The True Story of My Life: A Sketch

by H. C. Andersen

On the 5th of September, 1833, I crossed the Simplon on my way to Italy. On the very day, on which, fourteen years before, I had arrived poor and helpless in Copenhagen, did I set foot in this country of my longing and of my poetical happiness. It happened in this case, as it often does, by accident, without any arrangement on my part, as if I had preordained lucky days in the year; yet good fortune has so frequently been with me, that I perhaps only remind myself of its visits on my own self-elected days.

All was sunshine—all was spring! The vine hung in long trails from tree to tree; never since have I seen Italy so beautiful. I sailed on Lago Maggiore; ascended the cathedral of Milan; passed several days in Genoa, and made from thence a journey, rich in the beauties of nature, along the shore to Carrara. I had seen statues in Paris, but my eyes were closed to them; in Florence, before the Venus de Medici, it was for the first time as if scales fell from my eyes; a new world of art disclosed itself before me; that was the first fruit of my journey. Here it was that I first learned to understand the beauty of form—the spirit which reveals itself in form. The life of the people—nature—all was new to me; and yet as strangely familiar as if I were come to a home where I had lived in my childhood. With a peculiar rapidity did I seize upon everything, and entered into its life, whilst a deep northern melancholy—it was not home-sickness, but a heavy, unhappy feeling—filled my breast. I received the news in Rome, of how little the poem of Agnete, which I had sent home, was thought of there; the next letter in Rome brought me the news that my mother was dead. I was now quite alone in the world.

It was at this time, and in Rome, that my first meeting with Hertz took place. In a letter which I had received from Collin, he had said that it would give him pleasure to hear that Hertz and I had become friends; but even without this wish it would have happened, for Hertz kindly offered me his hand, and expressed sympathy with my sorrow. He had, of all those with whom I was at that time acquainted, the most variously cultivated mind. We had often disputations together, even about the attacks which had been made upon me at home as a poet. He, who had himself given me a wound, said the following words, which deeply impressed themselves on my memory: "Your misfortune is, that you have been obliged to print everything; the public has been able to follow you step by step. I believe that even, a Goethe himself must have suffered the same fate, had he been in your situation." And then he praised my talent for seizing upon the characteristics of nature, and giving, by a few intuitive sketches, pictures of familiar life. My intercourse with him was very instructive to me, and I felt that I had one merciful judge more. I travelled in company with him to Naples, where we dwelt together in one house.

In Rome I also became first acquainted with Thorwaldsen. Many years before, when I had not long been in Copenhagen, and was walking through the streets as a poor boy, Thorwaldsen was there too: that was on his first return home. We met one another in the street. I knew that he was a distinguished man in art; I looked at him, I bowed; he went on, and then, suddenly turning round, came back to me, and said, "Where have I seen you before? I think we know one another." I replied, "No, we do not know one another at all." I now related this story to him in Rome; he smiled, pressed my hand, and said, "Yet we felt at that time that we should become good friends." I read Agnete to him; and that which delighted me in his judgment upon it was the assertion, "It is just," said he, "as if I were walking at home in the woods, and heard the Danish lakes;" and then he kissed me.

One day, when he saw how distressed I was, and I related to him about the pasquinade which I had received from home in Paris, he gnashed his teeth violently, and said, in momentary anger, "Yes, yes, I know the people; it would not have gone any better with me if I had remained there; I should then, perhaps, not even have obtained permission to set up a model. Thank God that I did not need them, for then they know how to torment and to annoy." He desired me to keep up a good heart, and then things could not fail of going well; and with that he told me of some dark passages in his own life, where he in like manner had been mortified and unjustly condemned.

After the Carnival, I left Rome for Naples; saw at Capri the blue Grotto, which was at that time first discovered; visited the temple at Paestum, and returned in the Easter week to Rome, from whence I went through Florence and Venice to Vienna and Munich; but I had at that time neither mind nor heart for Germany; and when I thought on Denmark, I felt fear and distress of mind about the bad reception which I expected to find there. Italy, with its scenery and its people's life, occupied my soul, and towards this land I felt a yearning. My earlier life, and what I had now seen, blended themselves together into an image—into poetry, which I was compelled to write down, although I was convinced that it would occasion me more trouble than joy, if my necessities at home should oblige me to print it. I had written already in Rome the first chapter. It was my novel of "The Improvisatore."

At one of my first visits to the theatre at Odense, as a little boy, where, as I have already mentioned, the representations were given in the German language, I saw the Donauweibchen, and the public applauded the actress of the principal part. Homage was paid to her, and she was honored; and I vividly remember thinking how happy she must be.

Many years afterwards, when, as a student, I visited Odense, I saw, in one of the chambers of the hospital where the poor widows lived and where one bed stood by another, a female portrait hanging over one bed in a gilt frame. It was Lessing's Emilia Galotti, and represented her as pulling the rose to pieces; but the picture was a portrait. It appeared singular in contrast with the poverty by which it was surrounded.

"Whom does it represent?" asked I.

"Oh!" said one of the old women, "it is the face of the German lady, the poor lady who once was an actress!" And then I saw a little delicate woman, whose face was covered with wrinkles, and in an old silk gown that once had been black. That was the once celebrated Singer, who, as the Donauweibchen, had been applauded by every one. This circumstance made an indelible impression upon me, and often occurred to my mind.