Fairy Tales

catch a coach back west. Her father and Ib followed her to Tem. There was clear moonlight, and when they got there, Ib was still holding her hand. He couldn’t let go of it, and his eyes were so clear. He spoke very little, but his heart was in every word. “If you haven’t become too used to finery,” he said, “and if you could put up with living in Mother’s house with me as your husband, then you and I will get married one day—but we can wait a while.”

“Let’s wait and see, Ib,” she said. He squeezed her hand and kissed her lips. “I trust you, Ib,” said Christine, “and I think I love you. But let me sleep on it.”

And then they parted. Ib told the bargeman that he and Christine were as good as engaged, and the bargeman said that he had always pictured that, and he went home with Ib and spent the night there, but nothing more was said about the engagement.

A year passed. Two letters had been exchanged between Ib and Christine. “Faithful unto death” was written by the signature. One day the bargeman came to Ib with greetings from Christine. It took him a while to finish what he had to say, but it was that things were going well for Christine, more than that. She was a beautiful girl, respected and well regarded. The innkeeper’s son had been home for a visit. He was employed at an office in some big firm in Copenhagen. He was very fond of Christine, and she also found him to her liking. His parents weren’t unwilling, but it weighed on Christine’s heart that Ib was still in love with her. So she had decided to cast aside her chance at good fortune, said the bargeman.

Ib didn’t say a word at first, but he turned as white as a sheet. Then he shook his head slightly and said, “Christine mustn’t cast her good fortune away!”

“Write her a few words,” said the bargeman.

Ib did write, but he couldn’t quite put the words together the way he wanted, and he crossed things out and ripped things up—but in the morning there was a letter for little Christine, and here it is:I have read the letter you sent your father and see that everything is going well for you, and that you can do even better! Ask your heart, Christine. And think about what your future might be if you choose me. I do not have much. Don’t think about me or how it affects me, but think about your own good. You are not tied to me by any promise, and if you have given me one in your heart, then I release you from it. I wish you all the joy in the world, little Christine. Our Lord will surely console my heart.Always your sincere friend,Ib

So the letter was sent, and Christine received it.

At Martinmas in November the banns were read in the church on the heath and also in Copenhagen, where the bridegroom was working. Christine traveled there with her mistress since the bridegroom couldn’t travel as far as Jutland on account of his many business affairs. Christine had arranged to meet her father in the town of Funder since the road went through there, and it was the closest meeting place. The two said good bye to each other there. A few words were said about it, but Ib didn’t say anything. He had become so pensive, said his old mother. He was pensive indeed, and therefore he started thinking about the three nuts that he had gotten from the gypsy woman as a child. He had given two of them to Christine. They were wishing nuts, and there had been a gold carriage with horses in one of them and the most beautiful clothes in the other. It turned out to be true! She would have all that splendor now in Copenhagen. Her wishes were fulfilled. But for Ib there was only black soil in the nut. The very best for him, the gypsy had said. Well, that also would come true. The black humus was the best for him. He understood clearly now what the woman had meant: the black earth, shelter in the grave, was the very best for him.

Years passed—not many, but long ones for Ib. The old innkeepers died, one shortly after the other. All the wealth, many thousands of dollars, passed to the son. Well, now Christine would have enough gold carriages and fine clothes.

For two long years there was no letter from Christine. When her father did finally get one, it was not about happiness and affluence. Poor Christine! Neither she nor her husband had known how to handle the money. Easy come, easy go. There was no blessing from it because they didn’t see the blessing themselves.

The heather bloomed, and the heather dried. The snow had drifted over the heath for many winters, over the lee of the ridge where Ib lived. The spring sun was shining when Ib set his plow in the ground. It hit what he thought was a flint-stone. It came up from the ground like a big black shaving, and when Ib picked it up, he saw that it was metal, and it was shiny where the plow had cut into it. It was a big, heavy bracelet of gold from prehistoric times. A burial mound had been leveled here, and Ib had discovered its precious treasure. He showed it to the pastor who told him how magnificent it was. Then Ib took it to the sheriff who reported it to Copenhagen and advised Ib to deliver the precious find himself.

“You have found the best thing you could possibly find in the earth!” said the sheriff.

“The best!” thought Ib. “The very best for me—and in the ground! So then the gypsy woman was right about me too, since this was the best!”

Ib took the boat from Aarhus to Copenhagen. It was like a trip across the ocean for him, given that he had only sailed on the Guden. Once he arrived in Copenhagen, Ib was paid the value of the gold he found. It was a large sum: six hundred dollars. And Ib from the woods by the heath walked through the winding streets of great Copenhagen.

The evening before he was to take the ship back to Aarhus, he got lost in the streets and went in an entirely wrong direction than he wanted to go. He crossed the Knippels bridge and ended up in Christian’s Harbor instead of down by the rampart at Westport. He was heading westward as he should, but not where he should have gone. There was not a soul on the street. Then a little girl came out from a humble house. Ib asked her about the street he was looking for. She started, looked up at him, and was crying. Now he asked her what was wrong. She said something that he didn’t understand, and as they were both under a streetlight, and the light shone right into her face, a funny feeling came over him. She looked just like little Christine as he remembered her from their childhood.

He went with the little girl into the humble house, up the narrow worn stairs, high up to a tiny slanting room right under the roof. The air was heavy and stuffy, and there was no light. Over in the corner someone sighed and breathed wheezily. Ib lit a match. The child’s mother was lying on the shabby bed.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Ib. “The little one brought me up, but I’m a stranger in town myself. Is there a neighbor or someone I can summon?” He lifted her head.

It was Christine from the heath.

For years her name hadn’t been mentioned at home in Jutland. It would have disturbed Ib’s quiet thoughts. And what was rumored, and what was true, wasn’t good either. All the money that her husband had inherited from his parents had made him arrogant and unbalanced. He had quit his job and traveled abroad for six months, come back and gone into debt, but still lived opulently. More and more the carriage tilted, and finally it tipped over. His many cheerful friends who had partied at his table said that he deserved what he got, because he had lived like a madman! His corpse was found one morning in the canal in the castle garden.