He set off on the new highway and saw Johanna coming with a load of manure. She hadn’t seen him, and he didn’t want her to see him. He sat down behind the hedge along the ditch. He was hidden there, and Johanna drove past.
Into the wide world he went. No one knew where. His mother thought he would return before the year was out. He would see new things and have new things to think about, and would fall into his old groove that couldn’t be pressed out with any iron. “He has a little too much of his father’s temperament. I would rather he had mine, poor child! But he’ll surely come home. He can’t let go of me and the house.”
His mother would wait for ages. Else only waited for a month, and then she secretly visited the wise woman Stine Madsdatter, who did “doctoring,” and could tell fortunes in cards and coffee grounds and knew more than the Lord’s Prayer. And she knew where Rasmus was. She read it in the coffee grounds. He was in a foreign city, but she couldn’t make out the name of it. There were soldiers and lovely young maidens in that city, and he was deciding whether to take up a musket or one of the girls.
Else couldn’t stand hearing that. She would gladly use her savings to ransom him, but no one must know it was her.
And old Stine promised that he would come back. She knew a magic remedy, a dangerous one for the person concerned, but it was a last resort. She would set the pot to cooking for him, and then he would have to come. No matter where in the world he was, he would have to come home, home to where the pot was cooking and his sweetheart was waiting for him. It could take months for him to come, but come he must, if he was still alive.
Night and day without peace or rest he had to travel over sea and mountains, whether the weather was fair or foul, no matter how tired his feet were. He was going home. He had to go home.
The moon was in its first quarter, and that’s how it had to be for the magic to work, said old Stine. The weather was stormy, so the old willow tree creaked. Stine cut off a branch, and tied it into a knot. This was going to help pull Rasmus home to his mother’s house. Moss and house leeks were taken from the roof and placed into the pot that was put on the fire. Else had to tear a page from a hymnal, and as it happened she tore out the last one, the one with the printing errors. “It’s all the same,” said Stine and threw it into the pot.
Many things had to go into that porridge, and it had to boil and keep boiling until Rasmus came home. Old Stine’s black rooster had to lose its red comb. It went in the pot. Else’s thick golden ring went in, and Stine told her ahead of time that she’d never get it back. That Stine was so wise! Many things that we can’t even name went into the pot. It stood on the fire continuously, or on glowing embers or hot ash. Only she and Else knew about it.
A new moon came and then waned. Every time Else came and asked, “Can you see him coming?”
“I know a great deal,” said Stine, “and I see a great deal, but I can’t see how long his road is. He’s been over the first range of mountains. He’s been on the sea in bad weather. His road is long through big forests. He has blisters on his feet, and fever in his body, but he must walk.”
“No! No!” cried Else. “I’m so sorry for him!”
“He can’t be stopped now. If we do that, he’ll fall over dead on the road.”
A long time passed. The moon was shining round and huge and the wind sighed in the old tree, and in the sky there was a rainbow in the moonlight.
“That is a sign of confirmation!” said Stine. “Now Rasmus is coming.”
But still he didn’t come.
“It’s a long wait,” said Stine.
“I’m tired of this,” said Else. She came less often to Stine and didn’t bring her any new presents.
She became happier, and one fine morning everyone in the district knew that she had accepted the rich farmer.
She went over there to look at the farm and fields, the cattle and the furniture. Everything was in good shape, and there was no reason to delay the wedding.
It was celebrated for three days with a huge party. There was dancing to the music of clarinets and violins. Everyone in the district was invited. Mother Ølse was there too, and when the festivities were over, and the hosts had said good bye to the guests, and the final fanfare was blown by the trumpets, she went home with leftovers from the feast.
She had only locked the door with a latch, and it was unhooked. The door stood open, and in the room sat Rasmus. He had come home, only just arrived. But dear God, what he looked like! He was just skin and bones, his skin pale and yellow.
“Rasmus!” said his mother. “Is it you? How seedy you look! But my soul is so happy to have you back.”
And she gave him the good food she had brought home from the feast, a piece of roast, and a piece of the wedding cake.
He said that lately he had thought often of his mother, his home, and the old willow tree. It was odd how often in his dreams he had seen that tree and barefooted Johanna.
He didn’t mention Else at all. He was sick and took to his bed. But we don’t believe that the pot was at fault in this, or that it had had any power over him. Only old Stine and Else believed that, but they didn’t talk about it.
Rasmus had a fever, and his illness was contagious. No one came to the tailor’s house except Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter. She cried when she saw how miserable Rasmus was.
The doctor gave him a prescription, but he wouldn’t take the medicine. “What good does it do?” he said.
“It will make you better,” said his mother. “Have faith in yourself and the Lord. I would gladly give my life if I could see a little meat on your bones again, and hear you whistle and sing.”
And Rasmus recovered from his illness, but his mother caught it. The Lord called her and not him.
It was lonely in the house, and it became a poorer place. “He’s worn-out,” they said in the district. “Poor Rasmus.”
He had carried on a wild life in his travels, and it was that, and not the boiling black pot that had sucked the strength out of him and made him restless. His hair grew thin and grey, and he couldn’t be bothered to engage in anything. “What good does it do?” he said. He was more often at the pub than in the pew.
One autumn evening he was walking with difficulty on the muddy road from the pub to his house, through rain and wind. His mother was long gone and buried. The swallows and starlings were gone too, those faithful creatures. But Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was not gone. She caught up with him on the road and walked along with him for a while.
“Pull yourself together, Rasmus!”
“What good does it do?” he said.
“That’s a bad motto you have,” she said. “Remember your mother’s words: Have faith in yourself and the Lord! You aren’t doing that, Rasmus, but you must and shall! Never say ‘What good does it do?’ because then you uproot all possible action.”
She walked with him to his door, and then she left. He didn’t go inside but headed for the old willow tree and sat down on a rock from the toppled milestone.
The wind sighed through the branches of the tree. It was like a song; it was like a story, and Rasmus answered. He spoke aloud, but no one heard except the tree and the sighing wind.
“Such a chill has come over me. It must be time to go to bed. Sleep! Sleep!”
And he went, not towards the house, but towards the pond where he staggered and fell. The rain was pouring down, and the wind was icy cold, but he didn’t notice. When the sun came up and the crows flew over the reeds in the pond, he woke up, half-dead. If he had laid his head where his feet were lying, he would never have gotten up. The green duckweed would have been his shroud.
During the day Johanna came to the tailor’s house. She helped him and got him to the hospital.
“We have known each other since childhood,” she said. “Your mother gave me both food and drink, and I can never pay her back. You’ll get your health back and really live again.”
And the Lord wanted him to live. But both his he
alth and spirits had their ups and downs.
The swallows and starlings came and flew away and came again. Rasmus became old before his time. He sat alone in his house, which fell more and more into disrepair. He was poor, poorer than Johanna now.
“You don’t have faith,” she said, “and if we don’t have the Lord, what do we have then? You should go take Communion,” she said. “You probably haven’t done that since you were confirmed.”
“Yes, but what good does it do?” he said.
“If you say and believe that, then let it be. The Lord doesn’t want to see unwilling guests at his table. But just think about your mother and your childhood years. You were a good and pious boy. May I read a hymn for you?”
“What good does it do?” he asked.
“It always comforts me,” she answered.
“Johanna, I guess you’ve become a saint!” And he looked at her with dull, tired eyes.
And Johanna read the hymn, but not from a book. She didn’t have one. She knew the hymn by heart.
“Those were beautiful words,” he said, “but I couldn’t quite follow it. My head is so heavy.”
Rasmus became an old man, but Else, if we can mention her, wasn’t young any longer either. Rasmus never talked about her. She was a grandmother, and had a little talkative granddaughter who was playing with the other children in the village. Rasmus came and leaned on his cane and stood watching the children play. He smiled at them, and old times shone in his memory. Else’s grandchild pointed at him—“Poor Rasmus!” she yelled. The other little girls followed her example and shouted, “Poor Rasmus!” They ran shouting after the old man.
It was a grey, oppressive day and more followed, but after grey and heavy days comes a day of sunshine.
It was a beautiful Whit Sunday. The church was decorated with green birch branches. It smelled like the forest in the church, and the sun shone over the pews. The big candles on the altar were lit, and there was communion. Johanna was among the kneeling, but Rasmus was not among them. Just that morning the Lord had called him, and with God he found mercy and compassion.
Many years have passed since then. The tailor’s house is still standing there, but no one lives there now. It could collapse in the first storm in the night. The pond is overgrown with reeds and bog beans. The wind sighs in the old tree. It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house.
She lives there and sings her hymn, the one she sang for Rasmus. She thinks about him and prays to the Lord for him, that faithful soul. She can tell about the times that are past, and the memories that sigh in the old tree.
NOTE
1 Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844).
SHE WAS NO GOOD
THE MAYOR STOOD BY the open window. He was wearing a dress shirt with French cuffs, and a pin in the frilled neck piece. He was very well shaven, had done it himself, but he had nicked himself so that a little piece of newspaper was covering the cut.
“Say you!—Boy!” he shouted.
And the boy was none other than the washerwoman’s son, who was passing by and respectfully took off his cap. The brim was bent so it could go in his pocket. The boy stood there respectfully, as if he were standing before the king, in his simple and clean but well-patched clothes and big wooden shoes.
“You’re a good boy,” said the mayor. “You’re polite. I suppose your mother is washing clothes down by the river. That’s where you’re headed with what you have in your pocket. It’s a sad thing about your mother. How much have you got there?”
“Half a pint,” said the boy in a low, scared voice.
“And she had the same this morning,” said the man.
“No, it was yesterday,” the boy answered.
“Two halves make a whole! She’s no good! It’s a sad thing with that class of people. Tell your mother that she should be ashamed of herself! And don’t you become a drunkard, but you probably will!—Poor child!—go on now!”
And the boy went on. He kept his cap in his hand, and the wind blew his blond hair so that it stuck out in long wisps. He walked down the street, into the alley and down to the river where his mother stood out in the water by her washing bench, beating the heavy linen with her paddle. There was a current in the water because the sluices were open from the mill. The sheets were pulled by the current and almost knocked the bench over. The washerwoman had to push against it.
“I almost went for a sail!” she said, “It’s a good thing you came because I need a little something to build up my strength! It’s cold out here in the water. I’ve been standing here for six hours now. Have you got something for me?”
The boy took out the bottle, and his mother set it to her lips and took a gulp.
“Oh, that does me good! How it warms me up! It’s just as good as hot food, and not as expensive! Drink, my boy. You look so pale. You’re freezing in those thin clothes. It’s autumn, after all. Oh, the water is so cold. Just so I don’t get sick. But I won’t! Give me another swallow, and you drink too, but just a little bit. You mustn’t get dependent on it, my poor, pitiful boy.”
And she went over by the bridge where the boy was standing and climbed up on dry land. The water poured from the apron of rushes she had tied around her waist. Water was flowing from her skirts.
“I slave and toil and work my fingers to the bone, but it doesn’t matter, as long as I can honestly raise you, my sweet child!”
Just then an older woman came. She was poorly dressed and looked badly too. She was lame in one leg and had an enormously large false curl covering one eye. The curl was supposed to hide her eye, but it only made the defect more noticeable. She was a friend of the washerwoman. The neighbors called her “Gimpy-Maren with the Curl.”
“You poor thing, how you toil and slave standing in that cold water! You certainly need a little something to warm you up, but people begrudge you even the little drop you get!” And then the mayor’s words to the boy were repeated to the washerwoman because Maren had heard all of it, and it had annoyed her that he talked that way to the child about his mother, and the little she drank, when the mayor himself was having a big dinner party with bottles of wine in abundance. “Fine wines and strong wines! Many will more than quench their thirst, but that’s not drinking, oh no! And they’re just fine, but you’re no good!”
“So he’s been talking to you, my boy?” said the washerwoman, and her lips quivered. “You have a mother who’s no good! Maybe he’s right, but he shouldn’t say it to a child. I put up with a lot from those in that house.”
“That’s right, you worked there when the mayor’s parents lived there, didn’t you? It was many years ago. Many bushels of salt have been eaten since that time, so it’s no wonder we’re thirsty!” Maren laughed. “They’re having a big dinner today at the mayor’s. It should have been canceled, but it was too late because the food had been prepared. I heard about it from the yard boy. Just an hour ago a letter came with the news that the younger brother has died in Copenhagen.”
“Dead!” exclaimed the washerwoman and turned deathly pale.
“Oh my!” said the other woman, “You’re taking it rather to heart! Oh, you knew him, didn’t you, when you worked there?”
“Is he dead? He was the best, the most wonderful person! God won’t get many like him!” and the tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, my God. I’m getting dizzy! It must be because I emptied the flask. It was too much for me. I feel so sick!” And she leaned against the wooden fence.
“Dear God, you’re quite ill, dear!” said the woman. “Maybe it’ll pass though—No, you really are bad off. I’d better get you home.”
“But the clothes there—”
“I’ll take care of it. Take my arm. The boy can stay here and watch things in the meantime, and I’ll come back and wash the rest. There’s just a little bit left.”
And the washerwoman’s legs buckled under her.
<
br /> “I stood in the cold water too long, and I haven’t had anything to eat or drink since this morning. I have a fever. Oh, dear Jesus, help me home! My poor child!” and she cried.
The boy cried too and was soon sitting alone on the bank close to the wet clothes. The two women walked slowly, the washerwoman wobbling, up the alley, down the street, past the mayor’s house, and all at once she sank down on the cobblestones. People gathered around.
Gimpy-Maren ran into the house for help. The mayor and his guests looked out the windows.
“It’s the washerwoman,” he said. “She’s had a drop too much. She’s no good. It’s a real shame for that good-looking boy she has. I really like the little fellow, but his mother’s no good.”
She regained consciousness and was led to her humble home, where she was put to bed. Good-hearted Maren made her a bowl of warm beer with butter and sugar. She thought that would be the best medicine. Then she went back to the river and did some well-meant but half-hearted rinsing. She really only pulled the wet clothes to the shore and put them in a box.
In the evening she sat with the washerwoman in her humble room. She had gotten a couple of roasted potatoes and a lovely fatty piece of ham from the mayor’s cook for the sick woman. Maren and the boy enjoyed them. The sick woman was content with the smell. She said it was so nourishing.
The boy went to sleep in the same bed as his mother, but he had his spot crosswise at the foot of the bed. He had an old rug for a cover, sewn together from blue and red strips of cloth.
The washerwoman felt a little better. The warm beer had strengthened her, and the smell of the good food had helped.
“Thank you, you dear soul,” she said to Maren. “I want to tell you everything when the boy falls asleep. I think he’s already sleeping. Look how wonderful and sweet he looks with his eyes closed! He doesn’t know what his mother is going through. May God never let him experience it.—I was working for the Councilman, the mayor’s parents, and it happened that the youngest son came home, the student. I was young and wild in those days, but respectable, I swear to God,” said the washerwoman. “The student was so cheerful and gay, so wonderful! Every drop of his blood was honest and good! A better person has never walked the earth. He was a son of the house, and I was a servant, but we became sweethearts, chastely and with honor. A kiss is not a sin, after all, when you really love each other. And he told his mother. She was like God on earth to him, and so wise and loving. He went away, but he placed his gold ring on my finger. When he was gone, my mistress called me in. She spoke to me seriously but gently, like the Lord might do. She explained to me in spirit and in truth the gap between him and me. ‘Now he admires your beauty, but appearances will fade away! You haven’t been educated like him, and you aren’t on the same mental plane. That’s the problem. I have respect for the poor,’ she said. ‘They will perhaps have a higher standing with God in heaven than many rich people, but here on earth you can’t take the wrong road when you’re driving or the carriage will topple over, and you two would topple over! I know that a good man—a tradesman—Erik, the glove maker, has proposed to you. He’s a widower, has no children, and is well off. Think it over!’ Each word she spoke was like a knife in my heart, but she was right! And it crushed me and weighed on me. I kissed her hand and cried salty tears, and even more tears when I got to my room and lay on my bed. That night was a bad night. The Lord knows how I suffered and struggled! Then on Sunday I went to Communion, for guidance. It was like an act of Providence: as I left the church, I met Erik, the glove maker. Then there was no longer any doubt in my mind. We belonged together in position and circumstances. And he was quite well-off. So I went right over to him, took his hand, and asked, ‘Are you still thinking of me?’ ‘Yes, forever and always,’ he said. ‘Would you have a girl who respects and honors you, but doesn’t love you, although that might come?’ ‘It will come!’ he said, and we clasped hands. I went home to my mistress. I was carrying the gold ring that her son had given me against my bare breast. I couldn’t wear it on my finger during the day, only at night when I lay in my bed. I kissed the ring until my lips bled, and then I gave it to my mistress and told her that the next week the engagement between me and the glove maker would be announced at church. Then my mistress took me in her arms and kissed me—She didn’t say that I was no good, but in those days maybe I was better since I hadn’t yet experienced many of the world’s misfortunes. The wedding took place at Candlemas, and the first year went well. We had a journeyman and an apprentice, and you, Maren, worked for us.”
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen Page 52
