while the boy is asleep. That he is already; look at him, how sweetly he
looks with his eyes closed; he little thinks how his mother has
suffered. May he never feel the like! Well, I was in service with the
sheriff's parents when their youngest son, the student, came home; I was
a wild young thing then, but honest--that I must say for myself. And the
student was so pleasant and merry, a better youth never lived. He was a
son of the house, I only a servant, but we became sweethearts--all in
honor and honesty--and he told his mother that he loved me; she was like
an angel in his eyes, so wise, kind, and loving! And he went away, but
his gold ring of betrothal was on my finger. When he was really gone, my
mistress called me in to speak to her; so grave, yet so kind she looked,
so wisely she spoke, like an angel, indeed. She showed me what a gulf of
difference in tastes, habits, arid mind lay between her son and me. 'He
sees you now to be good-hearted and pretty, but will you always be the
same in his eyes? You have not been educated as he has been;
intellectually you cannot rise to his level. I honor the poor,' she
continued, 'and I know that in the kingdom of heaven many a poor man
will sit in a higher seat than the rich; but that is no reason for
breaking the ranks in this world, and you two, left to yourselves, would
drive your carriage full tilt against all obstacles till it toppled over
with you both. I know that a good honest handicraftsman, Erik, the
glove-maker, has been your suitor; he is a widower without children, he
is well off; think whether you cannot be content with him.' Every word
my mistress spoke went like a knife through my heart, but I knew she was
right; I kissed her hand, and shed such bitter tears! But bitterer tears
still came when I went into my chamber and lay upon my bed. O, the long,
dreary night that followed! Our Lord alone knows what I suffered. Not
till I went to church on Sunday did a light break upon my darkness. It
seemed providential that as I came out of church I met Erik the
glove-maker. There were no more doubts in my mind; he was a good man,
and of my own rank. I went straight to him, took his hand, and asked,
'Art thou still in the same mind toward me?'--'Yes, and I shall never be
otherwise minded,' he replied.--'Dost thou care to have a girl who likes
and honors thee, but does not love thee?'--'I believe love will come,'
he said, and so he took my hand. I went home to my mistress; the gold
ring that her son had given to me, that I wore all day next my heart,
and on my finger at night in bed, I now drew forth; I kissed it till my
mouth bled, I gave it to my mistress, and said that next week the bans
would be read for me and the glove-maker. My mistress took me in her
arms and kissed me; she did not tell me I was good-for-nothing; I was
good for something then, it seems, before I had known so much trouble.
The wedding was at Candlemastide, and our first year all went well; my
husband had apprentices, and you, Maren, helped me in the housework."
"O, and you were such a good mistress!" exclaimed Maren. "Never shall I
forget how kind you and your husband were to me."
"Ah, you were with us during our good times! We had no children then.
The student I never saw again--yes, once I saw him, but he did not see
me. He came to his mother's funeral; I saw him standing by her grave,
looking so sad, so ashy pale--but all for his mother's sake. When
afterward his father died, he was abroad and did not come to the
funeral. Nor has he been here since; he is a lawyer, that I know, and he
has never married. But he thought no more of me, and had he seen me, he
would certainly have never recognized me, so ugly as I am now. And it is
right it should be so."
Then she went on to speak of the bitter days of adversity, when troubles
had come upon them in a flood. They had five hundred rix-dollars, and as
in their street a house could be bought for two hundred, it was
considered a good investment to buy it, take it down, and build it anew.
The house was bought; masons and carpenters made an estimate that one
thousand and twenty rix-dollars more would be required. Erik arranged to
borrow this sum from Copenhagen, but the ship that was to bring him the
money was lost, and the money with it. "It was just then that my sweet
boy, who lies sleeping here, was born. Then his father fell sick; for
three-quarters of a year I had to dress and undress him every day. We
went on borrowing and borrowing; all our things had to be sold, one by
one; at last Erik died. Since then I have toiled and moiled for the
boy's sake, have gone out cleaning and washing, done coarse work or
fine, whichever I could get; but I do everything worse and worse; my
strength will never return any more; it is our Lord's will! He will take
me away, and find better provision for my boy."
She fell asleep. In the morning she seemed better, and fancied she was
strong enough to go to her work again. But no sooner did she feel the
cold water than a shivering seized her, she felt about convulsively with
her hands, tried to step forward, and fell down. Her head lay on the
dry bank, but her feet were in the water of the brook, her wooden shoes
were carried away by the stream. Here she was found by Maren.
A message had been taken to her lodging that the sheriff wanted her, had
something to say to her. It was too late; the poor washerwoman was dead.
The letter that had brought the sheriff news of his brother's death also
gave an abstract of his will; among other bequests he had left six
hundred rix-dollars to the glove-maker's widow, who had formerly served
his parents. "There was some love-nonsense between my brother and her,"
quoth the sheriff. "It is all as well she is out of the way; now it will
all come to the boy, and I shall apprentice him to honest folk who will
make him a good workman." For whatever the sheriff might do, were it
ever so kind an action, he always spoke harshly and unkindly. So he now
called the boy to him, promised to provide for him, and told him it was
a good thing his mother was dead; she was good-for-nothing!
She was buried in the paupers' churchyard. Maren planted a little
rose-tree over the grave; the boy stood by her side the while.
"My darling mother!" he sighed, as the tears streamed down from his
eyes. "It was not true that she was good-for-nothing!"
"No, indeed!" cried her old friend, looking up to heaven. "Let the world
say she was good-for-nothing; our Lord in his heavenly kingdom will not
say so."
"IN THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA"
By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Some large ships were sent up toward the North Pole, for the purpose of
discovering the boundaries of land and sea, and of trying how far men
could make their way.
A year and a day had elapsed; amid mist and ice had they, with great
difficulty, steered further and further; the winter had now begun; the
sun had set, one long night would continue during many, many weeks. One
unbroken plain of ice spread around them; the ships were all fast moored
to it; the snow lay about in heaps, and had even shaped itself into
cubiform houses, some as big as our barrows, some only just large enough
for two or three men to find shelter within. Darkness they could not
complain of, for the Northern Lights--Nature's fireworks--now red, now
blue, flashed unceasingly, and the snow glistened so brightly.
At times when it was brightest came troops of the natives,
strange-looking figures, clad in hairy skins, and with sledges made out
of hard fragments of ice; they brought skins to exchange, which the
sailors were only too glad to use as warm carpets inside their snow
houses, and as beds whereon they could rest under their snowy tents,
while outside prevailed an intensity of cold such as we never experience
during our severest winters. But the sailors remembered that at home it
was still autumn; and they thought of the warm sunbeams and the leaves
still clinging to the trees in varied glories of crimson and gold. Their
watches told them it was evening, and time for rest, and in one of the
snow houses two sailors had already lain down to sleep; the youngest of
these two had with him his best home-treasure, the Bible that his
grandmother had given him at parting. Every night it lay under his
pillow; he had known its contents from childhood, and every day he read
a portion; and often as he lay on his couch, he recalled to mind those
holy words of comfort, "If I should take the wings of the morning, and
remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there should Thy hand
lead me, and Thy right hand should hold me."
These sublime words of faith were on his lips as he closed his eyes,
when sleep came to him, and dreams with sleep--busy, swift-winged
dreams, proving that though the body may rest, the soul must ever be
awake. First he seemed to hear the melodies of songs dear to him in his
home; a mild summer breeze seemed to breathe upon him, and a light shone
upon his couch, as though the snowy dome above him had become
transparent; he lifted his head, and behold! the dazzling white light
was not the white of a snow wall, it came from the large wings of an
angel stooping over him, an angel with eyes beaming with love. The
angel's form seemed to spring from the pages of the Bible, as from the
pitcher of a lily-blossom; he extended his arms, and lo! the narrow
walls of the snow-hut sank back like a mist melting before the daylight.
Once again the green meadows and autumnal-tinted woods of the sailor's
home lay around him, bathed in quiet sunshine; the stork's nest was
empty, but the apples still clung to the wild apple-tree; though leaves
had fallen, the red hips glistened, and the blackbird whistled in the
little green cage that hung in the lowly window of his childhood's home;
the blackbird whistled the tune he had taught him, and the old
grandmother wound chickweed about the bars of the cage, as her grandson
had been wont to do. And the smith's pretty young daughter stood drawing
water from the well, and as she nodded to the grandmother, the latter
beckoned to her, and held up a letter to show her, a letter that had
come that morning from the cold northern lands, from the North Pole
itself, where the old woman's grandson now was--safe under God's
protecting hand. And the two women, old and young, laughed and wept by
turns--and he the while, the young sailor whose body was sleeping amid
ice and snow, his spirit roaming in the world of dreams, under the
angel's wings, saw and heard it all, and laughed and wept with them. And
from the letter these words were read aloud, "Even in the uttermost
parts of the sea, His right hand shall hold me fast": and a sweet,
solemn music was wafted round him, and the angel drooped his wings; like
a soft protecting veil they fell closer over the sleeper.
The dream was ended; all was darkness in the little snow-hut, but the
Bible lay under the sailor's head, faith and hope abode in his heart.
God was with him, and his home was with him, "even in the uttermost
parts of the sea."
"SOMETHING"
By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
"I will be Something," declared the eldest of five brothers; "I will be
of use in the world; be it ever so humble a position that I may hold,
let me be but useful, and that will be Something. I will make bricks;
folk cannot do without them, so I shall at least do Something."
"Something very little, though," replied the second brother. "Why, it is
as good as nothing! it is work that might be done by a machine. Better
be a mason, as I intend to be. Then one belongs to a guild, becomes a
citizen, has a banner of one's own. Nay, if all things go well, I may
become a master, and have apprentices and workmen under me. That will be
Something!"
"It will be nothing at all then, I can tell you that!" rejoined the
third. "Think how many different ranks there are in a town far above
that of a master-mason. You may be an honest sort of a man, but you will
never be a gentleman; gentle and simple; those are the two grand
divisions, and you will always be one of the 'simple.' Well, I know
better than that. I will be an architect; I will be one of the thinkers,
the artists; I will raise myself to the aristocracy of intellect. I may
have to begin from the very lowest grade; I may begin as a carpenter's
boy, and run about with a paper-cap on my head, to fetch ale for the
workmen; I may not enjoy it, but I shall try to imagine it is only a
masquerade. 'To-morrow,' I shall say, 'I will go my own way, and others
shall not come near me.' Yes, I shall go to the Academy, learn to draw,
and be called an architect. That will be Something! I may get a title,
perhaps; and I shall build and build, as others before me have done.
Yes, that will be Something!"
"But it is Something that I care nothing about," said the fourth. "I
should not care to go on, on, in the beaten track, to be a mere copyist;
I will be a genius, cleverer than all of you put together; I will create
a new style, provide ideas for buildings suited to the climate and
materials of our country, suited to our national character, and the
requirements of the age."
"But supposing the climate and the materials don't agree," suggested the
fifth, "how will you get on then, if they won't co-operate? As for our
national character, to be following out that in architecture will be
sheer affectation, and the requirements of modern civilization will
drive you perfectly mad. I see you will none of you ever be anything,
though of course you won't believe me. But do as you please, I shall not
be like you. I shall reason over what you execute; there is something
ridiculous in everything; I shall find it out, show you yeur
faults--that will be Something!"
And he kept his word; and folk said of this fifth brother, "There is
something in him, certainly; he has plenty of brains! but he does
nothing." But he was content, he was Something.
But what became of the five brothers? We will hear the whole.
The eldest brother, the brickmaker, found that every brick he turned out
whole yielded him a tiny copper coin--only copper--but a great many of
these small coins, added together, could be converted into a bright
silver dollar, and through the power of this, wheresoever he knocked,
whether at baker's, butcher's, or tailor's, the door flew open, and he
received what he wanted. Such was the virtue of his bricks; some, of
course, got broken before they were finished, but a use was found even
for these. For up by the trench would poor Mother Margaret fain build
herself a little house, if she might; she took all the broken bricks,
ay, and she got a few whole ones besides, for a good heart had the
eldest brother, though only a brickmaker. The poor thing built her house
with her own hands; it was very narrow, its one window was all on one
side, the door was too low, and the thatch on the roof might have been
laid on better, but it gave her shelter and a home, and could be seen
far over the sea, which sometimes burst over the trench in its might,
and sprinkled a salt shower over the little house, which kept its place
there years after he who made the bricks was dead and gone.
As for the second brother, he learned to build after another fashion, as
he had resolved. When he was out of his apprenticeship, he buckled on
his knapsack and started, singing as he went, on his travels. He came
home again, and became a master in his native town; he built, house
after house, a whole street of houses; there they stood, looked well,
and were a credit to the town; and these houses soon built him a little
house for himself. How? Ask the houses, and they will give you no
answer; but the people will answer you and say, "Why, of course, the
street built him his house!" It was small enough, and had only a clay
floor, but when he and his bride danced over it, the floor grew as
smooth as if it had been polished, and from every stone in the wall
sprung a flower, that looked as gay as the costliest tapestry. It was a
pretty house and a happy wedded pair. The banner of the Masons' Guild
waved outside, and workmen and apprentices shouted "Hurra!" Yes, that
was Something! and at last he died--that, too, was Something!
Next comes the architect, the third brother. He began as a carpenter's
apprentice, and ran about the town on errands, wearing a paper-cap; but
he studied industriously at the Academy, and rose steadily upward. If
the street full of houses had built a house for his brother the mason,
the street took its name from the architect; the handsomest house in the
whole street was his--that was Something, and he was Something! His
children were gentlemen, and could boast of their "birth"; and when he
died, his widow was a widow of condition--that is Something--and his
name stood on the corner of the street, and was in everybody's
lips--that is Something, too!
Now for the genius, the fourth brother, who wanted to invent something
new, something original. Somehow the ground gave way beneath his feet;
he fell and broke his neck. But he had a splendid funeral, with music
and banners, and flowery paragraphs in the newspapers; and three
eulogiums were pronounced over him, each longer than the last, and this
would have pleased him mightily, for he loved speechifying of all
things. A monument was erected over his grave, only one story high--but
that is Something!
So now he was dead, as well as his three elder brothers; the youngest,
the critic, outlived them all, and that was as it should be, for thus he
had the last word, which to him was a matter of the greatest importance.
"He had plenty of brains," folk said. Now his hour had struck, he died,
and his soul sought the gates of heaven. There it stood side by side
with another soul--old Mother Margaret from the trenches.
"It is for the sake of contrast, I suppose, that I and this miserable
soul should wait here together," thought the critic. "Well now, who are
you, my good woman?" he inquired.
And the old woman replied, with as much respect as though St. Peter
himself were addressing her--in fact, she took him for St. Peter, he
gave himself such grand airs--"I am a poor old soul, I have no family, I
am only old Margaret from the house near the trenches."
"Well, and what have you done down below?"
"I have done as good as nothing in the world! nothing whatever! It will
be mercy, indeed, if such as I am suffered to pass through this gate."
"And how did you leave the world?" inquired the critic, carelessly. He
must talk about something; it wearied him to stand there, waiting.
"Well, I can hardly tell how I left it; I have been sickly enough during
these last few years, and could not well bear to creep out of bed at all
during the cold weather. It has been a severe winter, but now that is
all past. For a few days, as your highness must know, the wind was quite
still, but it was bitterly cold; the ice lay over the water as far as
one could see. All the people in the town were out on the ice; there was
dancing, and music, and feasting, and sledge-racing, I fancy; I could
hear something of it all as I lay in my poor little chamber. And when it
was getting toward evening, the moon was up, but was not yet very
bright; I looked from my bed through the window, and I saw how there
rose up over the sea a strange white cloud; I lay and watched it,
watched the black dot in it, which grew bigger and bigger, and then I
knew what it foreboded; that sign is not often seen, but I am old and
experienced. I knew it, and I shivered with horror. Twice before in my
life have I seen that sign, and I knew that there would be a terrible
storm and a spring flood; it would burst over the poor things on the
ice, who were drinking and dancing and merry-making. Young and old, the
whole town was out on the ice; who was to warn them, if no one saw it,
or no one knew what I knew? I felt so terrified, I felt all alive, as I
had not felt for years! I got out of bed, forced the window open; I
could see the folk running and dancing over the ice; I could see the
gay-colored flags, I could hear the boys shout 'Hurra!' and the girls
and lads a-singing. All were so merry; and all the time the white cloud
with its black speck rose higher and higher! I screamed as loud as I
could; but no one heard me, I was too far off. Soon would the storm
break loose, the ice would break in pieces, and all that crowd would
sink and drown. Hear me they could not; get out to them I could not;
what was to be done? Then our Lord sent me a good thought; I could set
fire to my bed; better let my house be burned to the ground than that so
many should miserably perish. So I kindled a light; I saw the red flame
mount up; I got out at the door, but then I fell down; I lay there, I
could not get up again. But the flames burst out through the window and
over the roof; they saw it down below, and they all ran as fast as they
could to help me; the poor old crone they believed would be burned;
there was not one who did not come to help me. I heard them come, and I
heard, too, such a rustling in the air, and then a thundering as of
heavy cannon-shots, for the spring-flood was loosening the ice, and it
all broke up. But the folk were all come off it to the trenches, where
the sparks were flying about me; I had them all safe. But I could not
bear the cold and the fright, and that is how I have come up here. Can
the gates of heaven be opened to such a poor old creature as I? I have
no house now at the trenches; where can I go, if they refuse me here?"
Then the gates opened, and the Angel bade poor Margaret enter. As she
passed the threshold, she dropped a blade of straw--straw from her
bed--that bed which she had set alight to save the people on the ice,
and lo! it had changed into gold! dazzling gold! yet flexible withal,
and twisting into various forms.
"Look, that was what yonder poor woman brought," said the Angel. "But
what dost thou bring? Truly, I know well that thou hast done nothing,
not even made bricks. It is a pity thou canst not go back again to fetch
at least one brick--not that it is good for anything when it is made,
no, but because anything, the very least, done with a good will, is
Something. But thou mayst not go back, and I can do nothing for thee."
Then poor Margaret pleaded for him thus: "His brother gave me all the
bricks and broken bits wherewith I built my poor little house--that was
a great kindness toward a poor old soul like me! May not all those bits
and fragments, put together, be reckoned as one brick for him? It will
be an act of mercy; he needs it, and this is the home of mercy."
"To thy brother, whom thou didst despise," said the Angel, "to him whose
calling, in respect of worldly honor, was the lowest, shalt thou owe
this mite of heavenly coin. Thou shalt not be sent away; thou shalt
have leave to stand here without, and think over thy manner of life
down below. But within thou canst not enter, until thou hast done
something that is good--Something!"
"I fancy I could have expressed that better," thought the critic; but he
did not say it aloud, and that was already--Something!
THE JEWISH GIRL
By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
There was in the charity-school among the other children a little Jewish
girl, so clever and good; the best, in fact, of them all; but one of the
lessons she could not attend--the one when religion was taught, for this
was a Christian school.
Then she held her geography book before her to learn from it, or she did
her sum; but the lesson was quickly learned, the sum was soon done; the
book might be there open before her, but she did not read, she was
listening; and the teacher soon noticed that she was attending more
intently, even, than any of the rest.
"Read your book," the teacher urged, mildly and earnestly; but she
looked at him with her black sparkling eyes, and when he put questions
to her also, she knew more than all the others. She had listened,
understood, and kept his words.
Her father was a poor honest man, and when first he brought her to the
school, he had made the stipulation that she should not be taught the
Christian faith. To let her go away during the Scripture lesson might,
however, have given offence, and raised thoughts of various kinds in the
minds of the other children, and so she stayed; but this could not go on
any longer.
The teacher went to her father, and told him that either he must take
his daughter away from the school, or consent to her becoming a
Christian.
"I cannot bear to see those burning eyes, that yearning, that thirst of
the soul, as it were, after the words of the gospel," said the teacher.
And the father burst into tears. "I know but little myself of our own
religion, but her mother was a daughter of Israel, of strong and firm
faith, and on her dying bed I made a vow that our child should never
receive Christian baptism; that vow I must keep; it is to me as a
convenant with God."
And the little Jewish girl was taken away from the school of the
Christians.
Years rolled by.
In one of the smallest towns of Jutland served as maid in a plain
burgher's house a poor girl of the Mosaic faith; this was Sarah. Her
hair was black as ebony, her eyes dark, and yet brilliant and full of
light, such as you see among the daughters of the East; and the
expression in the countenance of the grown-up girl was still that of the
child who sat on the school-room bench, listening with thoughtful and
wistful eye.