XII.
There were not many of the upper middle class houses in Copenhagen at that time, the hospitality of which a young man with intellectual interests derived any advantage from accepting. One of these houses, which was opened to me, and with which I was henceforward associated, was that of Chief Physician Rudolph Bergh. His was the home of intellectual freedom.
The master of the house was not only a prominent scientist and savant, but, at a time when all kinds of prejudices ruled unassailed, a man who had retained the uncompromising radicalism of the first half of the century. The spirit of Knowledge was the Holy Spirit to him; the profession of doctor had placed him in the service of humanity, and to firmness of character he united pure philanthropy. The most despised outcasts of society met with the same consideration and the same kindness from him as its favoured ones.
His wife was well calculated, by her charm of manner, to be the centre of the numerous circle of talented men who, both from Denmark and abroad, frequented the house. There one met all the foreign natural scientists who came to Copenhagen, all the esteemed personalities Denmark had at the time, who might be considered as belonging to the freer trend of thought, and many neutrals. Actors such as Höedt and Phister went there, favourite narrators such as Bergsöe, painters like Kröyer, distinguished scientists like J.C. Schiödte, the entomologist. This last was an independent and intellectual man, somewhat touchy, and domineering in his manner, a master of his subject, a man of learning, besides, ceremonious, often cordial, ready to listen to anything worth hearing that was said. He had weaknesses, never would admit that he had made a mistake, and was even very unwilling to own he had not read a book that was being spoken of. Besides which, he had spent too great a part of his life in virulent polemics to be devoid of the narrowing of the horizon which is the concomitant of always watching and being ready to attack the same opponent. But he was in the grand style, which is rare in Denmark, as elsewhere.
XIII.
The house of the sisters Spang was a pleasant one to go to; they were two unmarried ladies who kept an excellent girls' school, at which Julius Lange taught drawing. Benny Spang, not a beautiful, but a brilliant girl, with exceptional brains, daughter of the well-known Pastor Spang, a friend of Sören Kierkegaard, adopted a tone of good- fellowship towards me that completely won my affection. She was cheerful, witty, sincere and considerate. Not long after we became acquainted she married a somewhat older man than herself, the gentle and refined landscape painter, Gotfred Rump. The latter made a very good sketch of me.
The poet Paludan-Müller and the Lange family visited at the house; so did the two young and marvellously beautiful girls, Alma Trepka and Clara Rothe, the former of whom was married later to Carl Bloch the painter, the other to her uncle, Mr. Falbe, the Danish Minister in London.
It was hard to say which of the two was the more beautiful. Both were unusually lovely. Alma Trepka was queenly, her movements sedate, her disposition calm and unclouded--Carl Bloch could paint a Madonna, or even a Christ, from her face without making any essential alteration in the oval of its contours. Clara Rothe's beauty was that of the white hart in the legend; her eyes like a deer's, large and shy, timid, and unself-conscious, her movements rapid, but so graceful that one was fascinated by the harmony of them.
XIV.
Just about this time a foreign element entered the circle of Copenhagen students to which I belonged. One day there came into my room a youth with a nut-brown face, short and compactly built, who after only a few weeks' stay in Copenhagen could speak Danish quite tolerably. He was a young Armenian, who had seen a great deal of the world and was of very mixed race. His father had married, at Ispahan, a lady of Dutch-German origin. Up to his seventh year he had lived in Batavia. When the family afterwards moved to Europe, he was placed at school in Geneva. He had there been brought up, in French, to trade, but as he revealed an extraordinary talent for languages, was sent, for a year or eighteen months at a time, to the four German universities of Halle, Erlangen, Göttingen and Leipzig. Now, at the age of 22, he had come to Copenhagen to copy Palahvi and Sanscrit manuscripts that Rask and Westergaard had brought to Europe. He knew a great many languages, and was moreover very many-sided in his acquirements, sang German student songs charmingly, was introduced and invited everywhere, and with his foreign appearance and quick intelligence was a great success. He introduced new points of view, was full of information, and brought with him a breath from the great world outside. Industrious though he had been before, Copenhagen social life tempted him to idleness. His means came to an end; he said that the annual income he was in the habit of receiving by ship from India had this year, for some inexplicable reason, failed to arrive, dragged out a miserable existence for some time under great difficulties, starved, borrowed small sums, and disappeared as suddenly as he had come.