# A Picture-Book without Pictures and Other Stories/A Picture-Book without Pictures

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New York: C. S. Francis & C.o, 252 Broadway, pages 33–121
A PICTURE-BOOK WITHOUT PICTURES.
I am a poor youth; I live over there in one of the narrowest streets, but I have no want of light, because I live up aloft, with a view over all the house-tops. The first day I came into the city it seemed to me so confined and lonesome; instead of the woods and the ​green breezy heights, I had only the grey chimneys as far as I could see. I did not possess one friend here; not a single face which I knew saluted me.
One evening, very much depressed in mind, I stood at my window; I opened it and looked out. Nay, how glad it made me; I saw a face which I knew; a round, friendly face, that of my dearest friend in heaven; it was the Moon—the dear old Moon, the very same, precisely the same, as when she peeped at me between the willow trees on the marshes. I kissed my hand to her; she shone right down into my chamber, and promised me, that every night when she was out she would take a peep at me. And she has honestly kept her word—pity only that she can remain for so short a time!
Every night she comes she tells me one thing or another which she has seen either that night or the night before. “Make a sketch,” said she, on her first visit, “of what ​I tell thee, and thus thou shalt make a really beautiful picture-book!”
This I have done; and in this way I might give a new Thousand and One Nights in pictures: but that would be too much; those which I have given have not been selected, but are just as I heard them. A great, genial-hearted painter, a poet, or a musician, may make more of them if he will; that which I present is only a slight outline on paper, and mixed up with my own thoughts, because it was not every night that the moon came; there was now and then a cloud between us.
FIRST EVENING.
Last night,—these are the Moon’s own words,—I glided through the clear air of India; I mirrored myself in the Ganges. My beams sought to penetrate the thick fence which the old plantains had woven, and which formed itself into an arch as firm as the shell of the tortoise. A Hindoo girl, light as the gazelle, beautiful as Eve, came forth from the thicket. There is scarcely anything so airy and yet so affluent in the luxuriance of beauty, as the daughter of India. I could see her thoughts through her delicate skin. The thorny lianas tore her sandals from her feet, but she stepped rapidly forward; the wild beast which came from the river, where it had quenched its thirst, sprang past her, ​for the girl held in her hand a burning lamp. I could see the fresh blood in her fingers as she curved them into a shade for the flame. She approached the river; placed the lamp on the stream; and the lamp sailed away. The flame flickered as if it would go out; but still it burned, and the girl’s dark, flashing eyes followed it with her whole soul beaming from under her long silken eyelashes; she knew that if the lamp burned as long as she could see it, then her beloved was alive; but if it went out, then that he was dead. The lamp burned and fluttered, and her heart burned and fluttered also; she sank on her knee and breathed a prayer: close beside her, in the grass, lay a water-snake, but she thought only of Brama and her beloved. “He lives!” exclaimed she, rejoicingly, and the mountains repeated her words, “he lives!”
SECOND EVENING.
It was last evening,—said the Moon,— that I peeped down into a yard inclosed by houses. A hen was there with eleven chickens; a little girl was playing around them; the hen set up a cackling cry, she was frightened, and spread out her wings over her eleven young ones. With that, out came the father of the child and scolded her. This evening (it is only a few minutes since,) the moon looked down again into that yard. Everything was quite still; presently, however, out came the little girl, and stole very softly to the hen-house, lifted the latch, and crept in to the hen and the chickens. The hen and chickens set up a loud cry, and flew here and there, and the little girl ran after them. ​Again the father came out, and now he was very angry indeed, and scolded her, and pulled her out of the hen-house by her arm; she hung back her head, and there were large tears in her blue eyes.
“What wast thou doing here?” asked the father. She wept; “I only wanted,” said she, “to kiss the hen, and ask her to forgive me for yesterday: but I did not dare to tell thee.”
The father kissed the sweet innocent on her forehead; the moonlight fell lovingly upon her eyes and mouth.
THIRD EVENING.
In a narrow street, just by,—said the Moon,—which is so very confined that only just for one minute can my beams fall upon the walls of the houses—and yet at this moment I can look abroad and see the world as it moves—into this narrow street I looked and saw a woman. Sixteen years ago and she was a child; she lived away in the country, and played in the old pastor’s garden. The hedges of roses had grown out of bounds for many years; they threw their wild untrimmed branches across the path, and sent up long, green shoots into the apple-trees; there was only a rose here and there, and they were not beautiful as the queen of flowers may be, although the color and the ​odor were there. The pastor’s little daughter, however, was a much more beautiful rose: she sate upon her little wooden stool under the wild untrimmed hedge, and kissed her doll with the broken face.
Ten years later I saw her again; I saw her in the splendid dancing-hall; she was the lovely bride of a rich tradesman, and I rejoiced in her good fortune. I visited her in the still evening. Alas! my rose had put forth also wild shoots like the roses in the pastor’s garden!
Every-day life has its tragedy—this evening I saw the last act. Sick to death, she lay in that narrow street, upon her bed. The wicked landlord, her only protector, a man rude and cold-hearted, drew back the curtain. “Get up!” said he, “thy cheeks are pale and hollow; paint thyself! Get money, or I will turn thee out into the streets! Get up quickly!”
“Death is at my heart!” said she, “oh! let me rest!”
He compelled her to rise; painted her cheeks, twined roses in her hair, placed her at the window, with a burning light beside ​her, and went his way. I glanced at her; she sate immoveable; her hands fell upon her lap. “The window blew open, so that one of the panes of glass was broken; but she moved not; the curtains of the window were blown around her like a flame. She was dead. From that open window the dead preached powerfully; my rose of the pastor’s garden!
FOURTH EVENING.
I was last evening at a German play,—said the Moon;—it was in a little city. The theatre was a stable; that is to say, the stalls were made use of and decorated for boxes, the old wood-work was covered over with figured paper. There hung from the low roof a little iron chandelier, and in order that it might rise the moment the prompter’s bell rang (as is the custom in large theatres), it was now covered by a tub turned upside down. The bell rang, and the little iron chandelier made a leap of half an ell, and by that token people knew that the comedy had begun. A young prince and his wife, who were traveling through the town, were to be present at the performance, and therefore it ​was a very full house, excepting that under the chandelier it was like a little crater. Not a single soul sate there; the chandelier kept dropping its oil—drop! drop! It was so hot in the little theatre that they were obliged to open all the holes in the walls to let in fresh air, and through all these peeped in lads and lasses from the outside, although the police sate by and drove them off with sticks.
Close by the orchestra, people saw the young princely couple sitting in two old armchairs, which otherwise would have been occupied by the burgomaster and his lady; as it was, however, they sate upon wooden benches, like other townsfolk. “One may see that there are falcons above falcons!” was Madame’s silent observation; and after this all became more festal; the chandelier made a leap upwards, the people began counting on their fingers, and I—yes, the Moon—was present during the whole comedy.
FIFTH EVENING.
Yesterday,—said the Moon,—I looked down upon busy Paris. I gazed into the chambers of the Louvre. An old grandmother, wretchedly clad, and who belonged to the lower class, entered the large, empty throneroom, accompanied by one of the under servants of the palace. It had cost her many small sacrifices, and very much eloquence had she used before she could be admitted here. She folded her thin hands, and looked as reverentially around her as if she had been in a church.
“It was here!” she said, “here!” and she approached the throne which was covered with a cloth of rich velvet, trimmed with gold. “There!” said she, “there!” and she bowed ​her knee and kissed the crimson velvet—I think she wept.
“It was not that velvet,” said the attendant, while a smile played round his mouth.
“But still it was here!” said the woman, “and it looked in this room just so!”
“Just so,” replied he; “and yet it was not just so either: the windows were beaten out; the doors were torn off their hinges, and there was blood upon the floor! You can say, however, for all that, that your son died upon the throne of France!”
“Died!” repeated the old woman.
No more was said; they left the hall; the shades of evening fell deeper, and the moonlight streamed in with twofold brightness on the rich velvet of the throne of France.
I will tell thee a story. It was in the revolution of July, towards evening, on the most brilliant day of victory, when every house was a fortress, every window a redoubt, the people stormed the Tuilleries. Even women and children fought among the combatants; they thronged in through the ​chambers and halls of the palace. A poor, half-grown lad, in ragged clothing, fought desperately among the elder warriors; mortally wounded at length by the thrusts of many bayonets, he sank to the ground; this took place in the throne-room. They wrapped the velvet about his wounds; the blood streamed over the royal purple. It was a picture! The magnificent hall; the combating groups; a rent banner on the floor; the tri-colored flag floating above the bayonets; and upon the throne the poor lad, with his pale, glorified countenance, his eyes turned towards heaven; his limbs stiffening in death; his uncovered breast; his miserable garments, and around these the rich folds of the velvet, embroidered with silver lilies!
As that boy lay in the cradle, it had been foretold that he should die on the throne of France! His mother’s heart had dreamed of a new Napoleon. The moonbeams have kissed the garland of everlasting upon his grave; her beams this night kissed the old grandmother’s forehead as she dreamed of this picture—The poor lad upon the throne of France!
SIXTH EVENING.
I have been in Upsala,—said the Moon. She looked down upon the great castle, with the miserable grass of its trampled fields. She mirrored herself in the river Fyris, whilst the steam-boat drove the terrified fish among the reeds. Clouds careered along the moonlit sky, and cast long shadows over the graves, as they are called, of Odin, Thor, and F'reya. Names are carved in the scanty turf upon the heights. Here there is no building-stone in which the visitors can hew their names; no walled fences on which they can paint them; they cut away, therefore, the turf, and the naked earth stares forth in the large letters of their names, which look like a huge net spread over the hill. An immortality which a fresh growth of turf destroys.
​A man stood on the hill-top; he was a poet. He emptied a silver-rimmed mead-horn, and whispered a name, which he bade the wind not to reveal; a count’s coronet shone above it, and therefore he breathed it low—the moonbeams smiled upon him, for a poet’s crown shone above his! The noble name of Eleonora d’Este is united to Tasso’s. I know where the rose of beauty grows. A cloud passed before the moon. May no cloud pass between the poet and his rose!
SEVENTH EVENING.
Down by the seaside there extends a wood of oaks and beeches, fresh and fragrant, and every branch is visited by hundreds of nightingales. Close beside is the sea, the eternally-moving sea, and between the sea and the wood runs the broad high-road. One carriage after another rolled past. I followed them not; my eye rested mostly on one spot where was a barrow, or old warrior’s grave. Brambles and white thorns grew up from among the stones. There is the poetry of nature. Dost thou believe that this is felt by every one? Listen to what occurred there only last night.
First of all, two rich countrymen drove past. “There are some splendid trees there,” ​said one. “There are ten loads of fire-wood in each,” replied the other. “If the winter be severe, one should get forty rix dollars in spring for the measure!” and they were gone.
“The road is abominable here,” said another traveller. “It is those cursed trees,” replied his neighbor; “there is no circulation of air here, excepting from the sea:” and they advanced onward.
At that moment the diligence came by. All were asleep at the most beautiful point: the driver blew his horn, but he only thought, “I blow it capitally, and here it sounds well; what will they think of it?” And with that the diligence was gone.
Next came by two young country-fellows on horseback. The champagne of youth circulated through their blood; a smile was on their lips as they looked towards the mossgrown height, and the dark bushes. “I went there with Christine Miller,” said one to the other; and they were gone.
The flowers sent forth their fragrance; every breeze slept; the sea looked like a portion of heaven spread out over a deep valley; a carriage drove along; there were six ​persons in it, four of whom were asleep; the fifth was thinking of his new summer-coat which was so becoming to him; the sixth leaned forward to the driver, and asked whether there was anything remarkable about that heap of stones: “No,” said the fellow, “it’s only a heap of stones, but the trees are remarkable!” “Tell me about them,” said the other. “Yes, they are very remarkable; you see, in winter, when the snow covers the ground, and everything, as it were, goes out in a twinkling, then those trees serve me as a landmark by which I can guide myself, and not drive into the sea; they are, therefore, you see, very remarkable,”—and by this time the carriage had passed the trees.
A painter now came up; his eyes flashed; he said not a word, he whistled, and the nightingales sang, one louder than another; “hold your tongues!” exclaimed he, and noted down with accuracy the colors and tints of the trees; “blue, black, dark-brown.” It would be a beautiful painting! He made a sketch, as hints for his intended picture, and all the time he whistled a march of Rossini’s.
The last who came by was a poor girl; ​she sate down to rest herself upon the old warrior’s grave, and put her bundle beside her. Her lovely, pale face inclined itself towards the wood as she sate listening; her eyes flashed as she looked heaven-ward across the sea; her hands folded themselves, and she murmured the Lord’s Prayer. She did not understand the emotions which penetrated her soul; but, nevertheless, in future years, this moment, in which she was surrounded by nature, will return to her much more beautifully, nay, will be fixed more faithfully in her memory, than on the tablets of the painter, though he noted down every shade of color. She went forward, and the moonbeams lighted her path, until daylight kissed her forehead!
EIGHTH EVENING.
There were thick clouds over the sky; the Moon was not visible; I stood in twofold solitude in my little room, and looked out into the night, which should have been illuminated by her beams. My thoughts fled far away, up to the great friend who told me stories so beautifully every evening, and showed me pictures. Yes, what has not she seen! She looked down upon the waters of the deluge, and smiled on the ark as she now smiles upon me, and brought consolation to a new world which should again bloom forth. When the children of Israel stood weeping by the rivers of Babylon, she looked mournfully down upon the willows where their harps hung. When Romeo ascended ​to the balcony, and the kiss of love went like a cherub’s thought from earth, the round Moon stood in the transparent atmosphere, half concealed amid the dark cypresses. She saw the hero on St. Helena, when from his solitary rock he looked out over the ocean of the world, whilst deep thoughts were at work in his breast. Yes, what could not the Moon relate! The life of the world is a history for her. This evening I see thee not, old friend! I can paint no picture in remembrance of thy visit!—and as I dreamingly looked up into the clouds, light shone forth; it was a moonbeam, but it is gone again; dark clouds float past; but that ray was a salutation, a friendly evening salutation from the Moon.
NINTH EVENING.
Again the air is clear; I had again material for a sketch; listen to that which I learned from the Moon.
The birds of the polar region flew onward, and the whale swam towards the eastern coast of Greenland. Rocks covered with ice and clouds shut in a valley in which the bramble and whortleberry were in full bloom. The fragrant lichen diffused its odor; the Moon shone faintly; its crescent was pale as the leaf of the water-lily, which, torn from its stalk, has floated for weeks upon the water. The northern-lights burned brightly; their circle was broad, and rays went upwards from them like whirling pillars of fire, ascending through the whole sphere of the ​heavens, in colors of green and crimson. The inhabitants of the valley assembled for dance and mirth, but they looked not with admiring eyes at the magnificent spectacle which was familiar to them. “Let the dead play at ball with the heads of the walrus!” thought they, according to their belief, and occupied themselves only with the dance and the song. In the middle of the circle, wrapped in fur, stood a Greenlander with his hand-drum, and accompanied himself as he sung of seal-hunting, and the people answered in chorus with an “Eia! eia! a!” and skipped round and round in their white furs like so many bears dancing. With this, trial and judgment began. They who were adversaries came forward; the plaintiff improvised in a bold and sarcastic manner the crime of his opponent, and all the while the dance went on to the sound of the drum; the defendant replied in the same manner; but the assembly laughed and passed sentence upon him in the meantime. A loud noise was now heard from the mountains: the icy cliffs were cleft asunder, and the huge tumbling masses were dashed to atoms in ​their fall. That was a beautiful Greenland summer-night.
At the distance of a hundred paces, there lay a sick man within an open tent of skins; there was life still in his veins, but for all that he must die, because he himself believed it, and the people all around him believed it too. His wife, therefore, had sewn his cloak of skin tightly around him, that she might not be obliged to touch the dead; and she asked him—“Wilt thou be buried upon the mountains in the eternal snow? I will decorate the place with thy boat and thy arrows. The spirits of the mist shall dance away over it! Or wouldst thou rather be sunk in the sea?” “In the sea!” whispered he, and nodded with a melancholy smile. “There thou wilt have a beautiful summer-tent,” said the wife; “there will gambol about thee thousands of seals; there will the walrus sleep at thy feet, and the hunting will be certain and merry!” The children, amid loud howlings, tore down the outstretched skin from the window, that the dying man might be borne out to the sea—the swelling sea, which gave him food during his lifetime, and now rest in death. ​His funeral monument is the floating mountain of ice, which increases night and day. The seals slumber upon the icy blocks, and the birds of the tempest whirl about it.
TENTH EVENING.
I knew an old maid,—said the Moon, she wore every winter yellow satin trimmed with fur; it was always new; it was always her unvarying fashion; she wore every summer the same straw bonnet, and, I fancy, the very same blue-grey gown. She never went anywhere but to one old female friend of hers who lived on the other side the street;—during the last year, however, she did not even go there—because her old friend was dead. All solitarily sate my old maid working at her window, in which, through the whole summer, there stood beautiful flowers, and in the winter lovely cresses, grown on a little hillock of felt. During the last month, however, she no longer sate ​at her window; but I knew that she was still alive, because I had not seen her set out on that long journey of which she and her friend had so often talked. “Yes,” she had said, “when I shall die, I shall have to take a longer journey than I ever took through my whole life; the family burial-place lies above twenty miles from here; thither must I be borne, and there shall I sleep with the rest of my kin.”
Last night a carriage drew up at her door; they carried out a coffin, and by that I knew that she was dead; they laid straw around the coffin and drove away. There slept the quiet old maid, who for the last year had never been out of her house; and the carriage rattled along the streets and out of the city, as if it had been on a journey of pleasure. Upon the high road it went on yet faster; the fellow who drove looked over his shoulder several times; I fancy that he was afraid of seeing her sitting in her yellow satin upon the coffin behind him; he therefore urged on the horses thoughtlessly, holding them in so tightly that they foamed at the mouth: they were young and full of mettle; ​a hare ran across the road, and off they set at full speed. The quiet old maid, who from one year’s end to another had moved only slowly in a narrow circle, now that she was dead, drove over stock and stone along the open high-road. The coffin, which was wrapped in matting, was shook off, and now lay upon the road, whilst horses, driver, and carriage, sped onward in a wild career.
The lark which flew upward singing from the meadow, warbled its morning song above the coffin; it then descended and alighted upon it, pecked at the matting with its beak, as if it were rending to pieces some strange insect.
The lark rose upward again, singing in the clear ether, and I withdrew behind the rosy clouds of morning.
ELEVENTH EVENING.
I will give thee a picture of Pompeii,— said the Moon. I have been in the suburbs, the Street of Tombs, as it is called, where once the rejoicing youths, with roses around their brows, danced with the lovely sisters of Lais. Now the silence of death reigns here; German soldiers in the pay of Naples keep guard here, and play at cards and dice. A crowd of foreigners, from the other side of the mountains, wandered into the city, accompanied by the guard. They wished to see this city, arisen from the grave, by the full clear light of the Moon; and I showed to them the tracks of the chariot-wheels in the streets paved with broad slabs of lava; I showed to them the names upon ​the doors and the signs which still remain suspended from the shop-fronts; they looked into the basin of the fountains ornamented with shells and conches; but no stream of water leaped upwards; no song resounded from the richly painted chambers, where dogs of bronze guarded the doors. It was the city of the dead; Vesuvius alone still thundered his eternal hymn.
We went to the temple of Venus, which is built of dazzling white marble, with broad steps ascending to its high altar, and a verdant weeping-willow growing between its columns. The air was exquisitely transparent and blue; and in the back-ground towered Vesuvius, black as night: fires ascended from the crater of the mountain like the stem of a pine-tree; the illumined cloud of smoke hung suspended in the stillness of night, like the pine-tree’s crown, but red as blood. Among the strangers there, was a singer, a true and noble being, to whom I had seen homage paid in the greatest cities of Europe. When the party arrived at the amphitheatre, they all seated themselves upon the marble steps, and again, as in former ​centuries, human beings occupied a portion of that space. The scene was now the same as in those former times; the walls of the theatre, and the two arches in the back-ground, through which might be seen the same decoration as then—Nature itself—the mountains between Sorento and Amalfi. The singer, for fun, threw herself back into those ancient times, and sung; the scene inspired her; she reminded the listener of the wild horse of Arabia, when it snorts and careers away, with its mane lifted by the wind; there was the same ease, the same security; she brought to mind the agonized mother at the cross of Golgotha; there was the same heartfelt, deep sorrow. Once more resounded around her, as had resounded thousands of years before, the plaudits and acclamations of delight. “Happy! heavenly gifted one!” exclaimed they all. Three minutes after and the scene was changed; every one had departed; no tone was heard any longer; the whole party was gone; but the ruins still stood unchanged, as they will stand for centuries, and no one knows of the ​applause of the moment—of the beautiful singer—of her tones and her smile. All is past and forgotten; even to me is this hour a perished memory.
TWELFTH EVENING.
I peeped in at a critic’s window,—said the Moon,—in a city of Germany. The room was filled with excellent furniture, books, and a chaos of papers; several young men were sitting there; the critic himself stood at his desk; two small books, both by young authors, were about to be reviewed. “One of these,” said he, “has been sent to me; I have not read it though—but it is beautifully got up; what say you of its contents?”
“O,” said one of the young men, who was himself a poet, “there is a deal that is good in it; very little to expunge; but, he is a young man, and the verses might be better! There is a healthy tone in the thoughts—but they are, after all, such thoughts as every​body has!—but as to that, where does one find anything new? You may very well praise him, but I never believe that he will turn out anything of a poet. He has read a deal, however; is an extraordinary orientalist, and has sound judgment. He it was who wrote that beautiful critique of my Fancies of Domestic Life. One ought to be gentle towards a young man.”
“But he is a thorough ass!” said another gentleman in the room; “nothing worse in poetry than mediocrity, and he does not get above that!”
“Poor fellow,” said a third, “and his aunt makes herself so happy about him. She it was, Mr. Critic, who obtained so many subscribers’ names to your last translation.”
“The good woman! yes, I have given a short notice of the book. Unmistakeable talent! a welcome gift! a flower out of the garden of poesy; beautifully got out, and so on. But the other book—he shall catch it! I had to buy it—I hear it is praised; he has genius, don’t you think?”
“That is the general opinion,” said the poet, “but there is something wild about it.”
​“It will do him good to find fault and cut him up a little, else he will be getting too good an opinion of himself!”
“But that is unreasonable,” interrupted a fourth; “don’t let us dwell too much on trifling faults, but rejoice in the good—and there is much here—though he thrusts in good and bad altogether.”
“Unmistakeable talent!” wrote down the critic; “the usual examples of carelessness. That he also can write unlucky verse, may be seen at page five-and-twenty, where two hiatuses occur: the study of the ancients to be recommended, and so on.”
I went away, said the Moon,—and peeped through the window into the aunt’s house where sate our honored poet, the tame one, the worshipped of all the guests, and was happy.
“I sought out the other poet, the wild one, who also was in a great party of one of his patrons, where they talked about the other poet’s book. “I shall also read yours” said Mecænas, “but, honestly speaking, you know I never say to you what I do not mean; I do not expect great things from it. You are too wild for me! too fantastic—but I acknow​ledge that as a man you are highly respectable!”
A young girl who sat in a corner read in a book:—
THIRTEENTH EVENING.
The Moon told me as follows:—There lie two peasants’ cottages by the road through the wood. The doors are low, and the windows are irregular, but all around them grow buckthorn and barberries; the roof is mossy and grown over with yellow-flowered stonecrop and houseleek; nothing but cabbages and potatoes grow in the little garden, but there grows in the hedge an elder-tree, and under this sate a little girl; and there she sate with her brown eyes riveted upon an old oak tree between the houses. This tree has a tall and decayed hole, the top of it is sawn off, and there the stork has built his nest; there he stood and clattered with his beak. ​A little boy came out of the cottage and placed himself by the little girl’s side; they were brother and sister.
“What are you looking at?” cried he.
“I am looking at the stork,” she replied; “the neighbor told me that this evening the stork will bring us either a little brother or sister; and so now I will stand and watch when they come.”
“The storks do not bring anything,” said the boy. “The neighbor’s wife told me the same thing; but she laughed while she said it, and so I asked her if she durst say as sure as heaven, to it, but she dared not, and therefore I know that the story about the stork is only what they tell us children.”
“Oh, really!” said the little girl.
“And I’ll tell thee what,” said the boy; “It is our Lord himself that brings little babies; he has them under his coat; but nobody can see our Lord now, and therefore we do not see him when he comes.”
At that same moment the twigs of the elder-tree were moved; the children folded their hands and looked one at the other, for they thought that it was our Lord passing ​along with the little ones. They stood side by side, and took hold of each other’s hand.
The house-door opened, and out came the neighbor.
“Come in now,” said she, “and see what the stork has brought; he has brought a little brother!”
The children nodded their heads; they knew very well that the little brother was come.
FOURTEENTH EVENING.
I passed over Luneburg Heath,—said the Moon,—a solitary house stood by the roadside; some leafless trees grew beside it, and among these sung a nightingale which had lost its way. In the severity of the night it must perish; that was its song of death which I heard. With the early twilight there came along the road a company of emigrant peasants, who were on their way to Bremen or Hamburgh, to take ship for America, where happiness—the so much dreamed-of happiness—they expected should spring up for them. The women carried their youngest children upon their backs. the older ones sprang along by their side; a poor miserable horse dragged a car, on which were a ​few articles of household furniture. The cold wind blew; the little girl clung closer to her mother, who looked up to my round waning face and thought upon her bitter want.
Her thoughts were those of the whole company, and therefore the red glimmering of daylight was like the evangile of the sun of prosperity which should again rise. They heard the song of the dying nightingale; it was to them no false prophet, but a foreteller of happiness. The wind whistled, but they understood not the song; “Sail securely across the sea! thou hast paid for the long voyage with all that thou art possessed of; poor and helpless shalt thou set foot on thy land of Canaan. Thou mayst sell thyself, thy wife, and thy child, yet you shall none of you suffer long. Behind the broad fragrant leaf sits the goddess of death; her kiss of welcome breathes consuming fever into thy blood, far away, far away, over the swelling waters!”
The emigrant company listened joyfully to the song of the nightingale, which they thought announced to them happiness. Day beamed from behind light clouds, and the ​peasant people went over the heath to the church; the darkly-apparelled women, with their milk-white linen around their heads, looked like figures which had stepped forth from the old church paintings; all around them was nothing but the vast and death-like landscape, the withered brown heath—dark, leafless plains, in the midst of white sand-banks. The women carried their hymn-books in their hands, and advanced towards the church. Oh, pray! pray for them who wander onward to their graves on the other side of the heaving water!
FIFTEENTH EVENING.
I know a theatrical Clown,—said the Moon,—the public applauds when it sees him; every one of his movements is comic, and throws the house into convulsions of laughter, and yet he is not moved thereby: that is his peculiarity. When he was yet a child, and played with other boys, he was already a punchinello. Nature had made him one; had given him one lump upon his back, and another upon his breast. The inner man, however—the spiritual—that was really well-formed. No human being had deeper feeling, or greater elasticity of mind than he. The theatre was his ideal-world. Had he been slender and well proportioned, then he might have become a first-rate tragic ​actor, for the great, the heroic, filled his soul; but he was obliged to be the Clown. His sufferings, even, and his melancholy increased the comic expression of his strongly-marked countenance, and excited the laughter of the crowded public who applauded their favorite. The pretty little Columbine was friendly and kind to him, and yet she preferred marrying Harlequin. It would have been too comic in reality to have married the Clown; like the union of “Beauty and the Beast.” When the Clown was most out of humor, she was the only one who could make him smile—nay, even burst into peals of laughter. First of all she would be melancholy with him, then rather cheerful, and at last full of fun.
“I know what it is thou art in want of!” said she—“yes, it is this love!” and so he was obliged to laugh.
“Me and love!” exclaimed he. “That would be a merry thing! How the public would applaud.”
“It is love!” continued she; and added, with comic pathos—“It is me that you love!”
“Yes! and yet there are people who say there is no such thing as love!” The poor ​Clown sprung up into the air, he was so diverted: his melancholy was now gone. And yet she had spoken the truth: he did love her—loved her like the sublime and great in art.
On her wedding-day he was more amusing than ever. At night he wept: had the public seen his distressed countenance then, they would have applauded him!
A few days ago Columbine died. On the day of her funeral Harlequin’s appearance was excused on the stage, for he really was a mourning husband. The manager, however, was obliged to give something more merry than common, in order that the public should not miss too much the lovely Columbine and the light-bodied Harlequin, and for this reason it behoved the Clown to be doubly entertaining. He danced and sprung aloft with despair at his heart, and the public clapped their hands and shouted—“Bravo, bravissimo!” The clown was called for when the performance was over. Oh, he was invaluable!
This evening, after the play, the poor little man walked out from the city to the solitary churchyard. The garland of flowers ​was withered on Columbine’s grave; he sate down. It was something worth painting. His hands under his chin, his eyes fixed upon the moon; it was like a monumental figure. A clown upon a grave! very peculiar and very comic! Had the public seen their favorite then, how they would have shouted—“Bravo, Clown! bravo, bravissimo!”
SIXTEENTH EVENING.
Listen to what the Moon said.—I have seen the cadet, become an officer, dress himself for the first time in his splendid uniform; I have seen the young girl in her beautiful ball-dress; the young princely bride happy in her festival attire; but the felicity of none of these could equal that which this evening I saw in a child, a little girl of four years. They had just put her on a new blue frock and a new pink bonnet. The beautiful things were scarcely on when they called for candles, because the moon-light through the window was too faint; they must have other light. There stood the little girl as stiff as a doll, her arms stretched out from her frock, her fingers spread out wide from each other—and ​oh! how her eyes, her whole being, beamed with delight!
“To-morrow you shall go out into the street,” said the mother; and the little one looked up towards her bonnet and down towards her frock, and smiled joyfully.
“Mother,” said she, “what will the dogs think, when they see me so beautifully dressed!”
SEVENTEENTH EVENING.
I have,—said the Moon,—told thee about Pompeii, that corpse of a city amongst living cities. I know another, one still more strange; not the corpse, but the ghost of a city. On all sides where the fountain splashes into a marble basin, I seem to hear stories of the floating city. Yes, the fountain-streams can tell them! The billows on the shore sing of them. Over the surface of the sea there often floats a mist, that is the widow’s weeds. The sea’s bridegroom is dead; his palace and city are now a mausoleum. Dost thou know this city? The rolling of the chariot-wheels, or the sound of the horse’s hoof, were never heard in its streets. The fish swims, and like a spectre glides the black gondola over the green water.
​I will,—continued the Moon,—show thee the forum of the city, the city’s great square, and then thou wilt think it to be a city for adventures. Grass grows between the broad flag-stones, and thousands of tame pigeons fly circling in the twilight around the lofty tower. On three sides thou art surrounded by colonnades. The Turk, with his long pipe, sits silently beneath them; the handsome Greek-lad leans against a pillar, and looks up to the elevated trophies, the tall masts, the memorial of the ancient power. The flag hangs drooping like mourning crape; a girl stands there to rest herself, she has set down the heavy buckets of water, whilst the yoke on which she sustained them rests upon her shoulders, and she supports herself on the column of victory. That is not a fairy palace but a church which thou seest before thee! the gilded dome, the gilded balls around it, shine in my beams; the magnificent bronze horses upon it have traveled about like bronze horses in a fairy tale; they have traveled thither, away from their place, and then again back! Seest thou the beautiful painting on walls and win​dow panes? It is as if some genius had done the will of a child and thus decorated this extraordinary temple. Dost thou see the winged lion upon the pillar? Gold yet shines upon it, but the wings are bound, the lion is dead because the king of the sea is dead; the vast halls are empty, and where once hung costly pictures the naked walls are now seen. Lazzaroni sleep under the arches, where at one time only the high noble dared to tread. Either from the deep well or from the chamber of the leaden roof, near to the Bridge of Sighs, sounds forth a groan, whilst tamborines are heard from the painted gondola as the bridal-ring is cast from the glittering Bucentaur to Adria, the queen of the sea. Adria, wrap thyself in mist! let the widow’s veil cover the breast, and cast it over thy bridegroom’s mausoleum;—the marble-builder, the spectre-like, Venice.”
EIGHTEENTH EVENING.
I looked down upon a great theatre,—said the Moon,—the whole house was full of spectators, because a new actor made his debut; my beams fell upon a little window in the wall; a painted face pressed its forehead against the glass; it was the hero of the night. The chivalric beard curled upon his chin; but there were tears in the man’s eyes, because he had been hissed—hissed with reason. Poor fellow! but the realm of art will not endure the feeble. He deeply felt and passionately loved art, but she did not love him.
The prompter’s bell rung;—according to the piece, the hero stepped forth with a bold and determined air—thus had he to appear ​before a public which burst into peals of laughter.—The piece was ended; I saw a man wrapped in a cloak steal away down the steps; it was he, the spirit-crushed cavalier; the servants of the theatre whispered to each other as he passed. I followed the poor wretch home to his chamber. Hanging is such an ignominious death, and people have not always poison at hand. I know that he thought of both. He looked at his pale face in the glass; half closed his eyes to see whether he would look handsome as a corpse. It is possible for people to be unfortunate in the highest degree, and yet in the highest degree vain at the same time. He thought upon death, upon self-murder; I believe he wept in pity of himself—he wept bitterly, and when people have had a good fit of crying they do not kill themselves.
A year has passed since then. A comedy was acted, but this time in a little theatre, by a poor vagrant company. I saw again the well-known face, the painted cheeks, the curled beard. He again looked up to me and smiled—and yet for all that he had been hissed—hissed scarcely a minute before in ​that miserable theatre, hissed by that miserable audience!
“This very evening a poor hearse has driven out of the gate of the town; not a single being accompanied it. There lay upon it a suicide, our painted and derided hero. The driver was the only attendant; no one followed, no one except the Moon. In an angle of the churchyard wall is the self-murdered laid; nettles will soon spring up thereon; there will grave-diggers cast thorns and weeds from other graves.
NINETEENTH EVENING.
I come from Rome,—said the Moon,—there, in the middle of the city, upon one of the seven hills, lie the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars; a wild fig-tree grows in a chink of the wall, and covers its nakedness with its broad, gray-green leaves; the ass wanders over the heaps of rubbish among the laurel hedges, and feasts on the golden thistle. From this spot, whence the Roman eagle once flew forth, went, and saw, and conquered, the entrance is now through a small, miserable house, smeared with clay, between two broken pillars; tendrils of the vine hang down, like a mourning garland, over the narrow window. An old woman, with her little grand-daughter lived there; they ruled now ​in the palace of the Cæsars, and showed to strangers the buried treasures. There remains of the rich throne-room nothing but a naked wall; the shadow of the black cypress points to the place where the throne stood. The earth lies to the depth of some feet above the broken floor; the little girl, now the daughter of the palace of the Cæsars, often sits there upon her little stool, when the evening bell rings. The keyhole in the door, close beside her, she calls her balcony, and through it she sees over half of Rome, as far as the mighty dome of St. Peter’s.
It was silent as ever, this evening, and the little girl came homeward in my full, bright light. She carried upon her head an antiquely-formed earthen jug filled with water; her feet were bare; the black petticoat and the little chemise sleeves were in tatters; I kissed the child’s beautiful round shoulder, her black eyes, and her dark shining hair. She mounted up the steps of the house, which were steep, and were formed of broken pieces of wall and a shattered capital. The bright-colored lizard glided timidly past her feet, but she was not frightened; she raised her ​hand to ring at the door; there hung a hare’s foot in the packthread, which is now the bell-pull at the palace of the Cæsars. She stood stock-still for a moment; what was she thinking about? Perhaps of the beautiful Jesus-child clothed in gold and silver, in the chapel below, where the silver lamp was burning, and where her little-girl friends were singing in chorus as she knew; I cannot tell if it was of this she thought! but again she made a movement, and stumbled; the earthen jug fell from her head and was shivered in pieces upon the broken marble pavement. She burst into tears; the beautiful daughter of the palace of the Cæsars wept over the poor, broken, earthen jug; she stood with her bare feet and wept, and dared not to pull at the pack-thread string, the bell-pull at the palace of the Cæsars.
TWENTIETH EVENING.
For upwards of fourteen days the Moon had not shone; now I saw it again, round and bright, standing above the slowly ascending clouds; listen to what the Moon related to me. I followed a caravan from one of the cities of Fez; it made a halt upon one of the salt plains, which glittered like an ice-field, and where one little stretch only was covered with moveable sand. The eldest of the caravan, with his water-flask hanging at his belt, and a bag of unleavened bread around his neck, marked out a square in the sand with his staff, and wrote therein some words of the koran; within this consecrated spot the whole caravan drew up. A young merchant, a child of the sun, as I could see by ​his eye and by his beautiful form, rode thoughtfully upon his white and spirited charger. Perhaps he was thinking of his young and lovely wife. It was only two days since the camel, adorned with skins and costly shawls, bore her, a beautiful bride, around the walls of the city; drums and bagpipes resounded, women sang, and shouts of joy were sent forth from those who surrounded the camel, the bridegroom shouted the gayest and the loudest of them all, and now—now he rode with the caravan across the desert. I accompanied them for many nights; saw them rest beside the wells, among the crested palm trees; they stabbed with a knife the fallen camel and cooked the flesh with fire. My beams cooled the burning sand; my beams showed them the black masses of rock, islands of death in the immense ocean of sand. No hostile power had they met with upon their trackless path; no storm was abroad; no pillars of sand carried death over the caravan.
The lovely wife prayed to heaven for her husband and father. “Are they dead?” inquired she from my gilded horn. “Are they ​dead?” inquired she from my beaming crescent. The desert now lies behind them; on this very evening they rest under the tall palm trees, around which circle the storks with their long wings; the pelican rushes down upon them from the branches of the mimosa. The luxuriant vegetation is trampled down by the many feet of the elephants; a troop of negro people come onward from a distant fair; women with copper buttons in their black hair, and in indigo-colored petticoats drive on the laden oxen on which the naked black children lie asleep. One negro leads in a thong a lion’s cub, which he had purchased; they approach the caravan; the young merchant sits immoveable, silent; he thinks upon his lovely wife, dreams in this negro land of his white fragrant flower on the other side the desert; he lifts his head—A cloud passed over the Moon, and again a cloud. I heard no more that night.
TWENTY-FIRST EVENING.
I saw a little girl weeping,—said the Moon,—she wept because of the wickedness of the world. She had had a present made her of the most beautiful doll—Oh, it was a doll, so lovely and delicate, not at all fitted to struggle with misfortune! But the little girl’s brother, a tall lad, had taken the doll and set it up in a high tree in the garden, and then had run away. The little girl could not reach the doll, could not help it down, and therefore she cried. The doll cried too, and stretched out her arms from among the green branches, and looked so distressed. Yes, this was one of the misfortunes of life of which her mamma had so often spoken. Oh, the poor doll! It already began to get dusk, and then ​dismal night would come! And was she to sit up there in the tree, and by herself all night? No, the little girl would not endure the thought of that.
“I will stay with you!” said she, although she was not at all courageous. She began already to see quite plainly the little elves, in their tall pomted hats, peeping from between the bushes, and down the dusky alleys danced tall spectres, which came nearer and nearer. She stretched her hands up towards the tree in which the doll sate, and they laughed and pointed their fingers at her. Ah, how terrified was the little girl! “But if one has not done anything wrong,” thought she, “nothing can do one any harm! Have I done anything wrong?”
She thought. “Ah, yes!” said she, “I laughed at the poor duck with the red rag tied round its leg; it hobbled so comically, and that made me laugh; but it is wrong to laugh at poor animals.”
“Have you laughed at poor animals?” inquired she, looking up to the doll, and it seemed to her as if the doll shook her head.
TWENTY-SECOND EVENING.
I looked into the Tyrol,—said the Moon,—I caused the dark fir-trees to cast strong shadows upon the rocks. I saw the holy Christopher, with the child Jesus upon his shoulder, as he stood there against the wall of the houses, colossal in size from the foundation to the gable. The holy Florian carries water to the burning house, and Christ hangs bleeding upon the great cross by the wayside. These are old pictures for the new generation: I have, nevertheless, seen them depart one after another.
Aloft, in the projection of the mountains, a solitary nunnery hangs like a swallow’s nest. Two sisters stood up in the tower, and rung the bell. They were both young, and there​fore they looked out beyond the mountains into the world. A traveling carriage drove below along the high road, the postillion’s horn resounded, and the poor nuns riveted with kindred thoughts their eyes upon it: there were tears in the eyes of the younger of the two. The horn sounded fainter and fainter: the bell of the nunnery overpowered its dying tones.
TWENTY-THIRD EVENING.
Listen to what the Moon said.—Many years ago, in Copenhagen, I peeped in at the window of a poor chamber. The father and mother slept, but the little son slept not. I saw the flowered cotton bed-hangings move, and the child peeped out. I fancied at first that he was looking at the Bornholm timepiece, it was so beautifully painted with red and green, and a cuckoo sate on the top of it; there were heavy leaden weights, and the pendulum with its shining brass surface, went to and fro, “dik, dik!” but it was not that which he was looking at—no, it was his mother’s spinning-wheel, which stood under the clock. That was the most precious piece of furniture in the whole house to the boy, but he did not dare to touch it, for if he did, ​he got a rap on the fingers. All the time his mother was spinning he would sit beside her, and watch the humming spole and the turning wheel, and he had the while his own peculiar thoughts about them. Ah! if he could only dare thus to spin on the wheel! Father and mother were asleep; he looked at them, he looked at the wheel, and presently afterwards one little naked foot was pushed out of bed, and then another naked foot, then two little legs—thump! stood he upon the floor. He turned himself once round, however, to see whether father and mother slept. Yes, that they did! and so he went softly, very softly—in nothing but his short little shirt—to the wheel, and began to spin. The cord flew off, and the wheel ran round faster than ever. I kissed his yellow hair and his light blue eyes; it was a lovely picture. At that moment the mother awoke—the curtains moved—she looked out and thought about elves, or some other kind of little sprite.
“In the name of Jesus!” said she; and full of alarm, awoke her husband. He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the busy little creature.
​“It is actually Bertel!” said he.
I withdrew my gaze from that poor chamber—I can see so far around me! I looked at that very moment into the hall of the Vatican where the marble gods stand. I illumined the group of the Laocoon; the stone seemed to sigh. I pressed my quiet kiss upon the muses’ breast; I fancy it heaved. But my beams tarried longest upon the group of the Nile, upon the colossal god. He lay full of thought, supporting himself upon sphinxes: dreaming there as if he were thinking of the fleeting year; little loves played around him with crocodiles. In the horn of plenty sate, with folded arms, and gazing upon the great river-god, a very little love, a true picture of the little boy with the wheel; it was the same expression. Living and charming, here stood the little marble child; and yet more than a thousand times had the wheel of the year gone round since it stood forth in stone. Just so many times as the boy in the poor chamber turned the wheel has the great wheel of time hummed round, and still shall hum, before the age creates another marble-god like this.
​See, it is now many years since then. Last evening,—continued the Moon,—I looked down upon a creek in the east coast of Zealand. Beautiful woods were there, lofty mounds, an old mansion-house with red walls, swans in the moat, and a little trading town, with its church among the apple-orchards. A fleet of boats, each bearing a torch, glided over the unruffled water; it was not to catch fish that the torches were burning—no! everything was festal! Music sounded, a song was sung; and in the middle of one of the boats stood he whom they honored, a tall, strong man in a large cloak; he had blue eyes, and long white hair. I knew him, and thought upon the Vatican, and the Nile-group, and all the marble gods; I thought upon the poor little chamber where little Bertel sate in his short shirt and spun.
“The wheel of time has gone round; new gods have ascended from the marble. “Hurrah!” resounded from the boats—“Hurrah for Bertel Thorwaldsen!”
TWENTY-FOURTH EVENING.
I will give thee a picture from Frankfort,—said the Moon:—I took notice of one building in particular. It was not the birth-place of Goethe, nor was it the old town-house, where, through the grated windows, are still exhibited the horned fronts of the oxen which were roasted and given to the people at the emperor’s coronation, but it was the house of a citizen painted green and unpretending, at the corner of the narrow Jews’ street. It was the house of the Rothschilds. I looked in at the open door; the flight of steps was strongly lighted; servants stood there with burning lights in massive silver candlesticks, and bowed themselves lowly before the old woman who was carried forth down the steps in a sedan chair. The master of the house ​stood with bare head, and impressed reverentially a kiss upon the old woman’s hand. It was his mother. She nodded kindly to him, and to the servants; and they carried her out into the narrow, dark street, into a little house, where she lived, and where her child was born, from whom all her good fortune had proceeded. If she were now to leave the despised street and the little house, then, perhaps, good fortune would leave him!—that was her belief.
The Moon told nothing more. Her visit to me was too short this evening; but I thought of the old woman in the narrow, despised street. Only one word about her—and she had her splendid house near the Thames; only one word about her—and her villa was situated on the Gulf of Naples.
“Were I to leave the mean little house where my son’s good fortune began, then, perhaps, good fortune would leave him!”
This is a superstition, but of that kind which only requires, when the history is known and the picture seen, two words as a superscription to make it intelligible—A Mother.
TWENTY-FIFTH EVENING.
It was yesterday, in the morning twilight,—these were the Moon’s own words,—not a chimney was yet smoking in the whole city, and it was precisely the chimneys that I was looking at. From one of these chimneys at that very moment came forth a little head, and then a half body, the arms of which rested on the coping stone of the chimney. “Hurrah!” It was a little chimney-sweeper lad, who, for the first time in his life, had mounted a chimney, and had thus put forth his head. “Hurrah!” Yes, there was some difference between this and creeping upwards in the narrow chimney! The air blew so fresh; he could look out over the whole city to the green wood. The sun had just risen; ​round and large, it looked brightly into his face, which beamed with happiness, although it was famously smeared with soot.
“Now the whole city can see me, and the moon can see me, and the sun also!” and with that he flourished about his brush.
TWENTY-SIXTH EVENING.
Last night I looked down upon a city in China,—said the Moon. My beams illumined the long naked walls which form the streets; here and there, to be sure, is a door, but it is closed, because the Chinese troubled not themselves about the world outside. Impenetrable Venetian shutters covered the windows of the houses behind the walls; from the temple alone light shone faintly through the window-glass. I looked in—looked in upon the brilliant splendor; from floor to ceiling was covered with pictures in strong colors and rich gilding, which represented the works of the gods on earth. Their statues themselves stood in every niche, but mostly concealed by brilliant dra​peries and suspended fans; and before every divinity—they were all of tin—stood a little altar with holy water, flowers, and burning wax-lights. Supreme in the temple, however, stood Fu, the supreme divinity, dressed in a garment of silken stuff of the holy yellow color. At the foot of the altar sate a living figure, a young priest. He appeared to be praying, but in the midst of his prayer he sunk into deep thought; and it certainly was sinful, because his cheeks burned, and his head bowed very low. Poor Souihoung! Perhaps he was dreaming about working in one of the little flower-gardens which lie before every house behind the long wall of the street, and which was a far pleasanter occupation to him than trimming the wax-lights in the temple; or was he longing to be seated at the well-covered board, and between every course to be wiping his lips with silver paper? or was it a sin so great that if he had dared to utter it, the heavenly powers must have punished him with death? Were his thoughts bold enough to take flight with the ship of the barbarians to their home, the remote England? No, his thoughts did not fly so ​far; and yet they were as sinful as the warm blood of youth could make them—sinful here, in the temple before the statues of Fu and the holy deities. I knew where his thoughts were. In the most distant corner of the city, upon the flat, flagged roof, the parapet of which seemed to be made of porcelain, and where stood the beautiful vases in which grew large white campanulas, sate the youthful Pe, with her small roguish eyes, her pouting lips, and her least of all little feet. Her shoes pinched, but there was a more severe pinching at her heart; she raised her delicate, blooming arms, and the satin rustled. Before her stood a glass bow, in which were four gold fish: she stirred the water very softly with a beautifully painted and japaned stick. Oh, so slowly she stirred it because she was deep in thought! Perhaps she was thinking how rich and golden was the apparel of the fish, how safely they lived in the glass bowl, and how luxuriously they were fed; and yet, for all that, how much more happy they might be in freedom: yes, the idea distressed the beautiful Pe. Her thoughts passed away from her home; her thoughts went into the ​church, but it was not for the sake of the gods that they went there. Poor Pe! poor Souihoung! Their earthly thoughts met, but my cold beam lay like a cherub’s sword between them.
TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING.
There was a calm,—said the Moon—the water was as transparent as the pure air through which I floated. I could see, far below the surface of the sea, the strange plants which, like giant trees in groves, heaved themselves up towards me with stems a fathom long, whilst the fish swam over their tops. High up in the air flew a flock of wild swans, one of which sank with wearied wings lower and lower: its eyes followed the airy caravan, which every moment became more distant; its pmions were expanded widely, and it sank, like a soap-bubble in the still air; it touched the surface of the water, bowed back its head between its wings, and lay still, like a white lotus ​upon the calm Indian Sea. The breeze blew, and lifted up the bright surface of the water, which was brilliant as the air; there rolled on a large, broad billow—the swan lifted its head, and the shining water was poured, like blue fire, over its breast and back.
The dawn of day illumined the red clouds, and the swan rose up refreshed, and flew towards the ascending sun, towards the blue coast, whither had betaken themselves the airy caravan; but it flew alone—with longing in its breast, flew alone over the blue, the foaming water!
TWENTY-EIGHTH EVENING.
I will now give thee a picture from Sweden, said the Moon.—In the midst of black pine woods, not far from the melancholy shore of Roxe, lies the old convent-church of Wreta. My beams passed through the grating in the walls into the spacious vault where kings sleep in great stone coffins. On the wall above them, is placed, as an image of earthly magnificence, a king’s crown, made of wood, painted and gilded, and held firm by a wooden pin, which is driven into the wall. The worm has eaten through the gilded wood, the spider has spun its web from the crown to the coffin; it is a mourning banner, perishable, as mourning for the dead!
How still they sleep! I remember them so ​well! I see now the bold smile on the lips which expressed joy or sorrow so strongly, so decisively, When the steam-vessel, like an enchanted ship, sails hither from the mountains, many a stranger comes to the church, visits this vault, and inquires the names of the kings, and these names sound forgotten and dead; he looks upon the worm-eaten crown, smiles, and if he be of a pious turn of mind, there is melancholy in his smile.
Slumber ye dead! the Moon remembers you. The Moon sends in the night her cold beams to your quiet kingdom, over which hangs the wooden crown!
TWENTY-NINTH EVENING.
Close beside the high road,—said the Moon,—lies a little public house, and just opposite to it is a great coach house. As the roof was under repair, I looked down between the beams and saw through the open trap-door into the great desolate space; the turkey slept upon the beam, and the saddle was laid to rest in the empty manger. In the middle of the place stood a travelling-carriage, within which the gentlefolks were sound asleep, whilst the horses were feeding, and the driver stretched his limbs, although I know very well that he slept soundly more than half the way. The door of the fellow’s chamber stood open, and the bed looked as if he had tumbled neck and heels into it; the candle stood on the floor, ​and burned low in the socket. The wind blew cold through the barn; and the time was nearer to daybreak than midnight. Upon the floor within the stall, slept a family of wandering musicians; father and mother were dreaming about the burning drop in the bottle; the pale little girl, she dreamed about the burning tears in her eyes. The harp lay at their head, and the dog at their feet.
THIRTIETH EVENING.
it was in a little trading town—said the Moon—I saw it last year; but that is nothing, for I saw it so plainly. This evening I read about it in the newspaper, but it was not nearly as plain there.
Down in the parlor of the public-house sate the master of the bear, and ate his supper. Bams, the bear, stood outside, tied to the faggot-stake. The poor bear! he would not have done the least harm to any soul, for all his grim looks. Up in the garret there lay, in the bright light of the Moon, three little children: the eldest was six years old, the youngest not more than two. “Clap, clap!” came something up the stairs! What could it be? The door sprang open—it was Bams, ​the great rough bear! He had grown tired of standing out there in the yard, and he now found his way up the steps. I saw the whole thing,—said the Moon. The children were very much frightened at the great grim-looking beast, and crept each one of them into his corner; but he found them all out, rubbed them with his snout, but did them no harm at all! “It is certainly a big dog!” thought they; and with that they patted him. He laid himself down on the floor, and the least boy tumbled upon him, and played at hiding his yellow curly head among his thick black hair. The eldest boy now took his drum and made a tremendous noise, and the bear rose up on his hind legs and began to dance. It was charming! Each boy took his weapons; the bear must have a gun, too, and he held it like a regular soldier. What a glorious comrade they had found! and so they marched—“One, two! one, two!”
Presently the door opened; it was the children’s mother. You should have seen her—seen her speechless horror; her face as white as a wall, her half-opened mouth, her ​staring eyes; the least of the children, however, nodded so joyfully, and shouted with all his might—“We are playing at soldiers!” And with that, up came the bear’s master!
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