Part 12 (1/2)
Close by it pa.s.sed a couple arm-in-arm, like the happy pair in the wood, the mate and the furrier's daughter. It seemed to the bottle as if it were living that time over again. Guests and visitors of different ages wandered up and down, gazing upon the illuminations; and among these was an old maid, without relations, but not without friends. Probably her thoughts were occupied, as were those of the bottle; for she was thinking of the green woods, and of a young couple just betrothed. These _souvenirs_ affected her much, for she had been a party in them--a prominent party. This was in her happier hours; and one never forgets these, even when one becomes a very old maid. But she did not recognise the bottle, and it did not recognise her. So it is we wear out of each other's knowledge in this world, until people meet again as these two did.
The bottle pa.s.sed from the public gardens to the wine merchant's; it was there again filled with wine, and sold to an aeronaut, who was to go up in a balloon the following Sunday. There was a mult.i.tude of people to witness the ascent, there was a regimental band, and there were many preparations going on. The bottle saw all this from a basket, in which it lay with a living rabbit, who was very much frightened when it saw it was to go up in the parachute. The bottle did not know where it was to go; it beheld the balloon extending wider and wider, and becoming so large that it could not be larger; then lifting itself up higher and higher, and rolling restlessly until the ropes that held it were cut, when it arose majestically into the air, with the aeronaut, the basket, the bottle, and the rabbit; then the music played loudly, and the a.s.sembled crowd shouted, ”Hurra!
hurra!”
”It is droll to go aloft,” thought the bottle; ”it is a novel sort of a voyage. Up yonder one cannot run away.”
Many thousand human beings gazed up at the balloon, and the old maid gazed among the rest. She stood by her open garret window, where a cage hung with a little linnet, which at that time had no water-gla.s.s, but had to content itself with a cup. Just within the window stood a myrtle tree, that was moved a little aside, that it might not come in the way while the old maid was leaning out to look at the balloon. And she could perceive the aeronaut in it; she saw him let the rabbit down in the parachute, and then, having drunk the health of the crowd below, throw the bottle high up in the air. Little did she think that it was just the same bottle she had seen thrown up high in honour of herself and her lover, on a well-remembered happy day amidst the green wood, when she was young.
The bottle had no time to think, it was so unexpectedly exalted to the highest position it had ever attained in its life. The roofs and the spires lay far below, and the people looked as small as pigmies.
It now descended, and that at a different rate of speed from the rabbit. The bottle cast somersaults in the air--it felt itself so young, so buoyant. It was half full of wine, but not long. What a trip that was! The sun shone upon the bottle, and all the crowd looked up at it. The balloon was soon far away, and the bottle was soon also out of sight, for it fell upon a roof and broke in two; but the fragments rebounded again, and leaped and rolled till they reached the yard below, where they lay in smaller pieces; for only the neck of the bottle escaped destruction, and it looked as if it had been cut round by a diamond.
”It may still serve as a gla.s.s for a bird's cage,” said the man in the cellar.
But he himself had neither a bird nor a cage, and it would have cost too much to buy these because he had found the neck of a bottle that would answer for a gla.s.s. The old maid, however, up in the garret, might make use of it; and so the neck of the bottle was sent up to her. A cork was fitted to it, and, as first mentioned, after its many changes, it was filled with fresh water, and was hung in front of the cage of the little bird, that sang until its warbling became almost overpowering.
”Yes, you may well sing,” was what the neck of the bottle had said.
It was somewhat of a wonder, as it had been up in a balloon; but with more of its history no one was acquainted. Now it hung as a bird's gla.s.s, it could hear the people driving and walking in the street below, and it could hear the old maid talking in her room to a female friend of her youthful days. They were chatting together, but speaking of the myrtle plant in the window, not of the neck of the bottle.
”You must not throw away two rix dollars for a wedding bouquet for your daughter,” said the old maid. ”You shall have one from me full of flowers. Look how pretty that plant is! Ah! it is a slip of the myrtle tree you gave me the day after my betrothal, that I myself, when the year was past, might take my wedding bouquet from it. But that day never came. The eyes were for ever closed that were to have illumined for me the path of happiness in this life. Away, down in the ocean's depths, he sleeps calmly--that angel soul! The tree became an old tree, but I have become still older; and when it died, I took its last green branch and planted it in the earth. That slip has now grown into a high plant, and will at last appear amidst bridal array, and form a wedding bouquet for my friend's daughter.”
And tears started to the old maid's eyes. She spoke of the lover of her youth--of the betrothal in the wood; she thought of the toasts that were there drunk; she thought of the first kiss, but she did not speak of that, for she was now but an old maid. She thought of much--much; but little did she think that outside of her window was even then a _souvenir_ from that regretted time--the neck of the very bottle that had been drawn when the unforgotten toasts were drunk! Nor did the bottle-neck know her; for it had not heard all she had said, because it had been thinking only of itself.
_The Old Bachelor's Nightcap._
There is a street in Copenhagen which bears the extraordinary name of ”Hyskenstroede.” And why is it so called? and what is the meaning of that name? It is German; but the German has been corrupted. ”Hauschen”
it ought to be called, and that signifies ”small houses.” Those which stood there formerly--and, indeed, for several years--were not much larger than the wooden booths that we see now-a-days erected at fairs.
Yes, only a little larger, and with windows; but the panes were of horn or stretched bladder, for in these days it was too expensive to have gla.s.s windows in all houses; but the time in question was so far back that our grandfathers' grandfathers, when they mentioned it, also spoke of it as ”in ancient days,” for it was several hundred years ago.
Many rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck carried on business in Copenhagen. They did not, however, go there themselves--they sent their clerks; and these persons generally resided in the wooden houses in the ”Small Houses' Street,” and held sales of ale and spices. The German ale was so excellent, and there were so many kinds--”Bremer, Prysing, Emser ale,” even ”Brunswick Mumme;” also, all sorts of spices, such as saffron, anise, ginger, and especially pepper, that was the most valued; and from this the German commercial travellers acquired the name in Denmark of ”Pepper Swains, or Bachelors.” They entered into an agreement before they left home not to marry; and many of them lived there to old age. They had to do entirely for themselves, attend to all little domestic matters, even make their own fires if they had any. Several of them became lonely old men, with peculiar thoughts and peculiar habits. Every unmarried man who has arrived at a certain age is now here called after them in derision, ”Pebersvend”--old bachelor. It was necessary to relate all this, in order that our story might be understood.
People made great fun of these old bachelors; laughed at their nightcaps, at their drawing them down over their eyes, and so retiring to their couches.
”Saw the firewood, saw it through!
Old bachelors, there's work for you.
To bed with you your nightcaps go; Put out your lights, and cry, 'O woe!'”
Yes, such songs were made on them. People ridiculed the old bachelor and his nightcap, just because they knew so little about him, or it.
Alas! let no one desire such a nightcap. And why not? Listen!
Over in the ”Small Houses' Street,” in ancient days, there was no pavement; people stepped from hole to hole as in a narrow, cut-up defile; and narrow enough this was, too. The dwellings on the opposite side of the street stood so close together, that in summer a sail was spread across the street from one booth to another, and the whole place was redolent of pepper, saffron, ginger, and various spices.
Behind the desks stood few young men; no, they were almost all old fellows; and they were by no means, as we would represent them, crowned with a peruke or a nightcap, and equipped in s.h.a.ggy pantaloons, a vest and coat b.u.t.toned tightly up. This was the costume in which our forefathers were painted, it is true; but this community of old bachelors could not afford to have their pictures taken. Yet it would have been worth while now to have preserved a portrait of one of them, as they stood behind their desks, or on festival days, when they wended their way to church. The hat they wore was broad-brimmed, and with a high crown; and sometimes one of the younger men would stick a feather in his. The woollen s.h.i.+rt was concealed by a deep linen collar; the tight-fitting jacket was closely b.u.t.toned, a loose cloak over it; and the pantaloons descended almost into the square-toed shoes, for stockings they wore none. In the belt were stuck the eating knife and the spoon; and, moreover, a large knife as a weapon of defence, for such was often needed in these days.
Thus was equipped, on grand occasions, old Anthon, one of the oldest bachelors of the ”small houses;” only he did not wear the high-crowned hat, but a fur cap, and under that a knitted cap, a veritable nightcap, to which he had so accustomed himself that it was never off his head: he actually possessed two of the same description. He would have made an excellent subject for a painter; he was so skinny, so wrinkled about the mouth and the eyes; had long fingers, with such large joints; and his grey eyebrows were so thick. A bunch of grey hair from one of these hung over his left eye: it certainly was not pretty, but it made him very remarkable. It was known that he came from Bremen, at least that his master lived there; but he himself was from Thuringen, from the town of Eisenach, close to Wartburg. Old Anthon spoke little of his native place, but he thought of it the more.
The old lodgers in the street did not a.s.sociate much with each other.