The Story of the Wind · page 21 2 3101I blew round the courtyard," said the Wind, "like a watchman blowing his home, but no watchman was there.102I twirled the weather-cock round on the summit of the tower, and it creaked like the snoring of a warder, but no warder was there; nothing but mice and rats.103Poverty laid the table-cloth; poverty sat in the wardrobe and in the larder.104The door fell off its hinges, cracks and fissures made their appearance everywhere; so that I could go in and out at pleasure, and that is how I know all about it.105Amid smoke and ashes, sorrow, and sleepless nights, the hair and beard of the master of the house turned gray, and deep furrows showed themselves around his temples; his skin turned pale and yellow, while his eyes still looked eagerly for gold, the longed-for gold, and the result of his labor was debt instead of gain.106I blew the smoke and ashes into his face and beard; I moaned through the broken window-panes, and the yawning clefts in the walls; I blew into the chests and drawers belonging to his daughters, wherein lay the clothes that had become faded and threadbare, from being worn over and over again.107Such a song had not been sung, at the children's cradle as I sung now.108The lordly life had changed to a life of penury.109I was the only one who rejoiced aloud in that castle," said the Wind. "110At last I snowed them up, and they say snow keeps people warm.111It was good for them, for they had no wood, and the forest, from which they might have obtained it, had been cut down.112The frost was very bitter, and I rushed through loop-holes and passages, over gables and roofs with keen and cutting swiftness.113The three high-born daughters were lying in bed because of the cold, and their father crouching beneath his leather coverlet.114Nothing to eat, nothing to burn, no fire on the hearth!115Here was a life for high-born people! '116Give it up, give it up!'117But my Lord Daa would not do that. '118After winter, spring will come,' he said, 'after want, good times.119We must not lose patience, we must learn to wait.120Now my horses and lands are all mortgaged, it is indeed high time; but gold will come at last--at Easter.'121"I heard him as he thus spoke; he was looking at a spider's web, and he continued, 'Thou cunning little weaver, thou dost teach me perseverance.122Let any one tear thy web, and thou wilt begin again and repair it.123Let it be entirely destroyed, thou wilt resolutely begin to make another till it is completed.124So ought we to do, if we wish to succeed at last.'125"It was the morning of Easter-day.126The bells sounded from the neighboring church, and the sun seemed to rejoice in the sky.127The master of the castle had watched through the night, in feverish excitement, and had been melting and cooling, distilling and mixing.128I heard him sighing like a soul in despair; I heard him praying, and I noticed how he held his breath.129The lamp burnt out, but he did not observe it.130I blew up the fire in the coals on the hearth, and it threw a red glow on his ghastly white face, lighting it up with a glare, while his sunken eyes looked out wildly from their cavernous depths, and appeared to grow larger and more prominent, as if they would burst from their sockets. '131Look at the alchymic glass,' he cried; 'something glows in the crucible, pure and heavy.'132He lifted it with a trembling hand, and exclaimed in a voice of agitation, 'Gold! gold!'133He was quite giddy, I could have blown him down," said the Wind; "but I only fanned the glowing coals, and accompanied him through the door to the room where his daughter sat shivering.134His coat was powdered with ashes, and there were ashes in his beard and in his tangled hair.135He stood erect, and held high in the air the brittle glass that contained his costly treasure. '136Found! found!137Gold! gold!' he shouted, again holding the glass aloft, that it might flash in the sunshine; but his hand trembled, and the alchymic glass fell from it, clattering to the ground, and brake in a thousand pieces.138The last bubble of his happiness had burst, with a whiz and a whir, and I rushed away from the gold-maker's house.139"Late in the autumn, when the days were short, and the mist sprinkled cold drops on the berries and the leafless branches, I came back in fresh spirits, rushed through the air, swept the sky clear, and snapped off the dry twigs, which is certainly no great labor to do, yet it must be done.140There was another kind of sweeping taking place at Waldemar Daa's, in the castle of Borreby.141His enemy, Owe Ramel, of Basnas, was there, with the mortgage of the house and everything it contained, in his pocket.142I rattled the broken windows, beat against the old rotten doors, and whistled through cracks and crevices, so that Mr. Owe Ramel did not much like to remain there.143Ida and Anna Dorothea wept bitterly, Joanna stood, pale and proud, biting her lips till the blood came; but what could that avail?144Owe Ramel offered Waldemar Daa permission to remain in the house till the end of his life.145No one thanked him for the offer, and I saw the ruined old gentleman lift his head, and throw it back more proudly than ever.146Then I rushed against the house and the old lime-trees with such force, that one of the thickest branches, a decayed one, was broken off, and the branch fell at the entrance, and remained there.147It might have been used as a broom, if any one had wanted to sweep the place out, and a grand sweeping-out there really was; I thought it would be so.148It was hard for any one to preserve composure on such a day; but these people had strong wills, as unbending as their hard fortune.149There was nothing they could call their own, excepting the clothes they wore.150Yes, there was one thing more, an alchymist's glass, a new one, which had been lately bought, and filled with what could be gathered from the ground of the treasure which had promised so much but failed in keeping its promise.151Waldemar Daa hid the glass in his bosom, and, taking his stick in his hand, the once rich gentleman passed with his daughters out of the house of Borreby.152I blew coldly upon his flustered cheeks, I stroked his gray beard and his long white hair, and I sang as well as I was able, 'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r.checked by a teacher153Gone away!154Gone away!'155Ida walked on one side of the old man, and Anna Dorothea on the other; Joanna turned round, as they left the entrance.156Why?157Fortune would not turn because she turned.158She looked at the stone in the walls which had once formed part of the castle of Marck Stig, and perhaps she thought of his daughters and of the old song,--159"The eldest and youngest, hand-in-hand, Went forth alone to a distant land."160These were only two; here there were three, and their father with them also.161They walked along the high-road, where once they had driven in their splendid carriage; they went forth with their father as beggars.162They wandered across an open field to a mud hut, which they rented for a dollar and a half a year, a new home, with bare walls and empty cupboards.163Crows and magpies fluttered about them, and cried, as if in contempt, 'Caw, caw, turned out of our nest--caw, caw,' as they had done in the wood at Borreby, when the trees were felled.164Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown the noise; what use was it that they should listen?165So they went to live in the mud hut in the open field, and I wandered away, over moor and meadow, through bare bushes and leafless forests, to the open sea, to the broad shores in other lands, 'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r!166Away, away!' year after year."167And what became of Waldemar Daa and his daughters?168Listen; the Wind will tell us:169"The last I saw of them was the pale hyacinth, Anna Dorothea.170She was old and bent then; for fifty years had passed and she had outlived them all.171She could relate the history.172Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Wiborg, in Jutland, stood the fine new house of the canon.173It was built of red brick, with projecting gables.174It was inhabited, for the smoke curled up thickly from the chimneys.175The canon's gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat in the bay-window, and looked over the hawthorn hedge of the garden towards the brown heath.176What were they looking at?177Their glances fell upon a stork's nest, which was built upon an old tumbledown hut.178The roof, as far as one existed at all, was covered with moss and lichen.179The stork's nest covered the greater part of it, and that alone was in a good condition; for it was kept in order by the stork himself.180That is a house to be looked at, and not to be touched," said the Wind. "181For the sake of the stork's nest it had been allowed to remain, although it is a blot on the landscape.182They did not like to drive the stork away; therefore the old shed was left standing, and the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay.183She had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance her reward for having once interceded for the preservation of the nest of its black brother in the forest of Borreby?184At that time she, the poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in a rich garden.185She remembered that time well; for it was Anna Dorothea.186"'O-h, o-h,' she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of the wind among the reeds and rushes. '187O-h, o-h,' she would say, 'no bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa.188The poor school-boys did not even sing a psalm when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the earth to rest.189O-h, everything has an end, even misery.190Sister Ida became the wife of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which befell our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on the wooden horse.191I suppose he is under the ground now; and Ida--alas! alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am!192Kind Heaven, grant me that I may die.'193"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut that was left standing for the sake of the stork.194I took pity on the proudest of the sisters," said the Wind. "195Her courage was like that of a man; and in man's clothes she served as a sailor on board ship.196She was of few words, and of a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb, so I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a woman; and, in my opinion, that was well done," said the Wind.197On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the tones of a psalm under the stork's nest, and within the crumbling walls.checked by a teacher198It was Anna Dorothea's last song.199There was no window in the hut, only a hole in the wall; and the sun rose like a globe of burnished gold, and looked through.200With what splendor he filled that dismal dwelling!1 2 3← previousThe Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Womannext →The Windmill↑ back to Fairy Tales of Hans Christian AndersenThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/212/page/2/