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O. T., A Danish Romance

by H. C. Andersen · English · Gutenberg #7513 · 545,412 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: O. T., A Danish Romance

Author: H. C. Andersen


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #7513]
                Most recently updated: October 31, 2016

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Nicole Apostola, and David Widger


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Produced by Nicole Apostola








O. T.

A Danish Romance

by Hans Christian Andersen

Author of the “Improvisatore” and the “Two Baronesses”




CHAPTER I

     “Quod felix faustumque sit!”

There is a happiness which no poet has yet properly sung, which no
lady-reader, let her be ever so amiable, has experienced or ever will
experience in this world. This is a condition of happiness which alone
belongs to the male sex, and even then alone to the elect. It is a
moment of life which seizes upon our feelings, our minds, our whole
being. Tears have been shed by the innocent, sleepless nights been
passed, during which the pious mother, the loving sister, have put up
prayers to God for this critical moment in the life of the son or the
brother.

Happy moment, which no woman, let her be ever so good, so beautiful,
or intellectual, can experience--that of becoming a student, or, to
describe it by a more usual term, the passing of the first examination!

The cadet who becomes an officer, the scholar who becomes an academical
burgher, the apprentice who becomes a journeyman, all know, in a greater
or less degree, this loosening of the wings, this bounding over the
limits of maturity into the lists of philosophy. We all strive after
a wider field, and rush thither like the stream which at length loses
itself in the ocean.

Then for the first time does the youthful soul rightly feel her freedom,
and, therefore, feels it doubly; the soul struggles for activity, she
comprehends her individuality; it has been proved and not found too
light; she is still in possession of the dreams of childhood, which have
not yet proved delusive. Not even the joy of love, not the enthusiasm
for art and science, so thrills through all the nerves as the words,
“Now am I a student!”

This spring-day of life, on which the ice-covering of the school is
broken, when the tree of Hope puts forth its buds and the sun of Freedom
shines, falls with us, as is well known, in the month of October, just
when Nature loses her foliage, when the evenings begin to grow darker,
and when heavy winter-clouds draw together, as though they would say
to youth,--“Your spring, the birth of the examination, is only a dream!
even now does your life become earnest!” But our happy youths think not
of these things, neither will we be joyous with the gay, and pay a visit
to their circle. In such a one our story takes its commencement.



CHAPTER II

     “At last we separate:
     To Jutland one, to Fünen others go;
     And still the quick thought comes,
     --A day so bright, so full of fun,
     Never again on us shall rise.”--CARL BAGGER.

It was in October of the year 1829. Examen artium had been passed
through. Several young students were assembled in the evening at the
abode of one of their comrades, a young Copenhagener of eighteen, whose
parents were giving him and his new friends a banquet in honor of the
examination. The mother and sister had arranged everything in the nicest
manner, the father had given excellent wine out of the cellar, and the
student himself, here the rex convivii, had provided tobacco, genuine
Oronoko-canaster. With regard to Latin, the invitation--which was, of
course, composed in Latin--informed the guests that each should bring
his own.

The company, consisting of one and twenty persons--and these were only
the most intimate friends--was already assembled. About one third of the
friends were from the provinces, the remainder out of Copenhagen.

“Old Father Homer shall stand in the middle of the table!” said one of
the liveliest guests, whilst he took down from the stove a plaster bust
and placed it upon the covered table.

“Yes, certainly, he will have drunk as much as the other poets!” said
an older one. “Give me one of thy exercise-books, Ludwig! I will cut him
out a wreath of vine-leaves, since we have no roses and since I cannot
cut out any.”

“I have no libation!” cried a third,--“Favete linguis.” And he sprinkled
a small quantity of salt, from the point of a knife, upon the bust, at
the same time raising his glass to moisten it with a few drops of wine.

“Do not use my Homer as you would an ox!” cried the host. “Homer shall
have the place of honor, between the bowl and the garland-cake! He is
especially my poet! It was he who in Greek assisted me to laudabilis
et quidem egregie. Now we will mutually drink healths! Jörgen shall be
magister bibendi, and then we will sing ‘Gaudeamus igitur,’ and ‘Integer
vitae.’”

“The Sexton with the cardinal’s hat shall be the precentor!” cried
one of the youths from the provinces, pointing toward a rosy-cheeked
companion.

“O, now I am no longer sexton!” returned the other laughing. “If thou
bringest old histories up again, thou wilt receive thy old school-name,
‘the Smoke-squirter.’”

“But that is a very nice little history!” said the other. “We called him
‘Sexton,’ from the office his father held; but that, after all, is not
particularly witty. It was better with the hat, for it did, indeed,
resemble a cardinal’s hat. I, in the mean time, got my name in a more
amusing manner.”

“He lived near the school,” pursued the other; “he could always slip
home when we had out free quarters of an hour: and then one day he
had filled his mouth with tobacco smoke, intending to blow it into
our faces; but when he entered the passage with his filled cheeks the
quarter of an hour was over, and we were again in class: the rector was
still standing in the doorway; he could not, therefore, blow the smoke
out of his mouth, and so wished to slip in as he was. ‘What have you
there in your mouth?’ asked the rector; but Philip could answer nothing,
without at the same time losing the smoke. ‘Now, cannot you speak?’
cried the rector, and gave him a box on the ear, so that the smoke burst
through nose and mouth. This looked quite exquisite; the affair caused
the rector such pleasure, that he presented the poor sinner with the
nota bene.”

“Integer vitae!” broke in the Precentor, and harmoniously followed the
other voices. After this, a young Copenhagener exhibited his dramatic
talent by mimicking most illusively the professors of the Academy, and
giving their peculiarities, yet in such a good-natured manner that it
must have amused even the offended parties themselves. Now followed the
healths--“Vivant omnes hi et hae!”

“A health to the prettiest girl!” boldly cried one of the merriest
brothers. “The prettiest girl!” repeated a pair of the younger ones, and
pushed their glasses toward each other, whilst the blood rushed to their
cheeks at this their boldness, for they had never thought of a beloved
being, which, nevertheless, belonged to their new life. The roundelay
now commenced, in which each one must give the Christian name of his
lady-love, and assuredly every second youth caught a name out of the
air; some, however, repeated a name with a certain palpitation of the
heart. The discourse became more animated; the approaching military
exercises, the handsome uniform, the reception in the students’ club,
and its pleasures, were all matters of the highest interest. But there
was the future philologicum and philosophicum--yes, that also was
discussed; there they must exhibit their knowledge of Latin.

“What do you think,” said one of the party, “if once a week we
alternately met at each other’s rooms, and held disputations? No Danish
word must be spoken. This might be an excellent scheme.”

“I agree to that!” cried several.

“Regular laws must be drawn up.”

“Yes, and we must have our best Latin scholar, the Jutlander, Otto
Thostrup, with us! He wrote his themes in hexameters.”

“He is not invited here this evening,” remarked the neighbor, the young
Baron Wilhelm of Funen, the only nobleman in the company.

“Otto Thostrup!” answered the host. “Yes, truly he’s a clever fellow,
but he seems to me so haughty. There is something about him that does
not please me at all. We are still no dunces, although he did receive
nine prae caeteris!”

“Yet it was very provoking,” cried another, “that he received the only
Non in mathematics. Otherwise he would have been called in. Now he will
only have to vex himself about his many brilliant characters.”

“Yes, and he is well versed in mathematics!” added Wilhelm “There was
something incorrect in the writing; the inspector was to blame for
that, but how I know not. Thostrup is terribly vehement, and can set
all respect at defiance; he became angry, and went out. There was only
a piece of unwritten paper presented from him, and this brought him a
cipher, which the verbal examination could not bring higher than non.
Thostrup is certainly a glorious fellow. We have made a tour together
in the steamboat from Helsingöer to Copenhagen, and in the written
examination we sat beside each other until the day when we had
mathematics, and then I sat below him. I like him very much, his pride
excepted; and of that we must break him.”

“Herr Baron,” said his neighbor, “I am of your opinion. Shall not we
drink the Thou-brotherhood?”

“To-night we will all of us drink the Thou!” said the host; “it is
nothing if comrades and good friends call each other _you_.”

“Evoe Bacchus!” they joyously shouted. The glasses were filled, one arm
was thrown round that of the neighbor, and the glasses were emptied,
whilst several commenced singing “dulce cum sodalibus!”

“Tell me what thou art called?” demanded one of the younger guests of
his new Thou-brother.

“What am I called?” replied he. “With the exception of one letter, the
same as the Baron.”

“The Baron!” cried a third; “yes, where is he?”

“There he stands talking at the door; take your glasses! now have all of
us drank the Thou-brotherhood?”

The glasses were again raised; the young Baron laughed, clinked his
glass, and shouted in the circle, “Thou, Thou!” But in his whole bearing
there lay something constrained, which, however, none of the young
men remarked, far less allowed themselves to imagine that his sudden
retreat, during the first drinking, perhaps occurred from the
sole object of avoiding it. But soon was he again one of the most
extravagant; promised each youth who would study theology a living on
his estate when he should once get it into his own hands; and proposed
that the Latin disputations should commence with him, and on the
following Friday. Otto Thostrup, however, should be of the party--if he
chose, of course being understood; for he was a capital student, and his
friend they had made a journey together and had been neighbors at the
green table.

Among those who were the earliest to make their valete amici was the
Baron. Several were not yet inclined to quit this joyous circle. The
deepest silence reigned in the streets; it was the most beautiful
moonlight. In most houses all had retired to rest--only here and there
was a light still seen, most persons slept, even those whose sense
of duty should leave banished the god of sleep: thus sat a poor
hackney-coachman, aloft upon his coach-box, before the house where he
awaited his party, and enjoyed, the reins wound about his hand, the
much-desired rest. Wilhelm (henceforth we will only call the young Baron
by his Christian name) walked alone through the street. The wine had
heated his northern blood--besides which it never flowed slowly; his
youthful spirits, his jovial mood, and the gayety occasioned by the
merry company he had just quitted did not permit him quietly to pass
by this sleeping Endymion. Suddenly it occurred to him to open the
coach-door and leap in; which having done, he let the glass fall and
called out with a loud voice, “Drive on!” The coachman started up out
of his blessed sleep and asked, quite confused, “Where to?” Without
reflecting about the matter, Wilhelm cried, “To the Ship in West
Street.” The coachman drove on; about half-way, Wilhelm again opened the
coach-door, a bold spring helped him out, and the coach rolled on.
It stopped at the public-house of the Ship. The coachman got down
and opened the door; there was no one within; he thrust his head
in thoroughly to convince himself; but no, the carriage was empty!
“Extraordinary!” said the fellow; “can I have dreamed it? But still
I heard, quite distinctly, how I was told to drive to the Ship! Lord
preserve us! now they are waiting for me!” He leaped upon the box and
drove rapidly back again.

In the mean time Wilhelm had reached his abode in Vineyard Street; he
opened a window to enjoy the beautiful night, and gazed out upon the
desolate church-yard which is shut in by shops. He had no inclination
for sleep, although everything in the street, even the watchmen not
excepted, appeared to rejoice the gift of God. Wilhelm thought upon the
merry evening party, upon his adventure with the poor hackney-coachman,
then took down his violin from the wall and began to play certain
variations.

The last remaining guests from the honorable carousal, merrier than when
Wilhelm left them, now came wandering up the street. One of them jodeled
sweetly, and no watchman showed himself as a disturbing principle. They
heard Wilhelm violin and recognized the musician.

“Play us a Française, thou up there!” cried they.

“But the watchman?” whispered one of the less courageous.

“Zounds, there he sits!” cried a third, and pointed toward a sleeping
object which leaned its head upon a large wooden chest before a closed
booth.

“He is happy!” said the first speaker. “If we had only the strong
Icelander here, he would soon hang him up by his bandelier upon one of
the iron hooks. He has done that before now; he has the strength of a
bear. He seized such a lazy fellow as this right daintily by his girdle
on one of the hooks at the weighing-booth. There hung the watchman
and whistled to the others; the first who hastened to the spot was
immediately hung up beside him, and away ran the Icelander whilst the
two blew a duet.”

“Here, take hold!” cried one of the merry brothers, quickly opening the
chest, the lid of which was fastened by a peg. “Let us put the watchman
into the chest; he sleeps indeed like a horse!” In a moment, the four
had seized the sleeper, who certainly awoke during the operation, but
he already lay in the chest. The lid flew down, and two or three of the
friends sprang upon it whilst the peg was stuck in again. The watchman
immediately seized his whistle and drew the most heart-rending tones
from it. Quickly the tormenting spirits withdrew themselves; yet not so
far but that they could still hear the whistle and observe what would
take place.

The watchmen now came up.

“The deuce! where art thou?” cried they, and then discovered the place.

“Ah, God help me!” cried the prisoner. “Let me out, let me out! I must
call!”

“Thou hast drunk more than thy thirst required, comrade!” said the
others. “If thou hast fallen into the chest, remain lying there, thou
swine!” And laughing they left him.

“O, the rascals!” sighed he, and worked in vain at opening the lid.
Through all his powerful exertions the box fell over. The young men now
stepped forth, and, as though they were highly astonished at the whole
history which he related to them, they let themselves be prevailed upon
to open the box, but only upon condition that he should keep street
free from the interference of the other watchmen whilst they danced a
Française to Wilhelm’s violin.

The poor man was delivered from his captivity, and must obligingly play
the sentinel whilst they arranged them for the dance. Wilhelm was called
upon to play, and the dance commenced; a partner, however, was wanting.
Just then a quiet citizen passed by. The gentleman who had no partner
approached the citizen with comic respect, and besought him to take part
in the amusement.

“I never dance!” said the man, laughing, and wished to pursue his way.

“Yes,” replied the cavalier, “yet you must still do me this pleasure,
or else I shall have no dance.” Saying this he took hold of him by the
waist and the dance commenced, whether the good man would or no.

“The watchman should receive a present from every one!” said they, when
the Française was at an end. “He is an excellent man who thus keeps
order in the street, so that one can enjoy a little dance.”

“These are honest people’s children!” said the watchman to himself,
whilst he with much pleasure thrust the money into his leathern purse.

All was again quiet in the street; the violin was also silent.



CHAPTER III

     “Who looks into the shadowy realm of my heart?”
                                     A. V. CHAMISSO.

In the former chapter we heard mention made of a young student, Otto
Thostrup, a clever fellow, with nine prae caeteris, as his comrades
said, but also of a proud spirit, of which he must be broken. Not at
the disputations, which have been already mentioned, will we make his
acquaintance, although there we must be filled with respect for the good
Latin scholar; not in large companies, where his handsome exterior and
his speaking, melancholy glance must make him interesting; as little in
the pit of the Opera although his few yet striking observations there
would show him to be a very intellectual young man; but we will seek
him out for the first time at the house of his friend, the young Baron
Wilhelm. It is the beginning of November: we find them both with their
pipes in their mouths; upon the table lie Tibullus and Anacreon, which
they are reading together for the approaching philologicum.

In the room stands a piano-forte, with a number of music-books; upon the
walls hang the portraits of Weyse and Beethoven, for our young Baron is
musical, nay a composer himself.

“See, here we have again this lovely, clinging mist!” said Wilhelm. “Out
of doors one can fairly taste it; at home it would be a real plague to
me, here it only Londonizes the city.”

“I like it!” said Otto. “To me it is like an old acquaintance from
Vestervovov. It is as though the mist brought me greetings from the sea
and sand-hills.”

“I should like to see the North Sea, but the devil might live there!
What town lies nearest to your grandfather’s estate?”

“Lernvig,” answered Otto. “If any one wish to see the North Sea
properly, they ought to go up as far as Thisted and Hjörring. I have
travelled there, have visited the family in Börglum-Kloster; and,
besides this, have made other small journeys. Never shall I forget one
evening; yes, it was a storm of which people in the interior of the
country can form no conception. I rode--I was then a mere boy, and a
very wild lad--with one of our men. When the storm commenced we found
ourselves among the sand-hills. Ah! that you should have seen! The sand
forms along the strand high banks, which serve as dikes against the sea;
these are overgrown with sea-grass, but, if the storm bursts a single
hole, the whole is carried away. This spectacle we chanced to witness.
It is a true Arabian sand-storm, and the North Sea bellowed so that
it might be heard at the distance of many miles. The salt foam flew
together with the sand into our faces.”

“That must have been splendid!” exclaimed Wilhelm, and his eyes
sparkled. “Jutland is certainly the most romantic part of Denmark.
Since I read Steen-Blicher’s novels I have felt a real interest for that
country. It seems to me that it must greatly resemble the Lowlands of
Scotland. And gypsies are also found there, are they not?”

“Vagabonds, we call them,” said Otto, with an involuntary motion of the
mouth. “They correspond to the name!”

“The fishermen, also, on the coast are not much better! Do they
still from the pulpit pray for wrecks? Do they still slay shipwrecked
mariners?”

“I have heard our preacher, who is an old man, relate how, in the first
years after he had obtained his office and dignity, he was obliged to
pray in the church that, if ships stranded, they might strand in his
district; but this I have never heard myself. But with regard to what
is related of murdering, why, the fishermen--sea-geese, as they are
called--are by no means a tender-hearted people; but it is not as bad
as that in our days. A peasant died in the neighborhood, of whom it was
certainly related that in bad weather he had bound a lantern under
his horse’s belly and let it wander up and down the beach, so that the
strange mariner who was sailing in those seas might imagine it some
cruising ship, and thus fancy himself still a considerable way from
land. By this means many a ship is said to have been destroyed. But
observe, these are stories out of the district of Thisted, and of an
elder age, before my power of observation had developed itself; this was
that golden age when in tumble-down fishers’ huts, after one of these
good shipwrecks, valuable shawls, but little damaged by the sea, might
be found employed as bed-hangings. Boots and shoes were smeared with the
finest pomatum. If such things now reach their hands, they know better
how to turn them into money. The Strand-commissioners are now on the
watch; now it is said to be a real age of copper.”

“Have you seen a vessel stranded?” inquired Wilhelm, with increasing
interest.

“Our estate lies only half a mile from the sea. Every year about this
time, when the mist spreads itself out as it does to-day and the storms
begin to rage, then was it most animated. In my wild spirits, when I
was a boy, and especially in the midst of our monotonous life, I truly
yearned after it. Once, upon a journey to Börglum-Kloster, I experienced
a storm. In the early morning; it was quite calm, but gray, and we
witnessed a kind of Fata Morgana. A ship, which had not yet risen above
the horizon, showed itself in the distance, but the rigging was turned
upside down; the masts were below, the hull above. This is called the
ship of death, and when it is seen people are sure of bad weather and
shipwreck. Later, about midday, it began to blow, and in an hour’s time
we had a regular tempest. The sea growled quite charmingly; we travelled
on between sand-hills--they resemble hills and dales in winter time, but
here it is not snow which melts away; here never grows a single green
blade; a black stake stands up here and there, and these are rudders
from wrecks, the histories of which are unknown. In the afternoon arose
a storm such as I had experienced when riding with the man between
the sand-hills. We could not proceed farther, and were obliged on this
account to seek shelter in one of the huts which the fishermen hail
erected among the white sand-hills. There we remained, and I saw the
stranding of a vessel: I shall never forget it! An American ship lay not
a musket-shot from land. They cut the mast; six or seven men clung fast
to it in the waters. O, how they rocked backward and forward in the
dashing spray! The mast took a direction toward the shore; at length
only three men were left clinging to the mast; it was dashed upon land,
but the returning waves again bore it away; it had crushed the arms and
legs of the clinging wretches--ground them like worms! I dreamed of this
for many nights. The waves flung the hull of the vessel up high on the
shore, and drove it into the sand, where it was afterward found. Later,
as we retraced our steps, were the stem and sternpost gone: you saw two
strong wooden walls, between which the road took its course. You even
still travel through the wreck!”

“Up in your country every poetical mind must become a Byron,” said
Wilhelm. “On my parents’ estate we have only idyls; the whole of Funen
is a garden. We mutually visit each other upon our different estates,
where we lead most merry lives, dance with the peasant-girls at the
brewing-feast, hunt in the woods, and fish in the lakes. The only
melancholy object which presents itself with us is a funeral, and the
only romantic characters we possess are a little hump-backed musician,
a wise woman, and an honest schoolmaster, who still firmly believes, as
Jeronimus did, that the earth is flat, and that, were it to turn round,
we should fall, the devil knows where!”

“I love nature in Jutland!” exclaimed Otto. “The open sea, the
brown heath, and the bushy moorland. You should see the wild moor in
Vendsyssel--that is an extent! Almost always wet mists float over its
unapproachable interior, which is known to no one. It is not yet fifty
years since it served as an abode for wolves. Often it bursts into
flames, for it is impregnated with sulphuric gas,--one can see the fire
for miles.”

“My sister Sophie ought to hear all this!” said Wilhelm. “You would make
your fortune with her! The dear girl! she has the best head at home, but
she loves effect. Hoffman and Victor Hugo are her favorites. Byron rests
every night under her pillow. If you related such things of the west
coast of Jutland, and of heaths and moors, you might persuade her to
make a journey thither. One really would not believe that we possessed
in our own country such romantic situations!”

“Is she your only sister?” inquired Otto.

“No,” returned Wilhelm, “I have two--the other is named Louise; she
is of quite an opposite character: I do not know of which one ought to
think most. Have you no brothers or sisters?” he asked of Otto.

“No!” returned the latter, with his former involuntary, half-melancholy
expression. “I am an only child. In my house it is solitary and silent.
My grandfather alone is left alive. He is an active, strong man,
but very grave. He instructed me in mathematics, which he thoroughly
understands. The preacher taught me Latin, Greek, and history: two
persons, however, occupied themselves with my religious education--the
preacher and my old Rosalie. She is a good soul. How often have I teased
her, been petulant, and almost angry with her! She thought so much of
me, she was both mother and sister to me, and instructed me in religion
as well as the preacher, although she is a Catholic. Since my father’s
childhood she has been a sort of governante in the house. You should
have seen her melancholy smile when she heard my geography lesson, and
we read of her dear Switzerland, where she was born, and of the south
of France, where she had travelled as a child. The west coast of Jutland
may also appear very barren in comparison with these countries!”

“She might have made you a Catholic! But surely nothing of this still
clings to you?”

“Rosalie was a prudent old creature; Luther himself need not have been
ashamed of her doctrine. Whatever is holy to the heart of man, remains
also holy in every religion!”

“But then, to erect altars to the Madonna!” exclaimed Wilhelm; “to pray
to a being; whom the Bible does not make a saint!--that is rather too
much. And their tricks with burning of incense and ringing of bells!
Yes, indeed, it would give me no little pleasure to cut off the heads of
the Pope and of the whole clerical body! To purchase indulgence!--Those
must, indeed, be curious people who can place thorough faith in such
things! I will never once take off my hat before the Madonna!”

“But that will I do, and in my heart bow myself before her!” answered
Otto, gravely.

“Did I not think so? she has made you a Catholic!”

“No such thing! I am as good a Protestant as you yourself: but
wherefore should we not respect the mother of Christ? With regard to the
ceremonials of Catholicism, indulgence, and all these additions of the
priesthood, I agree with you in wishing to strike off the heads of all
who, in such a manner, degrade God and the human understanding. But in
many respects we are unjust: we so easily forget the first and greatest
commandment, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself!’ We are not tolerant.
Among our festivals we have still one for the Three Kings--it is yet
celebrated by the common people; but what have these three kings done?
They knelt before the manger in which Christ lay, and on this account we
honor them. On the contrary, the mother of God has no festival-day; nay,
the multitude even smile at her name! If you will only quietly listen to
my simple argument, we shall soon agree. You will take off your hat and
bow before the Madonna. Only two things are to be considered--either
Christ was entirely human, or He was, as the Bible teaches us, a divine
being. I will now admit the latter. He is God Himself, who in some
inexplicable manner, is born to us of the Virgin Mary. She must
therefore be the purest, the most perfect feminine being, since God
found her worthy to bring into the world the Son, the only one; through
this she becomes as holy as any human being can, and low we must bow
ourselves before the pure, the exalted one. Take it for granted that
Christ was human, like ourselves, otherwise He cannot, according to my
belief, call upon us to imitate Him; neither would it be great, as God,
to meet a corporeal death, from which He could remove each pain. Were He
only a man, born of Mary, we must doubly admire Him; we must bow in the
dust before His mighty spirit, His enlightening and consoling doctrine.
But can we then forget how much the mother has must have influenced the
child, how sublime and profound the soul must have been which spoke to
His heart? We must reverence and honor her! Everywhere in the Scriptures
where she appears we see an example of care and love; with her whole
soul she adheres to her Son. Think how uneasy she became, and sought for
Him in the temple--think of her gentle reproaches! The words of the Son
always sounded harsh in my ears. ‘Those are the powerful expressions of
the East!’ said my old preacher. The Saviour was severe, severe as
He must be! Already there seemed to me severity in His words! She
was completely the mother; she was it then, even as when she wept at
Golgotha. Honor and reverence she deserves from us!”

“These she also receives!” returned Wilhelm; and striking him upon
the shoulder he added, with a smile, “you are, according to the Roman
Catholic manner, near exalting the mother above the Son! Old Rosalie has
made a proselyte; after all, you are half a Catholic!”

“That am I not!” answered Otto, “and that will I not be!”

          “See! the thunder-cloud advances!”

resounded below in the court: the sweet Neapolitan song reached the
ears of the friends. They stepped into the adjoining room and opened the
window. Three poor boys stood below in the wind and rain, and commenced
the song. The tallest was, perhaps, fourteen or fifteen years old, his
deep, rough voice seemed to have attained its strength and depth more
through rain and bad weather than through age. The dirty wet clothes
hung in rags about his body; the shoes upon the wet feet, and the hat
held together with white threads, were articles of luxury. The other two
boys had neither hat nor shoes, but their clothes were whole and clean.
The youngest appeared six or seven years old; his silvery white hair
formed a contrast with his brown face, his dark eyes and long brown
eyelashes. His voice sounded like the voice of a little girl, as fine
and soft, beside the voices of the others, as the breeze of an autumnal
evening beside that of rude November weather.

“That is a handsome boy!” exclaimed the two friends at the same time.

“And a lovely melody!” added Otto.

“Yes, but they sing falsely!” answered Wilhelm: “one sings half a tone
too low, the other half a tone too high!”

“Now, thank God that I cannot hear that!” said Otto. “It sounds sweetly,
and the little one might become a singer. Poor child!” added he gravely:
“bare feet, wet to the very skin; and then the elder one will certainly
lead him to brandy drinking! Within a month, perhaps, the voice will
be gone! Then is the nightingale dead!” He quickly threw down some
skillings, wrapped in paper.

“Come up!” cried Wilhelm, and beckoned. The eldest of the boys flew up
like an arrow; Wilhelm, however, said it was the youngest who was meant.
The others remained standing before the door; the youngest stepped in.

“Whose son art thou?” asked Wilhelm. The boy was silent, and cast down
his eyes in an embarrassed manner. “Now, don’t be bashful! Thou art of
a good family--that one can see from thy appearance! Art not thou thy
mother’s son? I will give thee stockings and--the deuce! here is a pair
of boots which are too small for me; if thou dost not get drowned in
them they shall be thy property: but now thou must sing.” And he seated
himself at the piano-forte and struck the keys. “Now, where art thou?”
 he cried, rather displeased. The little one gazed upon the ground.

“How! dost thou weep; or is it the rain which hangs in thy black
eyelashes?” said Otto, and raised his head: “we only wish to do thee a
kindness. There--thou hast another skilling from me.”

The little one still remained somewhat laconic. All that they learned
was that he was named Jonas, and that his grandmother thought so much of
him.

“Here thou hast the stockings!” said Wilhelm; “and see here! a coat with
a velvet collar, a much-to-be-prized keepsake! The boots! Thou canst
certainly stick both legs into one boot! See! that is as good as having
two pairs to change about with! Let us see!”

The boy’s eyes sparkled with joy; the boots he drew on, the stockings
went into his pocket, and the bundle he took under his arm.

“But thou must sing us a little song!” said Wilhelm, and the little one
commenced the old song out of the “Woman-hater,” “Cupid never can be
trusted!”

The lively expression in the dark eyes, the boy himself in his wet,
wretched clothes and big boots, with the bundle under his arm; nay, the
whole had something so characteristic in it, that had it been painted,
and had the painter called the picture “Cupid on his Wanderings,” every
one would have found the little god strikingly excellent, although he
were not blind.

“Something might be made of the boy and of his voice!” said Wilhelm,
when little Jonas, in a joyous mood, had left the house with the other
lads.

“The poor child!” sighed Otto. “I have fairly lost my good spirits
through all this. It seizes upon me so strangely when I see misery and
genius mated. Once there came to our estate in Jutland a man who played
the Pandean-pipes, and at the same time beat the drum and cymbals: near
him stood a little girl, and struck the triangle. I was forced to weep
over this spectacle; without understanding how it was, I felt the misery
of the poor child. I was myself yet a mere boy.”

“He looked so comic in the big boots that I became quite merry, and not
grave,” said Wilhelm. “Nevertheless what a pity it is that such gentle
blood, which at the first glance one perceives he is, that such a pretty
child should become a rude fellow, and his beautiful voice change into
a howl, like that with which the other tall Laban saluted us. Who knows
whether little Jonas might not become the first singer on the Danish
stage? Yes, if he received education of mind and voice, who knows? I
could really have, pleasure in attempting it, and help every one on in
the world, before I myself am rightly in the way!”

“If he is born to a beggar’s estate,” said Otto, “let him as beggar live
and die, and learn nothing higher. That is better, that is more to be
desired!”

Wilhelm seated himself at the piano-forte, and played some of his own
compositions. “That is difficult,” said he; “every one cannot play
that.”

“The simpler the sweeter!” replied Otto.

“You must not speak about music!” returned the friend “upon that you
know not how to pass judgment. Light Italian operas are not difficult to
write.”

In the evening the friends separated. Whilst Otto took his hat, there
was a low knock at the door. Wilhelm opened it. Without stood a poor old
woman, with pale sharp features; by the hand she led a little boy--it
was Jonas: thus then it was a visit from him and his grandmother.

The other boys had sold the boots and shoes which had been given him.
They ought to have a share, they maintained. This atrocious injustice
had induced the old grandmother to go immediately with little Jonas to
the two good gentlemen, and relate how little the poor lad had received
of flint which they had assigned to him alone.

Wilhelm spoke of the boy’s sweet voice, and thought that by might make
his fortune at the theatre; but then he ought not now to be left running
about with bare feet in the wind and rain.

“But by this means he brings a skilling home,” said the old woman.
“That’s what his father and mother look to, and the skilling they can
always employ. Nevertheless she had herself already thought of bringing
him out at the theatre,--but that was to have been in dancing, for they
got shoes and stockings to dance in, and with these they might also run
home; and that would be an advantage.”

“I will teach the boy music!” said Wilhelm; “he can come to me
sometimes.”

“And then he will, perhaps, get a little cast-off clothing, good sir,”
 said the grandmother; “a shirt, or a waistcoat, just as it happens?”

“Become a tailor, or shoemaker,” said Otto, gravely, and laid his hand
upon the boy’s head.

“He shall be a genius!” said Wilhelm.



CHAPTER IV

                         “Christmas-tide,
     When in the wood the snow shines bright.”
                              OEHLENSCHLÄGER’S Helge

We again let several weeks pass by; it was Christmas Eve, which brings
us the beautiful Christmas festival. We find the two friends taking a
walk.

Describe to an inhabitant of the south a country where the earth appears
covered with the purest Carrara marble, where the tree twigs resemble
white branches of coral sprinkled with diamonds, and above a sky as blue
as that belonging to the south, and he will say that is a fairy land.
Couldst thou suddenly remove him from his dark cypresses and olive-trees
to the north, where the fresh snow lies upon the earth, where the white
hoar-frost has powdered the trees over, and the sun shines down from the
blue heaven, then would he recognize the description and call the north
a fairy land.

This was the splendor which the friends admired. The large trees upon
the fortification-walls appeared crystallized when seen against the blue
sky. The Sound was not yet frozen over; vessels, illuminated by the red
evening sun, glided past with spread sails. The Swedish coast seemed to
have approached nearer; one might see individual houses in Landskrona.
It was lovely, and on this account there were many promenaders upon the
walls and the Langelinie.

“Sweden seems so near that one might swim over to it!” said Wilhelm.

“The distance would be too far,” answered Otto; “but I should love to
plunge among the deep blue waters yonder.”

“How refreshing it is,” said Wilhelm, “when the water plays about one’s
cheeks! Whilst I was at home, I always swam in the Great Belt. Yes, you
are certainly half a fish when you come into the water.”

“I!” repeated Otto, and was silent; but immediately added, with a kind
of embarrassment which was at other times quite foreign to him, and from
which one might infer how unpleasant confessing any imperfection was to
him, “I do not swim.”

“That must be learned in summer!” said Wilhelm.

“There is so much to learn,” answered Otto; “swimming will certainly be
the last thing.” He now suddenly turned toward the fortress, and
stood still. “Only see how melancholy and quiet!” said he, and led the
conversation again to the surrounding scenery. “The sentinel before the
prison paces so quietly up and down, the sun shines upon his bayonet!
How this reminds me of a sweet little poem of Heine’s; it is just as
though he described this fortress and this soldier, but in the warmth
of summer: one sees the picture livingly before one, as here; the weapon
glances in the sun, and the part ends so touchingly,--‘Ich wollt’, er
schösse mich todt!’ It is here so romantically beautiful! on the right
the animated promenade, and the view over the Sund; on the left, the
desolate square, where the military criminals are shot, and close upon
it the prison with its beam-fence. The sun scarcely shines through those
windows. Yet, without doubt, the prisoner can see us walking here upon
the wall.”

“And envy our golden freedom!” said Wilhelm.

“Perhaps he derides it,” answered Otto. “He is confined to his chamber
and the small courts behind the beam-lattice; we are confined to the
coast; we cannot fly forth with the ships into the mighty, glorious
world. We are also fastened with a chain, only ours is somewhat longer
than that of the prisoner. But we will not think of this; let us go down
to where the beautiful ladies are walking.”

“To see and to be seen,” cried Wilhelm. “‘Spectatum veniunt; veniunt
spectentur ut ipsae,’ as Ovid says.”

The friends quitted the wall.

“There comes my scholar, little Jonas!” cried Wilhelm. “The boy was
better dressed than at his last appearance; quickly he pulled his little
cap off and stood still: a young girl in a wretched garb held him by the
hand.

“Good day, my clever lad!” said Wilhelm, and his glance rested on the
girl: she was of a singularly elegant form; had she only carried herself
better she would have been a perfect beauty. It was Psyche herself who
stood beside Cupid. She smiled in a friendly manner; the little lad had
certainly told her who the gentlemen were; but she became crimson, and
cast down her eyes when Wilhelm looked back after her: he beckoned to
Jonas, who immediately came to him. The girl was his sister, he said,
and was called Eva. Wilhelm nodded to her, and the friends went on.

“That was a beautiful girl!” said Wilhelm, and looked back once more. “A
rosebud that one could kiss until it became a full blown rose!”

“During the experiment the rosebud might easily be broken!” answered
Otto; “at least such is the case with the real flower. But do not look
back again, that is a sin!”

“Sin?” repeated Wilhelm; “no, then it is a very innocent sin! Believe
me, it flatters the little creature that we should admire her beauty.
I can well imagine how enchanting a loving look from a rich young
gentleman may be for a weak, feminine mind. The sweet words which one
can say are as poison which enters the blood. I have still a clear
conscience. Not ONE innocent soul have I poisoned!”

“And yet you are rich and young enough to do so,” returned Otto, not
without bitterness. “Our friends precede us with a good example: here
come some of our own age; they are acquainted with the roses!”

“Good evening, thou good fellow!” was the greeting Wilhelm received from
three or four of the young men.

“Are you on Thou-terms with all these?” inquired Otto.

“Yes,” answered Wilhelm; “we became so at a carouse. There all drank the
Thou-brotherhood. I could not draw myself back. At other times I do
not willingly give my ‘thou’ to any but my nearest friends. _Thou_ has
something to my mind affectionate and holy. Many people fling it to the
first person with whom they drink a glass. At the carouse I could not
say no.”

“And wherefore not?” returned Otto; “that would never have troubled me.”

The friends now wandered on, arm-in-arm. Later in the evening we again
meet with them together, and that at the house of a noble family, whose
name and rank are to be found in the “Danish Court Calendar;” on which
account it would be wanting in delicacy to mention the same, even in a
story the events of which lie so near our hearts.

Large companies are most wearisome. In these there are two kinds of
rank. Either you are riveted to a card-table, or placed against the
wall where you must stand with your hat in your hand, or, later in the
evening, with it at your feet, nay, even must stand during supper. But
this house was one of the most intellectual. Thou who dost recognize the
house wilt also recognize that it is not to be reckoned with those,--

               “Where each day’s gossiping stale fish
                Is served up daily for thy dish.”

This evening we do not become acquainted with the family, but only with
their beautiful Christmas festival.

The company was assembled in a large apartment; the shaded lamp burned
dimly, but this was with the intention of increasing the effect when
the drawing-room doors should open and the children joyfully press in
together.

Wilhelm now stepped to the piano-forte; a few chords produced stillness
and attention. To the sounds of low music there stepped forth from
the side-doors three maidens arrayed in white; each wore a long veil
depending from the back of her head,--one blue, the other red, and the
third white. Each carried in her arms an urn, and thus they represented
fortune-tellers from the East. They brought good or ill luck, which each
related in a little verse. People were to draw a number, and according
to this would he receive his gift from the Christmas-tree. One of the
maidens brought blanks--but which of them? now it was proved whether you
were a child of fortune. All, even the children, drew their uncertain
numbers: exception was only made with the family physician and a few
elderly ladies of the family; these had a particular number stuck into
their hands--their presents had been settled beforehand.

“Who brings me good luck?” inquired Otto, as the three pretty young
girls approached him. The one with a white veil was Wilhelm’s eldest
sister, Miss Sophie, who was this winter paying a visit to the family.
She resembled her brother. The white drapery about her head increased
the expression of her countenance. She rested her gaze firmly upon Otto,
and, perhaps, because he was the friend of her brother, she raised her
finger. Did she wish to warn or to challenge him? Otto regarded it as
a challenge, thrust his hand into the urn, and drew out number 33. All
were now provided. The girls disappeared, and the folding-doors of the
drawing-room were opened.

A dazzling light streamed toward the guests. A splendid fir-tree,
covered with burning tapers, and hung over with tinsel-gold, gilt eggs
and apples, almonds and grapes, dazzled the eye. On either side of the
tree were grottoes of fir-trees and moss, hung with red and blue paper
lamps. In each grotto was an altar; upon one stood John of Bologna’s
floating Mercury; upon the other, a reduced cast in plaster of
Thorwaldsen’s Shepherd-boy. The steps were covered with presents, to
which were attached the different numbers.

“Superbe! lovely!” resounded from all sides; and the happy children
shouted for joy. People arranged themselves in a half-circle, one row
behind the other. One of the cousins of the family now stepped forth,
a young poet, who, if we mistake not, has since then appeared among the
Anonymouses in “The New Year’s Gift of Danish Poets.” He was appareled
this evening as one of the Magi, and recited a little poem which
declared that, as each one had himself drawn out of the urn of Fate,
no one could be angry, let him have procured for himself honor or
derision--Fate, and not Merit, being here the ruler. Two little boys,
with huge butterfly wings and in flowing garments, bore the presents to
the guests. A number, which had been purposely given to one of the elder
ladies, was now called out, and the boys brought forward a large, heavy,
brown earthen jug. To the same hung a direction the length of two sheets
of paper, upon which was written, “A remedy against frost.” The jug was
opened, and a very nice boa taken out and presented to the lady.

“What number have you?” inquired Otto of Wilhelm’s sister, who, freed
from her long veil, now entered the room and took her place near him.

“Number 34,” she answered. “I was to keep the number which remained over
when the others had drawn.”

“We are, then, neighbors in the chain of Fate,” returned Otto; “I have
number 33.”

“Then one of us will receive something very bad!” said Sophie. “For, as
much as I know, only every other number is good.” At this moment their
numbers were called out. The accompanying poem declared that only a
poetical, noble mind deserved this gift. It consisted of an illuminated
French print, the subject a simple but touching idea. You saw a frozen
lake, nothing but one expanse of ice as far as the horizon. The ice was
broken, and near to the opening lay a hat with a red lining, and beside
it sat a dog with grave eyes, still and expectant. Around the broken
opening in the ice were seen traces of the dog having scratched into the
hard crust of ice. “Il attend toujours” was the simple motto.

“That is glorious!” exclaimed Otto. “An affecting thought! His master
has sunk in the depth, and the faithful log yet awaits him. Had that
picture only fallen to my lot!”

“It is lovely!” said Sophie, and a melancholy glance made the young girl
still more beautiful.

Soon after Wilhelm’s turn came.

           “Open the packet, thou shalt see
            The very fairest gaze on thee!”

ran the verse. He opened the packet, and found within a small mirror.
“Yes, that was intended for a lady,” said he; “in that case it would
have spoken the truth! in my hands it makes a fool of me.

“For me nothing certainly remains but my number!” said Otto to his
neighbor, as all the gifts appeared to be distributed.

“The last is number 33,” said the cousin, and drew forth a roll of
paper, which had been hidden among the moss. It was unrolled. It was an
old pedigree of an extinct race. Quite at the bottom lay the knight with
shield and armor, and out of his breast grew the many-branched tree with
its shields and names. Probably it had been bought, with other rubbish,
at some auction, and now at Christmas, when every hole and corner was
rummaged for whatever could be converted into fun or earnest, it had
been brought out for the Christmas tree. The cousin read the following
verse:--

         “Art thou not noble?--then it in far better;
          This tree unto thy father is not debtor;
          Thyself alone is thy ancestral crown.
          From thee shall spring forth branches of renown,
          And if thou come where blood gives honor’s place,
          This tree shall prove thee first of all thy race!
          From this hour forth thy soul high rank hath won her,
          Not will forget thy knighthood and thy honor.”

“I congratulate you,” said Wilhelm, laughing. “Now you will have to pay
the nobility-tax!”

Several of the ladies who stood near him, smiling, also offered a
kind of congratulation. Sophie alone remained silent, and examined
the present of another lady--a pretty pincushion in the form of a gay
butterfly.

The first row now rose to examine more nearly how beautifully the
Christmas tree was adorned. Sophie drew one of the ladies away with her.

“Let us look at the beautiful statues,” said she; “the Shepherd-boy and
the Mercury.”

“That is not proper,” whispered the lady; “but look there at the
splendid large raisins on the tree!”

Sophie stepped before Thorwaldsen’s Shepherd-boy. The lady whispered to
a friend, “It looks so odd that she should examine the figures!”

“Ah!” replied the other, “she is a lover of the fine arts, as you well
know. Only think! at the last exhibition she went with her brother
into the great hall where all the plaster-casts stand, and looked at
them!--the Hercules, as well as the other indecent figures! they were
excellent, she said. That is being so natural; otherwise she is a nice
girl.”

“It is a pity she is a little awry.”

Sophie approached them; both ladies made room for her, and invited
her most lovingly to sit clown beside them. “Thou sweet girl!” they
flatteringly exclaimed.



CHAPTER V

     “Hark to trumpets and beaten gongs,
     Squeaking fiddles, shouts and songs.
          Hurra! hurra!
          The Doctor is here;
     And here the hills where fun belongs.”
                              J. L. HEIBERG.

We will not follow the principal characters of our story step for step,
but merely present the prominent moments of their lives to our readers,
be these great or small; we seize on them, if they in any way contribute
to make the whole picture more worthy of contemplation.

The winter was over, the birds of passage had long since returned; the
woods and fields shone in the freshest green, and, what to the friends
was equally interesting, they had happily passed through their examen
philologicum. Wilhelm, who, immediately after its termination, had
accompanied his sister home, was again returned, sang with little Jonas,
reflected upon the philosophicum, and also how he would thoroughly
enjoy the summer,--the summer which in the north is so beautiful, but
so short. It was St. John’s Day. Families had removed from Copenhagen to
their pretty country-seats on the coast, where people on horseback
and in carriages rushed past, and where the highway was crowded with
foot-passengers. The whole road presented a picture of life upon the
Paris Boulevard. The sun was burning, the dust flew up high into the
air; on which account many persons preferred the pleasanter excursion
with the steamboat along the coast, from whence could be seen the
traffic on the high-road without enduring the annoyance of dust and
heat. Boats skimmed past; brisk sailors, by the help of vigorous strokes
of the oar, strove to compete with the steam-packet, the dark smoke from
which, like some demon, partly rested upon the vessel, partly floated
away in the air.

Various young students, among whom were also Wilhelm and Otto, landed
at Charlottenlund, the most frequented place of resort near Copenhagen.
Otto was here for the first time; for the first time he should see the
park.

A summer’s afternoon in Linken’s Bad, near Dresden, bears a certain
resemblance to Charlottenlund, only that the Danish wood is larger; that
instead of the Elbe we have the Sound, which is here three miles broad,
and where often more than a hundred vessels, bearing flags of all the
European nations, glide past. A band of musicians played airs out of
“Preciosa;” the white tents glanced like snow or swans through the green
beech-trees. Here and there was a fire-place raised of turf, over which
people boiled and cooked, so that the smoke rose up among the trees.
Outside the wood, waiting in long rows, were the peasants’ vehicles,
called “coffee-mills,” completely answering ho the couricolo of the
Neapolitan and the coucou of the Parisian, equally cheap, and overladen
in the same manner with passengers, therefore forming highly picturesque
groups. This scene has been humorously treated in a picture by
Marstrand. Between fields and meadows, the road leads pleasantly toward
the park; the friends pursued the foot-path.

“Shall I brush the gentlemen?” cried five or six boys, at the same time
pressing upon the friends as they approached the entrance to the park.
Without waiting for an answer, the boys commenced at once brushing the
dust from their clothes and boots.

“These are Kirsten Piil’s pages,” said Wilhelm, laughing; “they take
care that people show themselves tolerably smart. But now we are brushed
enough!” A six-skilling-piece rejoiced these little Savoyards.

The Champs Elysées of the Parisians on a great festival day, when
the theatres are opened, the swings are flying, trumpets and drums
overpowering the softer music, and when the whole mass of people, like
one body, moves itself between the booths and tents, present a companion
piece to the spectacle which the so-called Park-hill affords. It
is Naples’ “Largo dei Castello,” with its dancing apes, shrieking
Bajazzoes, the whole deafening jubilee which has been transported to a
northern wood. Here also, in the wooden booths, large, tawdry pictures
show what delicious plays you may enjoy within. The beautiful female
horse-rider stands upon the wooden balcony and cracks with her whip,
whilst Harlequin blows the trumpet. Fastened to a perch, large, gay
parrots nod over the heads of the multitude. Here stands a miner in his
black costume, and exhibits the interior of a mine. He turns his
box, and during the music dolls ascend and descend. Another shows the
splendid fortress of Frederiksteen: “The whole cavalry and infantry who
have endured an unspeakable deal; here a man without a weapon, there a
weapon without a man; here a fellow without a bayonet, here a bayonet
without a fellow; and yet they are merry and contented, for they have
conquered the victory.” [Note: Literal translation of the real words of
a showman.] Dutch wafer-cake booths, where the handsome Dutch women,
in their national costume, wait on the customers, entice old and young.
Here a telescope, there a rare Danish ox, and so forth. High up, between
the fresh tree boughs, the swings fly. Are those two lovers floating up
there? A current of air seizes the girl’s dress and shawl, the young
man flings his arm round her waist; it is for safety: there is then less
danger. At the foot of the hill there is cooking and roasting going on;
it seems a complete gypsy-camp. Under the tree sits the old Jew--this is
precisely his fiftieth jubilee; through a whole half-century has he sung
here his comical Doctor’s song. Now that we are reading this he is dead;
that characteristic countenance is dust, those speaking eyes are closed,
his song forgotten tones. Oehlenschläger, in his “St. John’s Eve,” has
preserved his portrait for us, and it will continue to live, as Master
Jakel (Punch), our Danish Thespis, will continue to live. The play and
the puppets were transferred from father to son, and every quarter of an
hour in the day the piece is repeated. Free nature is the place for the
spectators, and after every representation the director himself goes
round with the plate.

This was the first spectacle which exhibited itself to the friends.
Not far off stood a juggler in peasant’s clothes, somewhat advanced in
years, with a common ugly countenance. His short sleeves were rolled
up, and exhibited a pair of hairy, muscular arms. The crowd, withdrawing
from Master Jakel when the plate commenced its wanderings, pushed Otto
and Wilhelm forward toward the low fence before the juggler’s table.

“Step nearer, my gracious gentlemen, my noble masters!” said the
juggler, with an accentuation which betrayed his German birth. He opened
the fence; both friends were fairly pushed in and took their places upon
the bench, where they, at all events, found themselves out of the crowd.

“Will the noble gentleman hold this goblet?” said the juggler, and
handed Otto one from his apparatus. Otto glanced at the man: he was
occupied with his art; but Otto’s cheek and forehead were colored with a
sudden crimson, which was immediately afterward supplanted by a deathly
paleness: his hand trembled, but this lasted only a moment; he gathered
all his strength of mind together and appeared the same as before.

“That was a very good trick!” said Wilhelm.

“Yes, certainly!” answered Otto; but he had seen nothing whatsoever. His
soul was strangely affected. The man exhibited several other tricks, and
then approached with the plate. Otto laid down a mark, and then rose to
depart. The juggler remarked the piece of money: a smile played about
his mouth; he glanced at Otto, and a strange malicious expression lay in
the spiteful look which accompanied his loudly spoken thanks: “Mr. Otto
Thostrup is always so gracious and good!”

“Does he know you?” asked Wilhelm.

“He has the honor!” grinned the juggler, and proceeded.

“He has exhibited his tricks in the Jutland villages, and upon my
father’s estate,” whispered Otto.

“Therefore an acquaintance of your childhood?” said Wilhelm.

“Of my childhood,” repeated Otto, and they made themselves a way through
the tumult.

They met with several young noblemen, relatives of Wilhelm, with the
cousin who had written the verses for the Christmas tree; also several
friends from the carouse, and the company increased. They intended, like
many others, to pass the night in the wood, and at midnight drink out of
Kirsten Piil’s well. “Only with the increasing darkness will it become
thoroughly merry here,” thought they: but Otto had appointed to be in
the city again toward evening. “Nothing will come out of that!” said the
poet; “if you wish to escape, we shall bind you fast to one of us.”

“Then I carry him away with me on my back,” replied Otto; “and still run
toward the city. What shall I do here at night in the wood?”

“Be merry!” answered Wilhelm. “Come, give us no follies, or I shall grow
restive.”

Hand-organs, drums, and trumpets, roared against each other; Bajazzo
growled; a couple of hoarse girls sang and twanged upon the guitar:
it was comic or affecting, just as one was disposed. The evening
approached, and now the crowd became greater, the joy more noisy.

“But where is Otto?” inquired Wilhelm. Otto had vanished in the crowd.
Search after him would help nothing, chance must bring them together
again. Had he designedly withdrawn himself? no one knew wherefore, no
one could dream what had passed within his soul. It became evening.
The highway and the foot-path before the park resembled two moving gay
ribbons.

In the park itself the crowd perceptibly diminished. It was now the
high-road which was become the Park-hill. The carriages dashed by each
other as at a race; the people shouted and sung, if not as melodiously
as the barcarole of the fisher men below Lido, still with the thorough
carnival joy of the south. The steamboat moved along the coasts. From
the gardens surrounding the pretty country-houses arose rockets into the
blue sky, the Moccoli of the north above the Carnival of the Park.

Wilhelm remained with his young friends in the wood, and there they
intended, with the stroke of twelve, to drink out of Kirsten’s well.
Men and women, girls and boys of the lower class, and jovial young men,
meet, after this manner, to enjoy St. John’s Eve. Still sounded the
music, the swings were in motion, lamps hung out, whilst the new moon
shone through the thick tree boughs. Toward midnight the noise died
away; only a blind peasant still scratched upon the three strings which
were left on his violin; some servant-girls wandered, arm-in-arm, with
their sweethearts, and sang. At twelve o’clock all assembled about
the well, and drank the clear, ice-cold water. From no great distance
resounded, through the still night, a chorus of four manly voices. It
was as if the wood gods sang in praise of the nymph of the well.

Upon the hill all was now deserted and quiet. Bajazzo and il Padrone
slept behind the thin linen partition, under a coverlid. The moon set,
but the night was clear; no clear, frosty winter night has a snore
beautiful starry heaven to exhibit. Wilhelm’s party was merry, quickly
flew the hours away; singing in chorus, the party wandered through the
wood, and down toward the strand. The day already dawned; a red streak
along the horizon announced its approach.

Nature sang to them the mythos of the creation of the world, even as she
had sung it to Moses, who wrote down this voice from God, interpreted
by Nature. Light banished the darkness, heaven and earth were parted; at
first birds showed themselves in the clear air; later rose the beasts of
the field; and, last of all, appeared man.

“The morning is fairly sultry,” said Wilhelm; “the sea resembles a
mirror: shall we not bathe?”

The proposal was accepted.

“There we have the Naiades already!” said one of the party, as a
swarm of fishermen’s wives and daughters, with naked feet, their green
petticoats tucked up, and baskets upon their backs, in which they
carried fish to Copenhagen, came along the road. The gay young fellows
cast toward the prettiest glances as warm and glowing as that cast by
the sun himself, who, at this moment, came forth and shone over the
Sound, where a splendid three-masted vessel had spread all her sails to
catch each breeze. The company reached the strand.

“There is some one already swimming out yonder,” said Wilhelm. “He
stands it bravely. That is an excellent swimmer!”

“Here lie his clothes,” remarked another.

“How!” exclaimed Wilhelm: “this is Otto Thostrup’s coat! But Otto cannot
swim; I have never been able to persuade him to bathe. Now, we will out
and make a nearer acquaintance.”

“Yes, certainly it is he,” said another; “he is now showing his skill.”

“Then he must have been all night in the wood,” exclaimed Wilhelm. “Yes,
indeed, he’s a fine bird. Does he fly us? He shall pay for this. Good
night in the water, or in any other improper place? To quit friends
without saying a word does not appertain to the customs of civilized
people. Since you, therefore, show yourself such a man of nature, we
will carry away your garments; it cannot annoy you in puris naturalibus
to seek us out in the wood.”

Otto raised his head, but was silent.

“Now, will you not come forth?” cried Wilhelm. “Only kneeling before
each of us can you receive the separate articles of your dress, so
that you may again appear as a civilized European.” And saying this he
divided the clothes among the others; each one held an article in his
hand.

“Leave such jokes!” cried Otto with singular earnestness. “Lay down the
clothes, and retire!”

“Aye, that we will, presently,” returned Wilhelm. “You are a fine
fellow! You cannot swim, you say. Now, if you should not kneel”--

“Retire!” cried Otto, “or I will swim out into the stream, and not
return again!”

“That might be original enough,” answered Wilhelm. “Swim forth, or come
and kneel here!”

“Wilhelm!” cried Otto, with an affecting sigh, and in a moment swam
forth with quick strokes.

“There he shoots away,” said one of the party. “How he cuts the waves!
He is a splendid swimmer!”

Smiling they gazed over the expanse; Otto swam even farther out.

“But where will he swim to?” exclaimed, somewhat gravely, one of the
spectators. “He will certainly lose his strength before he returns the
same distance.”

They unmoored the boat. Otto swam far out at sea; with quick strokes of
the oars they rowed after him.

“Where is he now?” cried Wilhelm shortly afterwards; “I see him no
longer.”

“Yes, there he comes up again,” said another; “but his strength is
leaving him.”

“On! on!” cried Wilhelm; “he will be drowned if we do not come to his
help. Only see--he sinks!”

Otto had lost all power; his head disappeared beneath the water. The
friends had nearly reached him; Wilhelm and several of the best swimmers
flung from themselves boots and coats, sprang into the sea, and dived
under the water. A short and noiseless moment passed. One of the
swimmers appeared above water. “He is dead!” were the first words heard.
Wilhelm and the three others now appeared with Otto; the boat was near
oversetting as they brought him into it. Deathly pale lay he there,
a beautifully formed marble statue, the picture of a young gladiator
fallen in the arena.

The friends busied themselves about him, rubbing his breast and hands,
whilst two others rowel toward the land.

“He breathes!” said Wilhelm.

Otto opened his eyes; his lips moved; his gaze became firmer; a deep
crimson spread itself over his breast and countenance; he raised himself
and Wilhelm supported him. Suddenly a deep sigh burst from his breast;
he thrust Wilhelm from him, and, like a madman, seized an article of
dress to cover himself with; then, with a convulsive trembling of the
lips, he said to Wilhelm, who held his hand, “I HATE YOU!”



CHAPTER VI

     --“Art thou Prometheus, pierced with wounds?
     The Vulture thou that tugs at his heart?”
                    J. CHR. V. ZEDLITZ’S Todtenkränze.

Not half an hour after this adventure a carriage rolled toward the
city--a large carriage, containing three seats, but, beside the
coachman, there was only one person within. This was Otto; his lips were
pale; death, it is true, had touched them. Alone he dashed forward; his
last words to Wilhelm had been his only ones.

“He has lost his wits,” said one of the friends.

“It is a fit of madness,” answered another, “such as he was seized with
at the examination, when he only sent in a scrap of white paper for
the mathematical examination, because he felt himself offended by the
inspector.”

“I could quite vex myself about my stupid joke,” said Wilhelm. “I ought
to have known him better; he is of a strange, unhappy character. Give me
your hands! We will mention to no one what has occurred; it would only
give occasion to a deal of gossip, and wound him deeply, and he is an
excellent, glorious fellow.”

They gave their hands upon it, and drove toward the city.

The same day, toward evening, we again seek Otto. We find him in his
chamber. Silent, with crossed arms, he stands before a print, a copy of
Horace Vernet’s representation of Mazeppa, who, naked and bound upon a
wild horse, rushes through the forest. Wolves thrust forth their heads
and exhibit their sharp teeth.

“My own life!” sighed Otto. “I also am bound to this careering wild
horse. And no friend, not a single one! Wilhelm, I could kill thee! I
could see you all lying in your blood! O, Almighty God!” He pressed his
hands before his face and threw himself into a seat; his eyes, however,
again directed themselves toward the picture; it exhibited a moment
similar to the condition of his own mind.

The door now opened, and Wilhelm stood before him.

“How do you find yourself, Thostrup?” he inquired. “We are still friends
as before?” and he wished to give his hand. Otto drew back his. “I have
done nothing which could so much offend you,” said Wilhelm; “the whole
was merely a joke! Give me your hand, and we will speak no more of the
affair!”

“To the man whom I hate, I never reach my hand,” replied Otto and his
lips were white like his cheeks.

“A second time to-day you speak these words to me,” said Wilhelm, and
the blood rushed to his face. “We were friends, wherefore cannot we be
so still? Have people slandered me to you? Have they told lies about me?
Only tell me faithfully, and I shall be able to defend myself.”

“You must fight with me!” said Otto; and his glance became more gloomy.
Wilhelm was silent; there reigned a momentary stillness. Otto suppressed
a deep sigh. At length Wilhelm broke silence, and said, with a grave
and agitated voice,--“I am so thoughtless, I joke so often, and regard
everything from the ridiculous side. But for all that I have both heart
and feeling. You must have known how much dearer you were to me than
most other people. You are so still, although you offend me. At this
moment your blood is in a fever; not now, but after a few days, you
yourself will best see which of us is the offended party. You demand
that I fight with you; I will if your honor requires this satisfaction:
but you must lay before me an acceptable reason. I will know wherefore
we risk our lives. Let some days pass by; weigh all with your
understanding and your heart! It will still depend upon yourself whether
we remain friends as before. Farewell!” And Wilhelm went.

Each of his words had penetrated to Otto’s heart. A moment he stood
silent and undecided, then his limbs trembled involuntarily, tears
streamed from his eyes--it was a convulsive fit of weeping; he pressed
his head back. “God, how unfortunate I am!” were his only words.

So passed some minutes; he had ceased to weep, and was calm; suddenly he
sprang up, shot the bolt in the door, drew down the blinds, lighted his
candle, and once more looked searchingly around: the key-hole was also
stopped up. He then flung his coat away from him and uncovered the upper
part of his body.



CHAPTER VII

     “The towers pass by, even before we perceive them.”
                     OEHLENSCHLÄER’S Journey to Fünen.

Early the following morning, whilst Wilhelm still slept and dreamed of
his beloved sisters, well-known footsteps sounded on the stairs, the
door opened, and Otto stepped into the sleeping-room. Wilhelm opened his
eyes. Otto was pale; a sleepless night and sorrow of heart had breathed
upon his brow and eyes.

“Thostrup!” cried Wilhelm, with joyous surprise, and stretched forth
his hand toward him, but it again sank; Otto seized it, and pressed it
firmly in his own, adding at the same time, with gravity,--“You have
humbled me! Is that sufficient satisfaction for you?”

“We are then friends!” said Wilhelm. “Friends must be very indulgent
toward each other. Yesterday you were a little strange, to-morrow I may
be so; that is the way in which one retaliates.”

Otto pressed his hand. “We will never speak again of the occurrence of
yesterday!”

“Never!” repeated Wilhelm, affected by the strange gravity of his
friend.

“You are a noble, a good creature!” said Otto, and bent over him; his
lips touched Wilhelm’s forehead.

Wilhelm seized his hand, and gazed frankly into his eye. “You are not
happy!” exclaimed he. “If I cannot assist you, I can, at least, dear
Otto, honestly share the grief of a friend!”

“Even on that very point we may never speak!” replied Otto. “Farewell!
I have determined on travelling home; we have only vacation for a few
weeks, and I have not been in Jutland since I became a student. Even a
month’s sojourn there cannot throw me back; I am well prepared for the
philosophicum.”

“And when will you set out?” asked Wilhelm.

“To-morrow, with the steamboat. It is hot and sultry here in the city:
my blood becomes heated: it will, also, soon be a year since I saw my
family.”

“Thostrup!” exclaimed Wilhelm, through whom a thought suddenly flashed,
“I should also like to see my family; they have written to me to come.
Listen: make your journey through Funen, and only remain three or four
days with us. My mother’s carriage shall convey you then to Middelfart.
Say ‘Yes,’ and we will set out this evening.”

“That cannot be done!” replied Otto; but half an hour later, as both
sat together over the tea-table, and Wilhelm repeated his wish, Otto
consented, but certainly more through a feeling of obligation than
through any pleasure of his own. Toward evening, therefore, they set out
in the beautiful summer night to travel through Zealand.

Smartly dressed families wandered pleasantly through the city gate
toward the summer theatre and Fredericksberg. The evening sun shone
upon the column of Liberty; the beautiful obelisk, around which stand
Wiedewelt’s statues, one of which still weeps,

             “In white marble clothing,
                Hand upon the breast,
                Ever grief-oppressed,
              Looking down upon the gloomy sea,”

where were closed the eyes of the artist. Was it the remembrance which
here clouded Otto’s glance, as his eye rested upon the statues as they
drove past, or did his own soul, perhaps, mirror itself in his eyes?

“Here it is gay and animated!” said Wilhelm, wishing to commence a
conversation. “Vesterbro is certainly your most brilliant suburb. It
forms a city by itself,--a little state! There upon the hill lies the
King’s Castle, and there on the left, between the willows, the poet’s
dwelling, where old Rahbek lived with his Kamma!”

“Castle and poet’s dwelling!” repeated Otto; “the time will be when they
will inspire equal interest!”

“That old place will soon be pulled down!” said Wilhelm; “in such a
beautiful situation, so near the city, a splendid villa will be raised,
and nothing more remind one of Philemon and Baucis!”

“The old trees in the park will be spared!” said Otto; “in the garden
the flowers will scent the air, and remind one of Kamma’s flowers.
Rahbek was no great poet, but he possessed a true poet’s soul, labored
faithfully in the great vineyard, and loved flowers as Kamma loved
them.”

The friends hail left Fredericksberg behind them. The white walls of the
castle glanced through the green boughs; behind Söndermark, the large,
wealthy village stretched itself out. The sun had set before they
reached the Dam-house, where the wild swans, coming from the ocean,
build in the fresh water fake. This is the last point of beauty; nothing
but lonely fields, with here and there a cairn, extend to the horizon.

The clear summer’s night attracted their gaze upward; the postilion blew
his horn, and the carriage rolled toward the town of Roeskilde, the St.
Denis of Denmark, where kings turn to dust; where Hroar’s spring still
flows, and its waters mingle with those of Issefjords.

They drove to a public-house to change horses. A young girl conducted
the friends into the public room; she lighted the way for them. Her
slender figure and her floating gait drew Wilhelm’s attention toward
her; his hand touched her shoulder, she sprang aside and fixed her
beautiful grave eyes upon him; but their expression became milder, she
smiled and colored at the same time.

“You are the sister of little Jonas!” cried Wilhelm, recognizing the
young girl he had seen with him at Christmas.

“I must also thank you,” said she, “for your kindness toward the poor
boy!” She quickly placed the lights on the table, and left the room with
a gentle glance.

“She is beautiful, very beautiful!” exclaimed Wilhelm. “That was really
quite a pleasant meeting.”

“Is it then you, Herr Baron, who honor me thus?” cried the host,
stepping in--an elderly man with a jovial countenance. “Yes, the Baron
will doubtless visit his dear relations in hunch? It is now some little
time since you were there.”

“This is our host!” said Wilhelm to Otto. “He and his wife were born
upon my parent’s estate.”

“Yes,” said the host, “in my youth I have shot many a snipe and wild
duck with the Herr Baron’s father. But Eva should spread the table; the
gentlemen will certainly take supper, and a glass of good punch the Herr
Baron will certainly not despise, if he is like his blessed father.”

The young girl spread the cloth in an adjoining room.

“She is pretty!” Wilhelm whispered to the old man.

“And just as pious and innocent as she is pretty!” returned he; “and
that is saying much, as she is a poor girl, and from Copenhagen. She is
of good service to us, and my wife says Eva shall not leave us until she
is well married.”

Wilhelm invited the host to join them at a glass. The old man became
more animated, and now confided to him, half mysteriously, what made Eva
so honorable in the eyes of his wife, and what was, indeed, really very
nice of her. “My old woman,” said he, “was in Copenhagen, in search of a
waiting-girl. Yes, there are enough to be had, and they are fine girls;
but mother has her own thoughts and opinions: she has good eyes--that
she has! Now, there came many, and among others Eva; but, good Lord! she
was very poorly clad, and she looked feeble and weak, and what service
could one get out of her! But she had a good countenance, and the poor
girl wept and besought mother to take her, for she was not comfortable
at home, and would not remain at Copenhagen. Now, mother knows how
to make use of her words: it is unfortunate that she is not at home
to-night; how pleased she would have been to see the Herr Baron! Yes,
what I would say is, she so twisted her words about, that Eva confessed
to her why she wished to leave home. You see the girl is petty; and the
young gallant gentlemen of Copenhagen had remarked her smooth face,--and
not alone the young, but the old ones also! So an old gentleman--I could
easily name him, but that has nothing to do with the affair--a very
distinguished man in the city, who has, besides, a wife and children,
had said all sorts of things to her parents; and, as eight hundred
dollars is a deal of money to poor people, one can excuse them: but
Eva wept, and said she would rather spring into the castle-ditch. They
represented all sorts of things to the poor girl; she heard of the
service out here with us. She wept, kissed my old woman’s hand, and thus
came to us; and since then we have had a deal of service from Eva, and
joy also!”

Some minutes after Eva stepped in, Otto’s eye rested with a melancholy
expression upon the beautiful form: never had he before so gazed upon a
woman. Her countenance was extraordinarily fine, her nose and forehead
nobly formed, the eyebrows dark, and in the dark-blue eyes lay something
pensive, yet happy: one might employ the Homeric expression, “smiling
through tears,” to describe this look. She announced that the carriage
was ready.

A keen observer would soon have remarked what a change the host’s
relation had worked in the two friends. Wilhelm was no longer so free
toward poor Eva. Otto, on the contrary, approached her more,--and at
their leave-taking they offered her a greater present than they would
otherwise have given.

She stood with Otto at the door, and assisted him on with his travelling
cloak.

“Preserve your heart pure!” said he, gravely; “that is more than
beauty!”

The young girl blushed, and gazed at him with astonishment; in such a
manner had no one of his age ever before spoken to her.

“The poor girl!” said Otto; “but I think she is come to good people.”

“She has a strange glance!” said Wilhelm. “Do you know that there
is really a certain affinity between you and her? It was to me quite
striking.”

“That is a compliment which I cannot accept,” returned Otto, smiling.
“Yet, perhaps, I might resemble her.”

It was not yet three o’clock when the friends reached Ringsted.

“I have never before been so far in Zealand,” said Otto.

“Shall I be your guide?” returned Wilhelm. “Ringsted has a street and an
inn, and one is very badly served there, as you will soon both see and
experience yourself. Meanwhile, one can think of Hagbarth and Signe;
not far from here, at Sigersted, he hung his mantle on the oak, and
Signelil’s abode stood in flames. Now only remain fields and meadows, a
cairn, and the old popular song. Then we rush past the friendly Soroe,
that mirrors itself with the wood in the lake, which forms itself
into so many bays; but we do not see much of it. We have here another
romantic spot, an old castle converted into a church, high up on the
hill near the lake, and close to it the dismal place of execution.
We then reach Slagelse, an animated little town; with the Antvorskov
convent, the poet Frankenau’s grave, and a Latin school, celebrated on
account of its poets. It was there Baggesen and Ingemann learned their
Latin. When I once questioned the hostess regarding the lions of the
town, she would only acknowledge two,--Bastholm’s library, and the
English fire-engine. The curtain in the theatre represents an alley
with a fountain, the jets of which are painted as if spouting out of
the prompter’s box; or is this, perhaps, the English fire-engine? I
know not. The scene-decoration for towns represents the market-place of
Slagelse itself, so that the pieces thus acquire a home-feeling. This is
the modern history of the little town; and, with regard to its older
and romantic history, learn that the holy Anders was preacher here! Yes,
indeed, that was a man! He has been also sung of by our first poets. We
end with Korsöer, where Baggesen was born and Birckner lies buried. In
the more modern history of this town, King Solomon and Jörgen the hatter
play a considerable rôle. Besides this, I know that the town is said
once to have possessed a private theatre; but this soon was done for,
and the decorations were sold; a miller bought them, and patched his
windmill sails with them. Upon one sail was a piece of a wood, upon
another a shred of a room, or a street; and so they rushed round one
after the other. Perhaps this is mere slander, for I have my information
from Slagelse; and neighboring towns never speak well of each other.”

In this manner Wilhelm gossiped on, and the friends travelled over the
way he had described. Slagelse, and the peasant village of Landsgrav,
they had already behind them, when Wilhelm ordered the coachman to
diverge from the high-road toward the right.

“Where will you take us to?” asked Otto.

“I will give you a pleasure!” returned Wilhelm. “We shall reach the
weariful Korsöer early enough: the steamboat leaves at ten, and it is
not yet seven. You shall be surprised--I know well that you are half a
Catholic; I will conduct you where you may believe yourself carried back
several centuries, and may imagine yourself in a Catholic country. That
is right pleasant, is it not?”

Otto smiled. The friends alighted from the coach and walked over a
corn-field. They found themselves upon a hill, the whole landscape
spread itself out before them--they saw the Belt, with Sprogöe and
Funen. The surrounding country was certainly flat, but the variety of
greens, the near meadow, the dark stretch of wood in the neighborhood
of Korsöer, the bay itself, and all this seen in a warm morning light,
produced effect. The friends diverged to the right; and before them,
upon a hill, stood a large wooden cross, with the figure of the
Crucified One. Above the cross was built a small roof to carry off the
rain,--such as one may yet find in Bavaria. The figure of the Redeemer
was of wood, painted with strong, tawdry colors; a withered garland of
corn-flowers still hung around his bowed head.

“It is extraordinary,” said Otto, “to find in our time, in the year
1830, such a Catholic symbol in Lutheran Denmark! And yet--yes, you will
laugh at me, but I find it lovely: it affects me, moves me to worship.”

“That tawdry, tasteless figure!” cried Wilhelm. “Only see how coarse!
the hair is covered with tar to keep off the rain! The peasants here
have their peculiar superstition. If they allow the cross to fall they
have no luck with their lands. It was upon this hill that the holy
Anders, the celebrated preacher of Slagelse, awoke. He visited the
sepulchre of Christ, but through praying there too long the ship sailed
without him, and he was forced to stay behind. Then came a man and took
him upon his horse, and they would ride to Joppa: the holy Anders fell
asleep; but when he awoke he lay here, and heard the bells ringing in
Slagelse. Upon a foal, only one night old, he rode round the extensive
city lands, whilst King Waldemar lay in his bath. He could hang his
glove upon the beams of the sun. This hill, where he awoke, was called
Rest-hill; and the cross, with the figure of the Redeemer erected
upon it, which still stands here, reminds us of the legend of the holy
Anders.”

A little peasant girl at this moment mounted the hill, but paused when
she perceived the strangers.

“Don’t be afraid, my child!” said Wilhelm. “What hast thou there? a
garland! shall it hang here upon the cross? Only come, we will help
thee.”

“It should hang over our Lord,” said the little one, holding, in an
embarrassed manner, the garland of pretty blue cornflowers in her hand.
Otto took the garland, and hung it up in place of the faded one.

“That was our morning adventure!” said Wilhelm, and soon they were
rolling in the deep sand toward Korsöer, toward the hill where the poet
watched the sun and moon sink into the sea, and wished that he had wings
that he might catch them.

Melancholy and silent lies the town on the flat coast, the old castle
turned into a farm-house--high grass grows upon the walls. In a storm,
when the wind blows against the city, the surf beats against the
outermost houses. High upon the church stands a telegraph; the black
wooden plates resemble mourning-flags hung above the sinking town. Here
is nothing for the stranger to see, nothing except a grave--that of the
thinker Birckner. The friends drove to the public-house on the
strand. No human being met them in the street except a boy, who rung a
hand-bell.

“That calls to church,” said Wilhelm. “Because there are no bells in the
tower, they have here such a wandering bell-ringer as this. Holla! there
lies the inn!”

“Baron Wilhelm!” cried a strong voice, and a man in a green jacket with
pockets in the breast, the mighty riding-boots splashed above the tops,
and with whip in hand, approached them, pulled his horse-hair cap, and
extended his hand to Wilhelm.

“The Kammerjunker from Funen!” said Wilhelm; “my mother’s neighbor, one
of the most industrious and rich noblemen in all Funen.”

“You will come one of the first days to me!” said the Kammerjunker; “you
shall try my Russian steam-bath: I have erected one upon my estate. All
who visit me, ladies and gentlemen without any exception, must try it!”

“And do the cherry-trees bear well this year?” asked Wilhelm.

“No, no,” answered the Kammerjunker, “they are good for nothing; but
the apples are good! All the old trees in the hill-garden stand in full
splendor: I’ve brought them into condition! Two years ago there was not,
on all the trees together, a bushel of fruit. But I had all the horses
which had to be bled led under the trees, and had the warm blood
sprinkled upon the roots; this happened several times, and it has been a
real inoculation for life.”

“The wind is certainly favorable,” said Otto, whom this conversation
began to weary.

“No, just the contrary!” said the Kammerjunker. “The vane upon the
little house yonder lies; it points always to Nyborg, always shows a
good wind for us when we want to leave. In Nyborg is also a vane, which
stands even as firmly as this, and prates to the folk there of good
wind. I regard both vanes as a kind of guide-post, which merely says,
There goes the way! No, if we had had a wind I should have gone with the
boat, and not with the little splashing thing, as the seamen call the
steamboat. The carriage is doubtless awaiting the young gentleman in
Nyborg?” pursued he. “I will join company with you--my brown horse
waits for me at Schalburg. You should see him! He has sinews like steel
springs, and legs like a dancing-master! He is my own brown.”

“No one knows that we are coming,” answered Wilhelm. “We shall,
therefore, take a carriage from Nyborg.”

“We will join company,” said the Kammerjunker, “and then you will pay me
a visit with the young gentleman. You shall sleep in the black chamber!
Yes, you will give me the pleasure?” said he to Otto. “If you are a
lover of the antique, my estate will afford you pleasure; you find there
moats, towers, guard-rooms, ghosts, and hobgoblins, such as belong to an
old estate. The black chamber! after all, it is not quite secure there;
is it, Herr Baron?”

“No, the deuce remain a night with you!” said Wilhelm; “one gets to bed
late, and even then it is not permitted one to close one’s eyes. You,
your sister, and the Mamsell,--yes, you are a pretty clover-leaf!
Yes, Thostrup, you cannot believe what pranks are hatched upon the
Kammerjunker’s estate! One must be prepared for it! It is said to be
haunted, but if the dead will not take that trouble the living do. The
Kammerjunker is in the plot with his women-folk. They sewed me lately
live cockchafers into my pillow, and they crawled and scrambled about
till I did not know what the deuce it could be! A live cock they had
also placed under my bed, and just in the morning, when I would go to
sleep, the creature began to crow!”

“The women-folk had done that,” said the Kammerjunker. “Did they not
the very same night fasten a door-bell to the head of my bed? I never
thought of it; fat Laender slept in the same room, and had fastened
along the wall a string to the bell. I awoke with the ringing. ‘What the
devil is that bell?’ said I, and glanced about the room, for I could not
conceive what it was. ‘Bell?’ asked Laender--‘there is no bell here!’
The ringing also ceased. I thought I must have dreamed, or that our
merry evening must have left some buzzing in my ears. Again it began to
ring. Laender looked so innocent all the time, I could not comprehend
myself; I thought it must be my imagination. I became quite
fainthearted, I denied my own hearing, and said, ‘No, I have only
dreamed!’ and commenced reckoning and counting to employ my mind; but
that did no good, and it nearly drove me mad! I sprang out of bed, and
then I found out the trick: but how Laender grinned! he was swollen and
red in the face with his mirth.”

“Do you play such jokes on your estate?” inquired Otto, addressing
himself to Wilhelm.

“No, not such refined ones!” returned the Kammerjunker; “perhaps a piece
of wood, or a silly mask, is laid in your bed. Miss Sophie gives us
other clever things for amusement--tableaux and the magic-lantern. I was
once of the party. Yes, what was it I represented? Ah, I played, Heaven
help me! King Cyrus: had a paper crown on my head, and Miss Sophie’s
cloak about me, the wrong side turned outward, for it is lined with
sable. I looked like Satan!”

The steamboat passengers were summoned on board, the company went down
to the vessel, and soon it was cutting through the waves of the Belt.



CHAPTER VIII

     “See now, Fünen signifieth _fine_,
       And much in that word lies;
     For Fünen is the garden fine,
       Where Denmark glads its eyes.”

The nakedness which the last aspect of Zealand presents occasions one
to be doubly struck by the affluent abundance and luxuriance with which
Funen steps forth. Green woods, rich corn-fields, and, wherever the eye
rests, noblemen’s seats and churches. Nyborg itself appears a lively
capital in comparison with the still melancholy Korsöer. One now
perceives people upon the great bridge of boats, on the ramparts, and
in the broad streets with their high houses; one sees soldiers, hears
music, and, what is especially animating upon a journey, one comes to
an excellent inn. The drive out through the arched gateway is an
astonishment; it is the same length and breadth as one of the gates of
Copenhagen. Villages and peasants’ houses here assume a more well-to-do
aspect than in Zealand, where one often on the way-side imagines one
sees a manure-heap heaped upon four poles, which upon nearer examination
one finds is the abode of a family. On the highroads in Funen one
perceives only clean houses; the window-frames are painted; before the
doors are little flower-gardens, and wherever flowers are grown,
as Bulwer strikingly remarks, the peasant is in a higher state of
civilization; he thinks of the beautiful. In the ditches along the
highway one sees lilac with their white and lilac flowers. Nature
herself has here adorned the country with a multitude of wild poppies,
which for splendor of color might vie with the most admired and
beautiful in a botanic garden. Especially in the neighborhood of Nyborg
do they grow in exceeding abundance.

“What a dazzling color!” exclaimed Otto, as the friends rolled past
these beautiful red flowers.

“That is a proud color!” said the Kammerjunker, who rode near them upon
his brown steed, “a proud color! but they are manured with the blood
of Andalusian horses. It was just here where the battle between these
beasts took place. You know that sit the year 1808 the Spaniards lay
in Funen; the English ships were cruising about in the Belt, and Romana
fled with his whole army on board, but they could net take their horses
with them. These were the most splendid Andalusian creatures that eyes
ever saw. The Spaniards took off their bridles, and left them here to
scamper about the fields like wild horses. The horses of Nyborg chanced
also to graze here, and as soon as the Andalusian steeds became aware of
ours they arranged themselves in a row, and fell upon the Danish horses:
that was a combat! At length they fell upon each other, and fought until
they fell bleeding to earth. Whilst still a boy I saw little skull of
one of these beasts. This is the last adventure left us from the visit
of the Spaniards to Denmark. In the village through which we shall
now pass are some outer remembrances. Remark the young lads and
lasses,--they are of a darker complexion than the inhabitants of other
Funen valleys; that is Spanish blood, it is said. It was in this village
that the story took its rise of the preacher’s servant-girl, who wept
and was so inconsolable at the departure of the Spaniards. But not on
account of her bridegroom did she weep,--not over her own condition. The
preacher consoled her, and then she said she only wept to think that
if the innocent child resembled its father it certainly would speak
Spanish, and then not a soul would understand it! Yes, such histories as
this have we in Funen!” said he laughingly to Otto.

With similar relations, and some agricultural observations, according as
they were called forth by surrounding objects, did our excellent landed
proprietor amuse our young gentlemen. They were already distant several
miles from Nyborg, when he suddenly broke off in the midst of a very
interesting discourse upon a characteristic of a true inhabitant of
Funen, which is, that whenever he passes a field of buckwheat he moves
his mouth as if chewing, and made Wilhelm observe a Viennese carriage,
which approached them by a neighboring road. To judge from the coachman
and the horses, it must be the family from the hall.

This was the case--they returned from paying a visit. Where the roads
crossed they met each other. Otto immediately recognized Miss Sophie,
and near to her sat an elderly lady, with a gentle, good-humored
countenance; this was the mother. Now there was surprise and joy. Sophie
blushed--this blush could not have reference to the brother; was it
then the Kammerjunker? No: that appeared impossible! therefore, it must
concern Otto. The mother extended her hand to him with a welcome, whilst
at the same time she invited the Kammerjunker to spend the afternoon
with them. There lay, in the manner with which she proposed this, so
much attention and consideration, that Otto felt the man was here held
in greater esteem, and was otherwise regarded than he, during their
short acquaintance, had imagined possible.

Sophie added, smiling, “You must stay!” To which the Kammerjunker
replied with an apology for his travelling-dress.

“We are not strangers!” said the mother; “it is only a family meal!
You see the usual circle. You, Mr. Thostrup,” added she, with a most
obliging manner, “I know so well from Wilhelm’s letters, that we are no
strangers. The gentlemen are acquainted with each other!”

“I accept the invitation,” said the Kammerjunker, “and I will now
show you into what a gallop I can put my steed! It is Carl Rise,
[Translator’s Note: Name of one of the heroes in Waldemar the Conqueror,
a romance by Ingemann.] as you see, young lady--you called him so
yourself!”

“Yes, ride forward,” said Sophie, smiling. “By that means you will
oblige my sister. She might otherwise be quite frightened, did she
see such a mighty caravan approach the house, did she had not properly
prepared the dinner-table.”

“As my gracious young lady commands!” said the rider, and sprang
forward.

The country became more woody; the road passed various small lakes,
almost overgrown with water-lilies and shaded by old trees; the
old-fashioned, indented gable-ends of the hall now peeped forth. They
drove through an avenue of wild chestnut-trees; the stone pavement here
threatened to smash the carriage axles. On the right lay the forge,
through the open door of which flew the sparks. A little girl, with bare
feet, opened a gate, and they now found themselves in a large open space
before the red-painted out-buildings. The ground was covered with straw,
and all the cows of the farm were collected here for milking. Here they
were obliged to drive, step by step, until by the gateway they reached
the larger courtyard, which was inclosed by the barns and the principal
building itself. This was surrounded by broad ditches, almost grown over
with reeds. Over a solid bridge, resting upon pillars of masonry, and
through a principal wing which bore the armorial bearings and initials
of the old possessor, they arrived in the innermost court, which was
shut in by three wings, the antique one already mentioned, and two
others: the fourth side was inclosed by a low trellis-work which
adjoined the garden, where the canals lost themselves in a small lake.

“That is an interesting old court!” exclaimed Otto.

“O, that is not to be compared with the Kammerjunker’s!” returned
Wilhelm: “you should first see his!”

“Yes, you must come over some of these days,” said the Kammerjunker.
“Silence, Fingal! Silence, Valdine!” cried he to the barking dogs. A
couple of turkey-cocks spread their feathers out, and gobbled with all
their might. Men and women servants stood at the door: that was their
reception!

“Thostrup will have the red room, will he not?” said Wilhelm, and the
friends ascended the stairs together.

A pale young girl, not free from freckles, but with eyes full of soul,
hastened toward them; this was Wilhelm’s youngest sister. She pressed
her brother to her breast, and took Otto’s hand with kindness. She is
not beautiful! was the first impression she made upon him. His chamber
was vaulted, and the walls painted in the style of Gobelin tapestry;
they represented the whole of Olympus. On the left was an old
fire-place, with decorations and a gilt inscription; on the right
stood an antiquated canopy-bed, with red damask hangings. The view was
confined to the moat and the interior court. But a few minutes and Otto
and Wilhelm were summoned to table. A long gallery through two wings of
the hall, on one side windows, on the other entrances to the rooms,
led to the dining-room. The whole long passage was a picture-gallery.
Portraits the size of life, representing noble knights and ladies
shining forth in red powdered periwigs, children adorned like their
elders, with tulips in their hands, and great hounds by their sides,
together with some historical pieces, decorated the walls.

“Have we no garland on the table?” asked Sophie, as she entered the
dining-room with the others.

“Only a weak attempt to imitate my sister!” said Louise, smiling.

“But there is not a single flower in the garland! What economy! And yet
it is sweet!”

“How tasteful!” exclaimed Otto, examining the garland which Louise had
laid.

All kinds of green leaves, with their innumerable shades, a few yellow
linden-leaves, and some from the copper-beech, formed, through their
varied forms and colors, a tasteful garland upon the white table-cloth.

“You receive a thistle and a withered leaf!” whispered Wilhelm, as Otto
seated himself.

“But yet the most beautiful!” answered he. “The copper beech contrasts
so sweetly with the whitish-green thistle and the yellow leaf.”

“My sister Sophie,” said Louise, “lays us each day a different
garland;--it is such a pretty decoration! If she is not here we get
none; that would have been the case to-day, but when I learned that
Wilhelm was coming, and that we,” she added, with a friendly glance,
“should have two other guests, I in great haste, made an attempt, and”--

“And wished to show how nicely it could be made without robbing your
flowers!” interrupted Sophie, laughing. “In reality, I am very cruel! I
cut all the heads of her favorites off. To-morrow, as a parody upon her
garland of to-day, will I make one of green cabbage and pea-shells!”

“Madeira or port wine?” asked the Kammerjunker, and led the conversation
from flowers to articles of food and drink.

“One feels one’s self comfortable here at the hall! Miss Louise cares
for the body, and Miss Sophie for the soul!”

“And mamma bestows a good cup of coffee,” said the mother; “you must
also praise me a little!”

“I give music after dinner!” cried Wilhelm; “and thus the whole family
will have shown their activity!”

“But no voluntaries!” said the Kammerjunker; “no voluntaries, dear
friend! No, a brisk song, so that one can hear what it is! but none
of your artificial things!” A right proper blow on the shoulders was
intended to soften his expression.



CHAPTER IX

     “She sees if the cloth is clean and white
     --If the bed has pillows and sheets;
     If the candle fits in the candlestick....

     “Modest she is, although you know
       She makes the whole of the place;
     And in she slips in the evening glow,
       To light the room with her merry face “--OEHLENSCHLÄGER

A quiet, busy house-fairy was Louise; the beautiful, fragrant flowers
were her favorites. Good-humoredly she smiled at the raillery of her
sister, quietly listened to each thoughtless jest; but if any one, in
joke, touched upon what was holy to her soul, she was aroused from her
calmness and attained a certain eloquence.

We will now become more nearly acquainted with the sisters, and on this
account pass over to one of the following days.

An abode together of a week, at a country-seat, will often bring about
a greater intimacy than if, throughout a whole winter, people had met
in large companies in cities. Otto soon felt himself at home; he was
treated as a near relative. Wilhelm related all he knew of the beautiful
Eva, and Sophie discovered that she was a romantic character. Mamma
pitied the poor child, and Louise wished she had her on the estate: an
inn was, after all, no proper place for a respectable girl. They then
spoke of the winter enjoyments in Copenhagen, of art, and the theatre.
Louise could not speak much with them upon these subjects, although
she had seen one play, “Dyveke:” the amiable nature of the actress had
spoken deeply to her heart.

Several days had passed; the sky was gray; the young people assembled
round the table; they were at no loss for a subject of conversation. All
those who have brothers or sons who study well, have remarked how much
they are especially fascinated by the lectures on natural philosophy and
astronomy; the world, as it were, expands itself before the intellectual
eye. We know that the friends, during the past summer, had participated
in these lectures, and, like the greater number, were full of
these subjects, from the contemplation of a drop of water, with its
innumerable animalculae, to the distance and magnitude of stars and
planets.

To most of us these are well-known doctrines; to the ladies, also, this
was nothing entirely new: nevertheless, it interested them; perhaps
partly owing to Otto’s beautiful eloquence. The gray, rainy weather led
the conversation to the physical explanation of the origin of our globe,
as the friends, from Orsted’s lectures, conceived it to have been.

“The Northern and Grecian myths agree also with it!” sail Otto. “We must
imagine, that in infinite space there floated an eternal, unending mist,
in which lay a power of attraction. The mist condensed itself now to
one drop--our globe was one enormous egg-shaped drop; light and warmth
operated upon this huge world egg, and hatched, not alone ONE creature,
but millions. These must die and give way to new ones, but their corpses
fell as dust to the centre: this grew; the water itself condensed, and
soon arose a point above the expanse of ocean. The warmth of the sun
developed moss and plants; fresh islands presented themselves;
for centuries did a more powerful development and improvement show
themselves, until the perfection was attained which we now perceive!”

“But the Bible does not teach us thus!” said Louise.

“Moses invented his account of the creation,” answered Otto; “we keep to
Nature, who has greater revelations than man.”

“But the Bible is to you a holy book?” asked Louise, and colored.

“A venerable book!” returned Otto. “It contains the profoundest
doctrines, the most interesting histories, but also much which belongs
not at all to a holy book.”

“How can you say such things?” exclaimed Louise.

“Do not touch upon religion in her presence,” said Sophie; “she is a
pious soul, and believes, without desiring to know wherefore.”

“Yes,” said Wilhelm, “this winter she became quite angry, and, as I
believe, for the first time angry with me, because I maintained that
Christ was a man.”

“Wilhelm!” interrupted the young girl, “do not speak of that; I feel
myself unhappy at this thought; I can and will not see the Holy brought
down to my level, and to that of every-day life. It lies in my nature
that I commit a sin if I think otherwise than I have learned and than my
heart allows me. It is profane, and if you speak longer of religion in
this strain I shall leave the room.”

At this moment the mother entered. “The festival has commenced,” said
she; “I have been forced to give my brightest silver skilling. Does Mr.
Thostrup know the old custom which is observed here in the country, when
beer is brewed for the mowing-feast?”

A piercing cry, as from a horde of savages, at this moment reached the
ears of the party.

The friends descended.

In the middle of the brew-house stood a tub, around which danced all the
female servants of the estate, from the dairymaids down to the girl
who tended the swine; their iron-bound wooden shoes dashed against the
uneven flag-stones. The greater number of the dancers were without their
jackets, but with their long chemise-sleeves and narrow bodices. Some
screamed, others laughed, the whole was blended together in a howl,
whilst they danced hand in hand around the tub in which the beer should
be brewed. The brewing-maid now flung into it the silver skilling, upon
which the girls, like wild Maenades, tore off each other’s caps, and
with bacchanalian wildness whirled round the tub. By this means
should the beer become stronger, and work more intoxicatingly at the
approaching mowing-feast.

Among the girls, one especially distinguished herself by her Strong
frame of body, and her long black hair, which, now that her cap was torn
off, hung in disorder over her red face. The dark eyebrows were grown
together. All seemed to rage most violently within her, and in truth she
assumed something wild, nay almost brutal. Both arms she raised high in
the air, and with outstretched fingers she whirled around.

“That is disgusting!” whispered Otto: “they all look like crazy people.”

Wilhelm laughed at it. The wild merriment was lost in a joyous burst of
laughter. The girl with the grown-together eyebrows let fall her arms;
but still there lay in her glance that wild expression, which the loose
hair and uncovered shoulders made still more striking. Either one of the
others had had the misfortune to scratch her lip, or else she herself
had bitten it in bacchanalian wildness until it bled: she accidentally
glanced toward the open door where stood the friends. Otto’s countenance
became clouded, as was ever the case when anything unpleasant affected
him. She seemed to guess his thoughts, and laughed aloud. Otto stepped
aside; it was as though he in anticipation felt the shadow which this
form would one day cast across his life.

When he and Wilhelm immediately afterward returned to Sophie and Louise,
he related the unpleasant impression which the girl had made upon him.

“O, that is my Meg Merrilies!” exclaimed Sophie. “Yes, spite of her
youth, do you not find that she has something of Sir Walter Scott’s
witch about her? When she grows older, she will be excellent. She has
the appearance of being thirty, whereas she is said not to be more than
twenty years old: she is a true giantess.”

“The poor thing!” said Louise; “every one judges from the exterior. All
who are around her hate her, I believe, because her eyebrows are grown
together, and that is said to be a sign that she is a nightmare:

     [Note: This superstition of the people is mentioned in
     Thieles’s Danish traditions: “When a girl at midnight
     stretches between four sticks the membrane in which the foal
     lies when it is born, and then creeps naked through it, she
     will bear her child without pains; but all the boys she
     conceives will become were-wolves, and all the girls
     nightmares. You will know them in the daytime by their
     eyebrows grown together over the nose. In the night she
     creeps in through the key-hole, and places herself upon the
     sleeper’s bosom. The same superstition is also found in
     German Grimm speaks thus about it: If you say to the
     nightmare,--

         Old hag, come to-morrow,
         And I from you will borrow,

     it retreats directly, and comes the next morning in the
     shape of a man to borrow something.”]

they are angry with her, and how could one expect, from the class to
which she belongs, that she should return scorn with kindness? She is
become savage, that she may not feel their neglect. In a few days, when
we have the mowing-feast, you yourself will see how every girl gets a
partner; but poor Sidsel may adorn herself as much as she likes, she
still stands alone. It is truly hard to be born such a being!”

“The unfortunate girl!” sighed Otto.

“O, she does not feel it!” said Wilhelm: “she cannot feel it; for that
she is too rude, too much of an animal.”



CHAPTER X

     “Were the pease not tender, and the vegetables fresh and
     sweet as sugar What was the matter with the hams, the smoked
     goose-breasts, and the herrings? What with the roasted lamb,
     and the refreshing red-sprinkled head-lettuce? Was not the
     vinegar sharp, and the nut-oil balmy? Was not the butter as
     sweet as a nut, the red radishes tender? What?”--VOSS’S
     Louise.

“Mr. Thostrup shall see the Kammerjunker’s old country-seat; to-morrow
we must go over.”

Louise could not go with them, a hundred small duties chained her to the
house. The most important of them all was ironing.

“But that the house-maid can do,” said Sophie. “Do come with us.”

“When thou seest thy linen nice and neat in thy drawers,” returned
Louise, “thou wilt certainly pardon me for remaining at home.”

“Yes, thou art a glorious girl!” said Sophie; “thou dost deserve to have
been known by Jean Paul, and made immortal in one of his books. Thou
dost deserve the good fortune of being sung of by such a poet.”

“Dost thou call it good fortune,” answered the sister, “when the whole
world directs its attention to one person?--that must be painful!
unhappy! No, it is much better not to be remarked at all. Take my
greetings with you, and ask for my Claudius back; they have had it now a
whole half year.”

“There, they have kept half my sister’s library,” said Sophie, smiling
to Otto. “You must know she has only two books: Mynster’s Sermons, and
the ‘Wandsbecker Boten.’”

The carriage rolled away through the chestnut avenue. “There upon the
hill, close by the wood, did I act the elf-maiden,” said Sophie. “I was
not yet confirmed; there were strangers staying with us at the hall,
and we wandered in the beautiful moonlight through the wood. Two of my
friends and I hastened toward the hill, took hold of each other’s hands
and danced in a ring. The day after, two persons of the congregation
told the preacher about three elfin-maidens, clad in white, who had
danced upon the hill in the moonlight. The elfin-maidens were we; but
that our backs were hollow as baking-troughs, and that the hill glanced
like silver, was their own invention.”

“And in this oak,” exclaimed Wilhelm, “when a boy, I killed the first
bird which fell from my shot. It was a crow, and was very honorably
interred.”

“Yes, beneath my sister’s weeping-willow,” said Sophie. “We buried it
in an old chapeaubras, adorned with white bows; the grave was decorated
with peony-leaves and yellow lilies. Wilhelm, who was then a big boy,
made an oration, and Louise strewed flowers.”

“You were little fools!” said the mother. “But see, who comes here?”

“O, my little Dickie, my dwarf of Kenilworth!” exclaimed Sophie, as a
little hump-backed man, with thin legs and an old face, approached. He
was dressed as a peasant, and bore upon his back a little knapsack of
red calfskin, the hairy side turned outward: in this he carried his
violin.

“Is he called Dickie?” asked Otto.

“No, that is only a joke of Sophie’s,” pursued Wilhelm; “she must always
make suitable people romantic. He is called commonly ‘Musikanti.’ The
inhabitant of Funen Italianizes most names; otherwise he is called Peter
Cripple.”

“You will hear his tones,” said Sophie. “The day after to-morrow, when
we have the mowing-feast, he will he number one. He understands
music with which you are scarcely acquainted; he will play you the
‘Shoemaker’s Dance’ as well as ‘Cherry-soup:’ such dances as these have
people here in the country.”

“We are now beyond my lands, and upon our neighbor’s,” said the old
lady. “You will see a thorough old mansion.”

“Now, I should like to know how the inhabitants will please Mr.
Thostrup,” said Sophie. “The Kammerjunker you know; he is an excellent
country gentleman. His sister, on the contrary, is a little peculiar:
she belongs to that class of people who always, even wily the best
intentions, say unpleasant things. She has for this quite a rare
talent--you will soon experience this; but she does not intend anything
so bad. She can also joke! Thank God that you will not remain there
over night, otherwise you would experience what she and the Mamsell can
invent!”

“Yes, the Mamsell is my friend!” said Wilhelm. “You will see her
work-box with all the curiosities. That little box plays a great part:
it is always taken out with her when she pays a visit--for the sake of
conversation it is brought out; all is then looked through, and every
article goes the round of the company. Yes, there are beautiful things
to be seen: a little wheelbarrow with a pincushion, a silver fish, and
the little yard-measure of silk ribbon.”

“Yes, and the amber heart!” said Sophie; “the little Napoleon of cast
iron, and the officer who is pasted fast to the bottom of the box: that
is a good friend in Odense, she lately told to me in confidence.”

“See what beautiful stone fences the Kammerjunker has made!” said the
mother. “And how beautifully the cherry-trees grow! He is an industrious
man!”

They approached the garden. It was laid out in the old French style,
with straight walks, pyramids of box, and white painted stone figures:
satyrs and goddesses peeped through the green foliage. You now caught
sight of a high tower with a spire; and soon the whole of the old
mansion presented itself to view. The water was conveyed away from the
broad moats, where the weeping willows with bowed heads and uncovered
roots stood in the warm sunshine. A number of work-people were busily
employed in clearing the moats of mud, which was wheeled in barrows on
both sides.

They soon reached the principal court-yard. The barns and the
out-buildings lay on the opposite side. A crowd of dogs rushed forth
barking toward the carriage--all possible races, from the large Danish
hound, which is known to the Parisian, down to the steward’s little
pug-dog, which had mixed with this company. Here stood the greyhound,
with his long legs, beside the turnspit. You saw all varieties, and each
had its peculiar and melodious bark. A couple of peacocks, with bright
outspread tails, raised at the same time a cry, which must have made an
impression. The whole court-yard had a striking air of cleanliness. The
grass was weeded from between the stones; all was swept and arranged
in its appointed order. Before the principal flight of steps grew four
large lime-trees; their tops, from youth bent together and then clipped
short, formed in spring and summer two large green triumphal arches. On
the right stood upon an upright beam, which was carved and formed into
a pillar, a prettily painted dove-cot; and its gay inhabitants fluttered
and cooed around. The peacock-pigeon emulated the peacock in spreading
its tail; and the cropper-pigeon elevated itself upon its long legs, and
drew itself up, as though it would welcome the strangers with the air of
a grand gentleman. The reddish-brown tiles and the bright window-panes
were the only things which had a modern air. The building itself, from
the stone window-seats to the old-fashioned tower through which you
entered, proclaimed its antiquity. In the vaulted entrance-hall stood
two immense presses: the quantity of wood which formed them, and the
artistical carving, testified to their great age. Above the door were
fastened a couple of antlers.

The Kammerjunker’s sister, Miss Jakoba, a young lady of about thirty,
neither stout nor thin, but with a strange mixture of joviality and
indolence, approached them. She appeared to rejoice very much in the
visit.

“Well, you are come over, then!” said she to Wilhelm. “I thought you had
enough to do with your examination.”

Wilhelm smiled, and assured her that after so much study people required
relaxation.

“Yes, you doubtless study in handsome boots!” said the young lady, and
in a friendly manner turned toward Sophie. “Good heavens, miss!” she
exclaimed, “how the sun has burnt your nose! That looks horrible! Don’t
you ever wear a veil? you, who otherwise look so well!”

Otto was a stranger to her. He escaped such unpleasant remarks. “They
should spend the whole day there,” insisted Miss Jakoba; but mamma spoke
of being at home by noon.

“Nothing will come of that!” said Jakoba. “I have expected you; and we
have cooked a dinner, and made preparations, and I will not have had
all this trouble in vain. There are some especial dishes for you, and of
these you shall eat.” This was all said in such a good-humored tone that
even a stranger could not have felt himself offended. The Kammerjunker
was in the fields looking after his flax; he would soon be back. Squire
Wilhelm could in the mean time conduct Mr. Thostrup about the premises:
“he would otherwise have nothing to do,” said she.

No one must remain in the sitting-room; it was so gloomy there! The
walls were still, as in by-gone days, covered with black leather, upon
which were impressed gold flowers. No, they should go to the hall--that
had been modernized since the Baroness was last there. The old
chimney-piece with carved ornaments was removed, and a pretty porcelain
stove had taken its place. The walls were covered with new paper from
Paris. You could there contemplate all the public buildings of that
city,--Notre Dame, Saint Sulpice, and the Tuileries. Long red curtains,
thrown over gilt rods, hung above the high windows. All this splendor
was admired.

“I prefer the antique sitting-room, after all,” said Sophie; “the old
chimney-piece and the leather hangings. One fairly lives again in the
days of chivalry!”

“Yes, you have always been a little foolish!” said Jakoba, but softened
her words by a smile and a pressure of the hand. “No, the hall is more
lively. Ah!” she suddenly exclaimed; “Tine has placed her work-box in
the window! That is disorder!”

“O, is that the celebrated work-box, with its many fool’s tricks?”
 inquired Wilhelm, as he laughingly took it up.

“There are neither fools nor tricks in the box,” said Jakoba. “But only
look in the mirror in the lid, and then you will perhaps see one of the
two.”

“No rude speeches, my young lady!” said Wilhelm; “I am an academical
burgher!”

The Kammerjunker now entered, attired in the same riding dress in which
we made his acquaintance. He had visited his hay and oats, had seen
after the people who were working at the fences, and had been also in
the plantation. It had been a warm forenoon.

“Now, Miss Sophie,” said he, “do you see how I am clearing out the
court? It costs me above five hundred dollars; and still they are
the peasants of the estate who clear away the mud. But I shall get a
delicate manure-heap, so fit and rich that it’s quite a pleasure. But,
Jakoba, where is the coffee?”

“Only let it come in through the door,” said Jakoba, somewhat angrily.
“You certainly ate something before you went from home. Let me attend to
the affairs of the ladies, and do thou attend to the gentlemen, so that
they may not stand and get weary.”

The Kammerjunker conducted the friends up the winding stone stairs into
the old tower.

“All solid and good!” said he. “We no longer build in this manner. The
loop-holes here, close under the roof, were walled up already in my
father’s time. But only notice this timber!”

The whole loft appeared a gigantic skeleton composed of beams, one
crossing the other. On either side of the loft was a small vaulted
chamber, with a brick fire-place. Probably these chambers had been used
as guard-rooms; a kind of warder’s walk led from these, between the
beam-palisade and the broad wall.

“Yes, here,” said the Kammerjunker, “they could have had a good lookout
toward the enemy. Look through my telescope. You have here the whole
country from Vissenberg to Munkebobanke, the Belt, and the heights
of Svendborg. Only see! The air is clear. We see both Langeland and
Zealand. Here one could, in 1807, have well observed the English fleet.”

The three climbed up the narrow ladder and came past the great clock,
the leaden weights of which, had they fallen, would have dashed through
the stone steps, and soon the gentlemen sat on the highest point. The
Kammerjunker requested the telescope, placed it and exclaimed:--

“Did I not think so? If one has not them always under one’s eyes they
begin playing pranks! Yes, I see it very well! There, now, the fellows
who are working at the fences have begun to romp with the girls! they do
nothing! Yes, they don’t believe that I am sitting here in the tower and
looking at them!”

“Then a telescope is, after all, a dangerous weapon!” exclaimed Wilhelm.
“You can look at people when they least expect it. Fortunately, our seat
lies hidden behind the wood: we are, at all events, safe.”

“Yes, that it is, my friend,” returned the other; “the outer sides of
the garden are still bare. Did I not, last autumn, see Miss Sophie quite
distinctly, when she was gathering service-berries in her little basket?
And then, what tricks did she not play? She certainly did not think that
I sat here and watched tier pretty gambols!”

They quitted the tower, and passed through the so-called Knight’s Hall,
where immense beams, laid one on the other, supported the roof. At
either end of the hall was a huge fireplace, with armorial bearings
painted above: the hall was now used as a granary; they were obliged to
step over a heap of corn before reaching the family pew in the little
chapel, which was no longer used for divine service.

“This might become a pretty little room,” said the Kammerjunker, “but we
have enough, and therefore we let this, for curiosity’s sake, remain in
its old state. The moon is worth its money!” and he pointed toward the
vaulted ceiling, where the moon was represented as a white disk, in
which the painter, with much naïveté, had introduced a man bearing a
load of coals upon his back; in faithful representation of the popular
belief regarding the black spot in the moon, which supposes this to be
a man whom the Lord has sent up there because he stole his neighbor’s
coal. “That great picture on the right, there,” pursued he, “is Mrs.
Ellen Marsviin; I purchased it at an auction. One of the peasants put
up for it; I asked him what he would do with this big piece of
furniture--he could never get it in through his door. But do you know
what a speculation he had? It was not such a bad one, after all. See!
the rain runs so beautifully off the painted canvas, he would have a
pair of breeches made out of it, to wear in rainy weather behind the
plough; they would keep the rain off! I thought, however, I ought to
prevent the portrait of the highly honorable Mrs. Ellen Marsviin being
so profaned. I bought it: now she hangs there, and looks tolerably
well pleased. The peasant got a knight instead--perhaps one of my own
ancestors, who was now cut up into breeches. See, that is what one gets
by being painted!”

“But the cupboard in the pillar there?” inquired Otto.

“There, certainly, were Bibles and Prayer-books kept. Now I have in it
what I call sweetmeats for the Chancery-counselor Thomsen: old knives of
sacrifice, coins and rings, which I have found in the horse-pond and up
yonder in the cairns: not a quarter of a yard below the turf we found
one pot upon another; round each a little inclosure of stones--a flat
stone as covering, and underneath stood the pot, with burnt giants’
bones, and a little button or the blade of a knife. The best things are
already gone away to Copenhagen, and should the Counselor come, he will,
God help me! carry away the rest. That may be, then, willingly, for I
cannot use the stuff, after all.”

After coffee, the guests wandered through the old garden: the clearing
away of the mud was more closely observed, the dairy and pig-sty
visited, the new threshing-machine inspected. But now the Russian bath
should be also essayed; “it was heated!” But the end of the affair was,
that only the Kammerjunker himself made use of it. The dinner-table
was prepared, and then he returned. “But here something is wanting!”
 exclaimed he; left the room, and returned immediately with two large
bouquets, which he stuck into an ale-glass which he placed upon the
table. “Where Miss Sophie dines, the table must be ornamented with
flowers: certainly we cannot lay garlands, as you do!” He seated himself
at the end of the table, and wished, as he himself said, to represent
the President Lars: they had had the “Wandsbecker Boten” half a year in
the house, and it would certainly please Miss Sophie if they betrayed
some acquaintance with books. This Lars and the flowers, here, meant
quite as much as in the south a serenade under the windows of the fair
one.

When, toward evening, the carriage for their return drew up before the
door, Otto still stood contemplating some old inscriptions which were
built into the tower-wall.

“That you can look at another time,” said Jakoba; “now you must be of
use a little!” And she reached him the ladies’ cloaks.

Amidst promises of a return visit and the parting yelping of the dogs
the carriage rolled away.

“I have fairly fallen in love with the old place!” said Sophie.

“The Kaminerjunker gains much upon nearer acquaintance,” said Otto.

They bad now reached the furthest extremity of the garden. A flower-rain
showered itself over them and the carriage. The Kammerjunker, Jakoba,
and the Mamsell, had taken a shorter way, and now waved an adieu to the
travellers, whilst at the same time they scattered hyacinths and stocks
over them. With a practiced hand Jakoba threw, as a mark of friendship,
a great pink straight into Otto’s face. “Farewell, farewell!” sounded
from both sides, and, accompanied by the sound of the evening-bell from
the near village, for it was sunset, the carriage rolled away.



CHAPTER XI

     “Dance and stamp
     Till the shoe-soles drop!”
                       --Danish Popular Song.

On the following day should the much-talked-of mowing-festival take
place. It was the hay-harvest which occasioned all this merriment.
[Author’s Note: It is true that serfdom is abolished, but the peasant
is still not quite free; neither can he be so. For his house and land he
must pay a tribute, and this consists in labor. His own work must give
way to that of his lord. His wagon, which he has had prepared to bring
home his own harvest, must, if such be commanded, go to the nobleman’s
land, and there render service. This is, therefore, a kind of tax which
he pays, and for the faithful payment of which he is rewarded by a
harvest and mowing-feast; at the latter he receives a certain quantity
of brandy, and as much ale as he can drink. The dance generally takes
place in the middle of the court-yard, and the dancers themselves must
pay their musicians.]

During three afternoons in succession, in the inner court and under free
heaven, should a ball be held. Along the walls, rough planks, laid upon
logs of wood, formed a row of benches. At both ends of the court lay
two barrels of the newly brewed ale, which had received more malt than
usual, and which, besides, through the silver skilling, and the magic
dance of the maidens round the tub, had acquired extraordinary strength.
A large wooden tankard, containing several measures of brandy, stood
upon a table; the man who watched the bleaching-ground was placed as
a kind of butler to preside at this sideboard. A bread-woman, with new
white bread from Nyborg upon her barrow, wheeled into the court, and
there established her stall for every one; for it was only liquors the
guests received gratis.

The guests now entered the court by pairs; the men, part in jackets,
part in long coats which hung down to their ankles. Out of the
waistcoat-pocket protruded a little nosegay of sweet-williams and musk.
The girls carried their “posies,” as they called them, in their neatly
folded pocket-handkerchiefs. Two musicians--one quite a young blade,
in a laced coat with a stiff cravat, mid the other the well-known Peter
Cripple, “Musikanti” as he was called--led the procession. They both
played one and the same piece, but each according to his own manner. It
was both good and old.

They now began to draw lots, who should dance before the door of the
family and who before that of the steward; after which the two parties
drew lots for the musicians. The girls seated themselves in a row upon
the bench, from whence they were chosen. The gallantry accorded with the
ball-room,--the hard stone pavement. Not even had the grass been pulled
up, but that would be all right after dancing there the first day. “Nay,
why art thou sitting there?” spoken with a kind of morose friendliness,
was the invitation to dance; and this served for seven dances. “Only
don’t be melancholy!” resounded from the company, and now the greater
portion moved phlegmatically along, as if in sleep or in a forced dance:
the girl with her eyes staring at her own feet, her partner with his
head bent toward one side, and his eyes in a direct line with the girl’s
head-dress. A few of the most active exhibited, it is true, a kind of
animation, by stamping so lustily upon the stone pavement that the dust
whirled up around them. That was a joy! a joy which had occupied them
many weeks, but as yet the joy had not reached its height; “but that
will soon come!” said Wilhelm, who, with his sister and Otto, had taken
his place at an open window.

The old people meanwhile kept to the ale-barrels, and the brandy. The
latter was offered to the girls, and they were obliged, at least, to
sip. Wilhelm soon discovered the prettiest, and threw them roses. The
girls immediately sprang to the spot to collect the flowers: but the
cavaliers also wished to have them, and they were the stronger;
they, therefore, boldly pushed the ladies aside, so that some seated
themselves on the stone pavement and got no roses: that was a merry bit
of fun! “Thou art a foolish thing! It fell upon thy shoulder and thou
couldst not catch it!” said the first lover to his lady, and stuck the
rose into his waistcoat-pocket.

All got partners--all the girls; even the children, they leaped about to
their own singing out upon the bridge. Only ONE stood forlorn,--Sidsel,
with the grown-together eyebrows; she smiled, laughed aloud; no one
would become her partner. Peter Cripple handed his violin to one of the
young men and asked him to play, for he himself wished to stretch his
legs a little. The girls drew back and talked with each other; but Peter
Cripple stepped quietly forward toward Sidsel, flung his arms around
her, and they danced a whirling dance. Sophie laughed aloud at it, but
Sidsel directed her extraordinary glance maliciously and piercingly
toward her. Otto saw it, and the girl was doubly revolting and frightful
in his eyes. With the increasing darkness the assembly became more
animated; the two parties of dancers were resolved into one. At length,
when it was grown quite dark, the ale barrels become empty, the tankard
again filled and once more emptied, the company withdrew in pairs,
singing. Now commenced the first joy, the powerful operation of the ale.
They now wandered through the wood, accompanying each other home, as
they termed it; but this was a wandering until the bright morning.

Otto and Wilhelm were gone out into the avenue, and the peasants shouted
to them a grateful “Good night!” for the merry afternoon.

“Now works the witchcraft!” said Wilhelm; “the magical power of the ale!
Now begins the bacchand! Give your hand to the prettiest girl, and she
will immediately give you her heart!”

“Pity,” answered Otto, “that the Maenades of the north possess only that
which is brutal in common with those of the south!”

“See, there goes the smith’s pretty daughter, to whom I threw the best
rose!” cried Wilhelm. “She has got two lovers, one under either arm!”

“Yes, there she goes!” simpered a female voice close to them. It was
Sidsel, who sat upon the steps of a stile almost concealed in the
darkness, which the trees and the hedge increased still more.

“Has Sidsel no lover?” asked Wilhelm.

“Hi, hi, hi,” simpered she; “the Herr Baron and the other gentleman
seek, doubtless, for a little bride. Am I beautiful enough? At night all
cats are gray!”

“Come!” whispered Otto, and drew Wilhelm away from her. “She sits like
some bird of ill omen there in the hedge.”

“What a difference!” exclaimed Wilhelm, as he followed; “yes, what a
difference between this monster, nay, between the other girls and Eva!
She was, doubtless, born in the same poverty, in similar circumstances,
and yet they are like day and night. What a soul has been given to Eva!
what inborn nobility! It must be, really, more than a mere freak of
Nature!”

“Only do not let Nature play her freaks with you!” said Otto, smiling,
and raised his hand. “You speak often of Eva.”

“Here it was association of ideas,” answered Wilhelm. “The contrast
awoke remembrance.”

Otto entered his chamber--he opened the window; it was a moonlight
night. From the near wood resounded laughter and song. They came from
the young men and girls, who, on their wandering, gave themselves up
to merriment. Otto stood silent and full of thought in the open window.
Perhaps it was the moon which lent her paleness to his countenance.
On what did he reflect? Upon his departure, perhaps? Only one more day
would he remain here, where he felt himself so much at home; but then
the journey was toward his own house, to his grandfather, to Rosalie,
and the old preacher, who all thought so much of him. Otto stood
listening and silent. The wind bore the song more distinctly over from
the wood.

“That is their joy, their happiness!” said he. “It might have been my
joy also, my happiness!” lay in the sigh which he heaved. His lips did
not move, his thoughts alone spoke their silent language. “I might have
stood on a level with these; my soul might have been chained to the
dust, and yet it would have been the same which I now possess, with
which I long to compass all worlds! the same, endowed with this
sentiment of pride, which drives me on to active exertion. My fate
wavered whether I should become one such as these or whether I should
rise into that circle which the world calls the higher. The mist-form
did not sink down into the mire, but rose above into the high refreshing
air. And am I become happy through this?” His eye stared upon the bright
disk of the moon. Two large tears rolled over his pale cheeks. “Infinite
Omnipotence! I acknowledge Thy existence! Thou dost direct all; upon
Thee will I depend!”

A melancholy smile passed over his lips; he stepped back into the
chamber, folded his hands, prayed, and felt rest and peace.



CHAPTER XII

     “The travellers roll through the world of men,
     Like rose leaves in a stream.
     The past will ne’er come back again,
     But fade into a dream.”--B. S. INGEMANN.

The following day, the last before Otto’s departure, whilst he and
Wilhelm were walking in the garden, Sophie approached them with a
garland made of oak-leaves: this was intended for Otto; they were now
really to lose him.

“Sophie will scarcely be up so early to-morrow morning,” said Louise;
“she is, therefore, obliged to present her garland to-day. I am never
missing at the breakfast-table, as you well know; and I shall then bring
my bouquet.”

“I shall preserve both until we meet again,” returned Otto; “they are
vignettes to my beautiful summer-dream. When I again sit in Copenhagen,
when the rain patters and the winter approaches with cold and a joyless
sky, I shall still see before me Funen with its green woods, flowers,
and sunshine; it will appear to me that it must still be so there, and
that the garland and bouquet are only withered because they are with me
in the winter cold.”

“In Copenhagen we shall meet again!” said Sophie.

“And I shall see you again with the swallows!” said Louise, “when my
flowers spring up again, when we have again warm summer days! As far
as I am concerned, you belong to the summer, and not to the cold, calm
winter.”

Early on the following morning was Sophie, after all, at the breakfast
table. That was to honor Otto. Mamma showed herself as the carriage
was at the door. Wilhelm would accompany him as far as Odense. It was,
therefore, a double leave taking, here and there.

“We will always remain friends, faithful friends!” said Wilhelm, when
they parted.

“Faithful friends!” repeated Otto, and they rolled away toward
Middelfart; thus far should mamma’s own carriage convey the excellent
Otto. Wilhelm remained behind in Odense; his coachman drove Otto, and
they discoursed upon the way. They passed Vissenberg: the high, wooded
hills there have received the name of the Funen Alps. The legend relates
of robbers who had here deep passages underneath the high-road, where
they hung bells which rang when any one passed above. The inhabitants
are still looked upon with suspicion. Vissenberg appears a kind of Itri,
between Copenhagen and Hamburg. [Author’s Note: “Itri,” Fra Diavolo’s
birthplace, lies in the Neapolitan States, on the highway between
Rome and Naples. The inhabitants are not, without reason, suspected of
carrying on the robber’s trade.] Near the church there formerly lay a
stone, on which Knud, the saint, is said to have rested himself when
flying from the rebellious Jutlanders. In the stone remained the
impression of where he had sat; the hard stone had been softer than the
hearts of the rebellious people.

This, and similar legends, the coachman knew how to relate; he was born
in this neighborhood, but not in Vissenberg itself, where they make the
false notes. [Author’s Note: A number of years ago a band of men were
seized in Vissenberg who had forged bank-notes.] Every legend gains
in interest when one hears it in the place with which it is connected.
Funen is especially rich in such relations.

“That cairn elevates itself at Christmas upon four red posts, and one
can then see the dance and merriment of the goblins within. Through that
peasant’s farm there drives every night a glowing coach, drawn by four
coal-black horses. Where we now see a pond overgrown with reeds and
roots there once stood a church, but it sank as the godless desecrated
it; at midnight we still hear their sighs, and hymns of repentance.”

It is true that the narrator mixed up together certain leg-ends which
related to other places in the country--that he took little springs, and
mingled his own thoughts with his relations; but Otto listened to him
with great interest. The discourse turned also upon the family at the
hall.

“Yes, they are very much liked!” said the coachman; “the gentleman may
believe we know how to value them.”

“And now, which of the young ladies is the best?” asked Otto.

“Yes, every one is best served by Miss Louise,” returned the fellow.

“Miss Sophie is the prettiest,” said Otto.

“Yes, she is also very good,--she belongs to the learned ones! She knows
German, that she does! she can act comedy very excellently! I once
got permission with the rest of the people to be up-stairs in the
sitting-room--we stood behind the family; she did not manage her affairs
at all badly.”

However much the old legends interested Otto, it seemed as though he
listened with more pleasure to the simple reasonings of the coachman
upon the family who were become so dear to him. Words and thoughts were
busied about the objects there. Wilhelm, however, was and still remained
the dearest; he recollected with what mildness Wilhelm had stretched
forth his hand in reconciliation, when he himself had thrust him
from him. Already the happy summer days which he had spent at the
country-seat, the whole visit, appeared a beautiful but short dream.

Otto felt an inward impulse to express his gratitude; his pride even,
which was a fundamental feature of his character, commanded him to do
this. Wilhelm’s affection, his desire for a continued friendship, Otto
thought he must reward; and on this account he added the following words
to the few lines which he gave the coachman before his passage over the
Little Belt:--

“Wilhelm, in future we will say thou to each other; that is more
confidential!” “He is the first to whom I have given my thou,” said
Otto, when the letter was dispatched. “This will rejoice him: now,
however, I myself have for once made an advance, but he deserves it.”

A few moments later it troubled him. “I am a fool like the rest!” said
he, and wished he could annihilate the paper. He was summoned on board.
The Little Belt is only a river between the two countries; he soon found
himself upon Jutland ground; the whip cracked, the wheels turned round,
like the wheels of fortune, up and down, yet ever onward.

Late in the evening he arrived at an inn. From his solitary chamber
his thoughts flew in opposite directions; now toward the solitary
country-seat of his grandfather, among the sand-hills; now toward the
animated mansion in Funen, where the new friends resided. He had
opened his box and taken out what lay quite at the top, the garland of
oak-leaves and the beautiful bouquet of flowers of this morning.

Most people maintain that one dreams at night of that which one has
thought much about. According to this, Otto must have thought a deal
about the North Sea, for of it he dreamed the whole night,--not of the
young ladies.



CHAPTER XIII

     “The heat-lark warbles forth his sepulchral melodies.”
                                             S. S. BLICHER.

The peninsula of Jutland possesses nothing of the natural beauty
which Zealand and Funen present--splendid beeches and odoriferous
clover-fields in the neighborhood of the salt sea; it possesses at
once a wild and desolate nature, in the heath-covered expanses and the
far-stretching moors. East and west are different; like the green, sappy
leaf, and grayish white sea-weed on the sea shore. From the Woods of
Marselisborg to the woods south of Coldinger Fjord, is the land rich
and blooming; it is the Danish Nature in her greatness. Here rises the
Heaven Mountain, with its wilderness of coppice and heather; from here
you gaze over the rich landscape, with its woods and lakes, as far down
as the roaring Cattegat.

The western coast, on the contrary, lies without a tree, without bushes,
with nothing but white sand-hills stretching along the roaring ocean,
which scourges the melancholy coast with sand-storms and sharp winds.
Between these contrasts, which the east and west coasts present, the
Hesperides and Siberia, lies the vast heath which stretches itself from
the Lyneborg sand to the Skagen’s reef. No hedge shows here the limits
of possession. Among the crossing tracks of carriage wheels must thou
seek thy way. Crippled oaks, with whitish-green moss overgrown to the
outermost branches, twist themselves along the ground, as if fearing
storms and the sea-mist. Here, like a nomadic people, but without
flocks, do the so-called Tartar bands wander up and down, with their
peculiar language and peculiar ceremonies. Suddenly there shows itself
in the interior of the heathy wilderness a colony--another, a strange
people, German emigrants, who through industry compel the meagre country
to fruitfulness.

From Veile, Otto wished to take the road through Viborg, as the most
direct and the shortest to his grandfather’s estate, which lay between
Nisumfjord and Lemvig.

The first heath-bushes accosted him as dear friends of his childhood.
The beautiful beech-woods lay behind him, the expanse of heath began;
but the heath was dear to him: it was this landscape which formed the
basis of many dear recollections.

The country became ever higher with brown heights, beyond which nothing
was visible; houses and farms became more rare, the cherry orchards
transformed themselves into cabbage-gardens. Only single spots were free
from heather, and here grew grass, but short, and like moss or duckweed
which grows upon ponds: here birds congregated by hundreds, and
fluttered twittering into the air as the carriage drove past.

“You know where to find the green spot in the heath, and how to become
happy through it,” sighed Otto. “Could I only follow your example!”

At a greater distance rose bare hills, without ling or ploughed land;
the prickly heath looked brown and yellow on the sharp declivities. A
little boy and girl herded sheep by the way-side; the boy played the
Pandean pipe, the little girl sang a psalm,--it was the best song which
she knew how to sing to the traveller, in order to win a little present
from him.

The day was warm and beautiful, but the evening brought the cold mist
from the sea, which, however, in the interior of the country loses
something of its power.

“That is a kiss of welcome from my home,” said Otto; “the death-kiss of
the mermaid! In Funen they call it the elf maiden.”

Within the last few years a number of children have been sent from the
Orphan Asylum to the heath, in order that, instead of Copenhagen
rogues, they may become honest Jutland peasants. Otto had a boy of this
description for his coachman. The lad was very contented, and yet Otto
became low-spirited from his relation. Recollections from his own life
stirred within his breast. “Return thanks to God,” said he, and gave the
lad a considerable present; “on the heath thou hast shelter and a home;
in Copenhagen, perhaps, the sandy beach would have been thy nightly
resting-place, hunger and cold the gifts which the day would bring
thee.”

The nearer he approached the west, the more serious became his frame of
mind; it was as if the desolate scenery and cold sea-mist entered his
soul. The pictures of the gay country-seat at Funen were supplanted by
recollections of his home with his grandfather. He became more and more
low-spirited. It was only when a single mile separated him from his
home that the thought of surprising his dear friends conquered his
melancholy.

He caught sight of the red roof of the house, saw the willow
plantations, and heard the bark of the yard-dog. Upon the hillock before
the gate stood a group of children. Otto could no longer endure the slow
driving through the deep ruts. He sprang out of the carriage, and ran
more than he walked. The children on the hillock became aware of him,
and all looked toward the side from whence he came.

The slow driving, and his being absorbed in melancholy fancies, had
relaxed his powerful frame; but now in one moment all his elasticity
returned: his cheeks glowed, and his heart beat loudly.

From the court resounded singing--it was the singing of a psalm. He
stepped through the gateway. A crowd of peasants stood with bared heads:
before the door stood a carriage, some peasants were just raising a
coffin into it. In the doorway stood the old preacher, and spoke with a
man clad in black.

“Lord Jesus! who is dead?” were Otto’s first words, and his countenance
became pale like that of a corpse.

“Otto!” all exclaimed.

“Otto!” exclaimed also the old preacher, astonished; then seized his
hand, and said gravely, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord!”

“Let me see the face of the dead!” said Otto. Not a tear came to his
eye; surprise and sorrow were too great.

“Shall I take out the screws?” inquired the man who had just screwed up
the coffin.

“Let him sleep the eternal rest!” said the preacher.

Otto stared at the black coffin in which his grandfather lay. The
carriage drove away with it. Otto followed after with the preacher,
heard him throw earth upon it, heard words which he did not comprehend,
saw the last corner of the coffin, and it was then removed from his
sight. All was as a dream to him.

They returned back to the preacher’s abode; a pale figure approached
him: it was Rosalie--old Rosalie.

“We have here no abiding-place, we all hasten toward futurity!” said
the old preacher. “Strengthen yourself now with meat and drink! The body
cannot suffer like the soul. We have accompanied him to His sleeping
chamber; his bed was well prepared! I have prayed the evening prayer; he
sleeps in God, and will awaken to behold His glory. Amen!”

“Otto! thou dear Otto!” said Rosalie. “The bitterest day brings me this
joy! How have I thought of thee! Amongst strangers shouldst thou receive
the tidings of his death! with no one who could feel for thy sorrow!
where thou shouldst see no eye weep for what thou hast lost! Now thou
art here! now, when I believed thee so far distant--it is a miracle!
Thou couldst only have received the letter to-day which carried the
intelligence of thy grandfather’s death to thee!”

“I wished to surprise you,” said Otto. “A melancholy surprise awaited
me!”

“Sit down, my child!” said the preacher, and drew him toward the covered
table. “When the tree falls which gave us shade and fruit, from which
we, in our own little garden, have planted shoots and sown seeds, we may
well look on with sadness and feel our loss: but we must not forget our
own garden, must not forget to cherish that which we have won from the
fallen tree: we must not cease to live for the living! I miss, like you,
the proud tree, which rejoiced my soul and my heart, but I know that it
is planted in a better garden, where Christ is the gardener.”

The preacher’s invitation to remain with him, during his stay, in his
house, Otto declined. Already this first night he wished to establish
himself in his own little chamber in the house of mourning. Rosalie also
would return.

“We have a deal to say to each other,” said the old preacher, and laid
his hand upon Otto’s shoulder. “Next summer you will hardly press my
hand, it will be pressed by the turf.”

“To-morrow I will come to you,” said Otto, and drove back with the old
Rosalie to the house.

The domestics kissed the hand and coat of the young master--he wished to
prevent this; the old woman wept. Otto stepped into the room; here had
stood the corpse, on account of which the furniture had been removed,
and the void was all the more affecting. The long white mourning
curtains fluttered in tire wind before the open window. Rosalie led
him by the hand into the little sleeping-room where the grandfather had
died. Here everything yet stood as formerly--the large book case, with
the glass doors, behind which the intellectual treasure was preserved:
Wieland and Fielding, Millot’s “History of the World,” and Von der
Hagen’s “Narrenbuch,” occupied the principal place: these books had
been those most read by the old gentleman. Here was also Otto’s earliest
intellectual food, Albertus Julius, the English “Spectator,” and Evald’s
writings. Upon the wall hung pikes and pistols, and a large old sabre,
which the grandfather had once worn. Upon the table beneath the mirror
stood an hour-glass; the sand had run out. Rosalie pointed toward the
bed. “There he died,” said she, “between six and seven o’clock in the
evening. He was only ill three days; the two last he passed in delirium:
he raised himself in bed, and shook the bed posts; I was obliged to let
two strong men watch beside him. ‘To horse! to horse!’ said he; ‘the
cannons forward!’ His brain dreamed of war and battles. He also spoke of
your blessed father severely and bitterly! Every word was like the stab
of a knife; he was as severe toward him as ever!”

“And did the people understand his words?” asked Otto with a wrinkled
brow.

“No, for the uninitiated they were dark words; and even had they
possessed any meaning, the men would have believed it was the sickness
which spoke out of him. ‘There stands the mother with the two children!
The one shall fall upon the flank of the enemy and bring me honor and
joy. The mother and daughter I know not!’ That was all which I heard him
say about you and your mother and sister. By noon on the third day the
fever had spent itself; the strong, gloomy man was become as weak and
gentle as a child; I sat beside his bed. ‘If I had only Otto here!’ said
he. ‘I have been severely attacked, Rosalie, but I am now much better:
I will go to sleep; that strengthens one.’ Smilingly he closed his eyes
and lay quite still: I read my prayers, withdrew gently so as not to
wake him; he lay there unchanged when I returned. I sat a little while
beside his bed; his hands lay upon the coverlid; I touched them, they
were ice-cold. I was frightened, touched his brow, his face--he was
dead! he had died without a death-struggle!”

For a long time did they converse about the dead man; it was near
midnight when Otto ascended the narrow stairs which led to the little
chamber in the roof, where as child and boy he had slept. All stood here
as it had done the year before, only in nicer order. Upon the wall hung
the black painted target, near to the centre of which he had once shot.
His skates lay upon the chest of drawers, near to the nodding plaster
figure. The long journey, and the overpowering surprise which awaited
him on his return, had strongly affected him: he opened the window;
a large white sand-hill rose like a wall straight up before it, and
deprived him of all view. How often, when a child, had the furrows
made by rain in the sand, and the detached pieces, presented to him
pictures,--towns, towers, and whole marching armies. Now it was only a
white wall, which reminded him of a winding-sheet. A small streak of the
blue sky was visible between the house and the steep slope of the hill.
Never before had Otto felt, never before reflected, what it was to stand
alone in the world, to be lovingly bound to no one with the band of
consanguinity.

“Solitary, as in this silent night do I stand in the world! solitary in
the mighty crowd of human beings! Only ONE being can I call mine! only
ONE being press as kindred to my heart! And I shudder at the thought of
meeting with this being--I should bless the thought that she was dead!
Father! thou didst ruin one being and make three miserable. I have
never loved thee; bitterness germinated within my breast when I
became acquainted with thee! Mother! thy features have died out of my
recollection; I revere thee! Thou wast all love; to love didst thou
offer up thy life--more than life! Pray for me with thy God! Pray for
me, ye dead! if there is immortality; if the flesh is not alone born
again in grass and the worm; if the soul is not lost in floods of air!
We shall be unconscious of it: eternally shall we sleep! eternally!”
 Otto supported his forehead upon the window-frame, his arm sank
languidly, “Mother! poor mother! thou didst gain by death, even if it
be merely an eternal sleep,--asleep without dreams! We have only a short
time to live, and yet we divide our days of life with sleep! My body
yearns after this short death! I will sleep--sleep like all my beloved
ones! They do not awaken!” He threw himself upon the bed. The cold air
from the sea blew through the open window. The wearied body conquered;
he sank into the death-like sleep, whilst his doubting soul, ever
active, presented him with living dreams.



CHAPTER XIV

     “Man seems to me a foolish being; he drives along over the
     waves of time, endlessly thrown up and down, and descrying a
     little verdant spot, formed of mud and stagnant moor and of
     putrid green mouldiness, he cries out, Land! He rows
     thither, ascends--and sinks and sinks--and is no more to be
     seen.”--The Golden Fleece of GRILLPARZER.

Old Rosalie was pouring out coffee when Otto came down the next morning.
Peace and resignation to the will of God lay in her soft countenance.
Otto was pale, paler than usual, but handsomer than Rosalie had seen him
before: a year had rendered him older and more manly; a handsome, crisp
beard curled over his chin; manly gravity lay in his eyes, in which,
at his departure, she had only remarked their inborn melancholy glance.
With a kind of satisfaction she looked upon this beautiful, melancholy
countenance, and with cordial affection she stretched forth her hand
toward him.

“Here stands thy chair, Otto; and here thy cup. I will drink to thy
welcome. It seems to me long since I saw thee, and yet it is, now I have
thee again, only a short time. Were that place only not empty!” and
she pointed to the place at the table which the grandfather had used to
occupy.

“If I had only seen him!” said Otto.

“His countenance was so gentle in death,” said Rosalie. “The severity
and gravity which had settled in his eyes were softened away. I was
myself present when he was dressed. He had his uniform on, which he
always wore upon occasions of ceremony, the sabre by his side and the
great hat upon his head. I knew that this was his wish!” Quietly she
made the sign of the cross.

“Are all my grandfather’s papers sealed?” inquired Otto.

“The most important--those which have the greatest interest for thee,”
 said Rosalie, “are in the hands of the preacher. Last year, the day
after thy departure, he gave them to the preacher; thy father’s last
letter I know is amongst them.”

“My father!” said Otto, and glanced toward the ground. “Yes,” continued
he, “there is truth in the words of Scripture,--the sins of the fathers
are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation!”

“Otto!” said Rosalie, with a beseeching and reproachful look, “thy
grandfather was a severe man. Thou last known him, hast seen his darkest
moments, and yet then age and cares had softened him: his love to thee
calmed every outbreak. Had he only loved thy father as he loved thee,
things would, perhaps, have ended better: but we may not judge!”

“And what have I done?” said Otto. “Thou, Rosalie, knowest the
history of my life. Is it not as if a curse rested upon me? I was a
high-spirited boy, I often occasioned thee tears; yet didst thou always
place thyself between me and punishment. It was my evil blood, the blood
of my birth in which the curse lay, that drove me on!”

“But thou didst become good and full of love, as thou art now!” said
Rosalie.

“Only when I became acquainted with myself and my destiny. In the
thoughtlessness of childhood, unacquainted with myself and the world,
did I myself have that sign of my misery, which now presses down my
soul, cut into my flesh. Yes, Rosalie! I remember this very well,
and have clearly preserved this, my earliest recollection before
my grandfather took me, and I came here a boy. I remember the great
building from whence I was brought, the number of people who there
worked, sang, and laughed, and who told me extraordinary stories of how
badly people were treated in the beautiful world. This was my parents’
home, thought I, when I began to ponder upon parents and their
connection with children. It was a large manufactory which they
possessed, thought I; I remembered the number of work-people. All played
and romped with me. I was wild and full of boisterous spirits a boy of
only six years old, but with the perseverance and will of one of ten.
Rosalie, thou sawest many proofs of the evil which lay in my blood; it
bordered upon insolence. I remembered well the strong, merry Heinrich,
who always sang at his loom; he showed me and the others his tattooed
breast, upon which he had his whole mournful history imprinted. Upon
his arm were his own and his bride’s names. That pleased me; I wished to
have my name also on my arm. ‘It is painful!’ said he; ‘then thou wilt
pipe, my lad!’ That was spur enough to make me desire it. I allowed him
to puncture my skin, to puncture an O and a T upon my shoulder, and
did not cry,--no, not once whilst the powder burnt into it; but I was
praised, and was proud to bear the initials--proud of them until three
years ago, when I met Heinrich here. I recognized him, but he did not
recognize me. I showed him my shoulder, and besought him to read the
name, this O and T: but he did not say Otto Thostrup; he named a name
which destroyed the happiness of my childhood, and has made me miserable
forever!”

“It was a fearful day!” said Rosalie. “Thou didst demand from me an
explanation, thy grandfather gave it thee, and thou wast no longer the
Otto thou hadst formerly been. Yet wherefore speak of it? Thou art good
and wise, noble and innocent. Do not fill thy heart with sorrow from a
time which is past, and which, for thy sake, shall be forgotten.”

“But Heinrich still lives!” said Otto; “I have met with him, have spoken
with him: it was as if all presence of mind forsook me.”

“When and where?” asked Rosalie.

Otto related of his walk with Wilhelm in the park, and of the juggler,
in whom he had recognized Heinrich. “I tore myself from my friends,
I wandered the whole night alone in the wood. O Rosalie, I thought
of death! I thought of death as no Christian ought to do. A beautiful
morning followed, I wandered beside the sea which I love, and in which
I have so often dived. Since that explanation of the initials on my
shoulder was suggested, that explanation which reminded me of my unhappy
birth, I have never uncovered them before any one. O, I have rubbed
thorn with a stone, until they were bloody! The letters are gone, but
still I imagine I can read them in the deep scar--that in it I see a
Cain’s mark! That morning the desire to bathe came upon me. The fresh
current infused life once more into my soul. Just then Wilhelm and
several acquaintance came down; they called to me and carried off my
clothes; my blood boiled; all my unhappiness, which this night had
stirred within my soul, again overwhelmed me: it was as though the
obliterated initials on my shoulder would reveal themselves in the scar
and betray the secret of my grief. Disgust of life seized upon me. I
no longer knew what I shouted to them, but it seemed to me as if I must
swim out into the stream and never return. I swam until it became night
before my eyes. I sank, and Wilhelm rescued me! Never since then have
we spoken of this hour! O Rosalie! long is it since I have been able to
open my heart as before thee at this moment. What use is it to have a
friend if one cannot lay before him one’s whole thoughts? To no one
have I been able to unfold them but to thee, who already knowest them. I
suffer, as a criminal and yet am I innocent,--just as the misshapen, the
deformed man, is innocent of his ugliness!”

“I do not possess thy knowledge, Otto,” said Rosalie, and pressed his
hand; “have never rejoiced in such a clear head as thine; but I have
that which thou canst not as yet possess--experience. In trouble,
as well as in joy, youth transforms the light cobweb into the cable.
Self-deception has changed the blood in thy veins, the thoughts in thy
soul; but do not forever cling to this one black spot! Neither wilt
thou! it will spur thee on to activity, will enervate thy soul, not
depress thee! The melancholy surprise of thy grandfather’s death, whom
thou didst believe active and well, has now made thee dejected, and thy
thoughts so desponding. But there will come better days! happy days!
Thou art young, and youth brings health for the soul and body!”

She led Otto into the garden, where the willow plantations protected the
other trees from the sharp west wind. The gooseberry-bushes bore fruit,
but it was not yet ripe: one bush Otto had planted when a cutting; it
was now large. Rosalie had tied the twigs to a palisade, so that, as an
espalier, it could thoroughly drink in the sun’s rays. Otto regarded the
fetters more than the good intention.

“Let it grow free!” said he; “if that brittle palisade should tumble
down, the twigs would be broken.” And he cut the bands.

“Thou art still the old Otto,” said Rosalie.

They went into her little room, where the crucifix, and before it a
small vase of flowers, adorned the table. Above the cross hung a garland
of withered heather.

“Two years ago didst thou give me that, Otto!” said Rosalie. “There
were no more flowers, there was nothing green but the heath, and thou
twinedst a garland of it for me. Afterward I would not take it down from
the crucifix.”

They were interrupted by a visit. It was from the old preacher.



CHAPTER XV

     “His coal was coarse, its fashion old;
       He asked no dress of greater worth
     Than that which kept from storm and cold
       The Baptist when he preached on earth.”
                                C. J. BORE.

Not alone of Otto’s affairs, but also of “the city yonder,” as the
preacher called Copenhagen, would he speak. Only once a week came the
“Viborg Collector” to hint, and the Copenhagen papers were a whole month
going their round. “One would willingly advance with the time,” said he.
Yesterday, at the interment, he had not found it seemly to gratify his
desire of hearing dear Otto talk about the city, but to-day he thought
it might well be done, and therefore he would not await Otto’s visit but
come over to pay one himself.

“Thou hast certainly seen our good king?” was his first question. “Lord
help the anointed one! he is then as vigorous and active as ever--my
good King Frederik!” And now he must relate a trait which had touched
his heart, and which, in his opinion, deserved a place in the annals of
history. This event occurred the last time that the king was in Jutland;
he had visited the interior of the country and the western coast also.
When he was leaving a public-house the old hostess ran after him, and
besought that the Father would, as a remembrance, write his name with
chalk upon a beam. The grand gentlemen wished to deter her, but she
pulled at the king’s coat; and when he had learned her wish he nodded in
a friendly manner, and said, “Very willingly!” and then turned back and
wrote his name on the beam. Tears came into the old man’s eyes; he wept,
and prayed for his king. He now inquired whether the old tree was still
standing in the Regent’s Court, and then spoke of Nyerup and Abrahamson,
whom he had known in his student days.

In fact, after all, he was himself the narrator; each of his questions
related to this or that event in his own life, and he always returned
to this source--his student-days. There was then another life, another
activity, he maintained. His royal idea of beauty had been Queen
Matilda. [Translator’s Note: The unhappy wife of Christian VII. and
daughter of our George III.] “I saw her often on horseback,” said he.
“It was not then the custom in our country for ladies to ride. In her
country it was the fashion; here it gave rise to scandal. God gave
her beauty, a king’s crown, and a heart full of love; the world gave
her--what it can give--a grave near to the bare heath!”

Whilst he so perpetually returned to his own recollections, his share of
news was truly not new, but he was satisfied. Copenhagen appeared to him
a whole world--a royal city; but Sodom and Gomorrah had more than one
street there.

Otto smiled at the earnestness with which he said this.

“Yes, that I know better than thou, my young friend!” continued the old
preacher. “True, the devil does not go about like a roaring lion, but
there he has his greatest works! He is well-dressed, and conceals his
claws and his tail! Do not rely upon thy strength! He goes about, like
the cat in the fable, ‘pede suspenso,’ sneakingly and cautiously! It is,
after all, with the devil as it is with a Jutland peasant. This fellow
comes to the city, has nothing, runs about, and cleans shoes and boots
for the young gentlemen, and by this means he wins a small sum of money.
He knows how to spare. He can now hire the cellar of the house in
which thou livest, and there commence some small trade. The trade is
successful, very successful. It goes on so well that he can hire the
lower story; then he gains more profit, and before thou canst look about
thee he buys the whole house. See, that is the way with the Jutland
peasant, and just the same with the devil. At first he gets the cellar,
then the lower story, and at last the whole house!”



CHAPTER XVI

     “Sure ‘tis fair in foreign land,
         But not so fair as home;

     Let me but see thy mountains grand
         Glaciers and snowy dome!

     Let me but hear the sound that tells
     Of climbing cattle, dressed with bells.”
                                The Switzer’s Homesickness.

Not until after breakfast did the preacher pass over to Otto’s affairs.
His grandfather’s will made him the sole heir to the large property; a
man in Copenhagen, the merchant Berger, should be his guardian, since
the preacher did not wish to undertake the office. Rosalie was not
forgotten: her devotion and fidelity had won for her a relative’s right.
Her last days should be free from care: she had truly striven to remove
all care from the dead whilst yet he lived. An old age free from care
awaited her; but Otto wished that she should also have a happy old age.
He imparted his plan to the preacher; but the latter shook his head,
thought it was not practicable, and regarded it as a mere fancy--a whim.
But such it was not.

Some days passed by. One afternoon Rosalie sat upon a small wooden bench
under the cherry-trees, and was making mourning for the winter.

“This is the last summer that we shall sit here,” said she; “the last
summer that this is our home. Now I am become equally rooted to this
spot; it grieves me that I must leave it.”

“Thou wast forced to leave thy dear Switzerland,” said Otto; “that was
still harder!”

“I was then young,” answered she. “The young tree may be easily
transplanted, but the old one has shot forth deeper roots. Denmark is a
good land--a beautiful land!”

“But not the west coast of Jutland!” exclaimed Otto. “For thy green
pasture hast thou here heath; for thy mountains, low sand-hills.”

“Upon the Jura Mountains there is also heath,” said Rosalie. “The heath
here often reminds me of my home on the Jura. There also is it cold, and
snow can fall already in August. The fir-trees then stand as if powdered
over.”

“I love Switzerland, which I have never seen,” pursued Otto. “Thy
relation has given me a conception of the picturesque magnificence of
this mountain-land. I have a plan, Rosalie. I know that in the heart
of a mountaineer homesickness never dies. I remember well how thy eyes
sparkled when thou toldest of the walk toward Le Locle and Neufchâtel;
even as a boy I felt at thy words the light mountain air. I rode with
thee upon the dizzy height, where the woods lay below us like potato
fields. What below arose, like the smoke from a charcoal-burner’s kiln,
was a cloud in the air. I saw the Alpine chain, like floating cloud
mountains; below mist, above dark shapes with glancing glaciers.”

“Yes, Otto,” said Rosalie, and her eyes sparkled with youthful fire; “so
looks the Alpine chain when one goes from Le Locle to Neulfchâtel: so
did I see it when I descended the Jura for the list time. It was in
August. The trees, with their autumnal foliage, stood yellow and red
between the dark firs; barberries and hips grew among the tall fern.
The Alps lay in such a beautiful light, their feet blue as heaven, their
peaks snow-white in the clear sunshine. I was in a sorrowful mood; I
was leaving my mountains! Then I wrote in my book--O, I remember it so
well!--The high Alps appear to me the folded wings of the earth: how
if she should raise them! how if the immense wings should unfold, with
their gay images of dark woods, glaciers, and clouds! What a picture! At
the Last Judgment will the earth doubtless unfold these pinions, soar
up to God, and in the rays of His sunlight disappear! I also have been
young, Otto,” pursued she, with a melancholy smile. “Thou wouldst have
felt still more deeply at the sight of this splendor of nature. The lake
at the foot of the mountains was smooth as a mirror; a little boat with
white sails swam, like a swan, upon its expanse. On the road along which
we drove were the peasants beating down chestnuts; the grapes hung in
large black bunches. How an impression such as this can root itself in
the memory! It is five and thirty years since, and yet I still see that
boat with the white sail, the high Alps, and the black grapes.”

“Thou shalt see thy Switzerland again, Rosalie,” exclaimed Otto; “again
hear the bells of the cows upon the green pastures! Thou shalt go once
more to the chapel in Franche Compté, shalt visit thy friends at Le
Locle, see the subterranean mill, and the Doub fall.”

“The mill wheel yet goes round, the water dashes down as in my youth;
but the friends are gone, my relatives dispersed! I should appear
a stranger there; and when one has reached my age, nature cannot
satisfy--one must have people!”

“Thou knowest, Rosalie, my grandfather has settled a sum upon thee so
long as thou livest. Now I have thought thou couldst spend thy latter
days with thy beloved ones at home, in the glorious Switzerland. In
October I take my philosophicum; the following summer I would then
accompany thee. I must also see that splendid mountain-land,--know
something more of the world than I have yet known. I know how thy
thoughts always dwell upon Switzerland. Thither will I reconduct thee;
thou wilt feel thyself less lonely there than here in Denmark.”

“Thou art carried away by the thoughts of youth, as thou shouldst and
must be, thou dear, sweet soul!” said Rosalie, smiling. “At my age it is
not so easy.”

“We will make short days’ journeys,” said Otto, “go with the steamboat
up the Rhine--that is not fatiguing; and from Basel one is soon in
Franche Compté on the Jura.”

“No, upon the heath, near Vestervovov, as it is called here, will old
Rosalie die; here I have felt myself at home, here I have two or three
friends. The family at Lemvig have invited me, have for me a place at
table, a little room, and friendly faces. Switzerland would be no
longer that Switzerland which I quitted. Nature would greet me as an old
acquaintance; it would be to me music, once more to hear the ringing of
the cows’ bells; it would affect me deeply, once again to kneel in the
little chapel on the mountain: but I should soon feel myself a greater
stranger there than here. Had it been fifteen years ago, my sister would
still have been living, the dear, pious Adèle! She dwelt with my uncle
close on the confines of Neufchâtel, as thou knowest, scarcely a quarter
of a mile from Le Locle--_the town_, as we called it, because it was the
largest place in the neighborhood. Now there are only distant relations
of mine living, who have forgotten me. I am a stranger there. Denmark
gave me bread, it will also give me a grave!”

“I thought of giving thee a pleasure!” said Otto.

“That thou dost by thy love to me!” returned she.

“I thought thou wouldst have shown me thy mountains, thy home, of which
thou hast so often spoken!”

“That can I still do. I remember every spot, every tree--all remains so
clear in my recollection. Then we ascend together the Jura higher and
higher; here are no more vineyards to be found, no maize, no chestnuts
only dark pines, huge cliffs, here and there a beech, as green and large
as in Denmark. Now we have the wood behind us, we are many feet
above the sea; thou canst perceive this by the freshness of the air.
Everywhere are green meadows; uninterruptedly reaches our ear the
ringing of the cow-bells. Thou as yet seest no town, and yet we are
close upon Le Locle. Suddenly the road turns; in the midst of the
mountain-level we perceive a small valley, and in this lies the town,
with its red roofs, its churches, and large gardens. Close beneath the
windows rises the mountain-side, with its grass and flowers; it looks
as though the cattle must be precipitated upon the houses. We go through
the long street, past the church; the inhabitants are Protestants--it
is a complete town of watchmakers. My uncle and Adèle also sat the whole
day, and worked at wheels and chains. That was for Monsieur Houriet,
in Le Locle. His daughters I know; one is called Rosalie, like myself.
Rosalie and Lydia, they will certainly have forgotten me! But it is true
that we are upon our own journey! Now, thou seest, at the end of the
town we do not follow the broad road--that leads to Besançon; we remain
in the lesser one, here in the valley where the town lies. The beautiful
valley! The green mountain-sides we keep to our right; on it are
scattered houses, with large stones upon their steep wooden roofs, and
with little gardens tilled with plum-trees. Steep cliff-walls shut in
the valley; there stands up a crag; if thou climbest it thou canst look
straight into France: one sees a plain, flat like the Danish plains. In
the valley where we are, close under the rock, lies a little house; O, I
see it distinctly! white-washed and with blue painted window-frames: at
the gate a great chained dog. I hear him bark! We step into that quiet,
friendly little house! The children are playing about on the ground.
O, my little Henry-Numa-Robert! Ah, it is true that now he is older and
taller than thou! We descend the steps toward the cellar. Here stand
sacks and chests of flour; under the floor one hears a strange roaring;
still a few steps lower, and we must light the lamp, for here it is
dark. We find ourselves in a great water-mill, a subterranean mill. Deep
below in the earth rushes a river--above no one dreams of it; the water
dashes down several fathoms over the rushing wheel, which threatens to
seize our clothes and whirl us away into the circle. The steps on which
we stand are slippery: the stone walls drip with water, and only a step
beyond the depth appears bottomless! O, thou wilt love this mill as I
love it! Again having reached the light of day, and under free heaven,
one only perceives the quiet, friendly little house. Dost thou know,
Otto, often as thou hast sat quiet and dreaming, silent as a statue,
have I thought of my mill, and the repose which it presented? and yet
how wildly the stream roared in its bosom, how the wheels rushed round,
and how gloomy it was in the depth!”

“We will leave the mill!” said Otto, and sought to lead her from her
reflections back to her own relation. “We find ourselves in the wood,
where the ringing of the evening-bell reaches our ear from the little
chapel in Franche Compté.”

“There stands my father’s house!” said Rosalie. “From the corner-window
one looks over the wood toward Aubernez, [Author’s Note: A village in
the canton Neufchâtel, lying close upon the river Doub, where it forms
the boundary between Switzerland and France.] where the ridge leads over
the Doub. The sun shines upon the river, which, far below, winds along,
gleaming like the clearest silver.”

“And the whole of France spreads itself out before us!” said Otto.

“How beautiful! O, how beautiful!” exclaimed Rosalie, and her eyes
sparkled as she gazed before her; but soon her glance became sad, and
she pressed Otto’s hand. “No one will welcome me to my home! I know
neither their joys nor their sorrows--they are not my own family! In
Denmark--I am at home. When the cold sea-mist spreads itself over the
heath I often fancy I am living among my mountains, where the heather
grows. The mist seems to me then to be a snow-cloud which rests over
the mountains, and thus, when other people are complaining of the bad
weather, I am up among my mountains!”

“Thou wilt then remove to the family at Lemvig?” asked Otto.

“There I am welcome!” returned she.



CHAPTER XVII

     “Look at the calming sea. The waves still tremble in the
     depths, and stem to fear the gale.--Over my head is hovering
     the shadowy mist.--My curls are wet with the filling dew.”
      --OSSIAN.

Otto had not as yet visited the sand-hills on the strand, the fishermen,
or the peasants, among whom formerly he had spent all his spare time.

The beautiful summer’s day drove him forth, his heart yearned to drink
in the summer warmth.

Only the roads between the larger towns are here tolerable, or rather
as tolerable as the country will allow. The by-ways were only to be
discerned by the traces of cart-wheels, which ran on beside each other;
at certain places, to prevent the wheels sinking into the deep sand,
ling had been spread; where this is not the case, and the tracks cross
each other, a stranger would scarcely find the way. Here the landmark
places its unseen boundary between neighboring possessions.

Every farm, every cottage, every hill, was an old acquaintance to Otto.
He directed his steps toward Harbooere, a parish which, one may say,
consists of sand and water, but which, nevertheless, is not to be
called unfruitful. A few of the inhabitants pursue agriculture, but the
majority consists of fishermen, who dwell in small houses and have no
land.

His first encounter upon his wandering was with one of those large
covered wagons with which the so-called eelmen, between the days of St.
John and St. Bartholomew, go with eels toward the small towns lying
to the south and east, and then, laden with apples and garden produce,
return home--articles which are rapidly consumed by the common people.
The eelman stopped when he saw and recognized Otto.

“Welcome, Mr. Otto!” said he. “Yes, you are come over abut a sad affair!
That Major Thostrup should have gone off so! But there was nothing else
to be expected from him he was old enough.”

“Death demands his right!” replied Otto, and pressed the man’s hand.
“Things go, doubtless, well with you, Morten Chraenseu?”

“The whole cart full of eels, and some smoked carp! It is also good to
meet with you, Mr. Otto. Upon the land a preacher is very good, but
not upon the sea, as they say at home. Yes, you are certainly now a
preacher, or will become one?”

“No, I am not studying to become a preacher!” answered Otto.

“No! will you then become a lawyer? It strikes me you are clever
enough--you have no need to study any more! You will just go and say
a few words to them at home? The grandmother sits and spins yarn for
eel-nets. She has now the cataract on the other eye, but her mouth is as
well as ever; she does not let herself grow dumb, although she does sit
in the dark. Mother provides the baits; she has also enough to do with
the hooks.”

“But Maria, the lively little Maria?” said Otto.

“The girl? She has gone this year with the other fishergirls to
Ringkjoebing, to be hired for the hay and corn harvest; we thought we
could do without her at home. But now, God willing! I must travel on.”
 Cordially he shook Otto’s hand, and pursued his slow journey.

The brothers of the eelman were active fishermen, as their father
had been before them; and although they were all married they lived
together. The swarm of children was not insignificant; young and old
formed one family, in which the old grandmother had the first voice.

Otto approached the dwelling; before it lay a little plot of land,
planted with potatoes and carrots, and also beds of onions and thyme.
Two large bull-dogs, with sharp teeth and wicked eyes, rushed toward
Otto. “Tyv! Grumsling!” shrieked a voice, and the dogs let fall their
tails and drew back, with a low growl, toward the house. Here at the
threshold sat an old woman in a red woolen jacket, with a handkerchief
of the same material and same color about her neck, and upon her head
a man’s black felt hat. She spun. Otto immediately recognized the old
blind grandmother.

“God’s peace be in the house!” said he.

“That voice I have not heard for a year and a day!” replied the old
woman, and raised her head, as if she would see him with her dead eyes.
“Are not you Major Thostrup’s Otto? You resemble him in the voice. I
thought, truly, that if you came here you would pay us a visit. Ide
shall leave the baits and put on the kettle, that you may have a cup of
coffee. Formerly you did not use to despise our entertainment. You have
not grown proud with your journey, have you? The coffee-vetch [Author’s
Note: Astragalus baeticus is used as a substitute for coffee, and is
principally grown upon the sand-hills west of Holmsland. It is first
freed from the husk, and then dried and roasted a little.] is good; it
is from Holmsland, and tastes better than the merchant’s beans.” The
dogs still growled at Otto. “Cannot you stupid beasts, who have still
eyes in your heads to see with, recognize that this is the Major’s
Otto?” cried she wrathfully, and gave them several good blows with her
hand.

Otto’s arrival created a great stir in the little household that he was
welcome, you might see by every countenance.

“Yes,” said the grandmother, “now you are grown much wiser in the town,
could, very likely, were it needful, write an almanac! You will very
likely have found for yourself a little bride there, or will you fetch
one out of Lemvig? for no doubt she must be from a town! Yes, I have
known him ever since he was a little fellow; yonder, on the wall, he
made, out of herrings’ heads, the living devil, just as he lives and
breathes. He thrust our sucking-pig into the eel-cart, between the
casks. We sought a whole day after the sucking-pig without finding him,
and he was forced to make the journey with them to Holstebro. Yes,
he was a wild fellow! Later, when he was obliged to learn so much, he
became sad. Yes, yes, within the last years his books have overdone
him!”

“Yes, many a time has he put out to sea with my husband!” pursued one of
the daughters-in-law. “One night he remained out with him. How anxious
the French Mamsell at the hall was about him!”

“He was never haughtty,” said the grandmother. “He nibbled his dried
fish with the fresh fish, and drank a little cup of water, although he
was used to better things at home. But to-day we have white bread, fresh
and good; it came yesterday from Lemvig.”

The brandy-glass, with its wooden, red-painted foot, was placed before
Otto. Under the bed there was an anker of brandy,--“a little stock,” as
all stranded goods are here called.

Otto inquired after the married sons. They were with their men on the
shore, ready to embark on their fishing expedition, The grandmother
would accompany him thither; they were not yet departed: she should
first take them provisions.

The old woman took her stick, the dog sprang forward, and now commenced
their wandering among the sand-hills, where their huts or booths, built
with rafters and smeared with earth, stood. Around lay the refuse of
fish,--heads and entrails, thrown about. The men were just then busied
in carrying the trough and fishing-tackle [Author’s Note: A “Bakke”
 consists of three lines, each of 200 Danish ells, or about 135 yards,
and of 200 fishing-hooks; the stretched “Bakke” is thus about 200 yards,
with 600 hooks; these are attached to the line with strings half an
ell long and as thick as fine twine. To each “Bakke” belongs a square
trough, on which it is carried on board. To a larger fishing-boat are
reckoned six lots of hooks; each lot has eight to nine “Bakkes.”] on
board.

The open sea lay before them, almost as bright as a mirror, for the wind
was easterly. Near to them paused a horseman; he was partly dressed
like a peasant, with riding-breeches on, which were buttoned down at the
sides.

“Have you heard the news?” he cried to Otto. “I come from Ringkjoebing.
At Merchant Cohen’s I have read the German paper; there is a revolution
in France! Charles X. is fled with the whole royal family. Yes, in
Paris, there is fine work!”

“The French are a wild people!” said the grandmother. “A king and a
queen they have beheaded in my time; now they will do the same with
these. Will our dear Lord suffer that such things be done to His
anointed?”

“There will be war again!” said one of the fishermen.

“Then more horses will go out of the country,” said the stranger,
pressed Otto’s hand, and vanished behind the sandhills.

“Was not that the horse-dealer from Varde?” inquired Otto.

“Yes, he understands languages,” said the fisherman; “and thus he
is acquainted with foreign affairs sooner than we. Then they are now
fighting in France! Blood flows in the streets; it will not be so in
Denmark before the Turk binds his horse to the bush in the Viborg Lake.
And then, according to the prophecy of the sibyl, it will be near the
end of the world.”

Meanwhile, everything was prepared for their embarkation. If Mr. Otto
would take the further oar, and was inclined to pass the night on the
sea, there was a place for him in the boat. But he had promised Rosalie
to be back before evening. The grandmother now prayed, kneeling with the
others, and immediately after quick strokes of the oars the flat boat
rowed away from the shore. The fate of France was forgotten; their
calling occupied the fishermen.

The old woman seemed to listen to the strokes of the oars; her dead
eyes rested immovably on the sea. A sea-mew passed close to her in
its flight. “That was a bird!” said she. “Is there no one here beside
ourselves?”

“No; no one at all,” answered Otto, carelessly.

“Is no one in the hut, no one behind the sand-hills?” again asked
the grandmother. “It was not on account of the dried meat that I came
here--it was not to wet my face on the shore; I speak with you alone,
which I could not do in the house. Give me your hand! Now that the old
man rests in the grave, you yourself will guide the rudder; the estate
will be sold, and you will not come again to the west coast. Our Lord
has made it dark before my eyes before He has closed my ears and given
me leave to go. I can no longer see you, but I have you in my thought
as you looked before you left our land. That you are handsomer now I
can easily imagine; but gayer you are not! Talk you certainly can, and I
have heard you laugh; but that was little better than the two last years
you were here. Once it was different with you--no fairy could be wilder
than you!”

“With years one becomes more quiet,” said Otto, and gazed with
astonishment at the blind woman, who did not leave go his hand. “As a
boy I was far too merry--that could not continue; and that I should now
be grave, I have, as you will see, sufficient reason--I have lost my
last support.”

“Yes, truly, truly!” repeated she slowly, and as if pondering; then
shook her head. “That is not the reason. Do you not believe in the power
of the devil? our Lord Christ forgive me! do not you believe in the
power of wicked men? There is no greater difference between the human
child and the changeling brat which the underground spirits lay in his
stead in the cradle, than there is between you when you were a boy and
you as you became during the last year of your stay here. ‘That comes
from books, from so much learning,’ said I to other people. Could I only
have said so to myself! But you shall become gay; the trouble of your
heart shall wither like a poisonous weed. I know whence it sprung, and
will, with God’s help, heal it. Will you solemnly promise, that no soul
in the world shall learn what we speak of in this hour?”

“What have you to say to me?” asked Otto, affected by the extraordinary
earnestness of the old woman.

“The German Heinrich, the player! You remember him well? He is to blame
for your grief! Yes, his name drives the blood more quickly through your
pulse. I feel it, even if I cannot see your face.”

“The German Heinrich!” repeated Otto, and his hand really trembled.
Had Heinrich, then, when he was here three years ago, told her and the
fishermen that which no human being must know,--that which had destroyed
the gayety of his youth? “What have I to do with the German Heinrich?”

“Nothing more than a pious Christian has to do with the devil!” replied
she, and made the sign of the cross. “But Heinrich has whispered an evil
word in your ear; he has banished your joyous humor, as one banishes a
serpent.”

“Has he told you this?” exclaimed Otto, and breathed more quickly. “Tell
me all that he has said!”

“You will not make me suffer for it!” said she. “I am innocent, and yet
I have cooperated in it: it was only a word but a very unseemly word,
and for it one must account at the day of judgment!”

“I do not understand you!” said Otto, and his eyes glanced around to see
whether any one heard. They were quite alone. In the far distance the
boat with the fishermen showed itself like a dark speck.

“Do you remember how wild you were as a boy? How you fastened bladders
to the cat’s legs and tail, and flung her out of the loft-window that
she might fly? I do not say this in anger, for I thought a deal of you;
but when you became too insolent one might wall say, ‘Can no one, then,
curb this lad?’ See, these words I said!--that is my whole fault, but
since then have lain heavy on my heart. Three years ago came the German
Heinrich, and stayed two nights in our house; God forgive it us! Tricks
he could play, and he understood more than the Lord’s Prayer--more than
is useful to a man. With one trick you were to assist him, but when
he gave you the goblet you played your own tricks, and he could make
nothing succeed. You would also be clever. Then he cast an evil eye upon
you, although he was still so friendly and submissive, because you
were a gentleman’s child. Do you remember--no, you will certainly have
forgotten--how you once took the baits of the hooks off and hung my
wooden shoes on instead? Then I said in anger, and the anger of man
is never good, ‘Can no one, then, tame this boy for me? He was making
downright fun of you to your own face,’ said I to the player. ‘Do you
not know some art by which you can tame this wild-cat?’ Then he laughed
maliciously, but I thought no more of the matter. The following day,
however, he said, ‘Now I have curbed the lad! You should only see how
tame he is become; and should he ever again turn unruly, only ask him
what word the German Heinrich whispered in his ear, and you shall. Then
see how quiet he will become. He shall not mock this trick!’ My heart
was filled with horror, but I thought afterward it really meant
nothing. Ei! ei! from the hour he was here you are no longer the same as
formerly; that springs from the magical word he whispered in your ear.
You cannot pronounce the word, he told me; but by it you have been
enchanted: this, and not book-learning, has worked the change. But you
shall be delivered! If you have faith, and that you must have, you shall
again become gay, and I, spite of the evil words which I spoke, be able
to sleep peacefully in my grave. If you will only lay this upon your
heart, now that the moon is in its wane, the trouble will vanish out of
your heart as the disk of the moon decreases!” And saying this she drew
out of her pocket a little leather purse, opened it and took out a
piece of folded paper. “In this is a bit of the wood out of which our
Saviour’s cross was made. This will draw forth the sorrow from your
heart, and bear it, as it bore Him who took upon Himself the sorrow of
the whole world!” She kissed it with pious devotion, and then handed it
to Otto.

The whole became clear to him. He recollected how in his boyish
wantonness he had caused Heinrich’s tricks to miscarry, which occasioned
much pleasure to the spectators, but in Heinrich displeasure: they soon
again became friends, and Otto recognized in him the merry weaver of the
manufactory, as he called his former abode. They were alone, Otto asked
whether he did not remember his name: Heinrich shook his head. Then Otto
uncovered his shoulder, bade him read the branded letters, and heard the
unhappy interpretation which gave the death-blow to his gayety. Heinrich
must have seen what an impression his words made upon the boy: he gained
through them an opportunity of avenging himself, and at the same time
of bringing himself again into repute: as a sorcerer. He had tamed him,
whispered he to the old woman,

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