Read Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard Online
Authors: Isak Dinesen
But Herr Soerensen himself grew happier from lesson to lesson, and Malli understood that he was fuming for her own good and that it was all love. It also came about that at one of her lines the old actor abruptly halted his berserk rage and looked hard and searchingly at his pupil. “Say that once more,” he begged her gently and humbly. When Malli repeated:
“I have made you mad
,
And even with such like valor, men hang and drown their proper selves.”
Herr Soerensen remained stock-still for a moment, like a person who finds it hard to believe his eyes and ears, until he at last drew a deep breath and found release in one of Prospero’s own lines:
“Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Performed, my Ariel.”
He nodded to her and went on with the lesson.
He would also, in exuberant pride and joy, give her a few fatherly taps on her behind and then, more to himself than to her, develop his theories upon female beauty.
“How many women,” he said, “have got their tails where they ought to be? In some of them—God help them—they are coming down to their heels! You, ducky,” he added cheerfully, with his cigar in his mouth, “are long in the leg! Your trotters don’t pull you downwards.—Nay, your two legs are straight and noble columns—which proudly carry, where you
walk or stand, your whole nice little person heavenwards!”
One day he clapped his hands to his head and burst out: “And I meant to have a girl like that trip about in a pair of French silk slippers! Fool, fool that I was! Who did not know that it was a pair of seven-league boots that fitted those legs!”
So day by day Malli grew more Ariel, just as, day by day, Herr Soerensen grew more Prospero, and the date of
The Tempest’s
first performance in Christianssand was already fixed for March 15th, when an unexpected and fateful event overwhelmed both Herr Soerensen and Malli, and the whole theatrical company. This event was so sensational that it did not only become far and wide the one topic of conversation, but it also got into print on the first page of the
Christianssand Daily News
as follows:
A Heroine
During the hard weather which in the past week has supervened along the coast, there occurred in our neighborhood a calamity, which by all human reckoning must have led to a deplorable loss of life as well as of a good seaworthy coasting-steamer, had not at the very last moment, next to the mercy of providence, a brave girl’s pluck brought about a happier solution. We present to our readers a short account of the drama
.
On Wednesday, March 12th, the passenger boat
Sofie Hosewinckel
left Arendal for Christianssand. The visibility was poor, with snow and a stiff breeze from the southeast. Late in the afternoon the wind rose to gale force, and as
all know, we experienced some of the worst weather which within the memory of man has ravaged our coast
. Sofie Hosewinckel
had aboard sixteen passengers, among whom was the well-known and respected theatre manager, Herr Valdemar Soerensen, with his company, on their way to give a performance in Christianssand
.
Our steamer with difficulty had worked her way to Kvasefjord when the storm broke in all earnest. She was compelled to heave to, but was none the less driven in toward the skerries outside Randsund, without it being possible for those on board to make a landfall, owing to the snow-mist, and because the hull was ceaselessly awash from bow to stern from the heavy seas
.
At eight o’clock in the evening sunken rocks were visible on both quarters, the roaring sea breaking over them house-high
. Sofie Hosewinckel
was lucky enough to slip over the outermost skerry into somewhat smoother water in the lee of a narrow islet, but here the ship ran head-on onto a sunken rock and immediately shipped a quantity of water. During the storm the captain himself, with two of his crew, had been injured, and it was now difficult for the mate to maintain order aboard. One of the steamer’s lifeboats was found to be smashed by the seas, but our gallant seamen succeeded in launching the other boat, which could hold twenty. The passengers, with as many of the crew as were required to maneuver the boat, took their seats in it in order to row to the island. Only a nineteen-year-old girl, Mamzell Ross, of Herr Soerensen’s theatrical company, made known her decision to remain on board, giving up with noble woman’s courage her place in the boat to one of the injured sailors
.
The intention was that the mate should return to the ship with the boat to take ashore those remaining on board
.
But during the landing on the island the fragile craft was completely shattered. The people who were in it came safe ashore, but it was now impossible to renew contact with the steamer, which those ashore could only glimpse through flying snow and spray. Soon after it became apparent to those on the island that a sea lifted her off her rocky bed, and one could only surmise that her last hour had come
.
Also on board they were clear about the imminent danger that the vessel would fill with water and quickly go to the bottom. The ten men of the crew left on her became almost panic-stricken and came within an ace of giving up the struggle with the elements. As a last possibility of saving life they thought of running the
Sofie Hosewinckel
into the wind as close to shore as they could. This in all probability in the dense darkness would have brought about total loss
.
It was at this moment that Mamzell Ross, as if at the summons of higher powers, lone woman on the ship in distress, by her very dauntlessness struck courage into the breasts of the crew. This quite young girl first of all went down into the stokehold and persuaded the chief engineer and the stokers to get up full steam again. She herself helped in the dangerous work of setting the pumps going, and after this achievement, right through the night while the ship lay hove-to under the breakers and with each hour sank deeper, she stood indefatigable by the side of the helmsmen of the changing watches
.
It is understandable that a maiden’s unconquerable spirit in the hour of need might prevail upon and strengthen our struggling seamen. But it is as good as inconceivable that a young female, unproved in seafaring life, should be found in possession of so great a strength. A young ordinary seaman, Ferdinand Skaeret by name, at this point deserves marked
recognition. From the very first moment he stood shoulder to shoulder with Mamzell Ross, and through the stormy night carried out each of her orders. Above the weather’s roaring din the girl could often be heard calling him aloud by name
.
Toward the early hours of Thursday, March 13th, the storm abated somewhat. At daybreak it became possible to bring
Sofie Hosewinckel
in through Christianssand Fjord and run her aground in sinking condition by Odder Island, from where the steamer can be salvaged from shore without difficulty. And at the moment when this paper is going to press, the owner of the steamer, our honored townsman Jochum Hosewinckel, no less than the wives and mothers of our good seamen, from the bottom of their hearts will be thanking, after God, the heroic maiden for the rescue of the ship
.
During the night of storm described in the
Christianssand Daily News
lights were lit in all rooms on the first floor of the fine yellow wooden house in the market-square where lived the shipowner Jochum Hosewinckel.
The shipowner himself walked up and down the rooms, halted, listened to the storm, and walked again. His thoughts were with the ships he had at sea that night, most of all with
Sofie Hosewinckel
which was on her way from Arendal. This ship was named after his favorite sister, who a lifetime ago had died at the age of nineteen. Toward morning he fell asleep in the grandfather’s chair by the table, and when he woke up he felt convinced that the ship had gone to the bottom and was lost.
At that moment his son Arndt, whose rooms were in a side wing of the house, came in, his hair and cloak all white with snow, straight from the harbor, and told his father that the
Sofie Hosewinckel
was saved and was off Odder Island. A fisherman had brought in the news at daybreak. Jochum Hosewinckel laid his head upon his folded hands on the table and wept.
Arndt next recounted how the ship’s rescue had been brought about. Then was the old shipowner’s joy so great that he had to talk over the event with his brethren of the shipping world. He took his son’s arm and walked with him to the harbor, and from the harbor around the town. Everywhere the news was greeted with wonder and joy, all details were gone through time after time, and more than one glass was drunk to the rescue of the ship and to the health of Mamzell Ross. Jochum Hosewinckel after the terrible, endless night became as light of heart and head as he had not been for many a year. He sent word home to his wife that when the noble girl arrived in town they would take her into their own house and would have ready for her the room which had once been Sofie’s.
When late in the afternoon the fishing boat from Odder Island, bringing the shipwrecked folk to the town, stood into the harbor, half Christianssand was there. People greeted the shipowner with happy faces; a particular circumstance, a tradition or legend in Jochum Hosewinckel’s family, added something almost devotional to the salutations.
It was a wild, turbulent evening. It had ceased to snow, the sky was dark, only along the horizon ran a faint light. As the sun went down, a strange copper-colored gleam fell over the deeply disturbed waters, and the many faces on the quay became aglow with it.
The boat was received with an acclaim such as a seafaring nation accords to its sea heroes. All eyes searched for the maiden who had saved
Sofie Hosewinckel
and who to the imagination took the form of an angel. They did not find her at once, for she had changed her wet clothing for a fisherman’s jersey, trousers and seaboots, and in this equipment, which was too big for her, looked like a ship’s boy. For a few seconds disappointment and anxiety ran through the crowd. But a thick-set man in the boat lifted the girl up and shouted to those on shore: “Here is a treasure for you!” At the instant when the angel was revealed in the likeness of a young seaman, one of their very own, a hundred hearts melted as one. A tremendous cheering burst forth, caps were waved in the air, and the whole assembly laughed toward the boat. Yet there were many who wept at the same time.
The girl’s sou’wester had fallen off as she was lifted up, her hair, tumbled and curly from salt water and snow, was turned by the evening sun into a halo behind her head. She was unsteady on her feet, a young man took her in his arms and carried her. It was Arndt Hosewinckel. Malli stared into his face, and thought that she had never seen so beautiful a human face. He looked into hers; it was very pale with black rings round the eyes and a trembling mouth. He felt her body in its coarse clothes against his own, a lock of her hair strayed into his mouth and tasted salt; it was as if she had been flung into his embrace by the sea itself.
One moment she was unaware of what the black mass in front of her meant; her light, wide-open eyes sought Arndt’s. In the next instant she heard her own name shouted, so that the air vibrated with it. At that she surrendered herself—in the deep wave of blood which rose to her face, in a wide, dizzy glance and in one single movement—completely to the
crowd about her, as delighted and wild with joy as the crowd itself. Arndt had her radiant face close to his; he gave her a kiss.
The people made room for the old shipowner, who with bared head and in a loud, deeply moved voice addressed a few words to the girl and the assembly. Arndt laughingly shielded her against being embraced by all Christianssand. When the crowd realized that the owner of the rescued ship was taking the girl to his own house, she and her host were accompanied to the gate with cheers.
The young sailor Ferdinand, who to the minds of the cheerers stood by the girl’s side as the hero of the great happy drama, had his home in the town with his widowed mother. He was carried to it shoulder-high.
A little later in the evening the other shipwrecked folk, who had been set safely ashore on the island, were brought in, and people had an opportunity of remaining in their festive mood. Herr Soerensen with lightning speed conceived his position. He no longer thought of his own sufferings, but beamed in the reflection of his young disciple’s glory, and by his authoritative and powerful attitude affirmed the fact that he had created her, and that she was his. Apart from this nothing was really clear to him, and particularly not what was up and what was down in the world around him. In the course of the day he had become very hoarse; now he lost his voice altogether and spent the first few days after the shipwreck with a number of woolen scarves round his throat, in complete silence. In the town the rumor went that during the storm, at the thought of the danger to Mamzell Ross, his hair had turned white. The truth was that his chestnut wig had been whirled away into the waves from the lifeboat. He bore the loss with fine, regal calm, conscious that in exchange for a temporal possession he had won an eternal experience,
and also that he would have his loss replaced when his old carpetbag was brought ashore.
Soon also the other members of the theatrical company were landed, pale and semiconscious, but one and all proud and undaunted. In the boat Mamzell Ihlen let her long dark hair cover her like a cloak. The troupe’s fair-haired leading young man the day after the rescue wrote an Ode to the North Wind and had it accepted by the daily paper, the more weather-wise readers of which realized that a poet cannot be expected to have an insight both into versifying and the points of the compass.
The theatrical performances for the moment had to be postponed. Yet in the course of the week some of the actors, as a foretaste, gave extracts from their programme in the smaller hall of the Hotel Harmonien. The proprietor of the hotel under the particular, moving circumstances magnanimously allowed the company to stay at reduced prices. And when it became known that costumes and set-pieces on board
Sofie Hosewinckel
had been damaged by salt water, a collection was started on behalf of the sufferers. It brought in a fine return, and Herr Soerensen, in his bed and his dumbness, reflected upon the public’s valuation of an artist’s efforts in art and life respectively.