by Isak Dinesen
The King’s mind was strangely moved and upset; a sadness was upon it, and yet he felt as strong as never before. It was as if his own strength lay heavily upon him, and weighed him down.
The King thought of many things, and called to mind how, ten years ago, when he was seventeen, in the town of Ribe he had met with the Wandering Jew. He had been told by Father Anders, his confessor, that the old outlaw of twelve hundred years had come to Ribe, and had sent for him. But when the ancient, crooked, earth-coloured Ahasuerus, in the black caftan, fell upon his face before him, that terrible wrath that had filled his heart against the man who had mocked the Lord again withdrew from it; he stood and looked at him, struck with wonder. “Are you the Cobbler of Jerusalem?” he asked him. “Yes, yes, I am that,” the Jew answered and sighed deeply. “I was once a cobbler in Jerusalem, that great city. I made shoes and sandals for the rich burghers, and for the Romans as well. Once I made a pair of slippers for the wife of Pontius Pilate, the Governor, that were set all over the toe with chrysoprases and roses.”
Now the King felt again, as if no time had passed and as clearly as that day in Ribe, the infinite loneliness of the old Wanderer. But tonight things had been turned about and had become real to him in a new sense: he was himself Ahasuerus. How many people, since then, had died around him! Gallant knights had fallen in battle, gay friends of his youth had disappeared, fair ladies—they were all gone, like tunes played on a lute. He remembered the old king’s fool, with the little bells on his cap, and how merrily he had jumped up and down on the table while he mimicked the great lords of the court. Now it was many years since he had died, and many years, even, since the King had thought of him. Often he had met the gaze of the hunted, jaded stag, as he set his knife in its heart and turned it round; tears had run from the animal’s limpid eyes. But the King could not tell, he did not know, if he himself were ever to die.
A light breeze ran through the grass and the crowns of the trees outside. The tapestries by the window rustled gently; in the dark he could not distinguish the figures of men and beasts on them, but he knew that they would be moving as if their procession was advancing along the wall.
The King’s thoughts walked on, and found no content anywhere. He remembered how, in the old days, delight had filled his heart at the idea of hunting and dancing, of tournaments, of revenge, of his friends and of women. Slowly he went through it all. But where was he now to look for the wine which would make him glad? No human being had power to pour it out to him. He was as lonely in his kingdom of Denmark as he was in his sleep, in his dreams. Lately the King had fought a long and bitter struggle with his mighty vassals, and he had rejoiced in the thought of their humiliation; that had not been the rapture, the honey on the tongue of days gone, but it had still been to him a game worth playing. Now, in the profound, fresh, silent embrace of the night, and in the presence of that silver star, the trials-of-strength with his liegemen, such as they were, became to him but vanity, a pastime for a boy. The great forces within him cried out for mightier undertakings, and for a fuller task. He thought of the women of his court, the ladies with swans’ necks, who trod the dance on his castle’s floors. He liked well to see them dance and to hear them sing; he had once found pleasure in their fair bodies, when they were naked in his arms, but with none of them would his heart tonight lie down.
The King grieved for the sake of his dear soul, which he could not gladden. This burning love of his own soul belonged to his youth; it brought back spring nights of long ago. Then it had been but the yearning of an adolescent; now, that he knew the world, it ran all through him, a bitter ache. On the earth his soul had no friends. All other human beings, his peasants and barons, his soldiers and learned men, could find their equals, in whom to confide and with whom to rejoice, but who could cheer the soul of a king? The King lifted his thoughts to the Lord God in heaven. He must be as lonely as himself, lonelier maybe, inasmuch as he was a greater King.
Again he looked at the star, so high up, and pure as a diamond. “Ave Stella Maris,” he sighed, “Dei mater alma.” Amongst all the ladies who had walked on the earth, the Virgin alone would know and value his heart, and gracefully prize his adoration.
That old Jew, he reflected, must have seen the Virgin, and might have described her to him, had he questioned him. If he himself had been born so many hundred years earlier, he too might have travelled to the Holy Land, and have seen Mary with his own eyes. Would the young King of Denmark, then, have been a rival to the old King of Heaven? “No, no, Lord,” he whispered. “I should but have worn her glove on my helmet. I should but, my lance felled, have made my tall, grey, mail-clad horse walk by her ass, on that road to Egypt. You Yourself would have smiled down to me.”
How perfect might not, the King thought, the understanding between the Lord and himself, how sweet and genial might not their concord be, if only they were alone on the earth, with no other human beings to dim the perception by their vanity, their ambition and their envy. “O Lord, it is time,” the King thought, “that I should turn away from them, that I should throw off everybody that stands in the way of the happiness of my soul. Of that only will I think. I will save my soul; I will feel it rejoice once more.”
At that moment it was to him as if a bell were ringing in the summer night, which no one but he could hear. Its waves of sound enclosed him, as the sea a drowning man. The King rose on his knees in his bed and lifted up his face. He knew and understood everything. He saw that his loneliness was his strength, for he himself was all the earth.
The sound withdrew. A long time after, as he lay still with his hands folded upon his breast, the King saw, by the paleness of the sky, that it was not long till morning. The star that he had first watched had moved upwards, to the window-frame. A cold current ran through the world, so that he drew the silken cover of his bed to his chin; the dew was falling. He heard the first three or four chirping notes of the yellow-hammer in the top of a tree; soon the other birds would follow; in a little while he would hear the cuckoo from the woods. The King fell asleep.
In the morning when his valets came to wake up and dress the King, it rained. As the King now woke up, he had in his mind his father’s old Wendish thrall, Granze. Perhaps he had dreamed of him in the last light sleep of the night, and the sound of the rain had brought on the dream, for he had still in his car the whisper of waves running over pebbles. This old thrall’s father had been brought to Denmark from the island of Rugen, as a child, by the great Bishop Absalon himself. In all his life he had known no one of his own tribe. He was as old as the salt sea, but with the Wends, the King reflected, years did not count as with Christian people; they lived forever. Twenty years ago the thrall had been his own best friend. They had passed many days by the seaside, and the Wend had taught him to set bow-nets and to spear eels by torchlight. Now they had not met for a long time. But he knew that the old hermit was still alive, and dwelt in a hut by the sea. He would ride down, he thought, and see the thrall once more. Granze had been the beginning of his life, as he remembered it; it was befitting that he should now come into it again. The Wend had knowledge of many things ignored by the King’s Danish subjects.
All his thoughts of the night were in the King’s mind; he was strong, easy at heart and calm. But in the light of the day he did not dwell upon them. He had done with musing, and knew his way. Yes, he was himself the way, the truth and the life.
The King let his valet hang his heavy, richly folded, blue and rust-coloured mantle, inwoven with leaves and birds, over his shoulders. But while his page was buckling on his spurs, news was brought him that the Priest Sune Pedersen had arrived from Paris. This to the King seemed a good omen. He sent for him. Sune Pedersen belonged to the Hvide family, a headstrong clan, amongst which were many of the King’s hardiest opponents. But the King and Sune, when they were boys, had been taught their letters together. Sune had stood half a head lower than the Prince, but he had been his equal in archery, horsemanship and falconry, and he was
a quick, keen scholar. He was a loyal friend to his friends and afraid of nothing. Now he had been away for five years to study in Paris, and from time to time the King had been told of his progress and fine prospects there.
Sune came in, still in his black travelling clothes, half clerical, half cavalier, and bent his knee to the King, but the King lifted him up, and kissed him on both cheeks. Sune Pedersen was an elegant and frank young priest with white hands. His clothes sat well on him; his small fresh red mouth wore a quiet and gay smile. He had a melodious voice, and spoke in his old artless Danish manner; only now and then he introduced a French word in his speech. He began by complimenting the King on improvements in the churches of Denmark, and conveyed greetings from great prelates in Paris. He was the bearer of a present to the King from Matthew of Vendôme, a relic set in a chased gold cross, but was to hand it over later, in the presence of the dignitaries of the Church of Denmark.
As they talked, the King’s first Scribe came in and brought him a list of the lords and churchmen waiting to see him. The King let his eyes run over the paper. These were the men who had disturbed the peace of his soul, and who had set themselves against the will of the King of Denmark. Why had he let it be so? A faint pang ran through him, as if he had, at some time, given over a noble horse to be ridden by a coarse groom. He stood for a while sunk in thought. This paper catalogued a row of proud Danish heads. All the same they could be bent, and all the same they could fall. He handed the paper to the Scribe and sent word by him that he would see nobody today; he would ride out. The Queen sent a message with her chamberlain; she was upset because her favourite lap dog was sick, and asked the King to come and look at it. The King replied that he would come the next day.
The King told Sune to ride with him. Sune had known Granze in old time, and smiled at the recollection. The King, too, smiled. The memories that he had in common with Sune, he reflected, were all bright, as if clearly illuminated; those connected with the Wend belonged to earlier days, when he had hardly been conscious of himself or of the world. They stirred dully in the dark, and smelled of seaweeds and mussels. The smile remained on his face as he let his thoughts wander on. If he was to have one of the two set to death, which head would have to fall—the old dark knaggy skull, or this young, gracefully tonsured head? He asked Sune whether he must produce an ambler for him to ride on. Sune replied that he would still venture himself on any horse from the King’s stables. But he had brought fresh horses with him. He had not come straight from France, but had laid his way by Jutland, to visit his kinsmen. The King frowned, then smiled again. Soon the King and Sune were riding through the castle-court, and the gateway together, and the watchman upon the gallery blew his horn. Three of the King’s grooms, Sune’s servant and a dog boy, clattered behind them, and the King let his favourite stag-hound bitch, Blanzeflor, run by his stirrup.
They rode through the forest. In the dripping-wet woods, the young leaves were still soft and slack, silky, less like leaves than like petals, and drooping in the sweet forest-air like seaweeds in deep water. Under the tree-crowns the forest-road was filled with translucent clarity, and with the live, bitter fragrance of fresh foliage and flowers of maple trees and poplars. In the fine drizzling rain the birds sang on all sides; the stockdove was cooing in the high branches as they rode beneath them. Once a fox crossed the winding road in front of them, stopped a second and gazed at the riders, his brush on the ground, then slid off, like a small red flame extinguished in the wet ferns.
The King questioned Sune Pedersen on life in Paris, and Sune answered freely and gaily. The splendour of the university, he said, was perhaps not what it had been a hundred years ago, in the days of Abelard and Peter of Lombardy, but their spirit was still upon it, and shone from it. You could not, he went on, till you had been to Paris, fully know what it is to walk in light, in the illumination of the great sciences and arts. Also the independence of the university had lately been confirmed by the papal bull of Parens Scientiarum. He turned to talk of the King of France and his Court. King Philip was a mighty huntsman. Sune himself, with a noble young English priest, his friend, had been to the King’s castle of St. Germain, and there had witnessed a hunt. He described in detail the run, the horses and the hounds. And the French ladies, he said, were as bold in the saddle as the men. Was it true, the King asked him, what was said of the loveliness of those ladies of France? Yes, Sune replied, for as much as an ecclesiastic could tell him of it, they were lovely, noble, pious and accomplished, as sweet as melodies in their talk and manners. Above them all shone young Queen Mary of Brabant, a white lily. She had much influence with the King, her husband, and was, so everyone hoped, going to break down the scandalous power of Pierre la Brosse, on whom the King lavished land and honours. Pierre paid him back in an ill way, for it was believed that he had tried to poison young Prince Louis, the King’s eldest son.
“Such is the way of the world,” said the King. “Loyalty is a rare thing for a king to find, if it exists at all.” “Yes, indeed, that is so, my lord,” said Sune. “What loyalty will the King of France find as long as he favours a bondsman, his father’s barber, before his born lieges?”
Again Sune talked of the churches of Paris. He described to the King the Sainted Chapel that had been built by King Louis. It was in very truth saintly and glorious, like paradise. A sadness fell upon Sune himself as he spoke. He broke off his narration and rode in silence. This green wood of Sealand—he had seen it in his dreams many times, and had thought it lovelier than all the cathedrals of France. Yet now that he was riding through it once more, in the gentle rain, his heart misgave him; he yearned for Paris and for something that was not here. He repeated: “Like paradise.”
“Tell me, Sime,” said the King, “is it by the will of the Lord that mankind cannot be happy, but must ever be longing for the things which they have not, and which, maybe, are nowhere to be found? The beasts and the birds are at ease on this earth. May it not, then, be good enough for the human beings whom God has set within it: the peasants who complain of their hard lot, the great lords, who do never get enough, and the young priests who sigh for paradise, in the green woods? Might not man—might not, after all, one man out of them all—be in such understanding with the Lord as to say: ‘I have solved the riddle of this our life. I have made the earth my own, and I am happy with her’?”
“My lord,” said Sune, and while he spoke he patted his horse’s neck, “that is the old cry of mankind. For a thousand years men have lamented to God in heaven: ‘You have made the earth, O Lord, and you have made man, but you know not what it is to be one of us. We cannot reconcile the conditions of the earth with the nature of our hearts, such as You Yourself have created them within us. We do not find here the peace, or the justice, or the happiness, for which we yearn. It is an everlasting schism and we can bear it no longer. Impart to us, at least, Your plan with the world and with ourselves, give us the solution to the riddle of this life.’ They caught the ear of the Lord. He meditated upon their complaint, and He asked the good angels, who are sent everywhere to watch the ways of man: ‘Is it indeed as hard on my people of the earth as they make it out?’ The angels answered: ‘It is indeed hard on Your people of the earth.’ The Lord thought: ‘It is unsafe to rely on the statement of servants. I have taken pity on man. I will go down and see for myself.’ And God assumed the shape and likeness of man, and went down to earth. At that the good angels rejoiced, and said to one another: ‘See, the Lord has taken pity on man. Now he will at last show these poor ignorant and unwitty mortals the way to be prosperous, happy and in harmony there, even as we are in our heaven. Now we shall see, on our ways on earth, no more tears.’ Thirty-three years passed by, which to the inmates of paradise are but as one hour. Then the Lord again ascended to his throne, and called his angels around him. They came flying from all sides, eager for news. The Lord looked younger than they had ever seen Him, resplendent and grave; as He lifted his hand to speak, the angels saw that it was pierced throu
gh. ‘Aye, I have come back from the earth, my angels,’ He said, ‘and I now know the conditions and modes of man; no one knows them better than I. I had taken pity on man, and resolved to help him. I have not rested until I had fulfilled my promise. I have now reconciled the heart of man with the conditions of the earth. I have shown this poor and unwitty creature the way to become reviled and persecuted; I have shown him how to get himself spat upon and scourged; I have taught him how to get himself hung upon a cross. I have given to man that solution of his riddle, that he begged of me; I have consigned to him his salvation.’ ”
The King at first had not listened, for he was riding in his own thoughts. As Sune advanced in his tale, however, he listened with half an ear, and laughed in his heart. Not in vain, he reflected, had Sune visited his kinsmen, his own great liegemen at Møllerup and Hald: the little young divine, his schoolfellow, meant to prove to the King of Denmark that humility is a godlike virtue. This was the way of your friends: they rode by your side, but had their own designs in their hearts. But Sune’s voice, as he talked, was sweetly modulated, mellifluous and measured, pleasant to the ear of the King. He thought: “Nay, I shall do Sune no harm. On the contrary, I shall not let him go back to Paris, but shall keep him with me, so that he may tell me such tales as I hear from no one else. I shall keep both him and Granze with me, and both shall serve me!”
