hall of the posting-house, and had a brilliant audience, entirely a
juvenile one, with the exception of two respectable matrons. All at
once a person in black, of student-like appearance, came into the room
and sat down; he laughed aloud at the telling parts, and applauded
quite appropriately. That was quite an unusual spectator for me! I
felt anxious to know who he was, and I heard he was a candidate from
the Polytechnic Institution in Copenhagen, who had been sent out to
instruct the folks in the provinces. Punctually at eight o'clock my
performance closed; for children must go early to bed, and a manager
must consult the convenience of his public. At nine o'clock the
candidate commenced his lecture, with experiments, and now I formed
part of _his_ audience. It was wonderful to hear and to see. The
greater part of it was beyond my scope; but still it made me think
that if we men can find out so much, we must be surely intended to
last longer than the little span until we are hidden away in the
earth. They were quite miracles in a small way that he showed, and yet
everything flowed as naturally as water! At the time of Moses and the
prophets such a man would have been received among the sages of the
land; in the middle ages they would have burned him at a stake. All
night long I could not go to sleep. And the next evening, when I gave
another performance, and the candidate was again present, I felt
fairly overflowing with humour. I once heard from a player that when
he acted a lover he always thought of one particular lady among the
audience; he only played for her, and forgot all the rest of the
house; and now the Polytechnic candidate was my 'she,' my only
auditor, for whom alone I played. And when the performance was over,
all the puppets were called before the curtain, and the Polytechnic
candidate invited me into his room to take a glass of wine; and he
spoke of my comedies, and I of his science; and I believe we were both
equally pleased. But I had the best of it, for there was much in what
he did of which he could not always give me an explanation. For
instance, that a piece of iron that falls through a spiral should
become magnetic. Now, how does that happen? The spirit comes upon it;
but whence does it come? It is as with people in this world; they are
made to tumble through the spiral of this world, and the spirit comes
upon them, and there stands a Napoleon, or a Luther, or a person of
that kind. 'The whole world is a series of miracles,' said the
candidate; 'but we are so accustomed to them that we call them
every-day matters.' And he went on explaining things to me until my
skull seemed lifted up over my brain, and I declared that if I were
not an old fellow I would at once visit the Polytechnic Institution,
that I might learn to look at the sunny side of the world, though I am
one of the happiest of men. 'One of the happiest!' said the candidate,
and he seemed to take real pleasure in it. 'Are you happy?' 'Yes,' I
replied, 'and they welcome me in all the towns where I come with my
company; but I certainly have _one_ wish, which sometimes lies like
lead, like an Alp, upon my good humour: I should like to become a real
theatrical manager, the director of a real troupe of men and women!'
'I see,' he said, 'you would like to have life breathed into your
puppets, so that they might be real actors, and you their director;
and would you then be quite happy?' He did not believe it; but I
believed it, and we talked it over all manner of ways without coming
any nearer to an agreement; but we clanked our glasses together, and
the wine was excellent. There was some magic in it, or I should
certainly have become tipsy. But that did not happen; I retained my
clear view of things, and somehow there was sunshine in the room, and
sunshine beamed out of the eyes of the Polytechnic candidate. It made
me think of the old stories of the gods, in their eternal youth, when
they still wandered upon earth and paid visits to the mortals; and I
said so to him, and he smiled, and I could have sworn he was one of
the ancient gods in disguise, or that, at any rate, he belonged to the
family! and certainly he must have been something of the kind, for my
highest wish was to have been fulfilled, the puppets were to be gifted
with life, and I was to be director of a real company. We drank to my
success and clinked our glasses. He packed all my dolls into a box,
bound the box on my back, and then let me fall through a spiral. I
heard myself tumbling, and then I was lying on the floor--I know that
quite well--and the whole company sprang out of the box. The spirit
had come upon all of us: all the puppets had become distinguished
artists, so they said themselves, and I was the director. All was
ready for the first representation; the whole company wanted to speak
to me, and the public also. The dancing lady said the house would fall
down if she did not keep it up by standing on one leg; for she was the
great genius, and begged to be treated as such. The lady who acted the
queen wished to be treated off the stage as a queen, or else she
should get out of practice. The man who was only employed to deliver a
letter gave himself just as many airs as the first lover, for he
declared the little ones were just as important as the great ones, and
that all were of equal consequence, considered as an artistic whole.
The hero would only play parts composed of nothing but points; for
those brought him down the applause. The prima donna would only play
in a red light; for she declared that a blue one did not suit her
complexion. It was like a company of flies in a bottle; and I was in
the bottle with them, for I was the director. My breath stopped and my
head whirled round; I was as miserable as a man can be. It was quite a
novel kind of men among whom I now found myself. I only wished I had
them all in the box again, and that I had never been a director at
all; so I told them roundly that after all they were nothing but
puppets; and then they killed me. I found myself lying on my bed in my
room; and how I got there, and how I got away at all from the
Polytechnic candidate, he may perhaps know, for I don't. The moon
shone upon the floor where the box lay open, and the dolls all in a
confusion together--great and small all scattered about; but I was not
idle. Out of bed I jumped, and into the box they had all to go, some
on their heads, some on their feet, and I shut down the lid and seated
myself upon the box. 'Now you'll just have to stay there,' said I,
'and I shall beware how I wish you flesh and blood again.' I felt
quite light, my good humour had come back, and I was the happiest of
mortals. The Polytechnic student had fully purified me. I sat as happy
as a king, and went to sleep on the box. The next morning--strictly
speaking it was noon, for I slept wonderfully late that day--I was
still sitting there, happy and conscious that my former wish had been
a foolish one. I inquired for the Polytechnic candidate, but he was
gone, like the Greek and Roman gods; and from that time I've been the
happiest of men. I am a happy director: none of my company ever
grumble, nor my public either, for they are always merry. I can put my
pieces together just as I please. I take out of every comedy what
pleases me best, and no one is angry at it. Pieces that are neglected
now-a-days by the great public, but which it used to run after thirty
years ago, and at which it used to cry till the tears ran down its
cheeks, these pieces I now take up; I put them before the little ones,
and the little ones cry just as papa and mamma used to cry thirty
years ago; but I shorten them, for the youngsters don't like a long
palaver; what they want is something mournful, but quick."
THE PIGS.
Charles Dickens once told us about a pig, and since that time we are
in a good humour if we only hear one grunt. St. Antony took the pig
under his protection; and when we think of the prodigal son we always
associate with him the idea of feeding swine; and it was in front of a
pig-sty that a certain carriage stopped in Sweden, about which I am
going to talk. The farmer had his pig-sty built out towards the high
road, close by his house, and it was a wonderful pig-sty. It was an
old state carriage. The seats had been taken out and the wheels taken
off, and so the body of the old coach lay on the ground, and four pigs
were shut up inside it. I wonder if these were the first that had ever
been there? That point could not certainly be determined; but that it
had been a real state coach everything bore witness, even to the
damask rag that hung down from the roof; everything spoke of better
days.
"Humph! humph!" said the occupants, and the coach creaked and groaned;
for it had come to a mournful end. "The beautiful has departed," it
sighed--or at least it might have done so.
We came back in autumn. The coach was there still, but the pigs were
gone. They were playing the grand lords out in the woods. Blossoms
and leaves were gone from all the trees, and storm and rain ruled, and
gave them neither peace nor rest; and the birds of passage had flown.
"The beautiful has departed! This was the glorious green wood, but the
song of the birds and the warm sunshine are gone! gone!" Thus said the
mournful voice that creaked in the lofty branches of the trees, and it
sounded like a deep-drawn sigh, a sigh from the bosom of the wild rose
tree, and of him who sat there; it was the rose king. Do you know him?
He is all beard, the finest reddish-green beard; he is easily
recognized. Go up to the wild rose bushes, and when in autumn all the
flowers have faded from them, and only the wild hips remain, you will
often find under them a great red-green moss flower; and that is the
rose king. A little green leaf grows up out of his head, and that's
his feather. He is the only man of his kind on the rose bush; and he
it was who sighed.
[Illustration: THE PIGS AT HOME IN THE OLD STATE COACH.]
"Gone! gone! The beautiful is gone! The roses have faded, and the
leaves fall down! It's wet here! it's boisterous here! The birds who
used to sing are dumb, and the pigs go out hunting for acorns, and the
pigs are the lords of the forest!"
The nights were cold and the days were misty; but, for all that, the
raven sat on the branch and sang, "Good! good!" Raven and crow sat on
the high bough; and they had a large family, who all said, "Good!
good!" and the majority is always right.
Under the high trees, in the hollow, was a great puddle, and here the
pigs reclined, great and small. They found the place so inexpressibly
lovely! "Oui! oui!" they all exclaimed. That was all the French they
knew, but even that was something; and they were so clever and so fat!
The old ones lay quite still, and reflected; the young ones were very
busy, and were not quiet a moment. One little porker had a twist in
his tail like a ring, and this ring was his mothers's pride: she
thought all the rest were looking at the ring, and thinking only of
the ring; but that they were not doing; they were thinking of
themselves and of what was useful, and what was the use of the wood.
They had always heard that the acorns they ate grew at the roots of
the trees, and accordingly they had grubbed up the ground; but there
came quite a little pig--it's always the young ones who come out with
their new-fangled notions--who declared that the acorns fell down from
the branches, for one had just fallen down on his head, and the idea
had struck him at once, afterwards he had made observations, and now
was quite certain on the point. The old ones put their heads together.
"Umph!" they said, "umph! The glory has departed: the twittering of
the birds is all over: we want fruit; whatever's good to eat is good,
and we eat everything."
"Oui! oui!" chimed in all the rest.
But the mother now looked at her little porker, the one with the ring
in his tail, "One must not overlook the beautiful," she said. "Good!
good!" cried the crow, and flew down from the tree to try and get an
appointment as nightingale; for some one must be appointed; and the
crow obtained the office directly.
"Gone! gone!" sighed the rose king. "All the beautiful is gone!"
It was boisterous, it was grey, cold, and windy; and through the
forest and over the field swept the rain in long dark streaks. Where
is the bird who sang, where are the flowers upon the meadow, and the
sweet berries of the wood? Gone! gone!
Then a light gleamed from the forester's house. It was lit up like a
star, and threw its long ray among the trees. A song sounded forth
out of the house! Beautiful children played there round the old
grandfather. He sat with the Bible on his knee, and read of the
Creator and of a better world, and spoke of spring that would return,
of the forest that would array itself in fresh green, of the roses
that would bloom, the nightingale that would sing, and of the
beautiful that would reign in its glory again.
But the rose king heard it not, for he sat in the cold, damp weather,
and sighed, "Gone! gone!" And the pigs were the lords of the forest,
and the old mother sow looked proudly at her little porker with the
twist in his tail. "There is always somebody who has a soul for the
beautiful!" she said.
ANNE LISBETH.
Anne Lisbeth had a colour like milk and blood; young, fresh, and
merry, she looked beautiful, with gleaming white teeth and clear eyes;
her footstep was light in the dance, and her mind was lighter still.
And what came of it all? Her son was an ugly brat! Yes, he was not
pretty; so he was put out to be nursed by the labourer's wife. Anne
Lisbeth was taken into the count's castle, and sat there in the
splendid room arrayed in silks and velvets; not a breath of wind might
blow upon her, and no one was allowed to speak a harsh word to her.
No, that might not be; for she was nurse to the count's child, which
was delicate and fair as a prince, and beautiful as an angel; and how
she loved this child! Her own boy was provided for at the labourer's,
where the mouth boiled over more frequently than the pot, and where,
in general, no one was at home to take care of the child. Then he
would cry; but what nobody knows, that nobody cares for, and he would
cry till he was tired, and then he fell asleep; and in sleep one feels
neither hunger nor thirst. A capital invention is sleep.
With years, just as weeds shoot up, Anne Lisbeth's child grew, but yet
they said his growth was stunted; but he had quite become a member of
the family in which he dwelt; they had received money to keep him.
Anne Lisbeth was rid of him for good. She had become a town lady, and
had a comfortable home of her own; and out of doors she wore a bonnet,
when she went out for a walk; but she never walked out to see the
labourer--that was too far from the town; and indeed she had nothing
to go for; the boy belonged to the labouring people, and she said he
could eat his food, and he should do something to earn his food, and
consequently he kept Matz's red cow. He could already tend cattle and
make himself useful.
The big dog, by the yard gate of the nobleman's mansion, sits proudly
in the sunshine on the top of the kennel, and barks at every one who
goes by: if it rains he creeps into his house, and there he is warm
and dry. Ann Lisbeth's boy sat in the sunshine on the fence of the
field, and cut out a pole-pin. In the spring he knew of three
strawberry plants that were in blossom, and would certainly bear
fruit, and that was his most hopeful thought; but they came to
nothing. He sat out in the rain in foul weather, and was wet to the
skin, and afterwards the cold wind dried the clothes on his back. When
he came to the lordly farmyard he was hustled and cuffed, for the men
and maids declared he was horribly ugly; but he was used to
that--loved by nobody!
That was how it went with Anne Lisbeth's boy; and how could it go
otherwise? It was, once for all, his fate to be beloved by nobody.
Till now a "land crab," the land at last threw him overboard. He went
to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat by the helm, while the skipper
sat over the grog-can. He was dirty and ugly, half frozen and half
starved: one would have thought he had never had enough; and that
really was the case.
It was late in autumn, rough, wet, windy weather; the wind cut cold
through the thickest clothing, especially at sea; and out to sea went
a wretched boat, with only two men on board, or, properly speaking,
with only a man and a half, the skipper and his boy. It had only been
a kind of twilight all day, and now it became dark; and it was bitter
cold. The skipper drank a dram, which was to warm him from within. The
bottle was old, and the glass too; it was whole at the top, but the
foot was broken off, and therefore it stood upon a little carved block
of wood painted blue. "A dram comforts one, and two are better still,"
thought the skipper. The boy sat at the helm, which he held fast in
his hard seamed hands: he was ugly, and his hair was matted, and he
looked crippled and stunted; he was the field labourer's boy, though
in the church register he was entered as Anne Lisbeth's son.
The wind cut its way through the rigging, and the boat cut through the
sea. The sail blew out, filled by the wind, and they drove on in wild
career. It was rough and wet around and above, and it might come worse
still. Hold! what was that? what struck there? what burst yonder? what
seized the boat? It heeled, and lay on its beam ends! Was it a
waterspout? Was it a heavy sea coming suddenly down? The boy at the
helm cried out aloud, "Heaven help us!" The boat had struck on a
great rock standing up from the depths of the sea, and it sank like an
old shoe in a puddle; it sank "with man and mouse," as the saying is;
and there were mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper
and the labourer's boy. No one saw it but the swimming seagulls, and
the fishes down yonder, and even they did not see it rightly, for they
started back in terror when the water rushed into the ship, and it
sank. There it lay scarce a fathom below the surface, and those two
were provided for, buried and forgotten! Only the glass with the foot
of blue wood did not sink; for the wood kept it up; the glass drifted
away, to be broken and cast upon the shore--where and when? But,
indeed, that is of no consequence. It had served its time, and it had
been loved, which Anne Lisbeth's boy had not been. But in heaven no
soul will be able to say, "Never loved!"
Anne Lisbeth had lived in the city for many years. She was called
Madame, and felt her dignity, when she remembered the old "noble" days
in which she had driven in the carriage, and had associated with
countesses and baronesses. Her beautiful noble-child was the dearest
angel, the kindest heart; he had loved her so much, and she had loved
him in return; they had kissed and loved each other, and the boy had
been her joy, her second life. Now he was so tall, and was fourteen
years old, handsome and clever: she had not seen him since she carried
him in her arms; for many years she had not been in the count's
palace, for indeed it was quite a journey thither.
"I must once make an effort and go," said Anne Lisbeth. "I must go to
my darling, to my sweet count's child. Yes, he certainly must long to
see me too, the young count; he thinks of me and loves me as in those
days when he flung his angel arms round my neck and cried 'Anne Liz.!'
It sounded like music. Yes, I must make an effort and see him again."
She drove across the country in a grazier's cart, and then got out and
continued her journey on foot, and thus reached the count's castle. It
was great and magnificent as it had always been, and the garden looked
the same as ever; but all the people there were strangers to her; not
one of them knew Anne Lisbeth, and they did not know of what
consequence she had once been there, but she felt sure the countess
would let them know it, and her darling boy too. How she longed to see
him!
Now, Anne Lisbeth was at her journey's end. She was kept waiting a
considerable time, and for those who wait time passes slowly. But
before the great people went to table she was called in and accosted
very graciously. She was to see her sweet boy after dinner, and then
she was to be called in again.
How tall and slender and thin he had grown! But he had still his
beautiful eyes, and the angel-sweet mouth! He looked at her, but he
said not a word: certainly he did not know her. He turned round, and
was about to go away, but she seized his hand and pressed it to her
mouth. "Good, good!" said he; and with that he went out of the
room--he who filled her every thought--he whom she had loved best, and
who was her whole earthly pride. Anne Lisbeth went out of the castle
into the open highway, and she felt very mournful; he had been so cold
and strange to her, had not a word nor a thought for her, he whom she
had once carried day and night, and whom she still carried in her
dreams.
[Illustration: ANNE LISBETH'S BOY.]
A great black raven shot down in front of her on to the high road, and
croaked and croaked again. "Ha!" she said, "what bird of ill omen art
thou?"
She came past the hut of the labourer; the wife stood at the door, and
the two women spoke to one another.
"You look well," said the woman. "You are plump and fat; you're well
off."
"Oh, yes," answered Anne Lisbeth.
"The boat went down with them," continued the woman. "Hans skipper and
the boy were both drowned. There's an end of them. I always thought
the boy would be able to help me out with a few dollars. He'll never
cost _you_ anything more, Anne Lisbeth."
"So they were drowned?" Anne Lisbeth repeated; and then nothing more
was said on the subject.
Anne Lisbeth was very low-spirited because her count-child had shown
no disposition to talk with her who loved him so well, and who had
journeyed all that way to get a sight of him; and the journey had cost
money too, though the pleasure she had derived from it was not great.
Still she said not a word about this. She would not relieve her heart
by telling the labourer's wife about it, lest the latter should think
she did not enjoy her former position at the castle. Then the raven
screamed again, and flew past over her once more.
"The black wretch!" said Anne Lisbeth; "he'll end by frightening me
to-day."
She had brought coffee and chicory with her, for she thought it would
be a charity towards the poor woman to give them to her to boil a cup
of coffee, and then she herself would take a cup too. The woman
prepared the coffee, and in the meantime Anne Lisbeth sat down upon a
chair and fell asleep. There she dreamed of something she had never
dreamed before; singularly enough, she dreamed of her own child that
had wept and hungered there in the labourer's hut, had been hustled
about in heat and in cold, and was now lying in the depths of the sea,
Heaven knows where. She dreamed she was sitting in the hut, where the
woman was busy preparing the coffee--she could smell the roasting
coffee beans. But suddenly it seemed to her that there stood on the
threshold a beautiful young form, as beautiful as the count's child;
and this apparition said to her, "The world is passing away! Hold fast
to me, for you are my mother after all. You have an angel in heaven.
Hold me fast!" And the child-angel stretched out its hand to her; and
there was a terrible crash, for the world was going to pieces, and the
angel was raising himself above the earth, and holding her by the
sleeve so tightly, it seemed to her, that she was lifted up from the
ground; but, on the other hand, something heavy hung at her feet and
dragged her down, and it seemed to her that hundreds of women clung to
her, and cried, "If thou art to be saved, we must be saved too! Hold
fast, hold fast!" And then they all hung on to her; but there were too
many of them, and--_ritsch, ratsch!_--the sleeve tore, and Anne
Lisbeth fell down in horror--and awoke. And indeed she was on the
point of falling over, with the chair on which she sat; she was so
startled and alarmed that she could not recollect what it was she had
dreamed, but she remembered that it had been something dreadful.
[Illustration: ANNE LISBETH AT THE LABOURER'S COTTAGE.]
The coffee was taken, and they had a chat together; and then Anne
Lisbeth went away towards the little town where she was to meet the
carrier, and to drive back with him to her own home. But when she came
to speak to him, he said he should not be ready to start before the
evening of the next day. She began to think about the expense and the
length of the way, and when she considered that the route by the sea
shore was shorter by two miles than the other, and that the weather
was clear and the moon shone, she determined to make her way on foot,
and to start at once, that she might be at home by next day.
The sun had set, and the evening bells, tolled in the towers of the
village churches, still sounded through the air; but no, it was not
the bells, but the cry of the frogs in the marshes. Now they were
silent, and all around was still; not a bird was heard, for they were
all gone to rest; and even the owl seemed to be at home; deep silence
reigned on the margin of the forest and by the sea shore: as Anne
Lisbeth walked on she could hear her own footsteps on the sand; there
was no sound of waves in the sea; everything out in the deep waters
had sunk to silence. All was quiet there, the living and the dead
creatures of the sea.
Anne Lisbeth walked on "thinking of nothing at all," as the saying is,
or rather, her thoughts wandered; but thoughts had not wandered away
from her, for they are never absent from us, they only slumber. But
those that have not yet stirred come forth at their time, and begin to
stir sometimes in the heart and sometimes in the head, and seem to
come upon us as if from above.