a great
respect for the sciences. I saw," continued the little Mouse, "that
the ants were always running to and fro with their eggs on their
backs. One of them once dropped her egg; she exerted herself greatly
to pick it up again, but she could not succeed. Then two others came
up, and helped her with all their might, insomuch that they nearly
dropped their own eggs over it; but then they certainly at once
relaxed their exertions, for each should think of himself first--the
ant queen had declared that by so doing they exhibited at once heart
and understanding.
"'These two qualities,' she said, 'place us ants on the highest step
among all reasoning beings. Understanding is seen among us all in
predominant measure, and I have the greatest share of understanding.'
And so saying, she raised herself on her hind-legs, so that she was
easily to be recognized. I could not be mistaken, and I ate her up. We
were to go to the ants to learn wisdom--and I had got the queen!
"I now proceeded nearer to the before-mentioned lofty tree. It was an
oak, and had a great trunk, and a far-spreading top, and was very old.
I knew that a living being dwelt here, a Dryad as it is called, who is
born with the tree, and dies with it. I had heard about this in the
library; and now I saw an oak tree, and an oak girl. She uttered a
piercing cry when she saw me so near. Like all females, she was very
much afraid of mice; and she had more ground for fear than others, for
I might have gnawed through the stem of the tree on which her life
depended. I accosted the maiden in a friendly and honest way, and bade
her take courage. And she took me up in her delicate hand; and when I
had told her my reason for coming out into the wide world, she
promised me that perhaps on that very evening I should have one of the
two treasures of which I was still in quest. She told me that
Phantasus, the genius of imagination, was her very good friend, that
he was beautiful as the god of love, and that he rested many an hour
under the leafy boughs of the tree, which then rustled more strongly
than ever over the pair of them. He called her his dryad, she said,
and the tree his tree, for the grand gnarled oak was just to his
taste, with its root burrowing so deep in the earth, and the stem and
crown rising so high out in the fresh air, and knowing the beating
snow, and the sharp wind, and the warm sunshine as they deserve to be
known. 'Yes,' the Dryad continued, 'the birds sing aloft there in the
branches, and tell each other of strange countries they have visited;
and on the only dead bough the stork has built a nest which is highly
ornamental, and moreover, one gets to hear something of the land of
the pyramids. All that is very pleasing to Phantasus; but it is not
enough for him: I myself must talk to him, and tell him of life in the
woods, and must revert to my childhood, when I was little, and the
tree such a delicate thing that a stinging-nettle overshadowed it--and
I have to tell everything, till now that the tree is great and strong.
Sit you down under the green thyme, and pay attention; and when
Phantasus comes, I shall find an opportunity to pinch his wings, and
to pull out a little feather. Take the pen--no better is given to any
poet--and it will be enough for you!'
"And when Phantasus came the feather was plucked, and I seized it,"
said the little Mouse. "I put it in water, and held it there till it
grew soft. It was very hard to digest, but I nibbled it up at last. It
is very easy to gnaw oneself into being a poet, though there are many
things one must do. Now I had these two things, imagination and
understanding, and through these I knew that the third was to be found
in the library; for a great man has said and written that there are
romances, whose sole and single use is that they relieve people of
their superfluous tears, and that they are, in fact, a sort of sponges
sucking up human emotion. I remembered a few of these old books which
had always looked especially palatable, and were much thumbed and very
greasy, having evidently absorbed a great deal of feeling into
themselves.
"I betook myself back to the library, and, so to speak, devoured a
whole novel--that is, the essence of it, the interior part, for I left
the crust or binding. When I had digested this, and a second one in
addition, I felt a stirring within me, and I ate a bit of a third
romance, and now I was a poet. I said so to myself, and told the
others also. I had headache, and chestache, and I can't tell what
aches besides. I began thinking what kind of stories could be made to
refer to a sausage-peg; and many pegs, and sticks, and staves, and
splinters came into my mind--the ant queen must have had a
particularly fine understanding. I remembered the man who took a white
stick in his mouth, by which means he could render himself and the
stick invisible; I thought of stick hobby-horses, of 'stock rhymes,'
of 'breaking the staff' over an offender, and Heaven knows of how many
phrases more concerning sticks, stocks, staves, and pegs. All my
thoughts ran upon sticks, staves, and pegs; and when one is a poet
(and I am a poet, for I have worked most terribly hard to become one)
a person can make poetry on these subjects. I shall therefore be able
to wait upon you every day with a poem or a history--and that's the
soup I have to offer."
"Let us hear what the third has to say," was now the Mouse King's
command.
"Peep! peep!" cried a small voice at the kitchen-door, and a little
mouse--it was the fourth of the mice who had contended for the prize,
the one whom they looked upon as dead--shot in like an arrow. She
toppled the sausage-peg with the crape covering over in a moment. She
had been running day and night, and had travelled on the railway, in
the goods train, having watched her opportunity, and yet she had
almost come too late. She pressed forward, looking very much rumpled,
and she had lost her sausage-peg, but not her voice, for she at once
took up the word, as if they had been waiting only for her, and wanted
to hear none but her, and as if everything else in the world were of
no consequence. She spoke at once, and spoke fully: she had appeared
so suddenly, that no one found time to object to her speech or to her,
while she was speaking. And let us hear what she said.
IV.
[Illustration: THE GAOLER'S GRANDDAUGHTER TAKES PITY ON THE LITTLE
MOUSE.]
_What the fourth Mouse, who spoke before the third had spoken, had to
tell._
"I betook myself immediately to the largest town," she said; "the name
has escaped me--I have a bad memory for names. From the railway I was
carried, with some confiscated goods, to the council house, and when I
arrived there I ran into the dwelling of the gaoler. The gaoler was
talking of his prisoners, and especially of one who had spoken
unconsidered words. These words had given rise to others, and these
latter had been written down and recorded.
"'The whole thing is soup on a sausage-peg,' said the gaoler; 'but the
soup may cost him his neck.'
"Now, this gave me an interest in the prisoner," continued the Mouse,
"and I watched my opportunity and slipped into his prison--for there's
a mouse-hole to be found behind every locked door. The prisoner looked
pale, and had a great beard, and bright sparkling eyes. The lamp
flickered and smoked, but the walls were so accustomed to that, that
they grew none the blacker for it. The prisoner scratched pictures and
verses in white upon the black ground, but I did not read them. I
think he found it tedious, and I was a welcome guest. He lured me with
bread crumbs, with whistling, and with friendly words: he was glad to
see me, and gradually I got to trust him, and we became good friends.
He let me run upon his hand, his arm, and into his sleeve; he let me
creep about in his beard, and called me his little friend. I really
got to love him, for these things are reciprocal. I forgot my mission
in the wide world, forgot my sausage-peg: that I had placed in a crack
in the floor--it's lying there still. I wished to stay where I was,
for if I went away, the poor prisoner would have no one at all, and
that's having _too_ little, in this world. _I_ stayed, but _he_ did
not stay. He spoke to me very mournfully the last time, gave me twice
as much bread and cheese as usual, and kissed his hand to me; then he
went away, and never came back. I don't know his history.
"'Soup on a sausage-peg!' said the gaoler, to whom I now went; but I
should not have trusted him. He took me in his hand, certainly, but he
popped me into a cage, a treadmill. That's a horrible engine, in which
you go round and round without getting any farther; and people laugh
at you into the bargain.
"The gaoler's granddaughter was a charming little thing, with a mass
of curly hair that shone like gold, and such merry eyes, and such a
smiling mouth!
"'You poor little mouse,' she said, as she peeped into my ugly cage;
and she drew out the iron rod, and forth I jumped, to the window
board, and from thence to the roof spout. Free! free! I thought only
of that, and not of the goal of my journey.
"It was dark, and night was coming on. I took up my quarters in an old
tower, where dwelt a watchman and an owl. That is a creature like a
cat, who has the great failing that she eats mice. But one may be
mistaken, and so was I, for this was a very respectable, well-educated
old owl: she knew more than the watchman, and as much as I. The young
owls were always making a racket; but 'go and make soup on a sausage
peg' were the hardest words she could prevail on herself to utter, she
was so fondly attached to her family. Her conduct inspired me with so
much confidence, that from the crack in which I was crouching I called
out 'peep!' to her. This confidence of mine pleased her hugely, and
she assured me I should be under her protection, and that no creature
should be allowed to do me wrong; she would reserve me for herself,
for the winter, when there would be short commons.
"She was in every respect a clever woman, and explained to me how the
watchman could only 'whoop' with the horn that hung at his side,
adding, 'He is terribly conceited about it, and imagines he's an owl
in the tower. Wants to do great things, but is very small--soup on a
sausage-peg!' I begged the owl to give me the recipe for this soup,
and then she explained the matter to me.
"'Soup on a sausage-peg,' she said, 'was only a human proverb, and was
to be understood thus: Each thinks his own way the best, but the whole
signifies nothing.'
"'Nothing!'" I exclaimed. "I was quite struck. Truth is not always
agreeable, but truth is above everything; and that's what the old owl
said. I now thought about it, and readily perceived that if I brought
what was _above everything_ I brought something far beyond soup on a
sausage-peg. So I hastened away, that I might get home in time, and
bring the highest and best, that is above everything--namely, _the
truth_. The mice are an enlightened people, and the king is above them
all. He is 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 prepare it."
V.
_How it was prepared._
"I did not travel," the third Mouse said. "I remained in my
country--that's the right thing to do. There's no necessity for
travelling; one can get everything as good here. I stayed at home.
I've not learnt what I know from supernatural beings, or gobbled it
up, or held converse with owls. I have what I know through my own
reflections. Will you make haste and put that kettle upon the fire?
So--now water must be poured in--quite full--up to the brim!--So--now
more fuel--make up the fire, that the water may boil--it must boil
over and over!--So--I now throw the peg in. Will the king now be
pleased to dip his tail in the boiling water, and to stir it round
with the said tail? The longer the king stirs it, the more powerful
will the soup become. It costs nothing at all--no further materials
are necessary, only stir it round!"
"Cannot any one else do that?" asked the Mouse King.
"No;" replied the mouse. "The power is contained only in the tail of
the Mouse King."
And the water boiled and bubbled, and the Mouse King stood close
beside the kettle--there was almost danger in it--and he put forth his
tail, as the mice do in the dairy, when they skim the cream from a
pan of milk, afterwards licking their creamy tails; but his tail only
penetrated into the hot steam, and then he sprang hastily down from
the hearth.
"Of course--certainly you are my queen," he said. "We'll adjourn the
soup question till our golden wedding in fifty years' time, so that
the poor of my subjects, who will then be fed, may have something to
which they can look forward with pleasure for a long time."
[Illustration: THE MOUSE KING UNDERSTANDS HOW THE SOUP IS MADE.]
And soon the wedding was held. But many of the mice said, as they were
returning home, that it could not be really called soup on a
sausage-peg, but rather soup on a mouse's tail. They said that some of
the stories had been very cleverly told; but the whole thing might
have been different. "_I_ should have told it so--and so--and so!"
Thus said the critics, who are always wise--after the fact.
And this story went out into the wide world, everywhere; and opinions
varied concerning it, but the story remained as it was. And that's the
best in great things and in small, so also with regard to soup on a
sausage-peg--not to expect any thanks for it.
THE STONE OF THE WISE MEN.
Far away in the land of India, far away towards the East, at the end
of the world, stood the Tree of the Sun, a noble tree, such as we have
never seen, and shall probably never see. The crown stretched out
several miles around: it was really an entire wood; each of its
smallest branches formed, in its turn, a whole tree. Palms, beech
trees, pines, plane trees, and various other kinds grew here, which
are found scattered in all other parts of the world: they shot out
like small branches from the great boughs, and these large boughs with
their windings and knots formed, as it were, valleys and hills,
clothed with velvety green, and covered with flowers. Everything was
like a wide, blooming meadow, or like the most charming garden. Here
the birds from all quarters of the world assembled together--birds
from the primeval forests of America, the rose gardens of Damascus,
from the deserts of Africa, in which the elephant and the lion boast
of being the only rulers. The Polar birds came flying hither, and of
course the stork and the swallow were not absent; but the birds were
not the only living beings: the stag, the squirrel, the antelope, and
a hundred other beautiful and light-footed animals were here at home.
The crown of the tree was a widespread fragrant garden, and in the
midst of it, where the great boughs raised themselves into a green
hill, there stood a castle of crystal, with a view towards every
quarter of heaven. Each tower was reared in the form of a lily.
Through the stem one could ascend, for within it was a winding-stair;
one could step out upon the leaves as upon balconies; and up in the
calyx of the flower itself was the most beautiful, sparkling round
hall, above which no other roof rose but the blue firmament with sun
and stars.
Just as much splendour, though in another way, appeared below, in the
wide halls of the castle. Here, on the walls, the whole world around
was reflected. One saw everything that was done, so that there was no
necessity of reading any papers, and indeed papers were not obtainable
there. Everything was to be seen in living pictures, if one only
wished to see it; for too much is still too much even for the wisest
man; and this man dwelt here. His name is very difficult--you will not
be able to pronounce it; therefore it may remain unmentioned. He knew
everything that a man on earth can know, or can get to know; every
invention which had already been or which was yet to be made was
known to him; but nothing more, for everything in the world has its
limits. The wise King Solomon was only half as wise as he, and yet he
was very wise, and governed the powers of nature, and held sway over
potent spirits: yes, Death itself was obliged to give him every
morning a list of those who were to die during the day. But King
Solomon himself was obliged to die too; and this thought it was which
often in the deepest manner employed the inquirer, the mighty lord in
the castle on the Tree of the Sun. He also, however high he might
tower above men in wisdom, must die one day. He knew that, and his
children also must fade away like the leaves of the forest, and become
dust. He saw the human race fade away like the leaves on the tree; saw
new men come to fill their places; but the leaves that fell off never
sprouted forth again--they fell to dust, or were transformed into
other parts of plants. "What happens to man?" the wise man asked
himself, "when the angel of death touches him? What may death be? The
body is dissolved--and the soul. Yes, what is the soul? whither doth
it go? To eternal life, says the comforting voice of religion; but
what is the transition? where does one live, and how? Above, in
heaven, says the pious man, thither we go. Thither?" repeated the wise
man, and fixed his eyes upon the moon and the stars; "up yonder?" But
he saw, from the earthly ball, that above and below were alike
changing their position, according as one stood here or there on the
rolling globe; and even if he mounted as high as the loftiest
mountains of earth rear their heads, to the air which we below call
clear and transparent--the pure heaven--a black darkness spread abroad
like a cloth, and the sun had a coppery glow, and sent forth no rays,
and our earth lay wrapped in an orange-coloured mist. How narrow were
the limits of the corporeal eye, and how little the eye of the soul
could see!--how little did even the wisest know of that which is the
most important to us all!
In the most secret chamber of the castle lay the greatest treasure of
the earth: the Book of Truth. Leaf for leaf, the wise man read it
through: every man may read in this book, but only by fragments. To
many an eye the characters seem to tremble, so that the words cannot
be put together; on certain pages the writing often seems so pale, so
blurred, that only a blank leaf appears. The wiser a man becomes, the
more he will read; and the wisest read most. He knew how to unite the
sunlight and the moonlight with the light of reason and of hidden
powers; and through this stronger light many things came clearly
before him from the page. But in the division of the book whose title
is "Life after Death" not even one point was to be distinctly seen.
That pained him. Should he not be able here upon earth to obtain a
light by which everything should become clear to him that stood
written in the Book of Truth?
[Illustration: THE BOOK OF TRUTH.]
Like the wise King Solomon, he understood the language of the animals,
and could interpret their talk and their songs. But that made him none
the wiser. He found out the forces of plants and metals--the forces to
be used for the cure of diseases, for delaying death--but none that
could destroy death. In all created things that were 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 before him with
leaves that appeared blank. Christianity showed itself to him in the
Bible with words of promise of an eternal life; but he wanted to read
it in _his_ book; but here he saw nothing written on the subject.
He had five children--four sons, educated as well as the children of
the wisest father could be, and a daughter, fair, mild, and clever,
but blind; yet this appeared no deprivation to her--her father and
brothers were outward eyes to her, and the vividness of her feelings
saw for her.
Never had the sons gone farther from the castle than the branches of
the tree extended, nor had the sister strayed from home. They were
happy children in the land of childhood--in the beautiful fragrant
Tree of the Sun. Like all children, they were very glad when any
history was related to them; and the father told them many things that
other children would not have understood; but these were just as
clever as most grown-up people are among us. He explained to them what
they saw in the pictures of life on the castle walls--the doings of
men and the march of events in all the lands of the earth; and often
the sons expressed the wish that they could be present at all the
great deeds and take part in them; and their father then told them
that out in the world it was difficult and toilsome--that the world
was not quite what it appeared to them as they looked forth upon it
from their beauteous 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 that under the pressure they had to endure they
became hardened into a precious stone, clearer than the water of the
diamond--a jewel whose splendour had value with God, whose brightness
outshone everything, and which was the so-called "Stone of the Wise."
He told them how men could attain by investigation to the knowledge of
the existence of God, and that through men themselves one could attain
to the certainty that such a jewel as the "Stone of the Wise" existed.
This narration would have exceeded the perception of other children,
but these children understood it, and at length other children, too,
will learn to comprehend its meaning.
They questioned their father concerning the true, the beautiful, and
the good; and he explained it to them, told them many things, and told
them also that God, when He made man out of the dust of the earth,
gave five kisses to His work--fiery kisses, heart kisses--which we now
call the five senses. Through these the true, the beautiful, and the
good is seen, perceived, and understood; through these it is valued,
protected, and furthered. Five senses have been given corporeally and
mentally, inwardly and outwardly, to body and soul.
The children reflected deeply upon these things; they meditated upon
them by day and by night. Then the eldest of the brothers dreamt a
splendid dream. Strangely enough, the second brother had the same
dream, and the third, and the fourth brother likewise; all of them
dreamt exactly the same thing--namely, that each went out into the
world and found the "Stone of the Wise," which gleamed like a beaming
light on his forehead when, in the morning dawn, he rode back on his
swift horse over the velvety green meadows of his home into the castle
of his father; and the jewel threw such a heavenly light and radiance
upon the leaves of the book, that everything was illuminated that
stood written concerning the life beyond the grave. But the sister
dreamt nothing about 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, and go to and fro among men. I will
practise only the good and the true; with these I will protect the
beautiful. Much shall change for the better when I am there." Now his
thoughts were bold and great, as our thoughts generally are at home,
before we have gone forth into the world and have encountered wind and
rain, and thorns and thistles.
In him and in all his brothers the five senses were highly developed,
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. This was to do him especial
service. He said he had eyes for all time, eyes for all nations, eyes
that could look into the depths of the earth, where the treasures lie
hidden, and deep into the hearts of men, as though nothing but a pane
of glass were placed before them: he could read more than we can see
on the cheek that blushes or grows pale, in the eye that droops or
smiles. Stags and antelopes escorted him to the boundary of his home
towards the west, and there the wild swans received him and flew
north-west. He followed them. And now he had gone far out into the
world--far from the land of his father, that extended eastward to the
end of the earth.
But how he opened his eyes in astonishment! Many things were here to
be seen; and many things appear very different when a man beholds them
with his own eyes, or when he merely sees them in a picture, as the
son had done in his father's house, however faithful the picture way
be. At the outset he nearly lost his eyes in astonishment at all the
rubbish and all the masquerading stuff put forward to represent the
beautiful; but he did not lose them, and soon found full employment
for them. He wished to go thoroughly and honestly to work in the
understanding of the beautiful, the true, and the good. But how were
these represented in the world? He saw that often the garland that
belonged to the beautiful was given to the hideous; that the good was
often passed by without notice, while mediocrity was applauded when it
should have been hissed off. People looked to the dress, and not to
the wearer; asked for a name, and not for desert; and went more by
reputation than by service. It was the same thing everywhere.
"I see I must attack these things vigorously," he said; and attacked
them with vigour accordingly. But while he was looking for the truth,
came the Evil One, the father of lies. Gladly would the fiend have
plucked out the eyes of this Seer; but that would have been too
direct; the devil works in a more cunning way. He let him see and seek
the true and the good; but while the young man was contemplating them,
the evil spirit blew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and
such a proceeding would be hurtful even to the best sight. Then the
fiend blew upon the motes, so that they became beams; and the eyes
were destroyed, and the Seer stood like a blind man in the wide world,
and had no faith in it: he lost his good opinion of it and himself;
and when a man gives up the world and himself, all is over with him.
"Over!" said the wild swan, who flew across the sea towards the east.
"Over!" twittered the swallows, who likewise flew eastward, towards
the Tree of the Sun. That was no good news that they carried to the
young man's home.
"I fancy the _Seer_ must have fared badly," said the second brother;
"but the _Hearer_ may have better fortune." For this one possessed the
sense of hearing in an eminent degree: he could hear the grass grow,
so quick was he to hear.
He took a hearty leave of all at home, and rode away, provided with
good abilities and good intentions. The swallows escorted him, and he
followed the swans; and he stood far from his home in the wide world.
But he experienced the fact 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, in sorrow and in joy. The whole
world was to him like a great clockmaker's workshop, wherein all the
clocks were going "tick, tick!" and all the turret clocks striking
"ding dong!" It was unbearable. For a long time his ears held out, but
at last all the noise and screaming became too much, for one man.
There came blackguard boys of sixty years old--for years alone don't
make men--and raised a tumult at which the hearer might certainly have
laughed, but for the applause which followed, and which echoed through
every house and street, and was audible even in the country high road.
Falsehood thrust itself forward, and played the master; the bells on
the fool's cap jangled, and declared they were church bells; and the
noise became too bad for the _Hearer_, and he thrust his fingers into
his ears; but still he could hear false singing and bad sounds, gossip
and idle words, scandal and slander, groaning and moaning without and
within. Heaven help us! He thrust his fingers deeper and deeper into
his ears, but at last the drums burst. Now he could hear nothing at
all of the good, the true, and the beautiful, for his hearing was to
have been the bridge by which he crossed. He became silent and
suspicious, trusted no one at last, not even himself, and, no longer
hoping to find and bring home the costly jewel, he gave it up, and
gave himself up; and that was the worst of all. The birds who winged
their flight towards the east brought tidings of this, till the news
reached the castle in the Tree of the Sun.
"_I_ will try now!" said the third brother. "I have a sharp _nose_!"
Now that was not said in very good taste; but it was his way, and one
must take him as he was. He had a happy temper, and was a poet, a real
poet: he could sing many things that he could not say, and many things
struck him far earlier than they occurred to others. "I can smell
fire!" he said; and he attributed to the sense of smelling, which he
possessed in a high degree, a great power in the region of the
beautiful. "Every fragrant spot in the realm of the beautiful has its
frequenters," he said. "One man feels at home in the atmosphere of the
tavern, among the flaring tallow candles, where the smell of spirits
mingles with the fumes of bad tobacco. Another prefers sitting among
the overpowering scent of jessamine, or scenting himself with strong
clove oil. This man seeks out the fresh sea breeze, while that one
climbs to the highest mountain top and looks down upon the busy little
life beneath." Thus he spake. It seemed to him as if he had already
been out in the world, as if he had already associated with men and
known them. But this experience arose from within himself: it was the
poet within him, the gift of Heaven, and bestowed on him in his
cradle.
He bade farewell to his paternal roof in the Tree of the Sun, and
departed on foot through the pleasant scenery of 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 with great forests, deep lakes,
mighty mountains, and proud cities; and wherever he came it seemed as
if sunshine travelled with him across the fields, for every flower,
every bush, every tree exhaled a new fragrance, in the consciousness
that a friend and protector was in the neighbourhood, who understood
them and knew their value. The crippled rose bush reared up its twigs,
unfolded its leaves, and bore the most beautiful roses; every one
could see it, and even the black damp wood-snail noticed its beauty.
"I will give my seal to the flower," said the Snail; "I have spit at
it, and I can do no more for it."
"Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world!" said the
poet; and he sang a song concerning it, sang it in his own way; but
nobody listened. Then he gave the drummer twopence and a peacock's
feather, and set the song for the drum, and had it drummed in all the
streets of the town; and the people heard it, and said, "That's a
well-constructed song." Then the poet sang several songs of the
beautiful, the true, and the good. His songs were listened to in the
tavern, where the tallow candles smoked, in the fresh meadow, in the
forest, and on the high seas. It appeared as if this brother was to
have better fortune than the two others. But the evil spirit was angry
at this, and accordingly he set to work with incense powder and
incense smoke, which he can prepare so artfully as to confuse an
angel, and how much more therefore a poor poet! The Evil One knows how
to take that kind of people! He surrounded the poet so completely with
incense, that the man lost his head, and forgot his mission and his
home, and at last himself--and ended in smoke.
But when the little birds heard of this 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 strewed incense
for me," she said, "for it was I who gave him his idea of the most
famous of his songs, the drum song of 'The Way of the World;' it was I
who spat at the rose! I can bring witness to the fact."
But no tidings of all this penetrated to the poet's home in India, for
all the birds were silent for three days; and when the time of
mourning was over, their grief had been so deep that they had
forgotten for whom they wept. That's the usual way!
[Illustration: THE DEPARTURE OF THE THIRD BROTHER.]
"Now I shall have to go out into the world, to disappear like the
rest," said the fourth brother. He had just as good a wit as the
third, but he was no poet, though he could be witty. Those two had
filled the castle with cheerfulness, and now the last cheerfulness
was going away. Sight and hearing has always been looked upon as the
two chief senses of men, and as the two that it is most desirable to
sharpen; the other senses are looked upon as of less consequence. But
that was not the opinion of this son, as he had especially cultivated
his _taste_ in every respect, and taste is very powerful. It holds
sway over what goes into the mouth, and also over what penetrates into
the mind; and consequently this brother tasted everything that was
stored up in bottles and pots, saying that this was the rough work of
his office. Every man was to him a vessel in which something was
seething, every country an enormous kitchen, a kitchen of the mind.
"That was no delicacy," he said, and he wanted to go out and try what
was delicate. "Perhaps fortune may be more favourable to me than it
was to my brothers," he said. "I shall start on my travels. But what
conveyance shall I choose? Are air balloons invented yet?" he asked
his father, who knew of all inventions that had been made, or that
were to be made. But air balloons had not yet been invented, nor steam
ships, nor railways. "Good: then I shall choose an air balloon," he
said; "my father knows how they are made and guided. Nobody has
invented them yet, and consequently the people will believe that it is
an aërial phantom. When I have used the balloon I will burn it, and
for this purpose you must give me a few pieces of the invention that
will be made next--I mean chemical matches."
And he obtained what he wanted, and flew away. The birds accompanied
him farther than they had flown with the other brothers. They were
curious to know what would be the result of the flight, and more of
them came sweeping up: they thought he was some new bird; and he soon
had a goodly following. The air became black with birds, they came on
like a cloud--like the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.
Now he was out in the wide world.
The balloon descended over one of the greatest cities, and the
aëronaut took up his station on the highest point, on the church
steeple. The balloon rose again, which it ought not to have done:
where it went to is not known, but that was not a matter of
consequence, for it was not yet invented. Then he sat on the church
steeple. The birds no longer hovered around him, they had got tired of
him, and he was tired of them.
All the chimneys in the town were smoking merrily. "Those are altars
erected to thy honour!" said the Wind, who wished to say something
agreeable to him. He sat boldly up there, and looked down upon the
people in the street. There was one stepping along, proud of his
purse, another of the key he carried at his girdle, though he had
nothing to unlock; one proud of his moth-eaten coat, another of his
wasted body. "Vanity! I must hasten downward, dip my finger in the
pot, and taste!" he said. "But for awhile I will still sit here, for
the wind blows so pleasantly against my back. I'll sit here so long as
the wind blows. I'll enjoy a slight rest. 'It is good to sleep long in
the morning, when one has much to do,' says the lazy man. I'll stop
here so long as this wind blows, for it pleases me."
And there he sat, but he was sitting upon the weathercock of the
steeple, which kept turning round and round with him, so that he was
under the false impression that the same wind still blew; so he might
stay up there a goodly while.
But in India, in the castle in the Tree of the Sun, it was solitary
and still, since the brothers had gone away one after the other.
"It goes not well with them," said the father; "they will never bring
the gleaming jewel home; it is not made for me; they are gone, they
are dead!" And he bent down over the Book of Truth, and gazed at the
page on which he should read of life after death; but for him nothing
was to be seen or learned upon it.
The blind daughter was his consolation and joy: she attached herself
with sincere affection to him; for the sake of his peace and joy she
wished the costly jewel might be found and brought home. With kindly
longing she thought of her brothers. Where were they? Where did they
live? She wished sincerely that she might dream of them, but it was
strange, not even in dreams could she approach them. But at length,
one night, she dreamt that the voices of her brothers sounded across
to her, calling to her from the wide world, and she could not refrain,
but went far far out, and yet it seemed in her dream that she was
still in her father's house. She did not meet her brothers, but she
felt, as it were, a fire burning in her hand, but it 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 it was the
knob of her distaff that she was grasping. During the long nights she
had spun incessantly, and round the distaff was turned a thread, finer
than the finest web of the spider; human eyes were unable to
distinguish the separate threads. She had wetted them with her tears,
and the twist was strong as a cable. She rose, and her resolution was
taken: the dream must be made a reality. It was night, and her father
slept. She pressed a kiss on 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; to the
thread she must hold fast, and trust not to herself or to others. From
the Tree of the Sun she broke four leaves; these she would confide to
wind and weather, that they might fly to her brothers as a letter and
a greeting, in case she did not meet them in the wide world. How would
she fare out yonder, she, the poor blind child? But she had the
invisible thread to which she could hold fast. She possessed a gift
which all the others lacked. This was _thoroughness_; and in virtue of
this it seemed as if she could see to the tips of her fingers, and
hear down into her very heart.
And quietly she went forth into the noisy, whirling, wonderful world,
and wherever she went the sky grew bright--she felt the warm ray--the
rainbow spread itself out from the dark world through the blue air.
She heard the song of the birds, and smelt the scent of orange groves
and apple orchards so strongly that she seemed to taste it. Soft tones
and charming songs reached her ear, but also howling and roaring, and
thoughts and opinions, sounded in strange contradiction to each other.
Into the innermost depths of her heart penetrated the echoes of human
thoughts and feelings. One chorus sounded darkly--
"The life of earth is a shadow vain
A night created for sorrow!"
but then came another strain--
"The life of earth is the scent of the rose,
With its sunshine and its pleasure."
And if one strophe sounded painfully--
"Each mortal thinks of himself alone,
This truth has been manifested"--
on the other side the answer pealed forth--
"A mighty stream of warmest love,
All through the world shall guide us."
She heard, indeed, the words--
"In the little petty whirl here below,
Each thing shows mean and paltry;"
but then came also the comfort--
"Many things great and good are achieved,
That the ear of man heareth never."
and if sometimes the mocking strain sounded around her--
"Join in the common cry: with a jest
Destroy the good gifts of the Giver."
in the blind girl's heart a stronger voice repeated--
"To trust in thyself and in God is best;
His good will be done for ever."
And whenever she entered the circle of human kind, and appeared among
young or old, the knowledge of the true, the good, and the beautiful
beamed into their hearts. Whether she entered the study of the artist,
or the festive, decorated hall, or the crowded factory, with its
whirring wheels, it seemed as though a sunbeam were stealing in--as if
the sweet string sounded, the flower exhaled its perfume, and a living
dew-drop fell upon the exhausted blood.
[Illustration: THE BLIND GIRL'S MESSENGERS.]
But the evil spirit could not see this and be content. He has more
cunning than ten thousand men, and he found out a way to compass his
end. He betook himself to the marsh, collected little bubbles of the
stagnant water, and passed over them a sevenfold echo of lying words
to give them strength. Then he pounded up paid-for heroic poems and
lying epitaphs, as many as he could get, boiled them in tears that
envy had shed, put upon them rouge he had scraped from faded cheeks,
and of these he composed a maiden, with the aspect and gait of the
blessed blind girl, the angel of thoroughness; and then the Evil One's
plot was in full progress. The world knew not which of the two was the
true one; and, indeed, how should the world know?
"To trust in thyself and in God is best;
His good will be done for ever,"
sung the blind girl, in full faith. She intrusted the four green
leaves from the Tree of the Sun to the winds, as a letter and a
greeting to her brothers, and had full confidence that they would
reach their destination, and that the jewel would be found which
outshines all the glories of the world. From the forehead of humanity
it would gleam even to the castle of her father.
"Even to my father's house," she repeated. "Yes, the place of the
jewel is on earth, and I shall bring more than the promise of it with
me. I feel its glow, it swells more and more in my closed hand. Every
grain of truth, were it ever so fine, which the sharp wind carried up
and whirled towards me, I took up and treasured; I let it be
penetrated by the fragrance of the beautiful, of which there is so
much in the world, even for the blind. I took the sound of the beating
heart engaged in what is good, and added it to the first. All that I
bring is but dust, but still it is the dust of the jewel we seek, and
in plenty. I have my whole hand full of it." And she stretched forth
her hand towards her father. She was soon at home--she had travelled
thither in the flight of thoughts, never having quitted her hold of
the invisible thread from the paternal home.
The evil powers rushed with hurricane fury over the Tree of the Sun,
pressed with a wind-blast against the open doors, and into the
sanctuary where lay the Book of Truth.
"It will be blown away by the wind!" said the father, and he seized
the hand she had opened.
"No," she replied, with quiet confidence, "it cannot be blown away; I
feel the beam warming my very soul."
And the father became aware of a glancing flame, there where the
shining dust poured out of her hand over the Book of Truth, that was
to tell of the certainty of an everlasting life, and on it stood one
shining word--one only word--"BELIEVE."
And with the father and daughter were again the four brothers. When
the green leaf fell upon the bosom of each, a longing for home had
seized them, and led them back. They had arrived. The birds of
passage, and the stag, the antelope, and all the creatures of the
forest followed them, for all wished to have a part in their joy.
We have often seen, where a sunbeam bursts through a crack in the door
into the dusty room, how a whirling column of dust seems circling
round; but this was not poor and insignificant like common dust, for
even the rainbow is dead in colour compared with the beauty which
showed itself. Thus, from the leaf of the book with the beaming word
"_Believe_," arose every grain of truth, decked with the charms of
_the beautiful_ and _the good_, burning brighter than the mighty
pillar of flame that led Moses and the children of Israel through the
desert; and from the word "_Believe_" the bridge of _Hope_ arose,
spanning the distance, even to the immeasurable love in the realms of
the Infinite.
THE BUTTERFLY.
The Butterfly wished for a bride; and, as may be imagined, he wanted
to select a very pretty one from among the flowers; therefore he threw
a critical glance at all the flower-beds, and found that every flower
sat quietly and demurely on her stalk, just as a maiden ought to sit,
before she is engaged; but there were a great many of them, and the
choice threatened to become wearisome. The Butterfly did not care to
take much trouble, and consequently he flew off on a visit to the
daisies. The French call this floweret "Marguerite," and they know
that Marguerite can prophecy, when lovers pluck off its leaves, and
ask of every leaf they pluck some question concerning their lovers.
"Heartily? Painfully? Loves me much? A little? Not at all?" and so on.
Every one asks in his own language. The Butterfly came to Marguerite
too, to inquire; but he did not pluck off her leaves: he kissed each
of them, for he considered that most is to be done with kindness.
"Darling Marguerite daisy!" he said to her, "you are the wisest woman
among the flowers. Pray, pray tell me, shall I get this one or that?
Which will be my bride? When I know that, I will directly fly to her,
and propose for her."
But Marguerite did not answer him. She was angry that he had called
her a "woman," when she was yet a girl; and there is a great
difference. He asked for the second and for the third time, and when
she remained dumb, and answered him not a word, he would wait no
longer, but flew away to begin his wooing at once.
It was in the beginning of spring; the crocus and the snowdrop were
blooming around.
"They are very pretty," thought the Butterfly. "Charming little
lasses, but a little too much of the schoolgirl about them." Like all
young lads, he looked out for the elder girls.
Then he flew of to the anemones. These were a little too bitter for
his taste; the violet somewhat too sentimental; the lime blossoms were
too small, and, moreover, they had too many relations; the apple
blossoms--they looked like roses, but they bloomed to-day, to fall off
to-morrow, to fall beneath the first wind that blew; and he thought
that a marriage with them would last too short a time. The pease
blossom pleased him best of all: she was white and red, and graceful
and delicate, and belonged to the domestic maidens who look well, and
at the same time are useful in the kitchen. He was just about to make
his offer, when close by the maiden he saw a pod at whose end hung a
withered flower.
"Who is that?" he asked.
"That is my sister," replied the Pease Blossom.
"Oh, indeed; and you will get to look like her!" he said. And away he
flew, for he felt quite shocked.
The honeysuckle hung forth blooming from the hedge, but there was a
number of girls like that, with long faces and sallow complexions. No,
he did not like her.
But which one did he like?
The spring went by, and the summer drew towards its close; it was
autumn, but he was still undecided.
And now the flowers appeared in their most gorgeous robes, but in
vain; they had not the fresh fragrant air of youth. But the heart
demands fragrance, even when it is no longer young, and there is very
little of that to be found among the dahlias and dry chrysanthemums,
therefore the Butterfly turned to the mint on the ground.
You see this plant has no blossom; but indeed it is blossom all over,
full of fragrance from head to foot, with flower scent in every leaf.
"I shall take her," said the Butterfly.
And he made an offer for her.
But the mint stood silent and stiff, listening to him. At last she
said,
"Friendship, if you please; but nothing more. I am old, and you are
old, but we may very well live for one another; but as to
marrying--no--don't let us appear ridiculous at our age."
And thus it happened that the Butterfly had no wife at all. He had
been too long choosing, and that is a bad plan. So the Butterfly
became what we call an old bachelor.
It was late in autumn, with rain and cloudy weather. The wind blew
cold over the backs of the old willow trees, so that they creaked
again. It was no weather to be flying about in summer clothes, nor,
indeed, was the Butterfly in the open air. He had got under shelter by
chance, where there was fire in the stove and the heat of summer. He
could live well enough, but he said,
"It's not enough merely to live. One must have freedom, sunshine, and
a little flower."
And he flew against the window-frame, and was seen and admired, and
then stuck upon a pin and placed in the box of curiosities; they could
not do more for him.
"Now I am perched on a stalk, like the flowers," said the Butterfly.
"It certainly is not very pleasant. It must be something like being
married, for one is stuck fast."
And he consoled himself in some measure with the thought.
"That's very poor comfort," said the potted Plants in the room.
"But," thought the Butterfly, "one cannot well trust these potted
Plants. They've had too much to do with mankind."
IN THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA.
Great ships had been sent up towards the North Pole, to explore the
most distant coasts, and to try how far men might penetrate up yonder.
For more than a year they had already been pushing their way among
ice, and snow, and mist, and their crews had endured many hardships;
and now the winter was come, and the sun had entirely disappeared from
those regions. For many many weeks there would now be a long night.
All around, as far as the eye could reach, was a single field of ice;
the ships had been made fast to it, and the snow had piled itself up
in great masses, and of these huts had been built in the form of
beehives, some of them spacious as the old "Hun's Graves"--others only
containing room enough to hold two or four men. But it was not dark,
for the northern lights flamed red and blue, like a great continual
firework; and the snow glistened and gleamed, so that the night here
was one long, flaming, twilight hour. When the gleam was brightest,
the natives came in crowds, wonderful to behold in their rough, hairy,
fur dresses; and they rode in sledges formed of blocks of ice, and
brought with them furs and peltry in great bundles, so that the snow
houses were furnished with warm carpets; and, in turn, the furs also
served for coverlets when the sailors went to bed under their roofs of
snow, while outside it froze in far different fashion than here with
us in the winter. In our regions it was still the late autumn-time;
and they thought of that up yonder, and often pictured to themselves
the yellow leaves on the trees of home. The clock showed that it was
evening, and time to go to sleep; and in the huts two men already had
stretched themselves out, seeking rest. The younger of these had his
best, dearest treasure, that he had brought from home--the Bible,
which his grandmother had given him on his departure. Every night the
sacred volume rested beneath his head, and he knew from his childish
years what was written in it. Every day he read in the book, and often
the holy words came into his mind where it is written, "If I take the
wings of the morning, and flee into the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Thou art with me, and Thy right hand shall uphold me;" and,
under the influence of the eternal word and of the true faith, he
closed his eyes, and sleep came upon him, and dreams--the
manifestation of Providence to the spirit. The soul lived and was
working while the body was enjoying its rest: he felt this life, and
it seemed to him as if dear old well-known melodies were sounding; as
if the mild breezes of summer were playing around him; and over his
bed he beheld a brightness, as if something were shining in through
the crust of snow. He lifted up his head, and behold, the bright gleam
was no ripple down from the snowy roof, but came from the mighty
pinions of an angel, into whose beaming face he was gazing. As if from
the cup of a lily the angel arose from among the leaves of the Bible,
and stretching out his arm, the walls of the snow hut sunk down
around, as though they had been a light airy veil of mist; the green
meadows and hills of home, and its ruddy woods, lay spread around him
in the quiet sunshine of a beauteous autumn day; the nest of the stork
was empty, but ripe fruit still clung to the wild apple tree, although
the leaves, had fallen; the red hips gleamed, and the magpie whistled
in the green cage over the window of the peasant's cottage that was
his home; the magpie whistled the tune that had been taught him, and
the grandmother hung green food around the cage, as he, the grandson,
had been accustomed to do; and the daughter of the blacksmith, very
young and fair, stood by the well drawing water, and nodded to the
granddame, and the old woman nodded to her, and showed her a letter
that had come from a long way off. That very morning the letter had
arrived from the cold regions of the North--there where the grandson
was resting in the hand of God. And they smiled and they wept; and he,
far away among the ice and snow, under the pinions of the angel, he,
too, smiled and wept with them in spirit, for he saw them and heard
them. And from the letter they read aloud the words of Holy Writ, that
in the uttermost parts of the sea HIS right hand would be a stay and a
safety. And the sound of a beauteous hymn welled up all around; and
the angel spread his wings like a veil over the sleeping youth. The
vision had fled, and it grew dark in the snow hut; but the Bible
rested beneath his head, and faith and hope dwelt in his soul. God was
with him; and he carried home about with him in his heart, even in the
uttermost parts of the sea.
THE PHOENIX BIRD.
In the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a
rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born: his flight was
like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song
ravishing.
But when Eve plucked the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, when
she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming
sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up
forthwith. The bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in
the nest there fluttered aloft a new one--the one solitary Phoenix
bird. The fable tells us that he dwells in Arabia, and that every year
he burns himself to death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix,
the only one in the world, rises up from the red egg.
The bird flutters round us, swift as light, beauteous in colour,
charming in song. When a mother sits by her infant's cradle, he stands
on the pillow, and, with his wings, forms a glory around the infant's
head. He flies through the chamber of content, and brings sunshine
into it, and the violets on the humble table smell doubly sweet.
But the Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone. He wings his way
in the glimmer of the northern lights over the plains of Lapland, and
hops among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Beneath
the copper mountains of Fablun, and England's coal mines, he flies, in
the shape of a dusty moth, over the hymn-book that rests on the knees
of the pious miner. On a lotus leaf he floats down the sacred waters
of the Ganges, and the eye of the Hindoo maid gleams bright when she
beholds him.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him? The Bird of Paradise, the
holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of a
chattering raven, and flapped his black wings, smeared with the lees
of wine; over the sounding harp of Iceland swept the swan's red beak;
on Shakespeare's shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin's raven, and
whispered in the poet's ear "Immortality!" and at the minstrels' feast
he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him? He sang to thee the
_Marseillaise_, and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he
came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away
from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings.
The Bird of Paradise--renewed each century--born in flame, ending in
flame! Thy picture, in a golden frame, hangs in the halls of the rich;
and thou thyself often fliest around, lonely and disregarded, a
myth--"The Phoenix of Arabia."
In Paradise, when thou wert born in the first rose, beneath the Tree
of Knowledge, thou receivedst a kiss, and thy right name was given
thee--thy name, POETRY.
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