But life held onto Jurgen, the thread did not break, although his mind and memory were gone. That was the most terrifying of all. What was left was a body—a living body that would get well and regain its strength.
Jurgen stayed in Mr. Bronne’s house.
“He had been maimed because he tried to save our child,” said the old man. “Now he is our son.”
People called Jurgen either “silly” or “foolish,” but neither word really fitted. He was more like a violin whose strings have been so loosened that they no longer can make any sound. Only for moments—seconds—did they seem to tighten themselves; bits of melody, simple in rhythm, a hint, a fragment would be played; then Jurgen would stare again, out into space, empty-eyed. His dark eyes had lost their luster; he seemed to be looking through a cloudy black glass.
“Poor foolish Jurgen,” people said.
This was the boy who had been conceived to live a life of wealth and ease, an earthly life so glorious that it was “a presumption to ask for or believe that there was anything beyond it.” Were all his talents, all his intelligence wasted then? Only pain, bitter days, and disappointments had life given him; he was the flower bulb that never would flower but rot on the sand, torn as he had been from the rich soil where he should have grown. Could anything made in the image of God have such little value? Can life really be only a game of chance that is played and is over? No! God who is all loving would compensate him for all he had suffered in a life after this one. “ ‘The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.’ ” This line from the Psalms of David did the kind wife of merchant Bronne often utter in sincere belief of its truth. She prayed that God would take Jurgen up to Him, so that he could receive God’s merciful gift: eternal life.
On the sand-swept churchyard of Skagen church was Clara’s grave. Jurgen did not seem to be aware of it. It had not been among the pieces of wreckage from his past that sometimes had reached his mind. Every Sunday he followed the family to church and sat in the pew staring vacantly into space. One day during the singing of the hymns he sighed deeply. He was staring up at the altar, at that place where, more than a year ago, he had knelt beside the young girl. His eyes had regained their luster, he said her name out loud and then turned as pale as death. Tears ran down his cheeks.
He was helped out of the church but, once outside, he seemed not to remember at all what had happened. He mumbled something in his usual meaningless manner. Jurgen had been tried by God, thrown aside by Him.—Our Lord, our Creator, is all-loving. Who can doubt it? Our hearts and our understanding tell us He must be and the Bible confirms it. And his tender mercies are over all his works.
In Spain, among the orange and laurel trees, the warm winds caressed the golden Moorish domes and the sound of castanets and singing were heard. There in a garden of his palace sat an ancient man, the richest merchant in the town. Through the streets, children were walking in procession, carrying candles and banners. How much of his richness would he not have given to have a child of his own: his daughter or her child, who perhaps had not been born—and therefore he might never meet him in paradise, in eternity. “Poor child!”
Yes, indeed, poor child! For Jurgen, although he was thirty years old, was a child, wandering aimlessly around old Skagen.
Time passed, though Jurgen hardly understood the passing of the seasons or could count the years. Merchant Bronne and his wife died and were laid to rest in the churchyard of old Skagen. The sand had crept over the walls and now the churchyard itself was covered; only the path up to the church was kept free of sand.
It was early in the spring, the time of storms. Great waves beat upon the beaches and the wind carried the sand from the dunes far inland. Great flocks of birds flew screaming above the storm-whipped sea. From Skagen down to the dunes of Husby, where Jurgen had played as a child, stranded ships were reported.
One afternoon as Jurgen sat alone in the house, it was as if light broke through the darkness of his mind; he felt a restlessness, like the one he had felt in his youth which had driven him to take long walks on the heath or among the dunes.
“Home! Home!” he mumbled. No one heard or saw him as he left the house. The wind whipped sand and small stones into his face; he took the path toward the church. The sand lay in drifts high up against the walls of the building, covering the lower parts of the window. But the path to the church had been shoveled the day before. The door was not locked. Jurgen entered and closed it behind him.
The storm whistled and screamed over Skagen. It was a hurricane, the worst in man’s memory! But Jurgen was inside God’s house, and as the darkness came to the world outside, light penetrated his soul. The heavy stone that he had felt in his head broke with a crack. He thought he could hear the organ playing, but that was the noise of the surf and the storm. He sat down in a pew, and all the candles in the church were lit. No, there were more candles than ever had burned in Skagen church, it was like the cathedral he had seen in Spain.
The old mayors and councilmen in the paintings became alive; they stepped out of their frames and sat down in the choir. The doors of the church opened and all the dead entered, dressed in their best clothes, while beautiful music played. Among the dead he recognized his foster father and foster mother from the dunes of Husby. They took their seats in the church. Merchant Bronne, his wife, and his daughter came and sat next to Jurgen. Clara took Jurgen’s hand in hers and together the two walked up to the altar and kneeled on the spot where they had kneeled together so many years ago. The minister blessed them, joined their hands, and wedded them to a life of love. Then trumpets blew and they sounded like children’s voices filled with longing and joy. The music grew louder as though an enormous organ were playing—a hurricane of sounds, lovely to listen to and yet so strong and powerful that it could break the tombstones on the graves.
The model ship that hung in the choir floated down in front of the young couple. It grew and became the ship the son of the King of England had sailed on in the old song. Its sails were made of silk, its yards and masts were made of silver, its anchor of the purest gold, and every rope was twisted of silken thread. Jurgen and Clara, the bride and bridegroom, stepped on board and the whole congregation followed. There was room enough for all. The walls of the church bore blossoms like the elderberry tree and the air was filled with the fragrance of the linden trees. The ship lifted itself and sailed up into the air, into eternity. The candles of the church became the stars of the sky and the wind sang the old hymn: “No life shall be forever lost.”
These were the last words Jurgen uttered. Finally the thread that held his eternal soul did break. In the dark church lay a dead body. Outside the storm was still raging.
The next morning was Sunday. The tempest was not over. With difficulty the minister and the congregation managed to make their way to the church. They found it so deeply buried in sand that the door was completely hidden. The minister read a short prayer and declared that God had closed the door of this His house, and that they would have to build Him a new one. Then they sang a hymn and walked back to their homes.
They searched for Jurgen everywhere: among the dunes as well as in the town. Finally they decided that he must have walked down to the beach during the storm, and one of the waves had taken him out to sea.
His body lies buried in a great sarcophagus, a church. God had, with the storm, cast earth on his coffin, buried it in a heavy layer of sand, and there it still lies. The great arches and vaults are completely covered; only the tower, like a giant tombstone, juts out of the sand. It can be seen miles away, and visitors come to pluck the wild roses that bloom there. No king ever received a greater tomb. No one disturbs the dead man, and no one until now knew that Jurgen was buried there. The storm told me the story, sang it to me among the dunes.
101
The Puppeteer
Among the passengers on the steamer was an elderly man with such a cheerful expression on his face that—unless it lied—he must have been
the happiest person in the world. He claimed he was; told me so himself. He was a fellow Dane, a traveling theater director. He carried his whole troupe of actors in a wooden box, for the theater he directed was a puppet theater. He told me that he had been born with a cheerful disposition, but this had been further purified and strengthened by his meeting with a student from the Polytechnical Institute. I did not understand what he meant; but then he explained, and here is his story:
“It happened in Slagelse,” he began. “I was giving a performance at the inn on the square. I had a marvelous audience; all the spectators were under fourteen except for a couple of elderly matrons. Then there arrives a man, dressed in black, with a studious look on his face. He takes a seat and watches my performance. The newcomer laughs at the right moments and applauds at the right moments—a most unusual spectator! The play was over at eight. Children should go early to bed, and a good theater director is always concerned about his audience. At nine o’clock the student was to give a lecture, with demonstrations. Now I became a spectator. Most of it was above my head, as they say, but it was interesting to listen to and to watch. I could not help thinking that, if our minds can figure out such complicated matters as the lecture was about, then they ought to be able to last a bit beyond the point when we are put down below the ground.
“The young student only performed some lesser miracles, all of them according to the laws of nature. If he had lived at the time of Moses and the prophets, he would have been one of the wise men; and if he had lived in the Middle Ages, then he would have been burned at the stake. I could hardly sleep all night; and when, at my performance the next night, I saw the student once more among my audience, I was as happy as could be. I have heard a great actor say that when he has to play a lover, then he chooses one woman in the audience and plays the part for her alone. Well, the Polytechnical student was my ‘woman,’ the one spectator for whom I was performing.
“When the play was over and the puppets had made their curtain calls, the student invited me to share a bottle of wine with him. He talked about my comedy and I about his science, and I think he found the conversation as pleasant as I did, although I held my own a little better, for there was so much in his science that he couldn’t explain. For instance, why a bar of iron passing through a spiral with electricity in it became magnetic. It was as if it had gained a spirit or a soul, so to speak; but why? how? and where did it come from? It is much the same with human beings. God drops us through the spiral of our times, and the spirit takes over. Presto! You have a Napoleon or Luther! Or some other important figure.
“ ‘Our world is filled with miracles,’ explained the student. ‘We are just so used to seeing them that we don’t recognize them as such, because they are everyday occurrences.’
“He talked and explained; and in the end I felt as if the top of my skull had been lifted off. And I admitted to him that I would most enthusiastically have entered the Polytechnical Institute and learned how to examine this world of ours a little closer if it weren’t that I was a little too old. This I would do even though I was very happy in my own profession
“ ‘Are you happy?’ he asked.
“ ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I am most welcome in every town in the country. True, there is one wish, that every once in while rears its head, like a troll, and can make me a little unhappy. I would like to be a director of a real troupe of actors: real live ones!’
“ ‘You mean you would like your puppets to become alive, to be real actors?’ he said. ‘Then you would be completely happy. Do you really believe that?’
“I said that I did; and he said that he didn’t. We discussed it at length without agreeing, but we were just as good friends and drank to each other’s health. The wine was excellent but I think it was mixed with magic; it must have been, for otherwise the whole story boils down to nothing more than that I was drunk. I am sure I wasn’t, I saw very clearly indeed.
“The whole room seemed to be filled with sunshine, and the light came from the face of the student from the Polytechnical Institute. I was reminded of the old tales in which the gods descend into the world and mix with ordinary mortals. I told him this and he smiled; and then I felt certain enough to swear on it that he was a god in disguise—or, at least, related to them.
“And he was! My greatest wish was to be granted, the puppets were to become alive and I was to be the director of a real live troupe. We drank yet another glass of wine; and then he packed all my dolls into their wooden box and strapped it on my back. Then he let me down through a spiral. I can still feel and hear the bump with which I landed.
“There I lay on the floor with the box beside me. Up came the lid and out jumped my whole troupe. The spirit had entered them and every puppet was alive. They were all the most excellent actors, so they said themselves. And I was their director!
“Everything was ready for the first performance, when every member of the troupe insisted that he had to talk to me! The little ballerina just wanted to point out that all the spectators came to see her stand on one leg, and if she fell, then the show fell flat too, and that I’d better remember that. The woman who played an empress suggested that maybe it would be better if we treated her as an empress off stage, otherwise she might get out of practice. The fellow whose only role was to come in with a letter in the second act declared that his part was as important as the hero’s. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘it is the artistic whole that makes the play, and so the small and the big parts are equally important.’
“The hero wanted the play changed, he wanted nothing but exit lines because they got the most applause. The first lady wanted the lighting changed; no blue lights, only red; they made her look lovelier. The actors were like flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle too, for I was the theater director. I got a headache, I could hardly breathe. I was as miserable as a human being could possibly be. I felt that I had been put among a new race of human beings that I had never heard of before. I wished they were all back in my box. I told them straight to their faces that they were nothing but a bunch of puppets! Then they killed me!
“When I woke I was lying in my bed in my room. How I got there I could not imagine. Maybe the student knows, but I don’t. The moon was shining in through the window and the box in which I keep the puppets was turned upside down and all the marionettes, big and small, lay spread out all over the floor. I jumped out of bed immediately and threw them all back into the box, some headfirst and others feet first. I had no time to be careful. Then I banged down the lid and sat down upon it.
“Can you imagine the sight? Well, I can still see it in front of me. Somebody should have made a painting of it. ‘Now you have to stay where you are,’ I commanded loudly, ‘and I will never wish you alive again!’
“Now I was utterly and completely happy. As I have said, the Polytechnical student had purified and strengthened me. Out of sheer happiness, I fell asleep sitting on the box. I was still sitting there the next morning—it was actually noon, I had slept marvelously late that day—and I was as gloriously happy as I had been when I fell asleep. I had learned that the only wish I had had in this world had been foolish. I asked about the student but he had disappeared just as a Roman or Greek god would have. Ever since then I have been completely and perfectly happy, the happiest theater director there has ever been. My actors never complain and neither do my public; they have come to enjoy themselves and they do. I can make up my own plays, taking what I like best from others, and no one finds fault with it. Those tragedies that the big theaters now would not dream of performing, but which everybody ran to see and cry over thirty years ago, I rewrite and produce for the children. And the little ones cry just as their mothers and fathers did when they saw them. I play Johanna Montfaucon and Dyveke, but I shorten them a bit. Very young people don’t like the love nonsense to last too long; they like unhappiness but it must be quick. I have traveled all over Denmark, I know everyone and they know me. Now I am trying Sweden. If I have success and earn s
ome money, then I will be for the Nordic Union; otherwise I won’t. I have told you all this just because you are my countryman.”
And I, as his countryman, now have told his story to everyone, just in order to tell it.
102
The Two Brothers
On one of the Danish islands, where the Viking graves still stand high above the fields of grain and giant beeches grow, there lies a little town with small red-roofed houses. In one of them the strangest things were taking place. Liquids were boiling in glass tubes, being distilled, and in mortars herbs were being crushed into powder. An elderly man was in charge of the work.
“One has to search for the truth,” he said, “for in all that is created truth is to be found, and without it nothing can be accomplished.”
In the living room sat his wife and his two sons. They were still children but they already had grown-up thoughts. Their mother had talked to them about the importance of right and wrong, and knowing the difference between them. She had spoken about truth, too; she called it “God’s face in this world.”
The older of the boys was full of fun. He loved to read about nature and science. He found no fairy tale so entertaining as reading about the sun and the stars. How wonderful it would be to become an explorer, or to study how birds fly and from them learn to fly oneself. “Yes, Father and Mother are right,” he thought. “The laws of nature are truth, as they were created by God.”
The younger brother was quieter; eagerly, he entered the world of his books. When he read how Jacob, by fraud, obtained the birthright of Esau, he clenched his little hand in anger. When he read about tyranny, cruelty, and injustice, tears would come into his eyes.