There was an
old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of?
old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of?
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
"I do not know whether you would care to
go to another wedding," he replied, "although it is quite a
different affair to the one we saw last night. Your sister's large
doll, that is dressed like a man, and is called Herman, intends to
marry the doll Bertha. It is also the dolls' birthday, and they will
receive many presents. "
"Yes, I know that already," said Hjalmar, "my sister always allows
her dolls to keep their birthdays or to have a wedding when they
require new clothes; that has happened already a hundred times, I am
quite sure. "
"Yes, so it may; but to-night is the hundred and first wedding,
and when that has taken place it must be the last, therefore this is
to be extremely beautiful. Only look. "
Hjalmar looked at the table, and there stood the little card-board
doll's house, with lights in all the windows, and drawn up before it
were the tin soldiers presenting arms. The bridal pair were seated
on the floor, leaning against the leg of the table, looking very
thoughtful, and with good reason. Then Ole-Luk-Oie dressed up in
grandmother's black gown married them.
As soon as the ceremony was concluded, all the furniture in the
room joined in singing a beautiful song, which had been composed by
the lead pencil, and which went to the melody of a military tattoo.
"What merry sounds are on the wind,
As marriage rites together bind
A quiet and a loving pair,
Though formed of kid, yet smooth and fair!
Hurrah! If they are deaf and blind,
We'll sing, though weather prove unkind. "
And now came the present; but the bridal pair had nothing to
eat, for love was to be their food.
"Shall we go to a country house, or travel? " asked the bridegroom.
Then they consulted the swallow who had travelled so far, and
the old hen in the yard, who had brought up five broods of chickens.
And the swallow talked to them of warm countries, where the grapes
hang in large clusters on the vines, and the air is soft and mild, and
about the mountains glowing with colors more beautiful than we can
think of.
"But they have no red cabbage like we have," said the hen, "I
was once in the country with my chickens for a whole summer, there was
a large sand-pit, in which we could walk about and scratch as we
liked. Then we got into a garden in which grew red cabbage; oh, how
nice it was, I cannot think of anything more delicious. "
"But one cabbage stalk is exactly like another," said the swallow;
"and here we have often bad weather. "
"Yes, but we are accustomed to it," said the hen.
"But it is so cold here, and freezes sometimes. "
"Cold weather is good for cabbages," said the hen; "besides we
do have it warm here sometimes. Four years ago, we had a summer that
lasted more than five weeks, and it was so hot one could scarcely
breathe. And then in this country we have no poisonous animals, and we
are free from robbers. He must be wicked who does not consider our
country the finest of all lands. He ought not to be allowed to live
here. " And then the hen wept very much and said, "I have also
travelled. I once went twelve miles in a coop, and it was not pleasant
travelling at all. "
"The hen is a sensible woman," said the doll Bertha. "I don't care
for travelling over mountains, just to go up and come down again.
No, let us go to the sand-pit in front of the gate, and then take a
walk in the cabbage garden. "
And so they settled it.
SATURDAY
"Am I to hear any more stories? " asked little Hjalmar, as soon
as Ole-Luk-Oie had sent him to sleep.
"We shall have no time this evening," said he, spreading out his
prettiest umbrella over the child. "Look at these Chinese," and then
the whole umbrella appeared like a large china bowl, with blue trees
and pointed bridges, upon which stood little Chinamen nodding their
heads. "We must make all the world beautiful for to-morrow morning,"
said Ole-Luk-Oie, "for it will be a holiday, it is Sunday. I must
now go to the church steeple and see if the little sprites who live
there have polished the bells, so that they may sound sweetly. Then
I must go into the fields and see if the wind has blown the dust
from the grass and the leaves, and the most difficult task of all
which I have to do, is to take down all the stars and brighten them
up. I have to number them first before I put them in my apron, and
also to number the places from which I take them, so that they may
go back into the right holes, or else they would not remain, and we
should have a number of falling stars, for they would all tumble
down one after the other. "
"Hark ye! Mr. Luk-Oie," said an old portrait which hung on the
wall of Hjalmar's bedroom. "Do you know me? I am Hjalmar's
great-grandfather. I thank you for telling the boy stories, but you
must not confuse his ideas. The stars cannot be taken down from the
sky and polished; they are spheres like our earth, which is a good
thing for them. "
"Thank you, old great-grandfather," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "I thank
you; you may be the head of the family, as no doubt you are, but I
am older than you. I am an ancient heathen. The old Romans and
Greeks named me the Dream-god. I have visited the noblest houses,
and continue to do so; still I know how to conduct myself both to high
and low, and now you may tell the stories yourself:" and so
Ole-Luk-Oie walked off, taking his umbrellas with him.
"Well, well, one is never to give an opinion, I suppose," grumbled
the portrait. And it woke Hjalmar.
SUNDAY
"Good evening," said Ole-Luk-Oie.
Hjalmar nodded, and then sprang out of bed, and turned his
great-grandfather's portrait to the wall, so that it might not
interrupt them as it had done yesterday. "Now," said he, "you must
tell me some stories about five green peas that lived in one pod; or
of the chickseed that courted the chickweed; or of the darning needle,
who acted so proudly because she fancied herself an embroidery
needle. "
"You may have too much of a good thing," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "You
know that I like best to show you something, so I will show you my
brother. He is also called Ole-Luk-Oie but he never visits any one but
once, and when he does come, he takes him away on his horse, and tells
him stories as they ride along. He knows only two stories. One of
these is so wonderfully beautiful, that no one in the world can
imagine anything at all like it; but the other is just as ugly and
frightful, so that it would be impossible to describe it. " Then
Ole-Luk-Oie lifted Hjalmar up to the window. "There now, you can see
my brother, the other Ole-Luk-Oie; he is also called Death. You
perceive he is not so bad as they represent him in picture books;
there he is a skeleton, but now his coat is embroidered with silver,
and he wears the splendid uniform of a hussar, and a mantle of black
velvet flies behind him, over the horse. Look, how he gallops
along. " Hjalmar saw that as this Ole-Luk-Oie rode on, he lifted up old
and young, and carried them away on his horse. Some he seated in front
of him, and some behind, but always inquired first, "How stands the
mark-book? "
"Good," they all answered.
"Yes, but let me see for myself," he replied; and they were
obliged to give him the books. Then all those who had "Very good,"
or "Exceedingly good," came in front of the horse, and heard the
beautiful story; while those who had "Middling," or "Tolerably
good," in their books, were obliged to sit behind, and listen to the
frightful tale. They trembled and cried, and wanted to jump down
from the horse, but they could not get free, for they seemed
fastened to the seat.
"Why, Death is a most splendid Luk-Oie," said Hjalmar. "I am not
in the least afraid of him. "
"You need have no fear of him," said Ole-Luk-Oie, "if you take
care and keep a good conduct book. "
"Now I call that very instructive," murmured the
great-grandfather's portrait. "It is useful sometimes to express an
opinion;" so he was quite satisfied.
These are some of the doings and sayings of Ole-Luk-Oie. I hope he
may visit you himself this evening, and relate some more.
OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER
"In the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up
any higher! " So said Ole the tower-keeper. "Most people have to try
both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to
be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height. "
Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a
strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that
came into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought
deep in his heart. Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and
there were even some who said that he was the son of a privy
councillor, or that he might have been. He had studied, too, and had
been assistant teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all
that to him? In those days he lived in the clerk's house, and was to
have everything in the house--to be at free quarters, as the saying
is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. He wanted
to have his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could
only afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. One spoke
of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking became the
black cause of enmity between them, and at last they parted.
This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely, patent
blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly, he at last
drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the church tower is
the only place in a great city where hermitage, office and bread can
be found together. So he betook himself up thither, and smoked his
pipe as he made his solitary rounds. He looked upward and downward,
and had his own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in
books and in himself. I often lent him books--good books; and you
may know by the company he keeps. He loved neither the English
governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a mixture of
empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and
descriptions of the wonders of, the world. I visited him at least once
a year, generally directly after New Year's day, and then he always
spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into his
head.
I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will reproduce
his own words whenever I can remember them.
FIRST VISIT
Among the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which had
greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological book,
containing an account of the boulders.
"Yes, they're rare old fellows, those boulders! " he said; "and
to think that we should pass them without noticing them! And over
the street pavement, the paving stones, those fragments of the
oldest remains of antiquity, one walks without ever thinking about
them. I have done the very thing myself. But now I look respectfully
at every paving-stone. Many thanks for the book! It has filled me with
thought, and has made me long to read more on the subject. The romance
of the earth is, after all, the most wonderful of all romances. It's a
pity one can't read the first volume of it, because it is written in a
language that we don't understand. One must read in the different
strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a
romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it. We
grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball
keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which
we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a
story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands of years and
is still going on. My best thanks for the book about the boulders.
Those are fellows indeed! They could tell us something worth
hearing, if they only knew how to talk. It's really a pleasure now and
then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly
placed as I am. And then to think that we all, even with patent
lacquer, are nothing more than insects of a moment on that ant-hill
the earth, though we may be insects with stars and garters, places and
offices! One feels quite a novice beside these venerable
million-year-old boulders. On last New Year's eve I was reading the
book, and had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my
usual New Year's diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you
don't know what that is!
"The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough known--that
journey is taken on St. John's eve, to the Brocken; but we have a
wild journey, also which is national and modern, and that is the
journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets
and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers, and artistic
notabilities,--I mean those who are no good,--ride in the New Year's
night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting
brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them--they're too
stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could
mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to
draw their enmity upon myself, for they don't like people to talk
about their ride to Amack on quill pens. I've a kind of niece, who
is a fishwife, and who, as she tells me, supplies three respectable
newspapers with the terms of abuse and vituperation they use, and
she has herself been at Amack as an invited guest; but she was carried
out thither, for she does not own a quill pen, nor can she ride. She
has told me all about it. Half of what she said is not true, but the
other half gives us information enough. When she was out there, the
festivities began with a song; each of the guests had written his
own song, and each one sang his own song, for he thought that the
best, and it was all one, all the same melody. Then those came
marching up, in little bands, who are only busy with their mouths.
There were ringing bells that rang alternately; and then came the
little drummers that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and
acquaintance was made with those who write without putting their
names, which here means as much as using grease instead of patent
blacking; and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy
was worst off, for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then,
too, there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns over
the dust-bin, and calls it 'good, very good, remarkably good. ' And
in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the mere meeting
of these folks, there shot up out of the great dirt-heap at Amack a
stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great mushroom, a perfect roof,
which formed a sort of warehouse for the worthy company, for in it
hung everything they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out
of the tree poured sparks like flames of fire; these were the ideas
and thoughts, borrowed from others, which they had used, and which now
got free and rushed away like so many fireworks. They played at 'the
stick burns,' and the young poets played at 'heart-burns,' and the
witlings played off their jests, and the jests rolled away with a
thundering sound, as if empty pots were being shattered against doors.
'It was very amusing! ' my niece said; in fact, she said many things
that were very malicious but very amusing, but I won't mention them,
for a man must be good-natured, and not a carping critic. But you will
easily perceive that when a man once knows the rights of the journey
to Amack, as I know them, it's quite natural that on the New Year's
night one should look out to see the wild chase go by. If in the New
Year I miss certain persons who used to be there, I am sure to
notice others who are new arrivals; but this year I omitted taking
my look at the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back
through millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in
the north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before Noah's ark
was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom of the sea, and
re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that peered forth from the
flood and said, 'This shall be Zealand! ' I saw them become the
dwelling-place of birds that are unknown to us, and then become the
seat of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing, until with their axes
they cut their Runic signs into a few of these stones, which then came
into the calendar of time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond
all lapse of time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three
or four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air,
and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star
is, do you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I
have my own ideas about shooting stars, as the common people in many
parts call them, and my idea is this: How often are silent
thanksgivings offered up for one who has done a good and noble action!
The thanks are often speechless, but they are not lost for all that. I
think these thanks are caught up, and the sunbeams bring the silent,
hidden thankfulness over the head of the benefactor; and if it be a
whole people that has been expressing its gratitude through a long
lapse of time, the thankfulness appears as a nosegay of flowers, and
at length falls in the form of a shooting star over the good man's
grave. I am always very much pleased when I see a shooting star,
especially in the New Year's night, and then find out for whom the
gift of gratitude was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell in the
southwest, as a tribute of thanksgiving to many--many! 'For whom was
that star intended? ' thought I. It fell, no doubt, on the hill by
the Bay of Plensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves of
Schleppegrell, Lasloes, and their comrades. One star also fell in
the midst of the land, fell upon Soro, a flower on the grave of
Holberg, the thanks of the year from a great many--thanks for his
charming plays!
"It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a shooting star
falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none will fall--no sunbeam
brings thanks to me, for here there is nothing worthy of thanks. I
shall not get the patent lacquer," said Ole, "for my fate on earth
is only grease, after all. "
SECOND VISIT
It was New Year's day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of
the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into
the New--from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a
story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It
was this:
"When on the New Year's night the clock strikes twelve, the people
at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these
glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with
the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They
begin the New Year by going to bed, and that's a good beginning for
drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the
glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass? " asked Ole. "I
will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then
pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and
the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the
glasses--of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for
different people.
"You see, the first glass, that's the glass of health, and in that
the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the
ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of
health.
"If you take the second glass--from this a little bird soars
upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen
to his song, and perhaps join in 'Fair is life! no downcast looks!
Take courage, and march onward! '
"Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot
certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his
veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin--not wishing to hurt or
harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll
sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he'll creep into
your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a
wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.
"In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that
glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that
sign.
"Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will
feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way.
Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine
times and extravagantly merry. He'll draw you away with him; you'll
forget your dignity, if you have any, and you'll forget more than
you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks
will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in
silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but
tear yourself away if you can!
"The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form
of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who
thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes
quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you
light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint
who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who
accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but
which led him to commit all the other six. The man's blood is
mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that
the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a
strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a
tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice
but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.
"That's the history of the glasses," said the tower-keeper Ole,
"and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it
you with both! "
THIRD VISIT
On this occasion I chose the general "moving-day" for my visit
to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the
streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and
remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in which
one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children
playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at "going
to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this
sport. They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged
curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. "It was splendid! " they
said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides, I was
obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.
"It's moving-day to day," he said; "streets and houses are like
a dust-bin--a large dust-bin; but I'm content with a cartload. I may
get something good out of that, and I really did get something good
out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was going up the street;
it was rough weather, wet and dirty--the right kind of weather to
catch cold in. The dustman was there with his cart, which was full,
and looked like a sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of
the cart stood a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its
twigs; it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out
into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his
cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful--all
depends on what you think of when you see it; and I thought about
it, and thought this and that of many things that were in the cart: or
I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing.
There was an
old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I
tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger
at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also
at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to
speak, a ball night--a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory
keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing else to live for! '
This is what the glove thought, or what it might have thought. 'That's
a stupid affair with yonder fir tree,' said the potsherds. You see,
potsherds think everything is stupid. 'When one is in the
dust-cart,' they said, 'one ought not to give one's self airs and wear
tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world--far more useful
than such a green stick. ' This was a view that might be taken, and I
don't think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree
looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and
truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is
difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out
of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look
down, and it is amusing enough.
"There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses. '
They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the
household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the
little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and
sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what
gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was
written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of
death! ' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to
you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,
Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and
he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings
bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the
great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when
Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with
him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes
this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and
this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped
the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not
allowed to go--they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride
behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have
escaped the clutches of the poets.
"Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is
mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They
must go without their property and money; they have only the
service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which
of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little
one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded--small as
a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who
sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted,
will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the
stool may become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as
a throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who always
lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might
forget the wild things he had done here, will have his barrel given to
him on the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on;
and the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain pure,
and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he sees and feels
what in life he could not or would not see; and then he has within him
the punishment, the gnawing worm, which will not die through time
incalculable. If on the glasses there stood written 'oblivion,' on the
barrel 'remembrance' is inscribed.
"When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think at
last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus of
death, and wonder, which of the hero's deeds Death took out of the
savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the journey into
eternity. There was once a French king--I have forgotten his name, for
the names of good people are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it
will come back some day;--there was a king who, during a famine,
became the benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his
memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, 'Quicker than this
melts didst thou bring help! ' I fancy that Death, looking back upon
the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a
snow-flake that never melts, and this flake floated over his royal
head, like a white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too,
there was Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what
is bad--a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one
could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable
executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the
innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other eight
years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm blood of their
father spurted over them, and then he had them sent to the Bastille,
and shut up in iron cages, where not even a coverlet was given them to
protect them from the cold. And King Louis sent the executioner to
them every week, and had a tooth pulled out of the head of each,
that they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys
said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger
brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my
teeth, and spare him. ' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the
king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little
teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and
he had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the
savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with him
on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly before him
like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and they bite him, the
innocent children's teeth.
"Yes, that's a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great
moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That's just the serious
part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus may draw up.
Which of our deeds will Death take out of the savings bank, and give
to us as provision? Let us think of the moving-day that is not
marked in the calendar. "
OUR AUNT
You ought to have known our aunt; she was charming! That is to
say, she was not charming at all as the word is usually understood;
but she was good and kind, amusing in her way, and was just as any one
ought to be whom people are to talk about and to laugh at. She might
have been put into a play, and wholly and solely on account of the
fact that she only lived for the theatre and for what was done
there. She was an honorable matron; but Agent Fabs, whom she used to
call "Flabs," declared that our aunt was stage-struck.
"The theatre is my school," said she, "the source of my knowledge.
From thence I have resuscitated Biblical history. Now, 'Moses' and
'Joseph in Egypt'--there are operas for you! I get my universal
history from the theatre, my geography, and my knowledge of men. Out
of the French pieces I get to know life in Paris--slippery, but
exceedingly interesting. How I have cried over 'La Famille
Roquebourg'--that the man must drink himself to death, so that she may
marry the young fellow! Yes, how many tears I have wept in the fifty
years I have subscribed to the theatre! "
Our aunt knew every acting play, every bit of scenery, every
character, every one who appeared or had appeared. She seemed really
only to live during the nine months the theatre was open. Summertime
without a summer theatre seemed to be only a time that made her old;
while, on the other hand, a theatrical evening that lasted till
midnight was a lengthening of her life. She did not say, as other
people do, "Now we shall have spring, the stork is here," or, "They've
advertised the first strawberries in the papers. " She, on the
contrary, used to announce the coming of autumn, with "Have you
heard they're selling boxes for the theatre? now the performances will
begin. "
She used to value a lodging entirely according to its proximity to
the theatre. It was a real sorrow to her when she had to leave the
little lane behind the playhouse, and move into the great street
that lay a little farther off, and live there in a house where she had
no opposite neighbors.
"At home," said she, "my windows must be my opera-box. One
cannot sit and look into one's self till one's tired; one must see
people. But now I live just as if I'd go into the country. If I want
to see human beings, I must go into my kitchen, and sit down on the
sink, for there only I have opposite neighbors. No; when I lived in my
dear little lane, I could look straight down into the ironmonger's
shop, and had only three hundred paces to the theatre; and now I've
three thousand paces to go, military measurement. "
Our aunt was sometimes ill, but however unwell she might feel, she
never missed the play. The doctor prescribed one day that she should
put her feet in a bran bath, and she followed his advice; but she
drove to the theatre all the same, and sat with her feet in bran
there. If she had died there, she would have been very glad.
Thorwaldsen died in the theatre, and she called that a happy death.
She could not imagine but that in heaven there must be a theatre
too. It had not, indeed, been promised us, but we might very well
imagine it. The many distinguished actors and actresses who had passed
away must surely have a field for their talent.
Our aunt had an electric wire from the theatre to her room. A
telegram used to be dispatched to her at coffee-time, and it used to
consist of the words, "Herr Sivertsen is at the machinery;" for it was
he who gave the signal for drawing the curtain up and down and for
changing the scenes.
From him she used to receive a short and concise description of
every piece. His opinion of Shakspeare's "Tempest," was, "Mad
nonsense! There's so much to put up, and the first scene begins with
'Water to the front of the wings. '" That is to say, the water had to
come forward so far. But when, on the other hand, the same interior
scene remained through five acts, he used to pronounce it a
sensible, well-written play, a resting play, which performed itself,
without putting up scenes.
In earlier times, by which name our aunt used to designate
thirty years ago, she and the before-mentioned Herr Sivertsen had been
younger. At that time he had already been connected with the
machinery, and was, as she said, her benefactor. It used to be the
custom in those days that in the evening performances in the only
theatre the town possessed, spectators were admitted to the part
called the "flies," over the stage, and every machinist had one or two
places to give away. Often the flies were quite full of good
company; it was said that generals' wives and privy councillors' wives
had been up there. It was quite interesting to look down behind the
scenes, and to see how the people walked to and fro on the stage
when the curtain was down.
Our aunt had been there several times, as well when there was a
tragedy as when there was a ballet; for the pieces in which there were
the greatest number of characters on the stage were the most
interesting to see from the flies. One sat pretty much in the dark
up there, and most people took their supper up with them. Once three
apples and a great piece of bread and butter and sausage fell down
right into the dungeon of Ugolino, where that unhappy man was to be
starved to death; and there was great laughter among the audience. The
sausage was one of the weightiest reasons why the worthy management
refused in future to have any spectators up in the flies.
"But I was there seven-and-thirty times," said our aunt, "and I
shall always remember Mr. Sivertsen for that. "
On the very last evening when the flies were still open to the
public, the "Judgment of Solomon" was performed, as our aunt
remembered very well. She had, through the influence of her
benefactor, Herr Sivertsen, procured a free admission for the Agent
Fabs, although he did not deserve it in the least, for he was always
cutting his jokes about the theatre and teasing our aunt; but she
had procured him a free admission to the flies, for all that. He
wanted to look at this player-stuff from the other side.
"Those were his own words, and they were just like him," said
our aunt.
He looked down from above on the 'Judgment of Solomon,' and fell
asleep over it. One would have thought that he had come from a
dinner where many toasts had been given. He went to sleep, and was
locked in. And there he sat through the dark night in the flies, and
when he woke, he told a story, but our aunt would not believe it.
"The 'Judgment of Solomon' was over," he said, "and all the people
had gone away, up stairs and down stairs; but now the real play began,
the after-piece, which was the best of all," said the agent. "Then
life came into the affair. It was not the 'Judgment of Solomon' that
was performed; no, a real court of judgment was held upon the
stage. " And Agent Fabs had the impudence to try and make our aunt
believe all this. That was the thanks she got for having got him a
place in the flies.
What did the agent say? Why, it was curious enough to hear, but
there was malice and satire in it.
"It looked dark enough up there," said the agent; "but then the
magic business began--a great performance, 'The Judgment in the
Theatre. ' The box-keepers were at their posts, and every spectator had
to show his ghostly pass-book, that it might be decided if he was to
be admitted with hands loose or bound, and with or without a muzzle.
Grand people who came too late, when the performance had begun, and
young people, who could not always watch the time, were tied up
outside, and had list slippers put on their feet, with which they were
allowed to go in before the beginning of the next act, and they had
muzzles too. And then the 'Judgment on the Stage' began. "
"All malice, and not a bit of truth in it," said our aunt.
The painter, who wanted to get to Paradise, had to go up a
staircase which he had himself painted, but which no man could
mount. That was to expiate his sins against perspective. All the
plants and buildings, which the property-man had placed, with infinite
pains, in countries to which they did not belong, the poor fellow
was obliged to put in their right places before cockcrow, if he wanted
to get into Paradise. Let Herr Fabs see how he would get in himself;
but what he said of the performers, tragedians and comedians,
singers and dancers, that was the most rascally of all. Mr. Fabs,
indeed! --Flabs! He did not deserve to be admitted at all, and our aunt
would not soil her lips with what he said. And he said, did Flabs,
that the whole was written down, and it should be printed when he
was dead and buried, but not before, for he would not risk having
his arms and legs broken.
Once our aunt had been in fear and trembling in her temple of
happiness, the theatre. It was on a winter day, one of those days in
which one has a couple of hours of daylight, with a gray sky. It was
terribly cold and snowy, but aunt must go to the theatre. A little
opera and a great ballet were performed, and a prologue and an
epilogue into the bargain; and that would last till late at night. Our
aunt must needs go; so she borrowed a pair of fur boots of her
lodger--boots with fur inside and out, and which reached far up
her legs.
She got to the theatre, and to her box; the boots were warm, and
she kept them on. Suddenly there was a cry of "Fire! " Smoke was coming
from one of the side scenes, and streamed down from the flies, and
there was a terrible panic. The people came rushing out, and our
aunt was the last in the box, "on the second tier, left-hand side, for
from there the scenery looks best," she used to say. "The scenes are
always arranged that they look best from the King's side. " Aunt wanted
to come out, but the people before her, in their fright and
heedlessness, slammed the door of the box; and there sat our aunt, and
couldn't get out, and couldn't get in; that is to say, she couldn't
get into the next box, for the partition was too high for her. She
called out, and no one heard her; she looked down into the tier of
boxes below her, and it was empty, and low, and looked quite near, and
aunt in her terror felt quite young and light. She thought of
jumping down, and had got one leg over the partition, the other
resting on the bench. There she sat astride, as if on horseback,
well wrapped up in her flowered cloak with one leg hanging out--a
leg in a tremendous fur boot. That was a sight to behold; and when
it was beheld, our aunt was heard too, and was saved from burning, for
the theatre was not burned down.
That was the most memorable evening of her life, and she was
glad that she could not see herself, for she would have died with
confusion.
Her benefactor in the machinery department, Herr Sivertsen,
visited her every Sunday, but it was a long time from Sunday to
Sunday. In the latter time, therefore, she used to have in a little
child "for the scraps;" that is to say, to eat up the remains of the
dinner. It was a child employed in the ballet, one that certainly
wanted feeding. The little one used to appear, sometimes as an elf,
sometimes as a page; the most difficult part she had to play was the
lion's hind leg in the "Magic Flute;" but as she grew larger she could
represent the fore-feet of the lion. She certainly only got half a
guilder for that, whereas the hind legs were paid for with a whole
guilder; but then she had to walk bent, and to do without fresh air.
"That was all very interesting to hear," said our aunt.
She deserved to live as long as the theatre stood, but she could
not last so long; and she did not die in the theatre, but
respectably in her bed. Her last words were, moreover, not without
meaning. She asked,
"What will the play be to-morrow? "
At her death she left about five hundred dollars. We presume
this from the interest, which came to twenty dollars. This our aunt
had destined as a legacy for a worthy old spinster who had no friends;
it was to be devoted to a yearly subscription for a place in the
second tier, on the left side, for the Saturday evening, "for on
that evening two pieces were always given," it said in the will; and
the only condition laid upon the person who enjoyed the legacy was,
that she should think, every Saturday evening, of our aunt, who was
lying in her grave.
This was our aunt's religion.
THE GARDEN OF PARADISE
There was once a king's son who had a larger and more beautiful
collection of books than any one else in the world, and full of
splendid copper-plate engravings. He could read and obtain information
respecting every people of every land; but not a word could he find to
explain the situation of the garden of paradise, and this was just
what he most wished to know. His grandmother had told him when he
was quite a little boy, just old enough to go to school, that each
flower in the garden of paradise was a sweet cake, that the pistils
were full of rich wine, that on one flower history was written, on
another geography or tables; so those who wished to learn their
lessons had only to eat some of the cakes, and the more they ate,
the more history, geography, or tables they knew. He believed it all
then; but as he grew older, and learnt more and more, he became wise
enough to understand that the splendor of the garden of paradise
must be very different to all this. "Oh, why did Eve pluck the fruit
from the tree of knowledge? why did Adam eat the forbidden fruit? "
thought the king's son: "if I had been there it would never have
happened, and there would have been no sin in the world. " The garden
of paradise occupied all his thoughts till he reached his
seventeenth year.
One day he was walking alone in the wood, which was his greatest
pleasure, when evening came on. The clouds gathered, and the rain
poured down as if the sky had been a waterspout; and it was as dark as
the bottom of a well at midnight; sometimes he slipped over the smooth
grass, or fell over stones that projected out of the rocky ground.
Every thing was dripping with moisture, and the poor prince had not
a dry thread about him. He was obliged at last to climb over great
blocks of stone, with water spurting from the thick moss. He began
to feel quite faint, when he heard a most singular rushing noise,
and saw before him a large cave, from which came a blaze of light.
In the middle of the cave an immense fire was burning, and a noble
stag, with its branching horns, was placed on a spit between the
trunks of two pine-trees. It was turning slowly before the fire, and
an elderly woman, as large and strong as if she had been a man in
disguise, sat by, throwing one piece of wood after another into the
flames.
"Come in," she said to the prince; "sit down by the fire and dry
yourself. "
"There is a great draught here," said the prince, as he seated
himself on the ground.
"It will be worse when my sons come home," replied the woman; "you
are now in the cavern of the Winds, and my sons are the four Winds
of heaven: can you understand that? "
"Where are your sons? " asked the prince.
"It is difficult to answer stupid questions," said the woman.
"My sons have plenty of business on hand; they are playing at
shuttlecock with the clouds up yonder in the king's hall," and she
pointed upwards.
"Oh, indeed," said the prince; "but you speak more roughly and
harshly and are not so gentle as the women I am used to. "
"Yes, that is because they have nothing else to do; but I am
obliged to be harsh, to keep my boys in order, and I can do it,
although they are so head-strong. Do you see those four sacks
hanging on the wall? Well, they are just as much afraid of those
sacks, as you used to be of the rat behind the looking-glass. I can
bend the boys together, and put them in the sacks without any
resistance on their parts, I can tell you. There they stay, and dare
not attempt to come out until I allow them to do so. And here comes
one of them. "
It was the North Wind who came in, bringing with him a cold,
piercing blast; large hailstones rattled on the floor, and
snowflakes were scattered around in all directions. He wore a bearskin
dress and cloak. His sealskin cap was drawn over his ears, long
icicles hung from his beard, and one hailstone after another rolled
from the collar of his jacket.
"Don't go too near the fire," said the prince, "or your hands
and face will be frost-bitten. "
"Frost-bitten! " said the North Wind, with a loud laugh; "why frost
is my greatest delight. What sort of a little snip are you, and how
did you find your way to the cavern of the Winds? "
"He is my guest," said the old woman, "and if you are not
satisfied with that explanation you can go into the sack. Do you
understand me? "
That settled the matter. So the North Wind began to relate his
adventures, whence he came, and where he had been for a whole month.
"I come from the polar seas," he said; "I have been on the Bear's
Island with the Russian walrus-hunters. I sat and slept at the helm of
their ship, as they sailed away from North Cape. Sometimes when I
woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs. They are curious birds;
they give one flap with their wings, and then on their outstretched
pinions soar far away.
go to another wedding," he replied, "although it is quite a
different affair to the one we saw last night. Your sister's large
doll, that is dressed like a man, and is called Herman, intends to
marry the doll Bertha. It is also the dolls' birthday, and they will
receive many presents. "
"Yes, I know that already," said Hjalmar, "my sister always allows
her dolls to keep their birthdays or to have a wedding when they
require new clothes; that has happened already a hundred times, I am
quite sure. "
"Yes, so it may; but to-night is the hundred and first wedding,
and when that has taken place it must be the last, therefore this is
to be extremely beautiful. Only look. "
Hjalmar looked at the table, and there stood the little card-board
doll's house, with lights in all the windows, and drawn up before it
were the tin soldiers presenting arms. The bridal pair were seated
on the floor, leaning against the leg of the table, looking very
thoughtful, and with good reason. Then Ole-Luk-Oie dressed up in
grandmother's black gown married them.
As soon as the ceremony was concluded, all the furniture in the
room joined in singing a beautiful song, which had been composed by
the lead pencil, and which went to the melody of a military tattoo.
"What merry sounds are on the wind,
As marriage rites together bind
A quiet and a loving pair,
Though formed of kid, yet smooth and fair!
Hurrah! If they are deaf and blind,
We'll sing, though weather prove unkind. "
And now came the present; but the bridal pair had nothing to
eat, for love was to be their food.
"Shall we go to a country house, or travel? " asked the bridegroom.
Then they consulted the swallow who had travelled so far, and
the old hen in the yard, who had brought up five broods of chickens.
And the swallow talked to them of warm countries, where the grapes
hang in large clusters on the vines, and the air is soft and mild, and
about the mountains glowing with colors more beautiful than we can
think of.
"But they have no red cabbage like we have," said the hen, "I
was once in the country with my chickens for a whole summer, there was
a large sand-pit, in which we could walk about and scratch as we
liked. Then we got into a garden in which grew red cabbage; oh, how
nice it was, I cannot think of anything more delicious. "
"But one cabbage stalk is exactly like another," said the swallow;
"and here we have often bad weather. "
"Yes, but we are accustomed to it," said the hen.
"But it is so cold here, and freezes sometimes. "
"Cold weather is good for cabbages," said the hen; "besides we
do have it warm here sometimes. Four years ago, we had a summer that
lasted more than five weeks, and it was so hot one could scarcely
breathe. And then in this country we have no poisonous animals, and we
are free from robbers. He must be wicked who does not consider our
country the finest of all lands. He ought not to be allowed to live
here. " And then the hen wept very much and said, "I have also
travelled. I once went twelve miles in a coop, and it was not pleasant
travelling at all. "
"The hen is a sensible woman," said the doll Bertha. "I don't care
for travelling over mountains, just to go up and come down again.
No, let us go to the sand-pit in front of the gate, and then take a
walk in the cabbage garden. "
And so they settled it.
SATURDAY
"Am I to hear any more stories? " asked little Hjalmar, as soon
as Ole-Luk-Oie had sent him to sleep.
"We shall have no time this evening," said he, spreading out his
prettiest umbrella over the child. "Look at these Chinese," and then
the whole umbrella appeared like a large china bowl, with blue trees
and pointed bridges, upon which stood little Chinamen nodding their
heads. "We must make all the world beautiful for to-morrow morning,"
said Ole-Luk-Oie, "for it will be a holiday, it is Sunday. I must
now go to the church steeple and see if the little sprites who live
there have polished the bells, so that they may sound sweetly. Then
I must go into the fields and see if the wind has blown the dust
from the grass and the leaves, and the most difficult task of all
which I have to do, is to take down all the stars and brighten them
up. I have to number them first before I put them in my apron, and
also to number the places from which I take them, so that they may
go back into the right holes, or else they would not remain, and we
should have a number of falling stars, for they would all tumble
down one after the other. "
"Hark ye! Mr. Luk-Oie," said an old portrait which hung on the
wall of Hjalmar's bedroom. "Do you know me? I am Hjalmar's
great-grandfather. I thank you for telling the boy stories, but you
must not confuse his ideas. The stars cannot be taken down from the
sky and polished; they are spheres like our earth, which is a good
thing for them. "
"Thank you, old great-grandfather," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "I thank
you; you may be the head of the family, as no doubt you are, but I
am older than you. I am an ancient heathen. The old Romans and
Greeks named me the Dream-god. I have visited the noblest houses,
and continue to do so; still I know how to conduct myself both to high
and low, and now you may tell the stories yourself:" and so
Ole-Luk-Oie walked off, taking his umbrellas with him.
"Well, well, one is never to give an opinion, I suppose," grumbled
the portrait. And it woke Hjalmar.
SUNDAY
"Good evening," said Ole-Luk-Oie.
Hjalmar nodded, and then sprang out of bed, and turned his
great-grandfather's portrait to the wall, so that it might not
interrupt them as it had done yesterday. "Now," said he, "you must
tell me some stories about five green peas that lived in one pod; or
of the chickseed that courted the chickweed; or of the darning needle,
who acted so proudly because she fancied herself an embroidery
needle. "
"You may have too much of a good thing," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "You
know that I like best to show you something, so I will show you my
brother. He is also called Ole-Luk-Oie but he never visits any one but
once, and when he does come, he takes him away on his horse, and tells
him stories as they ride along. He knows only two stories. One of
these is so wonderfully beautiful, that no one in the world can
imagine anything at all like it; but the other is just as ugly and
frightful, so that it would be impossible to describe it. " Then
Ole-Luk-Oie lifted Hjalmar up to the window. "There now, you can see
my brother, the other Ole-Luk-Oie; he is also called Death. You
perceive he is not so bad as they represent him in picture books;
there he is a skeleton, but now his coat is embroidered with silver,
and he wears the splendid uniform of a hussar, and a mantle of black
velvet flies behind him, over the horse. Look, how he gallops
along. " Hjalmar saw that as this Ole-Luk-Oie rode on, he lifted up old
and young, and carried them away on his horse. Some he seated in front
of him, and some behind, but always inquired first, "How stands the
mark-book? "
"Good," they all answered.
"Yes, but let me see for myself," he replied; and they were
obliged to give him the books. Then all those who had "Very good,"
or "Exceedingly good," came in front of the horse, and heard the
beautiful story; while those who had "Middling," or "Tolerably
good," in their books, were obliged to sit behind, and listen to the
frightful tale. They trembled and cried, and wanted to jump down
from the horse, but they could not get free, for they seemed
fastened to the seat.
"Why, Death is a most splendid Luk-Oie," said Hjalmar. "I am not
in the least afraid of him. "
"You need have no fear of him," said Ole-Luk-Oie, "if you take
care and keep a good conduct book. "
"Now I call that very instructive," murmured the
great-grandfather's portrait. "It is useful sometimes to express an
opinion;" so he was quite satisfied.
These are some of the doings and sayings of Ole-Luk-Oie. I hope he
may visit you himself this evening, and relate some more.
OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER
"In the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up
any higher! " So said Ole the tower-keeper. "Most people have to try
both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to
be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height. "
Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a
strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that
came into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought
deep in his heart. Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and
there were even some who said that he was the son of a privy
councillor, or that he might have been. He had studied, too, and had
been assistant teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all
that to him? In those days he lived in the clerk's house, and was to
have everything in the house--to be at free quarters, as the saying
is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. He wanted
to have his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could
only afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. One spoke
of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking became the
black cause of enmity between them, and at last they parted.
This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely, patent
blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly, he at last
drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the church tower is
the only place in a great city where hermitage, office and bread can
be found together. So he betook himself up thither, and smoked his
pipe as he made his solitary rounds. He looked upward and downward,
and had his own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in
books and in himself. I often lent him books--good books; and you
may know by the company he keeps. He loved neither the English
governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a mixture of
empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and
descriptions of the wonders of, the world. I visited him at least once
a year, generally directly after New Year's day, and then he always
spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into his
head.
I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will reproduce
his own words whenever I can remember them.
FIRST VISIT
Among the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which had
greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological book,
containing an account of the boulders.
"Yes, they're rare old fellows, those boulders! " he said; "and
to think that we should pass them without noticing them! And over
the street pavement, the paving stones, those fragments of the
oldest remains of antiquity, one walks without ever thinking about
them. I have done the very thing myself. But now I look respectfully
at every paving-stone. Many thanks for the book! It has filled me with
thought, and has made me long to read more on the subject. The romance
of the earth is, after all, the most wonderful of all romances. It's a
pity one can't read the first volume of it, because it is written in a
language that we don't understand. One must read in the different
strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a
romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it. We
grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball
keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which
we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a
story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands of years and
is still going on. My best thanks for the book about the boulders.
Those are fellows indeed! They could tell us something worth
hearing, if they only knew how to talk. It's really a pleasure now and
then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly
placed as I am. And then to think that we all, even with patent
lacquer, are nothing more than insects of a moment on that ant-hill
the earth, though we may be insects with stars and garters, places and
offices! One feels quite a novice beside these venerable
million-year-old boulders. On last New Year's eve I was reading the
book, and had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my
usual New Year's diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you
don't know what that is!
"The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough known--that
journey is taken on St. John's eve, to the Brocken; but we have a
wild journey, also which is national and modern, and that is the
journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets
and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers, and artistic
notabilities,--I mean those who are no good,--ride in the New Year's
night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting
brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them--they're too
stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could
mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to
draw their enmity upon myself, for they don't like people to talk
about their ride to Amack on quill pens. I've a kind of niece, who
is a fishwife, and who, as she tells me, supplies three respectable
newspapers with the terms of abuse and vituperation they use, and
she has herself been at Amack as an invited guest; but she was carried
out thither, for she does not own a quill pen, nor can she ride. She
has told me all about it. Half of what she said is not true, but the
other half gives us information enough. When she was out there, the
festivities began with a song; each of the guests had written his
own song, and each one sang his own song, for he thought that the
best, and it was all one, all the same melody. Then those came
marching up, in little bands, who are only busy with their mouths.
There were ringing bells that rang alternately; and then came the
little drummers that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and
acquaintance was made with those who write without putting their
names, which here means as much as using grease instead of patent
blacking; and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy
was worst off, for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then,
too, there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns over
the dust-bin, and calls it 'good, very good, remarkably good. ' And
in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the mere meeting
of these folks, there shot up out of the great dirt-heap at Amack a
stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great mushroom, a perfect roof,
which formed a sort of warehouse for the worthy company, for in it
hung everything they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out
of the tree poured sparks like flames of fire; these were the ideas
and thoughts, borrowed from others, which they had used, and which now
got free and rushed away like so many fireworks. They played at 'the
stick burns,' and the young poets played at 'heart-burns,' and the
witlings played off their jests, and the jests rolled away with a
thundering sound, as if empty pots were being shattered against doors.
'It was very amusing! ' my niece said; in fact, she said many things
that were very malicious but very amusing, but I won't mention them,
for a man must be good-natured, and not a carping critic. But you will
easily perceive that when a man once knows the rights of the journey
to Amack, as I know them, it's quite natural that on the New Year's
night one should look out to see the wild chase go by. If in the New
Year I miss certain persons who used to be there, I am sure to
notice others who are new arrivals; but this year I omitted taking
my look at the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back
through millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in
the north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before Noah's ark
was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom of the sea, and
re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that peered forth from the
flood and said, 'This shall be Zealand! ' I saw them become the
dwelling-place of birds that are unknown to us, and then become the
seat of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing, until with their axes
they cut their Runic signs into a few of these stones, which then came
into the calendar of time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond
all lapse of time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three
or four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air,
and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star
is, do you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I
have my own ideas about shooting stars, as the common people in many
parts call them, and my idea is this: How often are silent
thanksgivings offered up for one who has done a good and noble action!
The thanks are often speechless, but they are not lost for all that. I
think these thanks are caught up, and the sunbeams bring the silent,
hidden thankfulness over the head of the benefactor; and if it be a
whole people that has been expressing its gratitude through a long
lapse of time, the thankfulness appears as a nosegay of flowers, and
at length falls in the form of a shooting star over the good man's
grave. I am always very much pleased when I see a shooting star,
especially in the New Year's night, and then find out for whom the
gift of gratitude was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell in the
southwest, as a tribute of thanksgiving to many--many! 'For whom was
that star intended? ' thought I. It fell, no doubt, on the hill by
the Bay of Plensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves of
Schleppegrell, Lasloes, and their comrades. One star also fell in
the midst of the land, fell upon Soro, a flower on the grave of
Holberg, the thanks of the year from a great many--thanks for his
charming plays!
"It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a shooting star
falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none will fall--no sunbeam
brings thanks to me, for here there is nothing worthy of thanks. I
shall not get the patent lacquer," said Ole, "for my fate on earth
is only grease, after all. "
SECOND VISIT
It was New Year's day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of
the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into
the New--from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a
story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It
was this:
"When on the New Year's night the clock strikes twelve, the people
at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these
glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with
the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They
begin the New Year by going to bed, and that's a good beginning for
drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the
glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass? " asked Ole. "I
will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then
pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and
the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the
glasses--of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for
different people.
"You see, the first glass, that's the glass of health, and in that
the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the
ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of
health.
"If you take the second glass--from this a little bird soars
upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen
to his song, and perhaps join in 'Fair is life! no downcast looks!
Take courage, and march onward! '
"Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot
certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his
veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin--not wishing to hurt or
harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll
sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he'll creep into
your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a
wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.
"In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that
glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that
sign.
"Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will
feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way.
Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine
times and extravagantly merry. He'll draw you away with him; you'll
forget your dignity, if you have any, and you'll forget more than
you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks
will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in
silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but
tear yourself away if you can!
"The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form
of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who
thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes
quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you
light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint
who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who
accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but
which led him to commit all the other six. The man's blood is
mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that
the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a
strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a
tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice
but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.
"That's the history of the glasses," said the tower-keeper Ole,
"and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it
you with both! "
THIRD VISIT
On this occasion I chose the general "moving-day" for my visit
to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the
streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and
remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in which
one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children
playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at "going
to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this
sport. They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged
curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. "It was splendid! " they
said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides, I was
obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.
"It's moving-day to day," he said; "streets and houses are like
a dust-bin--a large dust-bin; but I'm content with a cartload. I may
get something good out of that, and I really did get something good
out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was going up the street;
it was rough weather, wet and dirty--the right kind of weather to
catch cold in. The dustman was there with his cart, which was full,
and looked like a sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of
the cart stood a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its
twigs; it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out
into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his
cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful--all
depends on what you think of when you see it; and I thought about
it, and thought this and that of many things that were in the cart: or
I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing.
There was an
old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I
tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger
at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also
at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to
speak, a ball night--a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory
keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing else to live for! '
This is what the glove thought, or what it might have thought. 'That's
a stupid affair with yonder fir tree,' said the potsherds. You see,
potsherds think everything is stupid. 'When one is in the
dust-cart,' they said, 'one ought not to give one's self airs and wear
tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world--far more useful
than such a green stick. ' This was a view that might be taken, and I
don't think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree
looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and
truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is
difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out
of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look
down, and it is amusing enough.
"There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses. '
They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the
household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the
little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and
sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what
gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was
written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of
death! ' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to
you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,
Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and
he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings
bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the
great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when
Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with
him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes
this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and
this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped
the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not
allowed to go--they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride
behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have
escaped the clutches of the poets.
"Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is
mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They
must go without their property and money; they have only the
service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which
of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little
one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded--small as
a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who
sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted,
will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the
stool may become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as
a throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who always
lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might
forget the wild things he had done here, will have his barrel given to
him on the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on;
and the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain pure,
and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he sees and feels
what in life he could not or would not see; and then he has within him
the punishment, the gnawing worm, which will not die through time
incalculable. If on the glasses there stood written 'oblivion,' on the
barrel 'remembrance' is inscribed.
"When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think at
last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus of
death, and wonder, which of the hero's deeds Death took out of the
savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the journey into
eternity. There was once a French king--I have forgotten his name, for
the names of good people are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it
will come back some day;--there was a king who, during a famine,
became the benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his
memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, 'Quicker than this
melts didst thou bring help! ' I fancy that Death, looking back upon
the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a
snow-flake that never melts, and this flake floated over his royal
head, like a white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too,
there was Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what
is bad--a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one
could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable
executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the
innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other eight
years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm blood of their
father spurted over them, and then he had them sent to the Bastille,
and shut up in iron cages, where not even a coverlet was given them to
protect them from the cold. And King Louis sent the executioner to
them every week, and had a tooth pulled out of the head of each,
that they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys
said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger
brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my
teeth, and spare him. ' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the
king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little
teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and
he had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the
savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with him
on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly before him
like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and they bite him, the
innocent children's teeth.
"Yes, that's a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great
moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That's just the serious
part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus may draw up.
Which of our deeds will Death take out of the savings bank, and give
to us as provision? Let us think of the moving-day that is not
marked in the calendar. "
OUR AUNT
You ought to have known our aunt; she was charming! That is to
say, she was not charming at all as the word is usually understood;
but she was good and kind, amusing in her way, and was just as any one
ought to be whom people are to talk about and to laugh at. She might
have been put into a play, and wholly and solely on account of the
fact that she only lived for the theatre and for what was done
there. She was an honorable matron; but Agent Fabs, whom she used to
call "Flabs," declared that our aunt was stage-struck.
"The theatre is my school," said she, "the source of my knowledge.
From thence I have resuscitated Biblical history. Now, 'Moses' and
'Joseph in Egypt'--there are operas for you! I get my universal
history from the theatre, my geography, and my knowledge of men. Out
of the French pieces I get to know life in Paris--slippery, but
exceedingly interesting. How I have cried over 'La Famille
Roquebourg'--that the man must drink himself to death, so that she may
marry the young fellow! Yes, how many tears I have wept in the fifty
years I have subscribed to the theatre! "
Our aunt knew every acting play, every bit of scenery, every
character, every one who appeared or had appeared. She seemed really
only to live during the nine months the theatre was open. Summertime
without a summer theatre seemed to be only a time that made her old;
while, on the other hand, a theatrical evening that lasted till
midnight was a lengthening of her life. She did not say, as other
people do, "Now we shall have spring, the stork is here," or, "They've
advertised the first strawberries in the papers. " She, on the
contrary, used to announce the coming of autumn, with "Have you
heard they're selling boxes for the theatre? now the performances will
begin. "
She used to value a lodging entirely according to its proximity to
the theatre. It was a real sorrow to her when she had to leave the
little lane behind the playhouse, and move into the great street
that lay a little farther off, and live there in a house where she had
no opposite neighbors.
"At home," said she, "my windows must be my opera-box. One
cannot sit and look into one's self till one's tired; one must see
people. But now I live just as if I'd go into the country. If I want
to see human beings, I must go into my kitchen, and sit down on the
sink, for there only I have opposite neighbors. No; when I lived in my
dear little lane, I could look straight down into the ironmonger's
shop, and had only three hundred paces to the theatre; and now I've
three thousand paces to go, military measurement. "
Our aunt was sometimes ill, but however unwell she might feel, she
never missed the play. The doctor prescribed one day that she should
put her feet in a bran bath, and she followed his advice; but she
drove to the theatre all the same, and sat with her feet in bran
there. If she had died there, she would have been very glad.
Thorwaldsen died in the theatre, and she called that a happy death.
She could not imagine but that in heaven there must be a theatre
too. It had not, indeed, been promised us, but we might very well
imagine it. The many distinguished actors and actresses who had passed
away must surely have a field for their talent.
Our aunt had an electric wire from the theatre to her room. A
telegram used to be dispatched to her at coffee-time, and it used to
consist of the words, "Herr Sivertsen is at the machinery;" for it was
he who gave the signal for drawing the curtain up and down and for
changing the scenes.
From him she used to receive a short and concise description of
every piece. His opinion of Shakspeare's "Tempest," was, "Mad
nonsense! There's so much to put up, and the first scene begins with
'Water to the front of the wings. '" That is to say, the water had to
come forward so far. But when, on the other hand, the same interior
scene remained through five acts, he used to pronounce it a
sensible, well-written play, a resting play, which performed itself,
without putting up scenes.
In earlier times, by which name our aunt used to designate
thirty years ago, she and the before-mentioned Herr Sivertsen had been
younger. At that time he had already been connected with the
machinery, and was, as she said, her benefactor. It used to be the
custom in those days that in the evening performances in the only
theatre the town possessed, spectators were admitted to the part
called the "flies," over the stage, and every machinist had one or two
places to give away. Often the flies were quite full of good
company; it was said that generals' wives and privy councillors' wives
had been up there. It was quite interesting to look down behind the
scenes, and to see how the people walked to and fro on the stage
when the curtain was down.
Our aunt had been there several times, as well when there was a
tragedy as when there was a ballet; for the pieces in which there were
the greatest number of characters on the stage were the most
interesting to see from the flies. One sat pretty much in the dark
up there, and most people took their supper up with them. Once three
apples and a great piece of bread and butter and sausage fell down
right into the dungeon of Ugolino, where that unhappy man was to be
starved to death; and there was great laughter among the audience. The
sausage was one of the weightiest reasons why the worthy management
refused in future to have any spectators up in the flies.
"But I was there seven-and-thirty times," said our aunt, "and I
shall always remember Mr. Sivertsen for that. "
On the very last evening when the flies were still open to the
public, the "Judgment of Solomon" was performed, as our aunt
remembered very well. She had, through the influence of her
benefactor, Herr Sivertsen, procured a free admission for the Agent
Fabs, although he did not deserve it in the least, for he was always
cutting his jokes about the theatre and teasing our aunt; but she
had procured him a free admission to the flies, for all that. He
wanted to look at this player-stuff from the other side.
"Those were his own words, and they were just like him," said
our aunt.
He looked down from above on the 'Judgment of Solomon,' and fell
asleep over it. One would have thought that he had come from a
dinner where many toasts had been given. He went to sleep, and was
locked in. And there he sat through the dark night in the flies, and
when he woke, he told a story, but our aunt would not believe it.
"The 'Judgment of Solomon' was over," he said, "and all the people
had gone away, up stairs and down stairs; but now the real play began,
the after-piece, which was the best of all," said the agent. "Then
life came into the affair. It was not the 'Judgment of Solomon' that
was performed; no, a real court of judgment was held upon the
stage. " And Agent Fabs had the impudence to try and make our aunt
believe all this. That was the thanks she got for having got him a
place in the flies.
What did the agent say? Why, it was curious enough to hear, but
there was malice and satire in it.
"It looked dark enough up there," said the agent; "but then the
magic business began--a great performance, 'The Judgment in the
Theatre. ' The box-keepers were at their posts, and every spectator had
to show his ghostly pass-book, that it might be decided if he was to
be admitted with hands loose or bound, and with or without a muzzle.
Grand people who came too late, when the performance had begun, and
young people, who could not always watch the time, were tied up
outside, and had list slippers put on their feet, with which they were
allowed to go in before the beginning of the next act, and they had
muzzles too. And then the 'Judgment on the Stage' began. "
"All malice, and not a bit of truth in it," said our aunt.
The painter, who wanted to get to Paradise, had to go up a
staircase which he had himself painted, but which no man could
mount. That was to expiate his sins against perspective. All the
plants and buildings, which the property-man had placed, with infinite
pains, in countries to which they did not belong, the poor fellow
was obliged to put in their right places before cockcrow, if he wanted
to get into Paradise. Let Herr Fabs see how he would get in himself;
but what he said of the performers, tragedians and comedians,
singers and dancers, that was the most rascally of all. Mr. Fabs,
indeed! --Flabs! He did not deserve to be admitted at all, and our aunt
would not soil her lips with what he said. And he said, did Flabs,
that the whole was written down, and it should be printed when he
was dead and buried, but not before, for he would not risk having
his arms and legs broken.
Once our aunt had been in fear and trembling in her temple of
happiness, the theatre. It was on a winter day, one of those days in
which one has a couple of hours of daylight, with a gray sky. It was
terribly cold and snowy, but aunt must go to the theatre. A little
opera and a great ballet were performed, and a prologue and an
epilogue into the bargain; and that would last till late at night. Our
aunt must needs go; so she borrowed a pair of fur boots of her
lodger--boots with fur inside and out, and which reached far up
her legs.
She got to the theatre, and to her box; the boots were warm, and
she kept them on. Suddenly there was a cry of "Fire! " Smoke was coming
from one of the side scenes, and streamed down from the flies, and
there was a terrible panic. The people came rushing out, and our
aunt was the last in the box, "on the second tier, left-hand side, for
from there the scenery looks best," she used to say. "The scenes are
always arranged that they look best from the King's side. " Aunt wanted
to come out, but the people before her, in their fright and
heedlessness, slammed the door of the box; and there sat our aunt, and
couldn't get out, and couldn't get in; that is to say, she couldn't
get into the next box, for the partition was too high for her. She
called out, and no one heard her; she looked down into the tier of
boxes below her, and it was empty, and low, and looked quite near, and
aunt in her terror felt quite young and light. She thought of
jumping down, and had got one leg over the partition, the other
resting on the bench. There she sat astride, as if on horseback,
well wrapped up in her flowered cloak with one leg hanging out--a
leg in a tremendous fur boot. That was a sight to behold; and when
it was beheld, our aunt was heard too, and was saved from burning, for
the theatre was not burned down.
That was the most memorable evening of her life, and she was
glad that she could not see herself, for she would have died with
confusion.
Her benefactor in the machinery department, Herr Sivertsen,
visited her every Sunday, but it was a long time from Sunday to
Sunday. In the latter time, therefore, she used to have in a little
child "for the scraps;" that is to say, to eat up the remains of the
dinner. It was a child employed in the ballet, one that certainly
wanted feeding. The little one used to appear, sometimes as an elf,
sometimes as a page; the most difficult part she had to play was the
lion's hind leg in the "Magic Flute;" but as she grew larger she could
represent the fore-feet of the lion. She certainly only got half a
guilder for that, whereas the hind legs were paid for with a whole
guilder; but then she had to walk bent, and to do without fresh air.
"That was all very interesting to hear," said our aunt.
She deserved to live as long as the theatre stood, but she could
not last so long; and she did not die in the theatre, but
respectably in her bed. Her last words were, moreover, not without
meaning. She asked,
"What will the play be to-morrow? "
At her death she left about five hundred dollars. We presume
this from the interest, which came to twenty dollars. This our aunt
had destined as a legacy for a worthy old spinster who had no friends;
it was to be devoted to a yearly subscription for a place in the
second tier, on the left side, for the Saturday evening, "for on
that evening two pieces were always given," it said in the will; and
the only condition laid upon the person who enjoyed the legacy was,
that she should think, every Saturday evening, of our aunt, who was
lying in her grave.
This was our aunt's religion.
THE GARDEN OF PARADISE
There was once a king's son who had a larger and more beautiful
collection of books than any one else in the world, and full of
splendid copper-plate engravings. He could read and obtain information
respecting every people of every land; but not a word could he find to
explain the situation of the garden of paradise, and this was just
what he most wished to know. His grandmother had told him when he
was quite a little boy, just old enough to go to school, that each
flower in the garden of paradise was a sweet cake, that the pistils
were full of rich wine, that on one flower history was written, on
another geography or tables; so those who wished to learn their
lessons had only to eat some of the cakes, and the more they ate,
the more history, geography, or tables they knew. He believed it all
then; but as he grew older, and learnt more and more, he became wise
enough to understand that the splendor of the garden of paradise
must be very different to all this. "Oh, why did Eve pluck the fruit
from the tree of knowledge? why did Adam eat the forbidden fruit? "
thought the king's son: "if I had been there it would never have
happened, and there would have been no sin in the world. " The garden
of paradise occupied all his thoughts till he reached his
seventeenth year.
One day he was walking alone in the wood, which was his greatest
pleasure, when evening came on. The clouds gathered, and the rain
poured down as if the sky had been a waterspout; and it was as dark as
the bottom of a well at midnight; sometimes he slipped over the smooth
grass, or fell over stones that projected out of the rocky ground.
Every thing was dripping with moisture, and the poor prince had not
a dry thread about him. He was obliged at last to climb over great
blocks of stone, with water spurting from the thick moss. He began
to feel quite faint, when he heard a most singular rushing noise,
and saw before him a large cave, from which came a blaze of light.
In the middle of the cave an immense fire was burning, and a noble
stag, with its branching horns, was placed on a spit between the
trunks of two pine-trees. It was turning slowly before the fire, and
an elderly woman, as large and strong as if she had been a man in
disguise, sat by, throwing one piece of wood after another into the
flames.
"Come in," she said to the prince; "sit down by the fire and dry
yourself. "
"There is a great draught here," said the prince, as he seated
himself on the ground.
"It will be worse when my sons come home," replied the woman; "you
are now in the cavern of the Winds, and my sons are the four Winds
of heaven: can you understand that? "
"Where are your sons? " asked the prince.
"It is difficult to answer stupid questions," said the woman.
"My sons have plenty of business on hand; they are playing at
shuttlecock with the clouds up yonder in the king's hall," and she
pointed upwards.
"Oh, indeed," said the prince; "but you speak more roughly and
harshly and are not so gentle as the women I am used to. "
"Yes, that is because they have nothing else to do; but I am
obliged to be harsh, to keep my boys in order, and I can do it,
although they are so head-strong. Do you see those four sacks
hanging on the wall? Well, they are just as much afraid of those
sacks, as you used to be of the rat behind the looking-glass. I can
bend the boys together, and put them in the sacks without any
resistance on their parts, I can tell you. There they stay, and dare
not attempt to come out until I allow them to do so. And here comes
one of them. "
It was the North Wind who came in, bringing with him a cold,
piercing blast; large hailstones rattled on the floor, and
snowflakes were scattered around in all directions. He wore a bearskin
dress and cloak. His sealskin cap was drawn over his ears, long
icicles hung from his beard, and one hailstone after another rolled
from the collar of his jacket.
"Don't go too near the fire," said the prince, "or your hands
and face will be frost-bitten. "
"Frost-bitten! " said the North Wind, with a loud laugh; "why frost
is my greatest delight. What sort of a little snip are you, and how
did you find your way to the cavern of the Winds? "
"He is my guest," said the old woman, "and if you are not
satisfied with that explanation you can go into the sack. Do you
understand me? "
That settled the matter. So the North Wind began to relate his
adventures, whence he came, and where he had been for a whole month.
"I come from the polar seas," he said; "I have been on the Bear's
Island with the Russian walrus-hunters. I sat and slept at the helm of
their ship, as they sailed away from North Cape. Sometimes when I
woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs. They are curious birds;
they give one flap with their wings, and then on their outstretched
pinions soar far away.
