town the next day. The injured man's brain was affected, and in his
delirium he uttered wild cries; but on the third day he lay quiet
and weak upon his bed; his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the
physician said it would be better for him if this thread broke. "Let
us pray that God may take him," he said, "for he will never be the
same man again."
But life did not depart from him- the thread would not break,
but the thread of memory was severed; the thread of his mind had
been cut through, and what was still more grievous, a body remained- a
living healthy body that wandered about like a troubled spirit.
Jurgen remained in merchant Bronne's house. "He was hurt while
endeavouring to save our child," said the old man, "and now he is
our son." People called Jurgen insane, but that was not exactly the
correct term. He was like an instrument in which the strings are loose
and will give no sound; only occasionally they regained their power
for a few minutes, and then they sounded as they used to do. He
would sing snatches of songs or old melodies, pictures of the past
would rise before him, and then disappear in the mist, as it were, but
as a general rule he sat staring into vacancy, without a thought. We
may conjecture that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked like clouded glass.
"Poor mad Jurgen," said the people. And this was the end of a life
whose infancy was to have been surrounded with wealth and splendour
had his parents lived! All his great mental abilities had been lost,
nothing but hardship, sorrow, and disappointment had been his fate. He
was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon
the beach to wither there. And was this one of God's creatures,
fashioned in His own likeness, to have no better fate? Was he to be
only the plaything of fortune? No! the all-loving Creator would
certainly repay him in the life to come for what he had suffered and
lost here. "The Lord is good to all; and His mercy is over all His
works." The pious old wife of the merchant repeated these words from
the Psalms of David in patience and hope, and the prayer of her
heart was that Jurgen might soon be called away to enter into
eternal life.
In the churchyard where the walls were surrounded with sand
Clara lay buried. Jurgen did not seem to know this; it did not enter
his mind, which could only retain fragments of the past. Every
Sunday he went to church with the old people, and sat there
silently, staring vacantly before him. One day, when the Psalms were
being sung, he sighed deeply, and his eyes became bright; they were
fixed upon a place near the altar where he had knelt with his friend
who was dead. He murmured her name, and became deadly pale, and
tears rolled down his cheeks. They led him out of church; he told
those standing round him that he was well, and had never been ill; he,
who had been so grievously afflicted, the outcast, thrown upon the
world, could not remember his sufferings. The Lord our Creator is wise
and full of loving kindness- who can doubt it?
In Spain, where balmy breezes blow over the Moorish cupolas and
gently stir the orange and myrtle groves, where singing and the
sound of the castanets are always heard, the richest merchant in the
place, a childless old man, sat in a luxurious house, while children
marched in procession through the streets with waving flags and
lighted tapers. If he had been able to press his children to his
heart, his daughter, or her child, that had, perhaps never seen the
light of day, far less the kingdom of heaven, how much of his wealth
would he not have given! "Poor child!" Yes, poor child- a child still,
yet more than thirty years old, for Jurgen had arrived at this age
in Old Skjagen.
The shifting sands had covered the graves in the courtyard,
quite up to the church walls, but still, the dead must be buried among
their relatives and the dear ones who had gone before them. Merchant
Bronne and his wife now rested with their children under the white
sand.
It was in the spring- the season of storms. The sand from the
dunes was whirled up in clouds; the sea was rough, and flocks of birds
flew like clouds in the storm, screaming across the sand-hills.
Shipwreck followed upon shipwreck on the reefs between Old Skagen
and the Hunsby dunes.
One evening Jurgen sat in his room alone: all at once his mind
seemed to become clearer, and a restless feeling came over him, such
as had often, in his younger days, driven him out to wander over the
sand-hills or on the heath. "Home, home!" he cried. No one heard
him. He went out and walked towards the dunes. Sand and stones blew
into his face, and whirled round him; he went in the direction of
the church. The sand was banked up the walls, half covering the
windows, but it had been cleared away in front of the door, and the
entrance was free and easy to open, so Jurgen went into the church.
The storm raged over the town of Skjagen; there had not been
such a terrible tempest within the memory of the inhabitants, nor such
a rough sea. But Jurgen was in the temple of God, and while the
darkness of night reigned outside, a light arose in his soul that
was never to depart from it; the heavy weight that pressed on his
brain burst asunder. He fancied he heard the organ, but it was only
the storm and the moaning of the sea. He sat down on one of the seats,
and lo! the candies were lighted one by one, and there was
brightness and grandeur such as he had only seen in the Spanish
cathedral. The portraits of the old citizens became alive, stepped
down from the walls against which they had hung for centuries, and
took seats near the church door. The gates flew open, and all the dead
people from the churchyard came in, and filled the church, while
beautiful music sounded. Then the melody of the psalm burst forth,
like the sound of the waters, and Jurgen saw that his foster parents
from the Hunsby dunes were there, also old merchant Bronne with his
wife and their daughter Clara, who gave him her hand. They both went
up to the altar where they had knelt before, and the priest joined
their hands and united them for life. Then music was heard again; it
was wonderfully sweet, like a child's voice, full of joy and
expectation, swelling to the powerful tones of a full organ, sometimes
soft and sweet, then like the sounds of a tempest, delightful and
elevating to hear, yet strong enough to burst the stone tombs of the
dead. Then the little ship that hung from the roof of the choir was
let down and looked wonderfully large and beautiful with its silken
sails and rigging:
"The ropes were of silk, the anchor of gold,
And everywhere riches and pomp untold,"
as the old song says.
The young couple went on board, accompanied by the whole
congregation, for there was room and enjoyment for them all. Then
the walls and arches of the church were covered with flowering
junipers and lime trees breathing forth fragrance; the branches waved,
creating a pleasant coolness; they bent and parted, and the ship
sailed between them through the air and over the sea. Every candle
in the church became a star, and the wind sang a hymn in which they
all joined. "Through love to glory, no life is lost, the future is
full of blessings and happiness. Hallelujah!" These were the last
words Jurgen uttered in this world, for the thread that bound his
immortal soul was severed, and nothing but the dead body lay in the
dark church, while the storm raged outside, covering it with loose
sand.
The next day was Sunday, and the congregation and their pastor
went to the church. The road had always been heavy, but now it was
almost unfit for use, and when they at last arrived at the church, a
great heap of sand lay piled up in front of them. The whole church was
completely buried in sand. The clergyman offered a short prayer, and
said that God had closed the door of His house here, and that the
congregation must go and build a new one for Him somewhere else. So
they sung a hymn in the open air, and went home again.
Jurgen could not be found anywhere in the town of Skjagen, nor
on the dunes, though they searched for him everywhere. They came to
the conclusion that one of the great waves, which had rolled far up
on the beach, had carried him away; but his body lay buried in a
great sepulchre- the church itself. The Lord had thrown down a
covering for his grave during the storm, and the heavy mound of sand
lies upon it to this day. The drifting sand had covered the vaulted
roof of the church, the arched cloisters, and the stone aisles. The
white thorn and the dog rose now blossom above the place where the
church lies buried, but the spire, like an enormous monument over a
grave, can be seen for miles round. No king has a more splendid
memorial. Nothing disturbs the peaceful sleep of the dead. I was the
first to hear this story, for the storm sung it to me among the
sand-hills.
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
ANNE LISBETH
by Hans Christian Andersen
ANNE LISBETH was a beautiful young woman, with a red and white
complexion, glittering white teeth, and clear soft eyes; and her
footstep was light in the dance, but her mind was lighter still. She
had a little child, not at all pretty; so he was put out to be
nursed by a laborer's wife, and his mother went to the count's castle.
She sat in splendid rooms, richly decorated with silk and velvet;
not a breath of air was allowed to blow upon her, and no one was
allowed to speak to her harshly, for she was nurse to the count's
child. He was fair and delicate as a prince, and beautiful as an
angel; and how she loved this child! Her own boy was provided for by
being at the laborer's where the mouth watered more frequently than
the pot boiled, and where in general no one was at home to take care
of the child. Then he would cry, but what nobody knows nobody cares
for; so he would cry till he was tired, and then fall asleep; and
while we are asleep we can feel neither hunger nor thirst. Ah, yes;
sleep is a capital invention.
As years went on, Anne Lisbeth's child grew apace like weeds,
although they said his growth had been stunted. He had become quite
a member of the family in which he dwelt; they received money to
keep him, so that his mother got rid of him altogether. She had become
quite a lady; she had a comfortable home of her own in the town; and
out of doors, when she went for a walk, she wore a bonnet; but she
never walked out to see the laborer: that was too far from the town,
and, indeed, she had nothing to go for, the boy now belonged to
these laboring people. He had food, and he could also do something
towards earning his living; he took care of Mary's red cow, for he
knew how to tend cattle and make himself useful.
The great dog by the yard gate of a nobleman's mansion sits
proudly on the top of his kennel when the sun shines, and barks at
every one that passes; but if it rains, he creeps into his house,
and there he is warm and dry. Anne Lisbeth's boy also sat in the
sunshine on the top of the fence, cutting out a little toy. If it
was spring-time, he knew of three strawberry-plants in blossom,
which would certainly bear fruit. This was his most hopeful thought,
though it often came to nothing. And he had to sit out in the rain
in the worst weather, and get wet to the skin, and let the cold wind
dry the clothes on his back afterwards. If he went near the farmyard
belonging to the count, he was pushed and knocked about, for the men
and the maids said he was so horrible ugly; but he was used to all
this, for nobody loved him. This was how the world treated Anne
Lisbeth's boy, and how could it be otherwise. It was his fate to be
beloved by no one. Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at
last cast him adrift. He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat
at the helm, while the skipper sat over the grog-can. He was dirty and
ugly, half-frozen and half-starved; he always looked as if he never
had enough to eat, which was really the case.
Late in the autumn, when the weather was rough, windy, and wet,
and the cold penetrated through the thickest clothing, especially at
sea, a wretched boat went out to sea with only two men on board, or,
more correctly, a man and a half, for it was the skipper and his
boy. There had only been a kind of twilight all day, and it soon
grew quite dark, and so bitterly cold, that the skipper took a dram to
warm him. The bottle was old, and the glass too. It was perfect in the
upper part, but the foot was broken off, and it had therefore been
fixed upon a little carved block of wood, painted blue. A dram is a
great comfort, and two are better still, thought the skipper, while
the boy sat at the helm, which he held fast in his hard seamed
hands. He was ugly, and his hair was matted, and he looked crippled
and stunted; they called him the field-laborer's boy, though in the
church register he was entered as Anne Lisbeth's son. The wind cut
through the rigging, and the boat cut through the sea. The sails,
filled by the wind, swelled out and carried them along in wild career.
It was wet and rough above and below, and might still be worse.
Hold! what is that? What has struck the boat? Was it a waterspout,
or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them?
"Heaven help us!" cried the boy at the helm, as the boat heeled
over and lay on its beam ends. It had struck on a rock, which rose
from the depths of the sea, and sank at once, like an old shoe in a
puddle. "It sank at once with mouse and man," as the saying is.
There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half,
the skipper and the laborer's boy. No one saw it but the skimming
