Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

[أرب جمـال]

POULTRY MEG'S FAMILY


POULTRY MEG was the only person who lived in the new
stately dwelling that had been built for the fowls and ducks
belonging to the manor house. It stood there where once the
old knightly building had stood with its tower, its pointed
gables, its moat, and its drawbridge. Close by it was a
wilderness of trees and thicket; here the garden had been, and
had stretched out to a great lake, which was now moorland.
Crows and choughs flew screaming over the old trees, and there
were crowds of birds; they did not seem to get fewer when any
one shot among them, but seemed rather to increase. One heard
the screaming into the poultry-house, where Poultry Meg sat
with the ducklings running to and fro over her wooden shoes.
She knew every fowl and every duck from the moment it crept
out of the shell; and she was fond of her fowls and her ducks,
and proud of the stately house that had been built for them.
Her own little room in the house was clean and neat, for that
was the wish of the gracious lady to whom the house belonged.
She often came in the company of grand noble guests, to whom
she showed "the hens' and ducks' barracks," as she called the
little house.

Here were a clothes cupboard, and an, arm-chair, and even
a chest of drawers; and on these drawers a polished metal
plate had been placed, whereon was engraved the word "Grubbe,"
and this was the name of the noble family that had lived in
the house of old. The brass plate had been found when they
were digging the foundation; and the clerk has said it had no
value except in being an old relic. The clerk knew all about
the place, and about the old times, for he had his knowledge
from books, and many a memorandum had been written and put in
his table-drawer. But the oldest of the crows perhaps knew
more than he, and screamed it out in her own language; but
that was the crow's language, and the clerk did not understand
that, clever as he was.

After the hot summer days the mist sometimes hung over the
moorland as if a whole lake were behind the old trees, among
which the crows and the daws were fluttering; and thus it had
looked when the good Knight Grubbe had lived here- when the
old manor house stood with its thick red walls. The dog-chain
used to reach in those days quite over the gateway; through
the tower one went into a paved passage which led to the
rooms; the windows were narrow, and the panes were small, even
in the great hall where the dancing used to be; but in the
time of the last Grubbe, there had been no dancing in the hall
within the memory of man, although an old drum still lay there
that had served as part of the music. Here stood a quaintly
carved cupboard, in which rare flower-roots were kept, for my
Lady Grubbe was fond of plants and cultivated trees and
shrubs. Her husband preferred riding out to shoot wolves and
boars; and his little daughter Marie always went with him part
of the way. When she was only five years old, she would sit
proudly on her horse, and look saucily round with her great
black eyes. It was a great amusement to her to hit out among
the hunting-dogs with her whip; but her father would rather
have seen her hit among the peasant boys, who came running up
to stare at their lord.

The peasant in the clay hut close by the knightly house
had a son named Soren, of the same age as the gracious little
lady. The boy could climb well, and had always to bring her
down the bird's nests. The birds screamed as loud as they
could, and one of the greatest of them hacked him with its
beak over the eye so that the blood ran down, and it was at
first thought the eye had been destroyed; but it had not been
injured after all. Marie Grubbe used to call him her Soren,
and that was a great favor, and was an advantage to Soren's
father- poor Jon, who had one day committed a fault, and was
to be punished by riding on the wooden horse. This same horse
stood in the courtyard, and had four poles for legs, and a
single narrow plant for a back; on this Jon had to ride
astride, and some heavy bricks were fastened to his feet into
the bargain, that he might not sit too comfortably. He made
horrible grimaces, and Soren wept and implored little Marie to
interfere. She immediately ordered that Soren's father should
be taken down, and when they did not obey her, she stamped on
the floor, and pulled at her father's sleeve till it was torn
to pieces. She would have her way, and she got her way, and
Soren's father was taken down.

Lady Grubbe, who now came up, parted her little daughter's
hair from the child's brow, and looked at her affectionately;
but Marie did not understand why.

She wanted to go to the hounds, and not to her mother, who
went down into the garden, to the lake where the water-lily
bloomed, and the heads of bulrushes nodded amid the reeds; and
she looked at all this beauty and freshness. "How pleasant!"
she said. In the garden stood at that time a rare tree, which
she herself had planted. It was called the blood-beech- a kind
of negro growing among the other trees, so dark brown were the
leaves. This tree required much sunshine, for in continual
shade it would become bright green like the other trees, and
thus lose its distinctive character. In the lofty chestnut
trees were many birds' nests, and also in the thickets and in
the grassy meadows. It seemed as though the birds knew that
they were protected here, and that no one must fire a gun at
them.

Little Marie came here with Soren. He knew how to climb,
as we have already said, and eggs and fluffy-feathered young
birds were brought down. The birds, great and small, flew
about in terror and tribulation; the peewit from the fields,
and the crows and daws from the high trees, screamed and
screamed; it was just such din as the family will raise to the
present day.

"What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady;
"that is sinful!"

Soren stood abashed, and even the little gracious lady
looked down a little; but then he said, quite short and
pretty,

"My father lets me do it!"

"Craw-craw! away-away from here!" cried the great black
birds, and they flew away; but on the following day they came
back, for they were at home here.

The quiet gentle lady did not remain long at home here on
earth, for the good God called her away; and, indeed, her home
was rather with Him than in the knightly house; and the church
bells tolled solemnly when her corpse was carried to the
church, and the eyes of the poor people were wet with tears,
for she had been good to them.

When she was gone, no one attended to her plantations, and
the garden ran to waste. Grubbe the knight was a hard man,
they said; but his daughter, young as she was, knew how to
manage him. He used to laugh and let her have her way. She was
now twelve years old, and strongly built. She looked the
people through and through with her black eyes, rode her horse
as bravely as a man, and could fire off her gun like a
practiced hunter.

One day there were great visitors in the neighborhood, the
grandest visitors who could come. The young King, and his
half-brother and comrade, the Lord Ulric Frederick Gyldenlowe.
They wanted to hunt the wild boar, and to pass a few days at
the castle of Grubbe.

Gyldenlowe sat at table next to Marie Grubbe, and he took
her by the hand and gave her a kiss, as if she had been a
relation; but she gave him a box on the ear, and told him she
could not bear him, at which there was great laughter, as if
that had been a very amusing thing.

And perhaps it was very amusing, for, five years
afterwards, when Marie had fulfilled her seventeenth year, a
messenger arrived with a letter, in which Lord Gyldenlowe
proposed for the hand of the noble young lady. There was a
thing for you!

"He is the grandest and most gallant gentleman in the
whole country," said Grubbe the knight; "that is not a thing
to despise."

"I don't care so very much about him," said Marie Grubbe;
but she did not despise the grandest man of all the country,
who sat by the king's side.

Silver plate, and fine linen and woollen, went off to
Copenhagen in a ship, while the bride made the journey by land
in ten days. But the outfit met with contrary winds, or with
no winds at all, for four months passed before it arrived; and
when it came, my Lady Gyldenlowe was gone.

"I'd rather lie on coarse sacking than lie in his silken
beds," she declared. "I'd rather walk barefoot than drive with
him in a coach!"

Late one evening in November two women came riding into
the town of Aarhuus. They were the gracious Lady Gyldenlowe
(Marie Grubbe) and her maid. They came from the town of Weile,
whither they had come in a ship from Copenhagen. They stopped
at Lord Grubbe's stone mansion in Aarhuus. Grubbe was not well
pleased with this visit. Marie was accosted in hard words; but
she had a bedroom given her, and got her beer soup of a
morning; but the evil part of her father's nature was aroused
against her, and she was not used to that. She was not of a
gentle temper, and we often answer as we are addressed. She
answered openly, and spoke with bitterness and hatred of her
husband, with whom she declared she would not live; she was
too honorable for that.

A year went by, but it did not go by pleasantly. There
were evil words between the father and the daughter, and that
ought never to be. Bad words bear bad fruit. What could be the
end of such a state of things?

"We two cannot live under the same roof," said the father
one day. "Go away from here to our old manor house; but you
had better bite your tongue off than spread any lies among the
people."

And so the two parted. She went with her maid to the old
castle where she had been born, and near which the gentle,
pious lady, her mother, was lying in the church vault. An old
cowherd lived in the courtyard, and was the only other
inhabitant of the place. In the rooms heavy black cobwebs hung
down, covered with dust; in the garden everything grew just as
it would; hops and climbing plants ran like a net between the
trees and bushes, and the hemlock and nettle grew larger and
stronger. The blood-beech had been outgrown by other trees,
and now stood in the shade; and its leaves were green like
those of the common trees, and its glory had departed. Crows
and choughs, in great close masses, flew past over the tall
chestnut trees, and chattered and screamed as if they had
something very important to tell one another- as if they were
saying, "Now she's come back again, the little girl who had
their eggs and their young ones stolen from them; and as for
the thief who had got them down, he had to climb up a leafless
tree, for he sat on a tall ship's mast, and was beaten with a
rope's end if he did not behave himself."

The clerk told all this in our own times; he had collected
it and looked it up in books and memoranda. It was to be
found, with many other writings, locked up in his
table-drawer.

"Upward and downward is the course of the world," said he.
"It is strange to hear.

And we will hear how it went with Marie Grubbe. We need
not for that forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting in her capital
hen-house, in our own time. Marie Grubbe sat down in her
times, but not with the same spirit that old Poultry Meg
showed.

The winter passed away, and the spring and the summer
passed away, and the autumn came again, with the damp, cold
sea-fog. It was a lonely, desolate life in the old manor
house. Marie Grubbe took her gun in her hand and went out to
the heath, and shot hares and foxes, and whatever birds she
could hit. More than once she met the noble Sir Palle Dyre, of
Norrebak, who was also wandering about with his gun and his
dogs. He was tall and strong, and boasted of this when they
talked together. He could have measured himself against the
deceased Mr. Brockenhuus, of Egeskov, of whom the people still
talked. Palle Dyre had, after the example of Brockenhuus,
caused an iron chain with a hunting-horn to be hung in his
gateway; and when he came riding home, he used to seize the
chain, and lift himself and his horse from the ground, and
blow the horn.

"Come yourself, and see me do that, Dame Marie," he said.
'One can breathe fresh and free at Norrebak.

When she went to his castle is not known, but on the altar
candlestick in the church of Norrebak it was inscribed that
they were the gift of Palle Dyre and Marie Grubbe, of Norrebak
Castle.

A great stout man was Palle Dyre. He drank like a sponge.
He was like a tub that could never get full; he snored like a
whole sty of pigs, and he looked red and bloated.

"He is treacherous and malicious," said Dame Pally Dyre,
Grubbe's daughter. Soon she was weary of her life with him,
but that did not make it better.

One day the table was spread, and the dishes grew cold.
Palle Dyre was out hunting foxes, and the gracious lady was
nowhere to be found. Towards midnight Palle Dyre came home,
but Dame Dyre came neither at midnight, nor next morning. She
had turned her back upon Norrebak, and had ridden away without
saying good-bye.

It was gray, wet weather; the wind grew cold, and a flight
of black screaming birds flew over her head. They were not so
homeless as she.

First she journeyed southward, quite down into the German
land. A couple of golden rings with costly stones were turned
into money; and then she turned to the east, and then she
turned again and went towards the west. She had no food before
her eyes, and murmured against everything, even against the
good God himself, so wretched was her soul. Soon her body
became wretched too, and she was scarcely able to move a foot.
The peewit flew up as she stumbled over the mound of earth
where it had built its nest. The bird cried, as it always
cried, "You thief! you thief!" She had never stolen her
neighbor's goods; but as a little girl she had caused eggs and
young birds to be taken from the trees, and she thought of
that now.

From where she lay she could see the sand-dunes. By the
seashore lived fishermen; but she could not get so far, she
was so ill. The great white sea-mews flew over her head, and
screamed as the crows and daws screamed at home in the garden
of the manor house. The birds flew quite close to her, and at
last it seemed to her as if they became black as crows, and
then all was night before her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, she was being lifted and
carried. A great strong man had taken her up in his arms, and
she was looking straight into his bearded face. He had a scar
over one eye, which seemed to divide the eyebrow into two
parts. Weak as she was, he carried her to the ship, where he
got a rating for it from the captain.

The next day the ship sailed away. Madame Grubbe had not
been put ashore, so she sailed away with it. But she will
return, will she not? Yes, but where, and when?

The clerk could tell about this too, and it was not a
story which he patched together himself. He had the whole
strange history out of an old authentic book, which we
ourselves can take out and read. The Danish historian, Ludwig
Holberg, who has written so many useful books and merry
comedies, from which we can get such a good idea of his times
and their people, tells in his letters of Marie Grubbe, where
and how he met her. It is well worth hearing; but for all
that, we don't at all forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting
cheerful and comfortable in the charming fowl-house.

The ship sailed away with Marie Grubbe. That's where we
left off.

Long years went by.

The plague was raging at Copenhagen; it was in the year
1711. The Queen of Denmark went away to her German home, the
King quitted the capital, and everybody who could do so
hurried away. The students, even those who had board and
lodging gratis, left the city. One of these students, the last
who had remained in the free college, at last went away too.
It was two o'clock in the morning. He was carrying his
knapsack, which was better stacked with books and writings
than with clothes. A damp mist hung over the town; not a
person was to be seen in the streets; the street-doors around
were marked with crosses, as a sign that the plague was
within, or that all the inmates were dead. A great wagon
rattled past him; the coachman brandished his whip, and the
horses flew by at a gallop. The wagon was filled with corpses.
The young student kept his hand before his face, and smelt at
some strong spirits that he had with him on a sponge in a
little brass scent-case. Out of a small tavern in one of the
streets there were sounds of singing and of unhallowed
laughter, from people who drank the night through to forget
that the plague was at their doors, and that they might be put
into the wagon as the others had been. The student turned his
steps towards the canal at the castle bridge, where a couple
of small ships were lying; one of these was weighing anchor,
to get away from the plague-stricken city.

"If God spares our lives and grants us a fair wind, we are
going to Gronmud, near Falster," said the captain; and he
asked the name of the student who wished to go with him.

"Ludwig Holberg," answered the student; and the name
sounded like any other. But now there sounds in it one of the
proudest names of Denmark; then it was the name of a young,
unknown student.

The ship glided past the castle. It was not yet bright day
when it was in the open sea. A light wind filled the sails,
and the young student sat down with his face turned towards
the fresh wind, and went to sleep, which was not exactly the
most prudent thing he could have done.

Already on the third day the ship lay by the island of
Falster.

"Do you know any one here with whom I could lodge
cheaply?" Holberg asked the captain.

"I should think you would do well to go to the ferry-woman
in Borrehaus," answered the captain. "If you want to be very
civil to her, her name is Mother Soren Sorensen Muller. But it
may happen that she may fly into a fury if you are too polite
to her. The man is in custody for a crime, and that's why she
manages the ferry-boat herself- she has fists of her own."

The student took his knapsack and betook himself to the
ferry-house. The house door was not locked- it opened, and he
went into a room with a brick floor, where a bench, with a
great coverlet of leather, formed the chief article of
furniture. A white hen, who had a brood of chickens, was
fastened to the bench, and had overturned the pipkin of water,
so that the wet ran across the floor. There were no people
either here or in the adjoining room; only a cradle stood
there, in which was a child. The ferry-boat came back with
only one person in it. Whether that person was a man or a
woman was not an easy matter to determine. The person in
question was wrapped in a great cloak, and wore a kind of
hood. Presently the boat lay to.

It was a woman who got out of it and came into the room.
She looked very stately when she straightened her back; two
proud eyes looked forth from beneath her black eyebrows. It
was Mother Soren, the ferry-wife. The crows and daws might
have called out another name for her, which we know better.

She looked morose, and did not seem to care to talk; but
this much was settled, that the student should board in her
house for an indefinite time, while things looked so bad in
Copenhagen.

This or that honest citizen would often come to the
ferry-house from the neighboring little town. There came Frank
the cutler, and Sivert the exciseman. They drank a mug of beer
in the ferry-house, and used to converse with the student, for
he was a clever young man, who knew his "Practica," as they
called it; he could read Greek and Latin, and was well up in
learned subjects.

"The less one knows, the less it presses upon one," said
Mother Soren.

"You have to work hard," said Holberg one day, when she
was dipping clothes in the strong soapy water, and was obliged
herself to split the logs for the fire.

"That's my affair," she replied.

"Have you been obliged to toil in this way from your
childhood?"

"You can read that from my hands," she replied, and held
out her hands, that were small indeed, but hard and strong,
with bitten nails. "You are learned, and can read."

At Christmas-time it began to snow heavily. The cold came
on, the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to
wash the people's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb
her; she threw her cloak around her, and drew her hood over
her head. Early in the afternoon- it was already dark in the
house- she laid wood and turf on the hearth, and then she sat
down to darn her stockings, for there was no one to do it for
her. Towards evening she spoke more words to the student than
it was customary with her to use; she spoke of her husband.

"He killed a sailor of Dragor by mischance, and for that
he has to work for three years in irons. He's only a common
sailor, and therefore the law must take its course."

"The law is there for people of high rank, too," said
Holberg.

"Do you think so?" said Mother Soren; then she looked into
the fire for a while; but after a time she began to speak
again. "Have you heard of Kai Lykke, who caused a church to be
pulled down, and when the clergyman, Master Martin, thundered
from the pulpit about it, he had him put in irons, and sat in
judgment upon him, and condemned him to death? Yes, and the
clergyman was obliged to bow his head to the stroke. And yet
Kai Lykke went scot-free."

"He had a right to do as he did in those times," said
Holberg; "but now we have left those times behind us."

"You may get a fool to believe that," cried Mother Soren;
and she got up and went into the room where the child lay. She
lifted up the child, and laid it down more comfortably. Then
she arranged the bed-place of the student. He had the green
coverlet, for he felt the cold more than she, though he was
born in Norway.

On New Year's morning it was a bright sunshiny day. The
frost had been so strong, and was still so strong, that the
fallen snow had become a hard mass, and one could walk upon
it. The bells of the little town were tolling for church.
Student Holberg wrapped himself up in his woollen cloak, and
wanted to go to the town.

Over the ferry-house the crows and daws were flying with
loud cries; one could hardly hear the church bells for their
screaming. Mother Soren stood in front of the house, filling a
brass pot with snow, which she was going to put on the fire to
get drinking water. She looked up to the crowd of birds, and
thought her own thoughts.

Student Holberg went to church. On his way there and on
his return he passed by the house of tax-collector Sivert, by
the town-gate. Here he was invited to take a mug of brown beer
with treacle and sugar. The discourse fell upon Mother Soren,
but the tax collector did not know much about her, and,
indeed, few knew much about her. She did not belong to the
island of Falster, he said; she had a little property of her
own at one time. Her husband was a common sailor, a fellow of
a very hot temper, and had killed a sailor of Dragor; and he
beat his wife, and yet she defended him.

"I should not endure such treatment," said the
tax-collector's wife. "I am come of more respectable people.
My father was stocking-weaver to the Court."

"And consequently you have married a governmental
official," said Holberg, and made a bow to her and to the
collector.

It was on Twelfth Night, the evening of the festival of
the Three Kings, Mother Soren lit up for Holberg a three-king
candle, that is, a tallow candle with three wicks, which she
had herself prepared.

"A light for each man," said Holberg.

"For each man?" repeated the woman, looking sharply at
him.

"For each of the wise men from the East," said Holberg.

"You mean it that way," said she, and then she was silent
for a long time. But on this evening he learned more about her
than he had yet known.

"You speak very affectionately of your husband," observed
Holberg, "and yet the people say that he ill-uses you every
day."

"That's no one's business but mine," she replied. "The
blows might have done me good when I was a child; now, I
suppose, I get them for my sins. But I know what good he has
done me," and she rose up. "When I lay sick upon the desolate
heath, and no one would have pity on me, and no one would have
anything to do with me, except the crows and daws, which came
to peck me to bits, he carried me in his arms, and had to bear
hard words because of the burden he brought on board ship.
It's not in my nature to be sick, and so I got well. Every man
has his own way, and Soren has his; but the horse must not be
judged by the halter. Taking one thing with another, I have
lived more agreeably with him than with the man whom they
called the most noble and gallant of the King's subjects. I
have had the Stadtholder Gyldenlowe, the King's half-brother,
for my husband; and afterwards I took Palle Dyre. One is as
good as another, each in his own way, and I in mine. That was
a long gossip, but now you know all about me."

And with those words she left the room.


It was Marie Grubbe! so strangely had fate played with
her. She did not live to see many anniversaries of the
festival of the Three Kings; Holberg has recorded that she
died in June, 1716; but he has not written down, for he did
not know, that a number of great black birds circled over the
ferry-house, when Mother Soren, as she was called, was lying
there a corpse. They did not scream, as if they knew that at a
burial silence should be observed. So soon as she lay in the
earth, the birds disappeared; but on the same evening in
Jutland, at the old manor house, an enormous number of crows
and choughs were seen; they all cried as loud as they could,
as if they had some announcement to make. Perhaps they talked
of him who, as a little boy, had taken away their eggs and
their young; of the peasant's son, who had to wear an iron
garter, and of the noble young lady, who ended by being a
ferryman's wife.

"Brave! brave!" they cried.

And the whole family cried, "Brave! brave!" when the old
house was pulled down.

"They are still crying, and yet there's nothing to cry
about," said the clerk, when he told the story. "The family is
extinct, the house has been pulled down, and where it stood is
now the stately poultry-house, with gilded weathercocks, and
the old Poultry Meg. She rejoices greatly in her beautiful
dwelling. If she had not come here," the old clerk added, "she
would have had to go into the work-house."

The pigeons cooed over her, the turkey-cocks gobbled, and
the ducks quacked.

"Nobody knew her," they said; "she belongs to no family.
It's pure charity that she is here at all. She has neither a
drake father nor a hen mother, and has no descendants."

She came of a great family, for all that; but she did not
know it, and the old clerk did not know it, though he had so
much written down; but one of the old crows knew about it, and
told about it. She had heard from her own mother and
grandmother about Poultry Meg's mother and grandmother. And we
know the grandmother too. We saw her ride, as child, over the
bridge, looking proudly around her, as if the whole world
belonged to her, and all the birds' nests in it; and we saw
her on the heath, by the sand-dunes; and, last of all, in the
ferry-house. The granddaughter, the last of her race, had come
back to the old home, where the old castle had stood, where
the black wild birds were screaming; but she sat among the
tame birds, and these knew her and were fond of her. Poultry
Meg had nothing left to wish for; she looked forward with
pleasure to her death, and she was old enough to die.

"Grave, grave!" cried the crows.

And Poultry Meg has a good grave, which nobody knew except
the old crow, if the old crow is not dead already.

And now we know the story of the old manor house, of its
old proprietors, and of all Poultry Meg's family.


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

THE PORTER'S SON


THE General lived in the grand first floor, and the porter
lived in the cellar. There was a great distance between the
two families- the whole of the ground floor, and the
difference in rank; but they lived in the same house, and both
had a view of the street, and of the courtyard. In the
courtyard was a grass-plot, on which grew a blooming acacia
tree (when it was in bloom), and under this tree sat
occasionally the finely-dressed nurse, with the still more
finely-dressed child of the General- little Emily. Before them
danced about barefoot the little son of the porter, with his
great brown eyes and dark hair; and the little girl smiled at
him, and stretched out her hands towards him; and when the
General saw that from the window, he would nod his head and
cry, "Charming!" The General's lady (who was so young that she
might very well have been her husband's daughter from an early
marriage) never came to the window that looked upon the
courtyard. She had given orders, though, that the boy might
play his antics to amuse her child, but must never touch it.
The nurse punctually obeyed the gracious lady's orders.

The sun shone in upon the people in the grand first floor,
and upon the people in the cellar; the acacia tree was covered
with blossoms, and they fell off, and next year new ones came.
The tree bloomed, and the porter's little son bloomed too, and
looked like a fresh tulip.

The General's little daughter became delicate and pale,
like the leaf of the acacia blossom. She seldom came down to
the tree now, for she took the air in a carriage. She drove
out with her mamma, and then she would always nod at the
porter's George; yes, she used even to kiss her hand to him,
till her mamma said she was too old to do that now.

One morning George was sent up to carry the General the
letters and newspapers that had been delivered at the porter's
room in the morning. As he was running up stairs, just as he
passed the door of the sand-box, he heard a faint piping. He
thought it was some young chicken that had strayed there, and
was raising cries of distress; but it was the General's little
daughter, decked out in lace and finery.

"Don't tell papa and mamma," she whimpered; "they would be
angry."

"What's the matter, little missie?" asked George.

"It's all on fire!" she answered. "It's burning with a
bright flame!" George hurried up stairs to the General's
apartments; he opened the door of the nursery. The window
curtain was almost entirely burnt, and the wooden curtain-pole
was one mass of flame. George sprang upon a chair he brought
in haste, and pulled down the burning articles; he then
alarmed the people. But for him, the house would have been
burned down.

The General and his lady cross-questioned little Emily.

"I only took just one lucifer-match," she said, "and it
was burning directly, and the curtain was burning too. I spat
at it, to put it out; I spat at it as much as ever I could,
but I could not put it out; so I ran away and hid myself, for
papa and mamma would be angry."

"I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression!
Did you ever hear your papa and mamma talk about spitting? You
must have got that from down stairs!"

And George had a penny given him. But this penny did not
go to the baker's shop, but into the savings-box; and soon
there were so many pennies in the savings-box that he could
buy a paint-box and color the drawings he made, and he had a
great number of drawings. They seemed to shoot out of his
pencil and out of his fingers' ends. His first colored
pictures he presented to Emily.

"Charming!" said the General, and even the General's lady
acknowledged that it was easy to see what the boy had meant to
draw. "He has genius." Those were the words that were carried
down into the cellar.

The General and his gracious lady were grand people. They
had two coats of arms on their carriage, a coat of arms for
each of them, and the gracious lady had had this coat of arms
embroidered on both sides of every bit of linen she had, and
even on her nightcap and her dressing-bag. One of the coats of
arms, the one that belonged to her, was a very dear one; it
had been bought for hard cash by her father, for he had not
been born with it, nor had she; she had come into the world
too early, seven years before the coat of arms, and most
people remembered this circumstance, but the family did not
remember it. A man might well have a bee in his bonnet, when
he had such a coat of arms to carry as that, let alone having
to carry two; and the General's wife had a bee in hers when
she drove to the court ball, as stiff and as proud as you
please.

The General was old and gray, but he had a good seat on
horseback, and he knew it, and he rode out every day, with a
groom behind him at a proper distance. When he came to a
party, he looked somehow as if he were riding into the room
upon his high horse; and he had orders, too, such a number
that no one would have believed it; but that was not his
fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumn
reviews which were held in those days. He had an anecdote that
he told about those days, the only one he knew. A subaltern
under his orders had cut off one of the princes, and taken him
prisoner, and the Prince had been obliged to ride through the
town with a little band of captured soldiers, himself a
prisoner behind the General. This was an ever-memorable event,
and was always told over and over again every year by the
General, who, moreover, always repeated the remarkable words
he had used when he returned his sword to the Prince; those
words were, "Only my subaltern could have taken your Highness
prisoner; I could never have done it!" And the Prince had
replied, "You are incomparable." In a real war the General had
never taken part. When war came into the country, he had gone
on a diplomatic career to foreign courts. He spoke the French
language so fluently that he had almost forgotten his own; he
could dance well, he could ride well, and orders grew on his
coat in an astounding way. The sentries presented arms to him,
one of the most beautiful girls presented arms to him, and
became the General's lady, and in time they had a pretty,
charming child, that seemed as if it had dropped from heaven,
it was so pretty; and the porter's son danced before it in the
courtyard, as soon as it could understand it, and gave her all
his colored pictures, and little Emily looked at them, and was
pleased, and tore them to pieces. She was pretty and delicate
indeed.

"My little Roseleaf!" cried the General's lady, "thou art
born to wed a prince."

The prince was already at the door, but they knew nothing
of it; people don't see far beyond the threshold.

"The day before yesterday our boy divided his bread and
butter with her!" said the porter's wife. "There was neither
cheese nor meat upon it, but she liked it as well as if it had
been roast beef. There would have been a fine noise if the
General and his wife had seen the feast, but they did not see
it.

George had divided his bread and butter with little Emily,
and he would have divided his heart with her, if it would have
pleased her. He was a good boy, brisk and clever, and he went
to the night school in the Academy now, to learn to draw
properly. Little Emily was getting on with her education too,
for she spoke French with her "bonne," and had a dancing
master.


"George will be confirmed at Easter," said the porter's
wife; for George had got so far as this.

"It would be the best thing, now, to make an apprentice of
him," said his father. "It must be to some good calling- and
then he would be out of the house."

"He would have to sleep out of the house," said George's
mother. "It is not easy to find a master who has room for him
at night, and we shall have to provide him with clothes too.
The little bit of eating that he wants can be managed for him,
for he's quite happy with a few boiled potatoes; and he gets
taught for nothing. Let the boy go his own way. You will say
that he will be our joy some day, and the Professor says so
too."

The confirmation suit was ready. The mother had worked it
herself; but the tailor who did repairs had cut them out, and
a capital cutter-out he was.

"If he had had a better position, and been able to keep a
workshop and journeymen," the porter's wife said, "he might
have been a court tailor."

The clothes were ready, and the candidate for confirmation
was ready. On his confirmation day, George received a great
pinchbeck watch from his godfather, the old iron monger's
shopman, the richest of his godfathers. The watch was an old
and tried servant. It always went too fast, but that is better
than to be lagging behind. That was a costly present. And from
the General's apartment there arrived a hymn-book bound in
morocco, sent by the little lady to whom George had given
pictures. At the beginning of the book his name was written,
and her name, as "his gracious patroness." These words had
been written at the dictation of the General's lady, and the
General had read the inscription, and pronounced it
"Charming!"

"That is really a great attention from a family of such
position," said the porter's wife; and George was sent up
stairs to show himself in his confirmation clothes, with the
hymn-book in his hand.

The General's lady was sitting very much wrapped up, and
had the bad headache she always had when time hung heavy upon
her hands. She looked at George very pleasantly, and wished
him all prosperity, and that he might never have her headache.
The General was walking about in his dressing-gown. He had a
cap with a long tassel on his head, and Russian boots with red
tops on his feet. He walked three times up and down the room,
absorbed in his own thoughts and recollections, and then
stopped and said:

"So little George is a confirmed Christian now. Be a good
man, and honor those in authority over you. Some day, when you
are an old man, you can say that the General gave you this
precept."

That was a longer speech than the General was accustomed
to make, and then he went back to his ruminations, and looked
very aristocratic. But of all that George heard and saw up
there, little Miss Emily remained most clear in his thoughts.
How graceful she was, how gentle, and fluttering, and pretty
she looked. If she were to be drawn, it ought to be on a
soap-bubble. About her dress, about her yellow curled hair,
there was a fragrance as of a fresh-blown rose; and to think
that he had once divided his bread and butter with her, and
that she had eaten it with enormous appetite, and nodded to
him at every second mouthful! Did she remember anything about
it? Yes, certainly, for she had given him the beautiful
hymn-book in remembrance of this; and when the first new moon
in the first new year after this event came round, he took a
piece of bread, a penny, and his hymn-book, and went out into
the open air, and opened the book to see what psalm he should
turn up. It was a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Then he
opened the book again to see what would turn up for little
Emily. He took great pains not to open the book in the place
where the funeral hymns were, and yet he got one that referred
to the grave and death. But then he thought this was not a
thing in which one must believe; for all that he was startled
when soon afterwards the pretty little girl had to lie in bed,
and the doctor's carriage stopped at the gate every day.

"They will not keep her with them," said the porter's
wife. "The good God knows whom He will summon to Himself."

But they kept her after all; and George drew pictures and
sent them to her. He drew the Czar's palace; the old Kremlin
at Moscow, just as it stood, with towers and cupolas; and
these cupolas looked like gigantic green and gold cucumbers,
at least in George's drawing. Little Emily was highly pleased,
and consequently, when a week had elapsed, George sent her a
few more pictures, all with buildings in them; for, you see,
she could imagine all sorts of things inside the windows and
doors.

He drew a Chinese house, with bells hanging from every one
of sixteen stories. He drew two Grecian temples with slender
marble pillars, and with steps all round them. He drew a
Norwegian church. It was easy to see that this church had been
built entirely of wood, hewn out and wonderfully put together;
every story looked as if it had rockers, like a cradle. But
the most beautiful of all was the castle, drawn on one of the
leaves, and which he called "Emily's Castle." This was the
kind of place in which she must live. That is what George had
thought, and consequently he had put into this building
whatever he thought most beautiful in all the others. It had
carved wood-work, like the Norwegian church; marble pillars,
like the Grecian temple; bells in every story; and was crowned
with cupolas, green and gilded, like those of the Kremlin of
the Czar. It was a real child's castle, and under every window
was written what the hall or the room inside was intended to
be; for instance: "Here Emily sleeps;" "Here Emily dances;"
"Here Emily plays at receiving visitors." It was a real
pleasure to look at the castle, and right well was the castle
looked at accordingly.

"Charming!" said the General.

But the old Count- for there was an old Count there, who
was still grander than the General, and had a castle of his
own- said nothing at all; he heard that it had been designed
and drawn by the porter's little son. Not that he was so very
little, either, for he had already been confirmed. The old
Count looked at the pictures, and had his own thoughts as he
did so.

One day, when it was very gloomy, gray, wet weather, the
brightest of days dawned for George; for the Professor at the
Academy called him into his room.

"Listen to me, my friend," said the Professor; "I want to
speak to you. The Lord has been good to you in giving you
abilities, and He has also been good in placing you among kind
people. The old Count at the corner yonder has been speaking
to me about you. I have also seen your sketches; but we will
not say any more about those, for there is a good deal to
correct in them. But from this time forward you may come twice
a-week to my drawing-class, and then you will soon learn how
to do them better. I think there's more of the architect than
of the painter in you. You will have time to think that over;
but go across to the old Count this very day, and thank God
for having sent you such a friend."

It was a great house- the house of the old Count at the
corner. Round the windows elephants and dromedaries were
carved, all from the old times; but the old Count loved the
new time best, and what it brought, whether it came from the
first floor, or from the cellar, or from the attic.

"I think," said, the porter's wife, "the grander people
are, the fewer airs do they give themselves. How kind and
straightforward the old count is! and he talks exactly like
you and me. Now, the General and his lady can't do that. And
George was fairly wild with delight yesterday at the good
reception he met with at the Count's, and so am I to-day,
after speaking to the great man. Wasn't it a good thing that
we didn't bind George apprentice to a handicraftsman? for he
has abilities of his own."

"But they must be helped on by others," said the father.

"That help he has got now," rejoined the mother; "for the
Count spoke out quite clearly and distinctly."

"But I fancy it began with the General," said the father,
"and we must thank them too."

"Let us do so with all my heart," cried the mother,
"though I fancy we have not much to thank them for. I will
thank the good God; and I will thank Him, too, for letting
little Emily get well."

Emily was getting on bravely, and George got on bravely
too. In the course of the year he won the little silver prize
medal of the Academy, and afterwards he gained the great one
too.


"It would have been better, after all, if he had been
apprenticed to a handicraftsman," said the porter's wife,
weeping; "for then we could have kept him with us. What is he
to do in Rome? I shall never get a sight of him again, not
even if he comes back; but that he won't do, the dear boy."

"It is fortune and fame for him," said the father.

"Yes, thank you, my friend," said the mother; "you are
saying what you do not mean. You are just as sorrowful as I
am."

And it was all true about the sorrow and the journey. But
everybody said it was a great piece of good fortune for the
young fellow. And he had to take leave, and of the General
too. The General's lady did not show herself, for she had her
bad headache. On this occasion the General told his only
anecdote, about what he had said to the Prince, and how the
Prince had said to him, "You are incomparable." And he held
out a languid hand to George.

Emily gave George her hand too, and looked almost sorry;
and George was the most sorry of all.


Time goes by when one has something to do; and it goes by,
too, when one has nothing to do. The time is equally long, but
not equally useful. It was useful to George, and did not seem
long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his
home. How might the good folks be getting on, up stairs and
down stairs? Yes, there was writing about that, and many
things can be put into a letter- bright sunshine and dark,
heavy days. Both of these were in the letter which brought the
news that his father was dead, and that his mother was alone
now. She wrote that Emily had come down to see her, and had
been to her like an angel of comfort; and concerning herself,
she added that she had been allowed to keep her situation as
porteress.

The General's lady kept a diary, and in this diary was
recorded every ball she attended and every visit she received.
The diary was illustrated by the insertion of the visiting
cards of the diplomatic circle and of the most noble families;
and the General's lady was proud of it. The diary kept growing
through a long time, and amid many severe headaches, and
through a long course of half-nights, that is to say, of court
balls. Emily had now been to a court ball for the first time.
Her mother had worn a bright red dress, with black lace, in
the Spanish style; the daughter had been attired in white,
fair and delicate; green silk ribbons fluttered like
flag-leaves among her yellow locks, and on her head she wore a
wreath of water-lillies. Her eyes were so blue and clear, her
mouth was so delicate and red, she looked like a little water
spirit, as beautiful as such a spirit can be imagined. The
Princes danced with her, one after another of course; and the
General's lady had not a headache for a week afterwards.

But the first ball was not the last, and Emily could not
stand it; it was a good thing, therefore, that summer brought
with it rest, and exercise in the open air. The family had
been invited by the old Count to visit him at him castle. That
was a castle with a garden which was worth seeing. Part of
this garden was laid out quite in the style of the old days,
with stiff green hedges; you walked as if between green walls
with peep-holes in them. Box trees and yew trees stood there
trimmed into the form of stars and pyramids, and water sprang
from fountains in large grottoes lined with shells. All around
stood figures of the most beautiful stone- that could be seen
in their clothes as well as in their faces; every flower-bed
had a different shape, and represented a fish, or a coat of
arms, or a monogram. That was the French part of the garden;
and from this part the visitor came into what appeared like
the green, fresh forest, where the trees might grow as they
chose, and accordingly they were great and glorious. The grass
was green, and beautiful to walk on, and it was regularly cut,
and rolled, and swept, and tended. That was the English part
of the garden.

<<<

[أرب جمـال]

"Old time and new time," said the Count, "here they run
well into one another. In two years the building itself will
put on a proper appearance, there will be a complete
metamorphosis in beauty and improvement. I shall show you the
drawings, and I shall show you the architect, for he is to
dine here to-day."

"Charming!" said the General.

"'Tis like Paradise here," said the General's lady, "and
yonder you have a knight's castle!"

"That's my poultry-house," observed the Count. "The
pigeons live in the tower, the turkeys in the first floor, but
old Elsie rules in the ground floor. She has apartments on all
sides of her. The sitting hens have their own room, and the
hens with chickens have theirs; and the ducks have their own
particular door leading to the water."

"Charming!" repeated the General.

And all sailed forth to see these wonderful things. Old
Elsie stood in the room on the ground floor, and by her side
stood Architect George. He and Emily now met for the first
time after several years, and they met in the poultry-house.

Yes, there he stood, and was handsome enough to be looked
at. His face was frank and energetic; he had black shining
hair, and a smile about his mouth, which said, "I have a
brownie that sits in my ear, and knows every one of you,
inside and out." Old Elsie had pulled off her wooden shoes,
and stood there in her stockings, to do honor to the noble
guests. The hens clucked, and the cocks crowed, and the ducks
waddled to and fro, and said, "Quack, quack!" But the fair,
pale girl, the friend of his childhood, the daughter of the
General, stood there with a rosy blush on her usually pale
cheeks, and her eyes opened wide, and her mouth seemed to
speak without uttering a word, and the greeting he received
from her was the most beautiful greeting a young man can
desire from a young lady, if they are not related, or have not
danced many times together, and she and the architect had
never danced together.

The Count shook hands with him, and introduced him.

"He is not altogether a stranger, our young friend
George."

The General's lady bowed to him, and the General's
daughter was very nearly giving him her hand; but she did not
give it to him.

"Our little Master George!" said the General. "Old
friends! Charming!"

"You have become quite an Italian," said the General's
lady, "and I presume you speak the language like a native?"

"My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it,"
observed the General.

At dinner, George sat at the right hand of Emily, whom the
General had taken down, while the Count led in the General's
lady.

Mr. George talked and told of his travels; and he could
talk well, and was the life and soul of the table, though the
old Count could have been it too. Emily sat silent, but she
listened, and her eyes gleamed, but she said nothing.

In the verandah, among the flowers, she and George stood
together; the rose-bushes concealed them. And George was
speaking again, for he took the lead now.

"Many thanks for the kind consideration you showed my old
mother," he said. "I know that you went down to her on the
night when my father died, and you stayed with her till his
eyes were closed. My heartiest thanks!"

He took Emily's hand and kissed it- he might do so on such
an occasion. She blushed deeply, but pressed his hand, and
looked at him with her dear blue eyes.

"Your mother was a dear soul!" she said. "How fond she was
of her son! And she let me read all your letters, so that I
almost believe I know you. How kind you were to me when I was
little girl! You used to give me pictures."

"Which you tore in two," said George.

"No, I have still your drawing of the castle."

"I must build the castle in reality now," said George; and
he became quite warm at his own words.

The General and the General's lady talked to each other in
their room about the porter's son- how he knew how to behave,
and to express himself with the greatest propriety.

"He might be a tutor," said the General.

"Intellect!" said the General's lady; but she did not say
anything more.

During the beautiful summer-time Mr. George several times
visited the Count at his castle; and he was missed when he did
not come.

"How much the good God has given you that he has not given
to us poor mortals," said Emily to him. "Are you sure you are
very grateful for it?"

It flattered George that the lovely young girl should look
up to him, and he thought then that Emily had unusually good
abilities. And the General felt more and more convinced that
George was no cellar-child.

"His mother was a very good woman," he observed. "It is
only right I should do her that justice now she is in her
grave."


The summer passed away, and the winter came; again there
was talk about Mr. George. He was highly respected, and was
received in the first circles. The General had met him at a
court ball.

And now there was a ball to be given in the General's
house for Emily, and could Mr. George be invited to it?

"He whom the King invites can be invited by the General
also," said the General, and drew himself up till he stood
quite an inch higher than before.

Mr. George was invited, and he came; princes and counts
came, and they danced, one better than the other. But Emily
could only dance one dance- the first; for she made a false
step- nothing of consequence; but her foot hurt her, so that
she had to be careful, and leave off dancing, and look at the
others. So she sat and looked on, and the architect stood by
her side.

"I suppose you are giving her the whole history of St.
Peter's," said the General, as he passed by; and smiled, like
the personification of patronage.

With the same patronizing smile he received Mr. George a
few days afterwards. The young man came, no doubt, to return
thanks for the invitation to the ball. What else could it be?
But indeed there was something else, something very
astonishing and startling. He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so
that the General could hardly believe his own ears. It was
"the height of rhodomontade," an offer, quite an inconceivable
offer- Mr. George came to ask the hand of Emily in marriage!

"Man!" cried the General, and his brain seemed to be
boiling. "I don't understand you at all. What is it you say?
What is it you want? I don't know you. Sir! Man! What
possesses you to break into my house? And am I to stand here
and listen to you?" He stepped backwards into his bed-room,
locked the door behind him, and left Mr. George standing
alone. George stood still for a few minutes, and then turned
round and left the room. Emily was standing in the corridor.

"My father has answered?" she said, and her voice
trembled.

George pressed her hand.

"He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will
come."

There were tears in Emily's eyes, but in the young man's
eyes shone courage and confidence; and the sun shone through
the window, and cast his beams on the pair, and gave them his
blessing.

The General sat in his room, bursting hot. Yes, he was
still boiling, until he boiled over in the exclamation,
"Lunacy! porter! madness!"

Not an hour was over before the General's lady knew it out
of the General's own mouth. She called Emily, and remained
alone with her.

"You poor child," she said; "to insult you so! to insult
us so! There are tears in your eyes, too, but they become you
well. You look beautiful in tears. You look as I looked on my
wedding-day. Weep on, my sweet Emily."

"Yes, that I must," said Emily, "if you and my father do
not say 'yes.'"

"Child!" screamed the General's lady; "you are ill! You
are talking wildly, and I shall have a most terrible headache!
Oh, what a misfortune is coming upon our house! Don't make
your mother die, Emily, or you will have no mother."

And the eyes of the General's lady were wet, for she could
not bear to think of her own death.


In the newspapers there was an announcement. "Mr. George
has been elected Professor of the Fifth Class, number Eight."

"It's a pity that his parents are dead and cannot read
it," said the new porter people, who now lived in the cellar
under the General's apartments. They knew that the Professor
had been born and grown up within their four walls.

"Now he'll get a salary," said the man.

"Yes, that's not much for a poor child," said the woman.

"Eighteen dollars a year," said the man. "Why, it's a good
deal of money."

"No, I mean the honor of it," replied the wife. "Do you
think he cares for the money? Those few dollars he can earn a
hundred times over, and most likely he'll get a rich wife into
the bargain. If we had children of our own, husband, our child
should be an architect and a professor too."

George was spoken well of in the cellar, and he was spoken
well of in the first floor. The old Count took upon himself to
do that.

The pictures he had drawn in his childhood gave occasion
for it. But how did the conversation come to turn on these
pictures? Why, they had been talking of Russia and of Moscow,
and thus mention was made of the Kremlin, which little George
had once drawn for Miss Emily. He had drawn many pictures, but
the Count especially remembered one, "Emily's Castle," where
she was to sleep, and to dance, and to play at receiving
guests.

"The Professor was a true man," said the Count, "and would
be a privy councillor before he died, it was not at all
unlikely; and he might build a real castle for the young lady
before that time came: why not?"

"That was a strange jest," remarked the General's lady,
when the Count had gone away. The General shook his head
thoughtfully, and went out for a ride, with his groom behind
him at a proper distance, and he sat more stiffly than ever on
his high horse.

It was Emily's birthday. Flowers, books, letters, and
visiting cards came pouring in. The General's lady kissed her
on the mouth, and the General kissed her on the forehead; they
were affectionate parents, and they and Emily had to receive
grand visitors, two of the Princes. They talked of balls and
theatres, of diplomatic missions, of the government of empires
and nations; and then they spoke of talent, native talent; and
so the discourse turned upon the young architect.

"He is building up an immortality for himself," said one,
"and he will certainly build his way into one of our first
families".

"One of our first families!" repeated the General and
afterwards the General's lady; "what is meant by one of our
first families?"

"I know for whom it was intended," said the General's
lady, "but I shall not say it. I don't think it. Heaven
disposes, but I shall be astonished."

"I am astonished also!" said the General. "I haven't an
idea in my head!" And he fell into a reverie, waiting for
ideas.

There is a power, a nameless power, in the possession of
favor from above, the favor of Providence, and this favor
little George had. But we are forgetting the birthday.

Emily's room was fragrant with flowers, sent by male and
female friends; on the table lay beautiful presents for
greeting and remembrance, but none could come from George-
none could come from him; but it was not necessary, for the
whole house was full of remembrances of him. Even out of the
ash-bin the blossom of memory peeped forth, for Emily had sat
whimpering there on the day when the window-curtain caught
fire, and George arrived in the character of fire engine. A
glance out of the window, and the acacia tree reminded of the
days of childhood. Flowers and leaves had fallen, but there
stood the tree covered with hoar frost, looking like a single
huge branch of coral, and the moon shone clear and large among
the twigs, unchanged in its changings, as it was when George
divided his bread and butter with little Emily.

Out of a box the girl took the drawings of the Czar's
palace and of her own castle- remembrances of George. The
drawings were looked at, and many thoughts came. She
remembered the day when, unobserved by her father and mother,
she had gone down to the porter's wife who lay dying. Once
again she seemed to sit beside her, holding the dying woman's
hand in hers, hearing the dying woman's last words: "Blessing
George!" The mother was thinking of her son, and now Emily
gave her own interpretation to those words. Yes, George was
certainly with her on her birthday.

It happened that the next day was another birthday in that
house, the General's birthday. He had been born the day after
his daughter, but before her of course- many years before her.
Many presents arrived, and among them came a saddle of
exquisite workmanship, a comfortable and costly saddle- one of
the Princes had just such another. Now, from whom might this
saddle come? The General was delighted. There was a little
note with the saddle. Now if the words on the note had been
"many thanks for yesterday's reception," we might easily have
guessed from whom it came. But the words were "From somebody
whom the General does not know."

"Whom in the world do I not know?" exclaimed the General.
"I know everybody;" and his thoughts wandered all through
society, for he knew everybody there. "That saddle comes from
my wife!" he said at last. "She is teasing me- charming!"

But she was not teasing him; those times were past.


Again there was a feast, but it was not in the General's
house, it was a fancy ball at the Prince's, and masks were
allowed too.

The General went as Rubens, in a Spanish costume, with a
little ruff round his neck, a sword by his side, and a stately
manner. The General's lady was Madame Rubens, in black velvet
made high round the neck, exceedingly warm, and with a
mill-stone round her neck in the shape of a great ruff-
accurately dressed after a Dutch picture in the possession of
the General, in which the hands were especially admired. They
were just like the hands of the General's lady.

Emily was Psyche. In white crape and lace she was like a
floating swan. She did not want wings at all. She only wore
them as emblematic of Psyche.

Brightness, splendor, light and flowers, wealth and taste
appeared at the ball; there was so much to see, that the
beautiful hands of Madame Rubens made no sensation at all.

A black domino, with an acacia blossom in his cap, danced
with Psyche.

"Who is that?" asked the General's lady.

"His Royal Highness," replied the General. "I am quite
sure of it. I knew him directly by the pressure of his hand."

The General's lady doubted it.

General Rubens had no doubts about it. He went up to the
black domino and wrote the royal letters in the mask's hand.
These were denied, but the mask gave him a hint.

The words that came with the saddle: "One whom you do not
know, General."

"But I do know you," said the General. "It was you who
sent me the saddle."

The domino raised his hand, and disappeared among the
other guests.

"Who is that black domino with whom you were dancing,
Emily?" asked the General's lady.

"I did not ask his name," she replied, "because you knew
it. It is the Professor. Your protege is here, Count!" she
continued, turning to that nobleman, who stood close by. "A
black domino with acacia blossoms in his cap."

"Very likely, my dear lady," replied the Count. "But one
of the Princes wears just the same costume."

"I knew the pressure of the hand," said the General. "The
saddle came from the Prince. I am so certain of it that I
could invite that domino to dinner."

"Do so. If it be the Prince he will certainly come,"
replied the Count.

"And if it is the other he will not come," said the
General, and approached the black domino, who was just
speaking with the King. The General gave a very respectful
invitation "that they might make each other's acquaintance,"
and he smiled in his certainty concerning the person he was
inviting. He spoke loud and distinctly.

The domino raised his mask, and it was George. "Do you
repeat your invitation, General?" he asked.

The General certainly seemed to grow an inch taller,
assumed a more stately demeanor, and took two steps backward
and one step forward, as if he were dancing a minuet, and then
came as much gravity and expression into the face of the
General as the General could contrive to infuse into it; but
he replied,

"I never retract my words! You are invited, Professor!"
and he bowed with a glance at the King, who must have heard
the whole dialogue.


Now, there was a company to dinner at the General's, but
only the old Count and his protege were invited.

"I have my foot under his table," thought George. "That's
laying the foundation stone."

And the foundation stone was really laid, with great
ceremony, at the house of the General and of the General's
lady.

The man had come, and had spoken quite like a person in
good society, and had made himself very agreeable, so that the
General had often to repeat his "Charming!" The General talked
of this dinner, talked of it even to a court lady; and this
lady, one of the most intellectual persons about the court,
asked to be invited to meet the Professor the next time he
should come. So he had to be invited again; and he was
invited, and came, and was charming again; he could even play
chess.

"He's not out of the cellar," said the General; "he's
quite a distinguished person. There are many distinguished
persons of that kind, and it's no fault of his."

The Professor, who was received in the King's palace,
might very well be received by the General; but that he could
ever belong to the house was out of the question, only the
whole town was talking of it.


He grew and grew. The dew of favor fell from above, so no
one was surprised after all that he should become a Privy
Councillor, and Emily a Privy Councillor's lady.

"Life is either a tragedy or a comedy," said the General.
"In tragedies they die, in comedies they marry one another."

In this case they married. And they had three clever boys-
but not all at once.

The sweet children rode on their hobby-horses through all
the rooms when they came to see the grandparents. And the
General also rode on his stick; he rode behind them in the
character of groom to the little Privy Councillors.

And the General's lady sat on her sofa and smiled at them,
even when she had her severest headache.


So far did George get, and much further; else it had not
been
worth while to tell the story of THE PORTER'S SON.


THE END


Process took: 0.047 seconds

[أرب جمـال]

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE


FAR away towards the east, in India, which seemed in those
days the world's end, stood the Tree of the Sun; a noble tree,
such as we have never seen, and perhaps never may see.

The summit of this tree spread itself for miles like an
entire forest, each of its smaller branches forming a complete
tree. Palms, beech-trees, pines, plane-trees, and various
other kinds, which are found in all parts of the world, were
here like small branches, shooting forth from the great tree;
while the larger boughs, with their knots and curves, formed
valleys and hills, clothed with velvety green and covered with
flowers. Everywhere it was like a blooming meadow or a lovely
garden. Here were birds from all quarters of the world
assembled together; birds from the primeval forests of
America, from the rose gardens of Damascus, and from the
deserts of Africa, in which the elephant and the lion may
boast of being the only rulers. Birds from the Polar regions
came flying here, and of course the stork and the swallow were
not absent. But the birds were not the only living creatures.
There were stags, squirrels, antelopes, and hundreds of other
beautiful and light-footed animals here found a home.

The summit of the tree was a wide-spreading garden, and in
the midst of it, where the green boughs formed a kind of hill,
stood a castle of crystal, with a view from it towards every
quarter of heaven. Each tower was erected in the form of a
lily, and within the stern was a winding staircase, through
which one could ascend to the top and step out upon the leaves
as upon balconies. The calyx of the flower itself formed a
most beautiful, glittering, circular hall, above which no
other roof arose than the blue firmament and the sun and
stars.

Just as much splendor, but of another kind, appeared
below, in the wide halls of the castle. Here, on the walls,
were reflected pictures of the world, which represented
numerous and varied scenes of everything that took place
daily, so that it was useless to read the newspapers, and
indeed there were none to be obtained in this spot. All was to
be seen in living pictures by those who wished it, but all
would have been too much for even the wisest man, and this man
dwelt here. His name is very difficult; you would not be able
to pronounce it, so it may be omitted. He knew everything that
a man on earth can know or imagine. Every invention already in
existence or yet to be, was known to him, and much more; still
everything on earth has a limit. The wise king Solomon was not
half so wise as this man. He could govern the powers of nature
and held sway over potent spirits; even Death itself was
obliged to give him every morning a list of those who were to
die during the day. And King Solomon himself had to die at
last, and this fact it was which so often occupied the
thoughts of this great man in the castle on the Tree of the
Sun. He knew that he also, however high he might tower above
other men in wisdom, must one day die. He knew that his
children would fade away like the leaves of the forest and
become dust. He saw the human race wither and fall like leaves
from the tree; he saw new men come to fill their places, but
the leaves that fell off never sprouted forth again; they
crumbled to dust or were absorbed into other plants.

"What happens to man," asked the wise man of himself,
"when touched by the angel of death? What can death be? The
body decays, and the soul. Yes; what is the soul, and whither
does it go?"

"To eternal life," says the comforting voice of religion.

"But what is this change? Where and how shall we exist?"

"Above; in heaven," answers the pious man; "it is there we
hope to go."

"Above!" repeated the wise man, fixing his eyes upon the
moon and stars above him. He saw that to this earthly sphere
above and below were constantly changing places, and that the
position varied according to the spot on which a man found
himself. He knew, also, that even if he ascended to the top of
the highest mountain which rears its lofty summit on this
earth, the air, which to us seems clear and transparent, would
there be dark and cloudy; the sun would have a coppery glow
and send forth no rays, and our earth would lie beneath him
wrapped in an orange-colored mist. How narrow are the limits
which confine the bodily sight, and how little can be seen by
the eye of the soul. How little do the wisest among us know of
that which is so important to us all.

In the most secret chamber of the castle lay the greatest
treasure on earth- the Book of Truth. The wise man had read it
through page after page. Every man may read in this book, but
only in fragments. To many eyes the characters seem so mixed
in confusion that the words cannot be distinguished. On
certain pages the writing often appears so pale or so blurred
that the page becomes a blank. The wiser a man becomes, the
more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.

The wise man knew how to unite the sunlight and the
moonlight with the light of reason and the hidden powers of
nature; and through this stronger light, many things in the
pages were made clear to him. But in the portion of the book
entitled "Life after Death" not a single point could he see
distinctly. This pained him. Should he never be able here on
earth to obtain a light by which everything written in the
Book of Truth should become clear to him? Like the wise King
Solomon, he understood the language of animals, and could
interpret their talk into song; but that made him none the
wiser. He found out the nature of plants and metals, and their
power in curing diseases and arresting death, but none to
destroy death itself. In all created things within his reach
he sought the light that should shine upon the certainty of an
eternal life, but he found it not. The Book of Truth lay open
before him, but, its pages were to him as blank paper.
Christianity placed before him in the Bible a promise of
eternal life, but he wanted to read it in his book, in which
nothing on the subject appeared to be written.

He had five children; four sons, educated as the children
of such a wise father should be, and a daughter, fair, gentle,
and intelligent, but she was blind; yet this deprivation
appeared as nothing to her; her father and brothers were
outward eyes to her, and a vivid imagination made everything
clear to her mental sight. The sons had never gone farther
from the castle than the branches of the trees extended, and
the sister had scarcely ever left home. They were happy
children in that home of their childhood, the beautiful and
fragrant Tree of the Sun. Like all children, they loved to
hear stories related to them, and their father told them many
things which other children would not have understood; but
these were as clever as most grownup people are among us. He
explained to them what they saw in the pictures of life on the
castle walls- the doings of man, and the progress of events in
all the lands of the earth; and the sons often expressed a
wish that they could be present, and take a part in these
great deeds. Then their father told them that in the world
there was nothing but toil and difficulty: that it was not
quite what it appeared to them, as they looked upon it in
their beautiful home. He spoke to them of the true, the
beautiful, and the good, and told them that these three held
together in the world, and by that union they became
crystallized into a precious jewel, clearer than a diamond of
the first water- a jewel, whose splendor had a value even in
the sight of God, in whose brightness all things are dim. This
jewel was called the philosopher's stone. He told them that,
by searching, man could attain to a knowledge of the existence
of God, and that it was in the power of every man to discover
the certainty that such a jewel as the philosopher's stone
really existed. This information would have been beyond the
perception of other children; but these children understood,
and others will learn to comprehend its meaning after a time.
They questioned their father about the true, the beautiful,
and the good, and he explained it to them in many ways. He
told them that God, when He made man out of the dust of the
earth, touched His work five times, leaving five intense
feelings, which we call the five senses. Through these, the
true, the beautiful, and the good are seen, understood, and
perceived, and through these they are valued, protected, and
encouraged. Five senses have been given mentally and
corporeally, inwardly and outwardly, to body and soul.

The children thought deeply on all these things, and
meditated upon them day and night. Then the eldest of the
brothers dreamt a splendid dream. Strange to say, not only the
second brother but also the third and fourth brothers all
dreamt exactly the same thing; namely, that each went out into
the world to find the philosopher's stone. Each dreamt that he
found it, and that, as he rode back on his swift horse, in the
morning dawn, over the velvety green meadows, to his home in
the castle of his father, that the stone gleamed from his
forehead like a beaming light; and threw such a bright
radiance upon the pages of the Book of Truth that every word
was illuminated which spoke of the life beyond the grave. But
the sister had no dream of going out into the wide world; it
never entered her mind. Her world was her father's house.

"I shall ride forth into the wide world," said the eldest
brother. "I must try what life is like there, as I mix with
men. I will practise only the good and true; with these I will
protect the beautiful. Much shall be changed for the better
while I am there."

Now these thoughts were great and daring, as our thoughts
generally are at home, before we have gone out into the world,
and encountered its storms and tempests, its thorns and its
thistles. In him, and in all his brothers, the five senses
were highly cultivated, inwardly and outwardly; but each of
them had one sense which in keenness and development surpassed
the other four. In the case of the eldest, this pre-eminent
sense was sight, which he hoped would be of special service.
He had eyes for all times and all people; eyes that could
discover in the depths of the earth hidden treasures, and look
into the hearts of men, as through a pane of glass; he could
read more than is often seen on the cheek that blushes or
grows pale, in the eye that droops or smiles. Stags and
antelopes accompanied him to the western boundary of his home,
and there he found the wild swans. These he followed, and
found himself far away in the north, far from the land of his
father, which extended eastward to the ends of the earth. How
he opened his eyes with astonishment! How many things were to
be seen here! and so different to the mere representation of
pictures such as those in his father's house. At first he
nearly lost his eyes in astonishment at the rubbish and
mockery brought forward to represent the beautiful; but he
kept his eyes, and soon found full employment for them. He
wished to go thoroughly and honestly to work in his endeavor
to understand the true, the beautiful, and the good. But how
were they represented in the world? He observed that the
wreath which rightly belonged to the beautiful was often given
the hideous; that the good was often passed by unnoticed,
while mediocrity was applauded, when it should have been
hissed. People look at the dress, not at the wearer; thought
more of a name than of doing their duty; and trusted more to
reputation than to real service. It was everywhere the same.

"I see I must make a regular attack on these things," said
he; and he accordingly did not spare them. But while looking
for the truth, came the evil one, the father of lies, to
intercept him. Gladly would the fiend have plucked out the
eyes of this Seer, but that would have been a too
straightforward path for him; he works more cunningly. He
allowed the young man to seek for, and discover, the beautiful
and the good; but while he was contemplating them, the evil
spirit blew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and
such a proceeding would injure the strongest sight. Then he
blew upon the motes, and they became beams, so that the
clearness of his sight was gone, and the Seer was like a blind
man in the world, and had no longer any faith in it. He had
lost his good opinion of the world, as well as of himself; and
when a man gives up the world, and himself too, it is all over
with him.

"All over," said the wild swan, who flew across the sea to
the east.

"All over," twittered the swallows, who were also flying
eastward towards the Tree of the Sun. It was no good news
which they carried home.

"I think the Seer has been badly served," said the second
brother, "but the Hearer may be more successful."

This one possessed the sense of hearing to a very high
degree: so acute was this sense, that it was said he could
hear the grass grow. He took a fond leave of all at home, and
rode away, provided with good abilities and good intentions.
The swallows escorted him, and he followed the swans till he
found himself out in the world, and far away from home. But he
soon discovered that one may have too much of a good thing.
His hearing was too fine. He not only heard the grass grow,
but could hear every man's heart beat, whether in sorrow or in
joy. The whole world was to him like a clockmaker's great
workshop, in which all the clocks were going "tick, tick," and
all the turret clocks striking "ding, dong." It was
unbearable. For a long time his ears endured it, but at last
all the noise and tumult became too much for one man to bear.

There were rascally boys of sixty years old- for years do
not alone make a man- who raised a tumult, which might have
made the Hearer laugh, but for the applause which followed,
echoing through every street and house, and was even heard in
country roads. Falsehood thrust itself forward and played the
hypocrite; the bells on the fool's cap jingled, and declared
they were church-bells, and the noise became so bad for the
Hearer that he thrust his fingers into his ears. Still, he
could hear false notes and bad singing, gossip and idle words,
scandal and slander, groaning and moaning, without and within.
"Heaven help us!" He thrust his fingers farther and farther
into his ears, till at last the drums burst. And now he could
hear nothing more of the true, the beautiful, and the good;
for his hearing was to have been the means by which he hoped
to acquire his knowledge. He became silent and suspicious, and
at last trusted no one, not even himself, and no longer hoping
to find and bring home the costly jewel, he gave it up, and
gave himself up too, which was worse than all.

The birds in their flight towards the east, carried the
tidings, and the news reached the castle in the Tree of the
Sun.

"I will try now," said the third brother; "I have a keen
nose." Now that was not a very elegant expression, but it was
his way, and we must take him as he was. He had a cheerful
temper, and was, besides, a real poet; he could make many
things appear poetical, by the way in which he spoke of them,
and ideas struck him long before they occurred to the minds of
others. "I can smell," he would say; and he attributed to the
sense of smelling, which he possessed in a high degree, a
great power in the region of the beautiful. "I can smell," he
would say, "and many places are fragrant or beautiful
according to the taste of the frequenters. One man feels at
home in the atmosphere of the tavern, among the flaring tallow
candles, and when the smell of spirits mingles with the fumes
of bad tobacco. Another prefers sitting amidst the
overpowering scent of jasmine, or perfuming himself with
scented olive oil. This man seeks the fresh sea breeze, while
that one climbs the lofty mountain-top, to look down upon the
busy life in miniature beneath him."

As he spoke in this way, it seemed as if he had already
been out in the world, as if he had already known and
associated with man. But this experience was intuitive- it was
the poetry within him, a gift from Heaven bestowed on him in
his cradle. He bade farewell to his parental roof in the Tree
of the Sun, and departed on foot, from the pleasant scenes
that surrounded his home. Arrived at its confines, he mounted
on the back of an ostrich, which runs faster than a horse, and
afterwards, when he fell in with the wild swans, he swung
himself on the strongest of them, for he loved change, and
away he flew over the sea to distant lands, where there were
great forests, deep lakes, lofty mountains, and proud cities.
Wherever he came it seemed as if sunshine travelled with him
across the fields, for every flower, every bush, exhaled a
renewed fragrance, as if conscious that a friend and protector
was near; one who understood them, and knew their value. The
stunted rose-bush shot forth twigs, unfolded its leaves, and
bore the most beautiful roses; every one could see it, and
even the black, slimy wood-snail noticed its beauty. "I will
give my seal to the flower," said the snail, "I have trailed
my slime upon it, I can do no more.

<<<

[أرب جمـال]

"Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world,"
said the poet. And he made a song upon it, and sung it after
his own fashion, but nobody listened. Then he gave a drummer
twopence and a peacock's feather, and composed a song for the
drum, and the drummer beat it through the streets of the town,
and when the people heard it they said, "That is a capital
tune." The poet wrote many songs about the true, the
beautiful, and the good. His songs were listened to in the
tavern, where the tallow candles flared, in the fresh clover
field, in the forest, and on the high-seas; and it appeared as
if this brother was to be more fortunate than the other two.

But the evil spirit was angry at this, so he set to work
with soot and incense, which he can mix so artfully as to
confuse an angel, and how much more easily a poor poet. The
evil one knew how to manage such people. He so completely
surrounded the poet with incense that the man lost his head,
forgot his mission and his home, and at last lost himself and
vanished in smoke.

But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and
for three days they sang not one song. The black wood-snail
became blacker still; not for grief, but for envy. "They
should have offered me incense," he said, "for it was I who
gave him the idea of the most famous of his songs- the drum
song of 'The Way of the World;' and it was I who spat at the
rose; I can bring a witness to that fact."

But no tidings of all this reached the poet's home in
India. The birds had all been silent for three days, and when
the time of mourning was over, so deep had been their grief,
that they had forgotten for whom they wept. Such is the way of
the world.

"Now I must go out into the world, and disappear like the
rest," said the fourth brother. He was as good-tempered as the
third, but no poet, though he could be witty.

The two eldest had filled the castle with joyfulness, and
now the last brightness was going away. Sight and hearing have
always been considered two of the chief senses among men, and
those which they wish to keep bright; the other senses are
looked upon as of less importance.

But the younger son had a different opinion; he had
cultivated his taste in every way, and taste is very powerful.
It rules over what goes into the mouth, as well as over all
which is presented to the mind; and, consequently, this
brother took upon himself to taste everything stored up in
bottles or jars; this he called the rough part of his work.
Every man's mind was to him as a vessel in which something was
concocting; every land a kind of mental kitchen. "There are no
delicacies here," he said; so he wished to go out into the
world to find something delicate to suit his taste. "Perhaps
fortune may be more favorable to me than it was to my
brothers. I shall start on my travels, but what conveyance
shall I choose? Are air balloons invented yet?" he asked of
his father, who knew of all inventions that had been made, or
would be made.

Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships,
nor railways.

"Good," said he; "then I shall choose an air balloon; my
father knows how they are to be made and guided. Nobody has
invented one yet, and the people will believe that it is an
aerial phantom. When I have done with the balloon I shall burn
it, and for this purpose, you must give me a few pieces of
another invention, which will come next; I mean a few chemical
matches."

He obtained what he wanted, and flew away. The birds
accompanied him farther than they had the other brothers. They
were curious to know how this flight would end. Many more of
them came swooping down; they thought it must be some new
bird, and he soon had a goodly company of followers. They came
in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was
with the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.

And now he was out in the wide world. The balloon
descended over one of the greatest cities, and the aeronaut
took up his station at the highest point, on the church
steeple. The balloon rose again into the air, which it ought
not to have done; what became of it is not known, neither is
it of any consequence, for balloons had not then been
invented.

There he sat on the church steeple. The birds no longer
hovered over him; they had got tired of him, and he was tired
of them. All the chimneys in the town were smoking.

"There are altars erected to my honor," said the wind, who
wished to say something agreeable to him as he sat there
boldly looking down upon the people in the street. There was
one stepping along, proud of his purse; another, of the key he
carried behind him, though he had nothing to lock up; another
took a pride in his moth-eaten coat; and another, in his
mortified body. "Vanity, all vanity!" he exclaimed. "I must go
down there by-and-by, and touch and taste; but I shall sit
here a little while longer, for the wind blows pleasantly at
my back. I shall remain here as long as the wind blows, and
enjoy a little rest. It is comfortable to sleep late in the
morning when one had a great deal to do," said the sluggard;
"so I shall stop here as long as the wind blows, for it
pleases me."

And there he stayed. But as he was sitting on the
weather-cock of the steeple, which kept turning round and
round with him, he was under the false impression that the
same wind still blew, and that he could stay where he was
without expense.

But in India, in the castle on the Tree of the Sun, all
was solitary and still, since the brothers had gone away one
after the other.

"Nothing goes well with them," said the father; "they will
never bring the glittering jewel home, it is not made for me;
they are all dead and gone." Then he bent down over the Book
of Truth, and gazed on the page on which he should have read
of the life after death, but for him there was nothing to be
read or learned upon it.

His blind daughter was his consolation and joy; she clung
to him with sincere affection, and for the sake of his
happiness and peace she wished the costly jewel could be found
and brought home.

With longing tenderness she thought of her brothers. Where
were they? Where did they live? How she wished she might dream
of them; but it was strange that not even in dreams could she
be brought near to them. But at last one night she dreamt that
she heard the voices of her brothers calling to her from the
distant world, and she could not refrain herself, but went out
to them, and yet it seemed in her dream that she still
remained in her father's house. She did not see her brothers,
but she felt as it were a fire burning in her hand, which,
however, did not hurt her, for it was the jewel she was
bringing to her father. When she awoke she thought for a
moment that she still held the stone, but she only grasped the
knob of her distaff.

During the long evenings she had spun constantly, and
round the distaff were woven threads finer than the web of a
spider; human eyes could never have distinguished these
threads when separated from each other. But she had wetted
them with her tears, and the twist was as strong as a cable.
She rose with the impression that her dream must be a reality,
and her resolution was taken.

It was still night, and her father slept; she pressed a
kiss upon his hand, and then took her distaff and fastened the
end of the thread to her father's house. But for this, blind
as she was, she would never have found her way home again; to
this thread she must hold fast, and trust not to others or
even to herself. From the Tree of the Sun she broke four
leaves; which she gave up to the wind and the weather, that
they might be carried to her brothers as letters and a
greeting, in case she did not meet them in the wide world.
Poor blind child, what would become of her in those distant
regions? But she had the invisible thread, to which she could
hold fast; and she possessed a gift which all the others
lacked. This was a determination to throw herself entirely
into whatever she undertook, and it made her feel as if she
had eyes even at the tips of her fingers, and could hear down
into her very heart. Quietly she went forth into the noisy,
bustling, wonderful world, and wherever she went the skies
grew bright, and she felt the warm sunbeam, and a rainbow
above in the blue heavens seemed to span the dark world. She
heard the song of the birds, and smelt the scent of the orange
groves and apple orchards so strongly that she seemed to taste
it. Soft tones and charming songs reached her ear, as well as
harsh sounds and rough words- thoughts and opinions in strange
contradiction to each other. Into the deepest recesses of her
heart penetrated the echoes of human thoughts and feelings.
Now she heard the following words sadly sung,-

"Life is a shadow that flits away
In a night of darkness and woe."

But then would follow brighter thoughts:

"Life has the rose's sweet perfume
With sunshine, light, and joy."

And if one stanza sounded painfully-

"Each mortal thinks of himself alone,
Is a truth, alas, too clearly known;"

Then, on the other hand, came the answer-

"Love, like a mighty flowing stream,
Fills every heart with its radiant gleam."

She heard, indeed, such words as these-

"In the pretty turmoil here below,
All is a vain and paltry show.

Then came also words of comfort-

"Great and good are the actions done
By many whose worth is never known."

And if sometimes the mocking strain reached her-

"Why not join in the jesting cry
That contemns all gifts from the throne on
high?"

In the blind girl's heart a stronger voice repeated-

"To trust in thyself and God is best,
In His holy will forever to rest."

But the evil spirit could not see this and remain
contented. He has more cleverness than ten thousand men, and
he found means to compass his end. He betook himself to the
marsh, and collected a few little bubbles of stagnant water.
Then he uttered over them the echoes of lying words that they
might become strong. He mixed up together songs of praise with
lying epitaphs, as many as he could find, boiled them in tears
shed by envy; put upon them rouge, which he had scraped from
faded cheeks, and from these he produced a maiden, in form and
appearance like the blind girl, the angel of completeness, as
men called her. The evil one's plot was successful. The world
knew not which was the true, and indeed how should the world
know?

"To trust in thyself and God is best,
In his Holy will forever to rest."

So sung the blind girl in full faith. She had entrusted the
four green leaves from the Tree of the Sun to the winds, as
letters of greeting to her brothers, and she had full
confidence that the leaves would reach them. She fully
believed that the jewel which outshines all the glories of the
world would yet be found, and that upon the forehead of
humanity it would glitter even in the castle of her father.
"Even in my father's house," she repeated. "Yes, the place in
which this jewel is to be found is earth, and I shall bring
more than the promise of it with me. I feel it glow and swell
more and more in my closed hand. Every grain of truth which
the keen wind carried up and whirled towards me I caught and
treasured. I allowed it to be penetrated with the fragrance of
the beautiful, of which there is so much in the world, even
for the blind. I took the beatings of a heart engaged in a
good action, and added them to my treasure. All that I can
bring is but dust; still, it is a part of the jewel we seek,
and there is plenty, my hand is quite full of it."

She soon found herself again at home; carried thither in a
flight of thought, never having loosened her hold of the
invisible thread fastened to her father's house. As she
stretched out her hand to her father, the powers of evil
dashed with the fury of a hurricane over the Tree of the Sun;
a blast of wind rushed through the open doors, and into the
sanctuary, where lay the Book of Truth.

"It will be blown to dust by the wind," said the father,
as he seized the open hand she held towards him.

"No," she replied, with quiet confidence, "it is
indestructible. I feel its beam warming my very soul."

Then her father observed that a dazzling flame gleamed
from the white page on which the shining dust had passed from
her hand. It was there to prove the certainty of eternal life,
and on the book glowed one shining word, and only one, the
word BELIEVE. And soon the four brothers were again with the
father and daughter. When the green leaf from home fell on the
bosom of each, a longing had seized them to return. They had
arrived, accompanied by the birds of passage, the stag, the
antelope, and all the creatures of the forest who wished to
take part in their joy.

We have often seen, when a sunbeam burst through a crack
in the door into a dusty room, how a whirling column of dust
seems to circle round. But this was not poor, insignificant,
common dust, which the blind girl had brought; even the
rainbow's colors are dim when compared with the beauty which
shone from the page on which it had fallen. The beaming word
BELIEVE, from every grain of truth, had the brightness of the
beautiful and the good, more bright than the mighty pillar of
flame that led Moses and the children of Israel to the land of
Canaan, and from the word BELIEVE arose the bridge of hope,
reaching even to the unmeasurable Love in the realms of the
infinite.


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

THE PEA BLOSSOM


THERE were once five peas in one shell, they were green,
the shell was green, and so they believed that the whole world
must be green also, which was a very natural conclusion. The
shell grew, and the peas grew, they accommodated themselves to
their position, and sat all in a row. The sun shone without
and warmed the shell, and the rain made it clear and
transparent; it was mild and agreeable in broad daylight, and
dark at night, as it generally is; and the peas as they sat
there grew bigger and bigger, and more thoughtful as they
mused, for they felt there must be something else for them to
do.

"Are we to sit here forever?" asked one; "shall we not
become hard by sitting so long? It seems to me there must be
something outside, and I feel sure of it."

And as weeks passed by, the peas became yellow, and the
shell became yellow.

"All the world is turning yellow, I suppose," said they,-
and perhaps they were right.

Suddenly they felt a pull at the shell; it was torn off,
and held in human hands, then slipped into the pocket of a
jacket in company with other full pods.

"Now we shall soon be opened," said one,- just what they
all wanted.

"I should like to know which of us will travel furthest,"
said the smallest of the five; "we shall soon see now."

"What is to happen will happen," said the largest pea.

"Crack" went the shell as it burst, and the five peas
rolled out into the bright sunshine. There they lay in a
child's hand. A little boy was holding them tightly, and said
they were fine peas for his pea-shooter. And immediately he
put one in and shot it out.

"Now I am flying out into the wide world," said he; "catch
me if you can;" and he was gone in a moment.

"I," said the second, "intend to fly straight to the sun,
that is a shell that lets itself be seen, and it will suit me
exactly;" and away he went.

"We will go to sleep wherever we find ourselves," said the
two next, "we shall still be rolling onwards;" and they did
certainly fall on the floor, and roll about before they got
into the pea-shooter; but they were put in for all that. "We
shall go farther than the others," said they.

"What is to happen will happen," exclaimed the last, as he
was shot out of the pea-shooter; and as he spoke he flew up
against an old board under a garret-window, and fell into a
little crevice, which was almost filled up with moss and soft
earth. The moss closed itself round him, and there he lay, a
captive indeed, but not unnoticed by God.

"What is to happen will happen," said he to himself.

Within the little garret lived a poor woman, who went out
to clean stoves, chop wood into small pieces and perform
such-like hard work, for she was strong and industrious. Yet
she remained always poor, and at home in the garret lay her
only daughter, not quite grown up, and very delicate and weak.
For a whole year she had kept her bed, and it seemed as if she
could neither live nor die.

"She is going to her little sister," said the woman; "I
had but the two children, and it was not an easy thing to
support both of them; but the good God helped me in my work,
and took one of them to Himself and provided for her. Now I
would gladly keep the other that was left to me, but I suppose
they are not to be separated, and my sick girl will very soon
go to her sister above." But the sick girl still remained
where she was, quietly and patiently she lay all the day long,
while her mother was away from home at her work.

Spring came, and one morning early the sun shone brightly
through the little window, and threw its rays over the floor
of the room. just as the mother was going to her work, the
sick girl fixed her gaze on the lowest pane of the window-
"Mother," she exclaimed, "what can that little green thing be
that peeps in at the window? It is moving in the wind."

The mother stepped to the window and half opened it. "Oh!"
she said, there is actually a little pea which has taken root
and is putting out its green leaves. How could it have got
into this crack? Well now, here is a little garden for you to
amuse yourself with." So the bed of the sick girl was drawn
nearer to the window, that she might see the budding plant;
and the mother went out to her work.

"Mother, I believe I shall get well," said the sick child
in the evening, "the sun has shone in here so brightly and
warmly to-day, and the little pea is thriving so well: I shall
get on better, too, and go out into the warm sunshine again."

"God grant it!" said the mother, but she did not believe
it would be so. But she propped up with the little stick the
green plant which had given her child such pleasant hopes of
life, so that it might not be broken by the winds; she tied
the piece of string to the window-sill and to the upper part
of the frame, so that the pea-tendrils might twine round it
when it shot up. And it did shoot up, indeed it might almost
be seen to grow from day to day.

"Now really here is a flower coming," said the old woman
one morning, and now at last she began to encourage the hope
that her sick daughter might really recover. She remembered
that for some time the child had spoken more cheerfully, and
during the last few days had raised herself in bed in the
morning to look with sparkling eyes at her little garden which
contained only a single pea-plant. A week after, the invalid
sat up for the first time a whole hour, feeling quite happy by
the open window in the warm sunshine, while outside grew the
little plant, and on it a pink pea-blossom in full bloom. The
little maiden bent down and gently kissed the delicate leaves.
This day was to her like a festival.

"Our heavenly Father Himself has planted that pea, and
made it grow and flourish, to bring joy to you and hope to me,
my blessed child," said the happy mother, and she smiled at
the flower, as if it had been an angel from God.

But what became of the other peas? Why the one who flew
out into the wide world, and said, "Catch me if you can," fell
into a gutter on the roof of a house, and ended his travels in
the crop of a pigeon. The two lazy ones were carried quite as
far, for they also were eaten by pigeons, so they were at
least of some use; but the fourth, who wanted to reach the
sun, fell into a sink and lay there in the dirty water for
days and weeks, till he had swelled to a great size.

"I am getting beautifully fat," said the pea, "I expect I
shall burst at last; no pea could do more that that, I think;
I am the most remarkable of all the five which were in the
shell." And the sink confirmed the opinion.

But the young maiden stood at the open garret window, with
sparkling eyes and the rosy hue of health on her cheeks, she
folded her thin hands over the pea-blossom, and thanked God
for what He had done.

"I," said the sink, "shall stand up for my pea."


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

OLE-LUK-OIE, THE DREAM-GOD


THERE is nobody in the world who knows so many stories as
Ole-Luk-Oie, or who can relate them so nicely. In the evening,
while the children are seated at the table or in their little
chairs, he comes up the stairs very softly, for he walks in
his socks, then he opens the doors without the slightest
noise, and throws a small quantity of very fine dust in their
eyes, just enough to prevent them from keeping them open, and
so they do not see him. Then he creeps behind them, and blows
softly upon their necks, till their heads begin to droop. But
Ole-Luk-Oie does not wish to hurt them, for he is very fond of
children, and only wants them to be quiet that he may relate
to them pretty stories, and they never are quiet until they
are in bed and asleep. As soon as they are asleep, Ole-Luk-Oie
seats himself upon the bed. He is nicely dressed; his coat is
made of silken stuff; it is impossible to say of what color,
for it changes from green to red, and from red to blue as he
turns from side to side. Under each arm he carries an
umbrella; one of them, with pictures on the inside, he spreads
over the good children, and then they dream the most beautiful
stories the whole night. But the other umbrella has no
pictures, and this he holds over the naughty children so that
they sleep heavily, and wake in the morning without having
dreamed at all.

Now we shall hear how Ole-Luk-Oie came every night during
a whole week to the little boy named Hjalmar, and what he told
him. There were seven stories, as there are seven days in the
week.
MONDAY

MONDAY


"Now pay attention," said Ole-Luk-Oie, in the evening,
when Hjalmar was in bed, "and I will decorate the room."

Immediately all the flowers in the flower-pots became
large trees, with long branches reaching to the ceiling, and
stretching along the walls, so that the whole room was like a
greenhouse. All the branches were loaded with flowers, each
flower as beautiful and as fragrant as a rose; and, had any
one tasted them, he would have found them sweeter even than
jam. The fruit glittered like gold, and there were cakes so
full of plums that they were nearly bursting. It was
incomparably beautiful. At the same time sounded dismal moans
from the table-drawer in which lay Hjalmar's school books.

"What can that be now?" said Ole-Luk-Oie, going to the
table and pulling out the drawer.

It was a slate, in such distress because of a false number
in the sum, that it had almost broken itself to pieces. The
pencil pulled and tugged at its string as if it were a little
dog that wanted to help, but could not.

And then came a moan from Hjalmar's copy-book. Oh, it was
quite terrible to hear! On each leaf stood a row of capital
letters, every one having a small letter by its side. This
formed a copy; under these were other letters, which Hjalmar
had written: they fancied they looked like the copy, but they
were mistaken; for they were leaning on one side as if they
intended to fall over the pencil-lines.

"See, this is the way you should hold yourselves," said
the copy. "Look here, you should slope thus, with a graceful
curve."

"Oh, we are very willing to do so, but we cannot," said
Hjalmar's letters; "we are so wretchedly made."

"You must be scratched out, then," said Ole-Luk-Oie.

"Oh, no!" they cried, and then they stood up so gracefully
it was quite a pleasure to look at them.

"Now we must give up our stories, and exercise these
letters," said Ole-Luk-Oie; "One, two- one, two- " So he
drilled them till they stood up gracefully, and looked as
beautiful as a copy could look. But after Ole-Luk-Oie was
gone, and Hjalmar looked at them in the morning, they were as
wretched and as awkward as ever.
TUESDAY

TUESDAY


As soon as Hjalmar was in bed, Ole-Luk-Oie touched, with
his little magic wand, all the furniture in the room, which
immediately began to chatter, and each article only talked of
itself.

Over the chest of drawers hung a large picture in a gilt
frame, representing a landscape, with fine old trees, flowers
in the grass, and a broad stream, which flowed through the
wood, past several castles, far out into the wild ocean.
Ole-Luk-Oie touched the picture with his magic wand, and
immediately the birds commenced singing, the branches of the
trees rustled, and the clouds moved across the sky, casting
their shadows on the landscape beneath them. Then Ole-Luk-Oie
lifted little Hjalmar up to the frame, and placed his feet in
the picture, just on the high grass, and there he stood with
the sun shining down upon him through the branches of the
trees. He ran to the water, and seated himself in a little
boat which lay there, and which was painted red and white. The
sails glittered like silver, and six swans, each with a golden
circlet round its neck, and a bright blue star on its
forehead, drew the boat past the green wood, where the trees
talked of robbers and witches, and the flowers of beautiful
little elves and fairies, whose histories the butterflies had
related to them. Brilliant fish, with scales like silver and
gold, swam after the boat, sometimes making a spring and
splashing the water round them, while birds, red and blue,
small and great, flew after him in two long lines. The gnats
danced round them, and the cockchafers cried "Buz, buz." They
all wanted to follow Hjalmar, and all had some story to tell
him. It was a most pleasant sail. Sometimes the forests were
thick and dark, sometimes like a beautiful garden, gay with
sunshine and flowers; then he passed great palaces of glass
and of marble, and on the balconies stood princesses, whose
faces were those of little girls whom Hjalmar knew well, and
had often played with. One of them held out her hand, in which
was a heart made of sugar, more beautiful than any
confectioner ever sold. As Hjalmar sailed by, he caught hold
of one side of the sugar heart, and held it fast, and the
princess held fast also, so that it broke in two pieces.
Hjalmar had one piece, and the princess the other, but
Hjalmar's was the largest. At each castle stood little princes
acting as sentinels. They presented arms, and had golden
swords, and made it rain plums and tin soldiers, so that they
must have been real princes.

Hjalmar continued to sail, sometimes through woods,
sometimes as it were through large halls, and then by large
cities. At last he came to the town where his nurse lived, who
had carried him in her arms when he was a very little boy, and
had always been kind to him. She nodded and beckoned to him,
and then sang the little verses she had herself composed and
set to him,-


"How oft my memory turns to thee,

My own Hjalmar, ever dear!

When I could watch thy infant glee,

Or kiss away a pearly tear.

'Twas in my arms thy lisping tongue

First spoke the half-remembered word,

While o'er thy tottering steps I hung,

My fond protection to afford.

Farewell! I pray the Heavenly Power

To keep thee till thy dying hour."

And all the birds sang the same tune, the flowers danced on
their stems, and the old trees nodded as if Ole-Luk-Oie had
been telling them stories as well.
WEDNESDAY

WEDNESDAY


How the rain did pour down! Hjalmar could hear it in his
sleep;. and when Ole-Luk-Oie opened the window, the water
flowed quite up to the window-sill. It had the appearance of a
large lake outside, and a beautiful ship lay close to the
house.

"Wilt thou sail with me to-night, little Hjalmar?" said
Ole-Luk-Oie; "then we shall see foreign countries, and thou
shalt return here in the morning."

All in a moment, there stood Hjalmar, in his best clothes,
on the deck of the noble ship; and immediately the weather
became fine. They sailed through the streets, round by the
church, and on every side rolled the wide, great sea. They
sailed till the land disappeared, and then they saw a flock of
storks, who had left their own country, and were travelling to
warmer climates. The storks flew one behind the other, and had
already been a long, long time on the wing. One of them seemed
so tired that his wings could scarcely carry him. He was the
last of the row, and was soon left very far behind. At length
he sunk lower and lower, with outstretched wings, flapping
them in vain, till his feet touched the rigging of the ship,
and he slided from the sails to the deck, and stood before
them. Then a sailor-boy caught him, and put him in the
hen-house, with the fowls, the ducks, and the turkeys, while
the poor stork stood quite bewildered amongst them.

"Just look at that fellow," said the chickens.

Then the turkey-cock puffed himself out as large as he
could, and inquired who he was; and the ducks waddled
backwards, crying, "Quack, quack."

Then the stork told them all about warm Africa, of the
pyramids, and of the ostrich, which, like a wild horse, runs
across the desert. But the ducks did not understand what he
said, and quacked amongst themselves, "We are all of the same
opinion; namely, that he is stupid."

"Yes, to be sure, he is stupid," said the turkey-cock; and
gobbled.

Then the stork remained quite silent, and thought of his
home in Africa.

"Those are handsome thin legs of yours," said the
turkey-cock. "What do they cost a yard?"

"Quack, quack, quack," grinned the ducks; but, the stork
pretended not to hear.

"You may as well laugh," said the turkey; "for that remark
was rather witty, or perhaps it was above you. Ah, ah, is he
not clever? He will be a great amusement to us while he
remains here." And then he gobbled, and the ducks quacked,
"Gobble, gobble; Quack, quack."

What a terrible uproar they made, while they were having
such fun among themselves!

Then Hjalmar went to the hen-house; and, opening the door,
called to the stork. Then he hopped out on the deck. He had
rested himself now, and he looked happy, and seemed as if he
nodded to Hjalmar, as if to thank him. Then he spread his
wings, and flew away to warmer countries, while the hens
clucked, the ducks quacked, and the turkey-cock turned quite
scarlet in the head.

"To-morrow you shall be made into soup," said Hjalmar to
the fowls; and then he awoke, and found himself lying in his
little bed.

It was a wonderful journey which Ole-Luk-Oie had made him
take this night.
THURSDAY

THURSDAY


"What do you think I have got here?" said Ole-Luk-Oie, "Do
not be frightened, and you shall see a little mouse." And then
he held out his hand to him, in which lay a lovely little
creature. "It has come to invite you to a wedding. Two little
mice are going to enter into the marriage state tonight. They
reside under the floor of your mother's store-room, and that
must be a fine dwelling-place."

"But how can I get through the little mouse-hole in the
floor?" asked Hjalmar.

"Leave me to manage that," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "I will soon
make you small enough." And then he touched Hjalmar with his
magic wand, whereupon he became less and less, until at last
he was not longer than a little finger. "Now you can borrow
the dress of the tin soldier. I think it will just fit you. It
looks well to wear a uniform when you go into company."

"Yes, certainly," said Hjalmar; and in a moment he was
dressed as neatly as the neatest of all tin soldiers.

"Will you be so good as to seat yourself in your mamma's
thimble," said the little mouse, "that I may have the pleasure
of drawing you to the wedding."

"Will you really take so much trouble, young lady?" said
Hjalmar. And so in this way he rode to the mouse's wedding.

First they went under the floor, and then passed through a
long passage, which was scarcely high enough to allow the
thimble to drive under, and the whole passage was lit up with
the phosphorescent light of rotten wood.

"Does it not smell delicious?" asked the mouse, as she
drew him along. "The wall and the floor have been smeared with
bacon-rind; nothing can be nicer."

Very soon they arrived at the bridal hall. On the right
stood all the little lady-mice, whispering and giggling, as if
they were making game of each other. To the left were the
gentlemen-mice, stroking their whiskers with their fore-paws;
and in the centre of the hall could be seen the bridal pair,
standing side by side, in a hollow cheese-rind, and kissing
each other, while all eyes were upon them; for they had
already been betrothed, and were soon to be married. More and
more friends kept arriving, till the mice were nearly treading
each other to death; for the bridal pair now stood in the
doorway, and none could pass in or out.

The room had been rubbed over with bacon-rind, like the
passage, which was all the refreshment offered to the guests.
But for dessert they produced a pea, on which a mouse
belonging to the bridal pair had bitten the first letters of
their names. This was something quite uncommon. All the mice
said it was a very beautiful wedding, and that they had been
very agreeably entertained.

After this, Hjalmar returned home. He had certainly been
in grand society; but he had been obliged to creep under a
room, and to make himself small enough to wear the uniform of
a tin soldier.
FRIDAY

FRIDAY


"It is incredible how many old people there are who would
be glad to have me at night," said Ole-Luk-Oie, "especially
those who have done something wrong. 'Good little Ole,' say
they to me, 'we cannot close our eyes, and we lie awake the
whole night and see all our evil deeds sitting on our beds
like little imps, and sprinkling us with hot water. Will you
come and drive them away, that we may have a good night's
rest?' and then they sigh so deeply and say, 'We would gladly
pay you for it. Good-night, Ole-Luk, the money lies on the
window.' But I never do anything for gold." "What shall we do
to-night?" asked Hjalmar. "I do not know whether you would
care to go to another wedding," he replied, "although it is
quite a different affair to the one we saw last night. Your
sister's large doll, that is dressed like a man, and is called
Herman, intends to marry the doll Bertha. It is also the
dolls' birthday, and they will receive many presents."

"Yes, I know that already," said Hjalmar, "my sister
always allows her dolls to keep their birthdays or to have a
wedding when they require new clothes; that has happened
already a hundred times, I am quite sure."

"Yes, so it may; but to-night is the hundred and first
wedding, and when that has taken place it must be the last,
therefore this is to be extremely beautiful. Only look."

Hjalmar looked at the table, and there stood the little
card-board doll's house, with lights in all the windows, and
drawn up before it were the tin soldiers presenting arms. The
bridal pair were seated on the floor, leaning against the leg
of the table, looking very thoughtful, and with good reason.
Then Ole-Luk-Oie dressed up in grandmother's black gown
married them.

As soon as the ceremony was concluded, all the furniture
in the room joined in singing a beautiful song, which had been
composed by the lead pencil, and which went to the melody of a
military tattoo.


"What merry sounds are on the wind,

As marriage rites together bind

A quiet and a loving pair,

Though formed of kid, yet smooth and fair!

Hurrah! If they are deaf and blind,

We'll sing, though weather prove unkind."


And now came the present; but the bridal pair had nothing
to eat, for love was to be their food.

"Shall we go to a country house, or travel?" asked the
bridegroom.

Then they consulted the swallow who had travelled so far,
and the old hen in the yard, who had brought up five broods of
chickens.

And the swallow talked to them of warm countries, where
the grapes hang in large clusters on the vines, and the air is
soft and mild, and about the mountains glowing with colors
more beautiful than we can think of.

"But they have no red cabbage like we have," said the hen,
"I was once in the country with my chickens for a whole
summer, there was a large sand-pit, in which we could walk
about and scratch as we liked. Then we got into a garden in
which grew red cabbage; oh, how nice it was, I cannot think of
anything more delicious."

"But one cabbage stalk is exactly like another," said the
swallow; "and here we have often bad weather."

"Yes, but we are accustomed to it," said the hen.

"But it is so cold here, and freezes sometimes."

"Cold weather is good for cabbages," said the hen;
"besides we do have it warm here sometimes. Four years ago, we
had a summer that lasted more than five weeks, and it was so
hot one could scarcely breathe. And then in this country we
have no poisonous animals, and we are free from robbers. He
must be wicked who does not consider our country the finest of
all lands. He ought not to be allowed to live here." And then
the hen wept very much and said, "I have also travelled. I
once went twelve miles in a coop, and it was not pleasant
travelling at all."

"The hen is a sensible woman," said the doll Bertha. "I
don't care for travelling over mountains, just to go up and
come down again. No, let us go to the sand-pit in front of the
gate, and then take a walk in the cabbage garden."

And so they settled it.
SATURDAY

SATURDAY


"Am I to hear any more stories?" asked little Hjalmar, as
soon as Ole-Luk-Oie had sent him to sleep.

"We shall have no time this evening," said he, spreading
out his prettiest umbrella over the child. "Look at these
Chinese," and then the whole umbrella appeared like a large
china bowl, with blue trees and pointed bridges, upon which
stood little Chinamen nodding their heads. "We must make all
the world beautiful for to-morrow morning," said Ole-Luk-Oie,
"for it will be a holiday, it is Sunday. I must now go to the
church steeple and see if the little sprites who live there
have polished the bells, so that they may sound sweetly. Then
I must go into the fields and see if the wind has blown the
dust from the grass and the leaves, and the most difficult
task of all which I have to do, is to take down all the stars
and brighten them up. I have to number them first before I put
them in my apron, and also to number the places from which I
take them, so that they may go back into the right holes, or
else they would not remain, and we should have a number of
falling stars, for they would all tumble down one after the
other."

"Hark ye! Mr. Luk-Oie," said an old portrait which hung on
the wall of Hjalmar's bedroom. "Do you know me? I am Hjalmar's
great-grandfather. I thank you for telling the boy stories,
but you must not confuse his ideas. The stars cannot be taken
down from the sky and polished; they are spheres like our
earth, which is a good thing for them."

"Thank you, old great-grandfather," said Ole-Luk-Oie. "I
thank you; you may be the head of the family, as no doubt you
are, but I am older than you. I am an ancient heathen. The old
Romans and Greeks named me the Dream-god. I have visited the
noblest houses, and continue to do so; still I know how to
conduct myself both to high and low, and now you may tell the
stories yourself:" and so Ole-Luk-Oie walked off, taking his
umbrellas with him.

"Well, well, one is never to give an opinion, I suppose,"
grumbled the portrait. And it woke Hjalmar.
SUNDAY

SUNDAY


"Good evening," said Ole-Luk-Oie.

Hjalmar nodded, and then sprang out of bed, and turned his
great-grandfather's portrait to the wall, so that it might not
interrupt them as it had done yesterday. "Now," said he, "you
must tell me some stories about five green peas that lived in
one pod; or of the chickseed that courted the chickweed; or of
the darning needle, who acted so proudly because she fancied
herself an embroidery needle."

"You may have too much of a good thing," said Ole-Luk-Oie.
"You know that I like best to show you something, so I will
show you my brother. He is also called Ole-Luk-Oie but he
never visits any one but once, and when he does come, he takes
him away on his horse, and tells him stories as they ride
along. He knows only two stories. One of these is so
wonderfully beautiful, that no one in the world can imagine
anything at all like it; but the other is just as ugly and
frightful, so that it would be impossible to describe it."
Then Ole-Luk-Oie lifted Hjalmar up to the window. "There now,
you can see my brother, the other Ole-Luk-Oie; he is also
called Death. You perceive he is not so bad as they represent
him in picture books; there he is a skeleton, but now his coat
is embroidered with silver, and he wears the splendid uniform
of a hussar, and a mantle of black velvet flies behind him,
over the horse. Look, how he gallops along." Hjalmar saw that
as this Ole-Luk-Oie rode on, he lifted up old and young, and
carried them away on his horse. Some he seated in front of
him, and some behind, but always inquired first, "How stands
the mark-book?"

"Good," they all answered.

"Yes, but let me see for myself," he replied; and they
were obliged to give him the books. Then all those who had
"Very good," or "Exceedingly good," came in front of the
horse, and heard the beautiful story; while those who had
"Middling," or "Tolerably good," in their books, were obliged
to sit behind, and listen to the frightful tale. They trembled
and cried, and wanted to jump down from the horse, but they
could not get free, for they seemed fastened to the seat.

"Why, Death is a most splendid Luk-Oie," said Hjalmar. "I
am not in the least afraid of him."

"You need have no fear of him," said Ole-Luk-Oie, "if you
take care and keep a good conduct book."

"Now I call that very instructive," murmured the
great-grandfather's portrait. "It is useful sometimes to
express an opinion;" so he was quite satisfied.

These are some of the doings and sayings of Ole-Luk-Oie. I
hope he may visit you himself this evening, and relate some
more.


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

THE OLD STREET LAMP


DID you ever hear the story of the old street lamp? It is
not remarkably interesting, but for once in a way you may as
well listen to it. It was a most respectable old lamp, which
had seen many, many years of service, and now was to retire
with a pension. It was this evening at its post for the last
time, giving light to the street. His feelings were something
like those of an old dancer at the theatre, who is dancing for
the last time, and knows that on the morrow she will be in her
garret, alone and forgotten. The lamp had very great anxiety
about the next day, for he knew that he had to appear for the
first time at the town hall, to be inspected by the mayor and
the council, who were to decide if he were fit for further
service or not;- whether the lamp was good enough to be used
to light the inhabitants of one of the suburbs, or in the
country, at some factory; and if not, it would be sent at once
to an iron foundry, to be melted down. In this latter case it
might be turned into anything, and he wondered very much
whether he would then be able to remember that he had once
been a street lamp, and it troubled him exceedingly. Whatever
might happen, one thing seemed certain, that he would be
separated from the watchman and his wife, whose family he
looked upon as his own. The lamp had first been hung up on
that very evening that the watchman, then a robust young man,
had entered upon the duties of his office. Ah, well, it was a
very long time since one became a lamp and the other a
watchman. His wife had a little pride in those days; she
seldom condescended to glance at the lamp, excepting when she
passed by in the evening, never in the daytime. But in later
years, when all these,- the watchman, the wife, and the lamp-
had grown old, she had attended to it, cleaned it, and
supplied it with oil. The old people were thoroughly honest,
they had never cheated the lamp of a single drop of the oil
provided for it.

This was the lamp's last night in the street, and
to-morrow he must go to the town-hall,- two very dark things
to think of. No wonder he did not burn brightly. Many other
thoughts also passed through his mind. How many persons he had
lighted on their way, and how much he had seen; as much, very
likely, as the mayor and corporation themselves! None of these
thoughts were uttered aloud, however; for he was a good,
honorable old lamp, who would not willingly do harm to any
one, especially to those in authority. As many things were
recalled to his mind, the light would flash up with sudden
brightness; he had, at such moments, a conviction that he
would be remembered. "There was a handsome young man once,"
thought he; "it is certainly a long while ago, but I remember
he had a little note, written on pink paper with a gold edge;
the writing was elegant, evidently a lady's hand: twice he
read it through, and kissed it, and then looked up at me, with
eyes that said quite plainly, 'I am the happiest of men!' Only
he and I know what was written on this his first letter from
his lady-love. Ah, yes, and there was another pair of eyes
that I remember,- it is really wonderful how the thoughts jump
from one thing to another! A funeral passed through the
street; a young and beautiful woman lay on a bier, decked with
garlands of flowers, and attended by torches, which quite
overpowered my light. All along the street stood the people
from the houses, in crowds, ready to join the procession. But
when the torches had passed from before me, and I could look
round, I saw one person alone, standing, leaning against my
post, and weeping. Never shall I forget the sorrowful eyes
that looked up at me." These and similar reflections occupied
the old street lamp, on this the last time that his light
would shine. The sentry, when he is relieved from his post,
knows at least who will succeed him, and may whisper a few
words to him, but the lamp did not know his successor, or he
could have given him a few hints respecting rain, or mist, and
could have informed him how far the moon's rays would rest on
the pavement, and from which side the wind generally blew, and
so on.

On the bridge over the canal stood three persons, who
wished to recommend themselves to the lamp, for they thought
he could give the office to whomsoever he chose. The first was
a herring's head, which could emit light in the darkness. He
remarked that it would be a great saving of oil if they placed
him on the lamp-post. Number two was a piece of rotten wood,
which also shines in the dark. He considered himself descended
from an old stem, once the pride of the forest. The third was
a glow-worm, and how he found his way there the lamp could not
imagine, yet there he was, and could really give light as well
as the others. But the rotten wood and the herring's head
declared most solemnly, by all they held sacred, that the
glow-worm only gave light at certain times, and must not be
allowed to compete with themselves. The old lamp assured them
that not one of them could give sufficient light to fill the
position of a street lamp; but they would believe nothing he
said. And when they discovered that he had not the power of
naming his successor, they said they were very glad to hear
it, for the lamp was too old and worn-out to make a proper
choice.

At this moment the wind came rushing round the corner of
the street, and through the air-holes of the old lamp. "What
is this I hear?" said he; "that you are going away to-morrow?
Is this evening the last time we shall meet? Then I must
present you with a farewell gift. I will blow into your brain,
so that in future you shall not only be able to remember all
that you have seen or heard in the past, but your light within
shall be so bright, that you shall be able to understand all
that is said or done in your presence."

"Oh, that is really a very, very great gift," said the old
lamp; "I thank you most heartily. I only hope I shall not be
melted down."

"That is not likely to happen yet," said the wind; "and I
will also blow a memory into you, so that should you receive
other similar presents your old age will pass very
pleasantly."

"That is if I am not melted down," said the lamp. "But
should I in that case still retain my memory?"

"Do be reasonable, old lamp," said the wind, puffing away.

At this moment the moon burst forth from the clouds. "What
will you give the old lamp?" asked the wind.

"I can give nothing," she replied; "I am on the wane, and
no lamps have ever given me light while I have frequently
shone upon them." And with these words the moon hid herself
again behind the clouds, that she might be saved from further
importunities. Just then a drop fell upon the lamp, from the
roof of the house, but the drop explained that he was a gift
from those gray clouds, and perhaps the best of all gifts. "I
shall penetrate you so thoroughly," he said, "that you will
have the power of becoming rusty, and, if you wish it, to
crumble into dust in one night."

But this seemed to the lamp a very shabby present, and the
wind thought so too. "Does no one give any more? Will no one
give any more?" shouted the breath of the wind, as loud as it
could. Then a bright falling star came down, leaving a broad,
luminous streak behind it.

"What was that?" cried the herring's head. "Did not a star
fall? I really believe it went into the lamp. Certainly, when
such high-born personages try for the office, we may as well
say 'Good-night,' and go home."

And so they did, all three, while the old lamp threw a
wonderfully strong light all around him.

"This is a glorious gift," said he; "the bright stars have
always been a joy to me, and have always shone more
brilliantly than I ever could shine, though I have tried with
my whole might; and now they have noticed me, a poor old lamp,
and have sent me a gift that will enable me to see clearly
everything that I remember, as if it still stood before me,
and to be seen by all those who love me. And herein lies the
truest pleasure, for joy which we cannot share with others is
only half enjoyed."

"That sentiment does you honor," said the wind; "but for
this purpose wax lights will be necessary. If these are not
lighted in you, your particular faculties will not benefit
others in the least. The stars have not thought of this; they
suppose that you and every other light must be a wax taper:
but I must go down now." So he laid himself to rest.

"Wax tapers, indeed!" said the lamp, "I have never yet had
these, nor is it likely I ever shall. If I could only be sure
of not being melted down!"

The next day. Well, perhaps we had better pass over the
next day. The evening had come, and the lamp was resting in a
grandfather's chair, and guess where! Why, at the old
watchman's house. He had begged, as a favor, that the mayor
and corporation would allow him to keep the street lamp, in
consideration of his long and faithful service, as he had
himself hung it up and lit it on the day he first commenced
his duties, four-and-twenty years ago. He looked upon it
almost as his own child; he had no children, so the lamp was
given to him. There it lay in the great arm-chair near to the
warm stove. It seemed almost as if it had grown larger, for it
appeared quite to fill the chair. The old people sat at their
supper, casting friendly glances at the old lamp, whom they
would willingly have admitted to a place at the table. It is
quite true that they dwelt in a cellar, two yards deep in the
earth, and they had to cross a stone passage to get to their
room, but within it was warm and comfortable and strips of
list had been nailed round the door. The bed and the little
window had curtains, and everything looked clean and neat. On
the window seat stood two curious flower-pots which a sailor,
named Christian, had brought over from the East or West
Indies. They were of clay, and in the form of two elephants,
with open backs; they were hollow and filled with earth, and
through the open space flowers bloomed. In one grew some very
fine chives or leeks; this was the kitchen garden. The other
elephant, which contained a beautiful geranium, they called
their flower garden. On the wall hung a large colored print,
representing the congress of Vienna, and all the kings and
emperors at once. A clock, with heavy weights, hung on the
wall and went "tick, tick," steadily enough; yet it was always
rather too fast, which, however, the old people said was
better than being too slow. They were now eating their supper,
while the old street lamp, as we have heard, lay in the
grandfather's arm-chair near the stove. It seemed to the lamp
as if the whole world had turned round; but after a while the
old watchman looked at the lamp, and spoke of what they had
both gone through together,- in rain and in fog; during the
short bright nights of summer, or in the long winter nights,
through the drifting snow-storms, when he longed to be at home
in the cellar. Then the lamp felt it was all right again. He
saw everything that had happened quite clearly, as if it were
passing before him. Surely the wind had given him an excellent
gift. The old people were very active and industrious, they
were never idle for even a single hour. On Sunday afternoons
they would bring out some books, generally a book of travels
which they were very fond of. The old man would read aloud
about Africa, with its great forests and the wild elephants,
while his wife would listen attentively, stealing a glance now
and then at the clay elephants, which served as flower-pots.

"I can almost imagine I am seeing it all," she said; and
then how the lamp wished for a wax taper to be lighted in him,
for then the old woman would have seen the smallest detail as
clearly as he did himself. The lofty trees, with their thickly
entwined branches, the naked negroes on horseback, and whole
herds of elephants treading down bamboo thickets with their
broad, heavy feet.

"What is the use of all my capabilities," sighed the old
lamp, "when I cannot obtain any wax lights; they have only oil
and tallow here, and these will not do." One day a great heap
of wax-candle ends found their way into the cellar. The larger
pieces were burnt, and the smaller ones the old woman kept for
waxing her thread. So there were now candles enough, but it
never occurred to any one to put a little piece in the lamp.

"Here I am now with my rare powers," thought the lamp, "I
have faculties within me, but I cannot share them; they do not
know that I could cover these white walls with beautiful
tapestry, or change them into noble forests, or, indeed, to
anything else they might wish for." The lamp, however, was
always kept clean and shining in a corner where it attracted
all eyes. Strangers looked upon it as lumber, but the old
people did not care for that; they loved the lamp. One day- it
was the watchman's birthday- the old woman approached the
lamp, smiling to herself, and said, "I will have an
illumination to-day in honor of my old man." And the lamp
rattled in his metal frame, for he thought, "Now at last I
shall have a light within me," but after all no wax light was
placed in the lamp, but oil as usual. The lamp burned through
the whole evening, and began to perceive too clearly that the
gift of the stars would remain a hidden treasure all his life.
Then he had a dream; for, to one with his faculties, dreaming
was no difficulty. It appeared to him that the old people were
dead, and that he had been taken to the iron foundry to be
melted down. It caused him quite as much anxiety as on the day
when he had been called upon to appear before the mayor and
the council at the town-hall. But though he had been endowed
with the power of falling into decay from rust when he
pleased, he did not make use of it. He was therefore put into
the melting-furnace and changed into as elegant an iron
candlestick as you could wish to see, one intended to hold a
wax taper. The candlestick was in the form of an angel holding
a nosegay, in the centre of which the wax taper was to be
placed. It was to stand on a green writing table, in a very
pleasant room; many books were scattered about, and splendid
paintings hung on the walls. The owner of the room was a poet,
and a man of intellect; everything he thought or wrote was
pictured around him. Nature showed herself to him sometimes in
the dark forests, at others in cheerful meadows where the
storks were strutting about, or on the deck of a ship sailing
across the foaming sea with the clear, blue sky above, or at
night the glittering stars. "What powers I possess!" said the
lamp, awaking from his dream; "I could almost wish to be
melted down; but no, that must not be while the old people
live. They love me for myself alone, they keep me bright, and
supply me with oil. I am as well off as the picture of the
congress, in which they take so much pleasure." And from that
time he felt at rest in himself, and not more so than such an
honorable old lamp really deserved to be.


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

THE OLD GRAVE-STONE


IN a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town,
at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are
growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at
their old home. A lamp burned on the table, although the
weather was mild and warm, and the long curtains hung down
before the open windows, and without the moon shone brightly
in the dark-blue sky.

But they were not talking of the moon, but of a large, old
stone that lay below in the courtyard not very far from the
kitchen door. The maids often laid the clean copper saucepans
and kitchen vessels on this stone, that they might dry in the
sun, and the children were fond of playing on it. It was, in
fact, an old grave-stone.

"Yes," said the master of the house, "I believe the stone
came from the graveyard of the old church of the convent which
was pulled down, and the pulpit, the monuments, and the
grave-stones sold. My father bought the latter; most of them
were cut in two and used for paving-stones, but that one stone
was preserved whole, and laid in the courtyard."

"Any one can see that it is a grave-stone," said the
eldest of the children; "the representation of an hour-glass
and part of the figure of an angel can still be traced, but
the inscription beneath is quite worn out, excepting the name
'Preben,' and a large 'S' close by it, and a little farther
down the name of 'Martha' can be easily read. But nothing
more, and even that cannot be seen unless it has been raining,
or when we have washed the stone."

"Dear me! how singular. Why that must be the grave-stone
of Preben Schwane and his wife."

The old man who said this looked old enough to be the
grandfather of all present in the room.

"Yes," he continued, "these people were among the last who
were buried in the churchyard of the old convent. They were a
very worthy old couple, I can remember them well in the days
of my boyhood. Every one knew them, and they were esteemed by
all. They were the oldest residents in the town, and people
said they possessed a ton of gold, yet they were always very
plainly dressed, in the coarsest stuff, but with linen of the
purest whiteness. Preben and Martha were a fine old couple,
and when they both sat on the bench, at the top of the steep
stone steps, in front of their house, with the branches of the
linden-tree waving above them, and nodded in a gentle,
friendly way to passers by, it really made one feel quite
happy. They were very good to the poor; they fed them and
clothed them, and in their benevolence there was judgment as
well as true Christianity. The old woman died first; that day
is still quite vividly before my eyes. I was a little boy, and
had accompanied my father to the old man's house. Martha had
fallen into the sleep of death just as we arrived there. The
corpse lay in a bedroom, near to the one in which we sat, and
the old man was in great distress and weeping like a child. He
spoke to my father, and to a few neighbors who were there, of
how lonely he should feel now she was gone, and how good and
true she, his dead wife, had been during the number of years
that they had passed through life together, and how they had
become acquainted, and learnt to love each other. I was, as I
have said, a boy, and only stood by and listened to what the
others said; but it filled me with a strange emotion to listen
to the old man, and to watch how the color rose in his cheeks
as he spoke of the days of their courtship, of how beautiful
she was, and how many little tricks he had been guilty of,
that he might meet her. And then he talked of his wedding-day;
and his eyes brightened, and he seemed to be carried back, by
his words, to that joyful time. And yet there she was, lying
in the next room, dead- an old woman, and he was an old man,
speaking of the days of hope, long passed away. Ah, well, so
it is; then I was but a child, and now I am old, as old as
Preben Schwane then was. Time passes away, and all things
changed. I can remember quite well the day on which she was
buried, and how Old Preben walked close behind the coffin.

"A few years before this time the old couple had had their
grave-stone prepared, with an inscription and their names, but
not the date. In the evening the stone was taken to the
churchyard, and laid on the grave. A year later it was taken
up, that Old Preben might be laid by the side of his wife.
They did not leave behind them wealth, they left behind them
far less than people had believed they possessed; what there
was went to families distantly related to them, of whom, till
then, no one had ever heard. The old house, with its balcony
of wickerwork, and the bench at the top of the high steps,
under the lime-tree, was considered, by the road-inspectors,
too old and rotten to be left standing. Afterwards, when the
same fate befell the convent church, and the graveyard was
destroyed, the grave-stone of Preben and Martha, like
everything else, was sold to whoever would buy it. And so it
happened that this stone was not cut in two as many others had
been, but now lies in the courtyard below, a scouring block
for the maids, and a playground for the children. The paved
street now passes over the resting place of Old Preben and his
wife; no one thinks of them any more now."

And the old man who had spoken of all this shook his head
mournfully, and said, "Forgotten! Ah, yes, everything will be
forgotten!" And then the conversation turned on other matters.

But the youngest child in the room, a boy, with large,
earnest eyes, mounted upon a chair behind the window curtains,
and looked out into the yard, where the moon was pouring a
flood of light on the old gravestone,- the stone that had
always appeared to him so dull and flat, but which lay there
now like a great leaf out of a book of history. All that the
boy had heard of Old Preben and his wife seemed clearly
defined on the stone, and as he gazed on it, and glanced at
the clear, bright moon shining in the pure air, it was as if
the light of God's countenance beamed over His beautiful
world.

"Forgotten! Everything will be forgotten!" still echoed
through the room, and in the same moment an invisible spirit
whispered to the heart of the boy, "Preserve carefully the
seed that has been entrusted to thee, that it may grow and
thrive. Guard it well. Through thee, my child, shall the
obliterated inscription on the old, weather-beaten grave-stone
go forth to future generations in clear, golden characters.
The old pair shall again wander through the streets
arm-in-arm, or sit with their fresh, healthy cheeks on the
bench under the lime-tree, and smile and nod at rich and poor.
The seed of this hour shall ripen in the course of years into
a beautiful poem. The beautiful and the good are never
forgotten, they live always in story or in song."


THE END

[أرب جمـال]

THE OLD BACHELOR'S NIGHTCAP


THERE is a street in Copenhagen with a very strange name.
It is called "Hysken" street. Where the name came from, and
what it means is very uncertain. It is said to be German, but
that is unjust to the Germans, for it would then be called
"Hauschen," not "Hysken." "Hauschen," means a little house;
and for many years it consisted only of a few small houses,
which were scarcely larger than the wooden booths we see in
the market-places at fair time. They were perhaps a little
higher, and had windows; but the panes consisted of horn or
bladder-skins, for glass was then too dear to have glazed
windows in every house. This was a long time ago, so long
indeed that our grandfathers, and even great-grandfathers,
would speak of those days as "olden times;" indeed, many
centuries have passed since then.

The rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck, who carried on
trade in Copenhagen, did not reside in the town themselves,
but sent their clerks, who dwelt in the wooden booths in the
Hauschen street, and sold beer and spices. The German beer was
very good, and there were many sorts- from Bremen, Prussia,
and Brunswick- and quantities of all sorts of spices, saffron,
aniseed, ginger, and especially pepper; indeed, pepper was
almost the chief article sold here; so it happened at last
that the German clerks in Denmark got their nickname of
"pepper gentry." It had been made a condition with these
clerks that they should not marry; so that those who lived to
be old had to take care of themselves, to attend to their own
comforts, and even to light their own fires, when they had any
to light. Many of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with
strange thoughts and eccentric habits. From this, all
unmarried men, who have attained a certain age, are called, in
Denmark, "pepper gentry;" and this must be remembered by all
those who wish to understand the story. These "pepper
gentlemen," or, as they are called in England, "old
bachelors," are often made a butt of ridicule; they are told
to put on their nightcaps, draw them over their eyes, and go
to sleep. The boys in Denmark make a song of it, thus:-

"Poor old bachelor, cut your wood,
Such a nightcap was never seen;
Who would think it was ever clean?
Go to sleep, it will do you good."

So they sing about the "pepper gentleman;" so do they make
sport of the poor old bachelor and his nightcap, and all
because they really know nothing of either. It is a cap that
no one need wish for, or laugh at. And why not? Well, we shall
hear in the story.

In olden times, Hauschen Street was not paved, and
passengers would stumble out of one hole into another, as they
generally do in unfrequented highways; and the street was so
narrow, and the booths leaning against each other were so
close together, that in the summer time a sail would be
stretched across the street from one booth to another
opposite. At these times the odor of the pepper, saffron, and
ginger became more powerful than ever. Behind the counter, as
a rule, there were no young men. The clerks were almost all
old boys; but they did not dress as we are accustomed to see
old men represented, wearing wigs, nightcaps, and
knee-breeches, and with coat and waistcoat buttoned up to the
chin. We have seen the portraits of our great-grandfathers
dressed in this way; but the "pepper gentlemen" had no money
to spare to have their portraits taken, though one of them
would have made a very interesting picture for us now, if
taken as he appeared standing behind his counter, or going to
church, or on holidays. On these occasions, they wore
high-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, and sometimes a younger
clerk would stick a feather in his. The woollen shirt was
concealed by a broad, linen collar; the close jacket was
buttoned up to the chin, and the cloak hung loosely over it;
the trousers were tucked into the broad, tipped shoes, for the
clerks wore no stockings. They generally stuck a table-knife
and spoon in their girdles, as well as a larger knife, as a
protection to themselves; and such a weapon was often very
necessary.

After this fashion was Anthony dressed on holidays and
festivals, excepting that, instead of a high-crowned hat, he
wore a kind of bonnet, and under it a knitted cap, a regular
nightcap, to which he was so accustomed that it was always on
his head; he had two, nightcaps I mean, not heads. Anthony was
one of the oldest of the clerks, and just the subject for a
painter. He was as thin as a lath, wrinkled round the mouth
and eyes, had long, bony fingers, bushy, gray eyebrows, and
over his left eye hung a thick tuft of hair, which did not
look handsome, but made his appearance very remarkable. People
knew that he came from Bremen; it was not exactly his home,
although his master resided there. His ancestors were from
Thuringia, and had lived in the town of Eisenach, close by
Wartburg. Old Anthony seldom spoke of this place, but he
thought of it all the more.

The old clerks of Hauschen Street very seldom met
together; each one remained in his own booth, which was closed
early enough in the evening, and then it looked dark and
dismal out in the street. Only a faint glimmer of light
struggled through the horn panes in the little window on the
roof, while within sat the old clerk, generally on his bed,
singing his evening hymn in a low voice; or he would be moving
about in his booth till late in the night, busily employed in
many things. It certainly was not a very lively existence. To
be a stranger in a strange land is a bitter lot; no one
notices you unless you happen to stand in their way. Often,
when it was dark night outside, with rain or snow falling, the
place looked quite deserted and gloomy. There were no lamps in
the street, excepting a very small one, which hung at one end
of the street, before a picture of the Virgin, which had been
painted on the wall. The dashing of the water against the
bulwarks of a neighboring castle could plainly be heard. Such
evenings are long and dreary, unless people can find something
to do; and so Anthony found it. There were not always things
to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bags to be made, nor the
scales to be polished. So Anthony invented employment; he
mended his clothes and patched his boots, and when he at last
went to bed,- his nightcap, which he had worn from habit,
still remained on his head; he had only to pull it down a
little farther over his forehead. Very soon, however, it would
be pushed up again to see if the light was properly put out;
he would touch it, press the wick together, and at last pull
his nightcap over his eyes and lie down again on the other
side. But often there would arise in his mind a doubt as to
whether every coal had been quite put out in the little
fire-pan in the shop below. If even a tiny spark had remained
it might set fire to something, and cause great damage. Then
he would rise from his bed, creep down the ladder- for it
could scarcely be called a flight of stairs- and when he
reached the fire-pan not a spark could be seen; so he had just
to go back again to bed. But often, when he had got half way
back, he would fancy the iron shutters of the door were not
properly fastened, and his thin legs would carry him down
again. And when at last he crept into bed, he would be so cold
that his teeth chattered in his head. He would draw the
coverlet closer round him, pull his nightcap over his eyes,
and try to turn his thoughts from trade, and from the labors
of the day, to olden times. But this was scarcely an agreeable
entertainment; for thoughts of olden memories raise the
curtains from the past, and sometimes pierce the heart with
painful recollections till the agony brings tears to the
waking eyes. And so it was with Anthony; often the scalding
tears, like pearly drops, would fall from his eyes to the
coverlet and roll on the floor with a sound as if one of his
heartstrings had broken. Sometimes, with a lurid flame, memory
would light up a picture of life which had never faded from
his heart. If he dried his eyes with his nightcap, then the
tear and the picture would be crushed; but the source of the
tears remained and welled up again in his heart. The pictures
did not follow one another in order, as the circumstances they
represented had occurred; very often the most painful would
come together, and when those came which were most full of
joy, they had always the deepest shadow thrown upon them.

The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged by every one
to be very beautiful, but more beautiful still in the eyes of
old Anthony were the beech woods in the neighborhood of
Wartburg. More grand and venerable to him seemed the old oaks
around the proud baronial castle, where the creeping plants
hung over the stony summits of the rocks; sweeter was the
perfume there of the apple-blossom than in all the land of
Denmark. How vividly were represented to him, in a glittering
tear that rolled down his cheek, two children at play- a boy
and a girl. The boy had rosy cheeks, golden ringlets, and
clear, blue eyes; he was the son of Anthony, a rich merchant;
it was himself. The little girl had brown eyes and black hair,
and was clever and courageous; she was the mayor's daughter,
Molly. The children were playing with an apple; they shook the
apple, and heard the pips rattling in it. Then they cut it in
two, and each of them took half. They also divided the pips
and ate all but one, which the little girl proposed should be
placed in the ground.

"You will see what will come out," she said; "something
you don't expect. A whole apple-tree will come out, but not
directly." Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth,
and were soon both very busy and eager about it. The boy made
a hole in the earth with his finger, and the little girl
placed the pip in the hole, and then they both covered it over
with earth.

"Now you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has
taken root," said Molly; "no one ever should do that. I did so
with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were
growing. I didn't know any better then, and the flowers all
died."

Little Anthony kept the flower-pot, and every morning
during the whole winter he looked at it, but there was nothing
to be seen but black earth. At last, however, the spring came,
and the sun shone warm again, and then two little green leaves
sprouted forth in the pot.

"They are Molly and me," said the boy. "How wonderful they
are, and so beautiful!"

Very soon a third leaf made its appearance.

"Who does that stand for?" thought he, and then came
another and another. Day after day, and week after week, till
the plant became quite a tree. And all this about the two
children was mirrored to old Anthony in a single tear, which
could soon be wiped away and disappear, but might come again
from its source in the heart of the old man.

In the neighborhood of Eisenach stretches a ridge of stony
mountains, one of which has a rounded outline, and shows
itself above the rest without tree, bush, or grass on its
barren summits. It is called the "Venus Mountain," and the
story goes that the "Lady Venus," one of the heathen
goddesses, keeps house there. She is also called "Lady Halle,"
as every child round Eisenach well knows. She it was who
enticed the noble knight, Tannhauser, the minstrel, from the
circle of singers at Wartburg into her mountain.

Little Molly and Anthony often stood by this mountain, and
one day Molly said, "Do you dare to knock and say, 'Lady
Halle, Lady Halle, open the door: Tannhauser is here!'" But
Anthony did not dare. Molly, however, did, though she only
said the words, "Lady Halle, Lady Halle," loudly and
distinctly; the rest she muttered so much under her breath
that Anthony felt certain she had really said nothing; and yet
she looked quite bold and saucy, just as she did sometimes
when she was in the garden with a number of other little
girls; they would all stand round him together, and want to
kiss him, because he did not like to be kissed, and pushed
them away. Then Molly was the only one who dared to resist
him. "I may kiss him," she would say proudly, as she threw her
arms round his neck; she was vain of her power over Anthony,
for he would submit quietly and think nothing of it. Molly was
very charming, but rather bold; and how she did tease!

They said Lady Halle was beautiful, but her beauty was
that of a tempting fiend. Saint Elizabeth, the tutelar saint
of the land, the pious princess of Thuringia, whose good deeds
have been immortalized in so many places through stories and
legends, had greater beauty and more real grace. Her picture
hung in the chapel, surrounded by silver lamps; but it did not
in the least resemble Molly.

The apple-tree, which the two children had planted, grew
year after year, till it became so large that it had to be
transplanted into the garden, where the dew fell and the sun
shone warmly. And there it increased in strength so much as to
be able to withstand the cold of winter; and after passing
through the severe weather, it seemed to put forth its
blossoms in spring for very joy that the cold season had gone.
In autumn it produced two apples, one for Molly and one for
Anthony; it could not well do less. The tree after this grew
very rapidly, and Molly grew with the tree. She was as fresh
as an apple-blossom, but Anthony was not to behold this flower
for long. All things change; Molly's father left his old home,
and Molly went with him far away. In our time, it would be
only a journey of a few hours, but then it took more than a
day and a night to travel so far eastward from Eisenbach to a
town still called Weimar, on the borders of Thuringia. And
Molly and Anthony both wept, but these tears all flowed
together into one tear which had the rosy shimmer of joy.
Molly had told him that she loved him- loved him more than all
the splendors of Weimar.

One, two, three years went by, and during the whole time
he received only two letters. One came by the carrier, and the
other a traveller brought. The way was very long and
difficult, with many turnings and windings through towns and
villages. How often had Anthony and Molly heard the story of
Tristan and Isolda, and Anthony had thought the story applied
to him, although Tristan means born in sorrow, which Anthony
certainly was not; nor was it likely he would ever say of
Molly as Tristan said of Isolda, "She has forgotten me." But
in truth, Isolda had not forgotten him, her faithful friend;
and when both were laid in their graves, one, on each side of
the church, the linden-trees that grew by each grave spread
over the roof, and, bending towards each other, mingled their
blossoms together. Anthony thought it a very beautiful but
mournful story; yet he never feared anything so sad would
happen to him and Molly, as he passed the spot, whistling the
air of a song, composed by the minstrel Walter, called the
"Willow bird," beginning-

"Under the linden-trees,
Out on the heath."

One stanza pleased him exceedingly-

"Through the forest, and in the vale,
Sweetly warbles the nightingale.

This song was often in his mouth, and he sung or whistled
it on a moonlight night, when he rode on horseback along the
deep, hollow way, on his road to Weimar, to visit Molly. He
wished to arrive unexpectedly, and so indeed he did. He was
received with a hearty welcome, and introduced to plenty of
grand and pleasant company, where overflowing winecups were
passed about. A pretty room and a good bed were provided for
him, and yet his reception was not what he had expected and
dreamed it would be. He could not comprehend his own feelings
nor the feelings of others; but it is easily understood how a
person can be admitted into a house or a family without
becoming one of them. We converse in company with those we
meet, as we converse with our fellow-travellers in a
stage-coach, on a journey; we know nothing of them, and
perhaps all the while we are incommoding one another, and each
is wishing himself or his neighbor away. Something of this
kind Anthony felt when Molly talked to him of old times.

"I am a straightforward girl," she said, "and I will tell
you myself how it is. There have been great changes since we
were children together; everything is different, both inwardly
and outwardly. We cannot control our wills, nor the feelings
of our hearts, by the force of custom. Anthony, I would not,
for the world, make an enemy of you when I am far away.
Believe me, I entertain for you the kindest wishes in my
heart; but to feel for you what I now know can be felt for
another man, can never be. You must try and reconcile yourself
to this. Farewell, Anthony."

Anthony also said, "Farewell." Not a tear came into his
eye; he felt he was no longer Molly's friend. Hot iron and
cold iron alike take the skin from our lips, and we feel the
same sensation if we kiss either; and Anthony's kiss was now
the kiss of hatred, as it had once been the kiss of love.
Within four-and-twenty hours Anthony was back again to
Eisenach, though the horse that he rode was entirely ruined.

"What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also. I will
destroy everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady
Halle, or Lady Venus, the heathen woman. I will break down the
apple-tree, and tear it up by the roots; never more shall it
blossom or bear fruit."

The apple-tree was not broken down; for Anthony himself
was struck with a fever, which caused him to break down, and
confined him to his bed. But something occurred to raise him
up again. What was it? A medicine was offered to him, which he
was obliged to take: a bitter remedy, at which the sick body
and the oppressed spirit alike shuddered. Anthony's father
lost all his property, and, from being known as one of the
richest merchants, he became very poor. Dark days, heavy
trials, with poverty at the door, came rolling into the house
upon them like the waves of the sea. Sorrow and suffering
deprived Anthony's father of his strength, so that he had
something else to think of besides nursing his love-sorrows
and his anger against Molly. He had to take his father's
place, to give orders, to act with energy, to help, and, at
last, to go out into the world and earn his bread. Anthony
went to Bremen, and there he learnt what poverty and hard
living really were. These things often harden the character,
but sometimes soften the heart, even too much.

How different the world, and the people in it, appeared to
Anthony now, to what he had thought in his childhood! What to
him were the minstrel's songs? An echo of the past, sounds
long vanished. At times he would think in this way; yet again
and again the songs would sound in his soul, and his heart
become gentle and pious.

"God's will is the best," he would then say. "It was well
that I was not allowed to keep my power over Molly's heart,
and that she did not remain true to me. How I should have felt
it now, when fortune has deserted me! She left me before she
knew of the change in my circumstances, or had a thought of
what was before me. That is a merciful providence for me. All
has happened for the best. She could not help it, and yet I
have been so bitter, and in such enmity against her."

Years passed by: Anthony's father died, and strangers
lived in the old house. He had seen it once again since then.
His rich master sent him journeys on business, and on one
occasion his way led him to his native town of Eisenach. The
old Wartburg castle stood unchanged on the rock where the monk
and the nun were hewn out of the stone. The great oaks formed
an outline to the scene which he so well remembered in his
childhood. The Venus mountain stood out gray and bare,
overshadowing the valley beneath. He would have been glad to
call out "Lady Halle, Lady Halle, unlock the mountain. I would
fain remain here always in my native soil." That was a sinful
thought, and he offered a prayer to drive it away. Then a
little bird in the thicket sang out clearly, and old Anthony
thought of the minstrel's song. How much came back to his
remembrance as he looked through the tears once more on his
native town! The old house was still standing as in olden
times, but the garden had been greatly altered; a pathway led
through a portion of the ground, and outside the garden, and
beyond the path, stood the old apple-tree, which he had not
broken down, although he talked of doing so in his trouble.
The sun still threw its rays upon the tree, and the refreshing
dew fell upon it as of old; and it was so overloaded with
fruit that the branches bent towards the earth with the
weight. "That flourishes still," said he, as he gazed. One of
the branches of the tree had, however, been broken:
mischievous hands must have done this in passing, for the tree
now stood in a public thoroughfare. "The blossoms are often
plucked," said Anthony; "the fruit is stolen and the branches
broken without a thankful thought of their profusion and
beauty. It might be said of a tree, as it has been said of
some men- it was not predicted at his cradle that he should
come to this. How brightly began the history of this tree, and
what is it now? Forsaken and forgotten, in a garden by a hedge
in a field, and close to a public road. There it stands,
unsheltered, plundered, and broken. It certainly has not yet
withered; but in the course of years the number of blossoms
from time to time will grow less, and at last it was cease
altogether to bear fruit; and then its history will be over."

Such were Anthony's thoughts as he stood under the tree,
and during many a long night as he lay in his lonely chamber
in the wooden house in Hauschen Street, Copenhagen, in the
foreign land to which the rich merchant of Bremen, his
employer, had sent him on condition that he should never
marry. "Marry! ha, ha!" and he laughed bitterly to himself at
the thought.

Winter one year set in early, and it was freezing hard.
Without, a snowstorm made every one remain at home who could
do so. Thus it happened that Anthony's neighbors, who lived
opposite to him, did not notice that his house remained
unopened for two days, and that he had not showed himself
during that time, for who would go out in such weather unless
he were obliged to do so. They were gray, gloomy days, and in
the house whose windows were not glass, twilight and dark
nights reigned in turns. During these two days old Anthony had
not left his bed, he had not the strength to do so. The bitter
weather had for some time affected his limbs. There lay the
old bachelor, forsaken by all, and unable to help himself. He
could scarcely reach the water jug that he had placed by his
bed, and the last drop was gone. It was not fever, nor
sickness, but old age, that had laid him low. In the little
corner, where his bed lay, he was over-shadowed as it were by
perpetual night. A little spider, which he could however not
see, busily and cheerfully spun its web above him, so that
there should be a kind of little banner waving over the old
man, when his eyes closed. The time passed slowly and
painfully. He had no tears to shed, and he felt no pain; no
thought of Molly came into his mind. He felt as if the world
was now nothing to him, as if he were lying beyond it, with no
one to think of him. Now and then he felt slight sensations of
hunger and thirst; but no one came to him, no one tended him.
He thought of all those who had once suffered from starvation,
of Saint Elizabeth, who once wandered on the earth, the saint
of his home and his childhood, the noble Duchess of Thuringia,
that highly esteemed lady who visited the poorest villages,
bringing hope and relief to the sick inmates. The recollection
of her pious deeds was as light to the soul of poor Anthony.
He thought of her as she went about speaking words of comfort,
binding up the wounds of the afflicted and feeding the hungry,
although often blamed for it by her stern husband. He
remembered a story told of her, that on one occasion, when she
was carrying a basket full of wine and provisions, her
husband, who had watched her footsteps, stepped forward and
asked her angrily what she carried in her basket, whereupon,
with fear and trembling, she answered, "Roses, which I have
plucked from the garden." Then he tore away the cloth which
covered the basket, and what could equal the surprise of the
pious woman, to find that by a miracle, everything in her
basket- the wine, the bread- had all been changed into roses.

In this way the memory of the kind lady dwelt in the calm
mind of Anthony. She was as a living reality in his little
dwelling in the Danish land. He uncovered his face that he
might look into her gentle eyes, while everything around him
changed from its look of poverty and want, to a bright rose
tint. The fragrance of roses spread through the room, mingled
with the sweet smell of apples. He saw the branches of an
apple-tree spreading above him. It was the tree which he and
Molly had planted together. The fragrant leaves of the tree
fell upon him and cooled his burning brow; upon his parched
lips they seemed like refreshing bread and wine; and as they
rested on his breast, a peaceful calm stole over him, and he
felt inclined to sleep. "I shall sleep now," he whispered to
himself. "Sleep will do me good. In the morning I shall be
upon my feet again, strong and well. Glorious! wonderful! That
apple-tree, planted in love, now appears before me in heavenly
beauty." And he slept.

The following day, the third day during which his house
had been closed, the snow-storm ceased. Then his opposite
neighbor stepped over to the house in which old Anthony lived,
for he had not yet showed himself. There he lay stretched on
his bed, dead, with his old nightcap tightly clasped in his
two hands. The nightcap, however, was not placed on his head
in his coffin; he had a clean white one on then. Where now
were the tears he had shed? What had become of those wonderful
pearls? They were in the nightcap still. Such tears as these
cannot be washed out, even when the nightcap is forgotten. The
old thoughts and dreams of a bachelor's nightcap still remain.
Never wish for such a nightcap. It would make your forehead
hot, cause your pulse to beat with agitation, and conjure up
dreams which would appear realities.

The first who wore old Anthony's cap felt the truth of
this, though it was half a century afterwards. That man was
the mayor himself, who had already made a comfortable home for
his wife and eleven children, by his industry. The moment he
put the cap on he dreamed of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy,
and of dark days. "Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he
exclaimed, as he tore it from his bead. Then a pearl rolled
out, and then another, and another, and they glittered and
sounded as they fell. "What can this be? Is it paralysis, or
something dazzling my eyes?" They were the tears which old
Anthony had shed half a century before.

To every one who afterwards put this cap on his head, came
visions and dreams which agitated him not a little. His own
history was changed into that of Anthony till it became quite
a story, and many stories might be made by others, so we will
leave them to relate their own. We have told the first; and
our last word is, don't wish for a "bachelor's nightcap."


THE END