Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 05 — Selected excerpts

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER

(1782-1848) Among the men nearest to the heart of the Danish people is Steen Steensen Blicher, who was born in 1782 on the border of the Jutland heath with which his name is so inseparably linked.

The descendant of a line of country parsons, he was destined like them to the ministry, and while awaiting his appointment he supported his family by teaching and by farming.

When after years of hardship he finally obtained a parish on the Jutland heath, the salary was too small to support his large family.

It was only during the very last years of his life that he was freed from harassing cares by the generosity of three friends, who, grateful for his literary work, paid off his debts.

While he was in college at Copenhagen he heard the lectures of the Norwegian Henrik Steffens, an interpreter of the German philosophic and romantic school.

Steffens aroused a reaction against the formalism of the eighteenth century, and introduced romanticism into the North by his powerful influence over men like Oehlenschläger, Grundtvig, and Mynster in Denmark, and Ling and the "Phosphorists" in Sweden.

Through these lectures Blicher became much interested in the Ossianic poems, of which he made an.

Excellent Danish translation.

The poems and dramas with which he followed this work were of no great importance.

It was not until he began to look into the old Danish traditions that he found his true sphere.

The study of these quaint and simple legends led him to write those national peasant stories which he began to publish in 1826. They are not only the best of their kind in Danish, but they bear favorable comparison with the same kind of work in other literatures.

They are not written as a study of social problems, or of any philosophy of life or moods of nature as they are reflected in human existence; they are merely a reproduction of what the country parson's own eyes beheld--the comedy and tragedy of the commonplace.

What a less sensitive observer might have passed in silence--the brown heath, the breakers of the North Sea, the simple heart and life of the peasant--revealed to him the poesy, now merry, now sad, which he renders with so much art and so delicate a sympathy.

Behind the believer in romanticism stands the lover of nature and of humanity.

Among his works the best known are 'E Bindstouw' (The Knitting-room), a collection of stories and poems, full of humor, simple and naive, told by the peasants themselves in their own homely Jutland dialect.

These, as well as some of his later poems, especially 'Sneklokken' (The Snowbell), and 'Trækfuglene' (Birds of Passage), possess a clear, true, and national lyric quality.

Dying in 1848, Blicher was buried in Jutland, near the heath on which he spent whole days and nights of happy solitude.

On one side of the stone above his grave is engraved a golden plover, on the other a pair of heath-larks, and around the foot a garland of heather, in memory of that intimate life with nature which, through his own great love for it, he endeared to all his readers.

* * * * * A PICTURE

From the 'Poems' I lay on my heathery hills alone;

The storm-winds rushed o'er me in turbulence loud;

My head rested lone on the gray moorland stone;

My eyes wandered skyward from cloud unto cloud.

There wandered my eyes, but my thoughts onward passed, Far beyond cloud-track or tempest's career;

At times I hummed songs, and the desolate waste Was the first the sad chimes of my spirit to hear.

Gloomy and gray are the moorlands where rest My fathers, yet there doth the wild heather bloom, And amid the old cairns the lark buildeth her nest, And sings in the desert, o'er hill-top and tomb.

From Hewitt's 'Literature of Northern Europe.'

* * * * * THE KNITTING-ROOM

It was the eve before Christmas Eve--no, stop!

I am lying--it was the eve before that, come to think of it, that there was a knitting-bee going on at the schoolmaster's, Kristen Kornstrup's,--you know him?

There were plenty that knew him, for in the winter he was schoolmaster, and in the summer he was mason, and he was alike clever at both.

And he could do more than that, for he could stop the flow of blood, and discover stolen goods, and make the wind turn, and read prayers over felons, and much more too.

But at this exorcising he was not so good as the parson, for he had not been through the black school.

So we had gathered there from the whole town,--oh, well, Lysgaard town is not so mighty big: there are only six farms and some houses, but then they were there too from Katballe and Testrup, and I think the lads from Knakkeborg had drifted over too--but that doesn't matter.

We had got it measured off at last, and all of us had got our yarn over the hook in the ceiling above the table, and had begun to let the five needles work.

Then the schoolmaster says, "Isn't there one of you that will sing something or tell something?

then it will go so nicely with the work here."

Then she began to speak, Kirsten Pedersdatter from Paps,--for she is always forward about speaking:--"I could sing you a little ditty if you cared to hear it--" "That we do," said I, "rattle it off!"

--And she sang a ditty--I had never heard it before, but I remember it well enough, and it ran this way:-- * * * * * But now I will tell you a story about a Poorman [gipsy] and what happened to him.

"If," said he--Mads Ur--"if you have been in Herning or thereabout, you know that there is a great marsh south of it.

That same marsh is not so very nice to cross for those that don't know it well.

"It was the summer I was working for Kristens that a cow sank down out there, and it was one of those I was watching.

I took her by the horns and I took her by the tail, but she would not help herself at all, and when one won't do a little bit, what is going to become of one?

As I stand there pulling at that same refractory cow, up comes a Poorman from over at Rind, one of those they call knackers.

'I'll have to help you,' said he: 'you take hold of the horns, and I'll lift the tail.'

That worked, for he pricked her under the tail with his pikestaff, and she was of a mind to help herself too.

'What do you give me for that now?'

said he.

'I have nothing to give you,' said I, 'nothing but thanks.'

'I won't have them,' answered he, 'but if ever I should sink down on one road or another, will you lend me a hand if you are near by?'

'That I will do, indeed,' answered I; and then he tramped up to town, and that was all.

"How was it now that I came to work in Sund's parsonage?

--well, that doesn't matter--I could swing a scythe, but how old I was I don't remember, for I don't rightly know how old I am now.

The parson was a mighty good man, but God help us for the wife he had!

She was as bad to him as any woman could be, and he hadn't a dog's chance with her.

I have saved him twice from her grip, for he was a little scared mite of a thing, and she was big and strong, but I was stronger still, and I could get the better of her.

Once she chased him around the yard with a knife in her hand, and cried that she would be even with him.

I did not like that, so I took the knife from her and warned her to behave herself,--but that wasn't what I meant to say.

Well, once while I was working there I stood near the pond looking at the aftermath.

And up comes this same customer--this Poorman--drifting along the road toward me, and he had two women following him, and they each had a cradle on their backs and a child in each cradle.

'Good day to you,' said I. 'Same to you,' said he; 'how is your cow?

Have you let her get into the marsh since?'

'Oh, no,' said I, 'and here is another thank-ye to you.'

'Are you working in this here bit of a parsonage?'

said he.

'That I am,' said I.

'Well, now listen,' said he; 'couldn't you hide me these two with their little ones a day or so?

for to-morrow there is to be a raid on our people, and I wouldn't like to have these in Viborghouse; I can stow myself away easy enough.'

'I'll see what I can do,' answered I; 'let them come, say a little after bedtime, to the West house there, and I'll get a ladder ready and help them up on the hayloft,--but have you food and drink yourself?'

'Oh, I shall do well enough,' said he, 'and now farewell to you until the sun is down.'

So then they drifted along the road to a one-horse farm, and that evening they came, sure enough, and I hid the two women and the children until the second night; then they slipped away again.

Before I parted with them, the Poorman said, 'I'd like to repay you this piece of work: isn't there something you want very much?'

'Yes,' said I. --'What might it be?'

--'Hm!

The only thing is Morten's Ane Kirstine at the farm where you went last night.

But her parents won't let me have her; they say I have too little, and that is true too.'

'Hm, man,' says he, 'you look as if you had a pair of strong arms of your own; that is a good heirloom, and she has some pennies,--in a couple of days you might go and see what the old man's mind is.

I'll help along the best I know how.'

I listened to that, for evil upon them, those gipsies--they are not such fools.

They can tell fortunes and discover stolen goods, and they can do both good and evil as it may happen.

"I thought over this thing a couple of days and some of the nights too, and then the third day I drifted over to Morten's. Ane Kirstine stood alone outside the gate with her back turned, for she was busy whitewashing a wall, so I came upon her before she knew it.

'Mercy on us!

is that you?'

she cried, 'where have you been all these many days?'

--'I have been at home, and in the field, and on the heath, as it happened, and now I come to take a look at you.'

--'I am not worth looking at,' said she, and thrust her clay-covered hands down into the pail to rinse off the clay.

'I don't care,' says I, 'whether you are yellow or gray, for you are the best friend I've got in this world; but I suppose I shall never be worthy of taking you in my arms in all honor and virtue.'

--'It would be bad if that couldn't be,' said she, 'but it may happen we have got to wait awhile.'

--'I can't wait over-long,' said I, 'for my mother will have no roof over her head, and either I shall have to take the farm or else a sister; that is how it stands, and it cannot be otherwise.'

--Then she began to sniffle, and dried her eyes and sighed, but said nothing.

I felt sorry for her, but what was there for one to do?

"Well, some one came who could tell us what to do, and it was none other than that same Poorman.

Along he tramps with one of his women, and had his glass case on his back and wanted to get into the farm."

Then he turned toward us and said:--'Well, well!

what are you two doing there?

Come along in with me, little girl, and I'll see if I can't manage it for you; but you stay out here, my little man!

then we'll see what may come of it.'

--They went, and I sat down on a stone that was lying there and folded my hands.

I was not over-happy.

I don't know how long I sat there, for I had fallen asleep; but then I was waked by some one kissing me, and it was no other than Ane Kirstine.

'Are you sitting there sleeping?'

said she; 'come along in now, it is as it ought to be.

The knacker has spoken a good word for us to mother, and when nothing could change her he said, "There is a black cock sitting on the perch: maybe a red one will crow over you if you don't do as I say."

At this she got a little bit scared, and said, "Then let it be!

but this I tell you, Ane Kirstine, I'll keep the black-headed cow for milking, and I'll have all the hay that is my share."

--"That is no more than reasonable," said I, "and now we have no more to quarrel about, I suppose."

Now you can let them publish the banns when you please.'

'And now, Ane Kirstine,' said I, 'this tramp here, he must have a reward, and I'll give it with a good will; and if we can get hold of him when we have our feast, he shall have a pot of soup and a hen to himself and those women and children.'

--'That is right enough,' said she; 'and I will give them a rag or so, or a few more of my half-worn clothes.'

"Well, then my mother-in-law made a splendid feast, and there was plenty of everything.

The Poorman was there, too, with all his following; but they had theirs by themselves, as you might know, seeing that they were of the knacker kind.

Him I gave a coat, and Ane Kirstine gave the women each a cap and a kerchief and a piece of homespun for a petticoat for each of the young ones, and they were mighty well pleased.

"I and Ane Kirstine had lived happily together for about four years, as we do still, and all that time we had seen nothing of that Poorman, although we had spoken of him now and again.

Sometimes we thought he had perished, and sometimes that they had put him into Viborghouse.

Well, then it was that we were to have our second boy christened, him we called Sören, and I went to the parson to get this thing fixed up.

As I came on the marsh to the selfsame place where I saw that Poor-customer the first time, there was somebody lying at one edge of the bog, on his back in the heather and with his legs in the ditch.

I knew him well enough.

'Why are you lying here alone?'

said I: 'is anything the matter with you?'

'I think I am dying,' said he, but he gasped so I could hardly understand him.

'Where are those women,' said I, 'that you used to have with you?

Have they left you to lie here by the road?'

He nodded his head and whispered, 'A drop of water.'

'That I will give you,' said I, and then I took some of the rainwater that stood in the ditch, in the hollow of my hat, and held it to his mouth.

But that was of no use, for he could drink no longer, but drew up his legs and opened his mouth wide, and then the spirit left him.

I felt so sorry for him that when I came to the parson's I begged that his poor ghost might be sheltered in the churchyard.

That he gave me leave to do, and then I fetched him on my own wagon and nailed a couple of boards together and laid him down in the northwestern corner, and there he lies."

"Well now, that was it," said Kristen Katballe, "but why do you sit there so still, Marie Kjölvroe?

Can you neither sing nor tell us something?"

"That is not impossible," said she, and heaved a sigh, and sang so sadly that one might almost think it had happened to her.

THE HOSIER

"The greatest sorrow of all down here, Is to lose the one we hold most dear."

Sometimes, when I have wandered far out on the wide heath, where I have had nothing but the brown heather around me and the blue sky above me;

when I walked far away from mankind and the monuments of its busy doings here below,--which after all are only molehills to be leveled by time or by some restless Tamerlane;--when I drifted, light-hearted, free, and proud, like the Bedouin, whom no house, no narrowly bounded field chains to the spot, but who owns, possesses, all he sees,--who does not dwell, but who goes wherever he pleases; when my far-hovering eye caught a glimpse of a house in the horizon, and was thus disagreeably arrested in its airy flight, sometimes there came (God forgive me this passing thought, it was no more than that) the wish--would that this dwelling of man were not!

there too is trouble and sorrow; there too they quarrel and fight about mine and thine!

--Oh!

the happy desert is mine, is thine, is everybody's, is nobody's. --It is said that a forester has proposed to disturb the settlements, to plant forests on the fields of the peasants and in place of their torn-down villages; the far more inhuman thought has taken possession of me at times--what if the heather-grown heath were still here the same as it was centuries ago, undisturbed, untouched by the hand of man!

But as I have said, I did not mean it seriously.

For when tired and weary, suffering from hunger and thirst, I thought longingly of the Arab's tent and coffee-pot, I thanked God that a heather-thatched roof--be it even miles away--promised me shelter and refreshment.

On a still, warm September day, several years ago, I found myself walking on this same heath, which, Arabically speaking, I call mine.

No wind stirred the blushing heather; the air was heavy and misty with heat.

The far-off hills that limited the horizon seemed to hover like clouds around the immense plain, and took many wonderful shapes: houses, towers, castles, men and animals; but all of dark uncertain outline, changing like dream pictures; now a cottage grew into a church, and that in turn into a pyramid; here a spire arose, there another sank; a man became a horse, and this in turn an elephant; here floated a boat, there a ship with all sails set.

My eye found its pleasure for quite a while in watching these fantastic figures--a panorama which only the sailor and the desert-dweller have occasion to enjoy--when finally I began to look for a real house among the many false ones; I wanted right ardently to exchange all my beautiful fairy palaces for a single human cottage.

Success was mine; I soon discovered a real farm without spires and towers, whose outlines became distincter and sharper the nearer I came to it, and which, flanked by peat-stacks, looked much larger than it really was.

Its inmates were unknown to me.

Their clothes were poor, their furniture simple, but I knew that the heath-dweller often hides noble rental in an unpainted box or in a miserable wardrobe, and a fat pocketbook inside a patched coat; when therefore my eyes fell on an alcove packed full of stockings, I concluded, and quite rightly, that I was in the house of a rich hosier.

(In parenthesis it may be said that I do not know any poor ones.

) A middle-aged, gray-haired, but still strong man rose from his slice and offered me his hand with these words: "Welcome!

--with permission to ask, where does the good friend come from?"

Do not jeer at so ill-mannered and straightforward a question!

the heath peasant is quite as hospitable as the Scotch laird, and but a little more curious; after all, he cannot be blamed for wanting to know who his guest is.

When I had told him who I was and whence I came, he called his wife, who immediately put all the delicacies of the house before me and begged me insistently, with good-hearted kindness, to eat and drink, although my hunger and thirst made all insistence unnecessary.

I was in the midst of the repast and a political talk with my host, when a young and exceedingly beautiful peasant girl came in, whom I should undoubtedly have declared a lady who had fled from cruel parents and an unwished-for marriage, had not her red hands and unadulterated peasant dialect convinced me that no disguise had taken place.

She nodded in a friendly way, cast a passing glance under the table, went out and came in soon again with a dish of milk and water, which she put down on the floor with the words, "Your dog may need something too."

I thanked her for her attention; but this was fully given to the big dog, whose greediness soon made the dish empty, and who now in his way thanked the giver by rubbing himself up against her; and when she raised her arms, a little intimidated, Chasseur misunderstood the movement, put himself on the alert, and forced the screaming girl backwards toward the alcove.

I called the dog back and explained his good intentions.

I would not have invited the reader's attention to so trivial a matter, but to remark that everything is becoming to the beautiful; for indeed this peasant girl showed, in everything she said and did, a certain natural grace which could not be called coquetry unless you will so call an innate unconscious instinct.

When she had left the room I asked the parents if this was their daughter.

They answered in the affirmative, adding that she was an only child.

"You won't keep her very long," I said.

"Dear me, what do you mean by that?"

asked the father; but a pleased smile showed that he understood my meaning.

"I think," I answered, "that she will hardly lack suitors."

"Hm!"

grumbled he, "of suitors we can get a plenty; but if they are worth anything, that is the question.

To go a-wooing with a watch and a silver-mounted pipe does not set the matter straight; it takes more to ride than to say 'Get up!'

Sure as I live," he went on, putting both clenched hands on the table and bending to look out of the low window, "if there is not one of them--a shepherd's boy just out of the heather--oh yes, one of these customers' who run about with a couple of dozen hose in a wallet--stupid dog!

wooes our daughter with two oxen and two cows and a half--yes, I am on to him!

--Beggar!"

All this was not addressed to me, but to the new-comer, on whom he fastened his darkened eyes as the other came along the heather path toward the house.

The lad was still far enough away to allow me time to ask my host about him, and I learned that he was the son of the nearest neighbor--who, by the way, MATHILDE BLIND

(1847-1896)