“Farewell!” said Louise; “do not forget us!” and her tearful glance rested upon Otto. Eva stood silent and pale.
“You will not forget me!” whispered Otto, as he seized Louise’s hand. “I will forget your sister!”
The carriage rolled away; Wilhelm threw himself back into a corner. Otto looked back once more; they all stood at the door, and waved their white handkerchiefs.
CHAPTER XLIII
“In one short speaking silence all conveys—
And looks a sigh, and weeps without a tear.”
MRS. BROWNING.
“Forgive us our debts as we
The debts of others forgive;
And lead us not in tempting ways;
Apart from evil let us live.”
A. VON CHAMISSO.
We will not accompany the friends, but will remain behind in Funen, where we will make a bolder journey than they, namely, we will go back one-and-twenty years. We will allow the circumstances of Otto’s birth again to come before us. It is a leap backward that we take from 1830 to 1810. We are in Odense, that old city, which takes its name from Odin.
The common people there have still a legend about the origin of the name of the city. Upon Naesbyhoved’s Hill [Author’s Note: Not far from the city, by the Odense Channel; it is described in Wedel Simonsen’s City Ruins.] there once stood a castle; here lived King Odin and his wife: Odense city was not then in existence, but the first building of it was then begun. [Author’s Note: The place is given as being that of the now so-called Cross Street.] The court was undecided as to the name which should be given to the city. After long indecision it was at last agreed that the first word which either King or Queen should speak the next morning should be the name given to it. In the early morning the Queen awoke and looked out from her window over the wood. The first house in the city was erected to the roof, and the builders had hung up a great garland, glittering with tinsel, upon the rooftree. “Odin, see!” exclaimed the Queen; and thenceforward the city was called Odensee, which name, since then, has been changed by daily speech to Odense.
When people ask the children in Copenhagen whence they have come, they reply, out of the Peblingsöe. The little children of Odense, who know nothing about the Peblingsöe, say that they are fetched out of Rosenbaek, a little brook which has only been ennobled within the few last years, just as in Copenhagen is the case with Krystal Street, which formerly had an unpleasant name. This brook runs through Odense, and must, in former times, when united with the Odense River, have formed an island where the city at that time stood; hence some people derive the name of Odense from Odins Ei, or Odins Ö, that is, Odin’s Island. Be it then as it might, the brook flows now, and in 1810, when the so-called Willow-dam, by the West Gate, was not filled up, it stood, especially in spring, low and watery. It often overflowed its banks, and in so doing overflowed the little gardens which lay on either side. It thus ran concealed through the city until near the North Gate, where it made its appearance for a moment and then dived again in the same street, and, like a little river, flowed through the cellars of the old justice-room, which was built by the renowned Oluf Bagger. [Author’s Note: He was so rich that once, when Frederick the Second visited him, he had the room heated with cinnamon chips. Much may be found about this remarkable man in the second collection of Thiele’s Popular Danish Legends. His descendants still live in Odense, namely, the family of the printer Ch. Iversen, who has preserved many curiosities which belonged to him.]
It was an afternoon in the summer of 1810; the water was high in the brook, yet two washerwomen were busily employed in it; reed-matting was fast bound round their bodies, and they beat with wooden staves the clothes upon their washing-stools. They were in deep conversation, and yet their labor went on uninterruptedly.