That evening I went to see a comedy of Holberg’s at the theatre, Jacob von Tybö by name. It seemed to create immense fun, which was not to be wondered at, for the piece contained a rap at the German customs, and braggadocio style of that people in vogue here some hundred years ago. The taste for that sort of thing, as may readily be imagined, no longer exists here. Roars of laughter accompanied every hit at Tuskland. The two Roskilds and Madame Pfister acquitted themselves well. The temperature of the building was as nearly as possible that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, as far as I was able to judge by my own feelings compared with the historical account of that delectable place. A lady next me told me that they had long talked of an improved building.
Next day I visited the Seamen’s Burial Ground, where, clustering about an elevated mound, are the graves of the Danish sailors who fell in 1807. I observed an inscription in marble overgrown with ivy:—
Kranz som Fadrelandet gav,
Den visner ei paa falden Krieger’s Grav.
The chaplet which their fatherland once gave
Shall never fade on fallen warrior’s grave.
True to the motto, the monuments are decked every Saturday with fresh flowers. Fuchsias were also growing in great numbers about. The different spaces of ground are let for a hundred years; if the lease is not renewed then, I presume the Company will enter upon the premises. There were traces about, I observed, of English whittlers. Our countrymen seem to remember the command of the augur to Tarquinius, “cut boldly,” and the King cut through.