Jeppe on the Hill Part 3

Will you stand, you dogs? No, the devil take me if they will stand.

Thanks, Jakob Skomager. Let's have another! Listen, comrade! Where's the road to the town? Stand, I tell you! Look, the beast is drunk. You drank like a toper, Jakob. Do you call that a drink of whiskey--you measure like a Turk.

(While he is speaking he falls and remains lying.)

Scene 8.

Baron Nilus. His Secretary. A Valet. Two Lackeys.

=Baron=--The prospects for a good crop are very promising. Just see how nice the barley stands.

=Secretary=--Yes, that is quite true, your Grace; but that means that a bushel of barley will not bring a higher price than five marks.

=Baron=--That makes no difference. The peasants always do better when the times are good.

=Secretary=--I don't know how it is, my lord, the peasants always complain and ask for seed grain whether the season is good or bad. When they have anything they drink all the more. Here is an innkeeper in the neighborhood by the name of Jakob Skomager who does much to make the peasants poor. They say that he puts salt in the beer so that the more they drink, the more they shall thirst.

=Baron=--We must get that fellow out of the way. But what is that lying there in the road? Why, that's a dead man. One hears of nothing but accidents. Run over there, one of you, and see what it is.

=A lackey=--That is Jeppe on the Hill, who has the shrewish wife. Wake up, Jeppe. No, he wouldn't wake up if we pounded him and pulled him around by the hair.

=Baron=--Just let him be, I would like to play a little trick on him. You used to be quite inventive fellows, can you devise something now to amuse me?

=Secretary=--It seems to me it would be clever if we tied a paper collar around his neck or clipped his hair.

=The valet=--It seems to me that it would be even more clever if we daubed his face with ink and stationed someone to see how his wife would receive him when he came home in such a predicament.

=Baron=--That's all very well, but what will you wager that Erik can devise something more clever than that? Give us your opinion, Erik!

=Erik, lackey=--It is my opinion that his clothes should all be taken off and that he should be laid in my lord's best bed, and in the morning when he awakes we should all act as though he were the lord of the manor, so that he should not know who or where he was. And when we have made him believe that he is the baron, we should make him as drunk again as he now is and lay him, in his old clothes, on the same dung heap. If this plan is carefully executed, it would have a strange effect and he would make himself believe either that he had dreamed about such glories or that he had really been in Paradise.

=Baron=--Erik, you are a great man and therefore you have only great ideas. But now if he should wake up in the meantime?

=Erik=--I am very sure that he will not, my lord. Since the same Jeppe on the Hill is one of the soundest sleepers in the whole district. Why, they tried the other year to fasten a rocket to the back of his neck, but even when the rocket was fired off he didn't wake up from his sleep.

=Baron=--Let us then proceed. Take him away immediately, clothe him in a fine s.h.i.+rt and lay him in my best bed.

(Curtain.)

ACT II.

Scene 1.

Jeppe.

(Jeppe is represented lying in the Baron's bed, a gold embroidered dressing gown on a chair; he awakes, rubs his eyes, looks around and becomes frightened; rubs his eyes again, feels of his head and finds a gold embroidered nightcap; he moistens his eyelids, rubs them again, turns the nightcap around and examines it, looks at his fine s.h.i.+rt, at the robe, at everything, with strange grimaces. Meanwhile soft music is heard, at which Jeppe folds his hands and weeps; when the music stops he begins to speak.)

But what is this? What sort of splendor is this and how have I come here? Do I dream, or am I awake? No, I am quite awake. Where is my wife, where are my children, where is my house, and where is Jeppe? Everything is changed, myself, too. Ah, what can it be? What can it be? (He calls softly and fearfully.) Nille! Nille! Nille! I believe that I have got into Heaven, Nille, and that without deserving it. But, can it be me? It seems to me it is; then again, it seems to me it isn't. When I feel of my back, which is still sore from the blows I got, when I hear myself speak, when I feel of my hollow tooth, it seems to me that it's me.

When, on the other hand, I look at my cap, my s.h.i.+rt, and on all the fine things before me, and hear the beautiful music, I'll be hanged if I can get it into my head that it's me. No, it isn't me. I am a scoundrel a thousand times if it's me! But I wonder if I am dreaming. It doesn't seem so. I'll try to pinch my arm; if it doesn't hurt, then I dream; if it hurts, then I don't dream.--Yes, I felt it, I am awake; to be sure I am awake; no one can deny that. Because if I were not awake I could not--but how can I be awake when I stop to think? It cannot fail then that I am Jeppe on the Hill; I certainly know that I am a poor peasant, a serf, a rascal, a scoundrel, a hungry maggot, a poor worm! But how can I at the same time be king and lord of the castle? No, it must be only a dream. Therefore, it is best to have patience till I wake up. (The music is again heard and Jeppe begins to cry.) Ah! But can a person hear such things in his sleep? That is impossible! But if it is a dream, then I wish that I may never wake up again, and if I am mad, then may I never become sane; for I should sue the doctor who cured me and curse him who woke me up. But I neither dream nor am mad, for I can remember my whole life. I remember that my sainted father was Niels on the Hill, my grandfather, Jeppe on the Hill, my wife's name is Nille, her switch, Master Erik, my sons, Hans, Christopher and Niels. But see! Now I know: it is the other life, it is paradise, it is heaven! I must have drunk too much yesterday at Jakob Skomager's, died and immediately come to heaven. Death cannot be so awful as they would make one believe, since I didn't even feel it. Now, perhaps, Herr Jesper is standing this minute in the pulpit making a funeral sermon over my body and saying: Such was the end of Jeppe on the Hill; he lived like a soldier and died like a soldier. Of course, one might question whether I died on land or sea, since I went out of the world pretty well soaked. Ah, Jeppe, this is something different from going four miles to town to buy soap, from lying on straw and from getting whipped by your wife. Ah! To what bliss have not your suffering and dark days been transformed? Ah! I must weep from joy when I think that this has come to me through no merit of my own. But one thing comes to my mind: I am so thirsty that my lips are nearly parched. If I should wish myself alive again, it would be only that I might get a mug of beer to quench my thirst; for what good does all this glory do me when I must die again of thirst? I remember the preacher has often said that one neither hungers nor thirsts in heaven and further that one finds there all his deceased friends. But I am nearly dying from thirst. I am also quite alone; I don't see a soul. I ought to find my grandfather at least, who was such a decent person that he never left a s.h.i.+lling of debt to his landlord. Of course, I know that many people have lived just as decent lives as I have, why, then, should I alone come to heaven? Therefore, it can't be heaven. But what can it be? I am not asleep, I am not awake; I am not dead, I am not alive; I am not crazy, I am not sane; I am Jeppe on the Hill, I am not Jeppe on the Hill; I am poor, I am rich; I am a poor peasant, I am a king. Ah!--Ah!--Ah! Help! Help! Help!

(At the great commotion several people come in who in the meantime have stood by, watching to see how he would act.)

Scene 2.

Valet. A lackey. Jeppe.

=Valet=--I wish your lords.h.i.+p a hearty good morning! Here's a gown if your lords.h.i.+p wishes to arise. Erik, fetch a towel and a wash basin.

=Jeppe=--Ah, my wors.h.i.+pful valet! I should be glad to arise, but I beg of you that you do not hurt me.

=Valet=--The Lord deliver me from doing your lords.h.i.+p any harm!

=Jeppe=--Ah, before you kill me, will you not do me the favor to tell me who I am?

=Valet=--Does not my lord know who he is?

=Jeppe=--Yesterday I was Jeppe on the Hill, but to-day--ah, I hardly know what to say!

=Valet=--We are glad to see that your lords.h.i.+p is in such good humor to-day, that you are pleased to jest; but heaven defend us, why does your lords.h.i.+p weep?

=Jeppe=--I am not your lords.h.i.+p. I can make my oath that I am not; for so far as I can remember I am Jeppe Nielsen on the Hill, one of the Baron's peasants. If you will send for my wife you shall find it out; but don't let her take Master Erik along.

=Erik, lackey=--This is strange. What can it be? Your lords.h.i.+p cannot be awake, since you never used to jest in this way.

=Jeppe=--Whether I am awake or not I cannot say; but one thing I can say and that is that I am one of the Baron's peasants who is called Jeppe on the Hill, and I have never been either Baron or Count in my life.

=Valet=--Erik, what can that be? I am afraid that his lords.h.i.+p is suffering from some strange disease.

=Erik=--I imagine that he is walking in his sleep, since it frequently happens that people arise, dress, eat and drink in their sleep.

=Valet=--No, Erik, I perceive that his lords.h.i.+p is delirious. Go and fetch a doctor immediately. Ah, your lords.h.i.+p, put all such thoughts away; your lords.h.i.+p is frightening the whole house. Does your lords.h.i.+p not know me?

=Jeppe=--I don't know myself; how can I then know you?

=Valet=--Ah, is it possible that I should hear such words from the lips of my gracious lord, and see him in such a pitiable condition? Ah, our unfortunate house, which must be plagued by such sorcery! Can my lord not remember what he did yesterday when he was out on the hunt?

=Jeppe=--I have never been either hunter or poacher in my life; you know that is work which may send you to prison! Never shall any soul be able to prove that I have ever hunted a hare on the lord's estate!

=Valet=--Ah, gracious lord, I was with you on the hunt myself yesterday.

=Jeppe=--Yesterday I sat at Jakob Skomager's and drank up twelve pence worth of whiskey. How could I then have been on a hunt?

=Valet=--Ah, I implore my gracious lord on my knees that he do not indulge in such talk. Erik, were the doctors sent for?