Friday, 28 February 2014
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Saturday, 22 February 2014
The Story of the Wind
THE STORY OF THE WIND
"NEAR the shores of the great Belt, which is one of the straits that connect the Cattegat with the Baltic,
stands an old mansion with thick red walls. I know every
stone of it," says the Wind. "I saw it when it was part of
the castle of Marck Stig on the promontory. But the castle was
obliged to be pulled down, and the stone was used again for the
walls of a new mansion on another spot- the baronial residence
of Borreby, which still stands near the coast. I knew
them well,those noble lords and ladies, the successive
generations that dwelt there; and now I'm going to tell you of
Waldemar Daa and his daughters. How proud was his bearing, for he
was of royal blood, and could boast of more noble deeds than
merely hunting the stag and emptying the wine-cup. His rule was
despotic: 'It shall be,' he was accustomed to say. His wife, in
garments embroidered with gold, stepped proudly over the
polished marble floors. The tapestries were gorgeous, and
the furniture of costly and artistic taste. She had brought gold
and plate with her into the house. The cellars were full of
wine. Black,fiery horses, neighed in the stables. There was a
look of wealth about the house of Borreby at that time.
They had three children, daughters, fair and delicate maidens-
Ida, Joanna, and Anna Dorothea; I have never forgotten their
names. They were a rich, noble family, born in affluence and
nurtured in luxury.
"Whir-r-r, whir-r-r!" roared the Wind, and went on, "I
did not see in this house, as in other great houses,
the high-born lady sitting among her women, turning the
spinning-wheel. She could sweep the sounding chords of the guitar, and
sing to the music, not always Danish melodies, but the songs of
a strange land. It was 'Live and let live,' here. Stranger
guests came from far and near, music sounded, goblets clashed,
and I," said the Wind, "was not able to drown the
noise. Ostentation,pride, splendor, and display ruled, but not the
fear of the Lord.
"It
was on the evening of the first day of May," the Wind continued, "I came from the west, and had seen
the ships overpowered with the waves, when all on board
persisted or were cast shipwrecked on the coast of Jutland. I
had hurried across the heath and over Jutland's wood-girt
eastern coast,and over the island of Funen, and then I drove
across the great belt, sighing and moaning. At length I lay
down to rest on the shores of Zeeland, near to the great house
of Borreby, where the splendid forest of oaks still flourished.
The young men of the neighborhood were collecting branches
and brushwood under the oak-trees. The largest and dryest they
could find they carried into the village, and piled them up in
a heap and set them on fire. Then the men and maidens danced,
and sung in a circle round the blazing pile. I lay quite
quiet," said the Wind, "but I silently touched a branch which
had been brought by one of the handsomest of the young men, and the
wood blazed up brightly, blazed brighter than all the rest.
Then he as chosen as the chief, and received the name of the
Shepherd;and might choose his lamb from among the maidens.
There was greater mirth and rejoicing than I had ever heard
in the halls of the rich baronial house. Then the noble lady
drove by towards the baron's mansion with her three daughters,
in a gilded carriage drawn by six horses. The daughters
were young and beautiful- three charming blossoms- a rose, a
lily, and a white hyacinth. The mother was a proud tulip, and
never acknowledged the salutations of any of the men or
maidens who paused in their sport to do her honor. The gracious
lady seemed like a flower that was rather stiff in the
stalk. Rose,lily, and hyacinth- yes, I saw them all three. Whose little lambs will they one day become? thought I; their
shepherd will be a gallant knight, perhaps a prince. The carriage
rolled on,and the peasants resumed their dancing. They drove
about the summer through all the villages near. But one
night, when I rose again, the high-born lady lay down to rise
again no more; that thing came to her which comes to us all, in
which there is nothing new. Waldemar Daa remained for a time
silent and thoughtful. 'The loftiest tree may be bowed without
being broken,' said a voice within him. His daughters
wept; all he people in the mansion wiped their eyes, but Lady
Daa had driven away, and I drove away too," said the
Wind. "Whir-r-r,whir-r-r-!
"I
returned again; I often returned and passed over the island of Funen and the shores of the Belt. Then I
rested by Borreby, near the glorious wood, where the heron
made his nest, the haunt of the wood-pigeons, the
blue-birds, and the black stork. It was yet spring, some were sitting
on their eggs, others had already hatched their young
broods; but how they fluttered about and cried out when the axe
sounded through the forest, blow upon blow! The trees of
the forest were doomed. Waldemar Daa wanted to build a noble
ship, a man-of-war, a three-decker, which the king would be
sure to buy; and these, the trees of the wood, the landmark
of the seamen, the refuge of the birds, must be felled.
The hawk started up and flew away, for its nest was
destroyed; the heron and all the birds of the forest became
homeless, and flew about in fear and anger. I could well
understand how they felt. Crows and ravens croaked, as if in scorn,
while the trees were cracking and falling around them. Far in
the interior of the wood, where a noisy swarm of
laborers were working, stood Waldemar Daa and his three
daughters, and all were laughing at the wild cries of the birds,
excepting one, the youngest, Anna Dorothea, who felt grieved to
the heart;and when they made preparations to fell a tree that
was almost dead, and on whose naked branches the black stork
had built her nest, she saw the poor little things stretching
out their necks, and she begged for mercy for them, with the
tears in her eyes. So the tree with the black stork's nest
was left standing; the tree itself, however, was not worth
much to speak of. Then there was a great deal of hewing and
sawing, and at last the three-decker was built. The builder
was a man of low origin, but possessing great pride; his eyes
and forehead spoke of large intellect, and Waldemar Daa
was fond of listening to him, and so was Waldemar's daughter
Ida, the eldest, now about fifteen years old; and while he
was building the ship for the father, he was building for
himself a castle in the air, in which he and Ida were to live when
they were married. This might have happened, indeed, if there
had been a real castle, with stone walls, ramparts, and a moat.
But in spite of his clever head, the builder was still but
a poor,inferior bird; and how can a sparrow expect to be
admitted into the society of peacocks?
"I
passed on in my course," said the Wind, "and he passed away also. He was not allowed to remain, and little
Ida got over it, because she was obliged to do so. Proud,
black horses, worth looking at, were neighing in the
stable. And they were locked up; for the admiral, who had been
sent by the king to inspect the new ship, and make arrangements
for its purchase, was loud in admiration of these beautiful
horses. I heard it all," said the Wind, "for I
accompanied the gentlemen through the open door of the stable, and strewed
stalks of straw, like bars of gold, at their feet. Waldemar
Daa wanted gold, and the admiral wished for the proud black
horses;therefore he praised them so much. But the hint was
not taken,and consequently the ship was not bought. It
remained on the shore covered with boards,- a Noah's ark that never
got to the water- Whir-r-r-r- and that was a pity.
"In
the winter, when the fields were covered with snow,and the water filled with large blocks of ice which
I had blown up to the coast," continued the Wind,
"great flocks of crows and ravens, dark and black as they usually
are, came and alighted on the lonely, deserted ship. Then they
croaked in harsh accents of the forest that now existed no
more, of the many pretty birds' nests destroyed and the little
ones left without a home; and all for the sake of that great
bit of lumber, that proud ship, that never sailed forth. I
made the snowflakes whirl till the snow lay like a great
lake round the ship, and drifted over it. I let it hear my voice,
that it might know what the storm has to say. Certainly I
did my part towards teaching it seamanship.
"That winter passed away, and another winter and summer both passed, as they are still passing away, even
as I pass away. The snow drifts onwards, the apple-blossoms
are scattered, the leaves fall,- everything passes
away, and men are passing away too. But the great man's daughters
are still young, and little Ida is a rose as fair to look
upon as on the day when the shipbuilder first saw her. I often
tumbled her long, brown hair, while she stood in the garden by
the apple-tree, musing, and not heeding how I strewed
the blossoms on her hair, and dishevelled it; or sometimes,
while she stood gazing at the red sun and the golden sky through
the opening branches of the dark, thick foliage of the garden
trees. Her sister Joanna was bright and slender as a lily; she
had a tall and lofty carriage and figure, though, like her
mother, rather stiff in back. She was very fond of walking through
the great hall, where hung the portraits of her ancestors.
The women were represented in dresses of velvet and silk,
with tiny little hats, embroidered with pearls, on their
braided hair. They were all handsome women. The gentlemen
appeared clad in steel, or in rich cloaks lined with squirrel's fur;
they wore little ruffs, and swords at their sides. Where
would Joanna's place be on that wall some day? and how would he
look,- her noble lord and husband? This is what she thought
of, and often spoke of in a low voice to herself. I heard it as I
swept into the long hall, and turned round to come out again. Anna Dorothea, the pale hyacinth, a child of fourteen,
was quiet and thoughtful; her large, deep, blue eyes had a
dreamy look,but a childlike smile still played round her mouth.
I was not able to blow it away, neither did I wish to do so.
We have met in the garden, in the hollow lane, in the field and
meadow,where she gathered herbs and flowers which she knew
would be useful to her father in preparing the drugs and
mixtures he was always concocting. Waldemar Daa was arrogant
and proud,but he was also a learned man, and knew a great
deal. It was no secret, and many opinions were expressed on what
he did. In is fireplace there was a fire, even in summer
time. He would lock himself in his room, and for days the fire
would be kept burning; but he did not talk much of what he was
doing. The secret powers of nature are generally discovered in
solitude,and did he not soon expect to find out the art of
making the greatest of all good things- the art of making
gold? So he fondly hoped; therefore the chimney smoked and the
fire crackled so constantly. Yes, I was there too,"
said the Wind. "'Leave it alone,' I sang down the chimney;
'leave it alone,it will all end in smoke, air, coals, and ashes,
and you will burn your fingers.' But Waldemar Daa did not leave it
alone,and all he possessed vanished like smoke blown by
me. The splendid black horses, where are they? What became
of the cows in the field, the old gold and silver vessels in
cupboards and chests, and even the house and home itself? It was
easy to melt all these away in the gold-making crucible,
and yet obtain no gold. And so it was. Empty are the barns
and store-rooms, the cellars and cupboards; the
servants decreased in number, and the mice multiplied. First one
window became broken, and then another, so that I could get in at
other places besides the door. 'Where the chimney smokes,
the meal is being cooked,' says the proverb; but here a
chimney smoked that devoured all the meals for the sake of gold. I
blew round the courtyard," said the Wind, "like a
watchman blowing his home, but no watchman was there. I twirled the
weather-cock round on the summit of the tower, and it creaked
like the snoring of a warder, but no warder was there;
nothing but mice and rats. Poverty laid the table-cloth; poverty sat
in the wardrobe and in the larder. The door fell off its
hinges,cracks and fissures made their appearance
everywhere; so that I could go in and out at pleasure, and that is how
I know all about it. Amid smoke and ashes, sorrow, and
sleepless nights,the hair and beard of the master of the house
turned gray, and deep furrows showed themselves around his temples;
his skin turned pale and yellow, while his eyes still looked
eagerly for gold, the longed-for gold, and the result of
his labor was debt instead of gain. I blew the smoke and ashes
into his face and beard; I moaned through the broken
window-panes, and the yawning clefts in the walls; I blew into the chests
and drawers belonging to his daughters, wherein lay the
clothes that had become faded and threadbare, from being
worn over and over again. Such a song had not been sung, at the
children's cradle as I sung now. The lordly life had changed
to a life of penury. I was the only one who rejoiced aloud in
that castle," said the Wind. "At last I snowed them up, and
they say snow keeps people warm. It was good for them, for they
had no wood, and the forest, from which they might have obtained
it, had been cut down. The frost was very bitter, and I
rushed through loop-holes and passages, over gables and roofs with
keen and cutting swiftness. The three high-born daughters
were lying in bed because of the cold, and their father crouching
beneath his leather coverlet. Nothing to eat, nothing to
burn, no fire on the hearth! Here was a life for high-born
people! 'Give it up, give it up!' But my Lord Daa would not do that.
'After winter, spring will come,' he said, 'after want,
good times. We must not lose patience, we must learn to wait.
Now my horses and lands are all mortgaged, it is indeed
high time; but gold will come at last- at Easter.'
"I
heard him as he thus spoke; he was looking at a spider's web, and he continued, 'Thou cunning
little weaver, thou dost teach me perseverance. Let any one tear
thy web, and thou wilt begin again and repair it. Let it be
entirely destroyed, thou wilt resolutely begin to make
another till its completed. So ought we to do, if we wish to
succeed at last.'
"It
was the morning of Easter-day. The bells sounded from the neighboring church, and the sun seemed to
rejoice in the sky. The master of the castle had watched through
the night, in feverish excitement, and had been melting and
cooling, distilling and mixing. I heard him sighing like a
soul in despair; I heard him praying, and I noticed how he
held his breath. The lamp burnt out, but he did not observe
it. I blew up the fire in the coals on the hearth, and it
threw a red glow on his ghastly white face, lighting it up with
a glare, while his sunken eyes looked out wildly from their
cavernous depths, and appeared to grow larger and more
prominent, as if they would burst from their sockets. 'Look at the
alchymic glass,' he cried; 'something glows in the crucible,
pure and heavy.' He lifted it with a trembling hand, and
exclaimed in a voice of agitation, 'Gold! gold!' He was quite
giddy, I could have blown him down," said the Wind; "but
I only fanned the glowing coals, and accompanied him through the door
to the room where his daughter sat shivering. His coat was
powdered with ashes, and there were ashes in his beard and
in his tangled hair. He stood erect, and held high in the
air the brittle glass that contained his costly treasure.
'Found! found! Gold! gold!' he shouted, again holding the
glass aloft, that it might flash in the sunshine; but his hand
trembled, and the alchymic glass fell from it, clattering to
the ground, and brake in a thousand pieces. The last bubble of
his happiness had burst, with a whiz and a whir, and I
rushed away from the gold-maker's house.
"Late in the autumn, when the days were short, and the mist sprinkled cold drops on the berries and the
leafless branches, I came back in fresh spirits,rushed
through the air, swept the sky clear, and snapped off the dry
twigs, which is certainly no great labor to do, yet it must be
done. There was another kind of sweeping taking place at
Waldemar Daa's, in the castle of Borreby. His enemy, Owe Ramel, of
Basnas, was there, with the mortgage of the house and
everything it contained, in his pocket. I rattled the broken
windows, beat against the old rotten doors, and whistled through
cracks and crevices, so that Mr. Owe Ramel did not much like
to remain there. Ida and Anna Dorothea wept bitterly, Joanna
stood, pale and proud, biting her lips till the blood came; but
what could that avail? Owe Ramel offered Waldemar Daa
permission to remain in the house till the end of his life. No
one thanked him for the offer, and I saw the ruined old
gentleman lift his head, and throw it back more proudly than ever.
Then I rushed against the house and the old lime-trees with such
force, that one of the thickest branches, a decayed one, was
broken off, and the branch fell at the entrance, and remained
there. It might have been used as a broom, if any one had
wanted to sweep the place out, and a grand sweeping-out there
really was; I thought it would be so. It was hard for any
one to preserve composure on such a day; but these people
had strong wills, as unbending as their hard fortune. There
was nothing they could call their own, excepting the clothes
they wore. Yes, there was one thing more, an alchymist's
glass, a new one, which had been lately bought, and filled with
what could be gathered from the ground of the treasure which
had promised so much but failed in keeping its promise. Waldemar
Daa hid the glass in his bosom, and, taking his stick in
his hand, the once rich gentleman passed with his daughters out
of the house of Borreby. I blew coldly upon his flustered
cheeks, I stroked his gray beard and his long white hair, and I sang
as well as I was able, 'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r. Gone away! Gone
away!' Ida walked on one side of the old man, and Anna
Dorothea on the other; Joanna turned round, as they left the
entrance. Why? Fortune would not turn because she turned. She
looked at the stone in the walls which had once formed part of
the castle of Marck Stig, and perhaps she thought of his
daughters and of the old song,-
"The eldest and youngest, hand-in-hand,
Went forth alone to a distant land."
These were only two; here there were three, and
their father with them also. They walked along the high-road,
where once they had driven in their splendid carriage; they
went forth with their father as beggars. They wandered across
an open field to a mud hut, which they rented for a dollar
and a half a year, a new home, with bare walls and empty
cupboards. Crows and magpies fluttered about them, and cried, as if
in contempt, 'Caw, caw, turned out of our nest- caw,
caw,' as they had done in the wood at Borreby, when the
trees were felled. Daa and his daughters could not help
hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown the noise; what use
was it that they should listen? So they went to live in the mud
hut in the open field, and I wandered away, over moor and
meadow, through bare bushes and leafless forests, to the open sea,
to the broad shores in other lands, 'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r!
Away, away!' year after year."
And what
became of Waldemar Daa and his daughters? Listen; the Wind will tell us:
"The
last I saw of them was the pale hyacinth, Anna Dorothea. She was old and bent then; for fifty
years had passed and she had outlived them all. She could
relate the history. Yonder, on the heath, near the town of
Wiborg, in Jutland, stood the fine new house of the canon. It
was built of red brick, with projecting gables. It was
inhabited, for the smoke curled up thickly from the chimneys. The
canon's gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat in the
bay-window, and looked over the hawthorn hedge of the garden
towards the brown heath. What were they looking at? Their
glances fell upon a stork's nest, which was built upon an old
tumbledown hut. The roof, as far as one existed at all, was
covered with moss and lichen. The stork's nest covered the
greater part of it, and that alone was in a good condition; for it
was kept in order by the stork himself. That is a house to be
looked at, and not to be touched," said the Wind.
"For the sake of the stork's nest it had been allowed to remain,
although it is a blot on the landscape. They did not like to drive
the stork away; therefore the old shed was left standing, and
the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay. She had the
Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance her
reward for having once interceded for the preservation of the
nest of its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that
time she, the poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in
a rich garden. She remembered that time well; for it was
Anna Dorothea.
"'O-h, o-h,' she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of the wind among the reeds and rushes.
'O-h, o-h,' she would say, 'no bell sounded at thy burial,
Waldemar Daa. The poor school-boys did not even sing a psalm when
the former lord of Borreby was laid in the earth to rest. O-h,
everything has an end, even misery. Sister Ida became the wife
of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which befell
our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a
miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on
the wooden horse. I suppose he is under the ground now; and
Ida- alas! alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am!
Kind Heaven, grant me that I may die.'
"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut that was left standing for the sake of the stork. I took
pity on the proudest of the sisters," said the Wind.
"Her courage was like that of a man; and in man's clothes she served
as a sailor on board ship. She was of few words, and of
a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb, so
I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a
woman; and, in my opinion, that was well done," said the
Wind.
On such
another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa imagined he had discovered the art of making
gold, I heard the tones of a psalm under the stork's nest, and
within the crumbling walls. It was Anna Dorothea's last song.
There was no window in the hut, only a hole in the wall; and
the sun rose like a globe of burnished gold, and looked
through. With what splendor he filled that dismal dwelling! Her
eyes were glazing, and her heart breaking; but so it would
have been, even had the sun not shone that morning on Anna
Dorothea. The stork's nest had secured her a home till her death.
I sung over her grave; I sung at her father's grave. I
know where it lies, and where her grave is too, but nobody else
knows it.
"New
times now; all is changed. The old high-road is lost amid cultivated fields; the new one now winds along
over covered graves; and soon the railway will come,
with its train of carriages, and rush over graves where lie those
whose very names are forgoten. All passed away, passed away!
"This is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it better, any of you, if you know how," said
the Wind; and he rushed away, and was gone.
THE
END
Friday, 21 February 2014
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Monday, 17 February 2014
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Friday, 14 February 2014
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Monday, 10 February 2014
Saturday, 8 February 2014
Friday, 7 February 2014
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Monday, 3 February 2014
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Saturday, 1 February 2014
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