O. T., A Danish Romance Part 16

"That must be horrible!" said the lieutenant. "They say the wolf-glen is so natural, with a waterfall, and an owl which flutters its wings.

Burgomaster Mimi has had a letter from a young lady in Aarhuus, who has been in Copenhagen, and has seen this piece. It was so horrible that she held her hand before her face, and almost fainted. They have a splendid theatre!"

"Yes, but our little theatre was very pretty!" said the lady of the house. "It was quite stupid that the dramatic company should have been unlucky. The last piece we gave is still clear in my recollection; it was the 'Sandseslose.' I was then ill; but because I wished so much to see it, the whole company was so obliging as to act it once more, and that, too, in our sitting-room, where I lay on the sofa and could look on. That was an extraordinary mark of attention from them! Only think--the burgomaster himself acted with them!"

In honor of the strangers, coffee was taken after dinner in the garden, where, under the plum-trees, a swing was fixed. Somewhat later a sailing party was arranged. A small yacht belonging to the merchant lay, just unladen, near the bridge of boats.

Otto found Maren and the young lady from Holstebro sitting in the arbor.

Somewhat startled, they concealed something at his entrance.

"The ladies have secrets! May one not be initiated?"

"No, not at all!" replied Maren.

"You have ma.n.u.script poems in the little book!" said Otto, and boldly approached. "Perhaps of your own composition?"

"O, it is only a memorandum-book," said Maren, blus.h.i.+ng. "When I read anything pretty I copy it, for we cannot keep the books."

"Then I may see it!" said Otto. His eye fell upon the written sheet:--

"So fliessen nun zwei Wa.s.ser Wohl zwischen mir und Dir Das eine sind die Thranen, Das andre ist der See!"

[Note: Des Knaben Wunderhorn.]

he read. "That is very pretty! 'Der verlorne Schwimmer,' the poem is called, is it not?"

"Yes, I have copied it out of the secretary's memorandum-book; he has so many pretty pieces."

"The secretary has many splendid things!" said Otto, smiling.

"Memorandum-book, musical snuff-box"--

"And a collection of seals!" added the young lady from Holstebro.

"I must read more!" said Otto; but the ladies fled with glowing cheeks.

"Are you already at your tricks, Mr. Thostrup?" said the mother, who now entered the garden. "Yes, you do not know how Maren has thought of you--how much she has spoken of you. You never wrote to us; we never heard anything of you, except when Miss Rosalie related us something out of your letters. That was not nice of you! You and Maren were always called bride and bridegroom. You were a pair of pretty children, and your growth has not been disadvantageous to either of you."

At four o'clock the evening party a.s.sembled--a whole swarm of young ladies, a few old ones, and the secretary, who distinguished himself by a collection of seals hanging to a long watch-chain, and everlastingly knocking against his body; a white s.h.i.+rt-frill, stiff collar, and a c.o.c.k's comb, in which each hair seemed to take an affected position.

They all walked down to the bay. Otto had some business and came somewhat later. Whilst he was crossing, alone, the court-yard, he heard, proceeding from the back of the house, a fearful, wild cry, which ended in violent sobbing. Terrified, he went nearer, and perceived the aunt sitting in the middle of a large heap of turf. The priestess at Delphi could not have looked more agitated! Her close cap she had torn from her head; her long, gray hair floated over her shoulders; and with her feet she stamped upon the turf, like a willful child, until the pieces flew in various directions. When she perceived Otto she became calm in a moment, but soon she pressed her thin hands before her face and sobbed aloud. To learn from her what was the matter was not to be thought of.

"O, she is only quarrelsome!" said the girl, to whom Otto had turned for an explanation. "Aunt is angry because she was not invited to sail with the company. She always does so,--she can be quite wicked! Just lately, when she should have helped me to wring out the sheets, she always twisted them the same way that I did, so that we could never get done, and my hands hurt me very much!"

Otto walked down to the bay. The sail was unfurled, the secretary brought out his musical-box, and, accompanied by its tones, they glided in the burning suns.h.i.+ne over the water.

On the other side tea was to be drunk, and then Maren was to sing. Her mother asked her to sing the song with the strong tones, so that Otto might hear what a voice she had.

She sang "Dannevang." Her voice had uncommon power, but no style, no grace.

"Such a voice, I fancy, you have not heard in the theatre at Copenhagen?" said the secretary, with dogmatical gravity.

"You might wish yourself such a chest!" said the lieutenant.

The secretary should now sing; but he had a little cold, which he had always.

"You must sing to the musical-box!" said the lady, and her wish was fulfilled. If Maren had only commenced, one might have believed it a trial of skill between Boreas and Zephyr.

They now walked about, drank tea, and after this they were to return to the house, there to partake of fish and roast meat, a piece of boxed ham, and other good things.

Otto could by no means be permitted to think of leaving them the following morning; he must remain a few days, and gather strength, so that in Copenhagen he might apply himself well to work. But only one day would he enjoy all the good things which they heaped upon him. He yearned for other people, for a more intellectual circle. Two years before he had agreed splendidly with them all, had found them interesting and intellectual; now he felt that Lemvig was a little town, and that the people were good, excellent people.

The following play again brought capital cookery, good foul, and good wine--that was to honor Mr. Thostrup. His health was drunk, Maren was more confidential, the aunt had forgotten her trouble, and again sat with a laughing face beside the constrained shopman. They must, it is true, make a little haste over their dinner, for the fire-engine was to be tried; and this splendor, they maintained, Otto must see, since he so fortunately chanced to lie there.

"How can my mother think that this will give Mr. Thostrup pleasure?"

said Maren. "There is nothing to see in it."

"That has given him pleasure formerly!" answered the mother. "It is, also, laughable when the boys run underneath the engine-rain, and the stream comes just in their necks."

She spoke of the former Otto and of the present one--he was become so Copenhagenish, so refined and nice, as well in the cut of his clothes as in his manners; yet she still found an opportunity of giving him a little hint to further refinement. Only think! he took the sugar for his coffee with his fingers!

"But where are the sugar-tongs, the ma.s.sive silver sugar-tongs?" asked she. "Maren, dost thou allow him to take the sugar with his fingers?"

"That is more convenient!" answered Otto. "I do that always."

"Yes, but if strangers had been here," said the hostess, in a friendly but teaching tone, "we must, like that grand lady you know of, have thrown the sugar out of the window."

"In the higher circles, where people have clean fingers, they make use of them!" said Otto. "There would be no end of it if one were to take it with the sugar-tongs."

"They are of ma.s.sive silver!" said the lady, and weighed them in her hand.

Toward evening Rosalie went into the garden under the plum trees.

"These, also, remind me of my mountains," said she; "this is the only fruit which will properly flourish there. Lemvig lies, like La Locle, in a valley," and she pointed, smiling, to the surrounding sand-hills.

"How entirely different it is here from what it is at home on thy grandfather's estate! There I have been so accustomed to solitude, that it is almost too lively for me here. One diversion follows another."

It was precisely this which Otto did not like. These amus.e.m.e.nts of the small towns wearied him, and he could not delight himself with them, no longer mingle in this life.

He wished to set out early the following morning. It would be too exhausting to drive along the dry road in the sun's heat, they all declared; he must wait until the afternoon, then it would be cooler; it was, also, far pleasanter to travel in the night. Rosalie's prayers decided him. Thus, after dinner and coffee, the horses should be put into the carriage.

It was the last day. Maren was somewhat in a grave mood. Otto must write in her alb.u.m. "He would never come to Lemvig again," said she. As children they had played with each other. Since he went to Copenhagen she had, many an evening, seated herself in the swing near the summer-house and thought of him. Who knows whether she must not have done so when she copied out of the secretary's memorandum-book, the verses,--

"So fliessen nun zwei Wa.s.ser Wohl zwischen mir and Dir?"

The sea certainly flows between Aarhuus and Copenhagen.

"Maren will perhaps go over for the winter," said the mother; "but we dare not speak too much about it, for it is not yet quite settled. It will really make her gayer! lately she has been very much inclined to melancholy, although G.o.d knows that we have denied her no pleasure!"

There now arrived a quant.i.ty of letters from different acquaintance, and from their acquaintance: if Mr. Thostrup would have the goodness to take care of this to Viborg, these to Aarhuus, and the others as far as Copenhagen. It was a complete freight, such as one gets in little towns, just as though no post went through the country.

The carriage stopped before the door.

Rosalie melted into tears. "Write to me!" said she. "Thee I shall never see again! Greet my Switzerland when thou comest there!"