A friend who, like myself, had long been in foreign parts where they have other ways, once told me that he believed the Danes had no business capacity, at least the Danes who stayed at home, because he found them charging the big summer hotel a cent more for milk than they exacted from the poor fishermen who lived on the shore; and when he asked them why, he was told that “the hotel took so much more and it was more trouble.” But in the first place that was true; and, further, I think it was their inborn sense of fairness plus their stubborn democracy that was breaking out there. The small folk were to be protected against the wealthier neighbor. A people without business capacity would never have thought of the expedient the Old Town hit upon in a dispute with the local gas company, long after I had gone away. The sidewalks are narrow, with never room for more than one, and the nights are sometimes very dark. So, as the gas company refused to give in and the town refused to burn gas till it did, and consequently, all parties to the quarrel being Jutlanders, there was no telling when the dispute would be settled, if ever, the council ordered that the lampposts be painted white to avoid collision and suits for damages. If that is not business sense, what is it?
No. The Old Town moves with deliberation, it is true. But then, the rest of us are in too much of a hurry. No one ever is, there. What is there to run after? The clock that has counted the hours since before Napoleon stirred up the dry bones of Europe still stands in its corner and ticks the seconds, the hours, the years, twice a day pointing its slow finger to the date graven on its face: 1600-1700-1800—why should one hurry? If we but wait, the years will come to us and carry us with them to our long rest. And there will be others where we are now. The world will move; men will live and labor and love; and the old clock will tick in the hall, counting the hours, the days, the years. It is the Old Town’s philosophy. If it has not made it rich, or powerful, or great, it has made it content. Who shall say then that it is not as good as the best?
There is one that ticks in a house I know of where eyes I loved smiled to it and nodded to it every day in passing. In 1792 it was made in Ribe, where famous clock-makers lived then. I tried to buy it; I offered two hundred kroner for it, which was a small fortune to the Old Town. But its owner shook his head. It had been in the family since his great-great-great-grandfather, and it would stay there as long as there were any of them left. I shook his hand. I should have been sorry had he been willing to sell. It would have been like betraying an old friend. They were poor, but they were loyal. It was the Old Town all over. Years ago the last of the clock-makers lived in Black Friars Street, in our block. One morning there was a great crash. It was their house that had fallen down. The neighbors hastened up to help, and when a way had been made through the wreck, found the old man and his wife lying calmly in bed. The beams had formed a shelter over them, and they were safe till the next cave-in. They urged them to hurry out, but the old couple refused. It was their home. They had always lived in it and, now they were old, would die in it if need be rather than seek another. They were like Heine’s lovers:
Wir Beide bekümmern uns um nichts
Und bleiben ruhig liegen.
They had to take them out by force.
No need of haste. The mail-coach waited for you in the old days, once you were registered as a passenger, till you came. It would have been base to desert you. The train waits now till you climb aboard and station-master and conductor have exchanged the last item of news. The red-coated mail-carrier taps on your window with the expected letter and a sympathetic “It’s come.” The telegraph messenger who meets you in the street with his message goes home with you to hear the good news; he knows it is good. The mill-wheels drone in the stream their old drowsy lay that was old when you were born. Down by the castle garden a worn wheel whirs and hums in the rope walk where father and son go spinning their endless cord, side by side, as did their people before them as far back as any one can remember. Why should one hurry? The sun sinks low in the west. Far upon the horizon there is a gleam of silver: it is the sea, sleeping in a calm. The bells of the Old Town peal forth their even song. The cows come home from the meadows. In the Cloister shadows trembling hands are trimming the evening lamp, tired old feet tottering to their rest. A day is ended. Above blossoming gardens the stork looks down from its nest, wiser than the world of men: another will dawn. So that its evening be peace, what matters the rest? It is the message of the Old Town.
“It’s come.”