Košček biserne ogrlice

Besedilo

Košček biserne ogrlice

The railway in Denmark still stretches only from Copenhagen to Korsør; it is a length of a string of pearls, of which Europe has so many. The most precious pearls are named Paris, London, Vienna, Naples—yet many a traveller points not to these great cities as the loveliest pearl, but to some small, unremarkable town, the home of homes, where loved ones live. Indeed, often it is only a single farm, a little house hidden among green hedges, a speck that flashes past as the train races by.

How many pearls are there on the string from Copenhagen to Korsør? We shall look at six that most people are bound to notice; old memories and poetry itself lend these pearls a lustre that makes them shine into our thoughts.

Near the hill where Frederick VI’s palace stands, the home of Oehlenschläger’s childhood, one of the pearls gleams in the shelter of Søndermarken’s woodland. It was called “Philemon and Baucis’s Cottage,” which meant the home of two dear old people. Here Rahbek lived with his wife Camma; here, beneath their hospitable roof, all the finest minds of bustling Copenhagen gathered for a generation. Here was a home of the spirit—and now! Do not say, “Alas, how changed!” No, it is still a home of the spirit, a hothouse for the ailing plant! The flower bud too weak to unfold still holds, hidden within it, all the promise of leaf and seed. Here the sunshine of the spirit enters a sheltered home of the spirit, reviving and quickening. The world outside shines through the eyes into the soul’s unfathomable depths: the Home for Idiots, enfolded in human kindness, is a sacred place, a hothouse for the ailing plant that will one day be transplanted to bloom in God’s garden. The weakest in mind now gather here, where once the greatest and strongest met, exchanged thoughts, and were lifted upwards—upwards the flame of souls still leaps in “Philemon and Baucis’s Cottage.”

The city of royal tombs beside Hroar’s spring, ancient Roskilde, lies before us; the church’s slender spires rise above the low-built town and are mirrored in the Isefjord. Here we shall seek out only one grave and gaze at it in the pearl’s lustre. It is not that of the mighty Margaret, queen of the Union—no, the grave is in the churchyard whose white wall we rush so close past. A modest stone has been laid over it; here rests the king of the organ, the man who breathed new life into Danish song. The old legends became melodies within our souls; we heard how “The clear waves rolled”—“A king once dwelt in Lejre!” Roskilde, city of royal tombs, in your pearl we shall look upon the humble grave whose stone bears a carved lyre and the name: Weyse.

Now we come to Sigersted, near the town of Ringsted; the riverbed is low, and golden corn grows where Hagbarth’s boat came ashore, not far from Signe’s bower. Who does not know the legend of Hagbarth hanging from the oak while little Signe’s bower stood in flames—the legend of their mighty love?

“Lovely Sorø, encircled by woods!” Your quiet monastery town has found a prospect between the moss-grown trees; with youthful eyes it looks out from the academy across the lake towards the world’s highway, and hears the locomotive dragon pant as it flies through the forest. Sorø, pearl of poetry, where Holberg’s dust is laid! Like a mighty white swan beside the deep woodland lake stands your palace of learning; and close beside it, drawing our gaze, a little house gleams like the white starflower on the forest floor. From it, devout hymns ring out across the land; within it, words are spoken to which the farmer himself listens, learning of Denmark’s bygone days. The green wood and the song of the bird belong together, as do the names Sorø and Ingemann.

On to the town of Slagelse! What is mirrored here in the pearl’s lustre? Antvorskov Monastery has vanished, vanished are the castle’s splendid halls, even its lonely, abandoned wing; yet an ancient landmark still stands, renewed time and again: a wooden cross on the hill over there, where, in the days of legend, Saint Anders, the priest of Slagelse, awoke after being carried here from Jerusalem in a single night.

Korsør—here you were born, you who gave us “Jest Mingled with Earnest in Songs by Knud Sjællandsfar.” Master of words and wit! The crumbling old ramparts of the abandoned fortress are now the last visible witness here to your childhood home; when the sun sets, their shadows point towards the spot where the house of your birth once stood. From these ramparts, looking towards the heights of Sprogø, you saw, when you “were little,” “the moon slip down behind the island,” and sang of it in immortal verse, as later you sang of Switzerland’s mountains—you who wandered through the world’s labyrinth and found that “nowhere are the roses quite so red, and nowhere are the thorns so small, and nowhere is the down so soft as that on which our childhood’s innocence lay!”

Sweet singer of playful fancy! We weave you a wreath of woodruff and cast it into the sea; the waves will carry it to Kiel Fjord, upon whose shore your dust is laid. It brings a greeting from the young generation, a greeting from your native town of Korsør—where the string of pearls ends!

II. “It certainly is a length of a string of pearls, from Copenhagen to Korsør,” said Grandmother, who had heard what we have just read being read aloud. “It is a string of pearls to me, and it became one more than forty years ago!” she said. “We had no steam engines then; we took days to travel the distance you now cover in hours! It was in 1815; I was twenty-one then! That is a lovely age! Though being in one’s sixties is a lovely age too, so blessed! In my young days, yes, going to Copenhagen was a much rarer thing than it is now—to the city of cities, as we thought it. After twenty years, my parents wanted to pay another visit there, and I was to go with them. We had talked about that journey for years, and now it was really to take place! I felt as though a whole new life were about to begin, and in a way a new life did begin for me.

There was sewing to be done, and packing, and when at last we were ready to leave, how many good friends came to wish us farewell! We had a great journey before us! Late in the morning we drove out of Odense in my parents’ Holstein carriage; acquaintances nodded from the windows all along the street, almost until we were through Saint George’s Gate. The weather was lovely, the birds were singing, everything was delightful; we forgot what a long, hard road it was to Nyborg. We arrived towards evening; the mail did not come in until late at night, and the packet boat could not sail before then. So we went aboard; before us lay the great expanse of water, as far as the eye could see, smooth as glass. We lay down in our clothes and slept. When I woke in the morning and came up on deck, there was not the slightest thing to be seen on either side, so thick was the fog. I heard cocks crowing, sensed that the sun was rising, and heard bells ringing; wherever could we be? The fog lifted, and there we were, still just outside Nyborg. Later in the day a little wind sprang up at last, but it was dead against us. We tacked and tacked, and finally had the good fortune to reach Korsør a little after eleven that evening; we had taken twenty-two hours to travel those four Danish miles.

It was good to be ashore, but it was dark, the lamps burned dimly, and everything seemed utterly strange to me, who had never been in any town but Odense.

“Look, this is where Baggesen was born!” said my father, “and Birckner lived here!” At once it seemed to me that the old town with its little houses grew brighter and larger; besides, we were so happy to have dry land beneath our feet. I could not sleep that night for thinking of all I had already seen and experienced since leaving home the day before yesterday.

Next morning we had to rise early; there was a dreadful road ahead, with terrible hills and many holes, all the way to Slagelse, and beyond it the road was said to be little better. We wanted to reach Krebsehuset in time to walk from there into Sorø while it was still daylight and visit the Møllers’ Emil, as we called him. Yes, that was your grandfather, my dear late husband, the provost; he was a student at Sorø and had just finished his second examination there.

We reached Krebsehuset in the afternoon. It was a splendid place in those days, the best inn on the whole journey, in the loveliest countryside—and you must all admit that it still is. The landlady, Madam Plambek, was a capable woman; everything in the house was as clean as a well-scrubbed chopping board. On the wall, framed and under glass, hung Baggesen’s letter to her; that was well worth seeing! To me it was a great wonder. Then we walked into Sorø and found Emil there. You may be sure he was glad to see us, and we to see him; he was so kind and attentive. He took us to see the church, with Absalon’s grave and Holberg’s coffin; we saw the old monks’ inscriptions, and we sailed across the lake to ‘Parnassus’—the loveliest evening I can remember! I truly thought that if one could write poetry anywhere in the world, it must be in Sorø, amid such natural peace and beauty. Then in the moonlight we walked along the Philosophers’ Path, as they call it, that lovely, lonely walk beside the lake and Flommen, out towards the road to Krebsehuset. Emil stayed and had supper with us; Father and Mother thought he had grown so clever and looked so well. He promised that within five days he would be in Copenhagen with his family, and would see us there; it was Whitsuntide, you know. Those hours in Sorø and at Krebsehuset—yes, they are among the loveliest pearls of my life! Next morning we set off very early, for we had a long way to go before reaching Roskilde, and we had to arrive in time to see the church and for Father to visit an old school friend later in the evening. All this we did, and we spent the night in Roskilde. The following day—but not until noon, for the road still ahead of us was the worst and most deeply rutted of all—we reached Copenhagen. We had taken about three days to travel from Korsør to Copenhagen; now you make the same journey in three hours. The pearls have not grown more precious—they could not—but the string has become new and wonderful. I stayed with my parents in Copenhagen for three weeks, and we were with Emil there for eighteen whole days. When we set off back to Funen, he accompanied us all the way from Copenhagen to Korsør, and there we became engaged before we parted. So you can surely understand why I too call the road from Copenhagen to Korsør a length of a string of pearls.

Later, when Emil was given a living near Assens, we were married. We often talked about our journey to Copenhagen, and about making it again some day, but then your mother came along, and then she had brothers and sisters, and there was so much to look after and attend to. And when Father was promoted and became a provost—well, it was all a blessing and a joy, but we never got to Copenhagen! I never went there again, however often we thought of it and talked about it; and now I have grown too old, I have not the strength to go rushing about by rail. But I am glad of the railways! It is a blessing to have them! They bring you to me sooner! Why, Odense is now scarcely farther from Copenhagen than it was from Nyborg in my youth! You can fly to Italy now as quickly as we travelled to Copenhagen! Yes, that is something! Still, I shall stay where I am and let the others travel! Let them come to me! But you must not smile just because I sit so quietly; I have a far greater journey before me than yours, one far swifter than a journey by rail. When Our Lord wills it, I shall go up to ‘Grandfather,’ and when you have done your work and taken your pleasure here in this blessed world, I know you will come up to us. And when we talk there of the days of our earthly lives, believe me, children, I shall say there, just as I do now: ‘From Copenhagen to Korsør—yes, it certainly is a length of a string of pearls!’”