FIRST LETTER
Aylmer explains his purpose in the letters he will write; from Germany to Denmark by ferry; the Danebrog; the wounded soldier; Harald Bluetooth and other characters of the past; Roskilde; the arrival in Copenhagen; certain of the Great Danes; “Bil-Jonen Teatret” and “The Hurricane Girls.”
Copenhagen, December 3.
My dear Judicia,
Here I am in “Merchants’ Harbor,” alias Kopmannaehafn, alias Axelhus, etc., but more anon of it and its names. First I must tell you about the trip here. Please don’t misunderstand my use of the word “trip.” I refuse to write you about “My Trip” as such. In other words, I am not going to personally conduct you by letter through Denmark and Norway. Thomas Cook and Thomas Bennett and James Currie and Mr. Baedeker, and many other good men, will do that for you by book. All I shall do is to keep my mind open to the pleasures and charms of these two countries, and when they cast their spell on me I shall try to make you feel it as I do. In other words, I am not going to be intimidated into having raptures over what the guide book stars, and, if I choose, I am going to like what it does not star. Furthermore, I am not going to take you on any set tour, for I don’t expect to take any such myself but I do expect to see a good many places in these closely united countries, and when anything appeals to me I shall describe it, in the hope that it may appeal equally to you.
Rather a long preamble to my first letter, isn’t it? But I trust it will make my idea plain and that you will not be disappointed if I don’t act in the capacity of courier. I said good-by to Germany and continental Europe yesterday noon at Warnemünde. Our train was trundled aboard the Prinz Christian, though I cannot state for which of Denmark’s many royal “Christians” it was named, and we had a two-hour sea voyage, during which it was evident from the pensive demeanor of some of my fellow passengers that seasickness was “not unknown,” as Baedeker would euphoniously say.
During this sea voyage we were supposed to take our noon meal, which I must now begin to call middag, and as I am by nature furnished with a good appetite I didn’t resist the invitation. Most of the ladies were “pensive” and remained on deck gasping, but the men, all wearing a look of conceited amusement, nonchalantly sought the dining cabin. I had heard much about the famous Danish smörrebröd, and I was keenly anticipating it, but I am sorry to say that Prinz Christian was too much under foreign influence and did not offer the full glories of smörrebröd, which I found later here in Copenhagen. However, I will keep you for awhile in breathless suspense on that point.
Most of the people on the boat seemed to be Germans or Danes, and one couple opposite me at middag I must describe. This “couple” consisted of a very big father and a very little son. The father was one of the greatest of the Great Danes, physically at least. I have hardly ever seen such a huge man. The son seemed to be ten or twelve years old, but he was as much below the average in size as his father was above it. The Great Dane seemed to think that strong, black coffee was the thing to make his infinitesimal son grow, and he made him drink three big cups of it. Father and son were the most stolid pair I have ever seen, but the little fellow was very miserable and wore a face as though he were taking medicine. He would gulp down all the coffee he could stand, then gasp for breath and look appealingly at his father, who stolidly urged him on. It was very pathetic, but at least I had the comfort of knowing that coffee could never ruin his nerves, for it was plain that he had none.
All this time I would not have yielded so calmly to the demands of the inner man if it had not been that there was nothing to see. Prinz Christian was enveloped in a dense fog, and the limit of the view was a few yards of gray, tossing sea. But in spite of the fog, our noble captain steered straight for the ferry slip. A little jolting and bumping and clanking of chains, and we were on Danish soil.
By a miracle, which I think must have been performed largely for my benefit, the fog immediately rolled away. I refused then and I still refuse to believe those lugubrious writers who characterize Denmark’s winter as long and dreary and muddy. Certainly I couldn’t ask for finer weather than I have had during the thirty-six hours I have been in the country. I am open to conviction on that point, but the pessimist must produce something a good deal worse than the present weather before I will believe him.
I had not been on Danish soil two minutes before I saw the Danish flag, the world-famous Danebrog, waving over a schoolhouse. It was very striking, with its bold white cross on a vivid red background. There is a beautiful legend connected with the origin of this flag. It seems that “once upon a time” King Valdemar, being filled with holy zeal (possibly augmented by unholy greed), made an expedition against the heathen inhabitants of Esthonia. At first they submitted in crowds and were baptized. But when the novelty of being converted began to wear off, they turned against the evangelist king and fought furiously. “At this,” says the chronicle, “like Moses of old, Andres Sunesön (the archbishop) mounted the hill with his bishops and clerks, that they might lay the sword of prayer in the scales of battle; but when his arms dropped at last through weariness, his people began to fly. Then his brethren supported the old man’s hands, and as long as they were held up the Danes conquered.”
At this point a miracle occurred. The banner of the Danes had been lost in the fray, and to repair the loss “a red banner with the holy cross in white on it came floating gently down through the clouds.” King Valdemar gathered his men under this heavenly banner and had no further trouble in defeating the heathen (and gaining their desirable territory).
This king, by the way, was Valdemar den Seir, or the “Victorious.” Danish history fairly bristles with Valdemars, and even now there is a prince by that name.
The scenery all the way from Gjedser, the haven of the ferry from Warnemünde, smiled at us, at least until darkness erased the smile. The Danes have only one hill in their whole country, and that is far away in Jutland, but the flatness of the islands of Laaland and Zealand through which we pass does not make for monotony. Everywhere the landscape smiles cordially, warmly, invitingly. Really the landscape’s invitation was so genuine that I could hardly resist getting off at one of the little stations en route.
Most of the farmhouses are built of plaster with interlacing framework of wooden beams, which would make them Elizabethan, wouldn’t it, if they were a little more pretentious? The windmills are a cross between the ancient kind with four huge wings and the modern kind with many little spokes. They presented the appearance of Ferris wheels one third life size.
At the station of Kjöge a young soldier got on the train and I was shocked to note that he was badly wounded on the head, for he wore there a broad white bandage. I was pouring out my sympathy on the poor wounded soldier lad when he turned around, and it was not until then that I discovered that his “bandage” was a ridiculous blue and white cap, perched far on the off side of his head. I have since seen many of these “wounded” soldiers, and I can never quite control my amusement when I see a great strapping fellow with one of these foolish little caps fastened to the side of his head. In appearance they are like the caps that you find in the snapdragons at a children’s party.
About some other things Denmark seems very naïve. The smokestacks on all the engines have little bands of red and blue adorning them. Really they are cunning enough to play with. Also some of the railway cars are double-deckers, two-story affairs, while others are absolutely open like an electric car. They remind me of the pictures of the “first train in America—1820.”
Also the language is most delicious at times. A very frequent sign reads: Ikke Spytte Paa Gulvet. When you know that ikke means “not” and that gulvet means the “floor,” Chaucer will come to your aid for the rest. Pronounce that sign phonetically and see if you don’t feel as though you were stroking a kitten.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Copenhagen Exchange.
One very historic town we passed through on the way from Gjedser to Copenhagen yesterday—ancient Roskilde. It was once an important city, far more so than the little village on the east coast of the island, which men called Kopmannaehafn. But the Reformation accomplished here, as in so many other cities of the north, its deadly work (of course deadly only from an architectural point of view), and Roskilde is now a busy, commonplace little town, with only the historic cathedral to remind us of the past. Old King Harald Bluetooth built a wooden church here a thousand years ago, and this cathedral was its immediate successor. It is the burial place of many of Denmark’s most famous kings and queens, among them Christian IV, who did perhaps more for the advancement of his country than any other king before or since, and Queen Margaret Valdemarsdatter, who was the only ruler strong enough to unite the three countries of Scandinavia into a single nation. Christian IX, the “father of half of Europe,” lies here, and many other Fredericks and Christians. Danish nobility is not clever at thinking up new names for itself. All who are not Valdemars are either Fredericks or Christians, with here and there a Canute or a Sweyn or a Gorm.
Right here I am tempted to go into a history of some of these old kings, whose names are so attractive, such as Gorm the Old, Canute the Great, Harald Bluetooth, and Sweyn Forkbeard, but Danish history is so closely interwoven with Norwegian that it is impossible to tell one without telling the other. For more than four hundred years they were actually united, and for nearly three hundred they were one and the same country. The language of the two countries has always been and is to-day practically identical. In view of this I think I will wait until I get to Norway and then give you a dissertation on the subject. In all this, Judicia, I am assuming that you don’t know any more about it than I did before I read it up. I hope you are not too much enraged at such an assumption.
It was as dark as Egypt or Pockonocket or any other place that is very, very dark when our train left Roskilde, but it was only a short journey to Copenhagen, and I enjoyed the pleasures of anticipation. A book I read on the train characterized Copenhagen as a dull, prosaic city, but being in an obstinate frame of mind I refused to be prejudiced against it. As the train drew into the huge new Vesterbro station, I felt a thrill of patriotic delight to note that the freight yard was illumined with red, white, and blue arc lights. Perhaps these colors were not very vivid or pronounced, but they were at least suggested, and I feel sure it was done in my honor.
There is much to tell about Copenhagen. It is not dull or prosaic, or, if it is, I like a dull, prosaic city. In this letter I will only describe my arrival in Denmark’s capital, and in a few days, when I have had a chance to see more, I will tell you more about it.
Outside the Vesterbro I found a perfect mob of “taxameters” (you know we have always spelled that word wrong in America). The poor old cabmen have been driven out of business by these swarms of gay, whizzing taxameters. Copenhagen is the breeding place of autos, I verily believe. We have a few in New York and Boston, and I’ve even seen them in other parts of the world, but I never saw what seemed so many in any other city. I dare not look up statistics for fear of having my impression shattered. Perhaps it is partly the audacity and gay colors of these autos that make them seem so omnipresent. They are purple or yellow or white, usually, and they own the city.
Copenhagen is a brilliantly lighted city. Really Broadway must extend itself if it would beat Copenhagen in this respect. There are all sorts of electric signs. In one window I saw a perfect imitation of fire. Paper streamers were blown upward by an electric fan and so lighted by red and orange electric lights that I had to look twice before I decided not to run for the nearest fire box. In another shop window an arctic blizzard raged furiously all the evening, and I suppose only abated when the shopkeeper went to bed. There are many brilliant electric advertisements, among which I am sorry to say certain whisky and cognac signs predominate. I fear there is more drunkenness in Denmark than in Sweden. At any rate a certain rather humorous writer says that the ferry from Helsingborg (Sweden) to Helsingör (Denmark) is much patronized by thirsty Swedes escaping from the Gothenburg system. However, I doubt not Phillips is enlarging upon Sweden’s stringent temperance laws as a claim for the superiority of that country, so I will lie low on that point.
To return to my arrival in Copenhagen. The taxameter whizzed me around in no time to Grand Hotel Jensen on Colbjörnsensgade, and I was greeted there, much to my surprise, by two very husky and very blonde lady porters, or should I call them “porterettes?” Well, these lady porters took my suitcase and even Jumbo up two flights of stairs to the room which was assigned me. You know something about Jumbo. It is almost as heavy as a trunk, and it takes a strong man to carry it far, but my blonde porterettes flew up the stairs with it, whistling as they went. Oh these Great Danes!
I took a short “twist” along Vesterbrogade and Frederiksberg Alle and back through a lot of other streets, whose names you are of course eager to know. The Danish and Norwegian language has the happy custom of attaching its definite or indefinite article to the end of its noun, and thus a hotel is a hotellet and a theater is a teatret. One sign struck me as particularly interesting. It was no less than “Bil-Jonen Teatret,” which I took to mean the “Bill Jones Theater.” I was convinced of the correctness of my interpretation by seeing that the principal feature of the week’s program was “The Hurricane Girls from Broadway.” I haven’t yet seen the Hurricane Girls, and I doubt if I shall let them know that a fellow countryman is in the city.
It is getting late, even as the Danes reckon lateness, so I think I will say god natt.
As ever sincerely,
Aylmer.