with the heat of fever. Many things, of which she had feared even to
speak, came into her mind. Silently, as the cloud-shadows in the
moonshine, a spectral apparition flitted by her; she had heard of it
before. Close by her galloped four snorting steeds, with fire flashing
from their eyes and nostrils. They dragged a burning coach, and within
it sat the wicked lord of the manor, who had ruled there a hundred
years before. The legend says that every night, at twelve o'clock,
he drove into his castleyard and out again. He was not as pale as dead
men are, but black as a coal. He nodded, and pointed to Anne
Lisbeth, crying out, "Hold fast! hold fast! and then you may ride
again in a nobleman's carriage, and forget your child."
She gathered herself up, and hastened to the churchyard; but black
crosses and black ravens danced before her eyes, and she could not
distinguish one from the other. The ravens croaked as the raven had
done which she saw in the daytime, but now she understood what they
said. "I am the raven-mother; I am the raven-mother," each raven
croaked, and Anne Lisbeth felt that the name also applied to her;
and she fancied she should be transformed into a black bird, and
have to cry as they cried, if she did not dig the grave. And she threw
herself upon the earth, and with her hands dug a grave in the hard
ground, so that the blood ran from her fingers. "A grave! dig me a
grave!" still sounded in her ears; she was fearful that the cock might
crow, and the first red streak appear in the east, before she had
finished her work; and then she would be lost. And the cock crowed,
and the day dawned in the east, and the grave was only half dug. An
icy hand passed over her head and face, and down towards her heart.
"Only half a grave," a voice wailed, and fled away. Yes, it fled
away over the sea; it was the ocean spectre; and, exhausted and
overpowered, Anne Lisbeth sunk to the ground, and her senses left her.
It was a bright day when she came to herself, and two men were
raising her up; but she was not lying in the churchyard, but on the
sea-shore, where she had dug a deep hole in the sand, and cut her hand
with a piece of broken glass, whose sharp stern was stuck in a
little block of painted wood. Anne Lisbeth was in a fever.
Conscience had roused the memories of superstitions, and had so
acted upon her mind, that she fancied she had only half a soul, and
that her child had taken the other half down into the sea. Never would
she be able to cling to the mercy of Heaven till she had recovered
this other half which was now held fast in the deep water.
Anne Lisbeth returned to her home, but she was no longer the woman
she had been. Her thoughts were like a confused, tangled skein; only
one thread, only one thought was clear to her, namely that she must
carry the spectre of the sea-shore to the churchyard, and dig a
grave for him there; that by so doing she might win back her soul.
Many a night she was missed from her home, and was always found on the
sea-shore waiting for the spectre.
In this way a whole year passed; and then one night she vanished
again, and was not to be found. The whole of the next day was spent in
a useless search after her.
Towards evening, when the clerk entered the church to toll the
vesper bell, he saw by the altar Anne Lisbeth, who had spent the whole
day there. Her powers of body were almost exhausted, but her eyes
flashed brightly, and on her cheeks was a rosy flush. The last rays of
the setting sun shone upon her, and gleamed over the altar upon the
shining clasps of the Bible, which lay open at the words of the
prophet Joel, "Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn unto
the Lord."
"That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen by
chance? In the face of Anne Lisbeth, lighted up by the evening sun,
could be seen peace and rest. She said she was happy now, for she
had conquered. The spectre of the shore, her own child, had come to
her the night before, and had said to her, "Thou hast dug me only half
a grave: but thou hast now, for a year and a day, buried me altogether
in thy heart, and it is there a mother can best hide her child!" And
then he gave her back her lost soul, and brought her into the
church. "Now I am in the house of God," she said, "and in that house
we are happy."
When the sun set, Anne Lisbeth's soul had risen to that region
where there is no more pain; and Anne Lisbeth's troubles were at an
end.
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
BEAUTY OF FORM AND BEAUTY OF MIND
by Hans Christian Andersen
THERE was once a sculptor, named Alfred, who having won the
large gold medal and obtained a travelling scholarship, went to Italy,
and then came back to his native land. He was young at that time-
indeed, he is young still, although he is ten years older than he
was then. On his return, he went to visit one of the little towns in
the island of Zealand. The whole town knew who the stranger was; and
one of the richest men in the place gave a party in his honor, and all
who were of any consequence, or who possessed some property, were
invited. It was quite an event, and all the town knew of it, so that
it was not necessary to announce it by beat of drum.
Apprentice-boys, children of the poor, and even the poor people
themselves, stood before the house, watching the lighted windows;
and the watchman might easily fancy he was giving a party also,
there were so many people in the streets. There was quite an air of
festivity about it, and the house was full of it; for Mr. Alfred,
the sculptor, was there. He talked and told anecdotes, and every one
listened to him with pleasure, not unmingled with awe; but none felt
so much respect for him as did the elderly widow of a naval officer.
She seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was concerned, to be like a piece
of fresh blotting-paper that absorbed all he said and asked for
more. She was very appreciative, and incredibly ignorant- a kind of
female Gaspar Hauser.
"I should like to see Rome," she said; "it must be a lovely
city, or so many foreigners would not be constantly arriving there.
Now, do give me a description of Rome. How does the city look when you
enter in at the gate?"
"I cannot very well describe it," said the sculptor; "but you
enter on a large open space, in the centre of which stands an obelisk,
which is a thousand years old."
"An organist!" exclaimed the lady, who had never heard the word
'obelisk.' Several of the guests could scarcely forbear laughing,
and the sculptor would have had some difficulty in keeping his
countenance, but the smile on his lips faded away; for he caught sight
of a pair of dark-blue eyes close by the side of the inquisitive lady.
They belonged to her daughter; and surely no one who had such a
daughter could be silly. The mother was like a fountain of
questions; and the daughter, who listened but never spoke, might
have passed for the beautiful maid of the fountain. How charming she
was! She was a study for the sculptor to contemplate, but not to
converse with; for she did not speak, or, at least, very seldom.
"Has the pope a great family?" inquired the lady.
The young man answered considerately, as if the question had
been a different one, "No; he does not come from a great family."
"That is not what I asked," persisted the widow; "I mean, has he a
wife and children?"
"The pope is not allowed to marry," replied the gentleman.
"I don't like that," was the lady's remark.
She certainly might have asked more sensible questions; but if she
had not been allowed to say just what she liked, would her daughter
have been there, leaning so gracefully on her shoulder, and looking
straight before her, with a smile that was almost mournful on her
face?
Mr. Alfred again spoke of Italy, and of the glorious colors in
Italian scenery; the purple hills, the deep blue of the Mediterranean,
the azure of southern skies, whose brightness and glory could only
be surpassed in the north by the deep-blue eyes of a maiden; and he
said this with a peculiar intonation; but she who should have
understood his meaning looked quite unconscious of it, which also
was charming.
"Beautiful Italy!" sighed some of the guests.
"Oh, to travel there!" exclaimed others.
"Charming! Charming!" echoed from every voice.
"I may perhaps win a hundred thousand dollars in the lottery,"
said the naval officer's widow; "and if I do, we will travel- I and my
daughter; and you, Mr. Alfred, must be our guide. We can all three
travel together, with one or two more of our good friends." And she
nodded in such a friendly way at the company, that each imagined
himself to be the favored person who was to accompany them to Italy.
"Yes, we must go," she continued; "but not to those parts where
there are robbers. We will keep to Rome. In the public roads one is
always safe."
The daughter sighed very gently; and how much there may be in a
sigh, or attributed to it! The young man attributed a great deal of
meaning to this sigh. Those deep-blue eyes, which had been lit up this
evening in honor of him, must conceal treasures, treasures of heart
and mind, richer than all the glories of Rome; and so when he left the
party that night, he had lost it completely to the young lady. The
house of the naval officer's widow was the one most constantly visited
by Mr. Alfred, the sculptor. It was soon understood that his visits
were not intended for that lady, though they were the persons who kept
up the conversation. He came for the sake of the daughter. They called
her Kaela. Her name was really Karen Malena, and these two names had
been contracted into the one name Kaela. She was really beautiful; but
some said she was rather dull, and slept late of a morning.
"She has been accustomed to that," her mother said. "She is a
beauty, and they are always easily tired. She does sleep rather
late; but that makes her eyes so clear."
What power seemed to lie in the depths of those dark eyes! The
young man felt the truth of the proverb, "Still waters run deep:"
and his heart had sunk into their depths. He often talked of his
adventures, and the mamma was as simple and eager in her questions
as on the first evening they met. It was a pleasure to hear Alfred
describe anything. He showed them colored plates of Naples, and
spoke of excursions to Mount Vesuvius, and the eruptions of fire
from it. The naval officer's widow had never heard of them before.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "So that is a burning mountain; but
is it not very dangerous to the people who live near it?"
"Whole cities have been destroyed," he replied; "for instance,
Herculaneum and Pompeii."
"Oh, the poor people! And you saw all that with your own eyes?"
"No; I did not see any of the eruptions which are represented in
those pictures; but I will show you a sketch of my own, which
represents an eruption I once saw."
He placed a pencil sketch on the table; and mamma, who had been
over-powered with the appearance of the colored plates, threw a glance
at the pale drawing and cried in astonishment, "What, did you see it
throw up white fire?"
For a moment, Alfred's respect for Kaela's mamma underwent a
sudden shock, and lessened considerably; but, dazzled by the light
which surrounded Kaela, he soon found it quite natural that the old
lady should have no eye for color. After all, it was of very little
consequence; for Kaela's mamma had the best of all possessions;
namely, Kaela herself.
Alfred and Kaela were betrothed, which was a very natural
result; and the betrothal was announced in the newspaper of the little
town. Mama purchased thirty copies of the paper, that she might cut
out the paragraph and send it to friends and acquaintances. The
betrothed pair were very happy, and the mother was happy too. She said
it seemed like connecting herself with Thorwalsden.
"You are a true successor of Thorwalsden," she said to Alfred; and
it seemed to him as if, in this instance, mamma had said a clever
thing. Kaela was silent; but her eyes shone, her lips smiled, every
movement was graceful,- in fact, she was beautiful; that cannot be
repeated too often. Alfred decided to take a bust of Kaela as well
as of her mother. They sat to him accordingly, and saw how he
moulded and formed the soft clay with his fingers.
"I suppose it is only on our account that you perform this
common-place work yourself, instead of leaving it to your servant to
do all that sticking together."
"It is really necessary that I should mould the clay myself," he
replied.
"Ah, yes, you are always so polite," said mamma, with a smile; and
Kaela silently pressed his hand, all soiled as it was with the clay.
Then he unfolded to them both the beauties of Nature, in all her
works; he pointed out to them how, in the scale of creation, inanimate
matter was inferior to animate nature; the plant above the mineral,
the animal above the plant, and man above them all. He strove to
show them how the beauty of the mind could be displayed in the outward
form, and that it was the sculptor's task to seize upon that beauty of
expression, and produce it in his works. Kaela stood silent, but
nodded in approbation of what he said, while mamma-in-law made the
following confession:-
"It is difficult to follow you; but I go hobbling along after
you with my thoughts, though what you say makes my head whirl round
