Through the winter, the little bird had collected and given away so many crumbs that they weighed as much as the bread that Inger had stepped on, in order not to dirty her shoes. As the last little tiny piece of bread was found and given away, the wings of the little bird grew larger and their color changed from gray to white.
“Look! There’s a sea gull flying out over the lake,” said the children as they followed the flight of the white bird that dived down toward the water and then swung itself up high into the sky. The white wings glittered in the sunshine and then it was gone. “It has flown right into the sun,” the children said.
92
The Watchman of the Tower
“Everything in the world goes up and down, and I can’t get any farther up than I am right now,” said the watchman of the tower, whose name was Ole. “Up and down, we all have to try it, and most of us end up as the watchman of a tower, who sees the world and everything in it from above.”
That was the way my friend Ole, the watchman of the tower, spoke. He was an amusing, talkative fellow, who seemed to poke fun at most things and yet was serious at heart. They say that he came of good family and that his father had been a city alderman, or could have been one if he had wanted to. Ole had studied, and been an assistant teacher in some school that a deacon kept. He was supposed to get room and board, plus his clothes washed and his boots polished. It was the latter that caused the trouble. Ole was still young and liked to cut a figure, if not in the town, then at least on the street where he lived. He insisted that his shoes were to be polished with proper English blacking, but the deacon said lard would do just as well. They had an argument in the course of which they accused each other of miserliness and vanity. The blacking blackened their friendship and they parted.
What Ole had asked from the deacon he also demanded of the world: English blacking, and all he ever got was lard! This had made him turn into a hermit; and the only place a hermitage could be found in a large city, which also provided a living, was in a church tower. He ascended into the sky and smoked his pipe all alone, while from his lofty post—as a hired watchman—he locked out over the city.
He looked above and he looked below; and he read books and he thought and thought. He liked to talk about all that he had seen and not seen, and he loved to discuss what he had read in books and in himself while on his lonely duty. I often lent him books—good books—and a man can be judged by the company he keeps. He didn’t like English governess novels, or their French cousins: they were brewed on the rose branch, without the flower; and on drafts from doors their author never had entered. He liked biographies and books of natural history. I visited him at least once a year, usually just after New Year, for he always has something interesting to say about that event.
I shall tell you what he said on two of my visits and try to do it in his own words, as well as I remember them:
THE FIRST VISIT
Among the books that I had lent Ole last was one about cobblestones. These are the stones that nature has worn round and smooth, and they are often used for paving streets. This book had interested Ole especially.
“They certainly are old Methuselahs, those cobblestones,” he began. “Here I have walked on them without ever having given them a thought. On the beaches and in the fields one sees them by the thousands. When one walks along a cobblestoned street, one is walking on our primeval history. From now on, every single cobblestone has my respect! Thank you for lending me the book, it has made me discard many old notions and has given me a different outlook upon the world. I am eager to read more books of that kind. The greatest of all romances is the story of our earth. Too bad that the first volumes are written in a language we have not yet learned. Only after one has read the stones, the layers of earth as they were formed through periods of climatic changes, do the living characters in the romance step forth. Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve do not appear before the sixth volume. Many readers will find that a little too late, but I don’t care. Of all of the romances it is the most marvelous, and we are all in it. We crawl and creep and yet stay in the same place while the great ball rotates, without splashing the oceans all over us. The crust we walk on keeps it all together, and it is so strong we don’t fall through it. It is the history of millions of years of constant advancement. Thank you again for that book! Those cobblestones could tell a story if they were able to.
“It is wonderful, every once in a while, to become nothing—a zero—especially for someone placed as loftily as I am. It is amusing to think that everyone, even those who have their boots polished with English blacking, are merely ants with a minute of life in their little bodies. True, there are ranks in the anthill, and some wear ribbons and have titles, but ants they are. One feels oneself so small and unimportant compared to these cobblestones, with their millions of years of history behind them. I read the book New Year’s Eve and found it so fascinating that I forgot to watch ‘the wild crowd rushing to Amager,’ as I usually do. I don’t suppose you know about that?
“But you do know about the witches and how they fly to the mountain in Germany called Brocken, on Midsummer night, and there keep a witches’ Sabbath. Well, we have a local affair that is something like it. I call it ‘the wild crowd rushing to Amager.’ It takes place New Year’s Eve and all the bad poets and poetesses, journalists, and artists of notoriety and no talent participate. They fly through the air on their pens and brushes out to Amager. It is not so far away, only ten miles or so. They would never have made it to Brocken; a journalist’s pen is no witch’s broom. I watch them every New Year’s Eve, and I could mention most of them by name but I won’t, they are dangerous people to cross. They don’t like the general public to find out about their ride.
“I have a sort of niece, who sells fish in the market place and claims to have a job on the side, supplying three of our most respectable newspapers with fresh curses, maledictions, oaths, and generally abusive words and phrases. She was invited to the feast and, since she keeps no pen of her own and can’t ride, she was carried out there. Half of what she says is lies, but if half of it is true, then it is much too much! When they all were gathered out on Amager, they started their feast with a song; they had each written one, and naturally, everyone slang his own song, for that was the best. But that didn’t matter so much, for they all were sung to the same tune. Then they gathered in groups, according to their interests: those who lived on gossip in one group, those who wrote under pseudonyms in another—that, by the way, is lard trying to pass itself off as English blacking.
“The executioner and his boy were there. The boy was tougher than the master. They stood in the group of literary critics. They were dressed either as schoolteachers or as garbage collectors, and were busy giving everything grades.
“In the midst of all this gaiety, an enormous toadstool shot up from the earth and made a roof over the whole gathering. It was created from everything they had written or painted during the preceding year. Great sparks flew from it; they were the thoughts and ideas that had been borrowed. Now they were flying back to their owners; it looked like a fireworks display. After that they played hide-and-seek. But since none of them wanted to hide, though they all had good reason to, and everyone wanted to be found, that was not a success. The lesser poets played ‘I love you’; but they couldn’t remember the rules, and nobody paid attention to them. The witty made puns and laughed at them themselves. It was all very merry, my niece claimed. She told me a good deal more, all very funny and very malicious. But I think that one should be a good human being and not criticize others. But as you can well imagine, since I know about the feast, I usually do take a look New Year’s Eve to see who has been invited. If I miss one in ‘the wild crowd rushing to Amager’ one year, then I can be sure that six new ones have joined it. But this year I forgot to watch them, I was so busy reading about the cobblestones and following them on their journey.
“I saw them loosening themselves way up north, and drifting with the ice south, million of
years before Noah built his ark. I saw them sink to the bottom of the sea and then reappear. There they were, sticking up out of the water, saying: ‘I am going to be Zealand one day.’ Types of birds that disappeared long ago nested among them; and wild chieftains of savage tribes whom we have never heard of built their thrones of them. Not until quite recently, when the ax, for the first time, bit some runic letters into the stones, do we reach historical times, leaving all those millions of years that make me feel like a zero totally unaccounted for.”
Luckily, just at that moment four shooting stars lighted up the heavens and that turned Ole’s thoughts in a different direction. “You know what a shooting star is? Well, the wise men don’t know either, really. I have my own idea about them. How often, in the secrecy of their hearts, do people give thanks and bless those who have done something good and beautiful? These silent thanks do not fall forgotten to earth; I think the sun rays catch them and carry them to the person for whom they were meant. Now if lots of people, perhaps even a whole nation, experience such feelings of gratitude, then they fall as a shooting star on their benefactor’s grave. I find it very amusing, when I watch the shooting stars, especially on New Year’s Eve, to speculate as to whom each tribute is meant for. I saw one falling in the southwestern corner of the sky; it was particularly bright, I think a good deal of gratitude had gone into producing it. Whom could it be for? I felt sure that it had fallen on the banks by Flensborg fjord, where the graves of Schleppegrel, Laessoe, and their comrades are. One fell not too far away, in the middle of Zealand. I am sure it landed in Sorö: a bouquet for Holberg’s coffin, a thanks from the many who have enjoyed his wonderful comedies.
“It is an awesome thought, but at the same time a happy one, to know that shooting stars may fall on our graves. There won’t be any falling on mine, I know that; there won’t even be a sun ray giving thanks. That is because there is nothing to be thankful for. I will never receive English blacking,” sighed Ole. “Lard is my fate!”
THE SECOND VISIT
It was on a New Year’s Day that I visited Ole last. He talked about all the toasts that had been made from the “old drop” to the “new drop.” He referred to the years as “drops,” and I suppose that, when you live in a tower so far above it all, each year may seem like a drop in the ocean. He made a whole speech about glasses, and there was a lot of sense in it. Here it is:
“When the bells on New Year’s Eve strike twelve, people rise and, glass in hand, toast the New Year. One begins the year with a glass in one’s hand, a fine beginning for a drunkard. Now some start the year asleep in bed; that is a good start, too, for a lazy person. Both sleep and glasses will play their part in the year that comes. Do you know what can be found in a glass?” asked Ole. “Health, happiness, and joy! But it can also contain harm and bitter misery. As one counts the glasses, of course, one has to take into account what’s in them and who is drinking them.
“The first glass contains health. It has a healing power, an herb, within it. Pick it and it will grow.
“Take the second glass. In that is hidden a little bird that sings an innocent song, and man listens to it and agrees: life is beautiful! Let us not be downhearted, but live!
“The third glass contains a little winged child, half angel, half pixy. He does not tease maliciously but is filled with fun. He climbs into our ears and whispers amusing thoughts and warms our hearts so that we feel young and gay and become witty and amusing, even according to the judgment of our friends at the party.
“The fourth glass has only an exclamation point in it, or maybe a question mark. This is the point which sense and intelligence never go beyond.
“After you have drunk the fifth glass, then you either weep over yourself or you become sentimental. Prince Carnival jumps from the glass and draws you into a dance, and you forget your own dignity; that is, if you ever had any. You forget more than you should, more than it is good for you to forget. All is song, music, and noise. The masked ones whirl you along; the Devil’s daughters in silk dresses, with their long hair and their beautiful legs, join the dance. And you, can you tear yourself away?
“In the sixth glass sits the Devil himself; he is a little well-dressed man, most charming and pleasant. He understands you and agrees with everything you say. He even brings a lamp to light your way—not to your home, but to his. There is an old legend about a saint who was ordered to experience one of the seven deadly sins. He decided that drunkenness was the least of them. But as soon as he got drunk, then he committed the other six sins. In the sixth glass the Devil and man mix blood; in that thrives everything evil within us, and it grows like the grain of mustard in the Bible until it becomes a tree so large that it shades our whole world. Then we are fit for nothing but to be melted down again.
“That is the story of the glasses,” said Ole, the watchman of the tower. “It can be told both with English blacking and with lard. I have used both.”
93
Anne Lisbeth
Anne Lisbeth was like milk and blood: young, gay, and lovely to look at. Her eyes were bright and her teeth shiny white. She stepped lightly in the dance; she was thoughtless and frivolous. And what did all this beauty and lightheartedness gain her?
“That disgusting little brat!” True, he was no beauty. An unwanted child can be got rid of, and this one was given to the ditch digger’s wife to take care of, for she asked the smallest payment. Then Anne Lisbeth moved up to the count’s castle; there she sat dressed in her Sunday best every day of the week. Not a wind was allowed to blow on her, nor was an angry word ever spoken to her, because that might harm her! She was the wet nurse of the infant count; he had been born at the same time as her own child. Oh, how she loved this noble little baby! He was as delicate as a prince and as handsome as an angel!
Her own child? Well, he was down in the ditch digger’s hut, where the tempers boiled more often than the pots, and hard words stood on the menu every day. Often no one was home. The little boy cried, but unheard tears can’t touch anyone. He would cry himself to sleep; and sleep is marvelous, for while you are asleep you can’t feel either hunger or thirst. As time passes the weeds shoot up, as people say; and Anne Lisbeth’s boy did grow, though he was always smaller than the other boys his age. He belonged in the ditch digger’s family; after all, they had been paid to take him in. Anne Lisbeth was rid of him; she moved to the city and married well.
In her home it was always nice and warm, and should she walk outside, then she had both hat and coat to put on. She never went to the ditch digger’s hut, it was much too far away. Besides, the boy was theirs. He had too hearty an appetite, they claimed, so they set him to work to earn his keep. He could take care of the neighbor’s cow and see to it that it didn’t stray into the wheat fields.
The watchdog of the castle stood outside in the sunshine and barked at anyone who came by, but if it rained it had a doghouse that was warm and dry. Anne Lisbeth’s boy sat in the ditch when the sun shone and whittled a stick. One spring day he found three wild strawberry plants. He was sure they would have berries and the thought made him happy, but the flowers fell off and no strawberries came. If it rained he had to stay where he was, for he was tending the cow; he was wet to the skin and he had to wait for the wind to dry him. Whenever he came to the farm, the servant girls and the other hired hands played tricks on him and hit him.
“You are ugly, disgusting!” they cried. He was used to hearing those words.
Well, what happened to Anne Lisbeth’s boy? What do you suppose? What does happen to those whose lot is never to be loved?
Since the land had no use for him, he took to the sea. He sailed on a broken-down old tub, stood at the tiller while the captain drank. Dirty and disgusting he looked, always cold and always hungry; one would think he had never got enough to eat: and that was true, he hadn’t.
It was late in the year. The weather was raw and cold, the wind cut right through his clothes. It was blowing hard and they had only one sail up. It was a
rotten little sloop, with only two men as crew. To be more accurate, only one and a half: the skipper and his boy. The clouds had made twilight of the day, but now it was growing really dark and bitterly cold it was. The skipper poured himself a drink to get some warmth inside him. The glass he drank from was old; its foot had been broken off, and the skipper had made a new one of a piece of wood that was painted blue. If one drink helped, then two ought to help twice as much, thought the skipper, and poured himself another. The ditch digger’s boy, as he was called—though in the church register it was written that he was Anne Lisbeth’s—held onto the tiller with hands that were dirty from pitch and filth. He was ugly, his hair stuck out in all directions, and he was cowed and had squinty eyes.
The wind blew from the stern, the sail filled out. The wind caught it fully and the old ship raced ahead. The top of a wave broke over the railing and drenched the boy. The wind was raw and wet. Something happened! What was it? What burst?
The boat lurched and turned broadside on to the waves. With a loud crack, the mast broke, and sail and rigging came falling down. The boy at the tiller screamed: “Jesus Christ save me!”
The boat had hit a rock and now it sank like an old shoe in the village pond. It went down with mice and men, as the saying goes. There were plenty of mice on board, but of men only one and a half: the skipper and the ditch digger’s boy. No one saw it happen, except the screaming gulls and the fishes; and they didn’t see it, really, for they fled as the water roared in through the hole in the hull. The boat sank in about ten feet of water, just deep enough to hide both ship and crew. Gone and forgotten they were. Only the glass with the blue-painted wooden foot remained afloat; it drifted toward shore and was finally broken in the surf. It had done good service and it had been loved, which was more than Anne Lisbeth’s boy ever had been. Only in heaven are there no souls that can say, “I have never been loved.”
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 70