Recollections of My Childhood and Youth

by Georg Brandes

VI.

Some flashes of terrestrial majesty and magnificence shone on my modest existence. Next after God came the King. As I was walking along the street one day with my father, he exclaimed: "There is the King!" I looked at the open carriage, but saw nothing noticeable there, so fixed my attention upon the coachman, dressed in red, and the footman's plumed hat. "The King wasn't there!" "Yes, indeed he was--he was in the carriage." "Was that the King? He didn't look at all remarkable--he had no crown on." "The King is a handsome man," said Father. "But he only puts on his state clothes when he drives to the Supreme Court."

So we went one day to see the King drive to the Supreme Court. A crowd of people were standing waiting at the Naval Church. Then came the procession. How splendid it was! There were runners in front of the horses, with white silk stockings and regular flower-pots on their heads; I had never seen anything like it; and there were postillions riding on the horses in front of the carriage. I quite forgot to look inside the carriage and barely caught a glimpse of the King. And that glimpse made no impression upon me. That he was Christian VIII. I did not know; he was only "the King."

Then one day we heard that the King was dead, and that he was to lie in state twice. These lyings in state were called by forced, unnatural names, Lit de Parade and Castrum doloris; I heard them so often that I learnt them and did not forget them. On the Lit de Parade the body of the King himself lay outstretched; that was too sad for a little boy. But Castrum doloris was sheer delight, and it really was splendid. First you picked your way for a long time along narrow corridors, then high up in the black-draped hall appeared the coffin covered with black velvet, strewn with shining, twinkling stars. And a crowd of candles all round. It was the most magnificent sight I had ever beheld.

VII.

I was a town child, it is true, but that did not prevent me enjoying open-air life, with plants and animals. The country was not so far from town then as it is now. My paternal grandfather had a country-house a little way beyond the North gate, with fine trees and an orchard; it was the property of an old man who went about in high Wellington boots and had a regular collection of wax apples and pears--such a marvellous imitation that the first time you saw them you couldn't help taking a bite out of one. Driving out to the country-house in the Summer, the carriage would begin to lumber and rumble as soon as you passed through the North gate, and when you came back you had to be careful to come in before the gate was closed.

We lived in the country ourselves, for that matter, out in the western suburb, near the Black Horse (as later during the cholera Summer), or along the old King's Road, where there were beautiful large gardens. In one such a huge garden I stood one Summer day by my mother's side in front of a large oblong bed with many kinds of flowers. "This bed shall be yours," said Mother, and happy was I. I was to rake the paths round it myself and tend and water the plants in it. I was particularly interested to notice that a fresh set of flowers came out for every season of the year. When the asters and dahlias sprang into bloom the Summer was over. Still the garden was not the real country. The real country was at Inger's, my dear old nurse's. She was called my nurse because she had looked after me when I was small. But she had not fed me, my mother had done that.

Inger lived in a house with fields round it near High Taastrup. There was no railway there then, and you drove out with a pair of horses. It was only later that the wonderful railway was laid as far as Roskilde. So it was an unparalleled event for the children, to go by train to Valby and back. Their father took them. Many people thought that it was too dangerous. But the children cared little for the danger. And it went off all right and they returned alive.

Inger had a husband whose name was Peer. He was nice, but had not much to say. Inger talked far more and looked after everything. They had a baby boy named Niels, but he was in the cradle and did not count. Everything at Inger and Peer's house was different from the town. There was a curious smell in the rooms, with their chests of drawers and benches, not exactly disagreeable, but unforgettable. They had much larger dishes of curds and porridge than you saw in Copenhagen. They did not put the porridge or the curds on plates. Inger and Peer and their little visitor sat round the milk bowl or the porridge dish and put their spoons straight into it. But the guest had a spoon to himself. They did not drink out of separate glasses, but he had a glass to himself.

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow. Inger used to churn, and there was buttermilk to drink. It was great fun for a little Copenhagen boy to roll about in the hay and lie on the hay-waggons when they were driven home. And every time I came home from a visit to Inger Mother would laugh at me the moment I opened my mouth, for, quite unconsciously, I talked just like Inger and the other peasants.