By Hans C. Andersen
By the high road into the forest there stood a solitary farm-house. Our way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle within, but in the yard, in an arbour of flowering lilacs, there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood by and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully over him; his face was covered with a white cloth, and under his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which was a whole sheet of grey paper, and between each lay withered flowers, deposited and forgotten—a whole herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A chapter of his life was blended with every flower.
“Who is that dead man?” we asked, and the answer was: “The old student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too; but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the country, where they paid for his board and lodging.
“He was as gentle as a child, when the dark humour did not come over him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would sit the whole day and look at one plant, and then at another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take his peaceful rest in the grave!”
They raised the winding-sheet. There was peace in the face of the dead: a sunbeam fell on it; a swallow in its arrowy flight, darted into the new-made arbour, and in its flight circled twittering over the dead man’s head.
How strange it is!—we all assuredly know it—to take out old letters from the days of our youth and read them: a whole life, as it were, then rises up with all its hopes, and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them for many years—them whom we once thought we should always cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with.
The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of the friend—the friend of his school-days—the friend for life. He fixed this leaf on the student’s cap in the green wood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the whole of life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved; friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory-plant, too fine for the gardens of the North—it looks as if there still were fragrance in these leaves!—she gave it to him—she, the young lady of that noble garden.
Here is the marsh-lotus which he himself has plucked and watered with salt tears—the marsh-lotus from the fresh waters. And here is a nettle: what does its leaf say? What did he think on plucking it—on preserving it? Here are lilies of the valley from the woodland solitudes; here are honeysuckle leaves from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here the bare, sharp blade of grass.
The flowering lilac bends its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man’s head; the swallow again flies past; “quivit! quivit!” Now the men come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head rests on the Mute-Book—preserved—forgotten!