The young couple went on board,
accompanied
by the whole
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all.
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all.
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
As soon as
the boat touched the shore, the men sprang on board, and before he was
aware of it, they had bound his hands with a rope.
"This wicked deed will cost you your life," they said. "It is a
good thing we have caught you. "
He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had been
found dead, with his throat cut. One of the fishermen, late on the
previous evening, had met Jurgen going towards Martin's house; this
was not the first time Jurgen had raised his knife against Martin,
so they felt sure that he was the murderer. The prison was in a town
at a great distance, and the wind was contrary for going there by sea;
but it would not take half an hour to get across the bay, and
another quarter of an hour would bring them to Norre-Vosborg, the
great castle with ramparts and moat. One of Jurgen's captors was a
fisherman, a brother of the keeper of the castle, and he said it might
be managed that Jurgen should be placed for the present in the dungeon
at Vosborg, where Long Martha the gipsy had been shut up till her
execution. They paid no attention to Jurgen's defence; the few drops
of blood on his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against him. But he
was conscious of his innocence, and as there was no chance of clearing
himself at present he submitted to his fate.
The party landed just at the place where Sir Bugge's castle had
stood, and where Jurgen had walked with his foster-parents after the
burial feast, during the four happiest days of his childhood. He
was led by the well-known path, over the meadow to Vosborg; once
more the elders were in bloom and the lofty lime-trees gave forth
sweet fragrance, and it seemed as if it were but yesterday that he had
last seen the spot. In each of the two wings of the castle there was a
staircase which led to a place below the entrance, from whence there
is access to a low, vaulted cellar. In this dungeon Long Martha had
been imprisoned, and from here she was led away to the scaffold. She
had eaten the hearts of five children, and had imagined that if she
could obtain two more she would be able to fly and make herself
invisible. In the middle of the roof of the cellar there was a
little narrow air-hole, but no window. The flowering lime trees
could not breathe refreshing fragrance into that abode, where
everything was dark and mouldy. There was only a rough bench in the
cell; but a good conscience is a soft pillow, and therefore Jurgen
could sleep well.
The thick oaken door was locked, and secured on the outside by
an iron bar; but the goblin of superstition can creep through a
keyhole into a baron's castle just as easily as it can into a
fisherman's cottage, and why should he not creep in here, where Jurgen
sat thinking of Long Martha and her wicked deeds? Her last thoughts on
the night before her execution had filled this place, and the magic
that tradition asserted to have been practised here, in Sir
Svanwedel's time, came into Jurgen's mind, and made him shudder; but a
sunbeam, a refreshing thought from without, penetrated his heart
even here--it was the remembrance of the flowering elder and the sweet
smelling lime-trees.
He was not left there long. They took him away to the town of
Ringkjobing, where he was imprisoned with equal severity.
Those times were not like ours. The common people were treated
harshly; and it was just after the days when farms were converted into
knights' estates, when coachmen and servants were often made
magistrates, and had power to sentence a poor man, for a small
offence, to lose his property and to corporeal punishment. Judges of
this kind were still to be found; and in Jutland, so far from the
capital, and from the enlightened, well-meaning, head of the
Government, the law was still very loosely administered sometimes--the
smallest grievance Jurgen could expect was that his case should be
delayed.
His dwelling was cold and comfortless; and how long would he be
obliged to bear all this? It seemed his fate to suffer misfortune
and sorrow innocently. He now had plenty of time to reflect on the
difference of fortune on earth, and to wonder why this fate had been
allotted to him; yet he felt sure that all would be made clear in
the next life, the existence that awaits us when this life is over.
His faith had grown strong in the poor fisherman's cottage; the
light which had never shone into his father's mind, in all the
richness and sunshine of Spain, was sent to him to be his comfort in
poverty and distress, a sign of that mercy of God which never fails.
The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of the
North Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was blowing,
and then it sounded like the rushing of a thousand waggons over a hard
road with a mine underneath. Jurgen heard these sounds in his
prison, and it was a relief to him. No music could have touched his
heart as did these sounds of the sea--the rolling sea, the boundless
sea, on which a man can be borne across the world before the wind,
carrying his own house with him wherever he goes, just as the snail
carries its home even into a strange country.
He listened eagerly to its deep murmur and then the thought
arose--"Free! free! How happy to be free, even barefooted and in ragged
clothes! " Sometimes, when such thoughts crossed his mind, the fiery
nature rose within him, and he beat the wall with his clenched fists.
Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when Niels the thief,
called also a horse-dealer, was arrested; and now better times came,
and it was seen that Jurgen had been wrongly accused.
On the afternoon before Jurgen's departure from home, and before
the murder, Niels the thief, had met Martin at a beer-house in the
neighbourhood of Ringkjobing. A few glasses were drank, not enough
to cloud the brain, but enough to loosen Martin's tongue. He began
to boast and to say that he had obtained a house and intended to
marry, and when Niels asked him where he was going to get the money,
he slapped his pocket proudly and said:
"The money is here, where it ought to be. "
This boast cost him his life; for when he went home Niels followed
him, and cut his throat, intending to rob the murdered man of the
gold, which did not exist.
All this was circumstantially explained; but it is enough for us
to know that Jurgen was set free. But what compensation did he get for
having been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out from all
communication with his fellow creatures? They told him he was
fortunate in being proved innocent, and that he might go. The
burgomaster gave him two dollars for travelling expenses, and many
citizens offered him provisions and beer--there were still good
people; they were not all hard and pitiless. But the best thing of all
was that the merchant Bronne, of Skjagen, into whose service Jurgen
had proposed entering the year before, was just at that time on
business in the town of Ringkjobing. Bronne heard the whole story;
he was kind-hearted, and understood what Jurgen must have felt and
suffered. Therefore he made up his mind to make it up to the poor lad,
and convince him that there were still kind folks in the world.
So Jurgen went forth from prison as if to paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this path now, for
no goblet of life is all bitterness; no good man would pour out such a
draught for his fellow-man, and how should He do it, Who is love
personified?
"Let everything be buried and forgotten," said Bronne, the
merchant. "Let us draw a thick line through last year: we will even
burn the almanack. In two days we will start for dear, friendly,
peaceful Skjagen. People call it an out-of-the-way corner; but it is a
good warm chimney-corner, and its windows open toward every part of
the world. "
What a journey that was: It was like taking fresh breath out of
the cold dungeon air into the warm sunshine. The heather bloomed in
pride and beauty, and the shepherd-boy sat on a barrow and blew his
pipe, which he had carved for himself out of a sheep bone. Fata
Morgana, the beautiful aerial phenomenon of the wilderness, appeared
with hanging gardens and waving forests, and the wonderful cloud
called "Lokeman driving his sheep" also was seen.
Up towards Skjagen they went, through the land of the Wendels,
whence the men with long beards (the Longobardi or Lombards) had
emigrated in the reign of King Snio, when all the children and old
people were to have been killed, till the noble Dame Gambaruk proposed
that the young people should emigrate. Jurgen knew all this, he had
some little knowledge; and although he did not know the land of the
Lombards beyond the lofty Alps, he had an idea that it must be
there, for in his boyhood he had been in the south, in Spain. He
thought of the plenteousness of the southern fruit, of the red
pomegranate flowers, of the humming, buzzing, and toiling in the great
beehive of a city he had seen; but home is the best place after all,
and Jurgen's home was Denmark.
At last they arrived at "Vendilskaga," as Skjagen is called in old
Norwegian and Icelandic writings. At that time Old Skjagen, with the
eastern and western town, extended for miles, with sand hills and
arable land as far as the lighthouse near "Grenen. " Then, as now,
the houses were strewn among the wind-raised sand-hills--a
wilderness in which the wind sports with the sand, and where the voice
of the sea-gull and wild swan strikes harshly on the ear.
In the south-west, a mile from "Grenen," lies Old Skjagen;
merchant Bronne dwelt here, and this was also to be Jurgen's home
for the future. The dwelling-house was tarred, and all the small
out-buildings had been put together from pieces of wreck. There was no
fence, for indeed there was nothing to fence in except the long rows
of fishes which were hung upon lines, one above the other, to dry in
the wind. The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there
were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea
before it was filled. They were caught by carloads, and many of them
were either thrown back into the sea or left to lie on the beach.
The old man's wife and daughter and his servants also came to meet
him with great rejoicing. There was a great squeezing of hands, and
talking and questioning. And the daughter, what a sweet face and
bright eyes she had!
The inside of the house was comfortable and roomy. Fritters,
that a king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed on
the table, and there was wine from the Skjagen vineyard--that is,
the sea; for there the grapes come ashore ready pressed and prepared
in barrels and in bottles.
When the mother and daughter heard who Jurgen was, and how
innocently he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more
friendly way; and pretty Clara's eyes had a look of especial
interest as she listened to his story. Jurgen found a happy home in
Old Skjagen. It did his heart good, for it had been sorely tried. He
had drunk the bitter goblet of love which softens or hardens the
heart, according to circumstances. Jurgen's heart was still soft--it
was young, and therefore it was a good thing that Miss Clara was going
in three weeks' time to Christiansand in Norway, in her father's ship,
to visit an aunt and to stay there the whole winter.
On the Sunday before she went away they all went to church, to the
Holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and had been
built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little
way out of the town. It was rather ruinous certainly, and the road
to it was heavy, through deep sand, but the people gladly surmounted
these difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing psalms and to
hear the sermon. The sand had heaped itself up round the walls of
the church, but the graves were kept free from it.
It was the largest church north of the Limfjorden. The Virgin
Mary, with a golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her arms,
stood lifelike on the altar; the holy Apostles had been carved in
the choir, and on the walls there were portraits of the old
burgomasters and councillors of Skjagen; the pulpit was of carved
work. The sun shone brightly into the church, and its radiance fell on
the polished brass chandelier and on the little ship that hung from
the vaulted roof.
Jurgen felt overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that which
possessed him, when, as a boy, he stood in the splendid Spanish
cathedral. But here the feeling was different, for he felt conscious
of being one of the congregation.
After the sermon followed Holy Communion. He partook of the
bread and wine, and it so happened that he knelt by the side of Miss
Clara; but his thoughts were so fixed upon heaven and the Holy
Sacrament that he did not notice his neighbour until he rose from
his knees, and then he saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
She left Skjagen and went to Norway two days later. He remained
behind, and made himself useful on the farm and at the fishery. He
went out fishing, and in those days fish were more plentiful and
larger than they are now. The shoals of the mackerel glittered in
the dark nights, and indicated where they were swimming; the
gurnards snarled, and the crabs gave forth pitiful yells when they
were chased, for fish are not so mute as people say.
Every Sunday Jurgen went to church; and when his eyes rested on
the picture of the Virgin Mary over the altar as he sat there, they
often glided away to the spot where they had knelt side by side.
Autumn came, and brought rain and snow with it; the water rose
up right into the town of Skjagen, the sand could not suck it all
in, one had to wade through it or go by boat. The storms threw
vessel after vessel on the fatal reefs; there were snow-storm and
sand-storms; the sand flew up to the houses, blocking the entrances,
so that people had to creep up through the chimneys; that was
nothing at all remarkable here. It was pleasant and cheerful
indoors, where peat fuel and fragments of wood from the wrecks
blazed and crackled upon the hearth. Merchant Bronne read aloud,
from an old chronicle, about Prince Hamlet of Denmark, who had come
over from England, landed near Bovbjerg, and fought a battle; close by
Ramme was his grave, only a few miles from the place where the
eel-breeder lived; hundreds of barrow rose there from the heath,
forming as it were an enormous churchyard. Merchant Bronne had
himself been at Hamlet's grave; they spoke about old times, and about
their neighbours, the English and the Scotch, and Jurgen sang the air
of "The King of England's Son," and of his splendid ship and its
outfit.
"In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear,
And proved himself the son of a King;
Of his courage and valour let us sing. "
This verse Jurgen sang with so much feeling that his eyes
beamed, and they were black and sparkling since his infancy.
There was wealth, comfort, and happiness even among the domestic
animals, for they were all well cared for, and well kept. The
kitchen looked bright with its copper and tin utensils, and white
plates, and from the rafters hung hams, beef, and winter stores in
plenty. This can still be seen in many rich farms on the west coast of
Jutland: plenty to eat and drink, clean, prettily decorated rooms,
active minds, cheerful tempers, and hospitality can be found there, as
in an Arab's tent.
Jurgen had never spent such a happy time since the famous burial
feast, and yet Miss Clara was absent, except in the thoughts and
memory of all.
In April a ship was to start for Norway, and Jurgen was to sail in
it. He was full of life and spirits, and looked so sturdy and well
that Dame Bronne said it did her good to see him.
"And it does one good to look at you also, old wife," said the
merchant. "Jurgen has brought fresh life into our winter evenings, and
into you too, mother. You look younger than ever this year, and seem
well and cheerful. But then you were once the prettiest girl in
Viborg, and that is saying a great deal, for I have always found the
Viborg girls the prettiest of any. "
Jurgen said nothing, but he thought of a certain maiden of
Skjagen, whom he was soon to visit. The ship set sail for
Christiansand in Norway, and as the wind was favourable it soon
arrived there.
One morning merchant Bronne went out to the lighthouse, which
stands a little way out of Old Skjagen, not far from "Grenen. " The
light was out, and the sun was already high in the heavens, when he
mounted the tower. The sand-banks extend a whole mile from the
shore, beneath the water, outside these banks; many ships could be
seen that day, and with the aid of his telescope the old man thought
he descried his own ship, the Karen Bronne. Yes! certainly, there
she was, sailing homewards with Clara and Jurgen on board.
Clara sat on deck, and saw the sand-hills gradually appearing in
the distance; the church and lighthouse looked like a heron and a swan
rising from the blue waters. If the wind held good they might reach
home in about an hour. So near they were to home and all its joys--so
near to death and all its terrors! A plank in the ship gave way,
and the water rushed in; the crew flew to the pumps, and did their
best to stop the leak. A signal of distress was hoisted, but they were
still fully a mile from the shore. Some fishing boats were in sight,
but they were too far off to be of any use. The wind blew towards
the land, the tide was in their favour, but it was all useless; the
ship could not be saved.
Jurgen threw his right arm round Clara, and pressed her to him.
With what a look she gazed up into his face, as with a prayer to God
for help he breasted the waves, which rushed over the sinking ship!
She uttered a cry, but she felt safe and certain that he would not
leave her to sink. And in this hour of terror and danger Jurgen felt
as the king's son did, as told in the old song:
"In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear. "
How glad he felt that he was a good swimmer! He worked his way
onward with his feet and one arm, while he held the young girl up
firmly with the other. He rested on the waves, he trod the water--in
fact, did everything he could think of, in order not to fatigue
himself, and to reserve strength enough to reach land. He heard
Clara sigh, and felt her shudder convulsively, and he pressed her more
closely to him. Now and then a wave rolled over them, the current
lifted them; the water, although deep, was so clear that for a
moment he imagined he saw the shoals of mackerel glittering, or
Leviathan himself ready to swallow them. Now the clouds cast a
shadow over the water, then again came the playing sunbeams; flocks of
loudly screaming birds passed over him, and the plump and lazy wild
ducks which allow themselves to be drifted by the waves rose up
terrified at the sight of the swimmer. He began to feel his strength
decreasing, but he was only a few cable lengths' distance from the
shore, and help was coming, for a boat was approaching him. At this
moment he distinctly saw a white staring figure under the water--a
wave lifted him up, and he came nearer to the figure--he felt a
violent shock, and everything became dark around him.
On the sand reef lay the wreck of a ship, which was covered with
water at high tide; the white figure head rested against the anchor,
the sharp iron edge of which rose just above the surface. Jurgen had
come in contact with this; the tide had driven him against it with
great force. He sank down stunned with the blow, but the next wave
lifted him and the young girl up again. Some fishermen, coming with
a boat, seized them and dragged them into it. The blood streamed
down over Jurgen's face; he seemed dead, but still held the young girl
so tightly that they were obliged to take her from him by force. She
was pale and lifeless; they laid her in the boat, and rowed as quickly
as possible to the shore. They tried every means to restore Clara to
life, but it was all of no avail. Jurgen had been swimming for some
distance with a corpse in his arms, and had exhausted his strength for
one who was dead.
Jurgen still breathed, so the fishermen carried him to the nearest
house upon the sand-hills, where a smith and general dealer lived
who knew something of surgery, and bound up Jurgen's wounds in a
temporary way until a surgeon could be obtained from the nearest
town the next day. The injured man's brain was affected, and in his
delirium he uttered wild cries; but on the third day he lay quiet
and weak upon his bed; his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the
physician said it would be better for him if this thread broke. "Let
us pray that God may take him," he said, "for he will never be the
same man again. "
But life did not depart from him--the thread would not break,
but the thread of memory was severed; the thread of his mind had
been cut through, and what was still more grievous, a body remained--a
living healthy body that wandered about like a troubled spirit.
Jurgen remained in merchant Bronne's house. "He was hurt while
endeavouring to save our child," said the old man, "and now he is
our son. " People called Jurgen insane, but that was not exactly the
correct term. He was like an instrument in which the strings are loose
and will give no sound; only occasionally they regained their power
for a few minutes, and then they sounded as they used to do. He
would sing snatches of songs or old melodies, pictures of the past
would rise before him, and then disappear in the mist, as it were, but
as a general rule he sat staring into vacancy, without a thought. We
may conjecture that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked like clouded glass.
"Poor mad Jurgen," said the people. And this was the end of a life
whose infancy was to have been surrounded with wealth and splendour
had his parents lived! All his great mental abilities had been lost,
nothing but hardship, sorrow, and disappointment had been his fate. He
was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon
the beach to wither there. And was this one of God's creatures,
fashioned in His own likeness, to have no better fate? Was he to be
only the plaything of fortune? No! the all-loving Creator would
certainly repay him in the life to come for what he had suffered and
lost here. "The Lord is good to all; and His mercy is over all His
works. " The pious old wife of the merchant repeated these words from
the Psalms of David in patience and hope, and the prayer of her
heart was that Jurgen might soon be called away to enter into
eternal life.
In the churchyard where the walls were surrounded with sand
Clara lay buried. Jurgen did not seem to know this; it did not enter
his mind, which could only retain fragments of the past. Every
Sunday he went to church with the old people, and sat there
silently, staring vacantly before him. One day, when the Psalms were
being sung, he sighed deeply, and his eyes became bright; they were
fixed upon a place near the altar where he had knelt with his friend
who was dead. He murmured her name, and became deadly pale, and
tears rolled down his cheeks. They led him out of church; he told
those standing round him that he was well, and had never been ill; he,
who had been so grievously afflicted, the outcast, thrown upon the
world, could not remember his sufferings. The Lord our Creator is wise
and full of loving kindness--who can doubt it?
In Spain, where balmy breezes blow over the Moorish cupolas and
gently stir the orange and myrtle groves, where singing and the
sound of the castanets are always heard, the richest merchant in the
place, a childless old man, sat in a luxurious house, while children
marched in procession through the streets with waving flags and
lighted tapers. If he had been able to press his children to his
heart, his daughter, or her child, that had, perhaps never seen the
light of day, far less the kingdom of heaven, how much of his wealth
would he not have given! "Poor child! " Yes, poor child--a child still,
yet more than thirty years old, for Jurgen had arrived at this age
in Old Skjagen.
The shifting sands had covered the graves in the courtyard,
quite up to the church walls, but still, the dead must be buried among
their relatives and the dear ones who had gone before them. Merchant
Bronne and his wife now rested with their children under the white
sand.
It was in the spring--the season of storms. The sand from the
dunes was whirled up in clouds; the sea was rough, and flocks of birds
flew like clouds in the storm, screaming across the sand-hills.
Shipwreck followed upon shipwreck on the reefs between Old Skagen
and the Hunsby dunes.
One evening Jurgen sat in his room alone: all at once his mind
seemed to become clearer, and a restless feeling came over him, such
as had often, in his younger days, driven him out to wander over the
sand-hills or on the heath. "Home, home! " he cried. No one heard
him. He went out and walked towards the dunes. Sand and stones blew
into his face, and whirled round him; he went in the direction of
the church. The sand was banked up the walls, half covering the
windows, but it had been cleared away in front of the door, and the
entrance was free and easy to open, so Jurgen went into the church.
The storm raged over the town of Skjagen; there had not been
such a terrible tempest within the memory of the inhabitants, nor such
a rough sea. But Jurgen was in the temple of God, and while the
darkness of night reigned outside, a light arose in his soul that
was never to depart from it; the heavy weight that pressed on his
brain burst asunder. He fancied he heard the organ, but it was only
the storm and the moaning of the sea. He sat down on one of the seats,
and lo! the candies were lighted one by one, and there was
brightness and grandeur such as he had only seen in the Spanish
cathedral. The portraits of the old citizens became alive, stepped
down from the walls against which they had hung for centuries, and
took seats near the church door. The gates flew open, and all the dead
people from the churchyard came in, and filled the church, while
beautiful music sounded. Then the melody of the psalm burst forth,
like the sound of the waters, and Jurgen saw that his foster parents
from the Hunsby dunes were there, also old merchant Bronne with his
wife and their daughter Clara, who gave him her hand. They both went
up to the altar where they had knelt before, and the priest joined
their hands and united them for life. Then music was heard again; it
was wonderfully sweet, like a child's voice, full of joy and
expectation, swelling to the powerful tones of a full organ, sometimes
soft and sweet, then like the sounds of a tempest, delightful and
elevating to hear, yet strong enough to burst the stone tombs of the
dead. Then the little ship that hung from the roof of the choir was
let down and looked wonderfully large and beautiful with its silken
sails and rigging:
"The ropes were of silk, the anchor of gold,
And everywhere riches and pomp untold,"
as the old song says.
The young couple went on board, accompanied by the whole
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all. Then
the walls and arches of the church were covered with flowering
junipers and lime trees breathing forth fragrance; the branches waved,
creating a pleasant coolness; they bent and parted, and the ship
sailed between them through the air and over the sea. Every candle
in the church became a star, and the wind sang a hymn in which they
all joined. "Through love to glory, no life is lost, the future is
full of blessings and happiness. Hallelujah! " These were the last
words Jurgen uttered in this world, for the thread that bound his
immortal soul was severed, and nothing but the dead body lay in the
dark church, while the storm raged outside, covering it with loose
sand.
The next day was Sunday, and the congregation and their pastor
went to the church. The road had always been heavy, but now it was
almost unfit for use, and when they at last arrived at the church, a
great heap of sand lay piled up in front of them. The whole church was
completely buried in sand. The clergyman offered a short prayer, and
said that God had closed the door of His house here, and that the
congregation must go and build a new one for Him somewhere else. So
they sung a hymn in the open air, and went home again.
Jurgen could not be found anywhere in the town of Skjagen, nor
on the dunes, though they searched for him everywhere. They came to
the conclusion that one of the great waves, which had rolled far up
on the beach, had carried him away; but his body lay buried in a
great sepulchre--the church itself. The Lord had thrown down a
covering for his grave during the storm, and the heavy mound of sand
lies upon it to this day. The drifting sand had covered the vaulted
roof of the church, the arched cloisters, and the stone aisles. The
white thorn and the dog rose now blossom above the place where the
church lies buried, but the spire, like an enormous monument over a
grave, can be seen for miles round. No king has a more splendid
memorial. Nothing disturbs the peaceful sleep of the dead. I was the
first to hear this story, for the storm sung it to me among the
sand-hills.
THE SAUCY BOY
Once upon a time there was an old poet, one of those right good
old poets.
One evening, as he was sitting at home, there was a terrible storm
going on outside; the rain was pouring down, but the old poet sat
comfortably in his chimney-corner, where the fire was burning and
the apples were roasting.
"There will not be a dry thread left on the poor people who are
out in this weather," he said.
"Oh, open the door! I am so cold and wet through," called a little
child outside. It was crying and knocking at the door, whilst the rain
was pouring down and the wind was rattling all the windows.
"Poor creature! " said the poet, and got up and opened the door.
Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed from
his long fair locks. He was shivering with cold; if he had not been
let in, he would certainly have perished in the storm.
"Poor little thing! " said the poet, and took him by the hand.
"Come to me; I will soon warm you. You shall have some wine and an
apple, for you are such a pretty boy. "
And he was, too. His eyes sparkled like two bright stars, and
although the water flowed down from his fair locks, they still
curled quite beautifully.
He looked like a little angel, but was pale with cold, and
trembling all over. In his hand he held a splendid bow, but it had
been entirely spoilt by the rain, and the colours of the pretty arrows
had run into one another by getting wet.
The old man sat down by the fire, and taking the little boy on his
knee, wrung the water out of his locks and warmed his hands in his
own.
He then made him some hot spiced wine, which quickly revived
him; so that with reddening cheeks, he sprang upon the floor and
danced around the old man.
"You are a merry boy," said the latter. "What is your name? "
"My name is Cupid," he answered. "Don't you know me? There lies my
bow. I shoot with that, you know. Look, the weather is getting fine
again--the moon is shining. "
"But your bow is spoilt," said the old poet.
"That would be unfortunate," said the little boy, taking it up and
looking at it. "Oh, it's quite dry and isn't damaged at all. The
string is quite tight; I'll try it. " So, drawing it back, he took an
arrow, aimed, and shot the good old poet right in the heart. "Do you
see now that my bow was not spoilt? " he said, and, loudly laughing,
ran away. What a naughty boy to shoot the old poet like that, who
had taken him into his warm room, had been so good to him, and had
given him the nicest wine and the best apple!
The good old man lay upon the floor crying; he was really shot
in the heart. "Oh! " he cried, "what a naughty boy this Cupid is! I
shall tell all the good children about this, so that they take care
never to play with him, lest he hurt them. "
And all good children, both girls and boys, whom he told about
this, were on their guard against wicked Cupid; but he deceives them
all the same, for he is very deep. When the students come out of
class, he walks beside them with a book under his arm, and wearing a
black coat. They cannot recognize him. And then, if they take him by
the arm, believing him to be a student too, he sticks an arrow into
their chest. And when the girls go to church to be confirmed, he is
amongst them too. In fact, he is always after people. He sits in the
large chandelier in the theatre and blazes away, so that people
think it is a lamp; but they soon find out their mistake. He walks
about in the castle garden and on the promenades. Yes, once he shot
your father and your mother in the heart too. Just ask them, and you
will hear what they say. Oh! he is a bad boy, this Cupid, and you must
never have anything to do with him, for he is after every one. Just
think, he even shot an arrow at old grandmother; but that was a long
time ago. The wound has long been healed, but such things are never
forgotten.
Now you know what a bad boy this wicked Cupid is.
THE SHADOW
In very hot climates, where the heat of the sun has great power,
people are usually as brown as mahogany; and in the hottest
countries they are negroes, with black skins. A learned man once
travelled into one of these warm climates, from the cold regions of
the north, and thought he would roam about as he did at home; but he
soon had to change his opinion. He found that, like all sensible
people, he must remain in the house during the whole day, with every
window and door closed, so that it looked as if all in the house
were asleep or absent. The houses of the narrow street in which he
lived were so lofty that the sun shone upon them from morning till
evening, and it became quite unbearable. This learned man from the
cold regions was young as well as clever; but it seemed to him as if
he were sitting in an oven, and he became quite exhausted and weak,
and grew so thin that his shadow shrivelled up, and became much
smaller than it had been at home. The sun took away even what was left
of it, and he saw nothing of it till the evening, after sunset. It was
really a pleasure, as soon as the lights were brought into the room,
to see the shadow stretch itself against the wall, even to the
ceiling, so tall was it; and it really wanted a good stretch to
recover its strength. The learned man would sometimes go out into
the balcony to stretch himself also; and as soon as the stars came
forth in the clear, beautiful sky, he felt revived. People at this
hour began to make their appearance in all the balconies in the
street; for in warm climates every window has a balcony, in which they
can breathe the fresh evening air, which is very necessary, even to
those who are used to a heat that makes them as brown as mahogany;
so that the street presented a very lively appearance. Here were
shoemakers, and tailors, and all sorts of people sitting. In the
street beneath, they brought out tables and chairs, lighted candles by
hundreds, talked and sang, and were very merry. There were people
walking, carriages driving, and mules trotting along, with their bells
on the harness, "tingle, tingle," as they went. Then the dead were
carried to the grave with the sound of solemn music, and the tolling
of the church bells. It was indeed a scene of varied life in the
street. One house only, which was just opposite to the one in which
the foreign learned man lived, formed a contrast to all this, for it
was quite still; and yet somebody dwelt there, for flowers stood in
the balcony, blooming beautifully in the hot sun; and this could not
have been unless they had been watered carefully. Therefore some one
must be in the house to do this. The doors leading to the balcony were
half opened in the evening; and although in the front room all was
dark, music could be heard from the interior of the house. The foreign
learned man considered this music very delightful; but perhaps he
fancied it; for everything in these warm countries pleased him,
excepting the heat of the sun. The foreign landlord said he did not
know who had taken the opposite house--nobody was to be seen there;
and as to the music, he thought it seemed very tedious, to him most
uncommonly so.
"It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could
not manage; it is always the same piece. He thinks, I suppose, that he
will be able to manage it at last; but I do not think so, however long
he may play it. "
Once the foreigner woke in the night. He slept with the door
open which led to the balcony; the wind had raised the curtain
before it, and there appeared a wonderful brightness over all in the
balcony of the opposite house. The flowers seemed like flames of the
most gorgeous colors, and among the flowers stood a beautiful
slender maiden. It was to him as if light streamed from her, and
dazzled his eyes; but then he had only just opened them, as he awoke
from his sleep. With one spring he was out of bed, and crept softly
behind the curtain. But she was gone--the brightness had
disappeared; the flowers no longer appeared like flames, although
still as beautiful as ever. The door stood ajar, and from an inner
room sounded music so sweet and so lovely, that it produced the most
enchanting thoughts, and acted on the senses with magic power. Who
could live there? Where was the real entrance? for, both in the street
and in the lane at the side, the whole ground floor was a continuation
of shops; and people could not always be passing through them.
One evening the foreigner sat in the balcony. A light was
burning in his own room, just behind him. It was quite natural,
therefore, that his shadow should fall on the wall of the opposite
house; so that, as he sat amongst the flowers on his balcony, when
he moved, his shadow moved also.
"I think my shadow is the only living thing to be seen
opposite," said the learned man; "see how pleasantly it sits among the
flowers. The door is only ajar; the shadow ought to be clever enough
to step in and look about him, and then to come back and tell me
what he has seen. You could make yourself useful in this way," said
he, jokingly; "be so good as to step in now, will you? " and then he
nodded to the shadow, and the shadow nodded in return. "Now go, but
don't stay away altogether. "
Then the foreigner stood up, and the shadow on the opposite
balcony stood up also; the foreigner turned round, the shadow
turned; and if any one had observed, they might have seen it go
straight into the half-opened door of the opposite balcony, as the
learned man re-entered his own room, and let the curtain fall. The
next morning he went out to take his coffee and read the newspapers.
"How is this? " he exclaimed, as he stood in the sunshine. "I
have lost my shadow. So it really did go away yesterday evening, and
it has not returned. This is very annoying. "
And it certainly did vex him, not so much because the shadow was
gone, but because he knew there was a story of a man without a shadow.
All the people at home, in his country, knew this story; and when he
returned, and related his own adventures, they would say it was only
an imitation; and he had no desire for such things to be said of
him. So he decided not to speak of it at all, which was a very
sensible determination.
In the evening he went out again on his balcony, taking care to
place the light behind him; for he knew that a shadow always wants his
master for a screen; but he could not entice him out. He made
himself little, and he made himself tall; but there was no shadow, and
no shadow came. He said, "Hem, a-hem;" but it was all useless. That
was very vexatious; but in warm countries everything grows very
quickly; and, after a week had passed, he saw, to his great joy,
that a new shadow was growing from his feet, when he walked in the
sunshine; so that the root must have remained. After three weeks, he
had quite a respectable shadow, which, during his return journey to
northern lands, continued to grow, and became at last so large that he
might very well have spared half of it. When this learned man
arrived at home, he wrote books about the true, the good, and the
beautiful, which are to be found in this world; and so days and
years passed--many, many years.
One evening, as he sat in his study, a very gentle tap was heard
at the door. "Come in," said he; but no one came. He opened the
door, and there stood before him a man so remarkably thin that he felt
seriously troubled at his appearance. He was, however, very well
dressed, and looked like a gentleman. "To whom have I the honor of
speaking? " said he.
"Ah, I hoped you would recognize me," said the elegant stranger;
"I have gained so much that I have a body of flesh, and clothes to
wear. You never expected to see me in such a condition. Do you not
recognize your old shadow? Ah, you never expected that I should return
to you again. All has been prosperous with me since I was with you
last; I have become rich in every way, and, were I inclined to
purchase my freedom from service, I could easily do so. " And as he
spoke he rattled between his fingers a number of costly trinkets which
hung to a thick gold watch-chain he wore round his neck. Diamond rings
sparkled on his fingers, and it was all real.
"I cannot recover from my astonishment," said the learned man.
"What does all this mean? "
"Something rather unusual," said the shadow; "but you are yourself
an uncommon man, and you know very well that I have followed in your
footsteps ever since your childhood. As soon as you found that I
have travelled enough to be trusted alone, I went my own way, and I am
now in the most brilliant circumstances. But I felt a kind of
longing to see you once more before you die, and I wanted to see
this place again, for there is always a clinging to the land of
one's birth. I know that you have now another shadow; do I owe you
anything? If so, have the goodness to say what it is. "
"No! Is it really you? " said the learned man. "Well, this is
most remarkable; I never supposed it possible that a man's old
shadow could become a human being. "
"Just tell me what I owe you," said the shadow, "for I do not like
to be in debt to any man. "
"How can you talk in that manner? " said the learned man. "What
question of debt can there be between us? You are as free as any
one. I rejoice exceedingly to hear of your good fortune. Sit down, old
friend, and tell me a little of how it happened, and what you saw in
the house opposite to me while we were in those hot climates. "
"Yes, I will tell you all about it," said the shadow, sitting
down; "but then you must promise me never to tell in this city,
wherever you may meet me, that I have been your shadow. I am
thinking of being married, for I have more than sufficient to
support a family. "
"Make yourself quite easy," said the learned man; "I will tell
no one who you really are. Here is my hand,--I promise, and a word
is sufficient between man and man. "
"Between man and a shadow," said the shadow; for he could not help
saying so.
It was really most remarkable how very much he had become a man in
appearance. He was dressed in a suit of the very finest black cloth,
polished boots, and an opera crush hat, which could be folded together
so that nothing could be seen but the crown and the rim, besides the
trinkets, the gold chain, and the diamond rings already spoken of. The
shadow was, in fact, very well dressed, and this made a man of him.
"Now I will relate to you what you wish to know," said the shadow,
placing his foot with the polished leather boot as firmly as
possible on the arm of the new shadow of the learned man, which lay at
his feet like a poodle dog. This was done, it might be from pride,
or perhaps that the new shadow might cling to him, but the prostrate
shadow remained quite quiet and at rest, in order that it might
listen, for it wanted to know how a shadow could be sent away by its
master, and become a man itself. "Do you know," said the shadow, "that
in the house opposite to you lived the most glorious creature in the
world? It was poetry. I remained there three weeks, and it was more
like three thousand years, for I read all that has ever been written
in poetry or prose; and I may say, in truth, that I saw and learnt
everything. "
"Poetry! " exclaimed the learned man. "Yes, she lives as a hermit
in great cities. Poetry! Well, I saw her once for a very short moment,
while sleep weighed down my eyelids. She flashed upon me from the
balcony like the radiant aurora borealis, surrounded with flowers like
flames of fire. Tell me, you were on the balcony that evening; you
went through the door, and what did you see? "
"I found myself in an ante-room," said the shadow. "You still
sat opposite to me, looking into the room. There was no light, or at
least it seemed in partial darkness, for the door of a whole suite
of rooms stood open, and they were brilliantly lighted. The blaze of
light would have killed me, had I approached too near the maiden
myself, but I was cautious, and took time, which is what every one
ought to do. "
"And what didst thou see? " asked the learned man.
"I saw everything, as you shall hear. But--it really is not
pride on my part, as a free man and possessing the knowledge that I
do, besides my position, not to speak of my wealth--I wish you would
say you to me instead of thou. "
"I beg your pardon," said the learned man; "it is an old habit,
which it is difficult to break. You are quite right; I will try to
think of it. But now tell me everything that you saw. "
"Everything," said the shadow; "for I saw and know everything. "
"What was the appearance of the inner rooms? " asked the scholar.
"Was it there like a cool grove, or like a holy temple? Were the
chambers like a starry sky seen from the top of a high mountain? "
"It was all that you describe," said the shadow; "but I did not go
quite in--I remained in the twilight of the ante-room--but I was in
a very good position,--I could see and hear all that was going on in
the court of poetry. "
"But what did you see? Did the gods of ancient times pass
through the rooms? Did old heroes fight their battles over again? Were
there lovely children at play, who related their dreams? "
"I tell you I have been there, and therefore you may be sure
that I saw everything that was to be seen.
the boat touched the shore, the men sprang on board, and before he was
aware of it, they had bound his hands with a rope.
"This wicked deed will cost you your life," they said. "It is a
good thing we have caught you. "
He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had been
found dead, with his throat cut. One of the fishermen, late on the
previous evening, had met Jurgen going towards Martin's house; this
was not the first time Jurgen had raised his knife against Martin,
so they felt sure that he was the murderer. The prison was in a town
at a great distance, and the wind was contrary for going there by sea;
but it would not take half an hour to get across the bay, and
another quarter of an hour would bring them to Norre-Vosborg, the
great castle with ramparts and moat. One of Jurgen's captors was a
fisherman, a brother of the keeper of the castle, and he said it might
be managed that Jurgen should be placed for the present in the dungeon
at Vosborg, where Long Martha the gipsy had been shut up till her
execution. They paid no attention to Jurgen's defence; the few drops
of blood on his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against him. But he
was conscious of his innocence, and as there was no chance of clearing
himself at present he submitted to his fate.
The party landed just at the place where Sir Bugge's castle had
stood, and where Jurgen had walked with his foster-parents after the
burial feast, during the four happiest days of his childhood. He
was led by the well-known path, over the meadow to Vosborg; once
more the elders were in bloom and the lofty lime-trees gave forth
sweet fragrance, and it seemed as if it were but yesterday that he had
last seen the spot. In each of the two wings of the castle there was a
staircase which led to a place below the entrance, from whence there
is access to a low, vaulted cellar. In this dungeon Long Martha had
been imprisoned, and from here she was led away to the scaffold. She
had eaten the hearts of five children, and had imagined that if she
could obtain two more she would be able to fly and make herself
invisible. In the middle of the roof of the cellar there was a
little narrow air-hole, but no window. The flowering lime trees
could not breathe refreshing fragrance into that abode, where
everything was dark and mouldy. There was only a rough bench in the
cell; but a good conscience is a soft pillow, and therefore Jurgen
could sleep well.
The thick oaken door was locked, and secured on the outside by
an iron bar; but the goblin of superstition can creep through a
keyhole into a baron's castle just as easily as it can into a
fisherman's cottage, and why should he not creep in here, where Jurgen
sat thinking of Long Martha and her wicked deeds? Her last thoughts on
the night before her execution had filled this place, and the magic
that tradition asserted to have been practised here, in Sir
Svanwedel's time, came into Jurgen's mind, and made him shudder; but a
sunbeam, a refreshing thought from without, penetrated his heart
even here--it was the remembrance of the flowering elder and the sweet
smelling lime-trees.
He was not left there long. They took him away to the town of
Ringkjobing, where he was imprisoned with equal severity.
Those times were not like ours. The common people were treated
harshly; and it was just after the days when farms were converted into
knights' estates, when coachmen and servants were often made
magistrates, and had power to sentence a poor man, for a small
offence, to lose his property and to corporeal punishment. Judges of
this kind were still to be found; and in Jutland, so far from the
capital, and from the enlightened, well-meaning, head of the
Government, the law was still very loosely administered sometimes--the
smallest grievance Jurgen could expect was that his case should be
delayed.
His dwelling was cold and comfortless; and how long would he be
obliged to bear all this? It seemed his fate to suffer misfortune
and sorrow innocently. He now had plenty of time to reflect on the
difference of fortune on earth, and to wonder why this fate had been
allotted to him; yet he felt sure that all would be made clear in
the next life, the existence that awaits us when this life is over.
His faith had grown strong in the poor fisherman's cottage; the
light which had never shone into his father's mind, in all the
richness and sunshine of Spain, was sent to him to be his comfort in
poverty and distress, a sign of that mercy of God which never fails.
The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of the
North Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was blowing,
and then it sounded like the rushing of a thousand waggons over a hard
road with a mine underneath. Jurgen heard these sounds in his
prison, and it was a relief to him. No music could have touched his
heart as did these sounds of the sea--the rolling sea, the boundless
sea, on which a man can be borne across the world before the wind,
carrying his own house with him wherever he goes, just as the snail
carries its home even into a strange country.
He listened eagerly to its deep murmur and then the thought
arose--"Free! free! How happy to be free, even barefooted and in ragged
clothes! " Sometimes, when such thoughts crossed his mind, the fiery
nature rose within him, and he beat the wall with his clenched fists.
Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when Niels the thief,
called also a horse-dealer, was arrested; and now better times came,
and it was seen that Jurgen had been wrongly accused.
On the afternoon before Jurgen's departure from home, and before
the murder, Niels the thief, had met Martin at a beer-house in the
neighbourhood of Ringkjobing. A few glasses were drank, not enough
to cloud the brain, but enough to loosen Martin's tongue. He began
to boast and to say that he had obtained a house and intended to
marry, and when Niels asked him where he was going to get the money,
he slapped his pocket proudly and said:
"The money is here, where it ought to be. "
This boast cost him his life; for when he went home Niels followed
him, and cut his throat, intending to rob the murdered man of the
gold, which did not exist.
All this was circumstantially explained; but it is enough for us
to know that Jurgen was set free. But what compensation did he get for
having been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out from all
communication with his fellow creatures? They told him he was
fortunate in being proved innocent, and that he might go. The
burgomaster gave him two dollars for travelling expenses, and many
citizens offered him provisions and beer--there were still good
people; they were not all hard and pitiless. But the best thing of all
was that the merchant Bronne, of Skjagen, into whose service Jurgen
had proposed entering the year before, was just at that time on
business in the town of Ringkjobing. Bronne heard the whole story;
he was kind-hearted, and understood what Jurgen must have felt and
suffered. Therefore he made up his mind to make it up to the poor lad,
and convince him that there were still kind folks in the world.
So Jurgen went forth from prison as if to paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this path now, for
no goblet of life is all bitterness; no good man would pour out such a
draught for his fellow-man, and how should He do it, Who is love
personified?
"Let everything be buried and forgotten," said Bronne, the
merchant. "Let us draw a thick line through last year: we will even
burn the almanack. In two days we will start for dear, friendly,
peaceful Skjagen. People call it an out-of-the-way corner; but it is a
good warm chimney-corner, and its windows open toward every part of
the world. "
What a journey that was: It was like taking fresh breath out of
the cold dungeon air into the warm sunshine. The heather bloomed in
pride and beauty, and the shepherd-boy sat on a barrow and blew his
pipe, which he had carved for himself out of a sheep bone. Fata
Morgana, the beautiful aerial phenomenon of the wilderness, appeared
with hanging gardens and waving forests, and the wonderful cloud
called "Lokeman driving his sheep" also was seen.
Up towards Skjagen they went, through the land of the Wendels,
whence the men with long beards (the Longobardi or Lombards) had
emigrated in the reign of King Snio, when all the children and old
people were to have been killed, till the noble Dame Gambaruk proposed
that the young people should emigrate. Jurgen knew all this, he had
some little knowledge; and although he did not know the land of the
Lombards beyond the lofty Alps, he had an idea that it must be
there, for in his boyhood he had been in the south, in Spain. He
thought of the plenteousness of the southern fruit, of the red
pomegranate flowers, of the humming, buzzing, and toiling in the great
beehive of a city he had seen; but home is the best place after all,
and Jurgen's home was Denmark.
At last they arrived at "Vendilskaga," as Skjagen is called in old
Norwegian and Icelandic writings. At that time Old Skjagen, with the
eastern and western town, extended for miles, with sand hills and
arable land as far as the lighthouse near "Grenen. " Then, as now,
the houses were strewn among the wind-raised sand-hills--a
wilderness in which the wind sports with the sand, and where the voice
of the sea-gull and wild swan strikes harshly on the ear.
In the south-west, a mile from "Grenen," lies Old Skjagen;
merchant Bronne dwelt here, and this was also to be Jurgen's home
for the future. The dwelling-house was tarred, and all the small
out-buildings had been put together from pieces of wreck. There was no
fence, for indeed there was nothing to fence in except the long rows
of fishes which were hung upon lines, one above the other, to dry in
the wind. The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there
were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea
before it was filled. They were caught by carloads, and many of them
were either thrown back into the sea or left to lie on the beach.
The old man's wife and daughter and his servants also came to meet
him with great rejoicing. There was a great squeezing of hands, and
talking and questioning. And the daughter, what a sweet face and
bright eyes she had!
The inside of the house was comfortable and roomy. Fritters,
that a king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed on
the table, and there was wine from the Skjagen vineyard--that is,
the sea; for there the grapes come ashore ready pressed and prepared
in barrels and in bottles.
When the mother and daughter heard who Jurgen was, and how
innocently he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more
friendly way; and pretty Clara's eyes had a look of especial
interest as she listened to his story. Jurgen found a happy home in
Old Skjagen. It did his heart good, for it had been sorely tried. He
had drunk the bitter goblet of love which softens or hardens the
heart, according to circumstances. Jurgen's heart was still soft--it
was young, and therefore it was a good thing that Miss Clara was going
in three weeks' time to Christiansand in Norway, in her father's ship,
to visit an aunt and to stay there the whole winter.
On the Sunday before she went away they all went to church, to the
Holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and had been
built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little
way out of the town. It was rather ruinous certainly, and the road
to it was heavy, through deep sand, but the people gladly surmounted
these difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing psalms and to
hear the sermon. The sand had heaped itself up round the walls of
the church, but the graves were kept free from it.
It was the largest church north of the Limfjorden. The Virgin
Mary, with a golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her arms,
stood lifelike on the altar; the holy Apostles had been carved in
the choir, and on the walls there were portraits of the old
burgomasters and councillors of Skjagen; the pulpit was of carved
work. The sun shone brightly into the church, and its radiance fell on
the polished brass chandelier and on the little ship that hung from
the vaulted roof.
Jurgen felt overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that which
possessed him, when, as a boy, he stood in the splendid Spanish
cathedral. But here the feeling was different, for he felt conscious
of being one of the congregation.
After the sermon followed Holy Communion. He partook of the
bread and wine, and it so happened that he knelt by the side of Miss
Clara; but his thoughts were so fixed upon heaven and the Holy
Sacrament that he did not notice his neighbour until he rose from
his knees, and then he saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
She left Skjagen and went to Norway two days later. He remained
behind, and made himself useful on the farm and at the fishery. He
went out fishing, and in those days fish were more plentiful and
larger than they are now. The shoals of the mackerel glittered in
the dark nights, and indicated where they were swimming; the
gurnards snarled, and the crabs gave forth pitiful yells when they
were chased, for fish are not so mute as people say.
Every Sunday Jurgen went to church; and when his eyes rested on
the picture of the Virgin Mary over the altar as he sat there, they
often glided away to the spot where they had knelt side by side.
Autumn came, and brought rain and snow with it; the water rose
up right into the town of Skjagen, the sand could not suck it all
in, one had to wade through it or go by boat. The storms threw
vessel after vessel on the fatal reefs; there were snow-storm and
sand-storms; the sand flew up to the houses, blocking the entrances,
so that people had to creep up through the chimneys; that was
nothing at all remarkable here. It was pleasant and cheerful
indoors, where peat fuel and fragments of wood from the wrecks
blazed and crackled upon the hearth. Merchant Bronne read aloud,
from an old chronicle, about Prince Hamlet of Denmark, who had come
over from England, landed near Bovbjerg, and fought a battle; close by
Ramme was his grave, only a few miles from the place where the
eel-breeder lived; hundreds of barrow rose there from the heath,
forming as it were an enormous churchyard. Merchant Bronne had
himself been at Hamlet's grave; they spoke about old times, and about
their neighbours, the English and the Scotch, and Jurgen sang the air
of "The King of England's Son," and of his splendid ship and its
outfit.
"In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear,
And proved himself the son of a King;
Of his courage and valour let us sing. "
This verse Jurgen sang with so much feeling that his eyes
beamed, and they were black and sparkling since his infancy.
There was wealth, comfort, and happiness even among the domestic
animals, for they were all well cared for, and well kept. The
kitchen looked bright with its copper and tin utensils, and white
plates, and from the rafters hung hams, beef, and winter stores in
plenty. This can still be seen in many rich farms on the west coast of
Jutland: plenty to eat and drink, clean, prettily decorated rooms,
active minds, cheerful tempers, and hospitality can be found there, as
in an Arab's tent.
Jurgen had never spent such a happy time since the famous burial
feast, and yet Miss Clara was absent, except in the thoughts and
memory of all.
In April a ship was to start for Norway, and Jurgen was to sail in
it. He was full of life and spirits, and looked so sturdy and well
that Dame Bronne said it did her good to see him.
"And it does one good to look at you also, old wife," said the
merchant. "Jurgen has brought fresh life into our winter evenings, and
into you too, mother. You look younger than ever this year, and seem
well and cheerful. But then you were once the prettiest girl in
Viborg, and that is saying a great deal, for I have always found the
Viborg girls the prettiest of any. "
Jurgen said nothing, but he thought of a certain maiden of
Skjagen, whom he was soon to visit. The ship set sail for
Christiansand in Norway, and as the wind was favourable it soon
arrived there.
One morning merchant Bronne went out to the lighthouse, which
stands a little way out of Old Skjagen, not far from "Grenen. " The
light was out, and the sun was already high in the heavens, when he
mounted the tower. The sand-banks extend a whole mile from the
shore, beneath the water, outside these banks; many ships could be
seen that day, and with the aid of his telescope the old man thought
he descried his own ship, the Karen Bronne. Yes! certainly, there
she was, sailing homewards with Clara and Jurgen on board.
Clara sat on deck, and saw the sand-hills gradually appearing in
the distance; the church and lighthouse looked like a heron and a swan
rising from the blue waters. If the wind held good they might reach
home in about an hour. So near they were to home and all its joys--so
near to death and all its terrors! A plank in the ship gave way,
and the water rushed in; the crew flew to the pumps, and did their
best to stop the leak. A signal of distress was hoisted, but they were
still fully a mile from the shore. Some fishing boats were in sight,
but they were too far off to be of any use. The wind blew towards
the land, the tide was in their favour, but it was all useless; the
ship could not be saved.
Jurgen threw his right arm round Clara, and pressed her to him.
With what a look she gazed up into his face, as with a prayer to God
for help he breasted the waves, which rushed over the sinking ship!
She uttered a cry, but she felt safe and certain that he would not
leave her to sink. And in this hour of terror and danger Jurgen felt
as the king's son did, as told in the old song:
"In the hour of peril when most men fear,
He clasped the bride that he held so dear. "
How glad he felt that he was a good swimmer! He worked his way
onward with his feet and one arm, while he held the young girl up
firmly with the other. He rested on the waves, he trod the water--in
fact, did everything he could think of, in order not to fatigue
himself, and to reserve strength enough to reach land. He heard
Clara sigh, and felt her shudder convulsively, and he pressed her more
closely to him. Now and then a wave rolled over them, the current
lifted them; the water, although deep, was so clear that for a
moment he imagined he saw the shoals of mackerel glittering, or
Leviathan himself ready to swallow them. Now the clouds cast a
shadow over the water, then again came the playing sunbeams; flocks of
loudly screaming birds passed over him, and the plump and lazy wild
ducks which allow themselves to be drifted by the waves rose up
terrified at the sight of the swimmer. He began to feel his strength
decreasing, but he was only a few cable lengths' distance from the
shore, and help was coming, for a boat was approaching him. At this
moment he distinctly saw a white staring figure under the water--a
wave lifted him up, and he came nearer to the figure--he felt a
violent shock, and everything became dark around him.
On the sand reef lay the wreck of a ship, which was covered with
water at high tide; the white figure head rested against the anchor,
the sharp iron edge of which rose just above the surface. Jurgen had
come in contact with this; the tide had driven him against it with
great force. He sank down stunned with the blow, but the next wave
lifted him and the young girl up again. Some fishermen, coming with
a boat, seized them and dragged them into it. The blood streamed
down over Jurgen's face; he seemed dead, but still held the young girl
so tightly that they were obliged to take her from him by force. She
was pale and lifeless; they laid her in the boat, and rowed as quickly
as possible to the shore. They tried every means to restore Clara to
life, but it was all of no avail. Jurgen had been swimming for some
distance with a corpse in his arms, and had exhausted his strength for
one who was dead.
Jurgen still breathed, so the fishermen carried him to the nearest
house upon the sand-hills, where a smith and general dealer lived
who knew something of surgery, and bound up Jurgen's wounds in a
temporary way until a surgeon could be obtained from the nearest
town the next day. The injured man's brain was affected, and in his
delirium he uttered wild cries; but on the third day he lay quiet
and weak upon his bed; his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the
physician said it would be better for him if this thread broke. "Let
us pray that God may take him," he said, "for he will never be the
same man again. "
But life did not depart from him--the thread would not break,
but the thread of memory was severed; the thread of his mind had
been cut through, and what was still more grievous, a body remained--a
living healthy body that wandered about like a troubled spirit.
Jurgen remained in merchant Bronne's house. "He was hurt while
endeavouring to save our child," said the old man, "and now he is
our son. " People called Jurgen insane, but that was not exactly the
correct term. He was like an instrument in which the strings are loose
and will give no sound; only occasionally they regained their power
for a few minutes, and then they sounded as they used to do. He
would sing snatches of songs or old melodies, pictures of the past
would rise before him, and then disappear in the mist, as it were, but
as a general rule he sat staring into vacancy, without a thought. We
may conjecture that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked like clouded glass.
"Poor mad Jurgen," said the people. And this was the end of a life
whose infancy was to have been surrounded with wealth and splendour
had his parents lived! All his great mental abilities had been lost,
nothing but hardship, sorrow, and disappointment had been his fate. He
was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon
the beach to wither there. And was this one of God's creatures,
fashioned in His own likeness, to have no better fate? Was he to be
only the plaything of fortune? No! the all-loving Creator would
certainly repay him in the life to come for what he had suffered and
lost here. "The Lord is good to all; and His mercy is over all His
works. " The pious old wife of the merchant repeated these words from
the Psalms of David in patience and hope, and the prayer of her
heart was that Jurgen might soon be called away to enter into
eternal life.
In the churchyard where the walls were surrounded with sand
Clara lay buried. Jurgen did not seem to know this; it did not enter
his mind, which could only retain fragments of the past. Every
Sunday he went to church with the old people, and sat there
silently, staring vacantly before him. One day, when the Psalms were
being sung, he sighed deeply, and his eyes became bright; they were
fixed upon a place near the altar where he had knelt with his friend
who was dead. He murmured her name, and became deadly pale, and
tears rolled down his cheeks. They led him out of church; he told
those standing round him that he was well, and had never been ill; he,
who had been so grievously afflicted, the outcast, thrown upon the
world, could not remember his sufferings. The Lord our Creator is wise
and full of loving kindness--who can doubt it?
In Spain, where balmy breezes blow over the Moorish cupolas and
gently stir the orange and myrtle groves, where singing and the
sound of the castanets are always heard, the richest merchant in the
place, a childless old man, sat in a luxurious house, while children
marched in procession through the streets with waving flags and
lighted tapers. If he had been able to press his children to his
heart, his daughter, or her child, that had, perhaps never seen the
light of day, far less the kingdom of heaven, how much of his wealth
would he not have given! "Poor child! " Yes, poor child--a child still,
yet more than thirty years old, for Jurgen had arrived at this age
in Old Skjagen.
The shifting sands had covered the graves in the courtyard,
quite up to the church walls, but still, the dead must be buried among
their relatives and the dear ones who had gone before them. Merchant
Bronne and his wife now rested with their children under the white
sand.
It was in the spring--the season of storms. The sand from the
dunes was whirled up in clouds; the sea was rough, and flocks of birds
flew like clouds in the storm, screaming across the sand-hills.
Shipwreck followed upon shipwreck on the reefs between Old Skagen
and the Hunsby dunes.
One evening Jurgen sat in his room alone: all at once his mind
seemed to become clearer, and a restless feeling came over him, such
as had often, in his younger days, driven him out to wander over the
sand-hills or on the heath. "Home, home! " he cried. No one heard
him. He went out and walked towards the dunes. Sand and stones blew
into his face, and whirled round him; he went in the direction of
the church. The sand was banked up the walls, half covering the
windows, but it had been cleared away in front of the door, and the
entrance was free and easy to open, so Jurgen went into the church.
The storm raged over the town of Skjagen; there had not been
such a terrible tempest within the memory of the inhabitants, nor such
a rough sea. But Jurgen was in the temple of God, and while the
darkness of night reigned outside, a light arose in his soul that
was never to depart from it; the heavy weight that pressed on his
brain burst asunder. He fancied he heard the organ, but it was only
the storm and the moaning of the sea. He sat down on one of the seats,
and lo! the candies were lighted one by one, and there was
brightness and grandeur such as he had only seen in the Spanish
cathedral. The portraits of the old citizens became alive, stepped
down from the walls against which they had hung for centuries, and
took seats near the church door. The gates flew open, and all the dead
people from the churchyard came in, and filled the church, while
beautiful music sounded. Then the melody of the psalm burst forth,
like the sound of the waters, and Jurgen saw that his foster parents
from the Hunsby dunes were there, also old merchant Bronne with his
wife and their daughter Clara, who gave him her hand. They both went
up to the altar where they had knelt before, and the priest joined
their hands and united them for life. Then music was heard again; it
was wonderfully sweet, like a child's voice, full of joy and
expectation, swelling to the powerful tones of a full organ, sometimes
soft and sweet, then like the sounds of a tempest, delightful and
elevating to hear, yet strong enough to burst the stone tombs of the
dead. Then the little ship that hung from the roof of the choir was
let down and looked wonderfully large and beautiful with its silken
sails and rigging:
"The ropes were of silk, the anchor of gold,
And everywhere riches and pomp untold,"
as the old song says.
The young couple went on board, accompanied by the whole
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all. Then
the walls and arches of the church were covered with flowering
junipers and lime trees breathing forth fragrance; the branches waved,
creating a pleasant coolness; they bent and parted, and the ship
sailed between them through the air and over the sea. Every candle
in the church became a star, and the wind sang a hymn in which they
all joined. "Through love to glory, no life is lost, the future is
full of blessings and happiness. Hallelujah! " These were the last
words Jurgen uttered in this world, for the thread that bound his
immortal soul was severed, and nothing but the dead body lay in the
dark church, while the storm raged outside, covering it with loose
sand.
The next day was Sunday, and the congregation and their pastor
went to the church. The road had always been heavy, but now it was
almost unfit for use, and when they at last arrived at the church, a
great heap of sand lay piled up in front of them. The whole church was
completely buried in sand. The clergyman offered a short prayer, and
said that God had closed the door of His house here, and that the
congregation must go and build a new one for Him somewhere else. So
they sung a hymn in the open air, and went home again.
Jurgen could not be found anywhere in the town of Skjagen, nor
on the dunes, though they searched for him everywhere. They came to
the conclusion that one of the great waves, which had rolled far up
on the beach, had carried him away; but his body lay buried in a
great sepulchre--the church itself. The Lord had thrown down a
covering for his grave during the storm, and the heavy mound of sand
lies upon it to this day. The drifting sand had covered the vaulted
roof of the church, the arched cloisters, and the stone aisles. The
white thorn and the dog rose now blossom above the place where the
church lies buried, but the spire, like an enormous monument over a
grave, can be seen for miles round. No king has a more splendid
memorial. Nothing disturbs the peaceful sleep of the dead. I was the
first to hear this story, for the storm sung it to me among the
sand-hills.
THE SAUCY BOY
Once upon a time there was an old poet, one of those right good
old poets.
One evening, as he was sitting at home, there was a terrible storm
going on outside; the rain was pouring down, but the old poet sat
comfortably in his chimney-corner, where the fire was burning and
the apples were roasting.
"There will not be a dry thread left on the poor people who are
out in this weather," he said.
"Oh, open the door! I am so cold and wet through," called a little
child outside. It was crying and knocking at the door, whilst the rain
was pouring down and the wind was rattling all the windows.
"Poor creature! " said the poet, and got up and opened the door.
Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed from
his long fair locks. He was shivering with cold; if he had not been
let in, he would certainly have perished in the storm.
"Poor little thing! " said the poet, and took him by the hand.
"Come to me; I will soon warm you. You shall have some wine and an
apple, for you are such a pretty boy. "
And he was, too. His eyes sparkled like two bright stars, and
although the water flowed down from his fair locks, they still
curled quite beautifully.
He looked like a little angel, but was pale with cold, and
trembling all over. In his hand he held a splendid bow, but it had
been entirely spoilt by the rain, and the colours of the pretty arrows
had run into one another by getting wet.
The old man sat down by the fire, and taking the little boy on his
knee, wrung the water out of his locks and warmed his hands in his
own.
He then made him some hot spiced wine, which quickly revived
him; so that with reddening cheeks, he sprang upon the floor and
danced around the old man.
"You are a merry boy," said the latter. "What is your name? "
"My name is Cupid," he answered. "Don't you know me? There lies my
bow. I shoot with that, you know. Look, the weather is getting fine
again--the moon is shining. "
"But your bow is spoilt," said the old poet.
"That would be unfortunate," said the little boy, taking it up and
looking at it. "Oh, it's quite dry and isn't damaged at all. The
string is quite tight; I'll try it. " So, drawing it back, he took an
arrow, aimed, and shot the good old poet right in the heart. "Do you
see now that my bow was not spoilt? " he said, and, loudly laughing,
ran away. What a naughty boy to shoot the old poet like that, who
had taken him into his warm room, had been so good to him, and had
given him the nicest wine and the best apple!
The good old man lay upon the floor crying; he was really shot
in the heart. "Oh! " he cried, "what a naughty boy this Cupid is! I
shall tell all the good children about this, so that they take care
never to play with him, lest he hurt them. "
And all good children, both girls and boys, whom he told about
this, were on their guard against wicked Cupid; but he deceives them
all the same, for he is very deep. When the students come out of
class, he walks beside them with a book under his arm, and wearing a
black coat. They cannot recognize him. And then, if they take him by
the arm, believing him to be a student too, he sticks an arrow into
their chest. And when the girls go to church to be confirmed, he is
amongst them too. In fact, he is always after people. He sits in the
large chandelier in the theatre and blazes away, so that people
think it is a lamp; but they soon find out their mistake. He walks
about in the castle garden and on the promenades. Yes, once he shot
your father and your mother in the heart too. Just ask them, and you
will hear what they say. Oh! he is a bad boy, this Cupid, and you must
never have anything to do with him, for he is after every one. Just
think, he even shot an arrow at old grandmother; but that was a long
time ago. The wound has long been healed, but such things are never
forgotten.
Now you know what a bad boy this wicked Cupid is.
THE SHADOW
In very hot climates, where the heat of the sun has great power,
people are usually as brown as mahogany; and in the hottest
countries they are negroes, with black skins. A learned man once
travelled into one of these warm climates, from the cold regions of
the north, and thought he would roam about as he did at home; but he
soon had to change his opinion. He found that, like all sensible
people, he must remain in the house during the whole day, with every
window and door closed, so that it looked as if all in the house
were asleep or absent. The houses of the narrow street in which he
lived were so lofty that the sun shone upon them from morning till
evening, and it became quite unbearable. This learned man from the
cold regions was young as well as clever; but it seemed to him as if
he were sitting in an oven, and he became quite exhausted and weak,
and grew so thin that his shadow shrivelled up, and became much
smaller than it had been at home. The sun took away even what was left
of it, and he saw nothing of it till the evening, after sunset. It was
really a pleasure, as soon as the lights were brought into the room,
to see the shadow stretch itself against the wall, even to the
ceiling, so tall was it; and it really wanted a good stretch to
recover its strength. The learned man would sometimes go out into
the balcony to stretch himself also; and as soon as the stars came
forth in the clear, beautiful sky, he felt revived. People at this
hour began to make their appearance in all the balconies in the
street; for in warm climates every window has a balcony, in which they
can breathe the fresh evening air, which is very necessary, even to
those who are used to a heat that makes them as brown as mahogany;
so that the street presented a very lively appearance. Here were
shoemakers, and tailors, and all sorts of people sitting. In the
street beneath, they brought out tables and chairs, lighted candles by
hundreds, talked and sang, and were very merry. There were people
walking, carriages driving, and mules trotting along, with their bells
on the harness, "tingle, tingle," as they went. Then the dead were
carried to the grave with the sound of solemn music, and the tolling
of the church bells. It was indeed a scene of varied life in the
street. One house only, which was just opposite to the one in which
the foreign learned man lived, formed a contrast to all this, for it
was quite still; and yet somebody dwelt there, for flowers stood in
the balcony, blooming beautifully in the hot sun; and this could not
have been unless they had been watered carefully. Therefore some one
must be in the house to do this. The doors leading to the balcony were
half opened in the evening; and although in the front room all was
dark, music could be heard from the interior of the house. The foreign
learned man considered this music very delightful; but perhaps he
fancied it; for everything in these warm countries pleased him,
excepting the heat of the sun. The foreign landlord said he did not
know who had taken the opposite house--nobody was to be seen there;
and as to the music, he thought it seemed very tedious, to him most
uncommonly so.
"It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could
not manage; it is always the same piece. He thinks, I suppose, that he
will be able to manage it at last; but I do not think so, however long
he may play it. "
Once the foreigner woke in the night. He slept with the door
open which led to the balcony; the wind had raised the curtain
before it, and there appeared a wonderful brightness over all in the
balcony of the opposite house. The flowers seemed like flames of the
most gorgeous colors, and among the flowers stood a beautiful
slender maiden. It was to him as if light streamed from her, and
dazzled his eyes; but then he had only just opened them, as he awoke
from his sleep. With one spring he was out of bed, and crept softly
behind the curtain. But she was gone--the brightness had
disappeared; the flowers no longer appeared like flames, although
still as beautiful as ever. The door stood ajar, and from an inner
room sounded music so sweet and so lovely, that it produced the most
enchanting thoughts, and acted on the senses with magic power. Who
could live there? Where was the real entrance? for, both in the street
and in the lane at the side, the whole ground floor was a continuation
of shops; and people could not always be passing through them.
One evening the foreigner sat in the balcony. A light was
burning in his own room, just behind him. It was quite natural,
therefore, that his shadow should fall on the wall of the opposite
house; so that, as he sat amongst the flowers on his balcony, when
he moved, his shadow moved also.
"I think my shadow is the only living thing to be seen
opposite," said the learned man; "see how pleasantly it sits among the
flowers. The door is only ajar; the shadow ought to be clever enough
to step in and look about him, and then to come back and tell me
what he has seen. You could make yourself useful in this way," said
he, jokingly; "be so good as to step in now, will you? " and then he
nodded to the shadow, and the shadow nodded in return. "Now go, but
don't stay away altogether. "
Then the foreigner stood up, and the shadow on the opposite
balcony stood up also; the foreigner turned round, the shadow
turned; and if any one had observed, they might have seen it go
straight into the half-opened door of the opposite balcony, as the
learned man re-entered his own room, and let the curtain fall. The
next morning he went out to take his coffee and read the newspapers.
"How is this? " he exclaimed, as he stood in the sunshine. "I
have lost my shadow. So it really did go away yesterday evening, and
it has not returned. This is very annoying. "
And it certainly did vex him, not so much because the shadow was
gone, but because he knew there was a story of a man without a shadow.
All the people at home, in his country, knew this story; and when he
returned, and related his own adventures, they would say it was only
an imitation; and he had no desire for such things to be said of
him. So he decided not to speak of it at all, which was a very
sensible determination.
In the evening he went out again on his balcony, taking care to
place the light behind him; for he knew that a shadow always wants his
master for a screen; but he could not entice him out. He made
himself little, and he made himself tall; but there was no shadow, and
no shadow came. He said, "Hem, a-hem;" but it was all useless. That
was very vexatious; but in warm countries everything grows very
quickly; and, after a week had passed, he saw, to his great joy,
that a new shadow was growing from his feet, when he walked in the
sunshine; so that the root must have remained. After three weeks, he
had quite a respectable shadow, which, during his return journey to
northern lands, continued to grow, and became at last so large that he
might very well have spared half of it. When this learned man
arrived at home, he wrote books about the true, the good, and the
beautiful, which are to be found in this world; and so days and
years passed--many, many years.
One evening, as he sat in his study, a very gentle tap was heard
at the door. "Come in," said he; but no one came. He opened the
door, and there stood before him a man so remarkably thin that he felt
seriously troubled at his appearance. He was, however, very well
dressed, and looked like a gentleman. "To whom have I the honor of
speaking? " said he.
"Ah, I hoped you would recognize me," said the elegant stranger;
"I have gained so much that I have a body of flesh, and clothes to
wear. You never expected to see me in such a condition. Do you not
recognize your old shadow? Ah, you never expected that I should return
to you again. All has been prosperous with me since I was with you
last; I have become rich in every way, and, were I inclined to
purchase my freedom from service, I could easily do so. " And as he
spoke he rattled between his fingers a number of costly trinkets which
hung to a thick gold watch-chain he wore round his neck. Diamond rings
sparkled on his fingers, and it was all real.
"I cannot recover from my astonishment," said the learned man.
"What does all this mean? "
"Something rather unusual," said the shadow; "but you are yourself
an uncommon man, and you know very well that I have followed in your
footsteps ever since your childhood. As soon as you found that I
have travelled enough to be trusted alone, I went my own way, and I am
now in the most brilliant circumstances. But I felt a kind of
longing to see you once more before you die, and I wanted to see
this place again, for there is always a clinging to the land of
one's birth. I know that you have now another shadow; do I owe you
anything? If so, have the goodness to say what it is. "
"No! Is it really you? " said the learned man. "Well, this is
most remarkable; I never supposed it possible that a man's old
shadow could become a human being. "
"Just tell me what I owe you," said the shadow, "for I do not like
to be in debt to any man. "
"How can you talk in that manner? " said the learned man. "What
question of debt can there be between us? You are as free as any
one. I rejoice exceedingly to hear of your good fortune. Sit down, old
friend, and tell me a little of how it happened, and what you saw in
the house opposite to me while we were in those hot climates. "
"Yes, I will tell you all about it," said the shadow, sitting
down; "but then you must promise me never to tell in this city,
wherever you may meet me, that I have been your shadow. I am
thinking of being married, for I have more than sufficient to
support a family. "
"Make yourself quite easy," said the learned man; "I will tell
no one who you really are. Here is my hand,--I promise, and a word
is sufficient between man and man. "
"Between man and a shadow," said the shadow; for he could not help
saying so.
It was really most remarkable how very much he had become a man in
appearance. He was dressed in a suit of the very finest black cloth,
polished boots, and an opera crush hat, which could be folded together
so that nothing could be seen but the crown and the rim, besides the
trinkets, the gold chain, and the diamond rings already spoken of. The
shadow was, in fact, very well dressed, and this made a man of him.
"Now I will relate to you what you wish to know," said the shadow,
placing his foot with the polished leather boot as firmly as
possible on the arm of the new shadow of the learned man, which lay at
his feet like a poodle dog. This was done, it might be from pride,
or perhaps that the new shadow might cling to him, but the prostrate
shadow remained quite quiet and at rest, in order that it might
listen, for it wanted to know how a shadow could be sent away by its
master, and become a man itself. "Do you know," said the shadow, "that
in the house opposite to you lived the most glorious creature in the
world? It was poetry. I remained there three weeks, and it was more
like three thousand years, for I read all that has ever been written
in poetry or prose; and I may say, in truth, that I saw and learnt
everything. "
"Poetry! " exclaimed the learned man. "Yes, she lives as a hermit
in great cities. Poetry! Well, I saw her once for a very short moment,
while sleep weighed down my eyelids. She flashed upon me from the
balcony like the radiant aurora borealis, surrounded with flowers like
flames of fire. Tell me, you were on the balcony that evening; you
went through the door, and what did you see? "
"I found myself in an ante-room," said the shadow. "You still
sat opposite to me, looking into the room. There was no light, or at
least it seemed in partial darkness, for the door of a whole suite
of rooms stood open, and they were brilliantly lighted. The blaze of
light would have killed me, had I approached too near the maiden
myself, but I was cautious, and took time, which is what every one
ought to do. "
"And what didst thou see? " asked the learned man.
"I saw everything, as you shall hear. But--it really is not
pride on my part, as a free man and possessing the knowledge that I
do, besides my position, not to speak of my wealth--I wish you would
say you to me instead of thou. "
"I beg your pardon," said the learned man; "it is an old habit,
which it is difficult to break. You are quite right; I will try to
think of it. But now tell me everything that you saw. "
"Everything," said the shadow; "for I saw and know everything. "
"What was the appearance of the inner rooms? " asked the scholar.
"Was it there like a cool grove, or like a holy temple? Were the
chambers like a starry sky seen from the top of a high mountain? "
"It was all that you describe," said the shadow; "but I did not go
quite in--I remained in the twilight of the ante-room--but I was in
a very good position,--I could see and hear all that was going on in
the court of poetry. "
"But what did you see? Did the gods of ancient times pass
through the rooms? Did old heroes fight their battles over again? Were
there lovely children at play, who related their dreams? "
"I tell you I have been there, and therefore you may be sure
that I saw everything that was to be seen.
