On this occasion I chose the general "moving-day" for my visit
to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the
streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and
remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in which
one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children
playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at "going
to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this
sport. They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged
curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. "It was splendid!" they
said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides, I was
obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.
"It's moving-day to day," he said; "streets and houses are like
a dust-bin--a large dust-bin; but I'm content with a cartload. I may
get something good out of that, and I really did get something good
out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was going up the street;
it was rough weather, wet and dirty--the right kind of weather to
catch cold in. The dustman was there with his cart, which was full,
and looked like a sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of
the cart stood a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its
twigs; it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out
into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his
cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful--all
depends on what you think of when you see it; and I thought about
it, and thought this and that of many things that were in the cart: or
I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing. There was an
old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I
tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger
at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also
at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to
speak, a ball night--a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory
keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing else to live for!'
This is what the glove thought, or what it might have thought. 'That's
a stupid affair with yonder fir tree,' said the potsherds. You see,
potsherds think everything is stupid. 'When one is in the
dust-cart,' they said, 'one ought not to give one's self airs and wear
tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world--far more useful
than such a green stick.' This was a view that might be taken, and I
don't think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree
looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and
truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is
difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out
of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look
down, and it is amusing enough.
"There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses.'
They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the
household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the
little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and
sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what
gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was
written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of
death!' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to
you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain
messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,
Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and
he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings
bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the
great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when
Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with
him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes
this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and
this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped
the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not
allowed to go--they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride
behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have
escaped the clutches of the poets.
"Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is
mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They
must go without their property and money; they have only the
service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which
of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little
one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded--small as
a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who
sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted,
will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the
stool may become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as
a throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who always
lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might
forget the wild things he had done here, will have his barrel given to
him on the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on;
and the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain pure,
and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he sees and feels
what in life he could not or would not see; and then he has within him
the punishment, the gnawing worm, which will not die through time
incalculable. If on the glasses there stood written 'oblivion,' on the
barrel 'remembrance' is inscribed.
"When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think at
last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus of
death, and wonder, which of the hero's deeds Death took out of the
savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the journey into
eternity. There was once a French king--I have forgotten his name, for
the names of good people are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it
will come back some day;--there was a king who, during a famine,
became the benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his
memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, 'Quicker than this
melts didst thou bring help!' I fancy that Death, looking back upon
the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a
snow-flake that never melts, and this flake floated over his royal
head, like a white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too,
there was Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what
is bad--a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one
could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable
executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the
innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other eight
years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm blood of their
father spurted over them, and then he had them sent to the Bastille,
and shut up in iron cages, where not even a coverlet was given them to
protect them from the cold. And King Louis sent the executioner to
them every week, and had a tooth pulled out of the head of each,
that they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys
said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger
brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my
teeth, and spare him.' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the
king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little
teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and
he had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the
savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with him
on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly before him
like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and they bite him, the
innocent children's teeth.
"Yes, that's a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great
moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That's just the serious
part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus may draw up.
Which of our deeds will Death take out of the savings bank, and give
to us as provision? Let us think of the moving-day that is not
marked in the calendar."