“She sees if the cloth is clean and white
--If the bed has pillows and sheets;
If the candle fits in the candlestick....
“Modest she is, although you know
She makes the whole of the place;
And in she slips in the evening glow,
To light the room with her merry face “--OEHLENSCHLÄGER
A quiet, busy house-fairy was Louise; the beautiful, fragrant flowers
were her favorites. Good-humoredly she smiled at the raillery of her
sister, quietly listened to each thoughtless jest; but if any one, in
joke, touched upon what was holy to her soul, she was aroused from her
calmness and attained a certain eloquence.
We will now become more nearly acquainted with the sisters, and on this
account pass over to one of the following days.
An abode together of a week, at a country-seat, will often bring about
a greater intimacy than if, throughout a whole winter, people had met
in large companies in cities. Otto soon felt himself at home; he was
treated as a near relative. Wilhelm related all he knew of the beautiful
Eva, and Sophie discovered that she was a romantic character. Mamma
pitied the poor child, and Louise wished she had her on the estate: an
inn was, after all, no proper place for a respectable girl. They then
spoke of the winter enjoyments in Copenhagen, of art, and the theatre.
Louise could not speak much with them upon these subjects, although
she had seen one play, “Dyveke:” the amiable nature of the actress had
spoken deeply to her heart.
Several days had passed; the sky was gray; the young people assembled
round the table; they were at no loss for a subject of conversation. All
those who have brothers or sons who study well, have remarked how much
they are especially fascinated by the lectures on natural philosophy and
astronomy; the world, as it were, expands itself before the intellectual
eye. We know that the friends, during the past summer, had participated
in these lectures, and, like the greater number, were full of
these subjects, from the contemplation of a drop of water, with its
innumerable animalculae, to the distance and magnitude of stars and
planets.
To most of us these are well-known doctrines; to the ladies, also, this
was nothing entirely new: nevertheless, it interested them; perhaps
partly owing to Otto’s beautiful eloquence. The gray, rainy weather led
the conversation to the physical explanation of the origin of our globe,
as the friends, from Orsted’s lectures, conceived it to have been.
“The Northern and Grecian myths agree also with it!” sail Otto. “We must
imagine, that in infinite space there floated an eternal, unending mist,
in which lay a power of attraction. The mist condensed itself now to
one drop--our globe was one enormous egg-shaped drop; light and warmth
operated upon this huge world egg, and hatched, not alone ONE creature,
but millions. These must die and give way to new ones, but their corpses
fell as dust to the centre: this grew; the water itself condensed, and
soon arose a point above the expanse of ocean. The warmth of the sun
developed moss and plants; fresh islands presented themselves;
for centuries did a more powerful development and improvement show
themselves, until the perfection was attained which we now perceive!”
“But the Bible does not teach us thus!” said Louise.
“Moses invented his account of the creation,” answered Otto; “we keep to
Nature, who has greater revelations than man.”
“But the Bible is to you a holy book?” asked Louise, and colored.
“A venerable book!” returned Otto. “It contains the profoundest
doctrines, the most interesting histories, but also much which belongs
not at all to a holy book.”
“How can you say such things?” exclaimed Louise.
“Do not touch upon religion in her presence,” said Sophie; “she is a
pious soul, and believes, without desiring to know wherefore.”
“Yes,” said Wilhelm, “this winter she became quite angry, and, as I
believe, for the first time angry with me, because I maintained that
Christ was a man.”
“Wilhelm!” interrupted the young girl, “do not speak of that; I feel
myself unhappy at this thought; I can and will not see the Holy brought
down to my level, and to that of every-day life. It lies in my nature
that I commit a sin if I think otherwise than I have learned and than my
heart allows me. It is profane, and if you speak longer of religion in
this strain I shall leave the room.”
At this moment the mother entered. “The festival has commenced,” said
she; “I have been forced to give my brightest silver skilling. Does Mr.
Thostrup know the old custom which is observed here in the country, when
beer is brewed for the mowing-feast?”
A piercing cry, as from a horde of savages, at this moment reached the
ears of the party.
The friends descended.
In the middle of the brew-house stood a tub, around which danced all the
female servants of the estate, from the dairymaids down to the girl
who tended the swine; their iron-bound wooden shoes dashed against the
uneven flag-stones. The greater number of the dancers were without their
jackets, but with their long chemise-sleeves and narrow bodices. Some
screamed, others laughed, the whole was blended together in a howl,
whilst they danced hand in hand around the tub in which the beer should
be brewed. The brewing-maid now flung into it the silver skilling, upon
which the girls, like wild Maenades, tore off each other’s caps, and
with bacchanalian wildness whirled round the tub. By this means
should the beer become stronger, and work more intoxicatingly at the
approaching mowing-feast.
Among the girls, one especially distinguished herself by her Strong
frame of body, and her long black hair, which, now that her cap was torn
off, hung in disorder over her red face. The dark eyebrows were grown
together. All seemed to rage most violently within her, and in truth she
assumed something wild, nay almost brutal. Both arms she raised high in
the air, and with outstretched fingers she whirled around.
“That is disgusting!” whispered Otto: “they all look like crazy people.”
Wilhelm laughed at it. The wild merriment was lost in a joyous burst of
laughter. The girl with the grown-together eyebrows let fall her arms;
but still there lay in her glance that wild expression, which the loose
hair and uncovered shoulders made still more striking. Either one of the
others had had the misfortune to scratch her lip, or else she herself
had bitten it in bacchanalian wildness until it bled: she accidentally
glanced toward the open door where stood the friends. Otto’s countenance
became clouded, as was ever the case when anything unpleasant affected
him. She seemed to guess his thoughts, and laughed aloud. Otto stepped
aside; it was as though he in anticipation felt the shadow which this
form would one day cast across his life.
When he and Wilhelm immediately afterward returned to Sophie and Louise,
he related the unpleasant impression which the girl had made upon him.
“O, that is my Meg Merrilies!” exclaimed Sophie. “Yes, spite of her
youth, do you not find that she has something of Sir Walter Scott’s
witch about her? When she grows older, she will be excellent. She has
the appearance of being thirty, whereas she is said not to be more than
twenty years old: she is a true giantess.”
“The poor thing!” said Louise; “every one judges from the exterior. All
who are around her hate her, I believe, because her eyebrows are grown
together, and that is said to be a sign that she is a nightmare:
[Note: This superstition of the people is mentioned in
Thieles’s Danish traditions: “When a girl at midnight
stretches between four sticks the membrane in which the foal
lies when it is born, and then creeps naked through it, she
will bear her child without pains; but all the boys she
conceives will become were-wolves, and all the girls
nightmares. You will know them in the daytime by their
eyebrows grown together over the nose. In the night she
creeps in through the key-hole, and places herself upon the
sleeper’s bosom. The same superstition is also found in
German Grimm speaks thus about it: If you say to the
nightmare,--
Old hag, come to-morrow,
And I from you will borrow,
it retreats directly, and comes the next morning in the
shape of a man to borrow something.”]
they are angry with her, and how could one expect, from the class to
which she belongs, that she should return scorn with kindness? She is
become savage, that she may not feel their neglect. In a few days, when
we have the mowing-feast, you yourself will see how every girl gets a
partner; but poor Sidsel may adorn herself as much as she likes, she
still stands alone. It is truly hard to be born such a being!”
“The unfortunate girl!” sighed Otto.
“O, she does not feel it!” said Wilhelm: “she cannot feel it; for that
she is too rude, too much of an animal.”