The boy slept in the same bed as his mother. He stretched himself out at her feet, widthwise across the bed. An old rug, which had been patched with blue and white strips of cloth, was his blanket.
The washerwoman began to feel a little better. The warm beer and the smell of the food had done her some good. “Thank you, you good, kind soul,” she said to Maren. “Is the boy asleep?” she whispered. “If he is, I’ll tell you the story.”
Maren nodded.
The washerwoman lifted her head so she could see the child. “Yes, he’s sleeping already. Look how sweet he looks with his eyes closed. He does not know how I have suffered; and may God spare him from ever knowing such suffering.… I was a maid in the old judge’s house, where his son the mayor now lives; and while I was there his youngest son came home: ‘the student,’ as they called him. I was young then, wild and full of life; but I was a good girl—and that I would say even if it were God who asked me. The student was gay and happy: a blessed young man. There was not a bad drop of blood in his veins. A more honest, more honorable, more upright person has never walked God’s green earth. He was the son of the judge and I was only the maid, but we loved each other in the most respectable way. For a kiss is not a sin between two people who really care for each other.
“He told his mother about it; she was his God here on earth. She was good, clever, and kind.… He went away; but before he left he put a gold ring on my finger. When he had been gone a few days, my mistress said she wished to talk with me. She spoke gravely yet gently, as God Himself would have spoken. She explained about the wide gap between his upbringing and education and my own.
“ ‘Now he sees your beauty, but beauty fades,’ she said. ‘You do not understand the things that he does. In the world of the mind, of the intellect, you are not equal; and that is a real tragedy. I respect the poor, and know that in heaven many a poor man will be seated nearer to God than many rich men will be. But here on earth, a carriage has to follow the tracks in the road or it will turn over; and you two would overturn! I know that there is an artisan, Erik Glovemaker, who has asked for your hand. He is a widower but has no children and is doing very well. Why don’t you think it over?’
“Every word that she said was like a knife piercing my heart. The worst of it was that I knew that what she said was true; and it was that that crushed me. I kissed her hand and I cried bitter tears, but not as many as I wept when I returned to my own room. The Lord knows how I struggled and suffered all through that long, terrible night. The next day was Sunday; I took holy communion in the hope that God would give me light. It was like an act of providence; as I was leaving the church, I met Erik Glovemaker. All my doubt was gone, we suited each other; we came from the same station in life, we had been brought up alike. He was even quite wealthy. I walked straight up to him and took his hand. ‘Am I still in your thoughts?’ I asked.
“ ‘Yes.… Forever and always,’ he replied.
“ ‘Would you want to marry a girl who honors and respects you but does not love you, though that may come in time?’
“ ‘It will, I am sure,’ he said. And we shook hands.
“Around my neck on a string I had carried the ring the student had given me. It lay next to my bare breast for I never dared wear it where anyone might see it. Only at night did I put it on my finger. When I came home that day, I kissed the ring until my lips bled; and then gave it to my mistress and told her that on the following Sunday the minister would announce from the pulpit banns for Erik Glovemaker and me.
“My mistress threw her arms around me and kissed me. She did not say that I was no good then. But maybe I was a better person when I was younger, before I had been tried by misfortune. We were married, and for the first few years all went well. Erik had a journeyman and an apprentice working for him and I had you, Maren, to help me,”
“And you were the best mistress one could have!” said Maren. “I shall never forget how gentle and kind both you and your husband were.”
“Yes, those were the good years, when you were with us.… We had no children yet.… I never saw the student again.… No, that is not true, I did see him once but he did not see me. He had come home for his mother’s funeral. I saw him standing by her grave; his face was so white and grief-stricken because of his sorrow over his mother’s death. After his father died he never came back here; he was always traveling in foreign countries. He never married, that much I know. I think he became a lawyer.… I am sure he did not remember me, and if he had seen me he would not have recognized me. I have grown so ugly. And that, too, is probably for the best.”
She talked about the difficult years, when one misfortune followed another. She and her husband had had five hundred silver marks and had bought an old house in the street for two hundred. This they had meant to tear down in order to build a new one. The mason and the carpenter had estimated that the new house would cost a thousand marks to build. Someone in Copenhagen had readily offered to loan Erik Glovemaker the sum, but the captain who was to bring the money was lost at sea and so were the thousand marks.
“It was then that that sweet child”—the washerwoman nodded toward the foot of the bed—“who is sleeping so soundly, was born. Right after that his father fell ill. I had to dress and undress him for nearly a whole year; he was too weak to do it himself. We sank deeper and deeper into debt. Finally we had nothing left, not even any clothes; then I lost my husband.… All the work I could get was drudgery; but I have toiled and struggled and fought for my boy’s sake. I have scrubbed floors and washed clothes. My lot will never change, that is God’s will. But soon He will call me up to Him, and then He will have to take care of my child.” With those words, she fell asleep.
In the morning she felt better and mistakenly thought herself well enough to work. She had no sooner stepped into the cold water than she felt faint and began to tremble. She turned around, back toward the shore; and she fell. Her head lay on the bank, but her feet were in the river: her wooden shoes—stuffed with straw for warmth—went sailing away with the current. She was found by Maren, who had come to bring her a mug of coffee.
A message had come from the mayor that the washerwoman was to come to his office, he had something to tell her. It was too late. A barber had been called to bleed her, but the washerwoman was already dead.
“She has drunk herself to death,” declared the mayor.
The letter that brought the news of the death of the mayor’s brother had also contained his will. In it was written that six hundred silver crowns were to be paid to the glovemaker’s widow, “who once worked in my parents’ house.” She and her child were to have the money in appropriate portions, according to their needs.
“There was once some nonsense between my brother and her. It’s a good thing that she’s out of the way,” the mayor said. “Now the boy will get all of the money. I’ll find a good family who will take him in. He will make a fine artisan.”
The mayor called the boy to him and promised him that he would take care of him. He also explained to the child how lucky he was that his mother was dead, for she had been no good.
The washerwomn was brought to the churchyard, where she was buried in the corner set aside for the poor. With the boy standing beside her, Maren planted a rosebush on her grave.
“My sweet mother,” the child said with the tears running down his cheeks. “Is it really true that she was no good?”
“Oh, she was good!” said Maren. “I knew her for many years and was with her the last night of her life. And I say that she was good; and God in His heaven will say the same; let the world go on saying that she was no good.”
71
The Last Pearl
It was a well-to-do home, a happy home. Everyone was jubilant: master, mistress, friends, and servants. That very day an heir had been born, and mother and son were fine.
The lamp in the cozy bedchamber was shaded. Heavy silk curtains were drawn in front of the windows. The carpets on the floor were thick and s
oft like moss. Everything in the room seemed to be slumbering. The night nurse was asleep, too; which did no great harm, for everything in that home breathed security. The guardian spirit of the house stood by the bed; the child was asleep next to the mother. Around the little boy a circle of stars appeared; they were the pearls from fortune’s necklace. The good fairies had come and given gifts to the newly born. Health, wealth, love, and happiness: everything that man could wish for here on earth.
“Every gift has been brought and accepted,” said the guardian spirit.
“No,” said a voice close by. It was the child’s own guardian angel speaking. “One fairy has not brought her gift yet, but she will bring it sooner or later, though years may go by before she comes. The last of the pearls is missing.”
“Missing? Nothing must be missing here! If it is true, then let us go to the mighty fairy and ask her for her gift.”
“Be patient, she will come. Her pearl is necessary for the necklace to be strung.”
“Where does she live? Where is her home? Tell it to me and I will go and fetch the pearl.”
“If you wish,” said the child’s guardian angel, “then I shall lead you to her. She has no permanent home but is forever traveling. She visits the king in his castle and the poor in their hovels. No house exists that she passes by without entering at least once. To all she brings her gift. This little swaddled child will meet her too. You think that time is long but that is no reason to waste it. Well and good, let us seek her.”
Hand in hand, the two spirits flew to seek the fairy in the place where she, for the moment, made her home.
It was a big house with long corridors and empty rooms. Everything was strangely still and quiet, the windows were open, letting in the raw, damp air. Silently, the long white curtains moved in the breeze.
In the middle of a large room stood a coffin and in it lay the body of a woman. She was neither young nor old but in that period of life which people sometimes call the best. Freshly plucked roses covered her body; among the flowers her folded hands could be seen. Her noble face, transfigured by death, looked expectantly up toward God.
By the coffin stood a man and a whole flock of children; the youngest of them the father carried in his arms. This was their leave-taking. The father bent down and kissed his wife’s hand. Now that hand that had been so strong, so loving, was like the withered leaf.
Tears fell from their eyes, but not a word was spoken, no sound broke that stillness, which contained a world of pain. Weeping, they left.
One candle burned in the room. Its flames wavered in the wind, was almost put out, and then shot up clearly and brightly again. Strangers came; they closed the coffin and hammered the lid down with nails. The sound of the hammering echoed through the corridors and rooms of the house and beat upon the bleeding hearts.
“Where have you led me?” asked the guardian spirit. “Here lives no fairy whose pearl would be one of life’s most valuable gifts.”
“In this holy hour, she lives here,” said the child’s guardian angel, and pointed to a corner of the room. There in the chair where the mother used to sit, surrounded by flowers and pictures, where she—the good fairy of her own household—used to smile to her children, husband, and friends, in that spot which once had been the center, the very heart of the household, now sat a stranger, a woman dressed in long black clothes. It was Sorrow; now she reigned, she had become their mother. A tear dropped from her eyes down into her lap and became a pearl; it sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow and the angel caught it.
“The seven-colored pearl of sorrow must be in the necklace too. It makes the other pearls shine stronger, more beautifully. In it is locked the glow of the rainbow, the arch that connects the earth with heaven. Everyone we love and who dies makes another friend in heaven for us to long for. In the dark nights here on earth, we look toward the stars, toward the consummation, the fulfillment. Look, contemplate the pearl of sorrow, for it contains the wings of Psyche, which shall carry us away from here.”
72
The Two Maidens
Do you know what a rammer looks like? It is a tool that workmen use when they pave a street with cobblestones. In Denmark it is called a “maiden”; and therefore, it is appropriate to use the feminine gender when describing it.
She is made of a solid piece of wood, broad at the base and reinforced with heavy iron bands. Her top is slender and from it protrude two arms. These the workman holds when he uses the “maiden” to stamp the cobblestones into place.
Now in a tool shed, among shovels, measuring rods, and wheelbarrows, stood two such rammers or “maidens.” They had heard that it had been decided that they were no longer to be named “maidens” but were to be called stampers instead. This was considered a great innovation for the Danish language, a technical one that every layer of cobblestones approved of.
Among human beings there exist a group called “emancipated women.” To this category belong headmistresses of schools, mid-wives, dancers who can stand professionally on one leg, milliners, and nurses. The two “maidens” from the tool shed decided to join this society; after all, they were employed by the Ministry of Works. They did not want to lose their ancient and honorable title, and just be called stampers.
“Maiden is a human name, a stamper is a thing; and we will not allow ourselves to be called things, it is an insult.”
“My fiancé may break off our engagement when he hears of it,” said the youngest of them. She was engaged to a pile driver, which is a machine that drives piles far down into the ground. It does the heavy work and the rammers, or “maidens,” that which is more refined. “He has learned to love me as a ‘maiden.’ How do I know if he will feel the same way toward me when I am a stamper? I won’t allow them to change my name.”
“I would rather have my arms broken than permit it,” wailed the older of them.
The wheelbarrow was of a different opinion, and the wheelbarrow was not a nobody in that society. He considered himself a quarter of carriage, because he had one wheel. “The name ‘maiden’ is rather ordinary or common, whereas the word ‘stamper’ signifies that one is related to a signet, which stamps too; for example, the royal seal stamps. If I were you, I would gladly give up the name ‘maiden.’ ”
“Never! I am too old for that,” shouted the older of the rammers.
“I think you are all unaware of something called European Standards,” said an honest old measuring rod, who had been retired because it was inaccurate. “One has to know one’s limitations and submit to time and necessity. If a law has been passed that ‘maidens’ are to be called ‘stampers,’ then they must be called it. Everything has only its measured time here on earth, even a name.”
“If I have to change mine,” said the younger of the two rammers, “then I would prefer something feminine like ‘miss.’ ”
“I would prefer being chopped into firewood,” asserted the older of them, who, in truth, was an old maid.
They all went to work. The two “maidens” were driven in a wheelbarrow, which was a respectable way to travel; but they were called stampers.
“Maid!” they said every time they hit a cobblestone. “Maid!” They would have pronounced their names in full, but they were too angry and bit it off short. Among themselves they always used the name “maiden.” They talked well of the “good old times,” when things were called by their proper names. Maidens they remained, both of them, for the pile driver broke his engagement to the younger of them. He did not want an affair with a “stamper.”
73
The Uttermost Parts of the Sea
Two ships had been sent up to the far north to discover what was land and what was sea; and to find out whether there was a passage through the Arctic Ocean. Through fog and ice they had sailed, ever steering north; now winter had come, and soon they would see the sun for the last time that year, and for months there would be only night. The ships lay surrounded by ice, and the frozen sea was covered by snow. Nearby,
out of snow, houses had been made, in the shape of beehives. Some were as large as Viking graves, others were so small that only three or four men could lie outstretched in them.
But though the sun had disappeared, it was not dark, for the northern lights were a permanent fireworks display in the dark sky. The snow glittered and reflected their light, day and night were dusk. The Eskimos came; strange men dressed in skins, with sleds piled high with furs. Now the floors of the snow huts got fur carpets, and the sailors slept warmly underneath their ice cupolas.
Outside the temperatures dropped far below anything we can ever experience, even in the coldest winter. At home it was only late fall, and the seamen recalled how the sunbeams looked when they played upon October’s yellow and brown leaves. Their watches told them that night had come.
In one of the smaller snow huts, two of the sailors had already lain down to sleep. The younger of them had been given a treasure by his grandmother; it was the Bible. From his childhood, he remembered so many of its stories and the psalms of David. Every day he read from it and these words from the songs brought him comfort: “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”
His faith in the truth of these words made sleep come as soon as he had closed his eyes. He dreamed that his soul was awake while his body rested. He felt as if he were listening to well-known songs and melodies that breathed summer’s warmth. The snow cupola above him became even whiter; it was the giant wing of an angel whose gentle face he could look up into. From the pages of the Bible, as from the cup of the lily, the angel rose; he spread out his arms and the walls of the snow hut disappeared like a mist. The green fields and hills, the autumn-brown forest of his home were there instead; and the sun was shining, it was a lovely fall day. The stork nest was empty but apples still hung on the wild apple trees. The captured starling whistled in its little cage, which hung outside the window of the little farmhouse that was his home. The starling whistled in the manner that he had taught it to, and his grandmother was feeding it, just as he used to. The blacksmith’s daughter stood by the well drawing the water, and she was as beautiful as ever. She nodded to Grandmother, who waved back with a letter in her hand. It had come that morning from the cold lands high up north where her grandchild was. They laughed and cried while they read it; and he, lying under the ice and snow—by the grace of the dream and the angel’s wings—was also at home with them, and he laughed and cried too. They read the letter aloud, even the words from the psalm: “In the uttermost parts of the sea … thy right hand shall hold me.” The words rang like a beautiful hymn and the angel folded his wings. The dream was over, it was dark again in the snow hut; but the Bible lay next to him and hope and faith were in his heart. God was there, and, therefore, so was his home, “in the uttermost parts of the sea”!
The Complete Fairy Tales Page 52