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THE TRUE STORY OF MY LIFE:
A SKETCH
By Hans Christian Andersen.
Translated By Mary Howitt
To MESSRS. MUNROE AND CO.
Gentlemen,--I take this opportunity of forwarding to you, the _proof
sheets_ of the unpublished Life of Hans Christian Andersen--translated
from a copy transmitted to me for that purpose, by the Author. It is as
well to state that this is the Author's Edition, he being participant in
the proceeds of this work.
I remain, gentlemen,
Yours truly,
MARY HOWITT.
LONDON, June 29, 1847.
TO
JENNY LIND
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
OF
THE TRUE STORY OF HER FRIEND'S LIFE
IS INSCRIBED
IN ADMIRATION OF HER BEAUTIFUL TALENTS
AND STILL MORE BEAUTIFUL LIFE,
BY
MARY HOWITT.
Project Gutenberg Editor's Note: There are many words in this file with
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PREFACE.
No literary labor is more delightful to me than translating the
beautiful thoughts and fancies of Hans Christian Andersen. My heart is
in the work, and I feel as if my spirit were kindred to his; just as our
Saxon English seems to me eminently fitted to give the simple, pure, and
noble sentiments of the Danish mind.
This True Story of his Life will not be found the least interesting of
his writings; indeed, to me it seems one of the most so. It furnishes
the key, as it were, to all the rest; and the treasures which it unlocks
will be found to be possessed of additional value when viewed through
the medium of this introduction. It is gratifying for me to be able to
state that the original Author has a personal interest in this English
version of his "Life," as I have arranged with my publishers to pay Mr.
Andersen a certain sum on the publication of this translation, and the
same on all future editions.
M. H.
The Elms, Clapton, June 26.
THE TRUE STORY OF MY LIFE
CHAPTER I.
My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a
boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had
met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life, and the object
for which thou wilt strive, and then, according to the development of
thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and defend thee to its
attainment," my fate could not, even then, have been directed more
happily, more prudently, or better. The history of my life will say to
the world what it says to me--There is a loving God, who directs all
things for the best.
My native land, Denmark, is a poetical land, full of popular traditions,
old songs, and an eventful history, which has become bound up with that
of Sweden and Norway. The Danish islands are possessed of beautiful
beech woods, and corn and clover fields: they resemble gardens on a
great scale. Upon one of these green islands, Funen, stands Odense, the
place of my birth. Odense is called after the pagan god Odin, who, as
tradition states, lived here: this place is the capital of the province,
and lies twenty-two Danish miles from Copenhagen.
In the year 1805 there lived here, in a small mean room, a young married
couple, who were extremely attached to each other; he was a shoemaker,
scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of a richly gifted and truly
poetical mind. His wife, a few years older than himself, was ignorant of
life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young man
had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bedstead with which he
began housekeeping; this bedstead he had made out of the wooden frame
which had borne only a short time before the coffin of the deceased
Count Trampe, as he lay in state, and the remnants of the black cloth on
the wood work kept the fact still in remembrance.
Instead of a noble corpse, surrounded by crape and wax-lights, here
lay, on the second of April, 1805, a living and weeping child,--that was
myself, Hans Christian Andersen. During the first day of my existence my
father is said to have sate by the bed and read aloud in Holberg, but
I cried all the time. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?" it is
reported that my father asked in joke; but I still cried on; and even in
the church, when I was taken to be baptized, I cried so loudly that the
preacher, who was a passionate man, said, "The young one screams like
a cat!" which words my mother never forgot. A poor emigrant, Gomar, who
stood as godfather, consoled her in the mean time by saying that the
louder I cried as a child, all the more beautifully should I sing when I
grew older.
Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench,
the bed, and my crib, was the abode of my childhood; the walls, however,
were covered with pictures, and over the work-bench was a cupboard
containing books and songs; the little kitchen was full of shining
plates and metal pans, and by means of a ladder it was possible to go
out on the roof, where, in the gutters between and the neighbor's house,
there stood a great chest filled with soil, my mother's sole garden, and
where she grew her vegetables. In my story of the Snow Queen that garden
still blooms.
I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled, but I continually heard
from my mother how very much happier I was than she had been, and that I
was brought up like a nobleman's child. She, as a child, had been driven
out by her parents to beg, and once when she was not able to do it,
she had sate for a whole day under a bridge and wept. I have drawn
her character in two different aspects, in old Dominica, in the
Improvisatore, and in the mother of Christian, in Only a Fiddler.
My father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his whole heart; he
lived for me. On Sundays, he made me perspective glasses, theatres, and
pictures which could be changed; he read to me from Holberg's plays
and the Arabian Tales; it was only in such moments as these that I can
remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never felt himself
happy in his life and as a handicrafts-man. His parents had been country
people in good circumstances, but upon whom many misfortunes had fallen;
the cattle had died; the farm house had been burned down; and lastly,
the husband had lost his reason. On this the wife had removed with him
to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind was full of intelligence,
apprentice to a shoemaker; it could not be otherwise, although it was
his ardent wish to be able to attend the Grammar School, where he might
have learned Latin. A few well-to-do citizens had at one time spoken
of this, of clubbing together a sufficient sum to pay for his board and
education, and thus giving him a start in life; but it never went beyond
words. My poor father saw his dearest wish unfulfilled; and he never
lost the remembrance of it. I recollect that once, as a child, I saw
tears in his eyes, and it was when a youth from the Grammar School came
to our house to be measured for a new pair of boots, and showed us his
books and told us what he learned.
"That was the path upon which I ought to have gone!" said my father,
kissed me passionately, and was silent the whole evening.
He very seldom associated with his equals. He went out into the woods on
Sundays, when he took me with him; he did not talk much when he was out,
but would sit silently, sunk in deep thought, whilst I ran about and
strung strawberries on a straw, or bound garlands. Only twice in the
year, and that in the month of May, when the woods were arrayed in their
earliest green, did my mother go with us, and then she wore a cotton
gown, which she put on only on these occasions, and when she partook of
the Lord's Supper, and which, as long as I can remember, was her holiday
gown. She always took home with her from the wood a great many fresh
beech boughs, which were then planted behind the polished stone. Later
in the year sprigs of St. John's wort were stuck into the chinks of the
beams, and we considered their growth as omens whether our lives would
be long or short. Green branches and pictures ornamented our little
room, which my mother always kept neat and clean; she took great pride
in always having the bed-linen and the curtains very white.
The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it only for a
moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was her joy and her
delight. She was a quiet and most amiable old woman, with mild blue eyes
and a fine figure, which life had severely tried. From having been the
wife of a countryman in easy circumstances she had now fallen into great
poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a little house,
which was the last, poor remains of their property. I never saw her shed
a tear. But it made all the deeper impression upon me when she quietly
sighed, and told me about her own mother's mother, how she had been
a rich, noble lady in the city of Cassel, and that she had married a
"comedy-player," that was as she expressed it, and run away from parents
and home, for all of which her posterity had now to do penance. I
never can recollect that I heard her mention the family name of her
grandmother; but her own maiden name was Nommesen. She was employed to
take care of the garden belonging to a lunatic asylum, and every Sunday
evening she brought us some flowers, which they gave her permission
to take home with her. These flowers adorned my mother's cupboard; but
still they were mine, and to me it was allowed to put them in the glass
of water. How great was this pleasure! She brought them all to me; she
loved me with her whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it.
She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the garden; on such
occasions she took me with her to the asylum, and I lay upon the great
heaps of green leaves and pea-straw. I had many flowers to play with,
and--which was a circumstance upon which I set great importanceù I had
here better food to eat than I could expect at home.
All such patients as were harmless were permitted to go freely about
the court; they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and
terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured
so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A long
passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were
out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the crack
of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost naked,
lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders, and she
sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw
herself against the door where I lay; the little valve through which she
received her food burst open; she stared down upon me, and stretched out
her long arm towards me. I screamed for terror--I felt the tips of her
fingers touching my clothes--I was half dead when the attendant came;
and even in later years that sight and that feeling remained within my
soul.
Close beside the place where the leaves were burned, the poor old women
had their spinning-room. I often went in there, and was very soon
a favorite. When with these people, I found myself possessed of an
eloquence which filled them with astonishment. I had accidentally heard
about the internal mechanism of the human frame, of course without
understanding anything about it; but all these mysteries were very
captivating to me; and with chalk, therefore, I drew a quantity of
flourishes on the door, which were to represent the intestines; and my
description of the heart and the lungs made the deepest impression. I
passed for a remarkably wise child, that would not live long; and they
rewarded my eloquence by telling me tales in return; and thus a world
as rich as that of the thousand and one nights was revealed to me. The
stories told by these old ladies, and the insane figures which I saw
around me in the asylum, operated in the meantime so powerfully upon me,
that when it grew dark I scarcely dared to go out of the house. I was
therefore permitted, generally at sunset, to lay me down in my parents'
bed with its long flowered curtains, because the press-bed in which
I slept could not conveniently be put down so early in the evening on
account of the room it occupied in our small dwelling; and here, in the
paternal bed, lay I in a waking dream, as if the actual world did not
concern me. I was very much afraid of my weak-minded grandfather. Only
once had he ever spoken to me, and then he had made use of the formal
pronoun "you." He employed himself in cutting out of wood strange
figures, men with beasts' heads, and beasts with wings; these he
packed in a basket and carried them out into the country, where he was
everywhere well received by the peasant women, because he gave to them
and their children these strange toys. One day, when he was returning to
Odense, I heard the boys in the street shouting after him; I hid myself
behind a flight of steps in terror, for I knew that I was of his flesh
and blood.
Every circumstance around me tended to excite my imagination. Odense
itself, in those days in which there was not a single steamboat in
existence, and when intercourse with other places was much more rare
than now, was a totally different city to what it is in our day; a
person might have fancied himself living hundreds of years ago, because
so many customs prevailed then which belonged to an earlier age. The
guilds walked in procession through the town with their harlequin before
them with mace and bells; on Shrove Tuesday the butchers led the fattest
ox through the streets adorned with garlands, whilst a boy in a white
shirt and with great wings on his shoulders rode upon it; the sailors
paraded through the city with music and all their flags flying, and then
two of the boldest among them stood and wrestled upon a plank placed
between two boats, and the one who was not thrown into the water was the
victor.
That, however, which more particularly stamped itself upon my memory,
and became refreshed by after often-repeated relations, was, the abode
of the Spaniards in Funen in 1808. It is true that at that time I was
but three years old; still I nevertheless perfectly remember the brown
foreign men who made disturbances in the streets, and the cannon which
were fired. I saw the people lying on straw in a half-tumbledown church,
which was near the asylum. One day, a Spanish soldier took me in his
arms and pressed a silver image, which he wore upon his breast, to my
lips. I remember that my mother was angry at it, because, she said,
there was something papistical about it; but the image, and the strange
man, who danced me about, kissed me and wept, pleased me: certainly
he had children at home in Spain. I saw one of his comrades led to
execution; he had killed a Frenchman. Many years afterwards this little
circumstance occasioned me to write my little poem, "The Soldier," which
Chamisso translated into German, and which afterwards was included in
the illustrated people's books of soldier-songs. [Footnote: This
same little song, sent to me by the author, was translated by me and
published in the 19th No. of Howitt's Journal.--M. H.] I very seldom
played with other boys; even at school I took little interest in their
games, but remained sitting within doors. At home I had playthings
enough, which my father made for me. My greatest delight was in making
clothes for my dolls, or in stretching out one of my mother's aprons
between the wall and two sticks before a currant-bush which I had
planted in the yard, and thus to gaze in between the sun-illumined
leaves. I was a singularly dreamy child, and so constantly went about
with my eyes shut, as at last to give the impression of having weak
sight, although the sense of sight was especially cultivated by me.
Sometimes, during the harvest, my mother went into the field to glean.
I accompanied her, and we went, like Ruth in the Bible, to glean in the
rich fields of Boaz. One day we went to a place, the bailiff of which
was well known for being a man of a rude and savage disposition. We
saw him coming with a huge whip in his hand, and my mother and all the
others ran away. I had wooden shoes on my bare feet, and in my haste I
lost these, and then the thorns pricked me so that I could not run, and
thus I was left behind and alone. The man came up and lifted his whip to
strike me, when I looked him in the face and involuntarily exclaimed,--
"How dare you strike me, when God can see it?"
The strong, stern man looked at me, and at once became mild; he patted
me on my cheeks, asked me my name, and gave me money.
When I brought this to my mother and showed it her, she said to the
others, "He is a strange child, my Hans Christian; everybody is kind to
him: this bad fellow even has given him money."
I grew up pious and superstitious. I had no idea of want or need; to be
sure my parents had only sufficient to live from day to day, but I
at least had plenty of every thing; an old woman altered my father's
clothes for me. Now and then I went with my parents to the theatre,
where the first representations which I saw were in German. "Das
Donauweibchen" was the favorite piece of the whole city; there, however,
I saw, for the first time, Holberg's Village Politicians treated as an
opera.
The first impression which a theatre and the crowd assembled there made
upon me was, at all events, no sign of any thing poetical slumbering in
me; for my first exclamation on seeing so many people, was, "Now, if we
only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would
eat lots of butter!" The theatre, however, soon became my favorite
place, but, as I could only very seldom go there, I acquired the
friendship of the man who carried out the playbills, and he gave me one
every day. With this I seated myself in a corner and imagined an entire
play, according to the name of the piece and the characters in it. That
was my first, unconscious poetising.
My father's favorite reading was plays and stories, although he also
read works of history and the Scriptures. He pondered in silent thought
afterwards upon that which he had read, but my mother did not understand
him when he talked with her about them, and therefore he grew more and
more silent. One day, he closed the Bible with the words, "Christ was a
man like us, but an extraordinary man!" These words horrified my mother,
and she burst into tears. In my distress I prayed to God that he would
forgive this fearful blasphemy in my father. "There is no other devil
than that which we have in our own hearts," I heard my father say one
day and I made myself miserable about him and his soul; I was therefore
entirely of the opinion of my mother and the neighbours, when my father,
one morning, found three scratches on his arm, probably occasioned by
a nail, that the devil had been to visit him in the night, in order to
prove to him that he really existed. My father's rambles in the wood
became more frequent; he had no rest. The events of the war in Germany,
which he read in the newspapers with eager curiosity, occupied him
completely. Napoleon was his hero: his rise from obscurity was the
most beautiful example to him. At that time Denmark was in league with
France; nothing was talked of but war; my father entered the service as
a soldier, in hope of returning home a lieutenant. My mother wept. The
neighbours shrugged their shoulders, and said that it was folly to go
out to be shot when there was no occasion for it.
The morning on which the corps were to march I heard my father singing
and talking merrily, but his heart was deeply agitated; I observed that
by the passionate manner in which he kissed me when he took his leave.
I lay sick of the measles and alone in the room, when the drums beat and
my mother accompanied my father, weeping, to the city gate. As soon as
they were gone my old grandmother came in; she looked at me with her
mild eyes and said, it would be a good thing if I died; but that God's
will was always the best.
That was the first day of real sorrow which I remember.
The regiment advanced no farther than Holstein, peace was concluded, and
the voluntary soldier returned to his work-stool. Everything fell into
its old course. I played again with my dolls, acted comedies, and always
in German, because I had only seen them in this language; but my German
was a sort of gibberish which I made up, and in which there occurred
only one real German word, and that was "_Besen_," a word which I had
picked up out of the various dialects which my father brought home from
Holstein.
"Thou hast indeed some benefit from my travels," said he in joke. "God
knows whether thou wilt get as far; but that must be thy care. Think
about it, Hans Christian!" But it was my mother's intention that as long
as she had any voice in the matter, I should remain at home, and not
lose my health as he had done.
That was the case with him; his health had suffered. One morning he woke
in a state of the wildest excitement, and talked only of campaigns and
Napoleon. He fancied that he had received orders from him to take the
command. My mother immediately sent me, not to the physician, but to
a so-called wise woman some miles from Odense. I went to her. She
questioned me, measured my arm with a woolen thread, made extraordinary
signs, and at last laid a green twig upon my breast. It was, she said, a
piece of the same kind of tree upon which the Saviour was crucified.
"Go now," said she, "by the river side towards home. If your father will
die this time, then you will meet his ghost."
My anxiety and distress may be imagined,--I, who was so full of
superstition, and whose imagination was so easily excited.
"And thou hast not met anything, hast thou?" inquired my mother when I
got home. I assured her, with beating heart, that I had not.
My father died the third day after that. His corpse lay on the bed:
I therefore slept with my mother. A cricket chirped the whole night
through.
"He is dead," said my mother, addressing it; "thou needest not call him.
The ice maiden has fetched him."
I understood what she meant. I recollected that, in the winter before,
when our window panes were frozen, my father pointed to them and showed
us a figure as that of a maiden with outstretched arms. "She is come to
fetch me," said he, in jest. And now, when he lay dead on the bed, my
mother remembered this, and it occupied my thoughts also.
He was buried in St. Knud's churchyard, by the door on the left hand
side coming from the altar. My grandmother planted roses upon his grave.
There are now in the selfsame place two strangers' graves, and the grass
grows green upon them also.
After my father's death I was entirely left to myself. My mother went
out washing. I sate alone at home with my little theatre, made dolls'
clothes and read plays. It has been told me that I was always clean and
nicely dressed. I had grown tall; my hair was long, bright, and almost
yellow, and I always went bare-headed. There dwelt in our neighborhood
the widow of a clergyman, Madame Bunkeflod, with the sister of her
deceased husband. This lady opened to me her door, and hers was the
first house belonging to the educated class into which I was kindly
received. The deceased clergyman had written poems, and had gained a
reputation in Danish literature. His spinning songs were at that time
in the mouths of the people. In my vignettes to the Danish poets I thus
sang of him whom my contemporaries had forgotten:--
Spindles rattle, wheels turn round,
Spinning-songs depart;
Songs which youth sings soon become
Music of the heart.
Here it was that I heard for the first time the word _poet_ spoken, and
that with so much reverence, as proved it to be something sacred. It is
true that my father had read Holberg's play to me; but here it was not
of these that they spoke, but of verses and poetry. "My brother the
poet," said Bunkeflod's sister, and her eyes sparkled as she said
it. From her I learned that it was a something glorious, a something
fortunate, to be a poet. Here, too, for the first time, I read
Shakspeare, in a bad translation, to be sure; but the bold descriptions,
the heroic incidents, witches, and ghosts were exactly to my taste. I
immediately acted Shakspeare's plays on my little puppet theatre. I saw
Hamlet's ghost, and lived upon the heath with Lear. The more persons
died in a play, the more interesting I thought it. At this time I wrote
my first piece: it was nothing less than a tragedy, wherein, as a matter
of course, everybody died. The subject of it I borrowed from an old song
about Pyramus and Thisbe; but I had increased the incidents through
a hermit and his son, who both loved Thisbe, and who both killed
themselves when she died. Many speeches of the hermit were passages from
the Bible, taken out of the little catechism, especially from our duty
to our neighbors. To the piece I gave the title "Abor and Elvira."
"It ought to be called 'Perch (Aborre) and Stockfish,'" said one of our
neighbors wittily to me, as I came with it to her after having read it
with great satisfaction and joy to all the people in our street. This
entirely depressed me, because I felt that she was turning both me and
my poem to ridicule. With a troubled heart I told it to my mother.
"She only said so," replied my mother, "because her son had not done
it." I was comforted, and began a new piece, in which a king and queen
were among the dramatis personae. I thought it was not quite right that
these dignified personages, as in Shakspeare, should speak like other
men and women. I asked my mother and different people how a king ought
properly to speak, but no one knew exactly. They said that it was so
many years since a king had been in Odense, but that he certainly spoke
in a foreign language. I procured myself, therefore, a sort of lexicon,
in which were German, French, and English words with Danish meanings,
and this helped me. I took a word out of each language, and inserted
them into the speeches of my king and queen. It was a regular Babel-like
language, which I considered only suitable for such elevated personages.
I desired now that everybody should hear my piece. It was a real
felicity to me to read it aloud, and it never occurred to me that others
should not have the same pleasure in listening to it.
The son of one of our neighbors worked in a cloth manufactory, and every
week brought home a sum of money. I was at a loose end, people said, and
got nothing. I was also now to go to the manufactory, "not for the sake
of the money," my mother said, "but that she might know where I was, and
what I was doing."
My old grandmother took me to the place, therefore, and was very much
affected, because, said she, she had not expected to live to see the
time when I should consort with the poor ragged lads that worked there.
Many of the journeymen who were employed in the manufactory were
Germans; they sang and were merry fellows, and many a coarse joke of
theirs filled the place with loud laughter. I heard them, and I there
learned that, to the innocent ears of a child, the impure remains very
unintelligible. It took no hold upon my heart. I was possessed at that
time of a remarkably beautiful and high soprano voice, and I knew it;
because when I sang in my parents' little garden, the people in the
street stood and listened, and the fine folks in the garden of the
states-councillor, which adjoined ours, listened at the fence. When,
therefore, the people at the manufactory asked me whether I could sing,
I immediately began, and all the looms stood still: all the journeymen
listened to me. I had to sing again and again, whilst the other boys had
my work given them to do. I now told them that I also could act plays,
and that I knew whole scenes of Holberg and Shakspeare. Everybody liked
me; and in this way, the first days in the manufactory passed on very
merrily. One day, however, when I was in my best singing vein, and
everybody spoke of the extraordinary brilliancy of my voice, one of the
journeymen said that I was a girl, and not a boy. He seized hold of me.
I cried and screamed. The other journeymen thought it very amusing,
and held me fast by my arms and legs. I screamed aloud, and was as
much ashamed as a girl; and then, darting from them, rushed home to my
mother, who immediately promised me that I should never go there again.
I again visited Madame Bunkeflod, for whose birthday I invented and made
a white silk pincushion. I also made an acquaintance with another old
clergyman's widow in the neighborhood. She permitted me to read aloud
to her the works which she had from the circulating library. One of
them began with these words: "It was a tempestuous night; the rain beat
against the window-panes."
"That is an extraordinary book," said the old lady; and I quite
innocently asked her how she knew that it was. "I can tell from the
beginning," said she, "that it will turn out extraordinary."
I regarded her penetration with a sort of reverence.
Once in the harvest time my mother took me with her many miles from
Odense to a nobleman's seat in the neighborhood of Bogense, her native
place. The lady who lived there, and with whose parents my mother had
lived, had said that some time she might come and see her. That was a
great journey for me: we went most of the way on foot, and required, I
believe, two days for the journey. The country here made such a strong
impression upon me, that my most earnest wish was to remain in it, and
become a countryman. It was just in the hop-picking season; my mother
and I sat in the barn with a great many country people round a great
binn, and helped to pick the hops. They told tales as they sat at
their work, and every one related what wonderful things he had seen or
experienced. One afternoon I heard an old man among them say that God
knew every thing, both what had happened and what would happen. That
idea occupied my whole mind, and towards evening, as I went alone from
the court, where there was a deep pond, and stood upon some stones which
were just within the water, the thought passed through my head, whether
God actually knew everything which was to happen there. Yes, he has now
determined that I should live and be so many years old, thought I; but,
if I now were to jump into the water here and drown myself, then it
would not be as he wished; and all at once I was firmly and resolutely
determined to drown myself. I ran to where the water was deepest, and
then a new thought passed through my soul. "It is the devil who wishes
to have power over me!" I uttered a loud cry, and, running away from
the place as if I were pursued, fell weeping into my mother's arms. But
neither she nor any one else could wring from me what was amiss with me.
"He has certainly seen a ghost," said one of the women; and I almost
believed so myself.
My mother married a second time, a young handicraftsman; but his family,
who also belonged to the handicraft class, thought that he had married
below himself, and neither my mother nor myself were permitted to visit
them. My step-father was a young, grave man, who would have nothing to
do with my education. I spent my time, therefore, over my peep show and
my puppet theatre, and my greatest happiness consisted in collecting
bright colored pieces of cloth and silk, which I cut out myself and
sewed. My mother regarded it as good exercise preparatory to my becoming
a tailor, and took up the idea that I certainly was born for it. I, on
the contrary, said that I would go to the theatre and be an actor, a
wish which my mother most sedulously opposed, because she knew of no
other theatre than those of the strolling players and the rope-dancers.
No, a tailor I must and should be. The only thing which in some measure
reconciled me to this prospect was, that I should then get so many
fragments to make up for my theatre.
My passion for reading, the many dramatic scenes which I knew by heart,
and my remarkably fine voice, had turned upon me in some sort the
attention of several of the more influential families of Odense. I was
sent for to their houses, and the peculiar characteristics of my mind
excited their interest. Among others who noticed me was the Colonel
Hoegh-Guldberg, who with his family showed me the kindest sympathy; so
much so, indeed, that he introduced me to the present king, then Prince
Christian.
I grew rapidly, and was a tall lad, of whom my mother said that she
could not let him any longer go about without any object in life. I
was sent, therefore, to the charity school, but learned only religion,
writing, and arithmetic, and the last badly enough; I could also
scarcely spell a word correctly. On the master's birthday I always wove
him a garland and wrote him a poem; he received them half with smiles
and half as a joke; the last time, however, he scolded me. The street
lads had also heard from their parents of my peculiar turn of mind,
and that I was in the habit of going to the houses of the gentry. I was
therefore one day pursued by a wild crowd of them, who shouted after
me derisively, "There runs the play-writer!" I hid myself at home in a
corner, wept, and prayed to God.
My mother said that I must be confirmed, in order that I might be
apprenticed to the tailor trade, and thus do something rational. She
loved me with her whole heart, but she did not understand my impulses
and my endeavors, nor indeed at that time did I myself. The people about
her always spoke against my odd ways, and turned me to ridicule.
We belonged to the parish of St. Knud, and the candidates for
confirmation could either enter their names with the prevost or the
chaplain. The children of the so-called superior families and the
scholars of the grammar school went to the first, and the children of
the poor to the second. I, however, announced myself as a candidate
to the prevost, who was obliged to receive me, although he discovered
vanity in my placing myself among his catechists, where, although taking
the lowest place, I was still above those who were under the care of
the chaplain. I would, however, hope that it was not alone vanity which
impelled me. I had a sort of fear of the poor boys, who had laughed at
me, and I always felt as it were an inward drawing towards the scholars
of the grammar school, whom I regarded as far better than other boys.
When I saw them playing in the church-yard, I would stand outside the
railings, and wish that I were but among the fortunate ones,--not for
the sake of play, but for the sake of the many books they had, and
for what they might be able to become in the world. With the prevost,
therefore, I should be able to come together with them, and be as
they were; but I do not remember a single one of them now, so little
intercourse would they hold with me. I had daily the feeling of having
thrust myself in where people thought that I did not belong. One young
girl, however, there was, and one who was considered too of the highest
rank, whom I shall afterwards have to mention; she always looked gently
and kindly at me, and even once gave me a rose. I returned home full of
happiness, because there was one being who did not overlook and repel
me.
An old female tailor altered my deceased father's great coat into a
confirmation suit for me; never before had I worn so good a coat. I
had also for the first time in my life a pair of boots. My delight was
extremely great; my only fear was that everybody would not see them, and
therefore I drew them up over my trousers, and thus marched through the
church. The boots creaked, and that inwardly pleased me, for thus
the congregation would hear that they were new. My whole devotion
was disturbed; I was aware of it, and it caused me a horrible pang of
conscience that my thoughts should be as much with my new boots as with
God. I prayed him earnestly from my heart to forgive me, and then again
I thought about my new boots.
During the last year I had saved together a little sum of money. When
I counted it over I found it to be thirteen rix dollars banco (about
thirty shillings) I was quite overjoyed at the possession of so much
wealth, and as my mother now most resolutely required that I should be
apprenticed to a tailor, I prayed and besought her that I might make a
journey to Copenhagen, that I might see the greatest city in the world.
"What wilt thou do there?" asked my mother.
"I will become famous," returned I, and I then told her all that I
had read about extraordinary men. "People have," said I, "at first an
immense deal of adversity to go through, and then they will be famous."
It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I wept, I prayed,
and at last my mother consented, after having first sent for a so-called
wise woman out of the hospital, that she might read my future fortune by
the coffee-grounds and cards.
"Your son will become a great man," said the old woman, "and in honor of
him, Odense will one day be illuminated."
My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained permission to travel.
All the neighbors told my mother that it was a dreadful thing to let me,
at only fourteen years of age, go to Copenhagen, which was such a long
way off, and such a great and intricate city, and where I knew nobody.
"Yes," replied my mother, "but he lets me have no peace; I have
therefore given my consent, but I am sure that he will go no further
than Nyborg; when he gets sight of the rough sea, he will be frightened
and turn back again."
During the summer before my confirmation, a part of the singers and
performers of the Theatre Royal had been in Odense, and had given a
series of operas and tragedies there. The whole city was taken
with them. I, who was on good terms with the man who delivered the
play-bills, saw the performances behind the scenes, and had even acted a
part as page, shepherd, etc., and had spoken a few words. My zeal was
so great on such occasions, that I stood there fully apparelled when the
actors arrived to dress. By these means their attention was turned to
me; my childlike manners and my enthusiasm amused them; they talked
kindly with me, and I looked up to them as to earthly divinities.
Everything which I had formerly heard about my musical voice, and my
recitation of poetry, became intelligible to me. It was the theatre for
which I was born: it was there that I should become a famous man, and
for that reason Copenhagen was the goal of my endeavors. I heard a deal
said about the large theatre in Copenhagen, and that there was to be
soon what was called the ballet, a something which surpassed both the
opera and the play; more especially did I hear the solo-dancer, Madame
Schall, spoken of as the first of all. She therefore appeared to me as
the queen of everything, and in my imagination I regarded her as the one
who would be able to do everything for me, if I could only obtain her
support. Filled with these thoughts, I went to the old printer Iversen,
one of the most respectable citizens of Odense, and who, as I heard, had
had considerable intercourse with the actors when they were in the town.
He, I thought, must of necessity be acquainted with the famous dancer;
him I would request to give me a letter of introduction to her, and then
I would commit the rest to God.
The old man saw me for the first time, and heard my petition with much
kindness; but he dissuaded me most earnestly from it, and said that I
might learn a trade.
"That would actually be a great sin," returned I.
He was startled at the manner in which I said that, and it prepossessed
him in my favor; he confessed that he was not personally acquainted with
the dancer, but still that he would give me a letter to her. I received
one from him, and now believed the goal to be nearly won.
My mother packed up my clothes in a small bundle, and made a bargain
with the driver of a post carriage to take me back with him to
Copenhagen for three rix dollars banco. The afternoon on which we were
to set out came, and my mother accompanied me to the city gate. Here
stood my old grandmother; in the last few years her beautiful hair had
become grey; she fell upon my neck and wept, without being able to speak
a word. I was myself deeply affected. And thus we parted. I saw her no
more; she died in the following year.
I do not even know her grave; she sleeps in the poor-house
burial-ground.
The postilion blew his horn; it was a glorious sunny afternoon, and the
sunshine soon entered into my gay child-like mind. I delighted in every
novel object which met my eye, and I was journeying towards the goal of
my soul's desires. When, however, I arrived at Nyborg on the great Belt,
and was borne in the ship away from my native island, I then truly felt
how alone and forlorn I was, and that I had no one else except God in
heaven to depend upon.
As soon as I set foot on Zealand, I stepped behind a shed, which stood
on the shore, and falling upon my knees, besought of God to help and
guide me aright; I felt myself comforted by so doing, and I firmly
trusted in God and my own good fortune. The whole day and the following
night I travelled through cities and villages; I stood solitarily by the
carriage, and ate my bread while it was repacked.--I thought I was far
away in the wide world.