contrary, I shall bend every adversity and privation, all
poverty and sickness and my enemies’ heartlessness when
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they betray and persecute me, bend them to work with and
for me. And all things will be of service to me!’
He came back to his fellow dancer, who had still not
moved, and made ready for their pas de deux.
‘What happiness!’ he called to him. ‘What happiness,
Orosmane, that tonight I have you to talk with. Anyone
else would think I have drunk too much and speak without
knowing what I’m saying. But you! Let me again bless you
for understanding! Now, now in this our hallowed hour
your sympathy makes me realize most powerfully that my
mythos really will one day be found on earth. People down
here, the people of Copenhagen, will know nothing at all
about me two hundred years from now—and yet when they
meet me they will recognize me! Terrible and joyous is my
covenant with the King of heaven and earth. Dignum et
justum est that the hand of an earthly king should seal it.’
Orosmane received him as gracefully and harmoni-
ously as a dancing partner, and fell in with his rhythm.
‘Ainsi soit-il!’ he said. ‘My hand shall seal your
covenant.’
For a moment, in confirmation of what had been
spoken, both speakers were at rest and expectant.
‘But what of myself!’ burst out Orosmane, in a new
movement. ‘What of me? Will I ever obtain the earthly
reflection of my heavenly glorification which you tell me is
called mythos? Do you believe so?’
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Conversation One Night in Copenhagen n 317
‘Yes, I believe so’, said Yorick.
‘Oh là là!’ cried Orosmane. ‘You believe so because
your whole life you have associated with decent people,
never the king’s teachers and advisors, and so you have no
conception of real villainy! Because everything you have
said, Poet, is nothing less than what I have always known,
and always wanted. What else have I ever desired other
than—what you spoke of, what you called—what did you
call it?’
‘Mythos’, said Yorick.
‘—than mythos!’ said Orosmane. ‘I have wanted to
harden myself—and a mythos is certainly hard, and an
oak tree certainly no less—I have wanted to be all of a
piece, the same as them. But let me tell you something, my
friend! At court, and in council meetings, people are
afraid, all are afraid, and not one of them will ever come
out with what it is they fear. They might tell you they fear
God—but they don’t fear God! Or that they fear the king—
but they don’t fear the king! No, they run about, they tattle,
they argue, they bow and scrape and flatter, they dress up
in uniforms and vestments, they make a bonfire of a king’s
day and peace of mind, and all because they fear one
thing—what was it called?’
‘Mythos’, said Yorick.
‘Mythos!’ said Orosmane. ‘Women they procure me,
both royal and out of the Danish stud-book, so they can
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watch them walk all over me! But one of their silk slippers
wouldn’t fit even the toe of a King’s mythos! And the only
boot in which it could freely march they whisk away from
me. They would so love to give me an epitaph—no doubt
the sooner the better—and no doubt they’d even settle for
putting up an equestrian statue of me. But never, ever
would they grant me a—say it again—’
‘Mythos’, said Yorick.
‘Never, ever a mythos!’ said Orosmane. ‘Tu l’as dit!
I can’t escape my hallowed ancestors. But the magnificent
mirror reflection of my exalted person here on earth, and
here in Copenhagen, this they smash into a thousand
pieces, even before it has come into existence, and in my
ears I hear the splintering of glass!’
Yorick regarded his visitor at length and with great
attention, and at last he spoke.
‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘no . . .
. . . if God deserves respect,
He must show justice in the law,
In judgment and in punishment and more!
‘Your mythos will be this, that you have been unable to
create a mythos for yourself! Your subjects in Denmark, in
Copenhagen, two hundred years from now will know little,
perhaps nothing, of you. And yet you will be the one—out
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Conversation One Night in Copenhagen n 319
of all your illustrious forbears and your glorious sons—
whom they will first of all recognize.’
Orosmane too remained silent a while, with all his
attention drawn to something, perhaps something in
himself.
‘Give me a drink’, he said.
The schnapps, which could be said to have been the
musical accompaniment to the scene, infused his being
with a mighty earnestness and power. Now was the time
for his own big solo. Straightening his back, and with a
singular freedom of movement, light as a bird, he rose up
on tiptoe. Not one of his movements was hasty or dis-
jointed, even in their boldest leaps there was body and
weight. He glided across the stage, and across the pause,
straight for Yorick.
‘What happiness, you said, Yorick, my poet and my
friend!’ he cried. ‘What happiness for you that tonight you
have myself to speak with. So listen! Your happiness is
greater than you know. I want to share my knowledge with
you. I wish to tell you who I am and who you are yourself!
‘For here on earth there are some people—and I think
we number seven in all—some people who see the whole
world as it truly is in essence, the world which the rest
unceasingly seek to misrepresent to us, for they want no-
one to understand its proportions and its harmony. And
what is more they must unceasingly seek to separate us
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320 n Karen Blixen
and keep us apart—because they know that if we come
together we will be stronger than our enemies. I have
sought out these others, but my guards have not allowed
me to find them. They are not yet aware I have reached
you up here. But soon, very soon, they will find their way
here and again tear us apart. This very moment—you
didn’t know—they are out there after me, chasing through
backyards and passageways, and up stairs. Yes, well may
you now think and cry out:
. . . o nuit, nuit effroyable,
peux-tu prȇter ton voile à de pareils forfaits!*
‘But in that hour of which you spoke, and which we still
share, we can speak the truth to each other. Let me then in
this hour, as I speak truly to you, have your true answers.’
‘Yes’, said Yorick. ‘Speak, Sire. Your poet and fool is
listening.’
‘Then listen!’ said Orosmane. ‘Listen, my poet and fool.
The world is far more beautiful than others would have us
know.’
‘Yes’, said Yorick.
‘Humankind’, Orosmane continued, ‘is created far bet-
ter, far greater and more beautiful than they say.’
‘Yes’, said Yorick.
* Oh night, oh dreadful night, / now draw your veil over such monstrous crimes.
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Conversation One Night in Copenhagen n 321
‘And are not’, cried Orosmane, ‘our pleasures far more
enjoyable than they would have us feel?’
‘Oh yes’, said Yorick.
‘And are not actors on the stage’, asked Orosmane
again, ‘far less wretched than they appear to us?’
‘Most certainly they are’, said Yorick.
‘And is it not far pleasanter’, said Orosmane, ‘to go to
bed with a woman than we yet know it to be?’
‘I guarantee you that, mon Soudane’, said Yorick.
‘Then we three know it!’ said Orosmane. ‘We know all
this, you and I and Lise, even though from tomorrow we
must keep it to ourselves. And we know too how truly
exquisite is the quality of schnapps. Yes, we know’, he
cried, gliding into a graceful repetition of an earlier passage
in the conversation:
‘How sweet to taste
All that this house doth own,
To know no waste
Who stand before His throne!
And there to see
The persons three
Who reign above alone!’
Graciously he extended a hand, with the fingertips joined,
towards the other two in the room. The intention was not
that they should take the hand, neither did they make any
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move to do so. Yet this gesture of lofty regal favour made
the three of them in the room into one.
‘And’, he said very slowly, ‘il y a dans ce monde un
bonheur parfait.’
Yorick rose on his toes and fell into step with his partner.
‘Yes, Sire’, he said equally slowly. ‘Perfect happiness
does indeed exist. On this earth, in this human life, there
are three kinds of supreme happiness. And you and Lise
and I will come to know all three in the course of our lives.’
‘As many as three!’ exclaimed Orosmane joyously.
‘You see how a single thought, when we three are together,
can double and treble. Put my own thoughts into words
now, you who claim to love the word! I shall demand no
more of you. Name these three for me.’
‘The first supreme happiness’, said Yorick, ‘is this: to
feel in oneself an excess of strength.’
‘As now!’ cried Orosmane and laughed aloud. ‘As we
do now, when in our beautiful fellowship we can soar free
up into the air—like kites attached only by a string to wet
Copenhagen! You are a real poet—you say what I think,
and your word makes everything visible to me. Now I see
before me a glass filled to the brim with wine from Bouzy
or Epernay, foaming over the edge and down the stem—
and yes, in such abundance that it foams even in the dust.
That time I proclaimed to the people in wigs that I intended
rampaging for a year, that was when I too foamed and
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Conversation One Night in Copenhagen n 323
frothed like that. “An excess of strength”—glorious words,
like a song. And truly, that whole year the entire court
charade was transformed into a drinking song. Swelling
through all our palace halls, and in our streets of Copen-
hagen you could hear the mighty sound rampaging! And
you say there is still another supreme happiness to equal
that. Name it then!’
‘The second supreme happiness’, said Yorick, ‘is this: to
know for certain one is fulfilling the will of God.’
A brief pause followed this.
‘Mais oui!’ said Orosmane proudly. ‘Now you are talk-
ing prettily and as befits a King by God’s grace. The burden
of the crown is heavy, you know, but our own insight and
knowledge, par la grȃce de Dieu, can swing the balance.
They wrote a verse about it which I shall recite for you:
And we saw God’s anointed did possess
The wisdom of an angel of the Lord.
Thrice blesséd is the land whose great King knows
God, the good of his country, and himself.
How right you were, the king in his own country is also
blessed. But let me say something else. You, who have
painted your second supreme happiness so unforgettably
for our soul—“to know for certain one is fulfilling the will of
God”—you too assuredly shall fulfil God’s will in your own
calling. And Lise, who has granted us her room for our
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meeting, who listens to what we say and with her sweet
charms sweetens our conversation, shall in her own calling
also assuredly fulfil la volonté de Dieu. And now you see, my
good friends, how very happy it was we met. For henceforth
you will remember my words and find comfort in them.
‘But now—my soothsayer—now for the third supreme
happiness of which you spoke.’
Since Yorick did not answer at once, he repeated: ‘The
third one, what is it?’
Yorick answered: ‘The cessation of pain.’
Orosmane’s face instantly brightened, assuming an
almost luminous pallor. In a last flying, utterly weightless
leap—of the kind that in the language of ballet is called
grand jeté—he completed his solo.
‘Ha!’ he cried. ‘You utter all that our own heart holds
dear! This, your third happiness, I know it well and have
explored it in depth! It was the reason I first of all desired
omnipotence! So I should no longer have to feel the cane—
old Ditlev’s cane!’
Yorick rocked back a step, as though Orosmane’s flying
leap had cannoned into him. Slowly his own face too grew
white and shone. His intoxication dropped away from
him, or within a couple of seconds so greatly increased it
steadied him.
The silence which followed was not an absence of
speech, but an affirmation so strong it suspended all speech.
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Conversation One Night in Copenhagen n 325
Finally the host took a step forward as far as he had
stepped back, and bent a knee before the chair. Lifting one
of his guest’s delicate hands from the arm of the chair, he
brought it to his lips and kept his mouth pressed to it for a
long time. Orosmane, motionless too, lowered his eyes to
the bowed head before him.
The kneeling man stood up. He went over and sat on
the bed and starting pulling on his stocking and his shoe.
‘Are you not staying?’ Orosmane asked.
‘No, I am going’, said Yorick. ‘My business here was
already at an end before you came. But stay here a while
with Lise. In the lap of the people’, he added after a little
pause, ‘king and poet may mingle their innermost beings
like sworn Nordic brothers of yore who to seal a lasting
pact would manfully mix their two bloods in earth’s mute
and bounteous womb.
‘Goodnight, Sire’, he said. ‘Goodnight, Lise.’
From a peg on the wall he took an old cloak which had
once been black but after seeing many years’ service now
showed patches of green and grey. He buttoned it on,
listened to the weather outside, and turned up the collar.
His hat had fallen to the floor, he retrieved it and pulling
it down over his ears went out of the door, closing it
after him.
As he took the steep stairs he heard muffled voices
from below. On the next landing he came upon a small
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company of men ascending in single file. A young man
wearing a uniform under his cloak led the way with a
lantern, and an elderly gentleman who was evidently hav-
ing some difficulty with the uneven steps came close on his
heels, followed by another two figures. All faces looked
pale and solemn in the lantern light.
When the company met the person coming down they
came to a stop, thereby also halting him, as he could not
get round them in the narrow space. They regarded him in
some perplexity for a couple of seconds, seemingly keen to
ask something but uncomfortable about doing so. Antici-
pating them, Yorick whistled softly and aimed a thumb
back over his shoulder and upwards.
‘Yes, that’s where Lise lives’, he said. ‘A fine wench. I’ve
just paid her off and left.’
The small group on the stairs pressed against the wall
to let him pass. But as he went by the elderly gentleman
asked in a hushed, slightly hoarse voice with a German
inflection:
‘And nobody else is up there?’
‘Nobody!’ said Yorick, whistling once more, this time a
snatch of a song.
He continued his somewhat unsteady course to the
ground, and before reaching the bottom could hear that
the company above had turned round and was following
him down.
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