Prevod

When the Wind runs over the grass, it ripples like water; when it runs over the corn, it rolls in waves like a sea. That is the Wind’s dance; but listen to it tell a tale: it sings it aloud, and its voice sounds different among the forest trees from the way it sounds through the openings in walls, through cracks and crevices. Do you see how the Wind up there is chasing the clouds as though they were a flock of sheep? Do you hear how the Wind down here is howling through the open gateway, as though it were a watchman blowing his horn? Strangely it whistles down the chimney and into the fireplace; the fire flares and crackles, casting its light far into the room, and it is so snug and cosy to sit here and listen. Let the Wind tell its tale! It knows more fairy tales and stories than all of us put together. Now listen to what it tells:

“Whoo-oo-oo! Away!”—that is the refrain of its song. * “Beside the Great Belt stands an old manor house with thick red walls!” says the Wind. “I know every stone; I saw it long ago, when it stood in Marshal Stig’s castle on the headland. That castle had to fall! The stone rose again in a new wall, a new manor house, in another place: Borreby Manor, which stands there still!

I have seen and known the high-born lords and ladies, the generations that came and went within those walls. Now I shall tell you about Valdemar Daae and his daughters!

He held his head so proudly; he was of royal blood! He could do more than hunt a stag and drain a tankard—things would turn out well enough, he said himself.

His lady swept erect in her gown of gold brocade across her gleaming, chequered floor. The hangings were splendid, the furniture costly and cunningly carved. She had brought silver and gold plate into the house; German beer lay in the cellar, when there was any to be had; spirited black horses neighed in the stables. There was wealth within Borreby Manor, while the wealth lasted.

And there were children: three graceful young ladies, Ide, Johanne, and Anna Dorthea; I remember their names still. “They were rich folk, they were noble folk, born to splendour and brought up in it! Whoo-oo-oo! Away!” sang the Wind, and then it went on with its tale. “Here I did not see, as in other old manor houses, the high-born lady sitting in the great hall with her maids, turning the spinning wheel. She played the ringing lute and sang to it, though not always the old Danish songs, but songs in foreign tongues. Here there was life and hospitality; distinguished guests came from near and far. The music rang, the goblets rang; I could not drown them out!” said the Wind. “Here there was pride, with pomp and swagger; lordship, but not the Lord!”

“It was just on May Day evening,” said the Wind. “I came from the west, where I had seen ships battered to wreckage on the coast of western Jutland. I had raced over the heath and the green, wooded coast, across the land of Funen, and now I came over the Great Belt, wheezing and blowing.

Then I lay down to rest on the coast of Zealand, near Borreby Manor, where the forest still stood with its glorious oaks. The young men of the neighbourhood came out here and gathered brushwood and branches, the biggest and driest they could find. They carried them into the village, piled them in a heap, set fire to it, and lads and lasses danced around it, singing.

I lay still,” said the Wind, “but gently I stirred one branch, the one laid there by the handsomest young man. His wood blazed up, blazed highest of all; he was the chosen one, won the title of honour, became the May King, and had first choice among the girls for his little May Lamb. There was joy and merriment greater than any within rich Borreby Manor.”

* “And towards the manor came the noble lady and her three daughters, riding in a gilded coach drawn by six horses, so fine, so young, three lovely flowers: Rose, Lily, and the pale Hyacinth. Their mother herself was a showy Tulip. She greeted not one of all the crowd who broke off their games to curtsey and bow low; you would have thought the lady’s own stem too brittle to bend.

Rose, Lily, and the pale Hyacinth—yes, I saw all three! Whose May Lambs would they one day be, I wondered? Their May King would be a proud knight, perhaps a prince! Whoo-oo-oo! Away! Away!

Yes, the carriage sped off with them, and the country folk whirled away in the dance. Summer was ridden into Borreby, into Tjæreby, into all the villages round about. “But that night, when I rose,” said the Wind, “the high-born lady lay down, never to rise again. It came upon her as it comes upon everyone; there is nothing new in that. Valdemar Daae stood grave and thoughtful for a little while. The proudest tree may be bent, but not broken, a voice within him said. His daughters wept, and everyone at the manor wiped their eyes; but Mistress Daae had passed away—and I swept away! Whoo-oo-oo!” said the Wind.

* “I came again, I came often, over Funen’s land and the Belt’s water, and settled on Borreby’s shore beside the splendid oak forest. There the osprey nested, the wood pigeons, the blue rollers, and even the black stork. It was early in the year; some had eggs and some had young. Oh, how they flew, how they cried! There were axe blows to be heard, stroke upon stroke. The forest was to be felled. Valdemar Daae meant to build a magnificent ship, a three-decked warship, which the King would surely buy; and so the forest fell, the sailors’ landmark, the birds’ home. The shrike flew off in fright; its nest was destroyed. The osprey and all the forest birds lost their homes; they flew wildly about, crying out in fear and anger. I understood them well enough. Crows and jackdaws called loudly in mockery: “Out of the nest! Out of the nest! Away! Away!”

And in the middle of the forest, beside the band of workmen, stood Valdemar Daae and his three daughters, and they all laughed at the birds’ wild cries. But his youngest daughter, Anna Dorthea, felt pity in her heart; and when the men were about to fell a half-dead tree, on whose bare branch the black stork had built its nest, with the little ones peeping out their heads, she pleaded for it, pleaded with tears in her eyes. And so the tree was allowed to stand, with the black stork’s nest. It was only a little thing.

There was hewing, there was sawing—a ship with three decks was built. The master builder himself was lowly by birth, but noble at heart; his eyes and brow spoke of his intelligence, and Valdemar Daae liked to hear him talk. So did little Ide, the eldest daughter, who was fifteen; and while he built a ship for her father, he built a castle in the air for himself, where he and little Ide sat as man and wife. And so it might have been, had the castle been built of stone, with ramparts and moats, woods and gardens. But for all his cleverness, the master was only a poor bird, and what business has a sparrow at the cranes’ dance? Whoo-oo-oo! I flew away, and he flew away, for he dared not stay; and little Ide got over it, for get over it she must!”

* “In the stables the black horses neighed, a sight worth seeing, and seen they were. The admiral had been sent by the King himself to inspect the new warship and discuss its purchase. He spoke loudly in admiration of the spirited horses; I heard him well!” said the Wind. “I followed the gentlemen through the open door and scattered straws like bars of gold before their feet. Valdemar Daae wanted gold; the admiral wanted the black horses, and that was why he praised them so highly. But his meaning was not understood, and so the ship was not bought either. It stood gleaming by the shore, covered over with planks, a Noah’s ark that never took to the water. Whoo-oo-oo! Away! Away! And it was pitiful!

In winter, when snow lay over the fields and drift ice filled the Belt, and I piled it up along the coast,” said the Wind, “the ravens and crows came in great flocks, each blacker than the next. They perched on the desolate, dead, lonely ship by the shore and cried hoarsely of the forest that was gone, the many precious birds’ nests laid waste, the homeless old birds, the homeless young ones, and all for the sake of that great piece of lumber, that proud vessel which would never put to sea.

I whirled the drifting snow; it lay in great seas high around the ship and over it! I let it hear my voice, what a storm has to say; I know I did my part to teach it seamanship. Whoo-oo-oo! Away!

And winter passed away; winter and summer passed, and pass still, as I pass, as the snow flies, as the apple blossom scatters and the leaves fall! Away, away, away—and human beings with them!

But the daughters were young still, little Ide a rose as lovely to look upon as when the shipbuilder had seen her. Often I caught at her long brown hair as she stood lost in thought beside the apple tree in the garden, never noticing how I scattered blossoms into her loosening hair, while she gazed at the red sun and the golden sky between the garden’s dark trees and bushes.

Her sister Johanne was like a lily, radiant and erect; she held herself high and proud, her stem as brittle as her mother’s. She liked to walk in the great hall where the family portraits hung. The ladies were painted in velvet and silk, with tiny pearl-embroidered caps upon their braided hair; they were beautiful women! Their husbands appeared in steel armour or costly cloaks lined with squirrel fur, wearing blue ruffs; their swords were buckled about the thigh, not the waist. Where on the wall would Johanne’s portrait hang one day, and what would he look like, her noble husband? Yes, she thought about that, she murmured about it to herself; I heard her as I swept along the passage into the hall and turned back again.

Anna Dorthea, the pale Hyacinth, only a child of fourteen, was quiet and reflective. Her great, watery-blue eyes looked thoughtful, but a child’s smile lingered about her mouth; I could not blow it away, nor did I wish to.

I met her in the garden, in the sunken lane, and in the manor fields. She gathered herbs and flowers that she knew her father could use in the potions and drops he knew how to distil. Valdemar Daae was proud and haughty, but learned too, and knew a great deal; that was plain enough, and people whispered about it. The fire burned in his hearth even in summer; the chamber door was kept shut. It went on for days and nights, but he said little about it. The powers of nature must be mastered in silence; soon he would surely discover the best of all—red gold.

That was why the fumes rose from the hearth, why it crackled and blazed! Yes, I was there!” said the Wind. “Let it go! Let it go! I sang down the chimney. It will all be smoke and fumes, embers and ashes! You are burning yourself away! Whoo-oo-oo! Away! Away! But Valdemar Daae would not let it go!

The splendid horses in the stables—where had they gone? The old silver and gold plate in cupboard and storeroom, the cattle in the fields, the estate and manor house? Yes, they can melt! Melt in the gold crucible, and still no gold comes of it.

The barn and pantry emptied, the cellar and the loft. Fewer people, more mice. One pane cracked, another broke; I had no need to come in by the door!” said the Wind. “Where the chimney smokes, a meal is cooking; the chimney smoked, the chimney that swallowed all their meals for the sake of red gold.

I blew through the gateway like a watchman blowing his horn, but there was no watchman!” said the Wind. “I turned the weathercock on the spire; it creaked as though the watchman were snoring in the tower, but there was no watchman. There were rats and mice. Poverty laid the table; Poverty sat in the clothes cupboard and the food cupboard. The door came off its hinge, cracks and crevices appeared; I went out and I came in,” said the Wind, “and that is how I know it all so well!

Amid smoke and ashes, sorrow and sleepless nights, the hair of his beard and about his brow grew grey, his skin sallow and yellow, his eyes so greedy for gold, the gold he waited for.

I puffed smoke and ashes into his face and beard; debt came instead of gold. I sang through the broken panes and open cracks, blew in towards the daughters’ settle-bed, where their clothes lay faded and threadbare, for they had to last for ever. That song had been sung over these children’s cradle! A lordly life became a wretched life! I alone sang loudly in the manor,” said the Wind. “I snowed them in; that keeps a house warm, they say. They had no firewood; the forest where they might have gathered it had been felled. The frost was bitter; I swept through openings and passages, over gable and wall, to keep myself brisk. Inside, the noble daughters lay in bed because of the cold; their father crept beneath his fur coverlet. Nothing to bite and nothing to burn—that is a lordly life! Whoo-oo-oo! Let it go! But Master Daae could not!

“After winter comes spring!” he said. “After want come better times! But they are slow in coming, slow! Now the manor is mortgaged! Now the very last hour has come—and then the gold will come! At Easter!”

I heard him murmur into a spider’s web. “You clever little weaver! You teach me to persevere! If your web is torn apart, you begin again and finish it! Torn apart once more—and undaunted you set to work again, from the beginning! From the beginning! That is what one must do! And it brings its reward!”

It was Easter morning; the bells rang, the sun danced in the sky. In a fever he had kept watch, boiled and cooled, mixed and distilled. I heard him sigh like a soul in despair; I heard him pray; I sensed him holding his breath. The lamp had gone out, but he did not notice. I blew upon the glowing coals; they shone into his chalk-white face and gave it a flush of colour. His eyes were narrowed in their deep sockets—but now they grew wide, wide, as though they would burst.

Look, the alchemist’s glass! Something glitters inside it! It is glowing, pure, and heavy! He lifted it with a trembling hand; he cried with a trembling tongue: “Gold! Gold!” He reeled; I could have blown him over,” said the Wind, “but I only blew upon the glowing coals and followed him through the door into the room where his daughters sat freezing. His gown was coated with ashes; they clung to his beard and his tangled hair. He drew himself up to his full height and lifted his rich treasure in the fragile glass. “Found! Won! Gold!” he cried, raising the glass high, where it flashed in the sunbeams. And his hand trembled, and the alchemist’s glass fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces; the last bubble of his fortune had burst. Whoo-oo-oo! Away! And I swept away from the gold-maker’s manor.

Late in the year, in the short days we have up here, when the mist comes with its dishcloth and wrings wet drops upon the red berries and leafless branches, I came in high spirits, aired everything out, blew the sky clear, and snapped off rotten branches. It is no great task, but it must be done. There was a clean sweep of another kind at Borreby Manor, in Valdemar Daae’s house. His enemy Ove Ramel of Basnæs was there, having bought the mortgage on the manor and its contents. I drummed on the cracked panes, banged the dilapidated doors, whistled through cracks and crevices: whoo-ee! Master Ove was not to take a fancy to staying there. Ide and Anna Dorthea wept bitter tears; Johanne stood erect and pale, biting her thumb until it bled—as though that would help! Ove Ramel offered to let Master Daae remain at the manor for the rest of his life, but he received no thanks for the offer; I listened for them. I saw the lord without a manor lift his head more proudly and toss it back; and I struck a gust against the house and the old lime trees, so that the thickest branch broke, and it was not rotten. It lay before the gate like a broom, should anyone wish to sweep the place out; and swept out it was. I thought as much!

It was a hard day, a stiff trial to stand firm through, but his heart was hard, his neck was stiff. They owned nothing but the clothes upon their backs—yes, and the alchemist’s glass, newly bought and filled with the spilt remains scraped up from the floor: the treasure that promised, but did not fulfil its promise. Valdemar Daae hid it against his breast, then took his stick in his hand, and the once-rich lord walked out of Borreby Manor with his three daughters. I blew cold upon his hot cheeks; I stroked his grey beard and his long white hair; I sang as only I could: whoo-oo-oo! Away! Away! That was the end of all their wealth and splendour.

Ide and Anna Dorthea walked one on either side of him; Johanne turned in the gateway. What use was that? Fortune would not turn back. She looked at the red stones in the wall, the stones from Marshal Stig’s castle; was she thinking of his daughters:

“The elder took the younger by the hand, And far through the world they wandered!” Was she thinking of that song? Here there were three of them—and their father was with them! They walked along the road where they had once ridden in their coach; they walked the beggar’s road with their father to Smidstrup Fields, to the clay-plastered cottage rented for ten marks a year, their new ancestral seat, with empty walls and empty vessels. Crows and jackdaws flew above them, crying as if in mockery: “Out of the nest! Out of the nest! Away! Away!” just as the birds had cried in Borreby Forest when the trees were felled.

Master Daae and his daughters heard it well enough! I blew about their ears; it was not worth listening to. Then they moved into the clay-plastered cottage on Smidstrup Fields—and I swept away over marsh and field, through bare hedges and stripped forests, to open waters, other lands—whoo-oo-oo! Away! Away! And so through all the years!”

* What became of Valdemar Daae, what became of his daughters? The Wind tells us: “The last of them I saw—yes, for the last time—was Anna Dorthea, the pale Hyacinth. Now she was old and bent; half a century had passed. She lived the longest; she knew what had become of them all.

Over there on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the cathedral provost’s fine new house, built of red brick with a stepped gable. Smoke rose thickly from the chimney. The kindly lady and her lovely daughters sat in the bay window and looked out over the drooping boxthorn in the garden, towards the brown heath. What were they looking for out there? They were looking at the stork’s nest on the tumbledown cottage. Moss and houseleeks covered the roof, where there was any roof at all; the stork’s nest provided most of the covering, and it was the only part that was repaired. The stork kept it in order.

It was a house to look at, not to touch! I had to tread carefully!” said the Wind. “For the sake of the stork’s nest, the house was allowed to stand; otherwise it was nothing but an eyesore on the heath. The provost’s family would not drive the stork away, so the hovel was allowed to remain, and the poor soul inside was allowed to live there. She had the Egyptian bird to thank for that—or was it thanks for the time she had pleaded for the nest of his wild black brother in Borreby Forest? Then, poor soul, she had been a young child, a delicate, pale Hyacinth in the noble garden. She remembered it all: Anne Dorthea.

“Oh! Oh!”—yes, human beings can sigh as the Wind does among the reeds and rushes. “Oh! No bells rang over your grave, Valdemar Daae! The poor schoolboys did not sing when Borreby’s former lord was laid in the earth! Oh! Everything comes to an end, even misery! Sister Ide became a peasant’s wife! That was our father’s hardest trial! His daughter’s husband a wretched serf, whom the lord of the manor could set astride the wooden horse! Surely he is in his grave by now? And you too, Ide? Oh yes! Oh yes! It is not over yet for me, poor old creature! Poor wretch that I am! Set me free, bountiful Christ!”

That was Anna Dorthea’s prayer in the wretched house that was allowed to stand for the stork’s sake. The boldest of the sisters I took into my own care!” said the Wind. “She had clothes cut to suit the spirit in which she was made! She came as a poor lad and signed on with a ship’s captain; she was sparing of words, sullen in manner, but willing at her work. Climb, though, she could not; so I blew her overboard before anyone knew she was a woman, and that was surely a good deed of mine!” said the Wind.

* “It was an Easter morning, like the one when Valdemar Daae believed he had found the red gold, when I heard a hymn beneath the stork’s nest, within the crumbling walls: Anne Dorthea’s last song.

There was no windowpane, only a hole in the wall; the sun came like a lump of gold and settled there. What a radiance! Her eyes grew fixed, her heart broke! They would have done so all the same, had the sun not shone upon her that morning.

The stork gave her a roof over her head until her death! I sang at her grave!” said the Wind. “I sang at her father’s grave. I know where it is, and where her grave is; no one else knows!

New times, different times! The old highway becomes an enclosed field; graves once left in peace become a busy road—and soon steam will come with its train of carriages and thunder over the graves, forgotten like the names. Whoo-oo-oo! Away!

That is the story of Valdemar Daae and his daughters. Tell it better, the rest of you, if you can!” said the Wind, and turned away. It was gone.