A FREAK OF FATE.
Percy, who had long believed himself to be a perfect cosmopolitan, quite
as much at home in one part of the globe as in another, was surprised to
find that he was actually homesick after leaving Paris.
With an impatience he could hardly understand, he awaited Dolores'
response to his first letter. When it came, full of bright humor and
sparkling cynicism, pleasant gossip and sincere expressions of regret at
his absence, Percy sat and smoked, and dreamed over it for more than an
hour.
He was trying to analyze his own feelings. When a woman does this, ten
to one she is in love. When a man does it, ten to one he is not.
Percy did not believe himself to be in love.
"At least," he mused, "I could never, even were I a marrying man,
contemplate marriage with Dolores King. She is too cold, too caustic,
too skeptical. In fact, she understands human nature too well. I should
want a wife who would idolize me, who would set me up as a hero, to
worship. I think many a man becomes a hero, through having some woman
over-estimate his worth. Rather than disillusion her, he acquires the
qualities with which her loving imagination has invested him. Many a man
has been saved from yielding to temptation at the last moment, because
he could not shatter the perfect faith of some trusting heart. Dolores
would not surround a man with any halo. She sees us all as we
are--perhaps exaggerating our defects somewhat. She would suspect a man
of evil on the slightest provocation, and that is the surest way to
drive a human being into wrongdoing.
"But she is a delightful comrade, and so exquisitely beautiful that the
plainest room would seem elegantly furnished if she occupied it.
"She understands the art of entertaining. And time hangs heavy on a
fellow's hands, after he has lost her society. After all, life is too
short to relinquish any pleasure within our grasp, for fear of
consequences." And, rising and tossing aside his cigar, he added aloud:
"With the Persian poet I can say,
"O threats of Hell, and hopes of Paradise,
One thing at least is certain, this life flies.
One thing is certain, and the rest is lies--
The flower that once has blown forever dies."
A few weeks later, Percy received letters from New York, requesting him
to visit London, there to complete business arrangements with a large
export house, and then to proceed to Copenhagen, where it would be
necessary for him to remain several months in the interest of the firm.
When the letter arrived, he had just dispatched one to Dolores, which
closed as follows:
"I expect to return to America next month. I go with regret, and yet no
doubt it is for the best. It will cut short our delightful yet dangerous
companionship, but I trust you will permit me to call upon you and say
farewell before I go. In your last, you mentioned the possibility of
leaving Paris soon, but you did not tell me what your plans were.
Wherever you are, I shall, with your permission, find you, before I sail
for America."
What was his astonishment to receive in reply to his letter, the
information that Dolores, accompanied by Mrs. Butler and Madame
Volkenburg were about to start on a journey to the Land of the Midnight
Sun.
"We go direct to Moscow first," wrote Dolores, "stopping there long
enough to drop a tear on the tombs of the Czars; then on to St.
Petersburg; then by steamer down the Gulf of Finland and across the
Baltic to Stockholm; thence by rail to Christiania, where we may linger
some time, as Madame Volkenburg has dear friends there. From Christiania
we go direct to the North Cape. It is our intention to return via
Copenhagen and the Channels, as late in the season as we can safely make
the trip. We do not leave Paris under three weeks; I hope you will call
upon us before your return to America, as you have promised."
When Percy read this he laughed aloud.
"It is fate," he said. "We are destined to be thrown together. I shall
proceed at once to Copenhagen, and when my charming friends arrive in
Christiania, I shall join them there and make the journey with them to
the North Cape."
It needed this bright prospect to keep Percy's heart cheerful after he
arrived in Copenhagen. Not a person in the city had hung out a sign of
furnished rooms to let; so finally he decided to advertise. After
waiting two days for the advertisement to appear, he rushed off to the
printing office to demand an explanation. The clerk remarked calmly,
that it had been lost, and as the next day was Sunday, he would be
obliged to wait until Monday. On Monday the notice appeared, badly
printed, in a column headed "Servant Girls Wanted."
During that day Percy found a room to his liking, on the
Tordenskjoldsgade, but as he feared an attack of lockjaw if he attempted
to direct any one to his lodgings, he chose apartments on the
Hovedvagtsgade instead. His breakfast, when served, consisted of a cup
of coffee and a cold roll. His dinner, for which he had a ravenous
appetite, was better enjoyed in anticipation than participation. The
soup was devoid of any extract of flesh, fish, or fowl, but contained
quantities of ginger, citron, lemon, and sugar. This was followed by
boiled fish, tasteless and watery, and cauliflower swimming in sauce
composed of milk and black pepper. There were no side-dishes, and the
eagerly-expected dessert brought only disappointment and bread and
cheese.
The next day, Percy was so curious concerning a mysterious plate of soup
which was served, that he made inquiries and learned the actual
ingredients. They consisted of carrots, potatoes, cabbage, sugar, eels,
cinnamon, cherries, plums, and small pieces of pork. Another soup was
made from the first milk of a cow; and what was known as "beer soup,"
flavored with various ingredients, was frequently served.
On inquiry, Percy found that other boarding-houses and hotels furnished
the same _mênu_, and he could only better his condition by boarding at
the largest hotel at an exorbitant price. Finally he became reconciled
to the fare: esteemed Limburger cheese as a delicacy, and hailed the
advent of every new kind of soup, as he wrote home to his cousin, "with
all the enthusiasm of a scientific explorer."
His next achievement was learning how to sleep in a Danish bed. The cot
was so narrow, and so rounded in the middle, that if he forgot himself
and fell asleep, the covers were sure to slide off one side or the
other; and any effort to detain them resulted in his own downfall.
Finally, he concluded to lie under the feather bed, instead of over it;
and thus, braced by the wall on one side and two chairs on the other,
and the huge tick settling down over him, he succeeded in wooing
slumber.
After two months devoted to business in Copenhagen, he took passage one
autumn afternoon, in the steamship "Aarhus," for Christiania, where he
was to join Dolores and her party. Passing through the "Kattegat," a
severe wind rendered most of his companions seasick, and Percy was
almost the only one who escaped the infliction. The next morning, one of
the passengers asked the captain if the storm had been a severe one. For
answer he simply pointed to the smoke-stack, which was encrusted to its
very summit with the salt from the waves which had dashed over it in the
night.
Percy stopped at the beautiful city of Gottenburg for a day, and made a
journey into the Northwest some fifty miles to visit the famous falls of
Trollhatton, which are unsurpassed in all Europe. In a letter to his
cousin that night he wrote as follows:
"On the little cluster of houses, which constitute the village of
Trollhatton, I was surprised to see in bold letters the name of a New
York sewing-machine company. I had seen the sign in France and Germany,
but I hardly expected to find it in this wild, unsettled portion of
Sweden. The same day, in traversing the vast, dreary, rocky plateau
which stretches from Lake Venern to the Skagerak, a large,
freshly-painted sign of 'Fairbank Scales' met my eye. But in fact, where
you find anything good over here in the way of machinery, you may be
sure it is from America.
"In all my travels through Germany I have never seen a reaper, a mower,
or a steel plow. Most of the grain seemed to be cut with a sickle. In a
very few instances I saw men using an awkward sort of cradle; but they
always threw their swath _into_ the standing grain instead of away from
it, and had women follow behind with sickles to pick it out and lay it
in shape, so I did not see that they gained much.
"It may be true that the American is somewhat given to bragging; but
when he comes to see the clumsy old-fashioned way of doing things in
Europe, and compares it with the methods at home, he begins to feel that
he has a foundation for his boasting. The best fire-arms, the best
cutlery, the best furniture, and the best tools, all come from America.
Even American cheese has found its way all over Europe, and our various
brands of tobacco are as familiar to the European smoker, as to the
Yankee himself."
Two days later found Percy enjoying a delightful interview with his
friends in Christiania; and the next day the happy quartette started on
their journey to the Land of the Midnight Sun.