Hans Christian Andersen
Index
Showing posts with label Hans Christian Andersen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hans Christian Andersen. Show all posts
Monday, September 5, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
1873 The Flea and the Professor
The Flea and the Professor (1873)
(The Professor and the Flea)
(The Professor and the Flea)
by
Hans Christian Andersen
Scribner’s Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 6 (April 1873): 759-761.
THERE was once an aëronaut with whom things went badly; the balloon burst, tumbled the man out, and broke into bits. His boy he had two minutes before sent down with a parachute,—that was the boy’s luck; he was unhurt and went about with knowledge enough to make him an aëronaut too, but he had no balloon and no means of acquiring one.
But live he must, and so he applied himself to the art of legerdemain and to talking in his stomach; in fact he became a ventriloquist, as they say. He was young, good-looking, and when he got a moustache and had his best clothes on, he could be taken for a nobleman’s son. The ladies seemed to think well of him; one young lady even was so taken with his charms and his great dexterity that she went off with him to foreign parts. There he called himself Professor—he could scarcely do less.
His constant thought was how to get himself a balloon and go up into the air with his little wife, but as yet they had no means.
“They’ll come yet,” said he.
“If only they would,” said she.
“We are young folks,” said he, “and now I am Professor.” She helped him faithfully, sat at the door and sold tickets to the exhibition, and it was a chilly sort of pleasure in winter time. She also helped him in the line of his art. He put his wife in a table-drawer, a large table-drawer; then she crawled into the back part of the drawer, and so was not in the front part,—quite an optical illusion to the audience. But one evening when he drew the drawer out, she was also out of sight to him: she was not in the front drawer, not in the back one either, not in the house itself—nowhere to be seen or heard— that was her feat of legerdemain, her entertainment. She never came back again; she was tired of it all, and he grew tired of it, lost his good-humor, could not laugh or make jokes;—and so the people stopped coming, his earnings became scanty, his clothes gave out; and finally he only owned a great flea, which his wife had left him, and so he thought highly of it. And he dressed the flea and taught it to perform, to present arms and to fire a cannon off,—but it was a little cannon.
The Professor was proud of the flea, and the flea was proud of himself; he had learned something, and had human blood, and had been besides to the largest cities, had been seen by princes and princesses, had received their high praise, and it was printed in the newspapers and on placards. Plainly it was a very famous flea and could support a Professor and his entire family.
The flea was proud and famous, and yet when he and the Professor traveled they took fourth-class carriages on the railway; they went just as quickly as the first class. They were betrothed to each other; it was a private engagement that would never come out; they never would marry, the flea would remain a bachelor and the Professor a widower. That made it balance.
“Where one has the best luck,” said the Professor, “there one ought to go twice.” He was a good judge of character, and that is also a science of itself. At last he had traveled over all countries except the wild ones, and so he wanted to go there. They eat Christian men there, to be sure, the Professor knew, but then he was not properly Christian and the flea was not properly a man, so he thought they might venture to travel there and have good success.
They traveled hy steamship and by sailing vessel ; the flea performed his tricks, and so they got a free passage on the way and arrived at the wild country. Here reigned a little Princess. She was only eight years old, but she was reigning. She had taken away the power from her father and mother, for she had a will, and then she was extraordinarily beautiful—and rude.
Just as soon as the flea had presented arms and fired off the cannon, she was so enraptured with him that she said, “Him or nobody!” She became quite wild with love and was already wild in other ways.
“Sweet, little, sensible child!” said her own father. “If one could only first make a man of him!”
“Leave that to me, old man,” said she, and that was not well said by a little Princess when talking with her father, but she was wild. She set the flea on her white hand.
“Now you are a man, reigning with me, but you shall do what I want you to, or else i’ll kill you and eat the Professor.” The Professor had a great hall to live in. The walls were made of sugar-cane, and he could lick them, but he was not a sweet-tooth. He had a hammock to sleep in. It was as if he were lying in a balloon, such as he had always wished for himself—that was his constant thought.
The flea lived with the Princess, sat upon her delicate hand and upon her white neck. She had taken a hair from her head and made the Professor tie it to the flea’s leg, and so she kept him tied to the great red coral drop which she wore in her ear-tip. What a delightful time the Princess had, and the flea too, she thought, but the Professor was not very comfortable. He was a traveler; he liked to drive from town to town, and read about his perseverance and cleverness in teaching a flea to do what men do. But he got out of and into his hammock, lounged about and had good feeding, fresh bird’s-eggs, elephant’s eyes and roast giraffe. People that eat men do not live entirely on cooked men—no, that is a great delicacy.
“ Shoulder of children with sharp sauce,” said the Princess’s mother, “is the most delicate.”
The Professor was tired of it all and would rather go away from the wild land, but he must have his flea with him, for that was his prodigy, and his bread and butter. How was he to get hold of him? That was no easy matter. He strained all his wits, and then he said,
“Now I have it.”
“Princess’s Father! grant me a favor. May I summon your subjects to present themselves before your Royal Highness? That is what is called a Ceremony in the high and mighty countries of the world.
“Can I, too, learn to do that?” asked the Princess’s father.
“That is not quite proper,” replied the Professor; “but I shall teach your wild Fathership to fire a cannon off. It goes off with a bang. One sits high up aloft, and then off it goes or down he comes.”
“Let me crack it off!” said the Princess’s father. But in all the land there was no cannon except the one the flea had brought, and that was so very small.
“I will cast a bigger one!” said the Professor. “Only give me the means. I must have fine silk stuff, needle and thread, rope and cord, together with cordial drops for the balloon, they blow one up so easily and give one the heaves; they are what make the report in the cannons s inside.”
“By all means,” said the Princess’s father, and gave him what he called for. All the court and the entire population came together to see the great cannon cast. The Professor did not summon them before he had the balloon entirely ready to be filled and go up: The flea sat on the Princess’s hand and looked on. The balloon was filled, it bulged out and could scarcely be held down, so violent did it become.
“I must have it up in the air before it can be cooled off,” said the Professor, and took his seat in the car which hung below. “But I cannot manage and steer it alone. I must have a skillful companion along to help me. There is no one here that can do that except the flea.”
“I am not very willing to let him,” said the Princess, but still she reached out and handed the flea to the Professor, who placed him on his hand.
“Let go the cords and ropes,” he shouted. “ Now the balloon’s going.” They thought he said “the cannon,” and so the balloon went higher and higher, up above the clouds, far away from the wild land.
The little Princess, all the family and the people sat and waited—they are waiting still; and if you do not believe it, just take a journey to the wild land; every child there talks about the Professor and the flea, and believes that they are coming back when the cannon is cooled off; but they will not come, they are at home with us, they are in their native country, they travel on the railway, first class, not fourth; they have good success, a great balloon. Nobody asks how they got their balloon or where it came from: they are rich folks now, quite respectable folks, indeed—the flea and the Professor!
Reference:
1872 The Cripple
The Cripple (1872)
by
Hans Christian Andersen
THERE was an old country-house which belonged to young, wealthy people. They had riches and blessings, they liked to enjoy themselves, but they did good as well, they wished to make everybody as happy as they were themselves.
On Christmas Eve a beautifully decorated Christmas tree stood in the old hall, where the fire burned in the chimney, and fir branches were hung round the old pictures. Here were assembled the family and their guests, and there was dancing and singing.
Earlier in the evening there had been Christmas gaiety in the servants’ hall. Here also was a great fir-tree with red and white candles, small Danish flags, swans and fishing-nets, cut out of coloured paper, and filled with goodies. The poor children from the neighbourhood were invited, every one had his mother with him. The mothers did not look much at the Christmas-tree, but at the Christmas table, where there lay linen and woollen cloth—stuff for gowns and stuff for trousers. They and the bigger children looked there, only the very little ones stretched out their hands to the candles, and the tinsel and flags.
The whole party came early in the afternoon and got Christmas porridge and roast goose with red cabbage. Then when the Christmas-tree was seen and the gifts distributed, each got a little glass of punch with apple fritters. Then they went back to their own poor homes and talked of the good living, that is to say good things to eat; and the gifts were once more inspected. There were now Garden Kirsten and Garden Ole. They were married, and had their house and daily bread for weeding and digging in the garden of the big house. Every Christmas festival they got a good share of the gifts; they had five children, and all of them were clothed by the family.
“They are generous people, our master and mistress,” said they, “but they have the means to be so, and they have pleasure in doing it.”
“Here are good clothes for the four children to wear,” said Ole; “but why is there nothing for the cripple? They used to think about him too, although he was not at the festival.”
It was the eldest of the children they called “The Cripple”, he was called Hans otherwise.
As a little boy, he was the smartest and liveliest child, but he became all at once “loose in the legs”, as they call it, he could neither walk nor stand, and now he had been lying in bed for five years.
“Yes, I got something for him too,” said the mother, “but it is nothing much, it is only a book to read.”
“He won’t get fat on that,” said the father.
But Hans was glad of it. He was a very clever boy who liked to read, but used his time also for working, so far as one who must always lie in bed could he useful. He was very handy, and knitted woollen stockings, and even bedcovers. The lady at the big house had praised and bought them. It was a story-book Hans had got; in it there was much to read and much to think about.
“It is not of any kind of use here in the house,” said his parents, “but let him read, it passes the time, he cannot always be knitting stockings!”
The spring came; flowers and green leaves began to sprout-the weeds also, as one may call the nettles, although the psalm speaks so nicely of them:
Though kings in all their power and might
Came forth in splendid row
They could not make the smallest leaf
Upon a nettle grow.
There was much to do in the garden, not only for the gardener and his apprentice, but also for Kirsten and Ole.
“It is perfect drudgery,” said they. “We have no sooner raked the paths and made them nice, than they are just trodden down again. There is such a run of visitors up at the house. How much it must cost! But the family are rich people!”
“Things are badly divided,” said Ole; “the priest says we are all our Father’s children, why the difference then?”
“It comes from the Fall!” said Kirsten
They talked about it again in the evening, where cripple Hans lay with his story-book.
Straitened circumstances, work, and drudgery, had made the parents not only hard in the hands, but also in their opinions and judgements; they could not grasp it, could not explain it, and made themselves more peevish and angry as they talked.
“Some people get prosperity and happiness, others only poverty! Why should our first parents’ disobedience and curiosity be visited upon us? We would not have behaved ourselves as they did!”
“Yes, we would!” said cripple Hans, all at once. “It is all here in the book.”
“What is in the book?” asked the parents.
And Hans read for them the old story of the wood-cutter and his wife. They also scolded about Adam’s and Eve’s curiosity, which was the cause of their misfortune. The king of the country came past just then. “Come home with me,” said he, “then you shall have it as good as I; seven courses for dinner and a course for show. That is in a closed tureen, and you must not touch it; for if you do, it is all over with your grandeur.” “What can there be in the tureen?” said the wife. “That does not concern us,” said the man. “Yes, I am not inquisitive,” said the wife, “but I would only like to know why we dare not lift the lid; it is certainly something delicate!” “If only it is not something mechanical,” said the man such as a pistol, which goes off and wakens the whole house.” “O my!” said the wife, and did not touch the tureen. But during the night she dreamt that the lid lifted itself, and from the tureen came a smell of the loveliest punch, such as one gets at weddings and funerals. There lay a big silver shilling with the inscription, “Drink of this punch, and you will become the two richest people in the world, and everybody else will become beggars!”—and the wife wakened at once and told her husband her dream. “You think too much about the thing!” said he. “We could lift it gently,” said the wife. “Gently,” said the man, and the wife then lifted the lid very gently. Then two little active mice sprang out, and ran at once into a mouse-hole. “Good night,” said the king. “Now you can go home and lie in your own bed. Don’t scold Adam and Eve any more, you yourselves have been as inquisitive and ungrateful!”
“From where has that story come in the book?” said Ole. “It looks as if it concerned us. It is something to think about!”
Next day they went to work again; they were roasted by the sun, and soaked to the skin with rain; in them were fretful thoughts, and they ruminated on them.
It was still quite light at home after they had eaten their milk porridge.
“Read the story of the wood-cutter to us again,” said Ole.
“There are so many nice ones in the book,” said Hans, “so many, you don’t know.”
“Yes, but I don’t care about them,” said Ole, “I want to hear the one I know.”
And he and his wife listened to it again.
More than one evening they returned to the story.
“It cannot quite make everything clear to me,” said Ole.
“It is with people as with sweet milk, which sours; some become fine cheese, and others the thin, watery whey; some people have luck in everything, sit at the high-table every day, and know neither sorrow nor want.”
Cripple Hans heard that. He was weak in the legs, but clever in the head. He read to them from his story-book, read about “The man without sorrow or want”. Where was he to be found, for found he must be!
The king lay sick and could not be cured, except by being dressed in the shirt which had been worn on the body of a man who could truthfully say that he had never known sorrow or want.
Messages were sent to all the countries in the world, to all castles and estates, to all prosperous and happy men, but when it was properly investigated, every one of them had experienced sorrow and want.
“That I have not!” said the swineherd who sat in the ditch and laughed and sang, “I am the happiest man!”
“Then give us your shirt,” said the king’s messengers. “You shall be paid for it with the half of the kingdom.”
But he had no shirt, and yet he called himself the happiest man.
“That was a fine fellow,” shouted Ole, and he and his wife laughed as they had not laughed for a year and a day. Then the schoolmaster came past.
“How you are enjoying yourselves!” said he, “that is something new in this house. Have you won a prize in the lottery?”
“No, we are not of that kind,” said Ole. “It is Hans who has been reading his story-book to us, about ‘The man without sorrow or want’, and the fellow had no shirt. One’s eyes get moist when one hears such things, and that from a printed book. Every one has his load to draw, one is not alone in that. That is always a comfort.”
“Where did you get that book?” asked the schoolmaster.
“Our Hans got it more than a year ago at Christmastime. The master and mistress gave it to him. They know that he likes reading so much, and he is a cripple. We would rather have seen him get two linen shirts at the time. But the book is wonderful, it can almost answer one’s thoughts.”
The schoolmaster took the book and opened it.
“Let us have the same story again!” said Ole, “I have not quite taken it in yet. Then he must also read the other about the wood-cutter!”
These two stories were enough for Ole. They were like two sunbeams coming into the poor room, into the stunted thought which made him so cross and ill-natured. Hans had read the whole book, read it many times. The stories carried him out into the world, there, where he could not go, because his legs would not carry him.
The schoolmaster sat by his bed: they talked together, and it was a pleasure for both of them. From that day the schoolmaster came oftener to Hans, when the parents were at work. It was a treat for the boy, every time he came. How he listened to what the old man told him, about the size of the world and its many countries, and that the sun was almost half a million times bigger than the earth, and so far away that a cannon-ball in its course would take a whole twenty-five years to come from the sun to the earth, whilst the beams of light could come in eight minutes.
Every industrious schoolboy -knew all that, but for Hans it was all new, and still more wonderful than what was in the story-book.
The schoolmaster dined with the squire’s family two or three times a year, and he told how much importance the story-book had in the poor house, where two stories in it alone had been the means of spiritual awakening and blessing. The weakly, clever little boy had with his reading brought reflection and joy into the house.
When the schoolmaster went away, the lady pressed two or three silver dollars into his hand for the little Hans.
“Father and mother must have them!” said Hans, when the schoolmaster brought the money.
And Ole and Kirsten said, “Cripple Hans after all is ,a profit and a blessing.”
Two or three days after, when the parents were at work at the big house, the squire’s carriage stopped outside. It was the kind-hearted lady who came, glad that her Christmas present had been such a comfort and pleasure for the boy and his parents. She brought with her fine bread, fruit, and a bottle of fruit syrup, but what was still more delightful she brought him, in a gilt cage, a little blackbird., which could whistle quite charmingly. The cage with the bird was set up on the old clothes-chest, a little bit away from the boy’s bed; he could see the bird and hear it; even the people out in the road could hear its song.
Ole and Kirsten came home after the lady had driven away; they noticed how glad Hans was, but thought there would only be trouble with the present he had got.
“Rich people don’t have much foresight!” said they. “Shall we now have that to look after also? Cripple Hans cannot do it. The end will be that the cat will take it!”
Eight days passed, and still another eight days: the cat had in that time been often in the room without frightening the bird, to say nothing of hurting it. Then a great event happened. It was afternoon. The parents and the other children were at work, Hans was quite alone; he had the story-book in his hand, and read about the fisherwoman who got everything she wished for; she wished , to be a king, and that she became; she wished to be an emperor, and that she became; but when she wished to become the good God, then she sat once more in the muddy ditch she had come from.
The story had nothing to do with the bird or the cat, but it was just the story he was reading when the incident happened: he always remembered that afterwards.
The cage stood on the chest, the cat stood on the floor and stared at the bird with his greeny-gold eyes. There was something in the cat’s face which seemed to say, “How lovely you are! How I should like to eat you!”
Hans could understand that; he read it in the cat’s face.
“Be off, cat!” he shouted, “will you go out of the room?” It seemed as if it were just about to spring. Hans could not get at him, and he had nothing else to throw at him but his dearest treasure, the story-book. He threw that, but the binding was loose, and it flew to one side, and the book itself with all its leaves flew to the other. The cat went with slow steps a little back into the room, and looked at Hans as much as to say,
“Don’t mix yourself up in this affair, little Hans! I can walk, and I can spring, and you can do neither.”
Hans kept his eye on the cat and was greatly distressed; the bird was also anxious. There was no one there to call; it seemed as if the cat knew it: it prepared itself again to spring. Hans shook the bed-cover at him; his hands he could use; but the cat paid no attention to the bed-cover; and when it was also thrown at him without avail, he sprang upon the chair and into the window-sill, where he was nearer to the bird. Hans could feel his own warm blood in himself, but he did not think of that, he thought only about the cat and the bird; the boy could not help himself out of bed, could not stand on his legs, still less walk. It seemed as if his heart turned inside him when he saw the cat spring from the window, right on to the chest and push the cage so that it was upset. The bird fluttered wildly about inside.
Hans gave a scream; something gave a tug inside him, and without thinking about it, he jumped out of bed, flew across to the chest, tore the cat down, and got hold of the cage, where the bird was in a great fright. He held the cage in his hand and ran with it out of the door and out on to the road.
Then the tears streamed out of his eyes; he shouted with joy, “I can walk! I can walk!”
He had recovered his activity again; such things can happen, and it had happened to him.
The schoolmaster lived close by; Hans ran in to him with his bare feet, with only his shirt and jacket on, and with the bird in the cage.
“I can walk!” he shouted. “My God” and he sobbed and wept with joy.
And there was joy in the house of Ole and Kirsten. “A more joyful day we could not see,” said both of them. Hans was called up to the big house; he had not gone that way for many years; it seemed as if the trees and the nut-bushes, which he knew so well, nodded to him and said, “Good day, Hans, welcome here!” The sun shone on his face as well as in his heart. The master and mistress let him sit with them, and looked as glad as if he had belonged to their own family.
Gladdest of all was the lady, who had given him the story-book, given him the singing-bird, which was now as a matter of fact dead, dead of fright, but it had been the means of restoring him to health, and the book had brought the awakening of the parents: he had the book still, and he would keep it and read it if he were ever so old. Now he could be a benefit to those at home. He would learn a trade, by preference a bookbinder, “because,” said he, “I can get all the new books to read!”
In the afternoon the lady called both parents up to her. She and her husband had talked together about Hans; he was a wise and clever boy: had pleasure in reading, and ability.
That evening the parents came home joyfully from the farm, Kirsten in particular, but the week after she wept, for then little Hans went away: he was dressed in good clothes; he was a good boy; but now he must go away across the salt water, far away to school, and many years would pass before they would see him again.
He did not get the story-book with him, the parents kept that for remembrance. And the father often read in it, but nothing except the two stories, for he knew them.
And they got letters from Hans, each one gladder than the last. He was with fine people, in good circumstances, and it was most delightful to go to school; there was so much to learn and to know; he only wanted to remain there a hundred years and then be a schoolmaster.
“If we should live to see it!” said the parents, and pressed each other’s hands, as if at communion.
“To think of what has happened to Hans!” said Ole.
Our Father thinks also of the poor man’s child! And that it should happen just with the cripple! Is it not as if Hans were to read it for us out of the story-book?
Reference:
1871 The Gardener and the Manor
The Gardener and the Manor (1871)
(The Gardener and His Master)
(The Gardener and the Noble Family)
(The Gardener and His Master)
(The Gardener and the Noble Family)
by
Hans Christian Andersen
Scribner’s Monthly, Vol. 4, Issue 4 (August 1872): 457-460.
ABOUT one Danish mile from the capital stood an old manor-house, with thick walls, towers, and pointed gable-ends. Here lived, but only in the summer-season, a rich and courtly family. This manor-house was the best and the most beautiful of all the houses they owned. It looked outside as if it had just been cast in a foundry, and within it was comfort itself. The family arms were carved in stone over the door; beautiful roses twined about the arms and the balcony; a grass-plot extended before the house with red-thorn and white-thorn, and many rare flowers grew even outside the conservatory. The manor kept also a very skillful gardener. It was a real pleasure to see the flower-garden, the orchard, and the kitchen-garden. There was still to be seen a portion of the manor’s original garden, a few box-tree hedges cut in shape of crowns and pyramids, and behind these two mighty old trees almost always without leaves. One might almost think that a storm or water-spout had scattered great lumps of manure on their branches, but each lump was a bird’s-nest. A swarm of rooks and crows from time immemorial had built their nests here. It was a townful of birds, and the birds were the manorial lords here. They did not care for the proprietors, the manor’s oldest family branch, nor for the present owner of the manor,—these were nothing to them; but they bore with the wandering creatures below them, notwithstanding that once in a while they shot with guns in a way that made the birds’ back-bones shiver, and made every bird fly up, crying “Rak, Rak!”
The gardener very often explained to the master the necessity of felling the old trees, as they did not look well, and by taking them away they would probably also get rid of the screaming birds, which would seek another place. But he never could be induced either to give up the trees or the swarm of birds the manor could not spare them, as they were relics of the good old times, that ought always to be kept in remembrance.
“The trees are the birds’ heritage by this time!” said the master. “So let them keep them, my good Larsen.” Larsen was the gardener’s name, but that is of very little consequence in this story. “Haven’t you room enough to work in, little Larsen? Have you not the flower-garden, the green-houses, the orchard and the kitchen-garden!” He cared for them, he kept them in order and cultivated them with zeal and ability, and the family knew it; but they did not conceal from him that they often tasted fruits and saw flowers in other houses that surpassed what he had in his garden, and that was a sore trial to the gardener, who always wished to do the best, and really did the best he could. He was good-hearted, and a faithful servant.
The owner sent one day for him, and told him kindly that the day before, at a party given by some friends of rank, they had eaten apples and pears which were so juicy and well-flavored that all the guests had loudly expressed their admiration. To be sure, they were not native fruits, but they ought by all means to be introduced here, and to be acclimatized if possible. They learned that the frtiit was bought of one of the first fruit-dealers in the city, and the gardener was to ride to town and find out about where they came from, and then order some slips for grafting. The gardener was very well acquainted with the dealer, because he was the very person to whom he sold the fruit that grew in the manor-garden, beyond what was needed by the family. So the gardener went to town and asked the fruit-dealer where he had found those apples and pears that were praised so highly.
“They are from your own garden,” said the fruit-dealer, and he showed him, both the apples and pears, which he recognized. Now, how happy the gardener felt! He hastened back to his master, and told him that the apples and pears were all from his own garden. But he would not believe it.
“It cannot be possible, Larsen. Can you get a written certificate of that from the fruit-dealer?” And that he could; and brought him a written certificate.
“That is certainly wonderful!” said the family.
And now every day were set on the table great dishes filled with beautiful apples and pears from their own garden; bushels and barrels of these fruits were sent to friends in the city and country, nay, were even sent abroad. It was exceedifigly pleasant; but when they talked with the gardener they said that the last two seasons had been remarkably favorable for fruits, and that fruits had done well all over the country.
Some time passed. The family were at dinner at court. The next day the gardener was sent for. They had eaten melons at the royal table which they found very juicy and well-flavored; they came from his Majesty’s green-house. “You must go and see the court-gardener, and let him give you some seeds of those melons.”
“But the gardener at the court got his melon-seeds from us,” said the gardener, highly delighted.
“But then that man understands how to bring the fruit to a higher perfection,” was the answer. “Each particular melon was delicious.”
“Well; then, I really may feel proud,” said the gardener. “I must tell your lordship that the gardener at the court did not succeed very well with his melons this year, and so, seeing how beautiful ours looked, he tasted them and ordered from me three of them for the castle.”
“Larsen, do not pretend to say that those were melons from our garden.”
“Really, I dare say as much,” said the gardener, who went to the court-gardener and got from him a written certificate to the effect that the melons on the royal. table were from the manor. That was certainly a great surprise to the family, and they did not keep the story to themselves. Melon-seeds were sent far and wide, in the same way as had been done with the slips, which they were now hearing had begun to take, and to bear fruit of an excellent kind. The fruit was named after the manor, and the name was written in English, German, and French.
This was something they never had dreamed of.
“We are afraid that the gardener will come to think too much of himself,” said they; but he looked on it in another way: what he wished was to get the reputation of being one of the best gardeners in the country, and to produce every year something exquisite out of all sorts of garden stuff, and that he did. But he often had to hear that the fruits which he first brought, the apples and pears, were after all the best. All other kinds of fruits were inferior to these. The melons, too, were very good, but they belonged to quite another species. His strawberries were very excellent, but by no means better than many others; and when it happened one year that his radishes did not succeed, they only spoke of them, and not of other good things he had made succeed.
It really seemed as if the family felt some relief in saying “It won’t turn out well this year, little Larsen!” They seemed quite glad when they could say “It won’t turn out well!”
The gardener used always twice a week to bring them fresh flowers, tastefully arranged, and the colors by his arrangements were brought out in stronger light.
“You have good taste, Larsen,” said the owner, “but that is a gift from our Lord, not from yourself.”
One day the gardener brought a great crystal vase with a floating leaf of a white water-lily, upon which was laid, with its long thick stalk descending into the water, a sparkling blue flower as large as a sunflower.
“The sacred lotos of Hindostan!” exclaimed the family. They had never seen such a flower; it was placed every day in the sunshine, and in the evening under artificial light. Every one who saw it found it wonderfully beautiful and rare; and that said the most noble young lady in the country, the wise and kind-hearted princess. The lord of the manor deemed it an honor to present her with the flower, and the princess took it with her to the castle. Now the master of the house went down to the garden to pluck another flower of the same sort, but he could not find any. So he sent for the gardener, and asked him where he kept the blue lotos. “I have been looking for it in vain,” said he. “I went into the conservatory, and round about the flower-garden.”
“No, it is not there!” said the gardener. “It is nothing else than a common flower from the kitchen-garden, but do you not find it beautiful? It looks as if it was the blue cactus, and yet it is only a kitchen-herb. It is the flower of the artichoke!”
“You should have told us that at the time!” said the master. “We supposed of course that it was a strange and rare flower. You have made us ridiculous in the eyes of the young princess! She saw the flower in our house and thought it beautiful. She did not know the flower, and she is versed in botany, too, but then that has nothing to do with kitchen-herbs. How could you take it into your head, my good Larsen, to put such a flower up in our drawing-room? It makes us ridiculous.”
And the magnificent blue flower from the kitchen-garden was turned out of the drawing-room, which was not at all the place for it. The master made his apology to the princess, telling her that it was only a kitchen-herb which the gardener had taken into his head to exhibit, but that he had been well reprimanded for it.
“That was a pity,” said the princess, “for he has really opened our eyes to see the beauty of a flower in a place where we should not have thought of looking for it. Our gardener shall every day, as long as the artichoke is in bloom, bring one of them up into the drawing-room.”
Then the master told his gardener that he might again bring them a fresh artichoke-flower. “It is, after all, a very nice flower,” said he, “and a truly remarkable one.” And so the gardener was praised again. “Larsen likes that,” said the master; “he is a spoiled child.”
In the autumn there came up a great gale, which increased so violently in the night that. several large trees in the outskirts of the wood were torn up by the roots; and to the great grief of the household, but to the gardener’s delight, the two big trees blew down, with all their birds’-nests on them. In the manor-house they heard during the storm the screaming of rooks and crows, beating their wings against the windows.
“Now I suppose you are happy, Larsen,” said the master: “the storm has felled the trees, and the birds have gone off to the woods; there is nothing left from the good old days; it is all gone, and we are very sorry for it.”
The gardener said nothing, but he thought of what he long had turned over in his mind, how he could make that pretty sunny spot very useful, so that it could become an ornament to the garden and a pride to the family. The great trees which had been blown down had shattered the venerable hedge of box, that was cut into fanciful shapes.
Here he set out a multitude of plants that were not to be seen in other gardens. He made an earthen wall, on which he planted all sorts of native flowers from the fields and woods. What no other gardener had ever thought of planting in the manor-garden he planted, giving each its appropriate soil, and the plants were in sunlight or shadow according as each species required. He cared tenderly for them, and they grew up finely. The juniper-tree from the heaths of Jutland rose in shape and color like the Italian cypress; the shining, thorny Christ-thorn, as green in the winter’s cold as in the summer’s sun, was splendid to see. In the foreground grew ferns of various species: some of them looked as if they were children of the palm-tree; others, as if they were parents of the pretty plants called “Venus’s golden locks” or “Maiden-hair.” Here stood the despised burdock, which is so beautiful in its freshness that it looks well even in a bouquet. The burdock stood in a dry place, but below in the moist soil grew the colt’s-foot, also a despised plant, but yet most picturesque, with its tall stem and large leaf. Like a candelabrum with a multitude of branches six feet high, and with flower over against flower, rose the mullein, a mere field plant. Here stood the woodroof and the lily of the valley, the wild calla and the fine three-leaved wood-sorrel. It was a wonder to see all this beauty!
In the front grew in rows very small peartrees from French soil, trained on wires. By plenty of sun and good care they soon bore as juicy fruits as in their own country. Instead of the two old leafless trees was placed a tall flag-staff, where the flag of Dannebrog was displayed; and near by stood another pole, where the hop-tendril in summer or harvest-time wound its fragrant flowers; but in winter-time, after ancient custom, oat-sheaves were fastened to it, that the birds of the air might find here a good meal in the happy Christmas-time.
“Our good Larsen is growing sentimental as he grows old,” said the family; “but he is faithful, and quite attached to us.”
In one of the illustrated papers there was a picture at New Year’s of the old manor, with the flag-staff and the oat-sheaves for the birds of the air, and the paper said that the old manor had preserved that beautiful old custom, and deserved great credit for it.
“They beat the drum for all Larsen’s doings,” said the family. “He is a lucky fellow, and we may almost be proud of having such a man in our service.”
But they were not a bit proud of it. They were very well aware that they were the lords of the manor; they could give Larsen warning, in fact, but they did not. They were good people, and fortunate it is for every Mr. Larsen that there are so many good people like them.
Yes, that is the story of the gardener and the manor. Now you may think a little about it.
Reference:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)