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1、1TheTheWindWindTellsTellsAboutAboutWaldemarWaldemarDaaDaaandandHisHisDaughterDaughters sWhen the wind sweeps across the grass,the field has a ripple like a pond,and whenit sweeps across the corn the field waves to and fro like a high sea.That is calledthe winds dance;but the wind does not dance only
2、,he also tells stories;and howloudly he can sing out of his deep chest,and how different it sounds in the tree-topsin the forest,and through the loopholes and clefts and cracks in walls!Do you seehow the wind drives the clouds up yonder,like a frightened flock of sheep?Do youhear how the wind howls
3、down here through the open valley,like a watchman blowinghis horn?With wonderful tones he whistles and screams down the chimney and intothe fireplace.The fire crackles and flares up,and shines far into the room,andthe little place is warm and snug,and it is pleasant to sit there listening to thesoun
4、ds.Let the wind speak,for he knows plenty of stories and fairy tales,manymore than are known to any of us.Just hear what the wind can tell.Huh-uh-ush!roar along!That is the burden of the song.By the shores of the Great Belt,one of the straits that unite the Cattegut withthe Baltic,lies an old mansio
5、n with thick red walls,says the Wind.I know everystone in it;I saw it when it still belonged to the castle of Marsk Stig on thepromontory.But it had to be pulled down,and the stone was used again for the wallsof a new mansion in another place,the baronial mansion of Borreby,which still standsby the
6、coast.I knew them,the noble lords and ladies,the changing races that dwelt there,andnow Im going to tell about Waldemar Daa and his daughters.How proudly he carriedhimself-he was of royal blood!He could do more than merely hunt the stag and emptythe wine-can.It _shall_ be done,he was accustomed to s
7、ay.His wife walked proudly in gold-embroidered garments over the polished marblefloors.The tapestries were gorgeous,the furniture was expensive and artisticallycarved.She had brought gold and silver plate with her into the house,and therewas German beer in the cellar.Black fiery horses neighed in th
8、e stables.There wasa wealthy look about the house of Borreby at that time,when wealth was still athome there.Four children dwelt there also;three delicate maidens,Ida,Joanna,and AnnaDorothea:I have never forgotten their names.They were rich people,noble people,born in affluence,nurtured in affluence
9、.Huh-sh!roar along!sang the Wind;and then he continued:I did not see here,as in other great noble houses,the high-born lady sitting amongher women in the great hall turning the spinning-wheel:here she swept the soundingchords of the cithern,and sang to the sound,but not always old Danish melodies,bu
10、t songs of a strange land.It was live and let live here:stranger guests camefrom far and near,the music sounded,the goblets clashed,and I was not able todrown the noise,said the Wind.Ostentation,and haughtiness,and splendour,anddisplay,and rule were there,but the fear of the Lord was not there.2And
11、it was just on the evening of the first day of May,the Wind continued.Icame from the west,and had seen how the ships were being crushed by the waves,withall on board,and flung on the west coast of Jutland.I had hurried across the heath,and over Jutlands wood-girt eastern coast,and over the Island of
12、 Fuenen,and nowI drove over the Great Belt,groaning and sighing.Then I lay down to rest on the shore of Seeland,in the neighbourhood of the greathouse of Borreby,where the forest,the splendid oak forest,still rose.The young men-servants of the neighbourhood were collecting branches and brushwoodunde
13、r the oak trees;the largest and driest they could find they carried into thevillage,and piled them up in a heap,and set them on fire;and men and maids danced,singing in a circle round the blazing pile.I lay quite quiet,continued the Wind;but I silently touched a branch,whichhad been brought by the h
14、andsomest of the men-servants,and the wood blazed upbrightly,blazed up higher than all the rest;and now he was the chosen one,andbore the name the Street-goat,and might choose his Street-lamb first from amongthe maids;and there was mirth and rejoicing,greater than I had ever heard beforein the halls
15、 of the rich baronial mansion.And the noble lady drove towards the baronial mansion,with her three daughters,in a gilded carriage drawn by six horses.The daughters were young and fair-threecharming blossoms,rose,lily,and pale hyacinth.The mother was a proud tulip,andnever acknowledged the salutation
16、 of one of the men or maids who paused in theirsport to do her honour:the gracious lady seemed a flower that was rather stiff inthe stalk.Rose,lily,and pale hyacinth;yes,I saw them all three!Whose lambkins will theyone day become?thought I;their Street-goat will be a gallant knight,perhaps aprince.H
17、uh-sh!hurry along!hurry along!Yes,the carriage rolled on with them,and the peasant people resumed their dancing.They rode that summer through all the villages round about.But in the night,whenI rose again,said the Wind,the very noble lady lay down,to rise again no more:that thing came upon her which
18、 comes upon all-there is nothing new in that.Waldemar Daa stood for a space silent and thoughtful.The proudest tree can bebowed without being broken,said a voice within him.His daughters wept,and allthe people in the mansion wiped their eyes;but Lady Daa had driven away-and I droveaway too,and rushe
19、d along,huh-sh!said the Wind.*I returned again;I often returned again over the Island of Fuenen,and the shoresof the Belt,and I sat down by Borreby,by the splendid oak wood;there the heronmade his nest,and wood-pigeons haunted the place,and blue ravens,and even theblack stork.It was still spring;som
20、e of them were yet sitting on their eggs,othershad already hatched their young.But how they flew up,how they cried!The axe sounded,blow on blow:the wood was to be felled.Waldemar Daa wanted to build a noble ship,a man-of-war,a three-decker,which the king would be sure to buy;and thereforethe wood mu
21、st be felled,the landmark of the seamen,the refuge of the birds.Thehawk started up and flew away,for its nest was destroyed;the heron and all the3birds of the forest became homeless,and flew about in fear and in anger:I couldwell understand how they felt.Crows and ravens croaked aloud as if in scorn
22、.Crack,crack!the nest cracks,cracks,cracks!Far in the interior of the wood,where the noisy swarm of labourers were working,stood Waldemar Daa and his three daughters;and all laughed at the wild cries ofthe birds;only one,the youngest,Anna Dorothea,felt grieved in her heart;andwhen they made preparat
23、ions to fell a tree that was almost dead,and on whose nakedbranches the black stork had built his nest,whence the little storks were stretchingout their heads,she begged for mercy for the little things,and tears came intoher eyes.Therefore the tree with the black storks nest was left standing.The tr
24、eewas not worth speaking of.There was a great hewing and sawing,and a three-decker was built.The architectwas of low origin,but of great pride;his eyes and forehead told how clever he was,and Waldemar Daa was fond of listening to him,and so was Waldemars daughter Ida,the eldest,who was now fifteen y
25、ears old;and while he built a ship for the father,he was building for himself an airy castle,into which he and Ida were to go as amarried couple-which might indeed have happened,if the castle with stone walls,and ramparts,and moats had remained.But in spite of his wise head,the architectremained but
26、 a poor bird;and,indeed,what business has a sparrow to take part ina dance of peacocks?Huh-sh!I careered away,and he careered away too,for he wasnot allowed to stay;and little Ida got over it,because she was obliged to get overit.The proud black horses were neighing in the stable;they were worth loo
27、king at,and accordingly they _were_ looked at.The admiral,who had been sent by the kinghimself to inspect the new ship and take measures for its purchase,spoke loudlyin admiration of the beautiful horses.I heard all that,said the Wind.I accompanied the gentlemen through the opendoor,and strewed blad
28、es of straw like bars of gold before their feet.Waldemar Daawanted to have gold,and the admiral wished for the proud black horses,and thatis why he praised them so much;but the hint was not taken,and consequently theship was not bought.It remained on the shore covered over with boards,a Noahsark tha
29、t never got to the water-Huh-sh!rush away!away!-and that was a pity.In the winter,when the fields were covered with snow,and the water with largeblocks of ice that I blew up on to the coast,continued the Wind,crows and ravenscame,all as black as might be,great flocks of them,and alighted on the dead
30、,deserted,lonely ship by the shore,and croaked in hoarse accents of the wood thatwas no more,of the many pretty birds nests destroyed,and the little ones leftwithout a home;and all for the sake of that great bit of lumber,that proud shipthat never sailed forth.I made the snow-flakes whirl,and the sn
31、ow lay like a great lake high around theship,and drifted over it.I let it hear my voice,that it might know what a stormhas to say.Certainly I did my part towards teaching it seamanship.Huh-sh!pushalong!4And the winter passed away;winter and summer,both passed away,and they are stillpassing away,even
32、 as I pass away;as the snow whirls along,and the apple blossomwhirls along,and the leaves fall-away!away!away!and men are passing away too!But the daughters were still young,and little Ida was a rose,as fair to look uponas on the day when the architect saw her.I often seized her long brown hair,when
33、she stood in the garden by the apple tree,musing,and not heeding how I strewedblossoms on her hair,and loosened it,while she was gazing at the red sun and thegolden sky,through the dark underwood and the trees of the garden.Her sister was bright and slender as a lily.Joanna had height and deportment
34、,butwas like her mother,rather stiff in the stalk.She was very fond of walking throughthe great hall,where hung the portraits of her ancestors.The women were paintedin dresses of silk and velvet,with a tiny little hat,embroidered with pearls,ontheir plaited hair.They were handsome women.The gentleme
35、n were represented cladin steel,or in costly cloaks lined with squirrels skin;they wore little ruffs,and swords at their sides,but not buckled to their hips.Where would Joannas picturefind its place on that wall some day?and how would _he_ look,her noble lord andhusband?This is what she thought of,a
36、nd of this she spoke softly to herself.Iheard it,as I swept into the long hall,and turned round to come out again.Anna Dorothea,the pale hyacinth,a child of fourteen,was quiet and thoughtful;her great deep blue eyes had a musing look,but the childlike smile still playedaround her lips:I was not able
37、 to blow it away,nor did I wish to do so.We met in the garden,in the hollow lane,in the field and meadow;she gatheredherbs and flowers which she knew would be useful to her father in concocting thedrinks and drops he distilled.Waldemar Daa was arrogant and proud,but he was alsoa learned man,and knew
38、 a great deal.That was no secret,and many opinions wereexpressed concerning it.In his chimney there was fire even in summer time.He wouldlock the door of his room,and for days the fire would be poked and raked;but ofthis he did not talk much-the forces of nature must be conquered in silence;andsoon
39、he would discover the art of making the best thing of all-the red gold.That is why the chimney was always smoking,therefore the flames crackled sofrequently.Yes,I was there too,said the Wind.Let it go,I sang down throughthe chimney:it will end in smoke,air,coals and ashes!You will burn yourself!Hu-u
40、h-ush!drive away!drive away!But Waldemar Daa did _not_ drive it away.The splendid black horses in the stable-what became of them?what became of theold gold and silver vessels in cupboards and chests,the cows in the fields,andthe house and home itself?Yes,they may melt,may melt in the golden crucible
41、,andyet yield no gold.Empty grew the barns and store-rooms,the cellars and magazines.The servantsdecreased in number,and the mice multiplied.Then a window broke,and then another,and I could get in elsewhere besides at the door,said the Wind.Where the chimneysmokes the meal is being cooked,the prover
42、b says.But here the chimney smoked thatdevoured all the meals,for the sake of the red gold.I blew through the courtyard-gate like a watchman blowing his horn,the Wind wenton,but no watchman was there.I twirled the weathercock round on the summit of5the tower,and it creaked like the snoring of the wa
43、rder,but no warder was there;only mice and rats were there.Poverty laid the tablecloth;poverty sat in thewardrobe and in the larder;the door fell off its hinges,cracks and fissures madetheir appearance,and I went in and out at pleasure;and that is how I know all aboutit.Amid smoke and ashes,amid sor
44、row and sleepless nights,the hair and beard of themaster turned grey,and deep furrows showed themselves around his temples;his skinturned pale and yellow,as his eyes looked greedily for the gold,the desired gold.I blew the smoke and ashes into his face and beard:the result of his labour wasdebt inst
45、ead of pelf.I sung through the burst window-panes and the yawning cleftsin the walls.I blew into the chests of drawers belonging to the daughters,whereinlay the clothes that had become faded and threadbare from being worn over and overagain.That was not the song that had been sung at the childrens c
46、radle.The lordlylife had changed to a life of penury.I was the only one who rejoiced aloud in thatcastle,said the Wind.I snowed them up,and they say snow keeps people warm.Theyhad no wood,and the forest from which they might have brought it was cut down.Itwas a biting frost.I rushed in through looph
47、oles and passages,over gables and roofs,that I might be brisk.They were lying in bed because of the cold,the three high-borndaughters;and their father was crouching under his leathern coverlet.Nothing tobite,nothing to break,no fire on the hearth-there was a life for high-born people!Huh-sh,let it g
48、o!But that is what my Lord Daa could _not_ do-he could _not_ letit go.After winter comes spring,he said.After want,good times will come:one mustnot lose patience;one must learn to wait!Now my house and lands are mortgaged,it is indeed high time;and the gold will soon come.At Easter!I heard how he sp
49、oke thus,looking at a spiders web.Thou cunning little weaver,thou dost teach me perseverance.Let them tear thy web,and thou wilt begin it again,and complete it.Let them destroy it again,and thou wilt resolutely begin to workagain-again!That is what we must do,and that will repay itself at last.It wa
50、s the morning of Easter-day.The bells sounded from the neighbouring church,and the sun seemed to rejoice in the sky.The master had watched through the nightin feverish excitement,and had been melting and cooling,distilling and mixing.I heard him sighing like a soul in despair;I heard him praying,and