was with them. They passed as beggars over the same road where they
had so often driven in their splendid carriage to SMIDSTRUP MARK, to a
house with mud floors that was let for ten marks a year--their new
manor-house, with bare walls and empty closets. The crows and the
jackdaws flew after them, and cried, as if in derision, 'From the
nest--from the nest! away--away!' as the birds had screeched at
Borreby Wood when the trees were cut down.
"And thus they entered the humble house at Smidstrup Mark, and I
wandered away over moors and meadows, through naked hedges and
leafless woods, to the open sea--to other lands. Wheugh--wheugh!
On--on--on!"
What became of Waldemar Daae? What became of his daughters? The wind
will tell.
"The last of them I saw was Anna Dorthea, the pale hyacinth. She had
become old and decrepit: that was about fifty years after she had left
the castle. She lived the longest--she saw them all out."
* * * * *
"Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the dean's
handsome house, built of red granite. The smoke rolled plentifully
from its chimneys. The gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat on
the balcony, and looked over their pretty garden on the brown heath.
At what were they gazing? They were looking at the storks' nests, on a
castle that was almost in ruins. The roof, where there was any roof,
was covered with moss and houseleeks; but the best part of it
sustained the storks' nests--that was the only portion which was in
tolerable repair.
"It was a place to look at, not to dwell in. I had to be cautious with
it," said the wind. "For the sake of the storks the house was allowed
to stand, else it was really a disgrace to the heath. The dean would
not have the storks driven away; so the dilapidated building was
permitted to remain, and a poor woman was permitted to live in it. She
had to thank the Egyptian birds for that--or was it a reward for
having formerly begged that the nests of their wild black kindred
might be spared in Borreby Wood? _Then_ the wretched pauper was a
young girl--a lovely pale hyacinth in the noble flower parterre. She
remembered it well--poor Anna Dorthea!
"'Oh! oh! Yes, mankind can sigh as the wind does amidst the sedges
and the rushes--Oh! No church bell tolled at _thy_ death, Waldemar
Daae! No charity-school children sang over his grave when the former
lord of Borreby was laid in the cold earth! Oh, all shall come to an
end, even misery! Sister Ide became a peasant's wife. That was the
hardest trial to her poor father. His daughter's husband a lowly serf,
who could be obliged by his master to perform the meanest tasks! He,
too, is now under the sod, and thou art there with him, unhappy Ide! O
yes--O yes! it was not all over, even then; for I am left a poor, old,
helpless creature. Blessed Christ! take me hence!'
"Such was Anna Dorthea's prayer in the ruined castle, where she was
permitted to live--thanks to the storks.
"The boldest of the sisters I disposed of," said the wind. "She
dressed herself in men's clothes, went on board a ship as a poor boy,
and hired herself as a sailor. She spoke very little, and looked very
cross, but was willing to work. She was a bad hand at climbing,
however; so I blew her overboard before any one had found out that she
was a female; and I think that was very well done on my part," said
the wind.
* * * * *
"It was one Easter morning, the anniversary of the very day on which
Waldemar Daae had fancied that he had found out the secret of making
gold, that I heard under the storks' nests, from amidst the crumbling
walls, a psalm tune--it was Anna Dorthea's last song.
"There was no window. There was only a hole in the wall. The sun came
like a mass of gold, and placed itself there. It shone in brightly.
Her eyes closed--her heart broke! They would have done so all the
same, had the sun not that morning blazed in upon her.
"The storks had provided a roof over her head until her death.
"I sang over her grave," said the wind; "I had also sung over her
father's grave, for I knew where it was, and none else did.
"New times came--new generations. The old highway had disappeared in
inclosed fields. Even the tombs, that were fenced around, have been
converted into a new road; and the railway's steaming engine, with its
lines of carriages, dashes over the graves, which are as much
forgotten as the names of those who moulder into dust in them!
Wheugh--wheugh!
"This is the history of Waldemar Daae and his daughters. Let any one
relate it better who can," said the wind, turning round.
And he was gone!
_The Girl who Trod upon Bread._
You have doubtless heard of the girl who trod upon bread, not to soil
her pretty shoes, and what evil this brought upon her. The tale is
both written and printed.
She was a poor child, but proud and vain. She had a bad disposition,
people said. When she was little more than an infant it was a pleasure
to her to catch flies, to pull off their wings, and maim them
entirely. She used, when somewhat older, to take lady-birds and
beetles, stick them all upon a pin, then put a large leaf or a piece
of paper close to their feet, so that the poor things held fast to it,
and turned and twisted in their endeavours to get off the pin.
"Now the lady-birds shall read," said little Inger. "See how they turn
the paper!"
As she grew older she became worse instead of better; but she was very
beautiful, and that was her misfortune. She would have been punished
otherwise, and in the long run she was.
"You will bring evil on your own head," said her mother.
"As a little child you used often to tear my aprons; I fear that when
you are older you will break my heart."
And she did so sure enough.
At length she went into the country to wait on people of distinction.
They were as kind to her as if she had been one of their own family;
and she was so well dressed that she looked very pretty, and became
extremely arrogant.
When she had been a year in service her employers said to her,--
"You should go and visit your relations, little Inger."
She went, resolved to let them see how fine she had become. When,
however, she reached the village, and saw the lads and lasses
gossiping together near the pond, and her mother sitting close by on a
stone, resting her head against a bundle of firewood which she had
picked up in the forest, Inger turned back. She felt ashamed that she
who was dressed so smartly should have for her mother such a ragged
creature, one who gathered sticks for her fire. It gave her no concern
that she was expected--she was so vexed.
A half year more had passed.
"You must go home some day and see your old parents, little Inger,"
said the mistress of the house. "Here is a large loaf of white
bread--you can carry this to them; they will be rejoiced to see you."
And Inger put on her best clothes and her nice new shoes, and she
lifted her dress high, and walked so carefully, that she might not
soil her garments or her feet. There was no harm at all in that. But
when she came to where the path went over some damp marshy ground, and
there were water and mud in the way, she threw the bread into the
mud, in order to step upon it and get over with dry shoes; but just
as she had placed one foot on the bread, and had lifted the other up,
the bread sank in with her deeper and deeper, till she went entirely
down, and nothing was to be seen but a black bubbling pool.
That is the story.
What became of the girl? She went below to the _Old Woman of the
Bogs_, who brews down there. The Old Woman of the Bogs is an aunt of
the fairies. _They_ are very well known. Many poems have been written
about them, and they have been printed; but nobody knows anything more
of the Old Woman of the Bogs than that, when the meadows and the
ground begin to reek in summer, it is the old woman below who is
brewing. Into her brewery it was that Inger sank, and no one could
hold out very long there. A cesspool is a charming apartment compared
with the old Bog-woman's brewery. Every vessel is redolent of horrible
smells, which would make any human being faint, and they are packed
closely together and over each other; but even if there were a small
space among them which one might creep through, it would be
impossible, on account of all the slimy toads and snakes that are
always crawling and forcing themselves through. Into this place little
Inger sank. All this nauseous mess was so ice-cold that she shivered
in every limb. Yes, she became stiffer and stiffer. The bread stuck
fast to her, and it drew her as an amber bead draws a slender thread.
The Old Woman of the Bogs was at home. The brewery was that day
visited by the devil and his dam, and she was a venomous old creature
who was never idle. She never went out without having some needlework
with her. She had brought some there. She was sewing running leather
to put into the shoes of human beings, so that they should never be at
rest. She embroidered lies, and worked up into mischief and discord
thoughtless words, that would otherwise have fallen to the ground.
Yes, she knew how to sew and embroider, and transfer with a vengeance,
that old grandam!
She beheld Inger, put on her spectacles, and looked at her.
"That is a girl with talents," said she. "I shall ask for her as a
_souvenir_ of my visit here; she may do very well as a statue to
ornament my great-grandchildren's antechamber;" and she took her.
It was thus little Inger went to the infernal regions. People do not
generally go straight through the air to them: they can go by a
roundabout path when they know the way.
It was an antechamber in an infinity. One became giddy there at
looking forwards, and giddy at looking backwards, and there stood a
crowd of anxious, pining beings, who were waiting and hoping for the
time when the gates of grace should be opened. They would have long to
wait. Hideous, large, waddling spiders wove thousands of webs over
their feet; and these webs were like gins or foot-screws, and held
them as fast as chains of iron, and were a cause of disquiet to every
soul--a painful annoyance. Misers stood there, and lamented that they
had forgotten the keys of their money chests. It would be too tiresome
to repeat all the complaints and troubles that were poured forth
there. Inger thought it shocking to stand there like a statue: she
was, as it were, fastened to the ground by the bread.
"This comes of wishing to have clean shoes," said she to herself. "See
how they all stare at me!"
Yes, they did all stare at her; their evil passions glared from their
eyes, and spoke, without sound, from the corner of their mouths: they
were frightful.
"It must be a pleasure to them to see me," thought little Inger. "I
have a pretty face, and am well dressed;" and she dried her eyes. She
had not lost her conceit. She had not then perceived how her fine
clothes had been soiled in the brewhouse of the Old Woman of the Bogs.
Her dress was covered with dabs of nasty matter; a snake had wound
itself among her hair, and it dangled over her neck; and from every
fold in her garment peeped out a toad, that puffed like an asthmatic
lap-dog. It was very disagreeable. "But all the rest down here look
horrid too," was the reflection with which she consoled herself.
But the worst of all was the dreadful hunger she felt. Could she not
stoop down and break off a piece of the bread on which she was
standing? No; her back was stiffened; her hands and her arms were
stiffened; her whole body was like a statue of stone; she could only
move her eyes, and these she could turn entirely round, and that was
an ugly sight. And flies came and crept over her eyes backwards and
forwards. She winked her eyes; but the intruders did not fly away, for
they could not--their wings had been pulled off. That was another
misery added to the hunger--the gnawing hunger that was so terrible to
bear!
"If this goes on I cannot hold out much longer," she said.
But she had to hold out, and her sufferings became greater.
Then a warm tear fell upon her head. It trickled over her face and her
neck, all the way down to the bread. Another tear fell, then many
followed. Who was weeping over little Inger? Had she not a mother up
yonder on the earth? The tears of anguish which a mother sheds over
her erring child always reach it; but they do not comfort the
child--they burn, they increase the suffering. And oh! this
intolerable hunger; yet not to be able to snatch one mouthful of the
bread she was treading under foot! She became as thin, as slender as a
reed. Another trial was that she heard distinctly all that was said of
her above on the earth, and it was nothing but blame and evil. Though
her mother wept, and was in much affliction, she still said,--
"Pride goes before a fall. That was your great fault, Inger. Oh, how
miserable you have made your mother!"
Her mother and all who were acquainted with her were well aware of the
sin she had committed in treading upon bread. They knew that she had
sunk into the bog, and was lost; the cowherd had told that, for he had
seen it himself from the brow of the hill.
"What affliction you have brought on your mother, Inger!" exclaimed
her mother. "Ah, well! I expected no better from you."
"Would that I had never been born!" thought Inger; "that would have
been much better for me. My mother's whimpering can do no good now."
She heard how the family, the people of distinction who had been so
kind to her, spoke. "She was a wicked child," they said; "she valued
not the gifts of our Lord, but trod them under her feet. It will be
difficult for her to get the gates of grace open to admit her."
"They ought to have brought me up better," thought Inger. "They should
have taken the whims out of me, if I had any."
She heard that there was a common ballad made about her, "the bad girl
who trod upon bread, to keep her shoes nicely clean," and this ballad
was sung from one end of the country to the other.
"That any one should have to suffer so much for such as that--be
punished so severely for such a trifle!" thought Inger. "All these
others are punished justly, for no doubt there was a great deal to
punish; but ah, how I suffer!"
And her heart became still harder than the substance into which she
had been turned.
"No one can be better in such society. I will not grow better here.
See how they glare at me!"
And her heart became still harder, and she felt a hatred towards all
mankind.
"They have a nice story to tell up there now. Oh, how I suffer!"
She listened, and heard them telling her history as a warning to
children, and the little ones called her "ungodly Inger." "She was so
naughty," they said, "so very wicked, that she deserved to suffer."
The children always spoke harshly of her. One day, however, that
hunger and misery were gnawing her most dreadfully, and she heard her
name mentioned, and her story told to an innocent child--a little
girl--she observed that the child burst into tears in her distress for
the proud, finely-dressed Inger.
"But will she never come up again?" asked the child.
The answer was,--
"She will never come up again."
"But if she will beg pardon, and promise never to be naughty again?"
"But she will _not_ beg pardon," they said.
"Oh, how I wish she would do it!" sobbed the little girl in great
distress. "I will give my doll, and my doll's house too, if she may
come up! It is so shocking for poor little Inger to be down there!"
These words touched Inger's heart; they seemed almost to make her
good. It was the first time any one had said "poor Inger," and had not
dwelt upon her faults. An innocent child cried and prayed for her. She
was so much affected by this that she felt inclined to weep herself;
but she could not, and this was an additional pain.
Years passed on in the earth above; but down where she was there was
no change, except that she heard more and more rarely sounds from
above, and that she herself was more seldom mentioned. At last one day
she heard a sigh, and "Inger, Inger, how miserable you have made me! I
foretold that you would!" These were her mother's last words on her
deathbed.
And again she heard herself named by her former employers, and her
mistress said,--
"Perhaps I may meet you once more, Inger. None know whither they are
to go."
But Inger knew full well that her excellent mistress would never come
to the place where _she_ was.
Time passed on, and on, slowly and wretchedly. Then once more Inger
heard her name mentioned, and she beheld as it were, directly above
her, two clear stars shining. These were two mild eyes that were
closing upon earth. So many years had elapsed since a little girl had
cried in childish sorrow over "poor Inger," that that child had become
an old woman, whom our Lord was now about to call to himself. At that
hour, when the thoughts and the actions of a whole life stand in
review before the parting soul, she remembered how, as a little child,
she had wept bitterly on hearing the history of Inger. That time, and
those feelings, stood so prominently before the old woman's mind in
the hour of death, that she cried with intense emotion,--
"Lord, my God! have not I often, like Inger, trod under foot Thy
blessed gifts, and placed no value on them? Have I not often been
guilty of pride and vanity in my secret heart? But Thou, in Thy mercy,
didst not let me sink; Thou didst hold me up. Oh, forsake me not in my
last hour!"
And the aged woman's eyes closed, and her spirit's eyes opened to what
had been formerly invisible; and as Inger had been present in her
latest thoughts, she beheld her, and perceived how deep she had been
dragged downwards. At that sight the gentle being burst into tears;
and in the kingdom of heaven she stood like a child, and wept for the
fate of the unfortunate Inger. Her tears and her prayers sounded like
an echo down in the hollow form that confined the imprisoned,
miserable soul. That soul was overwhelmed by the unexpected love from
those realms afar. One of God's angels wept for her! Why was this
vouchsafed to her? The tortured spirit gathered, as it were, into one
thought, all the actions of its life--all that it had done; and it
shook with the violence of its remorse--remorse such as Inger had
never felt. Grief became her predominating feeling. She thought that
for her the gates of mercy would never open, and as in deep contrition
and self-abasement she thought thus, a ray of brightness penetrated
into the dismal abyss--a ray more vivid and glorious than the sunbeams
which thaw the snow figures that the children make in their gardens.
And this ray, more quickly than the snow-flake that falls upon a
child's warm mouth can be melted into a drop of water, caused Inger's
petrified figure to evaporate, and a little bird arose, following the
zigzag course of the ray, up towards the world that mankind inhabit.
But it seemed afraid and shy of everything around it; it felt ashamed
of itself; and apparently wishing to avoid all living creatures, it
sought, in haste, concealment in a dark recess in a crumbling wall.
Here it sat, and it crept into the farthest corner, trembling all
over. It could not sing, for it had no voice. For a long time it sat
quietly there before it ventured to look out and behold all the beauty
around. Yes, it was beauty! The air was so fresh, yet so soft; the
moon shone so clearly; the trees and the flowers scented so sweetly;
and it was so comfortable where she sat--her feather garb so clean and
nice! How all creation told of love and glory! The grateful thoughts
that awoke in the bird's breast she would willingly have poured forth
in song, but the power was denied to her. Yes, gladly would she have
sung as do the cuckoo and the nightingale in spring. Our gracious
Lord, who hears the mute worm's hymn of praise, understood the
thanksgiving that lifted itself up in the tones of thought, as the
psalm floated in David's mind before it resolved itself into words and
melody.
As weeks passed on these unexpressed feelings of gratitude increased.
They would surely find a voice some day, with the first stroke of the
wing, to perform some good act. Might not this happen?
Now came the holy Christmas festival. The peasants raised a pole close
by the old wall, and bound an unthrashed bundle of oats on it, that
the birds of the air might also enjoy the Christmas, and have plenty
to eat at that time which was held in commemoration of the redemption
brought to mankind.
And the sun rose brightly that Christmas morning, and shone upon the
oat-sheaf, and upon all the chirping birds that flew around the pole;
and from the wall issued a faint twittering. The swelling thoughts had
at last found vent, and the low sound was a hymn of joy, as the bird
flew forth from its hiding-place.
The winter was an unusually severe one. The waters were frozen thickly
over; the birds and the wild animals in the woods had great difficulty
in obtaining food. The little bird, that had so recently left its dark
solitude, flew about the country roads, and when it found by chance a
little corn dropped in the ruts, it would eat only a single grain
itself, while it called all the starving sparrows to partake of it. It
would also fly to the villages and towns, and look well about; and
where kind hands had strewed crumbs of bread outside the windows for
the birds, it would eat only one morsel itself, and give all the rest
to the others.
At the end of the winter the bird had found and given away so many
crumbs of bread, that the number put together would have weighed as
much as the loaf upon which little Inger had trodden in order to save
her fine shoes from being soiled; and when she had found and given
away the very last crumb, the grey wings of the bird became white, and
expanded wonderfully.
"It is flying over the sea!" exclaimed the children who saw the white
bird. Now it seemed to dip into the ocean, now it arose into the clear
sunshine; it glittered in the air; it disappeared high, high above;
and the children said that it had flown up to the sun.
_Ole, the Watchman of the Tower._
"In the world it is always going up and down, and down and up again;
but I can't go higher than I am," said Ole, the watchman of the church
tower. "Ups and downs most people have to experience; in point of
fact, we each become at last a kind of tower-watchman--we look at life
and things from above."
Thus spoke Ole up in the lofty tower--my friend the watchman, a
cheerful, chatty old fellow, who seemed to blurt everything out at
random, though there were, in reality, deep and earnest feelings
concealed in his heart. He had come of a good stock; some people even
said that he was the son of a _Conferentsraad_,[5] or might have been
that. He had studied, had been a teacher's assistant, assistant clerk
in the church; but these situations had not done much for him. At one
time he lived at the chief clerk's, and was to have bed and board
free. He was then young, and somewhat particular about his dress, as I
have heard. He insisted on having his boots polished and brushed with
blacking, but the head clerk would only allow grease; and this was a
cause of dissension between them. The one talked of stinginess, the
other talked of foolish vanity. The blacking became the dark
foundation of enmity, and so they parted; but what he had demanded
from the clerk he also demanded from the world--real blacking; and he
always got its substitute, grease; so he turned his back upon all
mankind, and became a hermit. But a hermitage coupled with a
livelihood is not to be had in the midst of a large city except up in
the steeple of a church. Thither he betook himself, and smoked his
pipe in solitude. He looked up, and he looked down; reflected
according to his fashion upon all he saw, and all he did not see--on
what he read in books, and what he read in himself.
[Footnote 5: A Danish title.]
I often lent him books, good books; and people can converse about
these, as everybody knows. He did not care for fashionable English
novels, he said, nor for French ones either--they were all too
frivolous. No, he liked biographies, and books that relate to the
wonders of nature. I visited him at least once a year, generally
immediately after the New Year. He had then always something to say
that the peculiar period suggested to his thoughts.
I shall relate what passed during two of my visits, and give his own
words as nearly as I can.
THE FIRST VISIT.
Among the books I had last lent Ole was one about pebbles, and it
pleased him extremely.