Prevod

The wind whispers in the old willow tree! It is as though one heard a song; the wind sings it, the tree tells it. If you do not understand it, ask old Johanne in the poorhouse; she knows all about it, for she was born and bred here in the parish.

Years ago, when the king’s highway still ran this way, the tree was already tall and conspicuous. It stood where it stands today, opposite the tailor’s whitewashed, half-timbered cottage, close beside the pond, which was then so large that the cattle were watered there, and in the warm summer weather the little farm boys ran about naked and splashed in the water. Close beneath the tree stood a milestone built of hewn stones; now it has fallen, and bramble branches grow over it.

The new king’s highway was laid beyond the wealthy farmer’s homestead; the old road became a field track, and the pond a puddle overgrown with duckweed. If a frog plopped into it, the green covering parted and the black water showed through; all round it grew, and still grow, bulrushes, bogbean, and yellow irises.

The tailor’s cottage grew old and crooked, its roof a hotbed for moss and houseleeks; the dovecote fell to pieces, and the starling nested there. The swallows hung nest beside nest along the gable and beneath the eaves, as though this were the home of happiness.

Once it had been; now it had grown lonely and quiet. Alone and listless, “poor Rasmus,” as they called him, lived inside. He had been born here, had played here, had bounded over fields and fences, splashed as a little boy in the open pond, and climbed the old tree.

It lifted its great branches in splendour and beauty, just as it lifts them still; but the storms had already twisted its trunk a little, and time had opened a crack in it. Now wind and weather have filled the crack with earth, grass and green plants grow there, and even a little rowan tree has planted itself in the hollow.

When the swallows came in spring, they flew about the tree and the roof, plastering and patching their old nests; poor Rasmus let his nest stand or fall as it pleased. He neither patched nor propped it. “What good will it do!” was his favourite saying, as it had been his father’s.

He stayed in his home; the swallows flew away, but they returned, faithful creatures that they were. The starling flew away, came back, and whistled its song. Once Rasmus had known how to whistle in rivalry with it; now he neither whistled nor sang.

The wind whispered in the old willow tree; it whispers there still. It is as though one heard a song; the wind sings it, the tree tells it. If you do not understand it, ask old Johanne in the poorhouse. She knows all about it, she knows the ways of long ago; she is like a book of chronicles, full of records and old memories.

When the cottage was new and sound, the village tailor, Ivar Ølse, moved into it with his wife Maren; both were hardworking, honest people. Old Johanne was a child then, the clog-maker’s daughter, one of the poorest in the parish. Many a good slice of bread and butter she received from Maren, who had no shortage of food. Maren was on good terms with the lady of the manor; she was always laughing and cheerful, never letting herself be discouraged. She used her tongue, but her hands as well; her needle flew as nimbly as her tongue, and she looked after her house and children besides. There were nearly a dozen of them—eleven in all; the twelfth never came.

“Poor people always have a nest full of young!” grumbled the lord of the manor. “If only one could drown them like kittens, and keep just one or two of the strongest, there would be less misery!”

“God have mercy!” said the tailor’s wife. “Children are surely a blessing from God; they are the joy of the house. Every child means one more Lord’s Prayer! If times are hard and there are many mouths to feed, we must exert ourselves all the more, finding honest ways and means to earn our living. Our Lord will not let go if we do not!”

The lady of the manor agreed, nodded kindly, and patted Maren’s cheek. She had often done so before, and kissed her too, but then the lady had been a little child and Maren her nursemaid. The two were fond of each other, and their affection never faded.

Every year at Christmas, winter provisions came from the manor to the tailor’s cottage: a barrel of flour, a pig, two geese, a firkin of butter, cheese, and apples. That helped to stock the larder. Even Ivar Ølse looked quite contented then, though he soon returned to his old refrain: “What good will it do!”

The cottage was clean and neat, with curtains at the windows and flowers too, both carnations and balsams. A sampler hung in a picture frame, and close beside it hung a rhymed “binding letter,” a name-day verse that Maren Ølse had composed herself; she knew how to fit rhymes together. She was almost a little proud of the family name, “Ølse,” for it was the only word in the Danish language that rhymed with “pølse”—sausage. “At least that gives us something others haven’t got!” she said with a laugh. She always kept her good spirits, never saying, as her husband did, “What good will it do!” Her own saying was, “Hold fast to yourself and Our Lord!” And so she did, and that held everything together. The children thrived, grew up and left the nest, scattered far and wide, and did well. Rasmus was the youngest; he was such a beautiful child that one of the great painters in the city borrowed him as a model, and painted him as naked as he had come into the world. That picture now hung in the king’s palace, where the lady of the manor had seen it and recognised little Rasmus, even without his clothes.

But now hard times came. The tailor developed pains in both hands, and great lumps formed on them. No doctor could help him, not even Stine, the wise woman, who practised “doctoring.”

“We must not lose heart!” said Maren. “Hanging our heads never helps! Now that we no longer have Father’s two hands to help us, I must see that mine work all the faster. Little Rasmus can use a needle too!”

He already sat on the table, whistling and singing, for he was a merry boy. But he must not sit there all day, his mother said; that would be a shame for the child. He must play and run about as well.

The clog-maker’s Johanne was his favourite playmate; her family was poorer even than Rasmus’s. She was not pretty; she went barefoot, and her clothes hung in rags. She had no one to mend them, and it never occurred to her to do it herself; she was a child, happy as a bird in Our Lord’s sunshine.

Beside the stone milestone, beneath the great willow tree, Rasmus and Johanne played. He had grand ambitions: one day he would be a fine tailor and live in the city, where there were masters who had ten journeymen sitting on their worktables—his father had told him so. There he would become a journeyman, and there he would become a master; then Johanne must come and visit him. And if by then she knew how to cook, she should make the meals for them all and have a parlour of her own.

Johanne scarcely dared believe it, but Rasmus was sure it would come true. So they sat beneath the old tree, and the wind whispered through its branches and leaves; it was as though the wind were singing and the tree telling a tale.

In autumn every leaf fell, and the rain dripped from the bare branches. “They will be green again!” said Mother Ølse. “What good will it do!” said her husband. “A new year, new worries over making a living!”

“The larder is full!” said his wife. “We have our good lady to thank for that. I am healthy and strong. It is sinful of us to complain!”

The family from the manor stayed at their country estate over Christmas, but in the week after New Year they went to the city, where they spent the winter in pleasure and amusement, attending balls and festivities at the king’s own court.

The lady had received two exquisite gowns from France; the fabric, the cut, and the stitching were finer than anything Maren the tailor’s wife had ever seen. She asked the lady’s permission to bring her husband up to the manor so that he too might see the gowns. A village tailor was never likely to see their like, she said.

He saw them, and had not a word to say until he came home; and then all he said was what he always said: “What good will it do!” And this time his words came true.

The family went to town, and the balls and merrymaking began; but in the midst of all that splendour the old lord died, and the lady never wore the magnificent gowns at all. She was overcome with grief and dressed from neck to foot in heavy black mourning, without so much as a strip of white to be seen. All the servants wore black, and even the state carriage was covered with fine black cloth.

It was a bitterly frosty night; the snow gleamed and the stars twinkled. The heavy hearse brought the body from the city to the manor church, where it was to be laid in the family vault. The steward and the parish constable waited on horseback with torches outside the churchyard gate. The church was lit, and the pastor stood in the open doorway to receive the body. The coffin was carried up into the chancel, and the whole congregation followed. The pastor spoke, and a hymn was sung. The lady was there too; she had driven to church in the black-draped state carriage, black within and black without. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the parish.

All winter they talked of the splendid mourning; this was indeed “a nobleman’s funeral.” “That showed what a great man he was!” the parish folk said. “He was high-born, and they bore him high to his grave!”

“What good will it do!” said the tailor. “Now he has neither life nor property. We still have one of the two!” “Do not say such things!” said Maren. “He has eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven!”

“Who told you that, Maren?” said the tailor. “A dead man makes good manure! But this man was surely too grand even to be of use in the earth; he has to lie in a burial chapel!”

“Do not speak so wickedly!” said Maren. “I tell you again: he has eternal life!” “Who told you that, Maren?” repeated the tailor. And Maren threw her apron over little Rasmus; he must not hear such talk.

She carried him into the peat shed and wept. “Those words you heard in there, little Rasmus, were not your father’s. It was the Evil One passing through the room and borrowing your father’s voice! Say your Lord’s Prayer! We will both say it!” She folded the child’s hands.

“Now I am happy again!” she said. “Hold fast to yourself and Our Lord!” The year of mourning ended; the widow wore half-mourning, but her heart was full of joy.

There were whispers that she had a suitor and was already thinking of marriage. Maren knew something about it, and the pastor knew a little more. On Palm Sunday, after the sermon, the banns were to be read for the widow and her betrothed. He was a post-carver or a sculptor—no one was quite sure what his occupation was called; in those days Thorvaldsen and his art were not yet on everyone’s lips. The new master of the manor was not of noble birth, but he was a very distinguished-looking man. He was something that nobody understood, they said; he carved figures, was skilled at his work, young, and handsome.

“What good will it do!” said Tailor Ølse. On Palm Sunday the banns were read from the pulpit, followed by hymns and Holy Communion. The tailor, his wife, and little Rasmus were in church. The parents went up to the altar; Rasmus stayed in the pew, for he had not yet been confirmed. Clothes had been scarce in the tailor’s cottage of late; their old ones had been turned and turned again, sewn and patched. Now all three wore new clothes, but of black cloth, as though for a funeral: they were dressed in the coverings from the mourning carriage. The husband had a coat and trousers made from them, Maren a high-necked dress, and Rasmus a whole suit with room to grow into it for his confirmation. Both the outer covering and the lining of the mourning carriage had been used. Nobody needed to know what the cloth had been used for before, but people soon found out all the same. Stine the wise woman, and a couple of other women just as wise, though they did not earn their living by their wisdom, said those clothes would bring sickness and disease into the house. “You must not dress yourself in a funeral carriage unless you are going to the grave.”

The clog-maker’s Johanne cried when she heard this talk; and when, as it happened, the tailor began to grow steadily weaker from that day on, there could be little doubt who would suffer for it.

And so it proved. On the first Sunday after Trinity, Tailor Ølse died. Now Maren was left alone to keep everything together; she held on to it all, to herself and to Our Lord.

The following year Rasmus was confirmed. Now he was to go to the city as apprentice to a master tailor—not one with twelve journeymen on his table, to be sure, but with one; little Rasmus could be counted as half a man. He was happy and looked contented, but Johanne cried; she loved him more than she herself knew. The tailor’s wife stayed in the old cottage and carried on the trade.

It was about this time that the new king’s highway opened. The old one, past the willow tree and the tailor’s cottage, became a field track; the pond grew choked with plants, and duckweed spread over the little puddle that remained. The milestone fell, for it no longer had anything to mark; but the tree remained strong and beautiful, and the wind whispered in its branches and leaves.

The swallows flew away, and the starling flew away, but they returned in spring; and when they came back for the fourth time, Rasmus too came home. He had passed his journeyman’s test and was a handsome but slender young fellow. Now he wanted to strap on his knapsack and see foreign lands; that was his heart’s desire. But his mother urged him to stay: home was best, after all! All the other children were scattered far and wide; he was the youngest, and the cottage was to be his. He could find plenty of work if he would go about the district as a travelling tailor, sewing for a fortnight at one farm and a fortnight at another. That was travelling too. And Rasmus followed his mother’s advice.

So once again he slept beneath the roof where he had been born, and sat beneath the old willow tree, listening to its whispering. He was good-looking, could whistle like a bird, and could sing songs both old and new. He was welcome at the big farms, especially at Klaus Hansen’s, the second-richest farmer in the parish.

His daughter Else was as lovely as the loveliest flower, and she was always laughing; some people were unkind enough to say she laughed only to show her beautiful teeth. She was full of laughter and always ready for a prank; everything became her.

She fell in love with Rasmus, and he with her, but neither said so plainly. Then he grew melancholy; he had more of his father’s nature than his mother’s. His spirits rose only when Else appeared; then they both laughed, joked, and played pranks, but although he had plenty of chances, he never whispered a word of his love. “What good will it do!” he thought. “Her parents want a wealthy husband for her, and I have no money. The wisest thing would be to go away!” But he could not keep away from the farm. It was as though Else held him by a thread; he was like a trained bird to her, singing and whistling for her pleasure and at her bidding.

Johanne, the clog-maker’s daughter, was a servant on the farm, employed at the humblest tasks. She drove the milk cart out to the fields, where she milked the cows with the other girls; she even had to cart manure when needed. She never went into the parlour and saw little of Rasmus or Else, but she heard that the two were as good as sweethearts.

“Rasmus will be well off now!” she said. “I wish him every bit of it!” And her eyes filled with tears, though surely there was nothing here to cry over!

There was a fair in the town; Klaus Hansen drove in, and Rasmus went with him, sitting beside Else both there and back. He was overcome with love, but said not a word about it.

“He really must say something to me about the matter!” thought the girl, and she was right. “If he will not speak, I shall give him a fright!” Soon there was talk on the farm that the richest farmer in the parish had proposed to Else; and so he had, but nobody knew what answer she had given.

Thoughts whirled through Rasmus’s head. One evening Else put a gold ring on her finger and asked him what it meant. “An engagement!” he said.

“And to whom do you think?” she asked. “To the rich farmer!” he said. “You have guessed it!” she said, nodding, and slipped away. But he slipped away too. He came back to his mother’s cottage like a man distraught and strapped up his knapsack. He would go out into the wide world; his mother’s tears could not stop him.

He cut himself a stick from the old willow and whistled as though he were in the best of spirits; he was going out to see all the wonders of the world. “It is a great sorrow to me!” said his mother. “But perhaps it is right and best for you to go, and then I must bear it. Hold fast to yourself and Our Lord, and surely I shall have you back happy and contented!”

He went along the new highway, and there he saw Johanne coming with a load of manure. She had not noticed him, and he did not want her to see him; he sat down behind the hedge by the ditch, hidden from sight, and Johanne drove past.

Out into the world he went, nobody knew where. His mother thought, “Surely he will be home before the year is out. Now he will see new things and have new things to think about, and then he will fall back into his old folds; no pressing iron can smooth those away. He has a little too much of his father’s nature; I would rather he had mine, poor child! But he will come home; he cannot let go of me and the cottage!”

His mother was prepared to wait a year and a day; Else waited only a month before going secretly to the wise woman, Stine Madsdatter, who could “doctor,” tell fortunes in cards and coffee grounds, and knew more than her Lord’s Prayer. She knew where Rasmus was too; she read it in the coffee grounds. He was in a foreign town, but she could not read its name. There were soldiers and pretty maidens in that town. His thoughts were turning towards taking up a musket or taking one of the maidens.

Else could not bear to hear it. She would gladly give her savings to buy him free, but no one must know that the money came from her. And old Stine promised that he should return. She knew a spell, a dangerous spell for the man it was cast upon, but it was the last resort. She would set the pot boiling for him, and then he would have to set out, wherever in the world he might be; he would have to come home to where the pot boiled and his sweetheart waited. Months might pass before he arrived, but come he must, if there was life in him.

Without rest or peace, by night or day, he would have to travel over seas and mountains, in fair weather or foul, however weary his feet might grow. Home he must go, home he would have to come.

The moon was in its first quarter; it had to be so for this spell, old Stine said. The weather was stormy, and the old willow creaked. Stine cut off a twig and tied it in a knot; that would help to draw Rasmus back to his mother’s cottage. Moss and houseleeks were taken from the roof and put into the pot, which was set on the fire. Else had to tear a leaf from the hymnbook; by chance she tore out the last leaf, the one listing the printing errors. “That will do just as well!” said Stine, throwing it into the pot.

Many things went into that brew, which must boil and keep on boiling until Rasmus came home. The black cock in old Stine’s room had to lose its red comb; into the pot it went. Else’s heavy gold ring went in too, and Stine warned her that she would never get it back. Stine was so wise. Many things that we cannot name went into the pot; it was kept constantly on the fire, or on glowing embers or hot ashes. Only she and Else knew about it.

The moon waxed, the moon waned; each time Else came and asked, “Do you not see him coming?” “I know much!” said Stine, “and I see much, but I cannot see how far he has to travel. Now he is over the first mountains! Now he is at sea in foul weather! The road is long through great forests; his feet are blistered and his body burns with fever, but on he must go.”

“No! No!” said Else. “I feel so sorry for him!” “He cannot be stopped now! If we stop him, he will fall dead on the highway!” A year and a day had passed. The moon shone full and round, the wind whispered in the old tree, and a rainbow appeared in the moonlit sky.

“That is the sign of confirmation!” said Stine. “Now Rasmus is coming.” But still he did not come. “The waiting is long!” said Stine. “I am tired of it now!” said Else. She came less often to Stine and brought her no more gifts.

Her heart grew lighter, and one fine morning everyone in the parish knew that Else had accepted the richest farmer. She went over to inspect the farm and fields, the cattle and furnishings. Everything was in good order; there was no reason to delay the wedding.

It was celebrated with a grand feast lasting three days. There was dancing to clarinet and violins. No one in the parish had been left out of the invitations. Mother Ølse was there too; and when the festivities were over, the stewards had thanked the guests, and the trumpets had sounded the farewell, she went home with leftovers from the feast.

She had fastened her door with nothing but a peg; it had been removed, the door stood open, and Rasmus was sitting in the room. He had returned home that very hour. Dear God, how he looked! Nothing but skin and bone, pale and yellow.

“Rasmus!” said his mother. “Is it you I see? How wretched you look! But my heart is glad to have you!” And she gave him some of the good food she had brought from the feast, a piece of roast meat and some wedding cake.

Lately, he said, he had often thought of his mother, his birthplace, and the old willow tree. It was strange how often he had seen that tree in his dreams, and barefoot Johanne.

He never mentioned Else. He was ill and had to go to bed; but we do not believe the pot was to blame, or that it had exerted any power over him. Only old Stine and Else believed that, and they said nothing about it.

Rasmus lay in a fever, and it was contagious; so no one came to the tailor’s cottage except Johanne, the clog-maker’s daughter. She wept to see how wretched Rasmus was.

The doctor prescribed medicine from the apothecary, but Rasmus would not take it. “What good will it do!” he said. “It will make you well again!” said his mother. “Hold fast to yourself and Our Lord! If only I could see flesh on your bones again, and hear you whistle and sing, I would gladly give my life!”

And Rasmus was freed from the illness, but his mother caught it; Our Lord called her, and not him. The cottage was lonely now, and poorer than before. “He is worn out!” people in the parish said. “Poor Rasmus.”

He had led a wild life on his travels; that, and not the black pot boiling on the fire, had drained his strength and filled his body with unrest. His hair grew thin and grey; he could not be bothered to do any proper work. “What good will it do!” he said. He went more readily to the inn than to church.

One autumn evening, in rain and wind, he struggled along the muddy road from the inn to his cottage. His mother had long since gone and been laid in her grave. The swallows and the starling were gone too, those faithful creatures; but Johanne, the clog-maker’s daughter, was not gone. She caught up with him on the road and walked beside him for a while.

“Pull yourself together, Rasmus!” “What good will it do!” he said. “That is a bad saying of yours!” she told him. “Remember your mother’s words: Hold fast to yourself and Our Lord! You do not do that, Rasmus! We must, and we should. Never say, ‘What good will it do!’ or you tear up the roots of everything you might accomplish!”

She went with him to his cottage door and left him there. He did not stay inside, but made his way beneath the old willow tree and sat on a stone from the fallen milestone.

The wind whispered in the branches; it was like a song, like a voice speaking. Rasmus answered it, speaking aloud, but no one heard him except the tree and the whispering wind.

“Such a chill is coming over me! It must be time for bed. Sleep! Sleep!” And he went, but not towards the cottage; he went towards the pond, where he staggered and fell. The rain poured down, and the wind was icy cold, but he felt nothing. When the sun rose, however, and the crows flew over the reeds, he woke, half-dead with cold. Had he laid his head where his feet lay, he would never have risen again; the green duckweed would have been his shroud.

Later that day Johanne came to the tailor’s cottage. She helped him and had him taken to the hospital. “We have known each other since we were little,” she said. “Your mother gave me both food and ale; I can never repay her for it! You will get your health back; you will be fit to live again!”

And Our Lord willed that he should live. But his health and spirits rose and fell. The swallows and the starling came, flew away, and came again; Rasmus grew old before his time. He sat alone in the cottage, which fell more and more into decay. He was poor, poorer now than Johanne.

“You have no faith,” she said, “and if we have not Our Lord, what have we? You really ought to take Communion!” she said. “I do not suppose you have been since your confirmation.”

"Well, what good can it do!" he said. "If that is what you say and believe, then let it be! The Lord does not welcome an unwilling guest at His table. But think of your mother and your childhood! You were such a good, devout boy then. May I read you a hymn?"

"What good can it do!" he said. "It always comforts me!" she answered. "Johanne, I suppose you have become one of the holy ones!" And he looked at her with dull, weary eyes.

And Johanne read the hymn, but not from a book, for she had none; she knew it by heart. "Those were beautiful words!" he said, "but I could not quite follow them. My head feels so heavy!"

Rasmus had become an old man, but Else was no longer young either, if we are to mention her; Rasmus never did. She was a grandmother; a saucy little girl was her granddaughter, and the little girl played with the other children in the village. Rasmus came along, leaning on his stick. He stopped, watched the children at play, and smiled at them; the old days shone into his thoughts. Else's granddaughter pointed at him. "Wretched Rasmus!" she cried; the other little girls followed her example. "Wretched Rasmus!" they shouted, pursuing the old man with their cries.

It was a grey, dreary day, and more followed, but after grey and dreary days there comes a day of sunshine too. It was a lovely Whitsun morning. The church was decorated with green birch branches, the scent of the woods filled it, and the sun shone across the pews. The great altar candles were lit, and Holy Communion was being celebrated. Johanne was among those kneeling, but Rasmus was not among them. That very morning our Lord had called him.

With God there is grace and mercy. Many years have passed since then; the tailor's house still stands, but no one lives there, and it may fall in the first storm of the night. The marsh is overgrown with reeds and bogbean. The wind rustles in the old tree; it is as though one heard a song. The wind sings it, the tree tells it; if you do not understand it, ask old Johanne in the poorhouse.

She lives there, singing her hymn, the one she sang for Rasmus. She thinks of him and prays to our Lord for him, faithful soul that she is. She can tell of days gone by, of the memories that rustle in the old tree.