A Picture-Book without Pictures and Other Stories/Scenes on the Danube

by Hans Christian Andersen

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SCENES ON THE DANUBE.

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To-day is Sunday.

It is Sunday in the calendar; it is Sunday in God’s beautiful nature! Let us go out into the hills toward Mehadia, the most delightfully situated of all the watering-places in Hungary. What a mass of flowers are in bloom in the tall green grass! What gushes of sunshine upon the wood-covered sides of the hills! The air is blue and transparent. To-day it is Sunday, and therefore all the people whom we meet are in holiday attire. The smooth, black, plaited hair of the girls is adorned with real flowers; with a spray of laburnum, or a dark red carnation; the white chemise sleeves are embroidered with green and red; the petticoat resembles a deep fringe of red, blue, and yellow: even the old grandmother is dressed in fringe, and wears a flower in her white linen head-band. Young men and boys have roses in their hats; the very least is arrayed in his best, and looks splendid; his short shirt hangs outside his dark-colored breeches; a spray of laburnum is wreathed round his large hat, which soon half buries his eyes. Yes, it is Sunday to-day!

What a solitude there is in these hills! Life and health gush in water out of these springs; music resounds from the stately, large pump-room; the nightingale sings in the clear sunshine, among the fragrant trees, where the wild vines climb from branch to branch.

Thou wonderful nature! to me the best, the holiest of churches! In the midst of thee my heart tells me that “this day is Sunday!”

We are again in Orsova. The brass ball upon the church-tower shines in the sun: the door is open. How solitary it is within. The priest stands in his robes and lifts up his voice; it is Father Adam; little Antonius kneels before him, and swings to and fro the censer; the elder boy, Hieronymus, has his place in the middle of the church, and represents the whole Armenian congregation.

In front of the church, in the market-place, where the lime-trees are in blossom, there is a great dance of young and old. In the middle of the circle stand the musicians; one plows the bag-pipe, the other scrapes the fiddle. The circle twists itself first to the right, then to the left. Everybody is in their utmost grandeur, with fringe, flowers, and bare feet. To-day it is Sunday!

Several little lads run about in nothing but a shirt; upon their heads, however, they wear a large man’s hat, and in the hat a flower. Official people, gentlemen and ladies all dressed in the fashion of Vienna, walk about to look at the people, the dancing people. The red evening sun illumines the white church tower, the amber-colored Danube, and the wood-crowned mountains of Servia: may it shine also in my song when I sing of it! How beautiful and animated! How fresh and peculiar! Everything indicates a holiday. Everything shows that to-day is Sunday!

 

AT DRENCOVA.

About sunset I walked alone in the wood near the little town, where I fell in with some gipseys who had encamped round a fire for the night. When I returned back through the wood, I saw a handsome peasant-lad standing among the bushes, who bade me good evening in German. I asked him if this were his native tongue; he replied in the negative, and told me that he commonly spoke in the Wallacian language, but that he had learned German in the school. To judge by his dress he appeared very poor; but everything that he wore was so clean; his hair so smoothly combed; his eyes beamed with such an expression of happiness; there was something so thoughtful and so good in his countenance, as I rarely have seen in a child before. I asked him if he were intended for a soldier, and he replied, “Yes, we are all of us soldiers here, but I wish to be an officer, and therefore I learn everything that I can.” There was a something in his whole manner so innocent, so noble, that actually, if I had been rich, I would have adopted that boy. I told him that he certainly must be an officer; and that no doubt he would be one if he only zealously strove after it, and put his trust in God.

In reply to my question, whether he knew where Denmark was, he thought with himself for some time, and then said, “I fancy it is a long way from here—near Hamburgh.”

I could not give an alms to this boy; he seemed too noble to receive charity; I asked him, therefore, to gather me a few flowers; he ran away readily, and soon gathered me a beautiful nosegay. I took and said I shall buy these flowers. In that way he received payment; he blushed deeply, and thanked me sweetly. He told me that his name was Adam Marco. I took one of my cards out of my pocket, and gave it to him, saying, “Some day when you are an officer, and perhaps may come to Denmark, then inquire for me, and your happiness will give me great pleasure. Be industrious, and put your trust in God! There is no knowing what may happen.”

Never did any unknown child make such a strong impression on me at the first meeting, as did this. His noble deportment, his thoughtful innocent countenance, were his best patent of nobility. He must become an officer; and I will do my little towards it; committing it, it is true, to the hand of chance. And here I make my bow to every noble, rich, Hungarian lady, who, by any chance, may read this book, and who, perhaps, for the “Improvisatore” and “The Fiddler,” may have a kindly thought; the poet beseeches of her—or if he have, unknown to himself, a wealthy friend in Hungary, or in Wallacia, he beseeches also of him, to think of Adam Marco in Drencova, and to help your little countryman forward, if he deserve it!

 

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The Swineherds.

Before a cottage, plastered of mud and straw, sat an old swineherd, a real Hungarian, and consequently a nobleman.^[1] Very often had he laid his hand upon his heart, and said this to himself. The sun burnt hotly, and therefore he had turned the woolly side of his sheepskin outwards; his silver white hair hung around his characteristic brown countenance. He had got a new piece of linen, a shirt, and he was now preparing it for wear, according to his own fashion, which was this: he rubbed the fat of a piece of bacon into it; by this means it would keep clean so much the longer, and he could turn it first on one side and then on the other.

His grandson, a healthy-looking lad, whose long black hair was smoothed with the same kind of pomatum which the old man used to his shirt, stood just by, leaning on a staff. A long leathern bag hung on his shoulder. He also was a swineherd, and this very evening was going on board a vessel, which, towed by the steamboat Eros, was taking a freight of pigs to the imperial city of Vienna.

“You will be there in five days,” said the old man. “When I was a young fellow, like you, it used to take six weeks for the journey. Step by step we went on through marshy roads, through forests, and over rocks. The pigs, which at the beginning of the journey, were so fat that many of them died by the way, became thin and wretched before we came to our destination. Now, the world strides onward: everything gets easier!”

“We can smoke our pipes,” said the youth; “lie in the sun in our warm skin-cloaks. Meadows and cities glide swiftly past us; the pigs fly along with us, and get fat on the journey. That is the life!”

“Everybody has his own notions,” replied the old man; “I had mine. There is a pleasure even in difficulty. When in the forest I saw the gypsies roasting and boiling, I had to look sharply about me, to mind that my best pigs did not get into their clutches. Many a bit of fun have I had. I had to use my wits. I was put to my shifts; and sometimes had to use my fists as well. On the plain between the rocks, where, you know, the winds are shut in, I drove my herd: I drove it across the field where the invisible castle of the winds is built. There was neither house nor roof to be seen: the castle of the winds can only be felt. I drove the herd through the invisible chambers and halls. I could see it very well; the wall was storm, the door whirlwind! Such a thing as that is worth all the trouble; it gives a man something to talk about. What do you come to know, you who lie idling in the sunshine, in the great floating pig-sty?”

And all the time the old man was talking, he kept rubbing the bacon-fat into his new shirt.

“Go with me to the Danube,” returned the youth; “there you will see a dance of pigs, all so fat, till they are ready to burst. They do not like to go into the vessel; we drive them with sticks; they push one against another; set themselves across; stretch themselves out on the earth, run hither and thither, however fat and heavy they may be. That is a dance! You would shake your sides with laughing! What a squealing there is! All the musicians in Hungary could not make such a squealing as that out of all their bagpipes, let them blow as hard as they would! How beautifully bright you have made your shirt look; you can’t improve it. Go with me—now do—to the Danube! I’ll give you something to drink, grandfather! In four days I shall be in the capital: what pomp and splendor I shall see there! I will buy you a pair of red trowsers and plaited spurs!”

The old swineherd proudly lifted his head; regarded the youthful Magyar with flashing eyes; hung his shirt on the hook in the wall of the low mud cottage, in which there was nothing but a table, a bench, and a wooden chest; he nodded with his head, and muttered to himself. “Nemes-ember van, nemes-ember én és vagyok.” (He is a nobleman; I am also a nobleman!)

 

1. The number of indigent nobles in Hungary is very great, and they live like peasants, in the most miserable huts.