O. T., A Danish Romance Part 19

--Students' Song, by CHRISTIAN WINTHER.]

"No, the _neighbors_!" replied Otto quickly.

At this moment Miss Julle entered. She had been wandering from shop to shop, she said, until she could bear it no longer! She had had the stuffs down from all the shelves, and at length had succeeded so far as to become possessed of eight small pieces--beautiful patterns, she maintained. And now she knew very well where the different stuffs were to be had, how wide they were, and how much the yard. "And whom did I meet?" said she; "only think! down the middle of East Street came the actor--you know well! Our little pa.s.sion! He is really charming off the stage."

"Did you meet him?" said Laide. "That girl is always lucky!"

"Mr. Thostrup," said the mother, presenting him, for the young lady seemed to forget him entirely, so much was she occupied with this encounter and her patterns.

Julle bowed, and said she had seen him before: he had heard Mynster, and had stood near the chair where she sat; he was dressed in an olive-green coat.

"Then you are acquainted with each other!" said the lady. "She is the most pious of all the children. When the others rave about Spindler and Johanne Schoppenhauer, she raves about the clergyman who confirmed her.

You know my son? He became a student a year before you. He sees you in the club sometimes."

"There you will have seen him more amiable than you will find him at home," said Adelaide. "Heaven knows he is not gallant toward his sisters!"

"Sweet Laide, how can you say so!" cried the mother. "You are always so unjust toward Hans Peter! When you become better acquainted with him, Mr. Thostrup, you will like him; he is a really serious young man, of uncorrupted manners. Do you remember, Laide, how he hissed that evening in the theatre when they gave that immoral piece? And how angry he is with that 'Red Riding Hood?' O, the good youth! Besides, in our family, you will soon meet with an old acquaintance--in a fortnight a lady out of Jutland will come here. She remains the winter here. Do you not guess who it is? A little lady from Lemvig!"

"Maren!" exclaimed Otto.

"Yes, truly!" said the lady. "She is said to have such a beautiful voice!"

"Yes, in Lemvig," remarked Adelaide. "And what a horrible name she has!

We must christen her again, when she comes. She must be called Mara, or Ma.s.sa."

"We could call her Ma.s.sa Carara!" said Grethe.

"No; she shall be called Maja, as in the 'Every-day Tales,'" said Christiane.

"I am of Jane's opinion!" said the mother. "We will christen her again, and call her Maja."

CHAPTER XXIII

Men are not always what they seem.--LESSING.

Our tale is no creation of fancy; it is the reality in which we live; bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Our own time and the men of our own age we shall see. But not alone will we occupy ourselves with every-day life, with the moss on the surface; the whole tree, from the roots to the fragrant leaves, will we observe. The heavy earth shall press the roots, the moss and bark of every-day life adhere to the stern, the strong boughs with flowers and leaves spread themselves out, whilst the sun of poetry shall shine among them, and show the colors, odor, and singing-birds. But the tree of reality cannot shoot up so soon as that of fancy, like the enchantment in Tieck's "Elves." We must seek our type in nature. Often may there be an appearance of cessation; but that is not the case. It is even so with our story; whilst our characters, by mutual discourse, make themselves worthy of contemplation, there arises, as with the individual branches of the tree, an unseen connection. The branch which shoots high up in the air, as though it would separate itself from the mother-stem, only presses forward to form the crown, to lend uniformity to the whole tree. The lines which diverge from the general centre are precisely those which produce the harmony.

We shall, therefore, soon see, though these scenes out of every-day life are no digression from the princ.i.p.al events, nothing episodical which one may pa.s.s over. In order still sooner to arrive at a clear perception of this a.s.sertion, we will yet tarry a few moments in the house of Mr.

Berger, the merchant; but in the mean time we have advanced three weeks.

Wilhelm and Otto had happily pa.s.sed their examen philosophic.u.m. The latter had paid several visits, and was already regarded as an old friend of the family. The lover already addressed him with his droll "Good day, Mr. Petersen;" and Grethe was witty about his melancholy glance, which he was not always able to conquer. She called it "making faces," and besought him to appear so on the day of her funeral.

The object of the five sisters' first Platonic love had been their brother. They had overwhelmed him with caresses and tenderness, had admired and worshipped him. "The dear little man!" they called him; they had no other. But Hans Peter was so impolite and teasing toward the dear sisters, that they were found to resign him so soon as one of them had a lover. Upon this lover they all clung. Each one seemed to have a piece of him. He was Grethe's bridegroom, would be their brother-in-law. They might address him with the confidential thou, and even give him a little kiss.

Otto's appearance in the family caused these rays to change their direction. Otto was handsome, and possessed of fortune; either of which often suffices to bow a female heart. Beauty bribes the thoughtless; riches, the prudent.

Maren, or as she was here called, Maja, had arrived. The young ladies had already pulled off some of her bows, arranged her hair differently, and made one of her silk handkerchiefs into an ap.r.o.n; but, spite of all this finesse, she still remained the lady from Lemvig. They could remove no bows from her p.r.o.nunciation. She had been the first at home; here she could not take that rank. This evening she was to see in the theatre, for the first time, the ballet of the "Somnambule."

"It is French!" said Hans Peter; "and frivolous, like everything that we have from them."

"Yes, the scene in the second act, where she steps out of the window,"

said the merchant; "that is very instructive for youth!"

"But the last act is sweet!" cried the lady. "The second act is certainly, as Hans Peter very justly observed, somewhat French. Good heavens! he gets quite red, the sweet lad!" She extended her hand to him, and nodded, smiling, whereupon Hans Peter spoke very prettily about the immorality on the stage. The father also made some striking observation.

"Yes," said the lady, "were all husbands like thee, and all young men like Hans Peter, they would speak in another tone on the stage, and dress in another manner. In dancing it is abominable; the dresses are so short and indecent, just as though they had nothing on! Yet, after all, we must say that the 'Somnambule' is beautiful. And, really, it is quite innocent!"

They now entered still deeper into the moral: the conversation lasted till coffee came.

Maren's heart beat even quicker, partly in expectation of the play, through hearing of the corruptions of this Copenhagen Sodom. She heard Otto defend this French piece; heard him speak of affectation. Was he then corrupted? How gladly would she have heard him discourse upon propriety, as Hans Peter had done. "Poor Otto!" thought she; "this is having no relations, but being forced to struggle on in the world alone."

The merchant now rose. He could not go to the theatre. First, he had business to attend to; and then he must go to his club, where he had yesterday changed his hat.

"Nay, then, it has happened to thee as to Hans Peter!" said the lady.

"Yesterday, in the lecture-room, he also got a strange hat. But, there, thou hast his hat!" she suddenly exclaimed, as her eye fell upon the hat which her husband held in his hand. "That is Hans Peter's hat! Now, we shall certainly find that he has thine! You have exchanged them here at home. You do not know each other's hats, and therefore you fancy this occurred from home."

One of the sisters now brought the hat which Hans Peter had got in mistake. Yes, it was certainly the father's. Thus an exchange in the house, a little intermezzo, which naturally, from its insignificance, was momentarily forgotten by all except the parties concerned, for to them it was an important moment in their lives; and to us also, as we shall see, an event of importance, which has occasioned us to linger thus long in this circle. In an adjoining room will we, unseen spirits, watch the father and son. They are alone; the family is already in the theatre. We may, indeed, watch them--they are true moralists. It is only a moral drawn from a hat.

But the father's eyes rolled, his cheeks glowed, his words were sword-strokes, and must make an impression on any disposition as gentle as his son's; but the son stood quiet, with a firm look and with a smile on his lips, such as the moral bestows. "You were in the adjoining room!" said he. "Where it is proper for you to be there may I also come."

"Boy!" cried the father, and named the place, but we know it not; neither know we its inhabitants. Victor Hugo includes them in his "Children's Prayer," in his beautiful poem, "La Priere pour Tous." The child prays for all, even "for those who sell the sweet name of love."

[Note: "Prie!... Pour les femmes echevelees Qui vendent le doux nom d'amour!"]

"Let us be silent with each other!" said the son. "I am acquainted with many histories. I know another of the pretty Eva!"--

"Eva!" repeated the father.

We will hear no more! It is not proper to listen. We see the father and son extend their hands. It appeared a scene of reconciliation. They parted: the father goes to his business, and Hans Peter to the theatre, to anger himself over the immorality in the second act of the "Somnambule."

CHAPTER XXIV

"L'amour est pour les coeurs, Ce que l'aurore est pour les fleurs, Et le printemps pour la nature."--VIGUE.

"Love is a childish disease and like the small-pox. Some die, some become deformed, others are more or less scarred, while upon others the disease does not leave any visible trace."--The Alchemist, by C. HAUCH.

"Be candid, Otto!" said Wilhelm, as he one day visited his friend. "You cannot make up your mind to say thou to me; therefore let it be. We are, after all, good friends. It is only a form; although you must grant that in this respect you are really a great fool."

Otto now explained what an extraordinary aversion he had felt, what a painful feeling had seized upon him, and made it impossible to him.

"There you were playing the martyr!" said Wilhelm, laughing. "Could you not immediately tell me how you were const.i.tuted? So are most men. When they have no trouble, they generally hatch one themselves; they will rather stand in the cold shadow than in the warm sunshine, and yet the choice stands open to us. Dear friend, reflect; now we are both of us on the stream: we shall soon be put into the great business-bottles, where we shall, like little devils, stretch and strain ourselves without ever getting out, until life withdraws from us!" He laid his arm confidentially upon Otto's shoulder. "Often have I wished to speak with you upon one point! Yes, I do not desire that you should confess every word, every thought to me. I already know that I shall be able to prove to you that the thing lies in a region where it cannot have the power which you ascribe to it. In the cold zones a venomous bite does not operate as dangerously as in warmer ones; a sorrow in childhood cannot overpower us as it does in riper age. Whatever misfortune may have happened to you when a child, if in your wildness--you yourself say that you were wild--whatsoever you may have then done, it cannot, it ought not to influence your whole life: your understanding could tell you this better than I. At our age we find ourselves in the land of joy, or we never enter it!"

"You are a happy man!" exclaimed Otto, and gazed sorrowfully before him. "Your childhood afforded you only joy and hope! Only think of the solitude in which mine was pa.s.sed. Among the sand-hills of the west coast my days glided away: my grandfather was gloomy and pa.s.sionate; our old preacher lived only in a past time which I knew not, and Rosalie regarded the world through the spectacles of sorrow. Such an environment might well cast a shadow upon my life-joy. Even in dress, one is strangely remarkable when one comes from afar province to the capital; first this receives another cut, and one gradually becomes like those around one. The same thing happens in a spiritual relation, but one's being and ideas one does not change so quickly as one's clothes. I have only been a short time among strangers, and who knows?" added he, with a melancholy smile, "perhaps I shall come into equilibrium when some really great misfortune happens to me and very much overpowers me, and then I may show the same carelessness, the same phlegm as the mult.i.tude."

"A really great misfortune!" repeated Wilhelm. "You do, indeed, say something. That would be a very original means of cure, but you are an original being. Perhaps lay this means you might really be healed. 'Make no cable out of cobweb!' said a celebrated poet whose name does not occur to me at this moment. But the thought is good, you should have it embroidered upon your waistcoat, so that you might have it before your eyes when you droop your head. Do not look so grave; we are friends, are we not? Among all my young acquaintance you are the dearest to me, although there are moments when I know not how it stands with us. I could confide every secret to you, but I am not sure that you would be equally open with me. Do not be angry, my dear friend! There are secrets of so delicate a nature, that one may not confide them even to the dearest friend. So long as we preserve _our_ secret it is our prisoner; it is quite the contrary, however, so soon as we have let it escape us.

And yet, Otto, you are so dear to me, that I believe in you as in my own heart. This, even now, bears a secret which penetrates me with joy and love of life! I must speak cut. But you must enter into my joy, partake in it, or say nothing about it; you have then heard nothing--nothing!