There was another young Swedish student whom I caught a glimpse of for the first time at the Students' Meeting, towards whom I felt more and more attracted, and who eventually became my friend. This was the darling of the gods, Carl Snoilsky. At a fête in Rosenborg Park, amongst the songs was one which, with my critical scent, I made a note of. It was by the then quite unknown young Count Snoilsky, and it was far from possessing the rare qualities, both of pith and form, that later distinguished his poetry; but it was a poet's handiwork, a troubadour song to the Danish woman, meltingly sweet, and the writer of it was a youth of aristocratic bearing, regular, handsome features, and smooth brown hair, a regular Adonis. The following year he came again, drawn by strong cords to Christian Winther's home, loving the old poet like a son, as Swinburne loved Victor Hugo, sitting at Mistress Julie Winther's feet in affectionate admiration and semi-adoration, although she was half a century old and treated him as a mother does a favourite child.
It was several years, however, before there was any actual friendship between the Swedish poet and myself. He called upon me one day in my room in Copenhagen, looking exceedingly handsome in a tight-fitting waistcoat of blue quilted silk. In the absence of the Swedo-Norwegian Ambassador, he was Chargé d'Affaires in Copenhagen, after, in his capacity as diplomatic attaché, having been stationed in various parts of the world and, amongst others, for some time in Paris. He could have no warmer admirer of his first songs than myself, and we very frequently spent our evenings together in Bauer's wine room--talking over everything in Scandinavian, English, or French literature which both of us had enthusiastically and critically read. On many points our verdicts were agreed.
There came a pause in Snoilsky's productive activity; he was depressed. It was generally said, although it sounded improbable, that he had had to promise his wife's relations to give up publishing verse, they regarding it as unfitting the dignity of a noble. In any case, he was at that time suffering under a marriage that meant to him the deprivation of the freedom without which it was impossible to write. Still, he never mentioned these strictly personal matters. But one evening that we were together, Snoilsky was so overcome by the thought of his lack of freedom that tears suddenly began to run down his cheeks. He was almost incapable of controlling himself again, and when we went home together late at night, poured out a stream of melancholy, half-despairing remarks.
A good eighteen months later we met again in Stockholm; Snoilsky was dignified and collected. But when, a few years later, so-called public opinion in Sweden began to rave against the poet for the passion for his second wife which so long made him an exile from his country, I often thought of that evening.
As years passed by, his outward bearing became more and more reserved and a trifle stiff, but he was the same at heart, and no one who had known him in the heyday of his youth could cease to love him.
VII.
A month after the Students' Meeting, at the invitation of my friend Jens Paludan-Müller, I spent a few weeks at his home at Nykjöbing, in the island of Falster, where his father, Caspar Paludan-Müller, the historian, was at the time head master of the Grammar-school. Those were rich and beautiful weeks, which I always remembered later with gratitude.
The stern old father with his leonine head and huge eyebrows impressed one by his earnestness and perspicacity, somewhat shut off from the world as he was by hereditary deafness. The dignified mistress of the house likewise belonged to a family that had made its name known in Danish literature. She was a Rosenstand-Göiske. Jens was a cordial and attentive host, the daughters were all of them women out of the ordinary, and bore the impress of belonging to a family of the highest culture in the country; the eldest was womanly and refined, the second, with her Roman type of beauty and bronze-coloured head, lovely in a manner peculiarly her own; the youngest, as yet, was merely an amiable young girl. The girls would have liked to get away from the monotony of provincial life, and their release came when their father was appointed to a professorship at Copenhagen University. There was an ease of manner and a tone of mental distinction pervading the whole family. Two young, handsome Counts Reventlow were being brought up in the house, still only half-grown boys at that time, but who were destined later to win honourable renown. One of them, the editor of his ancestress's papers, kept up his acquaintance with the guest he had met in the Paludan-Müller home for over forty years.
There often came to the house a young Dane from Caracas in Venezuela, of unusual, almost feminine beauty, with eyes to haunt one's dreams. He played uncommonly well, was irresistibly gentle and emotional. After a stay of a few years in Denmark he returned to his native place. The previously mentioned Grönbeck, with his pretty sister, and other young people from the town, were frequent guests during the holidays, and the days passed in games, music, wanderings about the garden, and delightful excursions to the woods.
On every side I encountered beauty of some description. I said to Jens one day: "One kind of beauty is the glow which the sun of Youth casts over the figure, and it vanishes as soon as the sun sets. Another is stamped into shape from within; it is Mind's expression, and will remain as long as the mind remains vigorous. But the supremest beauty of all is in the unison of the two harmonies, which are contending for existence. In the bridal night of this supremest beauty, Mind and Nature melt into one."