Nielsen

“ Nielsen smiled. “If what you say is true, we’re all of us more or less immoral.”
“Why so?”
“Because every one barters his soul some time during his existence, and some of us are doing so all the time. At heart, you know, we’re most of us, unmoral, in appearance, moral, but in action, immoral.”
Breen laughed in amiable derision. “What scrambled egg philosophy!” he cried. “Where did you learn it, noble scholar?”
“Nowhere,” Nielsen answered and frowned. But his ready good nature intervened and he observed gently: “At any rate, Breen, I disagree with you regarding Erna.” ”

“ Nielsen laughed, and she followed his example.
“Erna, I envy you,” he started again.
“Why?”
“Nothing downs you long. You’re such a happy Indian that you’re able to run your world.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. It takes happy people to run the world, you know.” ”

“ The Reverend Peter Nielsen entered, clean, in a cassock, and with a shovel hat on his head.
"The children whom you have seen," said Peter Nielsen, "are the nephews and nieces of my worthy housekeeper, Maria Grubbe. She is a charitable woman, and as her sister is very poor, and has a large family, my Maren, I mean my housekeeper, takes charge of some of the overflow." [15]
"It is a great burden to you," said the Canon.
Peter Nielsen shrugged his shoulders. "To clothe [Pg 151] the naked and give food to the hungry are deeds of mercy." ”

“ Breen, although silenced, was busy reflecting; Carstairs’ ire was appeased. Nielsen concluded: “Let’s take up Breen’s proposition, John, each in his own way, whatever that may be, and then we’ll compare notes some day and settle the business. After all, Erna’s only a waitress; we needn’t spend more than an ordinary amount of excitement over her.”
“But she isn’t a waitress. I tell you, she’s a woman.”
“All right, woman let her be,” Nielsen conceded gracefully. “Now, we don’t want to sit here throwing words and phrases around all evening. We’ve been at it too long as it is. ”

“ And she was only a waitress. But she was far more than that, an individual, as Carstairs had vaunted that time; she had lived a life harder to endure than that loaded upon his educated acquaintances, for example, and yet, she, lacking their knowledge and so called experience and wisdom, controlled life; life did not control her. And Nielsen, who seldom overlooked dissecting himself along with others, admitted readily that Erna attracted him powerfully, and not in the name of the story, which he had forgotten—for the present, anyhow. ”

“ I will bring you an instrument, Miss Nielsen; we will shoot the sun together.'
'No, if you please,' she exclaimed.
He entreated a little, but her no was so resolutely pronounced that, contenting himself with a bland flourish of his hand, he went below.
'What is to be done?' whispered Helga. 'We shall not be able to induce him to land us at Santa Cruz. Is he mad, do you think?'
'No more than I am,' said I. 'One vocation is not enough for the fellow. There are others like him in my country of Great Britain. What a sea-captain, to be sure! How well he talks—I mean for a sea-captain! ”

“ You—er—what would you call it, Nielsen?”
“Why, John has been burned a little by the divine flame.”
Carstairs blushed angrily. “If you fellows intend to be personal—”
“Never mind, John,” Nielsen cut in. “You must allow us the occasional escape of some of our surplus wind. Now, let’s drop these bravado poses and get down to business. I want the rest of the proposition. We know that we’re to put Erna to the test. Now, Breen, tell us how.” ”

“ Bernstorff had tried to acquire the German poet Gellert as tutor for the prince, but to the regret of all right-minded Danes, he declined the offer, and the man then selected for the post was very little fitted to educate a future autocrat. According [Pg 59] to the instructions drawn up for his guidance, Nielsen was ordered to strive to gain his pupil's affection, so that the latter might find pleasure in his teacher's company. He was to begin with teaching him the Christian religion, and thus arouse in the prince a resolution to lead a virtuous course of life. ”

“ It was Bainbridge Breen who had spoken. The girl left the dining room with a cheery: “All right!” The young artist turned to his friends, Carstairs and Nielsen, who were sitting with him at the rear table: “Mocha tart is still the prince of Landsmann pastries.”
“You’ve made up with Erna, I see,” Nielsen ventured quietly.
“Oh, of course! I’m too busy a man to spend any time harboring animosity. Besides, I guess I’m sufficiently broad-minded to forgive the girl her indiscretion.” ”

“ Old Nelson (or Nielsen) would never have agreed to give up Freya peaceably to this compromising Jasper. Heavens! What would the Dutch authorities say to such a match! It sounds too ridiculous for words. But there’s nothing in the world more selfishly hard than a timorous man in a fright about his “little estate,” as old Nelson used to call it in apologetic accents. A heart permeated by a particular sort of funk is proof against sense, feeling, and ridicule. ”

“ Breen commanded a third time. “You’ll be gossipping here forever.”
Nielsen took hold of the door knob, smiled in an aggravating manner, opened the door, bowed low and said in a droll tone: “Moral or unmoral, but—?” ”

“ The magazine had three editors, amongst them R. Nielsen himself, and when one of them, who was the critic of the Fatherland, suddenly left the country, Björnstjerne Björnson took his place. The three names, R. Nielsen, B. Björnson, and Rudolph Schmidt, formed a trinity whose supremacy did not augur well for the success of a beginner in the paths of literature, who had attacked the thinker among them for ideal reasons, and who had been the object of violent attacks from the two others. The magazine Idea and Reality, was, as might be expected, sufficiently unfavourable to my cause. ”

“ Reventlow superintended the Crown Prince’s education, that is to say, his training and his daily life. He did not teach him his lessons. The learned German author, Gellert, was first asked to undertake this duty, but he refused. The King then appointed one Nielsen, who had been tutor to several of the young Danish nobility. Nielsen was a very learned man, but unfortunately had not the capacity of imparting his learning in a lucid and attractive manner, and he was too fond of abstruse speculations to teach things which would be useful to the royal pupil. ”

“ Erna related the rest of the incident. He was quietly attentive to every detail, and at the conclusion of her recital, broke out cheerfully: “The trouble with the German is that he’s too slow to catch even a cockroach. Therefore, he resents speed. So Landsmann calls you down. And the girls—well, they’re children, like most females. You’re entirely too dramatic for their comfort.”
Erna never quite understood Nielsen, but she mellowed down to some of her old good nature. Nielsen continued his reassuring nonsense, and gradually, the rest of her good nature was restored. ”

“ And to begin with, his name was not Nelson. The Englishmen in the Archipelago called him Nelson because it was more convenient, I suppose, and he never protested. It would have been mere pedantry. The true form of his name was Nielsen. He had come out East long before the advent of telegraph cables, had served English firms, had married an English girl, had been one of us for years, trading and sailing in all directions through the Eastern Archipelago, across and around, transversely, diagonally, perpendicularly, in semicircles, and zigzags, and figures of eights, for years and years. ”

“ Presently, the studio slept the sleep of the unperturbed. Carefully, Breen filled his pipe and began a deliberate puffing, while Nielsen introduced some new anecdote in his droll, even-tempered way. Carstairs, on the other hand, was meditating gloomily: in an hour or so he would be due at that damnable hole, the Phoenix Music Hall—where he earned his bread playing accompaniments. A second thought cheered him not a little. He would still have time to eat his supper at Landsmann’s.
II “Erna! What is the matter with you? Another cup of coffee for Mr. Nolan!” ”

“ This paper, which had been set by R. Nielsen, is characteristic of the purely speculative manner, indifferent to all study of history, in which Aesthetics were at that time pursued in Copenhagen. It was, moreover, worded with unpardonable carelessness; it was impossible to tell from it what was to be understood by the correlation on which it was based, and which was assumed to be a given conclusion. Even so speculative a thinker as Frederik Paludan-Müller called the question absolutely meaningless. ”

“ On the last afternoon, Niels and Erik were sitting in their room, Niels looking at the pictures in a penny magazine, Erik deep in Spengler’s critical catalogue of the art collection at Christiansborg. How often he had turned the leaves of this book and tried to form a conception of the pictures from its naïve description! Sometimes he would get almost [67] sick with longing to behold all this art and beauty with his own eyes, to grasp it in very truth and make that glory of line and color his own by the mere strength of his enthusiasm. ”

“ He can do nothing by himself.” It was Nilen’s brother.
“It wouldn’t sound right if I stopped you from going, my son,” said “the Mormon.” “But can two of you do more than one?”
“Niels and I were at school together and have always been friends,” answered the young man, looking into his father’s face. Then he moved away, and a little farther off began to run to catch up Niels.
The fishermen looked after them in silence. “Youth and madness!” one of them then said. “One blessing is that they’ll never be able to get the boat out of the harbor.” ”

“ The ‘Saint George’ drew too much water, and, fortunately for us, Lord Nelson chose our ship to hoist his flag on board. Didn’t we cheer him as he came alongside. Copenhagen stands on a dead flat facing the sea; it is defended by a large fort and two heavy batteries, thrown up on rocks or sand-banks. Besides these there was the Danish fleet drawn up in a long line before the city, and eighteen floating batteries, mounting no less than 690 guns. Some way off, in front of the city, is a shoal called the Middle Ground, and then another channel, and then comes the long island of Saltholm. ”

“ On the second day in the hospital, Niels felt more and more oppressed by the heavy atmosphere in the room, and his longing for fresh air was strangely intertwined in his mind with the desire to live. After all, there had been so much in life that was beautiful, he thought, as he remembered the fresh breeze along the shore at home, the cool soughing of the wind in the beech forests of Sjaelland, the pure mountain air of Clarens, and the evening zephyrs of Lake Garda. But when he began to think of human beings, his soul sickened again. ”

“ Every one spoke or screamed at once. Niels had already collared the jailer. Then, at this highly critical moment, the sense of duty of the women of the old days awoke in Stine. She placed herself by the side of her chosen lord and master and announced that “she would sail to Jutland with him rather than have a fight on her wedding day.” That settled the matter. The joiner was carried into the next room and put to bed, the guests shook hands cordially and drank one another’s health. Niels and Björn became most amiable at once, and [Pg 561] Niels ordered more punch. ”

“ As the autumn advanced, Erik’s drinking-bouts became more frequent. What was the use, he said to Niels, of sitting at home waiting for ideas that never came, until his thoughts turned to stone in his head? Moreover, he did not get much comfort from Niels’s society; he needed people with some grit in them, people of lusty flesh and blood, not a whim-wham of delicate nerves. Niels and Fennimore were therefore left much alone, for Niels came over to Marianelund every day. ”

“ ELINA. —— ——And then he gathered up the fragments of the crown of Denmark—no, 'twas the flowers—and: "God's holy blood, but she is proud and fair!" Had he whispered the words in the remotest corner, long leagues from Ostrat,—still had I heard them! How I hate him! How I have always hated him,—this Nils Lykke!— There lives not another man like him, 'tis said. He plays with women—and treads them under his feet. And it was to him my mother thought to offer me!—How I hate him! They say Nils Lykke is unlike all other men. ”

“ But what say you of our young Prince Erik--the little king, as we may already call him? I know he has you for his instructor in the art of arms, and he ought to be half a knight already."
"On him now repose my hopes, and those of every Danish heart," replied the drost; "and, if it please God, we shall not be ashamed of it. Allow time for the bud to expand, and I promise you, at least, that none in the land shall do a cowardly or unrighteous deed with impunity: and that is much. Denmark, to be happy, requires at all times a great man upon the throne. ”

“ We do not know where our fathers came from, but we know where we were born ourselves—”
“What nonsense is this?” whispered Niels, who grasped the situation and was ready to fight.
“Who is that man?” asked the joiner, trying to fix his bleary gaze on Niels and holding fast to his neighbor’s shoulder. “Is that a man who will not drink to his native country? If he is, then I say: 'Fie, for shame,’ say I.”
Niels looked meaningly at Björn.
“Shall we clear the place and take Stine with us?”
Björn motioned to him. But one of the guests who supported the joiner heard what Niels said. ”