OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER by Hans Christian Andersen

                                       1872

                     FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

                              OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER

                           by Hans Christian Andersen

    "IN the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up

any higher!" So said Ole the tower-keeper. "Most people have to try

both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to

be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height."

    Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a

strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that

came into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought

deep in his heart. Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and

there were even some who said that he was the son of a privy

councillor, or that he might have been. He had studied, too, and had

been assistant teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all

that to him? In those days he lived in the clerk's house, and was to

have everything in the house- to be at free quarters, as the saying

is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. He wanted

to have his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could

only afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. One spoke

of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking became the

black cause of enmity between them, and at last they parted.

    This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely, patent

blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly, he at last

drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the church tower is

the only place in a great city where hermitage, office and bread can

be found together. So he betook himself up thither, and smoked his

pipe as he made his solitary rounds. He looked upward and downward,

and had his own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in

books and in himself. I often lent him books- good books; and you

may know by the company he keeps. He loved neither the English

governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a mixture of

empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and

descriptions of the wonders of, the world. I visited him at least once

a year, generally directly after New Year's day, and then he always

spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into his

head.

    I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will reproduce

his own words whenever I can remember them.

                          FIRST VISIT

    Among the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which had

greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological book,

containing an account of the boulders.

    "Yes, they're rare old fellows, those boulders!" he said; "and

to think that we should pass them without noticing them! And over

the street pavement, the paving stones, those fragments of the

oldest remains of antiquity, one walks without ever thinking about

them. I have done the very thing myself. But now I look respectfully

at every paving-stone. Many thanks for the book! It has filled me with

thought, and has made me long to read more on the subject. The romance

of the earth is, after all, the most wonderful of all romances. It's a

pity one can't read the first volume of it, because it is written in a

language that we don't understand. One must read in the different

strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a

romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it. We

grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball

keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which

we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a

story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands of years and

is still going on. My best thanks for the book about the boulders.

Those are fellows indeed! They could tell us something worth

hearing, if they only knew how to talk. It's really a pleasure now and

then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly

placed as I am. And then to think that we all, even with patent

lacquer, are nothing more than insects of a moment on that ant-hill

the earth, though we may be insects with stars and garters, places and

offices! One feels quite a novice beside these venerable

million-year-old boulders. On last New Year's eve I was reading the

book, and had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my

usual New Year's diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you

don't know what that is!

    "The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough known-

that journey is taken on St. John's eve, to the Brocken; but we have a

wild journey, also which is national and modern, and that is the

journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets

and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers, and artistic

notabilities,- I mean those who are no good,- ride in the New Year's

night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting

brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them- they're too

stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could

mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to

draw their enmity upon myself, for they don't like people to talk

about their ride to Amack on quill pens. I've a kind of niece, who

is a fishwife, and who, as she tells me, supplies three respectable

newspapers with the terms of abuse and vituperation they use, and

she has herself been at Amack as an invited guest; but she was carried

out thither, for she does not own a quill pen, nor can she ride. She

has told me all about it. Half of what she said is not true, but the

other half gives us information enough. When she was out there, the

festivities began with a song; each of the guests had written his

own song, and each one sang his own song, for he thought that the

best, and it was all one, all the same melody. Then those came

marching up, in little bands, who are only busy with their mouths.

There were ringing bells that rang alternately; and then came the

little drummers that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and

acquaintance was made with those who write without putting their

names, which here means as much as using grease instead of patent

blacking; and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy

was worst off, for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then,

too, there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns over

the dust-bin, and calls it 'good, very good, remarkably good.' And

in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the mere meeting

of these folks, there shot up out of the great dirt-heap at Amack a

stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great mushroom, a perfect roof,

which formed a sort of warehouse for the worthy company, for in it

hung everything they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out

of the tree poured sparks like flames of fire; these were the ideas

and thoughts, borrowed from others, which they had used, and which now

got free and rushed away like so many fireworks. They played at 'the

stick burns,' and the young poets played at 'heart-burns,' and the

witlings played off their jests, and the jests rolled away with a

thundering sound, as if empty pots were being shattered against doors.

'It was very amusing!' my niece said; in fact, she said many things

that were very malicious but very amusing, but I won't mention them,

for a man must be good-natured, and not a carping critic. But you will

easily perceive that when a man once knows the rights of the journey

to Amack, as I know them, it's quite natural that on the New Year's

night one should look out to see the wild chase go by. If in the New

Year I miss certain persons who used to be there, I am sure to

notice others who are new arrivals; but this year I omitted taking

my look at the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back

through millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in

the north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before Noah's ark

was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom of the sea, and

re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that peered forth from the

flood and said, 'This shall be Zealand!' I saw them become the

dwelling-place of birds that are unknown to us, and then become the

seat of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing, until with their axes

they cut their Runic signs into a few of these stones, which then came

into the calendar of time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond

all lapse of time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three

or four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air,

and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star

is, do you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I

have my own ideas about shooting stars, as the common people in many

parts call them, and my idea is this: How often are silent

thanksgivings offered up for one who has done a good and noble action!

The thanks are often speechless, but they are not lost for all that. I

think these thanks are caught up, and the sunbeams bring the silent,

hidden thankfulness over the head of the benefactor; and if it be a

whole people that has been expressing its gratitude through a long

lapse of time, the thankfulness appears as a nosegay of flowers, and

at length falls in the form of a shooting star over the good man's

grave. I am always very much pleased when I see a shooting star,

especially in the New Year's night, and then find out for whom the

gift of gratitude was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell in the

southwest, as a tribute of thanksgiving to many- many! 'For whom was

that star intended?' thought I. It fell, no doubt, on the hill by

the Bay of Plensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves of

Schleppegrell, Lasloes, and their comrades. One star also fell in

the midst of the land, fell upon Soro, a flower on the grave of

Holberg, the thanks of the year from a great many - thanks for his

charming plays!

    "It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a shooting star

falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none will fall- no sunbeam

brings thanks to me, for here there is nothing worthy of thanks. I

shall not get the patent lacquer," said Ole, "for my fate on earth

is only grease, after all."

                          SECOND VISIT

    It was New Year's day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of

the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into

the New- from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a

story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It

was this:

    "When on the New Year's night the clock strikes twelve, the people

at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these

glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with

the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They

begin the New Year by going to bed, and that's a good beginning for

drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the

glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass?" asked Ole. "I

will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then

pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and

the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the

glasses- of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for

different people.

    "You see, the first glass, that's the glass of health, and in that

the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the

ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of

health.

    "If you take the second glass- from this a little bird soars

upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen

to his song, and perhaps join in 'Fair is life! no downcast looks!

Take courage, and march onward!'

    "Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot

certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his

veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin- not wishing to hurt or

harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll

sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he'll creep into

your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a

wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.

    "In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that

glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that

sign.

    "Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will

feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way.

Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine

times and extravagantly merry. He'll draw you away with him; you'll

forget your dignity, if you have any, and you'll forget more than

you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks

will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in

silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but

tear yourself away if you can!

    "The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form

of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who

thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes

quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you

light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint

who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who

accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but

which led him to commit all the other six. The man's blood is

mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that

the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a

strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a

tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice

but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.

    "That's the history of the glasses," said the tower-keeper Ole,

"and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it

you with both!"

                           THIRD VISIT

    On this occasion I chose the general "moving-day" for my visit

to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the

streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and

remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in which

one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children

playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at "going

to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this

sport. They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged

curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. "It was splendid!" they

said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides, I was

obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.

    "It's moving-day to day," he said; "streets and houses are like

a dust-bin- a large dust-bin; but I'm content with a cartload. I may

get something good out of that, and I really did get something good

out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was going up the street;

it was rough weather, wet and dirty- the right kind of weather to

catch cold in. The dustman was there with his cart, which was full,

and looked like a sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of

the cart stood a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its

twigs; it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out

into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his

cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful- all

depends on what you think of when you see it; and I thought about

it, and thought this and that of many things that were in the cart: or

I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing. There was an

old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I

tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger

at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also

at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to

speak, a ball night- a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory

keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing else to live for!'

This is what the glove thought, or what it might have thought. 'That's

a stupid affair with yonder fir tree,' said the potsherds. You see,

potsherds think everything is stupid. 'When one is in the

dust-cart,' they said, 'one ought not to give one's self airs and wear

tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world- far more useful

than such a green stick.' This was a view that might be taken, and I

don't think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree

looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and

truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is

difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out

of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look

down, and it is amusing enough.

    "There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses.'

They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the

household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the

little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and

sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what

gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was

written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of

death!' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to

you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain

messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes,

Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and

he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings

bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the

great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when

Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with

him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our

service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes

this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and

this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped

the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not

allowed to go- they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride

behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have

escaped the clutches of the poets.

    "Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is

mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They

must go without their property and money; they have only the

service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which

of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little

one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded- small as

a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who

sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted,

will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the

stool may become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as

a throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who always

lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might

forget the wild things he had done here, will have his barrel given to

him on the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on;

and the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain pure,

and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he sees and feels

what in life he could not or would not see; and then he has within him

the punishment, the gnawing worm, which will not die through time

incalculable. If on the glasses there stood written 'oblivion,' on the

barrel 'remembrance' is inscribed.

    "When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think at

last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus of

death, and wonder, which of the hero's deeds Death took out of the

savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the journey into

eternity. There was once a French king- I have forgotten his name, for

the names of good people are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it

will come back some day;- there was a king who, during a famine,

became the benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his

memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, 'Quicker than this

melts didst thou bring help!' I fancy that Death, looking back upon

the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a

snow-flake that never melts, and this flake floated over his royal

head, like a white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too,

there was Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what

is bad- a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one

could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable

executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the

innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other eight

years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm blood of their

father spurted over them, and then he had them sent to the Bastille,

and shut up in iron cages, where not even a coverlet was given them to

protect them from the cold. And King Louis sent the executioner to

them every week, and had a tooth pulled out of the head of each,

that they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys

said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger

brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my

teeth, and spare him.' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the

king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little

teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and

he had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the

savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with him

on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly before him

like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and they bite him, the

innocent children's teeth.

    "Yes, that's a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great

moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That's just the serious

part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus may draw up.

Which of our deeds will Death take out of the savings bank, and give

to us as provision? Let us think of the moving-day that is not

marked in the calendar."

                            THE END