But the merchant’s daughter got angry. Her father’s name was Madsen, and that name, she knew, ended with a sen; therefore she said as proudly as she could: “My father can buy a hundred silver marks’ worth of candy and throw it in the street, so all the poor children can scramble for it. Can your father do that?”
“But my father,” announced the newspaper editor’s daughter, “can put your father, and yours too, and all the fathers in the whole town, in the newspaper. And that is why everybody is frightened of him, so my mother says. It is my father who rules the newspaper.” And she held her head high as if she were a proper princess with a father who ruled a kingdom.
Behind the door, which stood ajar, was a poor little boy; he was looking in through the crack. The little lad was much too poor to be permitted to go to the party. He had been turning the spit for the cook, and as a reward he had been allowed to stand behind the door and watch the other children play; and he had been pleased to have such a chance.
“If only I were one of them,” he had thought while he listened to everything that was being said; much of it was really not too pleasant for him to hear. His parents never had so much as a copper to spare and could not even afford to buy a newspaper, let alone write in it. The worst of it all was that his father’s name ended in sen. Nothing could ever become of him! It was very sad. But born he had been, and since he had never heard otherwise he must have been wellborn, too, of that he felt certain.
Now that was that evening.
Years went by, and the years made the children into grownups.
In the center of Copenhagen a palace had been built and it was filled with splendid treasures that everyone wanted to see. People came from far and wide to look at them. Now to which of the children whom we have described did this palace belong? That ought to be an easy question to answer, but it isn’t It belonged to the poor boy, the one who had stood behind the door. Something had become of him: he was a great sculptor, and the palace was a museum for his works. It had not really mattered that his name ended with sen: Thorvaldsen, whose marble statues stand in St. Peter’s in Rome.
What happened to the other children: the offspring of good family, wealth, and intellectual arrogance?—None of them could point a finger at any of the others; they had all been equally silly.—They had become decent and kind human beings, for they were, in truth, not evil. What they had thought and said then had only been children’s prattle.
95
A String of Pearls
The railroad here in Denmark stretches only from Copenhagen across Zealand to Korsør. It is a string on which pearls are strung. Of such pearls Europe has many; the costliest are Paris, London, Vienna, Naples … Yet many a person does not consider these great cities the most beautiful pearls, but instead points to some little, humble, unknown town, for that to him is home, there live those whom he holds dear. He may even talk about a farm, or a little house surrounded by green hedges, which can hardly be noticed from the window as the train rushes by.
How many pearls are there on the string from Copenhagen to Korsør? Let us consider six of them: six that most people know and have noticed. Old memories and poetry itself give them an added luster, so that we can remember them.
Near the hill on which stands the castle of Frederik VI, protected by the great trees of the forest called Søndermarken, lies one of the pearls: a house that was affectionately called “the Philemon and Baucis cottage.” Here lived Rahbek and his wife Kamma, and under their hospitable roof, for a whole generation, all the poets and artists of busy Copenhagen gathered; it was truly a refuge for the spirit and the spirited. And now? Please do not say, “Oh, how it all is changed!” No, it is still a home for the spirit, for the mind. It is now a greenhouse for sick plants, for the bud that has not the strength within it to unfold but still contains the germ for the leaves and seeds. The sun shines into a home where the spirit and the mind are protected, and reflects down into a depth that we cannot reach. The home of the feebleminded, created out of human love, is a holy place, a greenhouse for the sickly plants that will someday be replanted in God’s garden. Those whose spirit is the weakest are now gathered here where once the strongest, most creative minds met. Oh, it is not unfitting, for still the mind and the soul are the concern of those who live in the “Philemon and Baucis cottage.”
The town of royal tombs—Hroar’s spring—the old Roskilde, now lies before us. The slender spires of the cathedral point to the sky above the low houses and mirror themselves in the fjord. We shall visit one grave—one pearl. Not that of the mighty Queen Margrethe who united Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. No, we shall visit a grave behind the white wall of the churchyard; we can see it from the train as we fly by. A simple stone stands there and beneath it rests a king of the organ, he who renewed the Danish romance and through melody made old legends part of us. Roskilde is the town of royal tombs, a pearl in which we shall seek only a simple grave: the stone on which is carved a lyre and the name Weyse.
Now the train goes by Sigersted near Ringsted. The water in the stream is low. Where Hagbarth’s boat once landed, there are now fields of grain. Who does not know the story of Hagbarth and Signe? How he was hanged and she was burned to death, the story of passionate love.
“Beautiful Sorø garlanded by forests,” the little cloister town, has now a peephole out to the great world. Eagerly and youthfully, it looks from the old academy, across the lake, to the new “road of the world,” where the dragon of a new age snorts and lets off clouds of white steam as it draws its wagons through the forest. Sorø, you are literature’s pearl, for the dust of Holberg rests here. Like a giant white swan, your academy, your house of learning, stands near the forest lake. Not far from the walls is a humble cottage, and to this our eyes are drawn. It shines like a little white flower in the green moss. Here hymns were written which were sung far and wide; peasants and workingmen learned from the words spoken here about their own past and history. As the green forest and the song birds belong together, so do the names Sorø and Ingemann.
The town of Slagelse, what is reflected in this pearl? Antvorskov Cloister has long been torn down. Its splendid hall exists no more; even the lesser parts, which stood abandoned so long, are gone. Yet one sign from ancient times is still there, and when it crumbles it is always renewed. It is the wooden cross that stands on the hill outside the city, which sanctifies the place to which the Blessed Anders was carried, according to the legend, in one night from Jerusalem.
Korsør. Here Baggesen was born, the master of words and wit. The ramparts of the abandoned fortress are the last witness of your childhood home. At sunset the shadow they cast points toward the spot where the house stood that you were born in. From these embankments you looked out over the Great Belt when you were a child, and “watched the moon glide down behind the island.” You sang of it, with immortal words, as later you described the great mountains of Switzerland: you who traveled into the world’s labyrinth to find that:
Nowhere are the roses so red,
And nowhere are the thorns so tiny,
And nowhere are the pillows so soft
As those our childish innocence rested on.
You, the great poet of moods and feelings, we shall weave you a wreath of woodruff and throw it into the sea, and let the waves carry it to the banks of the fjord of Kiel, where your dust rests. A greeting to you from your birthplace, Korsør, where the pearl string ends.
II
“Yes, truly from Copenhagen to Korsør is a string of pearls,” said Grandmother, who had been listening to what had just been read aloud. “To me it was already such a precious string more than forty years ago. Then we did not have steam engines. In 1815, when I was just twenty—and that is a lovely age, though now that I am in my sixties I recognize that old age, too, has its blessings.
“When I was young, a trip to Copenhagen was a rare and difficult journey. The town of towns, we thought it was. It had been twenty years since my parents last visited it, and now they were t
o go there again and I was to go along. We had talked about making this journey for years, and at last we were going! I felt as if my life were beginning all over again; and in a way, it was.
“Dresses had to be sewn, clothes repaired and packed, before we finally were ready. All our friends came to say good-by. It was no small trip we were setting out on. In the early morning we left Odense, in my parents’ Holstein coach. Acquaintances nodded from every window, until we had passed through the city gate. The weather was lovely. The birds were singing and everything was so gay that one forgot how far it was to Nyborg. We arrived toward evening. The mail coach had not come yet, and the sloop on which we were to sail could not leave before it came. We went on board.
“Before us lay the sea, the Great Belt. As far as our eyes could see, there was only water. The night was still and the sea was calm. We lay down fully dressed and slept. In the early morning I climbed up on deck. Fog covered the whole world and I could see nothing. I heard a cock crow, and realized that the sun had risen. A church bell rang and I wondered where we were. The fog lifted and we were still just outside of Nyborg. Later, a breeze began to blow, but it was against us, and we had to tack all the way across. Not before eleven at night were we lucky enough to reach Korsør. It had taken us twenty-two hours to sail fifteen miles.
“It was lovely to get ashore, but the night was dark and the street lamps were burning low and gave little light. Everything looked so strange to me, for I had never been in any town but Odense.
“ ‘Here Baggesen was born,’ said my father.
“When I heard these words, the old town with its tiny houses suddenly seemed much larger and not so dark. We were all happy to have solid ground under our feet again. I could not sleep that night, I was much too excited about all that had happened since we had left our home.
“The next morning we rose early. We had a bad piece of road to travel to get to Slagelse; the hills were steep and the highway was filled with holes—and they said that beyond Slagelse the road was in no better condition. We wanted to reach the little inn called the Crayfish House early enough so that we could walk into Sorø and visit ‘Miller’s Emil,’ as we called him.… Yes, that was your grandfather and my blessed husband, the dean. But at that time he was only a young student in Sorø.
“We arrived at the Crayfish House in the early part of the afternoon. It was a fashionable place then, the best inn we stayed at during the whole journey—and the surroundings were beautiful and are so still, that you must admit. Madame Plambek was the name of the innkeeper’s wife, and she was a wonderful housekeeper, everything was scoured and scrubbed. On the wall hung Baggesen’s letter to her, in glass and framed; that was something worth looking at and I found it most interesting.
“We walked to Sorø and there we met Emil. Believe me, he was happy to see us and we to see him. He was so kind and considerate. He showed us the church where Absalon and Holberg were buried. We saw the old inscriptions that the monks had made. We sailed across the lake. It was the most beautiful evening that I can remember. Is there any place in the whole world better suited for writing poetry than the peaceful beauty of nature around Sorø? In moonlight, we walked along the ‘philosophers’ path,’ back to the Crayfish House, where we had supper. Emil stayed and ate with us. My parents thought that he had grown much cleverer and handsomer since they had seen him last. He promised us that in five days he, too, would be in Copenhagen. He would be staying with his family there and would be seeing us. Those hours in Sorø and at the Crayfish House are the most precious pearls of my life.
“We left early the next morning, for we had a long journey in front of us before we reached Roskilde. We wanted to get there in time to see the church, and my father had an old friend in the town whom he wanted to spend the evening with. Everything went according to our plans, and we slept the night in Roskilde.
“The next morning we drove on. We did not arrive in Copenhagen before noon, for the road was in terrible condition from all the traffic.
“It had taken us three days to travel from Korsør to Copenhagen; now you can do it in as many hours. The pearls have not become any more precious, but the string is new and marvelous. My parents and I stayed for three weeks in Copenhagen, and Emil and I were together for eighteen days. When we returned to Fyn and our home in Odense, Emil journeyed all the way to Korsør with us, and there we became engaged, just before we parted. So now you can understand why I, too, call the distance between Copenhagen and Korsør a string of pearls.
“Emil became minister at the church in the town of Assens, and we were married. We often talked about our journey to Copenhagen and how we would like to do it all over again. But then your mother arrived, and she had brothers and a sister; and there was so much to do that we never found time for that. Your grandfather was appointed dean and everything went very well for us, but our trip to Copenhagen we never got. Still, there was pleasure in talking about it. Now I have grown too old to travel by railroad. But I am pleased that it is there; it is a blessing! For now all my children and grandchildren can come much faster and of tener to visit me. Odense is not much farther away from Copenhagen than it was from Nyborg in my childhood. You can almost travel to Italy in the time it took us to get to Copenhagen. Yes, that is something! But I stay where I am and let the others travel; let them come to me.
“You shouldn’t smile like that, just because I sit so still in my chair. I have a greater journey ahead of me than yours. And I shall travel swifter than the railroads. When God wills, I shall journey up to Grandfather. And when you have done your duty down here and enjoyed this blessed earth of ours, then you will come up to us and we shall talk about our lives down on earth, and I shall still say as I do now: ‘From Copenhagen to Korsør, yes, that is a string of pearls.’ ”
96
The Pen and the Inkwell
It was once remarked by someone who was looking at the inkwell on an author’s desk: “Isn’t it strange, all that can come out of an inkwell? I wonder what will come from it next? Oh, it is a wonder!”
“That it is,” agreed the inkwell. “It is very hard to understand. And that has always been my opinion.” The inkwell was talking to the pen and everything else that happened to be on the desk. “It is, indeed, strange and wonderful what can come out of me! Why, I would call it almost unbelievable! Sometimes I don’t even know myself what will come next—what will happen when human beings dip into me. One drop of me is enough to cover half a page of paper, and what cannot be written on that! I am someone quite extraordinary. From me springs all poetry; descriptions of people who have never lived, and yet are more alive than those who walk around on two legs; the deepest feelings; the greatest wit; and the loveliest word paintings of nature. How can all that be inside me—I who do not even know nature—but nonetheless it is! All of these gallant knights on their magnificent horses and all the beautiful young girls who live in books have, in fact, been born in me. Yes, I cannot even understand it myself.”
“There you spoke the truth!” said the quill pen. “You do not understand because you cannot think; if you could, you would realize that you contain merely liquid. You exist so that I can express upon paper the thoughts that are within me, so that I can write them down. It is the pen that writes! This no man doubts, and I can assure you that most human beings have a great deal more insight into poetry than an old inkwell.”
“You have not had much experience yet,” said the inkwell. “You are young in the service, though already half used up, I am afraid. Do you really believe that you are the poet? You are only a servant, and I have had many of them before you arrived. Both English steel pens and those who can claim geese as their family. I have known all kinds of pens. I cannot even count the number that have been in my service; and more will come, I am sure. He wears them out, the human being who does the manual labor, he who writes down what is inside me. I wonder what he will lift out of me next.”
“Ink tub!” sneered the pen.
Later in the e
vening the poet came home. He had attended a concert where he had heard an excellent violinist play. He was still very excited about what he had heard. The musician had enticed such marvelous sounds out of his instrument. At one moment it sounded like drops of water falling from the trees, one pearly drop after another; and the next, like a storm riding through a pine forest. The poet had thought he had heard his own heart weeping, so captured had he been by the music. It was not only the strings that had sung but the whole instrument, wood and all. And all the while it had looked so easy: the bow had danced so lightly across the strings. One was almost convinced that anyone could have done it, so effortless had the performance appeared. The violin sang by itself and the bow moved by itself; the two were one. One almost forgot their master: the musician who played upon them and gave to these two dead objects a soul. But the poet had not forgotten him; he pondered over it and wrote down his thoughts.
“How absurd it would seem if the bow and the violin should be proud and haughty about their accomplishments. Yet we, human beings, often are; the poets, the artists, the scientists, and even the generals often boast in vain pride. Yet they are all but instruments that God plays upon. To Him alone belongs all honor. We have nothing to pride ourselves upon!”
Later the poet wrote a parable and called it “The Genius and His Instrument.”
“Well, madam, that put you in your place,” said the pen to the inkwell when the two of them again were alone. “I suppose you heard him read aloud what I had written down?”
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 72