The Sand-Hills of Jutland Part 12

Close by it pa.s.sed a couple arm-in-arm, like the happy pair in the wood, the mate and the furrier's daughter. It seemed to the bottle as if it were living that time over again. Guests and visitors of different ages wandered up and down, gazing upon the illuminations; and among these was an old maid, without relations, but not without friends. Probably her thoughts were occupied, as were those of the bottle; for she was thinking of the green woods, and of a young couple just betrothed. These _souvenirs_ affected her much, for she had been a party in them--a prominent party. This was in her happier hours; and one never forgets these, even when one becomes a very old maid. But she did not recognise the bottle, and it did not recognise her. So it is we wear out of each other's knowledge in this world, until people meet again as these two did.

The bottle pa.s.sed from the public gardens to the wine merchant's; it was there again filled with wine, and sold to an aeronaut, who was to go up in a balloon the following Sunday. There was a mult.i.tude of people to witness the ascent, there was a regimental band, and there were many preparations going on. The bottle saw all this from a basket, in which it lay with a living rabbit, who was very much frightened when it saw it was to go up in the parachute. The bottle did not know where it was to go; it beheld the balloon extending wider and wider, and becoming so large that it could not be larger; then lifting itself up higher and higher, and rolling restlessly until the ropes that held it were cut, when it arose majestically into the air, with the aeronaut, the basket, the bottle, and the rabbit; then the music played loudly, and the a.s.sembled crowd shouted, "Hurra!

hurra!"

"It is droll to go aloft," thought the bottle; "it is a novel sort of a voyage. Up yonder one cannot run away."

Many thousand human beings gazed up at the balloon, and the old maid gazed among the rest. She stood by her open garret window, where a cage hung with a little linnet, which at that time had no water-gla.s.s, but had to content itself with a cup. Just within the window stood a myrtle tree, that was moved a little aside, that it might not come in the way while the old maid was leaning out to look at the balloon. And she could perceive the aeronaut in it; she saw him let the rabbit down in the parachute, and then, having drunk the health of the crowd below, throw the bottle high up in the air. Little did she think that it was just the same bottle she had seen thrown up high in honour of herself and her lover, on a well-remembered happy day amidst the green wood, when she was young.

The bottle had no time to think, it was so unexpectedly exalted to the highest position it had ever attained in its life. The roofs and the spires lay far below, and the people looked as small as pigmies.

It now descended, and that at a different rate of speed from the rabbit. The bottle cast somersaults in the air--it felt itself so young, so buoyant. It was half full of wine, but not long. What a trip that was! The sun shone upon the bottle, and all the crowd looked up at it. The balloon was soon far away, and the bottle was soon also out of sight, for it fell upon a roof and broke in two; but the fragments rebounded again, and leaped and rolled till they reached the yard below, where they lay in smaller pieces; for only the neck of the bottle escaped destruction, and it looked as if it had been cut round by a diamond.

"It may still serve as a gla.s.s for a bird's cage," said the man in the cellar.

But he himself had neither a bird nor a cage, and it would have cost too much to buy these because he had found the neck of a bottle that would answer for a gla.s.s. The old maid, however, up in the garret, might make use of it; and so the neck of the bottle was sent up to her. A cork was fitted to it, and, as first mentioned, after its many changes, it was filled with fresh water, and was hung in front of the cage of the little bird, that sang until its warbling became almost overpowering.

"Yes, you may well sing," was what the neck of the bottle had said.

It was somewhat of a wonder, as it had been up in a balloon; but with more of its history no one was acquainted. Now it hung as a bird's gla.s.s, it could hear the people driving and walking in the street below, and it could hear the old maid talking in her room to a female friend of her youthful days. They were chatting together, but speaking of the myrtle plant in the window, not of the neck of the bottle.

"You must not throw away two rix dollars for a wedding bouquet for your daughter," said the old maid. "You shall have one from me full of flowers. Look how pretty that plant is! Ah! it is a slip of the myrtle tree you gave me the day after my betrothal, that I myself, when the year was past, might take my wedding bouquet from it. But that day never came. The eyes were for ever closed that were to have illumined for me the path of happiness in this life. Away, down in the ocean's depths, he sleeps calmly--that angel soul! The tree became an old tree, but I have become still older; and when it died, I took its last green branch and planted it in the earth. That slip has now grown into a high plant, and will at last appear amidst bridal array, and form a wedding bouquet for my friend's daughter."

And tears started to the old maid's eyes. She spoke of the lover of her youth--of the betrothal in the wood; she thought of the toasts that were there drunk; she thought of the first kiss, but she did not speak of that, for she was now but an old maid. She thought of much--much; but little did she think that outside of her window was even then a _souvenir_ from that regretted time--the neck of the very bottle that had been drawn when the unforgotten toasts were drunk! Nor did the bottle-neck know her; for it had not heard all she had said, because it had been thinking only of itself.

_The Old Bachelor's Nightcap._

There is a street in Copenhagen which bears the extraordinary name of "Hyskenstroede." And why is it so called? and what is the meaning of that name? It is German; but the German has been corrupted. "Hauschen"

it ought to be called, and that signifies "small houses." Those which stood there formerly--and, indeed, for several years--were not much larger than the wooden booths that we see now-a-days erected at fairs.

Yes, only a little larger, and with windows; but the panes were of horn or stretched bladder, for in these days it was too expensive to have gla.s.s windows in all houses; but the time in question was so far back that our grandfathers' grandfathers, when they mentioned it, also spoke of it as "in ancient days," for it was several hundred years ago.

Many rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck carried on business in Copenhagen. They did not, however, go there themselves--they sent their clerks; and these persons generally resided in the wooden houses in the "Small Houses' Street," and held sales of ale and spices. The German ale was so excellent, and there were so many kinds--"Bremer, Prysing, Emser ale," even "Brunswick Mumme;" also, all sorts of spices, such as saffron, anise, ginger, and especially pepper, that was the most valued; and from this the German commercial travellers acquired the name in Denmark of "Pepper Swains, or Bachelors." They entered into an agreement before they left home not to marry; and many of them lived there to old age. They had to do entirely for themselves, attend to all little domestic matters, even make their own fires if they had any. Several of them became lonely old men, with peculiar thoughts and peculiar habits. Every unmarried man who has arrived at a certain age is now here called after them in derision, "Pebersvend"--old bachelor. It was necessary to relate all this, in order that our story might be understood.

People made great fun of these old bachelors; laughed at their nightcaps, at their drawing them down over their eyes, and so retiring to their couches.

"Saw the firewood, saw it through!

Old bachelors, there's work for you.

To bed with you your nightcaps go; Put out your lights, and cry, 'O woe!'"

Yes, such songs were made on them. People ridiculed the old bachelor and his nightcap, just because they knew so little about him, or it.

Alas! let no one desire such a nightcap. And why not? Listen!

Over in the "Small Houses' Street," in ancient days, there was no pavement; people stepped from hole to hole as in a narrow, cut-up defile; and narrow enough this was, too. The dwellings on the opposite side of the street stood so close together, that in summer a sail was spread across the street from one booth to another, and the whole place was redolent of pepper, saffron, ginger, and various spices.

Behind the desks stood few young men; no, they were almost all old fellows; and they were by no means, as we would represent them, crowned with a peruke or a nightcap, and equipped in s.h.a.ggy pantaloons, a vest and coat b.u.t.toned tightly up. This was the costume in which our forefathers were painted, it is true; but this community of old bachelors could not afford to have their pictures taken. Yet it would have been worth while now to have preserved a portrait of one of them, as they stood behind their desks, or on festival days, when they wended their way to church. The hat they wore was broad-brimmed, and with a high crown; and sometimes one of the younger men would stick a feather in his. The woollen s.h.i.+rt was concealed by a deep linen collar; the tight-fitting jacket was closely b.u.t.toned, a loose cloak over it; and the pantaloons descended almost into the square-toed shoes, for stockings they wore none. In the belt were stuck the eating knife and the spoon; and, moreover, a large knife as a weapon of defence, for such was often needed in these days.

Thus was equipped, on grand occasions, old Anthon, one of the oldest bachelors of the "small houses;" only he did not wear the high-crowned hat, but a fur cap, and under that a knitted cap, a veritable nightcap, to which he had so accustomed himself that it was never off his head: he actually possessed two of the same description. He would have made an excellent subject for a painter; he was so skinny, so wrinkled about the mouth and the eyes; had long fingers, with such large joints; and his grey eyebrows were so thick. A bunch of grey hair from one of these hung over his left eye: it certainly was not pretty, but it made him very remarkable. It was known that he came from Bremen, at least that his master lived there; but he himself was from Thuringen, from the town of Eisenach, close to Wartburg. Old Anthon spoke little of his native place, but he thought of it the more.

The old lodgers in the street did not a.s.sociate much with each other.

Each remained in his own booth, which, was locked early in the evening, and then looked very dismal; for only a glimmering light could be seen through the horn panes of the window in the roof, beneath which sat, most frequently on his bed, the old man with his German psalm-book, and chanted the evening hymn, or else he went out and strolled about at night by way of amus.e.m.e.nt; but amus.e.m.e.nt it could hardly be called. To be a stranger in a foreign country is a very sad situation. No notice is taken of him unless he stands in anyone's way.

Often when it was a pitch-dark night, with pouring rain, all around looked woefully gloomy and desolate. No lanterns were to be seen, except the little one that hung at one end of the street, before the image of the Virgin Mary that adorned the wall there. The water was heard das.h.i.+ng and splas.h.i.+ng against the wooden work near, out by Slotsholm, on which the other end of the street opened. Such evenings are always long and lonely if there be nothing to interest one. It is not necessary every day to pack and unpack, to make up parcels, and to polish scales; but one must have something to do, and accordingly old Anthon industriously mended his clothes and cleaned his shoes. When at length he retired to rest, it was his custom to keep on his nightcap.

At first he would draw it well down, but he would soon push it up again to look if the light were totally extinguished; nor would he be satisfied without getting up and feeling it. He would then lie down again, and turn on the other side, and again draw down the nightcap; but soon the idea would cross his mind that possibly the coals might not have become cold in the little fire-pot beneath--the fire might not be totally out--that a spark might be kindled, fly forth, and do mischief; and he would get out of his bed and creep down the ladder, for it could not be called the stairs; and when, on reaching the fire-pot, he perceived that not a spark was visible, and he might retire to rest in peace, he would stop half way up, being seized with the fear that the iron bolt might not be properly drawn across the door, or the shutters properly secured; and down he would go again, wearying his poor thin legs. By the time he crept back to his humble couch he would be half frozen, and his teeth would be chattering in his head with the cold. Then he would draw the covering higher up around him, and his nightcap lower down over his eyes, and his thoughts would wander from the business and burdens of the day; but ah! not to soothing scenes. His reveries were never fraught with pleasure, for then came old reminiscences, and hung their curtains up; and sometimes they were full of pins, that p.r.i.c.ked so severely as to bring tears into his eyes. Such wounds old Anthon often received, and his warm tears fell on the coverlet or the floor, sounding as if one of sorrow's deepest strings had burst; they did not dry up, but kindled into a flame, which cast its light for him on the panorama of a life--a picture which never vanished from his mind. Then he would dry his eyes with his nightcap, and chase away the tears, and endeavour to chase away the picture with them; but it would not go, for it was imbedded in his heart. The panorama did not follow the exact order of events; also the saddest parts were generally most prominent. And what were these?

"Beautiful are the beech groves in Denmark," it is said; but still more beautiful did the beech trees in the meadows near Wartburg seem to Anthon. Mightier and more majestic seemed to him the old oak up at the proud baronial castle, where the swinging lantern hung over the dark ma.s.ses of rock; sweeter was the perfume of the apple blossoms there than in the Danish land; he seemed to feel the charming scent even now. A tear trickled down his cheeks, and he saw two little children, a boy and a girl, playing together. The boy had rosy cheeks, yellow waving hair, and honest blue eyes--he was the rich merchant's son, little Anthon himself. The little girl had dark hair and eyes, and she looked bold and clever--she was the burgomaster's daughter Molly. The childish couple were playing with an apple. At length they divided it in two, and each took a half. They also divided the seeds between them, and ate them all to one; and the little girl proposed to plant that in the ground.

"You will see what will come of this--something will come which you can hardly fancy. An apple tree will come up, but not all at once."

And they planted the seed in a flower-pot: both of them were very eager about it. The boy dug a hole in the mould with his finger; the little girl placed the seed in it, and both of them filled up the hole with earth.

"You must not pull it up to-morrow to see if it has taken root," she said; "that should not be done. I did that with my flower: twice I took it up to see if it was growing. I had very little sense then, and the flower died."

The flower-pot was left in Anthon's care, and every morning, the whole winter through, he looked at it; but nothing was to be seen except the black earth. Then came spring; the sun shone so warmly, and two tiny green leaves at last made their appearance in the flower-pot.

"These are Molly and me," said Anthon. "They are charming--they are lovely."

Soon there came a third leaf. Who did that represent? And leaf after leaf came up; while day by day, and week by week, the plant became larger and stronger, until it grew into quite a tree. And another tear fell again from its fountain--from old Anthon's heart.

There stretched out, near Eisenach, a range of stony hills, one of which, round in shape, was very conspicuous: neither tree, nor bush, nor gra.s.s grew on it. It was named Mount Venus. Therein dwelt Venus, a G.o.ddess from the heathen ages. She was here called Fru Holle, and she knew and could see every child in Eisenach. She had decoyed into her power the n.o.ble knight Tannhauser, the minnesinger, from the musical circle of Wartburg.

Little Molly and Anthon often went to this hill, and she one day said to him,--

"Would you dare to knock on the side of the hill and cry, 'Fru Holle!

Fru Holle! open the gate; here is Tannhauser?' But Anthon dared not do it. Molly dared, however; yet only these words--"Fru Holle! Fru Holle!"--did she say very loudly and distinctly--the rest seemed to die away on the wind; and she certainly did p.r.o.nounce the rest of the sentence so indistinctly, that Anthon was sure she had not really added the other words. Yet she looked very confident--as bold as when, in the summer evening, she and several other little girls came to play in the garden with him, and when they all wanted to kiss him, just because he would not be kissed, and defended himself from them, she alone ventured to achieve the feat.

"_I_ dare to kiss him!" she used to say, with a proud toss of her little head. Then she would take him round his neck to prove her power, and Anthon would put up with it, and think it all right from her. How pretty and how clever she was! Fru Holle within the hill was also very charming, but her charms, it had been said, sprung from the seducing beauty bestowed on her by the evil one; but still greater beauty was to be found in the holy Elizabeth, the patron saint of the country, the pious Thuringian princess, whose good works, known through traditions and legends, were celebrated in so many places. A picture of her hung in the chapel with a silver lamp before it, but Molly did not resemble her.

The apple tree the two children had planted grew year after year; it became so large that it had to be transferred to the garden, out in the open air, where the dew fell and the sun shone warmly; it became strong enough to withstand the severity of winter, and after winter's hard trials it seemed as if rejoicing in the return of spring: it then put forth blossoms. In August it had two apples, one for Molly and one for Anthon: it would not have been well if it had had less.

The tree had grown rapidly, and Molly had grown as fast as the tree; she was as fresh as an apple blossom, but she was no longer to see that flower. Everything changes in this world. Molly's father left his old home, and Molly went with him--far, far away. In our time it might be only a few hours' journey by railway, but in those days it took more than a day and a night to arrive so far east from Eisenach. It was to the other extremity of Thuringia they had to go, to a town which is now called Weimar.

And Molly wept, and Anthon wept. All these were now concentrated in one single tear, and it had the happy rosy tinge of joy. Molly had a.s.sured him that she cared much more for him than for all the grandeur of Weimar.

One year pa.s.sed on, two pa.s.sed, and a third followed, and in all that time there came only two letters. One was brought by the carrier, the other by a traveller, who had taken a circuitous course, besides visiting several cities and other places.

How often had not Anthon and Molly heard together the story of Tristand and Isolde, and how often did not Anthon think of himself and Molly as them! Although the name "Tristand" signified that he was born to sorrow, and that did not apply to Anthon, he never thought as Tristand did, "She has forgotten me!" But Isolde had not forgotten her heart's dear friend; and when they were both dead and buried, one on each side of the church, two linden trees grew out of their graves, and, stretching over the roof of the church, met there in full bloom.

This was very delightful, thought Anthon, and yet so sad! But there could be no sadness where he and Molly were concerned. And then he whistled an air of the Minnesinger's "Walther von der Vogelweide,"--

"Under the lime tree by the hedge;"

and especially that favourite verse,--

"Beyond the wood, in the quiet dale, Tandaradai, Sang the melodious nightingale."

This song was always on his lips. He hummed it, and he whistled it on the clear moonlight night, when, pa.s.sing on horseback through the deep ravine, he rode in haste to Weimar to visit Molly. He wished to arrive unexpectedly, and he _did_ arrive unexpectedly.

He was well received. Wine sparkled in the goblets; there was gay society, distinguished society. He had a comfortable room and an excellent bed; and yet he found nothing as he had dreamt and thought to find it. He did not understand himself; he did not understand those about him; but we can understand all. One can be in a house, can mingle with a family, and yet be a total stranger. One may converse, but it is like conversing in a stage coach; may know each other as people know each other in a stage coach; be a restraint upon each other; wish that one were away, or that one's good neighbour were away; and it was thus that Anthon felt.