He passed his summers in Fredensborg, and his winters in the
"Ny-Adelgade" in Copenhagen, and it sometimes occurred to me that this
double place of residence corresponded with the different phases of
his character and his poetry. He was well adapted to his summer home.
There was something in his nature that was akin to the slender, proud
alleys, and the pure air and perfect order of the regularly laid out
gardens. The white statues of the un-Grecian Greek gods and goddesses
among the trees were reminders of his mythologic poems, and harmonized
with the character of the poet who has so often surprised and portrayed
Venus and Aurora at their morning toilets. With all his great and rare
poetic gifts, Paludan-Müller, in his poetry, lacked naïveté; he was
never, properly speaking, the poet of nature; and, therefore, a garden
was much better adapted to his poetic mood than a forest. The little
castle, of which the new royal family promptly took possession, was
very dear to him. He was devoted to royalty, as were but few of his
contemporaries; he was as loyal as a citizen of the days of Frederick
VI. He was rejoiced and felt honored when he received an occasional
visit from the young princesses, whose amiability and simple manners
won his heart; he was put in an especially good humor one day when the
Princess Dagmar[1] sent him her portrait with a few friendly lines.
Finally, the spot suited his need of living in retirement. He went to
Fredensborg long before the other guests from Copenhagen, and remained
there long after they had all departed; he always left the city when
the calendar promised spring, and did not return until the last leaves
had fallen. Thus he had an opportunity of enjoying profound solitude in
his favorite retreat.
Any one who visited him during the winter in Copenhagen, found him in
very different surroundings. His street was in one of the worst and
most notorious quarters of the city at that time. The fact that he
was not in very affluent circumstances had evidently been the cause
of his settling in a place of the kind. It was a singular coincidence
that the pure and rigorous author of "Kalanus" could never step to his
door of a winter evening without having before his eye abundant and
loud testimony of human shame and misery. Many an evening I have seen
him in the streets of this vicinity, leaning on his cane, and looking
neither to the right nor to the left, while numerous rude and noisy
couples drifted past him. I would then remember that the author of
"Kalanus" was also the author of "Adam Homo"; and were not these the
accessory figures of "Adam Homo," the original of the beautiful Lina
and the swarthy Trina which the poet had before his eyes day after
day? Thus it was not an altogether incongruous decree of fate that
located Paludan-Müller in the midst of the most wretched and hideous
vices of Copenhagen. When the threshold of his house was once crossed,
however, the repulsive neighborhood was wholly forgotten. The door
to the peaceful dwelling, where everything was animated by the good
genius and good humor of the poet, was usually opened by a faithful
old maid-servant who was thoroughly devoted to her employer, and with
whose favor no guest could dispense, since, according to the playful
assertion of the poet, she tyrannized over his home.