and all the puppets were spread around, big and little ones, all of them. But I didn’t waste any time. I jumped out of bed and got them all in the box, some on their heads and some on their feet. I slammed down the lid and then sat down on the box. It was quite a sight, can you see it? I can. ‘Now you can stay in there,’ I said, ‘and never again will I wish that you were flesh and blood!’ I was in such a good mood, and the happiest person. The technological candidate had purified me. I sat there in pure bliss and fell asleep on the case, and in the morning—it was actually in the afternoon, but I slept so strangely long in the morning—I was still sitting there, happy, because I had learned that the only thing I’d ever wished for had been stupid. I asked about the technological candidate, but he was gone, like the Greek or Roman gods. And from that time on, I have been the happiest of men. I am a happy manager for my personnel doesn’t argue with me, nor does the public. They enjoy themselves thoroughly. I freely put together the pieces myself, and take the best parts of the plays I want, and nobody bothers about it. I produce pieces that are now despised on the stage, but that the audience flocked to and cried over thirty years ago. I give them to the young ones, and they cry like father and mother did. I do
And I, as his countryman, am repeating it immediately, of course, just for the fun of telling it.
NOTES
1 Five-act tragedy by German playwright August von Kotzebue (1761-1819), translated and adapted by N. T. Bruun, with music by Claus Schall; it was performed for the first time at Copenhagen’s Royal Theater on April 29, 1804.
2 Tragedy by Ole Johan Samsoe; it was performed for the first time at Copenhagen’s Royal Theater on January 30, 1796.
3 Reference to the movement called Scandinavianism, which called for a closer union between Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; the movement was particularly active in the 1840s and 1850s.
“SOMETHING”
“I WANT TO BE something!” said the eldest of five brothers. “I want to be of some use in the world, be it ever so humble a position. As long as I am doing something good, it will be something. I will make bricks. You can’t do without them! Then I will have done something anyway!”
“But an all-too-little something!” said the second brother. “What you’re doing is as good as nothing. It’s just a helping job, something that can be done by a machine. No, become a mason instead. That’s something I want to be. That’s a trade! With that I’ll get into a guild and become a middle-class citizen. I’ll have my own banner and my own public house. If I do well, I’ll be able to have journeymen, become a master, and my wife will become a Mrs. Master Mason! That is something!”
“That’s absolutely nothing!” said the third. “That’s completely outside of the middle-class structure, and there are many classes in town that are above the master Masons. You can be a worthy man, but as a master you are only what is called a ‘common’ worker. No! I know something better. I want to be a builder, and get into the artistic area, the theoretical, and rise up to the highest in the realm of the mind. Of course I have to start at the bottom. I might as well admit it straight out. I have to begin as a carpenter’s apprentice and wear a cap, even though I’m used to a silk hat, and run to get beer and spirits for the lowly journeymen. They’ll be familiar and say “du” to me, and that’s bad, but I’ll just imagine that it’s all a masquerade, and the masks will come off tomorrow—that is to say when I become a journeyman and go off on my own, it’ll be no business of theirs. I’ll go to the academy and learn to draw. I’ll become an architect! That’s something! That’s something big! I can become both high-born and well- born with a little something more in front and back of my name, and I’ll build and build like those who came before me. That’s something you can always rely on, and all of it is
“But that’s something I don’t care about!” said the fourth. “I don’t want to ride in the wake, or be a copy of something. I want to be a genius, and more skillful than all of you! I’ll shape a new style, create the idea for a building that fits the country’s climate, materials, the national spirit, the developments of our age, and then another story for my own genius!”
“But if the climate and the materials aren’t any good,” said the fifth, “that would be too bad, and it would have an impact. National spirit can also easily develop into something affected, and the developments of the age can often cause you to run riot, just as adolescents often do. I can see that none of you will actually become something, no matter how much you may think so yourselves. But do as you want. I won’t copy you. I’ll place myself outside and criticize what you do. There is always something wrong with everything. I will point it out and discuss it. That is something!”
And that’s what he did, and people said about the fifth brother: “He’s really something! He’s got a good head, but he doesn’t do anything!”—Yet because of that he was something.
See that’s just a little story, and there’s no end to it as long as the world goes on.
Well, what happened to the five brothers? What we’ve heard wasn’t anything, was it? Listen further. It’s really a complete fairy tale.
The oldest brother, who made bricks, noticed that a little penny rolled out of each brick when it was finished. Only a copper penny, but many small copper pennies piled on top of each other become a shiny dollar, and wherever you knock on the door with that, whether it’s at the baker, the butcher, or the tailor—yes, at all of them —the doors fly open, and you get what you need. See, that’s what came from the bricks. Even though some fell to pieces or broke in the middle, they could be used too.
Up on the embankment a poor woman, old mother Margrethe, so badly wanted to slap up a little house. She got all the brick pieces and a couple of unbroken ones because the oldest brother had a good heart, even if he was only a brick maker. The poor woman built the house herself. It was narrow, and the one window was crooked. The door was much too low, and the straw roof could have been better laid, but it gave shelter against wind and weather, and you could see way out to sea, which broke against the dike in its might. The salty drops of water sprayed over the whole house, which was still standing when he who had made the bricks was dead and gone.
The second brother really knew the art of building. Well, he was trained for it. When he finished his apprenticeship, he packed his knapsack and sang the song of the craftsman:
