Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard by Isak Dinesen Read Free Book Online

that their latest guest had lived in Paris for several years. Babette seemed pleased with the news, and assured them that there would be food enough.
    The hostesses made their little preparations in the sitting room. They dared not set foot in the kitchen, for Babette had mysteriously nosed out a cook’s mate from a ship in the harbor—the same boy, Martine realized, who had brought in the turtle—to assist her in the kitchen and to wait at table, and now the dark woman and the red-haired boy, like some witch with her familiar spirit, had taken possession of these regions. The ladies could not tell what fires had been burning or what cauldrons bubbling there from before daybreak.
    Table linen and plate had been magically mangled and polished, glasses and decanters brought, Babette only knew from where. The Dean’s house did not possess twelve dining-room chairs, the long horsehair-covered sofa had been moved from the parlor to the dining room, and the parlor, ever sparsely furnished, now looked strangely bare and big without it.
    Martine and Philippa did their best to embellish the domain left to them. Whatever troubles might be in wait for their guests, in any case they should not be cold; all day the sisters fed the towering old stove with birch-knots. They hung a garland of juniper round their father’s portrait on the wall,and placed candlesticks on their mother’s small working table beneath it; they burned juniper-twigs to make the room smell nice. The while they wondered if in this weather the sledge from Fossum would get through. In the end they put on their old black best frocks and their confirmation gold crosses. They sat down, folded their hands in their laps and committed themselves unto God.
    The old Brothers and Sisters arrived in small groups and entered the room slowly and solemnly.
    This low room with its bare floor and scanty furniture was dear to the Dean’s disciples. Outside its windows lay the great world. Seen from in here the great world in its winter-whiteness was ever prettily bordered in pink, blue and red by the row of hyacinths on the window-sills. And in summer, when the windows were open, the great world had a softly moving frame of white muslin curtains to it.
    Tonight the guests were met on the doorstep with warmth and sweet smell, and they were looking into the face of their beloved Master, wreathed with evergreen. Their hearts like their numb fingers thawed.
    One very old Brother, after a few moments’ silence, in his trembling voice struck up one of the Master’s own hymns:
    “Jerusalem, my happy home
name ever dear to me …”
    One by one the other voices fell in, thin quivering women’s voices, ancient seafaring Brothers’ deep growls, and above them all Philippa’s clear soprano, a little worn with age but still angelic. Unwittingly the choir had seized one another’s hands. They sang the hymn to the end, but could not bear to cease and joined in another:
    “Take not thought for food or raiment
careful one, so anxiously …”
    The mistresses of the house somewhat reassured by it, the words of the third verse:
    “Wouldst thou give a stone, a reptile
to thy pleading child for food? …”
    went straight to Martine’s heart and inspired her with hope.
    In the middle of this hymn sledge bells were heard outside; the guests from Fossum had arrived.
    Martine and Philippa went to receive them and saw them into the parlor. Mrs. Loewenhielm with age had become quite small, her face colorless like parchment, and very still. By her side General Loewenhielm, tall, broad and ruddy, in his bright uniform, his breast covered with decorations, strutted and shone like an ornamental bird, a golden pheasant or a peacock, in this sedate party of black crows and jackdaws.
IX. GENERAL LOEWENHIELM
    General Loewenhielm had been driving from Fossum to Berlevaag in a strange mood. He had not visited this part of the country for thirty years. He had come now to get a rest from his busy life at