Suddenly, with surprising vividness, a little incident of my childhood
rises up before me. I was ten years old. I had been ill in the Winter
and my parents had boarded me out in the country for the Summer
holidays; all the love of adventure in me surged up. At the Straw
Market a fat, greasy, grinning peasant promised to take me in his cart
as far as the little town of Farum, where I was to stay with the
schoolmaster. He charged two dalers, and got them. Any sum, of course,
was the same to me. I was allowed to drive the brown horses, that is to
say, to hold the reins, and I was in high glee. Where Farum was, I did
not know and did not care, but it was a new world. Until now I, who was
a town child, had seen nothing of the country except my nurse's house
and land at Glostrup,--but what lay in front of me was a village, a
schoolhouse, a large farm, in short an adventure in grand style.
I had my shirts and blouses and stockings in a portmanteau, and amongst
them a magnificent garment, never yet worn, a blue cloth jacket, and a
white waistcoat belonging to it, with gold buttons, which my mother had
given me permission to wear on Sundays. For days, I always wore
blouses, so the jacket implied a great step forward. I was eager to
wear it, and regretted profoundly that it was still only Monday.
Half-way there, the peasant pulled up. He explained to me that he could
not very well drive me any farther, so must put me down; he was not
going to Farum himself at all. But a peat cart was coming along the
road yonder, the driver of which was going to Farum, and he transferred
me, poor defenceless child as I was, to the other conveyance. He had
had my money; I had nothing to give the second man, and sadly I
exchanged the quick trot of the brown horses for the walking pace of
the jades in the peat-cart.
My first experience of man's perfidy.
At last I was there. On a high, wide hill--high and wide as it seemed
to me then--towered the huge schoolhouse, a miniature Christiansborg
Castle, with the schoolmaster's apartments on the right and the
schoolroom on the left. And the schoolmaster came out smiling, holding
a pipe which was a good deal taller than I, held out his hand, and
asked me to come in, gave me coffee at once, and expressed the
profoundest contempt for the peasant who had charged two rigsdaler for
such a trifle, and then left me in the road. I asked at once for pen
and paper, and wrote in cipher to a comrade, with whom I had concocted
this mysterious means of communication, asking him to tell my parents
that I had been most kindly received. I felt a kind of shyness at the
schoolmaster seeing what I wrote home from his house. I gave him the
sheet, and begged him to fold it up, as I could not do it myself. There
were no envelopes in those days. But what was my surprise to hear him,
without further ado, read aloud with a smile, from my manufactured
cipher: "I have been most kindly received," etc. I had never thought
such keen-wittedness possible. And my respect for him and his long pipe
rose.
Just then there was a light knock at the door. In walked two girls, one
tall and one short, the former of whom positively bewildered me. She
was fair, her sister as dark as a negro. They were ten and eight years
old respectively, were named Henrietta and Nina K., came from Brazil,
where their home was, and were to spend a few years in Denmark; came as
a rule every day, but had now arrived specially to inspect the strange
boy. After gazing for two minutes at the lovely Henrietta's fair hair
and wonderful grey eyes, I disappeared from the room, and five minutes
afterwards reappeared again, clothed in the dark-blue jacket and the
white waistcoat with gold buttons, which I had been strictly forbidden
to wear except on Sundays. And from that time forth, sinner that I was,
I wore my Sunday clothes every blessed day,--but with what qualms of
conscience!
I can still see lovely fields, rich in corn, along the sides of which
we played; we chased beautiful, gaudy butterflies, which we caught in
our hats and cruelly stuck on pins, and the little girls threw oats at
my new clothes, and if the oats stuck fast it meant something,
sweethearts, I believe. Sweethearts--and I!
Then we were invited to the manor, a big, stately house, a veritable
castle. There lived an old, and exceedingly handsome, white-haired
Chamberlain, called the General, who frequently dined with Frederik
VII, and invariably brought us children goodies from dessert, lovely
large pieces of barley sugar in papers with gay pictures on the outside
of shepherd lovers, and crackers with long paper fringes. His youngest
son, who owned a collection of insects and many other fine things,
became my sworn friend, which means that I was his, for he did not care
in the least about me; but I did not notice that, and I was happy and
proud of his friendship and sailed with him and lots of other boys and
girls on the pretty Farum lake, and every day was more convinced that I
was quite a man. It was a century since I had worn blouses.
Every morning I took all the newspapers to Dr. Dörr, the German tutor
at the castle, and every morning I accidentally met Henrietta, and
after that we were hardly separated all day. I had no name for the
admiration that attached me to her. I knew she was lovely, that was
all. We were anxious to read something together, and so read the whole
of a translation of _Don Quixote_, sitting cheek against cheek in the
summer-house. Of course, we did not understand one-half of it, and I
remember that we tried in vain to get an explanation of the frequently
recurring word "doxy"; but we laughed till we cried at what we did
understand. And after all, it is this first reading of _Don Quixote_
which has dominated all my subsequent attempts to understand the book.
But Henrietta had ways that I did not understand in the least; she used
to amuse herself by little machinations, was inventive and intriguing.
One day she demanded that I should play the school children, small,
white-haired boys and girls, all of whom we had long learnt to know, a
downright trick. I was to write a real love-letter to a nine-year-old
little girl named Ingeborg, from an eleven or twelve-year-old boy
called Per, and then Henrietta would sew a fragrant little wreath of
flowers round it. The letter was completed and delivered. But the only
result of it was that next day, as I was walking along the high road
with Henrietta, Per separated himself from his companions, called me a
dandy from Copenhagen, and asked me if I would fight. There was, of
course, no question of drawing back, but I remember very plainly that I
was a little aghast, for he was much taller and broader than I, and I
had, into the bargain, a very bad cause to defend. But we had hardly
exchanged the first tentative blows before I felt overwhelmingly
superior. The poor cub! He had not the slightest notion how to fight.
From my everyday school life in Copenhagen, I knew hundreds of tricks
and feints that he had never learnt, and as soon as I perceived this I
flung him into the ditch like a glove. He sprang up again, but, with
lofty indifference, I threw him a second time, till his head buzzed.
That satisfied me that I had not been shamed before Henrietta, who, for
that matter, took my exploit very coolly and did not fling me so much
as a word for it. However, she asked me if I would meet her the same
evening under the old May-tree. When we met, she had two long straps
with her, and at once asked me, somewhat mockingly and dryly, whether I
had the courage to let myself be bound. Of course I said I had,
whereupon, very carefully and thoroughly, she fastened my hands
together with the one strap. Could I move my arms? No. Then, with eager
haste, she swung the other strap and let it fall on my back. Again and
again.
My first smart jacket was a well-thrashed one. She thoroughly enjoyed
exerting her strength. Naturally, my boyish ideas of honour would not
permit me to scream or complain; I merely stared at her with the
profoundest astonishment. She gave me no explanation, released my
hands, we each went our own way, and I avoided her the rest of my stay.
This was my first experience of woman's perfidy.
Still, I did not bear a grudge long, and the evening before I left we
met once again, at her request, and then she gave me the first and only
kiss, neither of us saying anything but the one word, "Good-bye."
I have never seen her since. I heard that she died twenty years ago in
Brazil. But two years after this, when I was feeling my first schoolboy
affection for an eleven-year-old girl, she silenced me at a children's
ball with the scoffing remark: "Ah! it was you who let Henrietta K.
thrash you under the May-tree at Farum." Yes, it was I. So cruel had my
fair lady been that she had not even denied herself the pleasure of
telling her friends of the ignominious treatment to which she had
subjected a comrade who, from pure feeling of honour, had not struck
back.
This was my first real experience of feminine nature.