PICTURE BOOK WITHOUT PICTURES NEW COLLECTION
1841
Dedicated
to my Swedish friends
The twenty-first evening
‘For a fortnight the moon had not shone, now I saw him once again, round and bright he stood above the slowly rising clouds; listen to what the moon told me. “From one of the cities of fezzes I followed the caravan; at the sandy desert, on one of the salt-plains that gleams like a surface of ice and was only covered by light shifting sand for a short stretch, they halted. The oldest among them, with a water bottle hanging at his belt, a sack of unleavened bread on his head, drew a square in the sand with his stick and in it wrote some words from the Koran; the consecrated spot was then crossed by the entire caravan. A young merchant, a child of the sun, I saw this from his eye, I saw this from his handsome figure, rode thoughtfully on his white, snorting horse. Was he perhaps thinking of his beautiful young wife? Only two days had passed since the camel, adorned with skins and costly shawls, bore her, the lovely bride, around the walls of the city; drums and bagpipes sounded, the women sang and around the camel shots of rejoicing were fired, the bridegroom shot most of them, the most powerful of them, and now – now he was travelling across the desert with the caravan. I followed them for many nights, saw them rest by the wells among the bedraggled palm trees; they plunged their knives in the fallen camel’s breast and roasted the meat over the fire. My rays cooled the glowing sand, my rays showed them the black boulders, dead islands in the vast sea of sand. They encountered no hostile tribes on their trackless way, no storms got up, no death-dealing columns of sand whirled over the caravan. Back home his lovely wife prayed for her husband and father. “Are they dead?” she asked my gleaming disc. – Now the desert lies behind them; this evening they are sitting under the tall palm trees, where the crane with its two-feet-long wings fly around them; the pelican gazes at them from the branches of the mimosa. The luxuriant undergrowth has been trampled flat by the elephants’ heavy feet; a host of negroes are coming from a market further inside. The women, with a copper button round their black hair and indigo-dyed skirts are driving the loaded oxen on which the naked brown children are sleeping. A negro leads a young lion he has bought on a rope; they approach the caravan; the young merchant sits there motionless, silent, thinking of his heart’s houris, dreaming in the land of the black people of his white, sweet-smelling flower on the far side of the desert; he lifts his head –!’ – a cloud passed in front of the moon and another one. I did not hear any more that evening.
The twenty-second evening
‘I saw a young girl crying,’ the moon said, ‘she was crying at the wickedness in the world. She had been given the loveliest doll as a present, oh, it was such a fine and pretty doll, it was simply not designed for adversity. But the young girl’s brothers, the tall boys, had taken the doll, placed it in the top of a tall tree in the garden and had then run away. The little girl couldn’t reach the doll, was unable to help it down again, and that was why she was crying, the doll was sure to be crying too, it stretched its arms out among the green branches and looked most unhappy. Yes, this was the adversity of the world that Mamma so often spoke of. Oh, the poor doll! It was already starting to grow dark and soon the wild night would come! was it to sit out there in the tree of its own all night? No, the little girl could not find it in her heart to let that happen. “I will stay here with you!” she said, although she wasn’t the least courageous; she already seemed to see clearly the small pixies with their tall, pointed hats peeping out from among the bushes, and down in the dark passage tall ghosts were dancing, they grew nearer and nearer, stretched their hands out towards the tree where the doll was sitting, they laughed and pointed their fingers at it. Ah, how frightened the little girl was! “But when you have done nothing sinful,” she thought, “then evil cannot do anything bad to you! I wonder if there is anything sinful in me?” And she paused to think, “alas, there is!” she said, “I laughed at the poor duck with the red cloth round its leg, it limped so comically, but is it a sin to laugh at animals?” And she looked up at the doll, “Have you laughed at animals?” she inquired, and it seemed as if the doll shook its head.’
The twenty-third evening
‘I gazed down on the Tyrol,’ the moon said, ‘I let the dark fir trees cast strong, deep shadows onto the rocks. I observed Saint Christopher with the infant Jesus on his shoulders, such as those on the walls of the houses, colossal, from sill to gable; Saint Florian poured water on the burning house, and Christ hung in torment, bleeding, on the large cross at the roadside. They are old images to the new generation, I on the other hand have seen them erected, seen the one succeed the other. High up on the mountain slope, like a swallow’s nest, hangs a lonely nunnery, two sisters stood up there in the tower and rang the bell; both of them were young and therefore they gaze flew out over the mountains, out into the world. A travelling-carriage drove down the highway, the coach horn sounded and the poor nuns, with similar thoughts, fixed their gaze down on it; in the eyes of the younger one there were tears. – And the horn sounded ever more faintly, the bell drowned out its fading notes. –’
The twenty-fourth evening
Listen to what the moon related: ‘Several years ago, it was here in Copenhagen; I gazed through a window into a poor room. The father and mother were asleep, but the young son was not; I saw the flower-patterned cotton bed-curtain move and the child peek out; at first I thought that he was looking at the grandfather clock; it was brightly coloured in red and green, there was a cuckoo at the top, there were heavy leaden weights and a pendulum with the its gleaming brass plate moved to and fro, “tick! tock!”, but that was not what he was looking at; no! it was his mother’s spinning wheel; it stood right under the clock. It was the boy’s most precious object in the whole house, but he did not dare touch it, for then he would be rapped over the fingers; for hours on end, when his mother was spinning, he could sit watching the whirring spindle and the turning wheel, and while doing so he had his own private thoughts. Ah, if only he too dared spin on that wheel! His father and mother were asleep; he looked at them, he looked at the spinning wheel, and shortly afterwards a small, bare foot stuck out of the bed and then another bare foot, out came two small legs, thud! he was standing on the floor. He turned round one more time to see if father and mother were asleep; yes, they were; and then quietly, ever so quietly, wearing only his little, skimpy nightshirt, he went over to the wheel and started to spin; the thread flew off, and then the wheel went much faster. I kissed his blond hair and his bright blue eyes; it was a lovely picture. His mother woke up at once, the curtain moved, she looked out and thought of a pixie or some other small ghost. “In the name of Christ!” she said, poking her husband in the side out of fear; he opened his eyes; rubbed them with his hand and looked at the busy little chap. “It’s Bertel!” he said.
And my eye turned from the poor room – my gaze ranges so widely! at the same instant I looked into the great halls of the Vatican, where the gods of marble stand; I illuminated the Laocoon group, the stone seemed to sigh; I pressed my silent kiss on the breasts of the muses, I think they swelled. Though my gaze dwelt longest on the Nile group, by the colossal god. Leaning against the Sphinx, he lay there so pensive, so lost in dreams, as if he was thinking of the years that pass by; the small cupids played around him their crocodile game; in the cornucopia, with crossed arms and looking at the great, solemn river god, sat a very small cupid, an exact likeness of precisely the little boy at the spinning wheel, he had the same features; alive and attractive the small marble child stood here, although the wheel of time has turned more than a thousand times since he emerged from the stone. Just as many times as the boy in the poor room spun the wheel has the larger wheel whirred and continues to whirr before the age that created such marble statues as these. See, all of this took place several years ago! Now yesterday,’ the moon went on, ‘I looked down on a bay on the east coast of Zealand; there are lovely woods there, high hills; an old manor house with red walls, swans in the moats, and a small market town with its church among orchards. A number of boats, all of them with torches, slid over the calm surface of the water; they had not lit their torches in order to spear eels, now; everything was festive! the music rang out, a song was sung, and in the middle of one of the boats stood the man they were celebrating: a tall, strapping man in a large cloak, he had blue eyes and long white hair; I knew him and thought of the Vatican with the Nile group and all the marble gods, I thought of the small, poor room, I think it was actually in Green Street, where little Bertel with his skimpy nightshirt sat spinning. The wheel of time has turned; new gods have emerged from the stone. – – From the boat a hurrah! could be heard, a “Hurrah for Bertel Thorvaldsen!” –’
The twenty-fifth evening
‘I will give you a picture from Frankfurt,’ the moon said, ‘I was observing a particular building there, it was not Goethe’s birthplace, nor was it the old city hall, where through the grated windows the horned skulls of oxen still stick out that were roasted and given to the people at the coronation of the emperor; it was a simple house, plain and painted green, on the corner of the narrow Jews’ Street – it was Rothschild’s house. I looked in through the open door, the staircase was brightly lit; there servants stood with lit candles in massive silver candlesticks, bowing low to the old lady who was being carried down the stairs in a sedan chair. The owner of the house stood bare-headed and gave the old woman’s hand a respectful kiss. It was his mother; she nodded kindly to him and the servants, and they bore her out into the narrow dark street and into a small house; there she lived, there she had given birth to her children, from there their good fortune had flourished; were she now to leave the disdained street, then good fortune, perhaps, would desert them! that at any rate was what she believed. –’ The moon related no more than this; its visit was far too short that evening, but I thought of the old woman in the narrow, disdained street; had she said but a word, she would have had her splendid house down by the Thames; had she said but a word, and her villa would lie in the Bay of Naples. ‘Were I to leave the humble house from where my sons’ good fortune sprang forth, then maybe it would desert them!’ – That is a superstition, but of the kind that if one knows the story and sees the picture, only two words are needed to understand this, the two words, as a signature: A Mother.
The twenty-sixth evening
‘It was yesterday, at daybreak!’ these are the moon’s own words; ‘no smoke came yet from any chimney in the city, and it was precisely the chimney sweep I was looking at; from one of the chimneys a small head popped out at that very moment, followed by half a body, the arms resting on the edge of the chimney. “Hurrah1” it was a young chimney sweeper’s boy, who for the first time in his life had climbed up an entire chimney and stuck his head out the top.
“Hurrah!” Yes, that was something else that creeping around in the narrow flues and cramped fireplaces! The air wafted so fresh, he could look out over the entire city to the green woods; the sun was just rising, round and large it shone directly into his face, which was blissfully radiant, even though it was liberally coated with soot. “Now the whole town can see me!” he said, “and the moon can see me and so can the sun! Hurrah!” and he swung his brush.–’
The twenty-seventh evening
‘Last night I gazed down on a city in China,’ the moon said, ‘my rays lit up the long naked walls that form the streets, here are there one can see a door of course, but it is closed, for of what interest is the outside world to a Chinese; thick blinds covered the windows behind the walls of the house, only the light from the temple shone faintly through the panes. I looked in, at the multicolour splendour there; from floor to ceiling, in bright colours and richly gilded, hang pictures that represent the doings of the gods here on earth; in every niche even their statues, but almost hidden by many-coloured drapings and banners that hang down, and in front of each divinity – they are all of tin – stood a small altar with holy water, flowers and lit candles, but highest up in the temple stood Fu, the supreme divinity, adorned with a coat of silk, the sacred yellow. At the foot of the altar a live figure sat, a young priest, he seemed to be praying, but as if in mid-prayer he began sink into reverie, and that was clearly a sin, for his cheeks burned and he bowed yet lower towards the ground! poor Soui-Houng! was he dreaming of being on the other side of the long wall of the street perhaps, at work on the small patch of flowers to be found in front of every house, and was such an occupation far dearer to him that taking care of the wax tapers in temple; or did he delight in sitting at a lavish table and drying his mouth on silver paper between each course! or was his sin so great that had he dared speak its name, the heavenly kingdom would have to punish him with death; did you thought dare fly with the ships of the barbarians to their homeland, the distant country of England? No, his thoughts did not fly that far, although they were as sinful as those to which the hot blood of youth can give birth, sinful here in the temple in front of the statues of Fu and the sacred gods. I know what he was thinking. On the outskirts of the city, on the flat, tiled roof where the railings seem to be made of porcelain, where the beautiful vases stood with large, white harebells, the lovely Pe sat, with her narrow, roguish eyes, full lips and tiny feet; the shoes pinched, but the pinching was greater around her heart, and she lifted her beautifully formed arms, and the satin rustled. In front of her stood a glass bowl with four goldfish, she gently touched the water with a brightly painted and lacquered stick, oh, so slowly, for she was pondering things; was she perhaps thinking of how richly and goldenly the fish were clad, how secure their life was in the glass bowl and how copiously they were fed and how much happier they might even so feel themselves out in nature, yes, the beautiful Pe understood all that; her thoughts took her away from home, her thoughts went to the temple, but it was not because of God that they did so. Poor Pe, poor Soui-Houng! their earthly thoughts met, but my cold ray lay like a cherub’s sword between them!’
The twenty-eighth evening
‘It was dead calm,’ the moon said, ‘the water was just as transparent as the pure air through which I was sailing, I could see far below the sea-surface the strange plants which, like huge trees in the forest, rose up towards me with stems many fathoms in length; the fish swam above the tops of them. High up in the air a flock of wild swans passed, one of them, its wings losing strength, sank lower and lower, its eyes followed the airborne caravan that became more and more distant, it kept its wings widespread and sank, like a soap-bubble sinks in the still air, it touched the surface of the water, its head tucked back between its wings, it lay their motionless, like a white lotus on a quiet lake. And a breeze aerated and raised the gleaming surface of the water, which gleamed as if it was the upper air rolling forwards in great large waves, and the swan lifted its head and the glistening water sprayed like blue fire over its breast and back. The light of dawn caught the red clouds, and the swan, reinvigorated, raised itself up and flew towards the rising sun, towards the blue-tinged coast the airborne caravan was flying towards, but it flew alone with longing in its breast, alone it flew over the blue, the swelling waters.’–
The twenty-ninth evening
‘I will give you another picture from Sweden,’ the moon said; ‘among the black forests of fir trees, close to the melancholy banks of lake Roxen, lies the old church of Wreta Abbey. My rays slid through the grating in the wall into the spacious vault where kings rest in large stone coffins; in the wall above them, as an image of earthly glory, there is a resplendent royal crown, but it is made of wood, painted and gilded, it is held in position by a wooden peg nailed into the wall. Worms have gnawed through the gilded wood, the spider has woven its web from the crown to the coffin, it is a flag of mourning, frail, as grief is for those who are mortal! How quietly they rest! I remember them so clearly! I can still see the cheerful smile playing round their lips, the expressed happiness or sorrow, so powerful, so conclusive. When the steamboat, like some magical craft comes sailing up past the mountains, a stranger often comes to the church, visits this burial vault, asks about the names of the kings, and these sound dead and forgotten; he looks at the worm-eaten crowns, smiles, and he is of a quite devout disposition, for there is sadness too in his smile. Rest on, you who are dead, the moon remembers you, the moon sends his cold rays at night to your silent kingdom over which the crown of fir hangs! –’
The thirtieth evening
‘Close to the highway,’ the moon said, ‘there lies an inn, and right opposite it is a large coach shed, the roof there was being thatched, I looked down between the spars and through the open loft down into the cheerless interior, the turkeycock was sleeping on its perch, and the saddle had been lain to rest in the empty crib. In the middle of the space there stood a coach where the travellers were no doubt fast asleep, while the horses were given something to drink and the coachman could stretch his limbs, although I know best just how soundly he had slept for half the journey. The door of the farmhands’ room stood open, the bed looked as if it had been up-ended, the candle lay on the floor and had burnt right the way down into the socket. A cold wind blew through the shed and it was now nearer dawn than midnight. Over in the stalls a family of travelling musicians was sleeping – the mother and father were probably dreaming of the burning drops of liquor still left in the bottle, the pale little girl of the burning tears in her eyes; the harp lay at their head, the dog at their feet.–’
FROM PICTURE BOOK WITHOUT PICTURES
SECOND ENLARGED EDITION
1845
The thirty-first evening
‘It was in a small market town,’ the moon said, ‘I saw it last year, but that makes no difference, I saw it so clearly; this evening I have read about it in the newspaper, but there it was not at all so clear. Down in the tap-room the bear leader sat eating his evening meal, his Mr Bruin stood bound outside behind the woodpile, the poor bear who wouldn’t hurt a fly, although he looked ferocious enough. Up in the attic I let my bright beams play on three young children – the oldest was around six, the youngest not more than two. “Tramp, tramp!” someone was climbing the stairs, who could it be? The door swung open – it was the bear, the large shaggy bear! He had got bored of standing outside in the yard and now found his way up the staircase; I had seen all of it,’ the moon said. ‘The children were terribly frightened of the large, shaggy beast, they each crept into a corner, but he found all three of them, touched them with his snout, but didn’t do them any harm at all!– “It must be a big dog,” they thought, and so they patted him, he lay down on the floor, the smallest boy rolled on top of him and pretended to hide his golden-haired head in his thick black fur. Now the oldest boy picked up his drum and then beat a thunderous tattoo on it, and the bear rose up on its hind legs and started to dance – what fun! – Each boy took his gun, the bear had to have one too, and he held firmly onto it, it was a fine playmate they had got, and off they set: “left, right, left, right!” – Then someone turned the door handle, the door opened and there was the children’s mother. You should have seen her, seen her wordless fear, her chalk-white face, her half-open mouth, her staring eyes. But the youngest of the boys gave just a happy nod and shouted out in his special language: “We’re just playing soldiers!”– And then the bear leader arrived on the scene!’ –
CONTINUATION OF
PICTURE BOOK WITHOUT PICTURES
1848
The thirty-second evening
There was a strong, cold wind, the clouds scudded past; only once in a while could I see the moon.
‘Through the silent expanses of space I look down at the fleeing clouds!’ he said, ‘I see great shadows chasing across the earth!– Recently I looked down on a prison building, a closed coach stood outside, a prisoner was to be taken away; my beams penetrated the grated window onto the wall; he was scratching some lines on it as a farewell; it was not words, but a melody, the outflowing of his heart that final night in the place; and the door was opened, he was led outside, he looked up at my round disc – – clouds swirled past between us, as if I didn’t dare see his face, as if he didn’t dare see mine; he got into the coach, the door was shut, the whip cracked, the horses set off into the dense wood where my rays could not follow him; but I looked in through the prison grating; my rays glided over the melody scratched on the wall, the last farewell; where words cannot express, notes can speak! – but my rays were only able to light up a new notes, most of them will always be in the dark for me. Was it the hymn of death he was writing? Was it a joyous song of happiness? Was he on his way to death or his beloved’s embrace? The moon’s rays does not read everything that even mortals write.
Through the silent expanses of space I look down at the fleeing clouds!’ he said, ‘I see great shadows chasing across the earth!’
The thirty-third evening
‘I am very fond of children!’ the moon said, ‘small ones in particular are so amusing; I peep many a time between the curtain and the window sill into the room – and when they are not thinking about me at all. It is so amusing to see them help to take off their clothes; first a naked, little, round shoulder emerges from the frock, then an arm slides out, or I see a stocking being pulled off and a delightful little leg, so white and firm, emerge, it is another foot to be kissed and I kiss it,’ the moon said.
‘This evening, I simply must tell you this! this evening I looked in through a window where the curtains were not lowered, for no one lives opposite; I looked in and saw a whole host of young children, sisters and brothers. There was a little girl, she is only four years old, but she knows her Lord’s Prayer as well as the others, and her mother sits every evening beside her bed and listens to her recite it, then she is given a kiss, and her mother stays until she has fallen asleep, it happens so quickly that young children close their eyes. This evening the two eldest children were a bit wild, one of them was hopping around on one leg in his long, white nightshirt, the other standing on a chair with the clothes of all the others around him, it was a tableau he said, and the others had to guess; the third and fourth were putting toys back neatly in the drawer, and that has to be done too; but their mother sat beside the youngest one’s bed and told them all to keep quiet, for the young one was about to recite her Lord’s Prayer.
I looked in just above the lamp,’ the moon said, ‘the four-year-old girl lay in her bed, in the white, fine linen, and her small hands were folded and her little face quite solemn, she recited her Lord’s Prayer. “But what is it,” her mother said, interrupting her in the middle of the prayer, “when you have said: Give us this day our daily bread, you say something else, but I can’t quite make out what it is. What is it? You must tell me!” – and the little girl kept silent and looked shyly at her mother, – “what is it you say extra after give us this day our daily bread?” – “Don’t be angry, dear mother,” the little girl said, “I prayed: and lots of butter on it!”.’
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