Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (parable of the sower read online txt) 📕
He was a large-boned, long-limbed man with a stoop in his broad shoulders. His hair was rough as a crow's nest, grayish and tangled, but his face was of a deep yet clear pink, seemingly out of keeping with his coarse, rugged features and bushy eyebrows.
Erik Grubbe invited him to a seat and asked about his haymaking. The conversation dwelt on the chief labors of the farm at that season and died away in a sigh over the poor harvest of last year. Meanwhile the pastor was casting sidelong glances at the mug and finally said: "Your honor is always temperate--keeping to the natural drinks. No doubt they are the healthiest. New milk is a blessed gift of heaven, good both for a weak stomach and a sore chest."
"Indeed the gifts of God are all good, whether they come from the udder or the tap. But you must taste a keg of genuine mum that we brought home from Viborg the other day. She's both good and German, though I can't see that the customs have put their mark on her."
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Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of
angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it
must be?’
“Ay, my beloved friends, thus it must be. The poor walls and feeble
garrison of this city are at this moment encompassed by a strong host
of armed warriors, and their king and commander has ordered them by
fire and sword, by attack and siege to subdue this city and make us
all his servants.
“And those who are in the city and see their peace threatened and
their ruin contrary to all feelings of humanity determined upon, they
arm themselves, they bring catapults and other harmful implements of
war to the ramparts, and they say to one another, ‘Should not we with
flaming fire and shining sword fall upon the destroyers of peace who
would lay us waste? Why has God in heaven awakened valor and
fearlessness in the heart of man if not for the purpose of resisting
such an enemy?’ And, like Peter the Apostle, they would draw their
glaive and smite off the ear of Malchus. But Jesus says, ‘Put up again
thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword.’ ‘Tis true, this may seem like a strange speech
to the unreason of the wrathful and like foolishness to the unseeing
blindness of the spiteful. But the Word is not like a tinkle of
cymbals for the ear only. No, like the hull of a ship which is loaded
with many useful things, so the Word of God is loaded with reason and
understanding. Let us therefore examine the Word and find, one by one,
the points of true interpretation. Wherefore should the sword remain
in his place and he who takes the sword perish with the sword? This is
for us to consider under three heads:
“Firstly, man is a wisely and beyond all measure gloriously fashioned
microcosm or, as it may be interpreted, a small earth, a world of good
and evil. For does not the Apostle James say that the tongue alone is
a world of iniquity among our members? How much more then the whole
body—the lustful eyes, the hastening feet, the covetous hands, the
insatiable belly, but even so the prayerful knees, and the ears quick
to hear! And if the body is a world, how much more, then, our precious
and immortal soul! Ay, it is a garden full of sweet and bitter herbs,
full of evil lusts like ravening beasts and virtues like white lambs.
And is he who lays waste such a world to be regarded as better than an
incendiary, a brawler, or a field robber? And ye know what punishment
is meted out to such as these.”
Darkness had fallen, and the crowd around the preacher appeared only
as a large, dark, slowly shifting and growing mass.
“Secondly, man is a microtheos, that is, a mirror and image of the
Almighty God. Is not he who lays hands on the image of God to be
regarded as worse than he who merely steals the holy vessels or
vestments of the church or who profanes the sanctuary? And ye know
what punishment is meted out to such a one.
“Thirdly and lastly, it is the first duty of man to do battle for the
Lord without ceasing, clothed in the shining mail of a pure life and
girded about with the flaming sword of truth. Armed thus, it behooves
him to fight as a warrior before the Lord, rending the throat of hell
and trampling upon the belly of Satan. Therefore the sword of the body
must remain in its place, for verily we have enough to strive with
that of the spirit!”
Meanwhile stragglers came from both ends of the street, stopped, and
took their place in the outskirts of the crowd. Many were carrying
lanterns, and finally the dark mass was encircled with an undulating
line of twinkling lights that flickered and shifted with the movements
of the people. Now and then a lantern would be lifted, and its rays
would move searchingly over whitewashed walls and black windowpanes
till they rested on the earnest face of the preacher.
“But how is this? you would say in your hearts. ‘Should we deliver
ourselves bound hand and foot into the power of the oppressor, into a
bitter condition of thralldom and degradation?’ Oh, my well-beloved,
say not so! For then you will be counted among those who doubt that
Jesus could pray to his Father and He should send twelve legions of
angels. Oh, do not fall into despair! Do not murmur in your hearts
against the counsel of the Lord, and make not your liver black against
His will! For he whom the Lord would destroy is struck down, and he
whom the Lord would raise abides in safety. He has many ways by which
He can guide us out of the wilderness of our peril. Has He not power
to turn the heart of our enemy, and did He not suffer the angel of
death to go through the camp of Sennacherib? And have you forgotten
the engulfing waters of the Red Sea and the sudden destruction of
Pharaoh?”
At this point Jesper Kiim was interrupted.
The crowd had listened quietly except for a subdued angry murmur from
the outskirts, but suddenly Mette’s voice pierced through: “Faugh, you
hell-hound! Hold your tongue, you black dog! Don’t listen to him! It’s
Swede money speaks out of his mouth!”
An instant of silence, then bedlam broke loose! Oaths, curses, and
foul names rained over him. He tried to speak, but the cries grew
louder, and those nearest to the steps advanced threateningly. A
white-haired little man right in front, who had wept during the
speech, made an angry lunge at the preacher with his long,
silver-knobbed cane.
“Down with him, down with him!” the cry sounded. “Let him eat his
words! Let him tell us what money he got for betraying us! Down with
him! Send him to us; we’ll knock the maggots out of him!”
“Put him in the cellar!” cried others. “In the City Hall cellar! Hand
him down! hand him down!”
Two powerful fellows seized him. The wretch was clutching the wooden
porch railing with all his might, but they kicked both railing and
preacher down into the street, where the mob fell upon him with kicks
and blows from clenched fists. The women were tearing his hair and
clothes, and little boys, clinging to their fathers’ hands, jumped
with delight.
“Bring Mette!” cried someone in the back of the crowd. “Make way! Let
Mette try him.”
Mette came forward. “Will you eat your devil’s nonsense? Will you,
Master Rogue?”
“Never, never! We ought to obey God rather than men, as it is
written.”
“Ought we?” said Mette, drawing off her wooden shoe and brandishing it
before his eyes. “But men have shoes, and you’re in the pay of Satan
and not of God. I’ll give you a knock on the pate! I’ll plaster your
brain on the wall!” She struck him with the shoe.
“Commit no sin, Mette,” groaned the scholar.
“Now may the Devil—” she shrieked.
“Hush, hush!” some one cried. “Have a care, don’t crowd so! There’s
Gyldenlove, the lieutenant-general.”
A tall figure rode past.
“Long live Gyldenlove! The brave Gyldenlove!” bellowed the mob. Hats
and caps were swung aloft, and cheer upon cheer sounded until the
rider disappeared in the direction of the ramparts. It was the
lieutenant-general of the militia, colonel of horse and foot, Ulrik
Christian Gyldenlove, the King’s half-brother.
The mob dispersed little by little till only a few remained.
“Say what you will, ‘tis a curious thing,” said Gert the dyer. “Here
we’re ready to crack the head of a man who speaks of peace, and we cry
ourselves hoarse for those who’ve brought this war upon us.”
“I give you good night, Gert Pyper!” said the trader hastily. “Good
night and God be with you!” He hurried away.
“He’s afraid of Mette’s shoe,” murmured the dyer, and at last he too
turned homeward.
Jesper Kiim sat on the steps alone holding his aching head. The
watchman on the ramparts paced slowly back and forth, peering out over
the dark land where all was wrapped in silence, though thousands of
enemies were encamped round about.
Flakes of orange-colored light shot up from the sea-gray fog bank on
the horizon, and lit the sky overhead with a mild, rose-golden flame
that widened and widened, grew fainter and fainter, until it met a
long, slender cloud, caught its waving edge, and fired it with a
glowing, burning radiance. Violet and pale pink, the reflection from
the sunrise clouds fell over the beaches of Kallebodstrand. The dew
sparkled in the tall grass of the western rampart; the air was alive
and quivering with the twitter of sparrows in the gardens and on the
roofs. Thin strips of delicate mist floated over the orchards, and the
heavy, fruit-laden branches of the trees bent slowly under the breezes
from the Sound.
A long-drawn, thrice repeated blast of the horn was flung out from
West Gate and echoed from the other corners of the city. The lonely
watchmen on the ramparts began to pace more briskly on their beats,
shook their mantles, and straightened their caps. The time of relief
was near.
On the bastion north of West Gate, Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlove stood
looking at the gulls sailing with white wings up and down along the
bright strip of water in the moat. Light and fleeting, sometimes faint
and misty, sometimes colored in strong pigments or clear and vivid as
fire, the memories of his twenty years chased one another through his
soul. They brought the fragrance of heavy roses and the scent of fresh
green woods, the huntsman’s cry and the fiddler’s play, and the
rustling of stiff, billowy silks. Distant but sunlit, the life of his
childhood in the red-roofed Holstein town passed before him. He saw
the tall form of his mother, Mistress Margrethe Pappen, a black
hymnbook in her white hands. He saw the freckled chambermaid with her
thin ankles and the fencing-master with his pimpled, purplish face and
his bow-legs. The park of Gottorp castle passed in review, and the
meadows with fresh hay-stacks by the fjord, and there stood the
gamekeeper’s clumsy boy Heinrich, who knew how to crow like a cock and
was marvellously clever at playing ducks and drakes. Last came the
church with its strange twilight, its groaning organ, its mysterious
iron-railed chapel, and its emaciated Christ holding a red banner in
his hand.
Again came a blast of the horn from West Gate, and in the same moment
the sun broke out bright and warm, routing all mists and shadowy
tones.
He remembered the chase when he had shot his first deer, and old von
Dettmer had made a sign in his forehead with the blood of the animal
while the poor hunters’ boys blew their blaring fanfares. Then there
was the nosegay to the castellan’s Malene and the serious interview
with his tutor, then his first trip abroad. He remembered his first
duel in the fresh, dewy morning and Annette’s cascades of ringing
laughter, and the ball at the Elector’s and his lonely walk outside of
the city gates with head aching the first time he had been tipsy. The
rest was a golden mist, filled with the tinkling of goblets and the
scent of wine, and there were Lieschen and Lotte and Martha’s white
neck, and Adelaide’s round arms. Finally came the journey to
Copenhagen and the
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