O. T., A Danish Romance Part 37

"We would buy some earthenware," said Sophie. "Souvenir de Jutland. The one there has a splendid picture on it!"

"You shall have it!" said Otto. "But if I requested a fairing from you, I beseech of you, might I say"--

"That it possibly might obtain its worth from my hand," said Sophie, smiling. "I understand you very well--a sprig of heather? I shall steal!" said she to the young wife, as she took a little sprig of heath and stuck it into his b.u.t.tonhole. "Greet the grandmother for me!"

Otto and Sophie went.

"That's a very laughing body!" said the woman half aloud, as she looked after them; her glance followed Otto, she folded her hands--she was thinking, perhaps, on the days of her childhood.

At St. Knud's church-yard Otto and Sophie overtook the others. They were going into the church. On the fair days this and all the tombs within it were open to the public.

From whichever side this church is contemplated from without, the magnificent old building has, especially from its lofty tower and spire, something imposing about it; the interior produces the same, nay, perhaps a greater effect. But as the princ.i.p.al entrance is through the armory, and the lesser one is from the side of the church, its full impression is not felt on entering it; nor is it until you arrive at the end of the great aisle that you are aware rightly of its grandeur. All there is great, beautiful, and light. The whole interior is white with gilding. Aloft on the high-vaulted roof there shine, and that from the old time, many golden stars. On both sides, high up, higher than the side-aisles of the church, are large Gothic windows, from which the light streams down. The side-aisles are adorned with old paintings, which represent whole families, women and children, all clad in canonicals, in long robes and large ruffs. In an ordinary way, the figures are all ranged according to age, the oldest first, and then down to the very least child, and stand with folded hands, and look piously with downcast eyes and faces all in one direction, until by length of time the colors have all faded away.

Just opposite to the entrance of the church may be seen, built into the wall, a stone, on which is a bas-relief, and before it a grave. This attracted Otto's attention.

"It is the grave of King John and of Queen Christina, of Prince Francesco and of Christian the Second," said Wilhelm; "they lie together in a small vault!" [Author's Note: On the removal of the church of the Grey Brothers, the remains of these royal parents and two of their children were collected in a coffin and placed here in St. Knud's Church. The memorial stone, of which we have spoken, was erected afterwards.]

"Christian the Second!" exclaimed Otto. "Denmark's wisest and dearest king!"

"Christian the Bad!" said the Kammerjunker, amazed at the tone of enthusiasm in which Otto had spoken.

"Christian the Bad!" repeated Otto; "yes, it is now the mode to speak of him thus, but we should not do so. We ought to remember how the Swedish and Danish n.o.bles behaved themselves, what cruelties they perpetrated, and that we have the history of Christian the Second from one of the offended party. Writers flatter the reigning powers. A prince must have committed crimes, or have lost his power, if his errors are to be rightly presented to future generations. People forget that which was good in Christian, and have painted the dark side of his character, to the formation of which the age lent its part."

The Kammerjunker could not forget the Swedish bloodbath, the execution of Torben Oxe, and all that can be said against the unfortunate king.

Otto drove him completely out of the field, in part from his enthusiasm for Christian the Second, but still more because it was the Kammerjunker with whom he was contending. Sophie took Otto's side, her eye sparkled applause, and the victory could not be other than his.

"What is it that the poet said of the fate of a king?" said Sophie.

"Woe's me for him Who to the world shows more of ill than good!

The good each man ascribes unto himself, Whilst on him only rest the crimes o' th' age."

"Had Christian been so fortunate as to have subdued the rebellious n.o.bles," continued Otto, "could he have carried out his bold plans, then they would have called him Christian the Great: it is not the active mind, but the failure in any design, which the world condemns."

Louise nevertheless took the side of the Kammerjunker, and therefore these two went together up the aisle toward the tomb of the Glorup family. Wilhelm and his mother were already gone out of the church.

"I envy you your eloquence!" said Sophie, and looked with an expression of love into Otto's face; she bent herself over the railing around the tomb, and looked thoughtfully upon the stone. Thoughts of love were animated in Otto's soul.

"Intellect and heart!" exclaimed he, "must admire that which is great: you possess both these!" He seized her hand.

A faint crimson pa.s.sed over Sophie's cheeks. "The others are gone out!"

she said; "come, let us go up to the chancel."

"Up to the altar!" said Otto; "that is a bold course for one's whole life!"

Sophie looked jestingly at him. "Do you see the monument there within the pillars?" asked she after a short pause; "the lady with the crossed arms and the colored countenance? In one night she danced twelve knights to death, the thirteenth, whom she had invited for her partner, cut her girdle in two in the dance and she fell dead to the earth!" [Author's Note: In Thiele's Danish Popular Tradition it is related that she was one Margrethe Skofgaard of Sanderumgaard, and that she died at a ball, where she had danced to death twelve knights. The people relate it with a variation as above; it is probable that it is mingled with a second tradition, for example, that of the blood-spots at Koldinghuus, which relates that an old king was so angry with his daughter that he resolved to kill her, and ordered that his knights should dance with her one after another until the breath was out of her. Nine had danced with her, and then came up the king himself as the tenth, and when he became weary he cut her girdle in two, on which the blood streamed from her mouth and she died.]

"She was a northern Turandot!" said Otto; "the stony heart itself was forced to break and bleed. There is really a jest in having the marble painted. She stands before future ages as if she lived--a stone image, white and red, only a mask of beauty. She is a warning to young ladies!"

"Yes, against dancing!" said Sophie, smiling at Otto's extraordinary gravity.

"And yet it must be a blessed thing," exclaimed he, "a very blessed thing, amid pealing music, arm-in-arm with one's beloved, to be able to dance life away, and to sink bleeding before her feet!"

"And yet only to see that she would dance with a new one!" said Sophie.

"No, no!" exclaimed Otto, "that you could not do! that you will not do!

O Sophie, if you knew!"--He approached her still nearer, bent his head toward her, and his eye had twofold fire and expression in it.

"You must come with us and see the cats!" said the Kammerjunker, and sprang in between them.

"Yes, it is charming!" said Sophie. "You will have an opportunity, Mr.

Thostrup, of moralizing over the perishableness of female beauty!"

"In the evening, when we drive home together," thought Otto to himself consolingly, "in the mild summer-evening no Kammerjunker will disturb me. It must, it shall be decided! Misfortune might subject the wildness of childhood, but it gave me confidence, it never destroyed my independence; Love has made me timid,--has made me weak. May I thereby win a bride?"

Gravely and with a dark glance he followed after Sophie and her guide.

CHAPTER XL

"In vain his beet endeavors were; Dull was the evening, and duller grew."--LUDOLF SCHLEF.

"Seest thou how its little life The bird hides in the wood?

Wilt thou be my little wife-- Then do it soon. Good!

--A bridegroom am I."--Arion.

Close beside St. Knud's Church, where once the convent stood, is now the dwelling of a private man. [Author's Note: See Oehlenschlager's Jorney to Funen.] The excellent hostess here, who once charmed the public on the Danish stage as Ida Munster, awaited the family to dinner.

After dinner they wandered up and down the garden, which extended to the Odense River.

In the dusk of evening Otto went to visit the German Heinrich; he had mentioned it to Louise, and she promised to divert attention from him whilst he was away.

The company took coffee in the garden-house; Otto walked in deep thought in the avenue by the side of the river. The beautiful scene before him riveted his eye. Close beside lay a water-mill, over the two great wheels of which poured the river white as milk. Behind this was thrown a bridge, over which people walked and drove. The journeyman-miller stood upon the balcony, and whistled an air. It was such a picture as Christian Winther and Uhland give in their picturesque poems. On the other side of the mill arose tall poplars half-buried in the green meadow, in which stood the nunnery; a nun had once drowned herself where now the red daisies grow.

A strong sunlight lit up the whole scene. All was repose and summer warmth. Suddenly Otto's ear caught the deep and powerful tones of an organ; he turned himself round. The tones, which went to his heart, came from St. Knud's Church, which lay close beside the garden. The sunshine of the landscape, and the strength of the music, gave, as it were, to him light and strength for the darkness toward which he was so soon to go.

The sun set; and Otto went alone across the market-place toward the old corner house, where German Heinrich practiced his arts. Upon this place stood St. Albani's Church, where St. Knud, betrayed by his servant Blake, [Author's Note: Whence has arisen the popular expression of "being a false Blake."] was killed by the tumultuous rebels. The common people believe that from one of the deep cellars under this house proceeds a subterranean pa.s.sage to the so-called "Nun's Hill." At midnight the neighboring inhabitants still hear a roaring under the marketplace, as if of the sudden falling of a cascade. The better informed explain it as being a concealed natural water-course, which has a connection with the neighboring river. In our time the old house is become a manufactory; the broken windows, the gaps of which are repaired either with slips of wood or with paper, the quant.i.ty of human bones which are found in the garden, and which remain from the time when this was a church-yard, give to the whole place a peculiar interest to the common people of Odense.

Entering the house at the front, it is on the same level as the market-place; the back of the house, on the contrary, descends precipitously into the garden, where there are thick old walls and foundations. The situation is thus quite romantic; just beside it is the old nunnery, with its dentated gables, and not far off the ruins, in whose depths the common people believe that there resides an evil being, "the river-man," who annually demands his human sacrifice, which he announces the night before. Behind this lie meadows, villas, and green woods.

On the other side of the court, in a back gate-way, German Heinrich had set up his theatre. The entrance cost eight skillings; people of condition paid according to their own will.

Otto entered during the representation. A cloth const.i.tuted the whole scenic arrangement. In the middle of the floor sat a horrible goblin, with a coal-black Moorish countenance and crispy hair upon its head. An old bed-cover concealed the figure, yet one saw that it was that of a woman.

The audience consisted of peasants and street boys. Otto kept himself in the background, and remained un.o.bserved by Heinrich.

The representation was soon at an end, and the crowd dispersed. It was then that Otto first came forward.