Kabanata Kabanata 16 · The Dream of Little Tuk

. The Dream of Little Tuk

Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but that

was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant it for

Charles, and it is all well enough if one does but know it. He had now

to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much younger than

himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same time; but

these two things would not do together at all. There sat the poor little

fellow, with his sister on his lap, and he sang to her all the songs he

knew; and he glanced the while from time to time into the geography-book

that lay open before him. By the next morning he was to have learnt

all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know about them all that is

possible to be known.

His mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little Augusta

on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly that he

pretty nearly read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker, but his

mother had no money to buy a candle.

“There goes the old washerwoman over the way,” said his mother, as she

looked out of the window. “The poor woman can hardly drag herself along,

and she must now drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy,

Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won't you?”

So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again into

the room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no thought of

such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead;

in it he lay and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand, and

of all that his master had told him. He ought, to be sure, to have read

over his lesson again, but that, you know, he could not do. He therefore

put his geography-book under his pillow, because he had heard that was

a very good thing to do when one wants to learn one's lesson; but one

cannot, however, rely upon it entirely. Well, there he lay, and thought

and thought, and all at once it was just as if someone kissed his eyes

and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not sleep; it was as though the old

washerwoman gazed on him with her mild eyes and said, “It were a great

sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided

me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at all

times.” And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping

and scratching.

“Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!”--that was an old hen who came creeping

along, and she was from Kjoge. “I am a Kjoger hen,” [*] said she, and then

she related how many inhabitants there were there, and about the battle

that had taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth talking

about.

* Kjoge, a town in the bay of Kjoge. “To see the Kjoge

hens,” is an expression similar to “showing a child London,”

which is said to be done by taking his head in both bands,

and so lifting him off the ground. At the invasion of the

English in 1807, an encounter of a no very glorious nature

took place between the British troops and the undisciplined

Danish militia.

“Kribledy, krabledy--plump!” down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird,

the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that

there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he

was very proud. “Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* Plump! Here

I lie capitally.”

* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some hundred paces from

it lies the manor-house Ny Soe, where Thorwaldsen, the famed sculptor,

generally sojourned during his stay in Denmark, and where he called many

of his immortal works into existence.

But little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he was on

horseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping on and on. A

knight with a gleaming plume, and most magnificently dressed, held him

before him on the horse, and thus they rode through the wood to the old

town of Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town. High

towers rose from the castle of the king, and the brightness of many

candles streamed from all the windows; within was dance and song,

and King Waldemar and the young, richly-attired maids of honor danced

together. The morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the whole

town and the king's palace crumbled together, and one tower after the

other; and at last only a single one remained standing where the castle

had been before,* and the town was so small and poor, and the school

boys came along with their books under their arms, and said, “2000

inhabitants!” but that was not true, for there were not so many.

*Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar, a considerable place, now

an unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains of

a wall, show where the castle once stood.

And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed, and

yet as if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside him.

“Little Tukey! Little Tukey!” cried someone near. It was a seaman,

quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a

midshipman it was not.

“Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising

into importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches:

formerly people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on

the sea,” said Corsor; “I have high roads and gardens, and I have given

birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all poets are not. I

once intended to equip a ship that was to sail all round the earth; but

I did not do it, although I could have done so: and then, too, I smell

so deliciously, for close before the gate bloom the most beautiful

roses.”

*Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction

of steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time

for a favorable wind, “the most tiresome of towns.” The poet Baggesen

was born here.

Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as

soon as the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden there

appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above stood a

magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out the

hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that there

was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king with

a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the

fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up

the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of Denmark,

hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and

the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. “Do not forget the

diet,” said King Hroar.*

*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from

King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful

cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are

interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble.

Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him

just as if one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an

old peasant-woman, who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the

market-place. She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and

back: it was so wet, it certainly must have been raining. “Yes, that it

has,” said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's

comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered

together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she

looked as she were going to make a spring. “Croak! croak!” said she.

“It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in

Sorbe!” She was now suddenly a frog, “Croak”; and now she was an old

woman. “One must dress according to the weather,” said she. “It is wet;

it is wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck,

and by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the

finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the

bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek--Croak!”

* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by

woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy

for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed

professors here. The latter lives there still.

When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one

walked with great boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform

and so tiring that little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by

the bye, could not do him any harm.

But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his

little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair,

was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings was yet

able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green woods and the

blue lakes.

“Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are

flying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very

large! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the

world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt itself

like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with marble

statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your name

shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the ship that

was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde--”

“Do not forget the diet!” said King Hroar.

“Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last you

sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly--”

“As if I lay in Soroe,” said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he was

now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not at

all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring.

And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he

knew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at the

door, nodded to him friendly, and said, “Thanks, many thanks, my good

child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your loveliest

dream!”

Little Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving God

knew it.