FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN EVERYTHING IN THE RIGHT PLACE

                                      1872

                     FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

                         EVERYTHING IN THE RIGHT PLACE

                           by Hans Christian Andersen

    IT is more than a hundred years ago! At the border of the wood,

near a large lake, stood the old mansion: deep ditches surrounded it

on every side, in which reeds and bulrushes grew. Close by the

drawbridge, near the gate, there was an old willow tree, which bent

over the reeds.

    From the narrow pass came the sound of bugles and the trampling of

horses' feet; therefore a little girl who was watching the geese

hastened to drive them away from the bridge, before the whole

hunting party came galloping up; they came, however, so quickly,

that the girl, in order to avoid being run over, placed herself on one

of the high corner-stones of the bridge. She was still half a child

and very delicately built; she had bright blue eyes, and a gentle,

sweet expression. But such things the baron did not notice; while he

was riding past the little goose-girl, he reversed his hunting crop,

and in rough play gave her such a push with it that she fell

backward into the ditch.

    "Everything in the right place!" he cried. "Into the ditch with

you."

    Then he burst out laughing, for that he called fun; the others

joined in- the whole party shouted and cried, while the hounds barked.

    While the poor girl was falling she happily caught one of the

branches of the willow tree, by the help of which she held herself

over the water, and as soon as the baron with his company and the dogs

had disappeared through the gate, the girl endeavoured to scramble up,

but the branch broke off, and she would have fallen backward among the

rushes, had not a strong hand from above seized her at this moment. It

was the hand of a pedlar; he had witnessed what had happened from a

short distance, and now hastened to assist her.

    "Everything in the right place," he said, imitating the noble

baron, and pulling the little maid up to the dry ground. He wished

to put the branch back in the place it had been broken off, but it

is not possible to put everything in the right place;" therefore he

stuck the branch into the soft ground.

    "Grow and thrive if you can, and produce a good flute for them

yonder at the mansion," he said; it would have given him great

pleasure to see the noble baron and his companions well thrashed. Then

he entered the castle- but not the banqueting hall; he was too

humble for that. No; he went to the servants' hall. The men-servants

and maids looked over his stock of articles and bargained with him;

loud crying and screaming were heard from the master's table above:

they called it singing- indeed, they did their best. Laughter and

the howls of dogs were heard through the open windows: there they were

feasting and revelling; wine and strong old ale were foaming in the

glasses and jugs; the favourite dogs ate with their masters; now and

then the squires kissed one of these animals, after having wiped its

mouth first with the tablecloth. They ordered the pedlar to come up,

but only to make fun of him. The wine had got into their heads, and

reason had left them. They poured beer into a stocking that he could

drink with them, but quick. That's what they called fun, and it made

them laugh. Then meadows, peasants, and farmyards were staked on one

card and lost.

    "Everything in the right place!" the pedlar said when he had at

last safely got out of Sodom and Gomorrah, as he called it. "The

open high road is my right place; up there I did not feel at ease."

    The little maid, who was still watching the geese, nodded kindly

to him as he passed through the gate.

    Days and weeks passed, and it was seen that the broken

willow-branch which the peddlar had stuck into the ground near the

ditch remained fresh and green- nay, it even put forth fresh twigs;

the little goose-girl saw that the branch had taken root, and was very

pleased; the tree, so she said, was now her tree. While the tree was

advancing, everything else at the castle was going backward, through

feasting and gambling, for these are two rollers upon which nobody

stands safely. Less than six years afterwards the baron passed out

of his castle-gate a poor beggar, while the baronial seat had been

bought by a rich tradesman. He was the very pedlar they had made fun

of and poured beer into a stocking for him to drink; but honesty and

industry bring one forward, and now the pedlar was the possessor of

the baronial estate. From that time forward no card-playing was

permitted there.

    "That's a bad pastime," he said; "when the devil saw the Bible for

the first time he wanted to produce a caricature in opposition to

it, and invented card-playing."

    The new proprietor of the estate took a wife, and whom did he

take?- The little goose-girl, who had always remained good and kind,

and who looked as beautiful in her new clothes as if she had been a

lady of high birth. And how did all this come about? That would be too

long a tale to tell in our busy time, but it really happened, and

the most important events have yet to be told.

    It was pleasant and cheerful to live in the old place now: the

mother superintended the household, and the father looked after things

out-of-doors, and they were indeed very prosperous.

    Where honesty leads the way, prosperity is sure to follow. The old

mansion was repaired and painted, the ditches were cleaned and

fruit-trees planted; all was homely and pleasant, and the floors

were as white and shining as a pasteboard. In the long winter evenings

the mistress and her maids sat at the spinning-wheel in the large

hall; every Sunday the counsellor- this title the pedlar had obtained,

although only in his old days- read aloud a portion from the Bible.

The children (for they had children) all received the best

education, but they were not all equally clever, as is the case in all

families.

    In the meantime the willow tree near the drawbridge had grown up

into a splendid tree, and stood there, free, and was never clipped.

"It is our genealogical tree," said the old people to their

children, "and therefore it must be honoured."

    A hundred years had elapsed. It was in our own days; the lake

had been transformed into marsh land; the whole baronial seat had,

as it were, disappeared. A pool of water near some ruined walls was

the only remainder of the deep ditches; and here stood a magnificent

old tree with overhanging branches- that was the genealogical tree.

Here it stood, and showed how beautiful a willow can look if one

does not interfere with it. The trunk, it is true, was cleft in the

middle from the root to the crown; the storms had bent it a little,

but it still stood there, and out of every crevice and cleft, in which

wind and weather had carried mould, blades of grass and flowers sprang

forth. Especially above, where the large boughs parted, there was

quite a hanging garden, in which wild raspberries and hart's-tongue

ferns throve, and even a little mistletoe had taken root, and grew

gracefully in the old willow branches, which were reflected in the

dark water beneath when the wind blew the chickweed into the corner of

the pool. A footpath which led across the fields passed close by the

old tree. High up, on the woody hillside, stood the new mansion. It

had a splendid view, and was large and magnificent; its window panes

were so clear that one might have thought there were none there at

all. The large flight of steps which led to the entrance looked like a

bower covered with roses and broad-leaved plants. The lawn was as

green as if each blade of grass was cleaned separately morning and

evening. Inside, in the hall, valuable oil paintings were hanging on

the walls. Here stood chairs and sofas covered with silk and velvet,

which could be easily rolled about on castors; there were tables

with polished marble tops, and books bound in morocco with gilt edges.

Indeed, well-to-do and distinguished people lived here; it was the

dwelling of the baron and his family. Each article was in keeping with

its surroundings. "Everything in the right place" was the motto

according to which they also acted here, and therefore all the

paintings which had once been the honour and glory of the old

mansion were now hung up in the passage which led to the servants'

rooms. It was all old lumber, especially two portraits- one

representing a man in a scarlet coat with a wig, and the other a

lady with powdered and curled hair holding a rose in her hand, each of

them being surrounded by a large wreath of willow branches. Both

portraits had many holes in them, because the baron's sons used the

two old people as targets for their crossbows. They represented the

counsellor and his wife, from whom the whole family descended. "But

they did not properly belong to our family," said one of the boys; "he

was a pedlar and she kept the geese. They were not like papa and

mamma." The portraits were old lumber, and "everything in its right

place." That was why the great-grandparents had been hung up in the

passage leading to the servants' rooms.

    The son of the village pastor was tutor at the mansion. One day he

went for a walk across the fields with his young pupils and their

elder sister, who had lately been confirmed. They walked along the

road which passed by the old willow tree, and while they were on the

road she picked a bunch of field-flowers. "Everything in the right

place," and indeed the bunch looked very beautiful. At the same time

she listened to all that was said, and she very much liked to hear the

pastor's son speak about the elements and of the great men and women

in history. She had a healthy mind, noble in thought and deed, and

with a heart full of love for everything that God had created. They

stopped at the old willow tree, as the youngest of the baron's sons

wished very much to have a flute from it, such as had been cut for him

from other willow trees; the pastor's son broke a branch off. "Oh,

pray do not do it!" said the young lady; but it was already done.

"That is our famous old tree. I love it very much. They often laugh at

me at home about it, but that does not matter. There is a story

attached to this tree." And now she told him all that we already

know about the tree- the old mansion, the pedlar and the goose-girl

who had met there for the first time, and had become the ancestors

of the noble family to which the young lady belonged.

    "They did not like to be knighted, the good old people," she said;

"their motto was 'everything in the right place,' and it would not

be right, they thought, to purchase a title for money. My grandfather,

the first baron, was their son. They say he was a very learned man,

a great favourite with the princes and princesses, and was invited

to all court festivities. The others at home love him best; but, I

do not know why, there seemed to me to be something about the old

couple that attracts my heart! How homely, how patriarchal, it must

have been in the old mansion, where the mistress sat at the

spinning-wheel with her maids, while her husband read aloud out of the

Bible!"

    "They must have been excellent, sensible people," said the

pastor's son. And with this the conversation turned naturally to

noblemen and commoners; from the manner in which the tutor spoke about

the significance of being noble, it seemed almost as if he did not

belong to a commoner's family.

    "It is good fortune to be of a family who have distinguished

themselves, and to possess as it were a spur in oneself to advance

to all that is good. It is a splendid thing to belong to a noble

family, whose name serves as a card of admission to the highest

circles. Nobility is a distinction; it is a gold coin that bears the

stamp of its own value. It is the fallacy of the time, and many

poets express it, to say that all that is noble is bad and stupid, and

that, on the contrary, the lower one goes among the poor, the more

brilliant virtues one finds. I do not share this opinion, for it is

wrong. In the upper classes one sees many touchingly beautiful traits;

my own mother has told me of such, and I could mention several. One

day she was visiting a nobleman's house in town; my grandmother, I

believe, had been the lady's nurse when she was a child. My mother and

the nobleman were alone in the room, when he suddenly noticed an old

woman on crutches come limping into the courtyard; she came every

Sunday to carry a gift away with her.

    "'There is the poor old woman,' said the nobleman; 'it is so

difficult for her to walk.'

    "My mother had hardly understood what he said before he

disappeared from the room, and went downstairs, in order to save her

the troublesome walk for the gift she came to fetch. Of course this is

only a little incident, but it has its good sound like the poor

widow's two mites in the Bible, the sound which echoes in the depth of

every human heart; and this is what the poet ought to show and point

out- more especially in our own time he ought to sing of this; it does

good, it mitigates and reconciles! But when a man, simply because he

is of noble birth and possesses a genealogy, stands on his hind legs

and neighs in the street like an Arabian horse, and says when a

commoner has been in a room: 'Some people from the street have been

here,' there nobility is decaying; it has become a mask of the kind

that Thespis created, and it is amusing when such a person is

exposed in satire."

    Such was the tutor's speech; it was a little long, but while he

delivered it he had finished cutting the flute.

    There was a large party at the mansion; many guests from the

neighbourhood and from the capital had arrived. There were ladies with

tasteful and with tasteless dresses; the big hall was quite crowded

with people. The clergymen stood humbly together in a corner, and

looked as if they were preparing for a funeral, but it was a festival-

only the amusement had not yet begun. A great concert was to take

place, and that is why the baron's young son had brought his willow

flute with him; but he could not make it sound, nor could his

father, and therefore the flute was good for nothing.

    There was music and songs of the kind which delight most those

that perform them; otherwise quite charming!

    "Are you an artist?" said a cavalier, the son of his father;

"you play on the flute, you have made it yourself; it is genius that

rules- the place of honour is due to you."

    "Certainly not! I only advance with the time, and that of course

one can't help."

    "I hope you will delight us all with the little instrument- will

you not?" Thus saying he handed to the tutor the flute which had

been cut from the willow tree by the pool; and then announced in a

loud voice that the tutor wished to perform a solo on the flute.

They wished to tease him- that was evident, and therefore the tutor

declined to play, although he could do so very well. They urged and

requested him, however, so long, that at last he took up the flute and

placed it to his lips.

    That was a marvellous flute! Its sound was as thrilling as the

whistle of a steam engine; in fact it was much stronger, for it

sounded and was heard in the yard, in the garden, in the wood, and

many miles round in the country; at the same time a storm rose and

roared; "Everything in the right place." And with this the baron, as

if carried by the wind, flew out of the hall straight into the

shepherd's cottage, and the shepherd flew- not into the hall,

thither he could not come- but into the servants' hall, among the

smart footmen who were striding about in silk stockings; these haughty

menials looked horror-struck that such a person ventured to sit at

table with them. But in the hall the baron's daughter flew to the

place of honour at the end of the table- she was worthy to sit

there; the pastor's son had the seat next to her; the two sat there as

if they were a bridal pair. An old Count, belonging to one of the

oldest families of the country, remained untouched in his place of

honour; the flute was just, and it is one's duty to be so. The

sharp-tongued cavalier who had caused the flute to be played, and

who was the child of his parents, flew headlong into the fowl-house,

but not he alone.

    The flute was heard at the distance of a mile, and strange

events took place. A rich banker's family, who were driving in a coach

and four, were blown out of it, and could not even find room behind it

with their footmen. Two rich farmers who had in our days shot up

higher than their own corn-fields, were flung into the ditch; it was a

dangerous flute. Fortunately it burst at the first sound, and that was

a good thing, for then it was put back into its owner's pocket- "its

right place."

    The next day, nobody spoke a word about what had taken place; thus

originated the phrase, "to pocket the flute." Everything was again

in its usual order, except that the two old pictures of the peddlar

and the goose-girl were hanging in the banqueting-hall. There they

were on the wall as if blown up there; and as a real expert said

that they were painted by a master's hand, they remained there and

were restored. "Everything in the right place," and to this it will

come. Eternity is long, much longer indeed than this story.

                            THE END