The Sand-Hills of Jutland

by H. C. Andersen

There lay, partially imbedded in the sand-bank, the wreck of a ship; the sea rolled over it, but the white figure-head was supported by an anchor, the sharp iron of which stuck up almost to the surface of the water. It was against this that Jörgen had struck himself when the current had driven him forward with sudden force. Stunned and fainting, he sank with his burden, but the succeeding wave threw him and the young girl up again.

The fishermen had now reached them, and they were taken into the boat. Blood was streaming over Jörgen's face; he looked as if he were dead, but he still held the girl in so tight a grasp that it was with the utmost difficulty she could be wrenched from his encircling arm. As pale as death, and quite insensible, she lay at full length at the bottom of the boat, which steered towards Skagen.

All possible means were tried to restore Clara to animation, but in vain—the poor young woman was dead. Long had Jörgen been buffeting the waves with a corpse—exerting his utmost strength and straining every nerve for a dead body.

Jörgen still breathed; he was carried to the nearest house on the inner side of the sand-hills. A sort of army surgeon who happened to be at the place, who also acted in the capacities of smith and huckster, attended him until the next day, when a physician from Hjörring, who had been sent for, arrived.

The patient was severely wounded in the head, and suffering from a brain fever. For a time he uttered fearful shrieks, but on the third day he sank into a state of drowsiness, and his life seemed to hang upon a thread: that it might snap, the physician said, was the best that could be wished for Jörgen.

"Let us pray our Lord that he may be taken; he will never more be a rational man."

But he was not taken; the thread of life would not break, though memory was swept away, and all the powers and faculties of his mind were gone. It was a frightful change. A living body was left—a body that was to regain health and go about again.

Jörgen remained in the trader Brönne's house.

"He was brought into this lamentable condition by his efforts to save our child," said the old man; "he is now our son."

Jörgen was called "an idiot;" but that was a term not exactly applicable to him. He was like a musical instrument, the strings of which are loose, and can no longer, therefore, be made to sound. Only once, for a few minutes, they seemed to resume their elasticity, and they vibrated again. Old melodies were played, and played in time. Old images seemed to start up before him. They vanished—all glimmering of reason vanished, and he sat again staring vacantly around, without thought, without mind. It was to be hoped that he did not suffer anything. His dark eyes had lost their intelligence; they looked only like black glass that could move about.