O. T., A Danish Romance

by H. C. Andersen

“You will not make me suffer for it!” said she. “I am innocent, and yet I have cooperated in it: it was only a word but a very unseemly word, and for it one must account at the day of judgment!”

“I do not understand you!” said Otto, and his eyes glanced around to see whether any one heard. They were quite alone. In the far distance the boat with the fishermen showed itself like a dark speck.

“Do you remember how wild you were as a boy? How you fastened bladders to the cat’s legs and tail, and flung her out of the loft-window that she might fly? I do not say this in anger, for I thought a deal of you; but when you became too insolent one might wall say, ‘Can no one, then, curb this lad?’ See, these words I said!—that is my whole fault, but since then have lain heavy on my heart. Three years ago came the German Heinrich, and stayed two nights in our house; God forgive it us! Tricks he could play, and he understood more than the Lord’s Prayer—more than is useful to a man. With one trick you were to assist him, but when he gave you the goblet you played your own tricks, and he could make nothing succeed. You would also be clever. Then he cast an evil eye upon you, although he was still so friendly and submissive, because you were a gentleman’s child. Do you remember—no, you will certainly have forgotten—how you once took the baits of the hooks off and hung my wooden shoes on instead? Then I said in anger, and the anger of man is never good, ‘Can no one, then, tame this boy for me? He was making downright fun of you to your own face,’ said I to the player. ‘Do you not know some art by which you can tame this wild-cat?’ Then he laughed maliciously, but I thought no more of the matter. The following day, however, he said, ‘Now I have curbed the lad! You should only see how tame he is become; and should he ever again turn unruly, only ask him what word the German Heinrich whispered in his ear, and you shall. Then see how quiet he will become. He shall not mock this trick!’ My heart was filled with horror, but I thought afterward it really meant nothing. Ei! ei! from the hour he was here you are no longer the same as formerly; that springs from the magical word he whispered in your ear. You cannot pronounce the word, he told me; but by it you have been enchanted: this, and not book-learning, has worked the change. But you shall be delivered! If you have faith, and that you must have, you shall again become gay, and I, spite of the evil words which I spoke, be able to sleep peacefully in my grave. If you will only lay this upon your heart, now that the moon is in its wane, the trouble will vanish out of your heart as the disk of the moon decreases!” And saying this she drew out of her pocket a little leather purse, opened it and took out a piece of folded paper. “In this is a bit of the wood out of which our Saviour’s cross was made. This will draw forth the sorrow from your heart, and bear it, as it bore Him who took upon Himself the sorrow of the whole world!” She kissed it with pious devotion, and then handed it to Otto.

The whole became clear to him. He recollected how in his boyish wantonness he had caused Heinrich’s tricks to miscarry, which occasioned much pleasure to the spectators, but in Heinrich displeasure: they soon again became friends, and Otto recognized in him the merry weaver of the manufactory, as he called his former abode. They were alone, Otto asked whether he did not remember his name: Heinrich shook his head. Then Otto uncovered his shoulder, bade him read the branded letters, and heard the unhappy interpretation which gave the death-blow to his gayety. Heinrich must have seen what an impression his words made upon the boy: he gained through them an opportunity of avenging himself, and at the same time of bringing himself again into repute: as a sorcerer. He had tamed him, whispered he to the old woman,—he had tamed the boy with a single word. At any future wantonness of Otto’s, gravity and terror would immediately return should any one ask him, What word did the German Heinrich whisper into thy ear? “Only ask him,” had Heinrich said.

In a perfectly natural manner there lay, truly, enchantment in Heinrich’s words, even although it were not that enchantment which the superstition of the old woman would have signified. A revelation of the connection of affairs would have removed her doubts, but here an explanation was impossible to Otto. He pressed her hand, besought her to be calm; no sorrow lay heavy on his heart, except the loss of his dear grandfather.

“Every evening have I named your name it my prayers,” said the old grandmother. “Each time when the harbingers of bad weather showed themselves, and my sons were on the sea, so that we hung out flags or lighted beacons as signals, did I think of the words which had escaped my lips, and which the wicked Heinrich had caught up; I feared lest our Lord might cause my children to suffer for my injustice.”

“Be calm, my dear old woman!” said Otto. “Keep for yourself the holy cross, on the virtue of which you rely; may it remove each sorrow from your own heart!”

“No, I am guilty of my own sorrow! yours has a stranger laid upon your heart! Only the sorrow of the guiltless will the cross bear.”

The beautiful sentiment which, unconsciously to her, lay in these words, affected Otto. He accepted the present, preserved it, sought to calm the old woman, and once more at parting glanced toward the splendid sea expanse which formed its own boundary.

It was almost evening before he reached the house where Rosalie awaited him. His last scene with the blind fisher-woman had again thrown him into his gloomy mood. “After all, she really knows nothing!” said he to himself. “This Heinrich is my evil angel! might he only die soon!” It was in Otto’s soul as if he could shoot a ball through Heinrich’s heart. “Did he only lie buried under the heather, and with him my secret! I will have blood! yes, there is something devilish in man! Were Heinrich only dead! But others live who know my birth,—my sister! my poor, neglected sister, she who had the same right to intellectual development as myself! How I fear this meeting! it will be bitter! I must away. I will hence—here will my life-germ be stifled! I have indeed fortune—I will travel! This animated France will drive away these whims, and—I am away, far removed from my home. In the coming spring I shall be a stranger among strangers!” And his thoughts melted into a quiet melancholy. In this manner he reached the hall.