The Story of My Life
"I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled, but I continually heard from my mother how very much happier I was than she had been..."
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From The Story of My Life by Hans Christian Andersen, 1871.
My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life, and the object for which thou wilt strive, and then, according to the development of thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and defend thee to its attainment," my fate could not, even then, have been directed more happily, more prudently, or better. The history of my life will say to the world what it says to me, — There is a loving God, who directs all things for the best.
In the year 1805 there lived at Odense, in a small mean room, a young married couple, who were extremely attached to each other; he was a shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of a richly gifted and truly poetical mind. His wife, a few years older than himself, was ignorant of life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bedstead with which he began housekeeping; this bedstead he had made out of the wooden frame which had borne only a short time before the coffin of the deceased Count Trampe, as he lay in state, and the remnants of the black cloth on the wood-work kept the fact still in remembrance.
Instead of a noble corpse, surrounded by crape and wax-lights, here lay, on the second of April, 1805, a living and weeping child, — that was myself, Hans Christian Andersen. During the first day of my existence my father is said to have sat by the bed and read aloud in Holberg, but I cried all the time. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?" it is re ported that my father asked in joke, but I still cried on; and even in the church, when I was taken to be baptized, I cried so loudly that the preacher, who was a passionate man, said, "The young one screams like a cat!" which words my mother never forgot. A poor emigrant, Gomar, who stood as godfather, consoled her in the mean time by saying that the louder I cried as a child, all the more beautifully should I sing when I grew older.
Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench, the bed, and my crib, was the abode of my childhood; the walls, however, were covered with pictures, and over the work-bench was a cupboard containing books and songs; the little kitchen was full of shining plates and metal pans, and by means of a ladder it was possible to go out on the roof, where, in the gutters between it and the neighbor's house, there stood a great chest filled with soil, my mother's sole garden, and where she grew her vegetables. In my story of the "Snow Queen" that garden still blooms.
I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled, but I continually heard from my mother how very much happier I was than she had been, and that I was brought up like a noble-man's child. She, as a child, had been driven out by her parents to beg, and once when she was not able to do it, she had sat for a whole day under a bridge and wept. I have drawn her character in two different aspects, — in old Dominica, in the "Improvisatore," and in the mother of Christian, in "Only a Fiddler."
My father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his whole heart; he lived for me. On Sundays he made me perspective glasses, theatres, and pictures which could be changed; he read to me from Holberg's plays and the "Arabian Tales;" it was only in such moments as these that I can remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never felt himself happy in his life and as a handicraftsman. His parents had been country people in good circumstances, but upon whom many misfortunes had fallen: the cattle had died; the farm-house had been burned down; and lastly, the husband had lost his reason.
On this the wife had removed with him to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind was full of intelligence, apprentice to a shoemaker; it could not be otherwise, although it was his ardent wish to attend the grammar school, where he might learn Latin. A few well-to-do citizens had at one time spoken of this, of clubbing together to raise a sufficient sum to pay for his board and education, and thus giving him a start in life; but it never went beyond words. My poor father saw his dearest wish unfulfilled; and he never lost the remembrance of it. I recollect that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes, and it was when a youth from the grammar school came to our house to be measured for a new pair of boots, and showed us his books and told us what he learned.
"That was the path upon which I ought to have gone!" said my father, kissed me passionately, and was silent the whole evening.
He very seldom associated with his equals. He went out into the woods on Sundays, when he took me with him; he did not talk much when he was out, but would sit silently, sunk in deep thought, whilst I ran about and strung strawberries on a bent, or bound garlands.
Only twice in the year, and that in the month of May, when the woods were arrayed in their earliest green, did my mother go with us, and then she wore a cotton gown, which she put on only on these occasions and when she partook of the Lord's Supper, and which, as long as I can remember, was her holiday gown. She always took home with her from the wood a great many fresh beech boughs, which were then planted behind the polished stone. Later in the year sprigs of St. John's wort were stuck into the chinks of the beams, and we considered their growth as omens whether our lives would be long or short. Green branches and pictures ornamented our little room, which my mother always kept neat and clean; she took great pride in always having the bed linen and the curtains very white.
One of my first recollections, although very slight in itself, had for me a good deal of importance, from the power by which the fancy of a child impressed it upon my soul; it was a family festival, and can you guess where? In that very place in Odense, in that house which I had always looked on with fear and trembling, just as boys in Paris may have looked at the Bastile — in the Odense house of correction.
My parents were acquainted with the jailer, who invited them to a family dinner, and I was to go with them. I was at that time still so small that I was carried when we returned home.
The House of Correction was for me a great store-house of stories about robbers and thieves: often I had stood, but always at a safe distance, and listened to the singing of the men within and of the women spinning at their wheels.
I went with my parents to the jailer's; the heavy iron-bolted gate was opened and again locked with the key from the rattling bunch; we mounted a steep staircase — we ate and drank, and two of the prisoners waited at the table; they could not induce me to taste of anything, the sweetest things I pushed away; my mother told them I was sick, and I was laid on a bed, where I heard the spinning-wheels humming near by and merry singing, whether in my own fancy or in reality, I cannot tell; but I know that I was afraid, and was kept on the stretch all the time; and yet I was in a pleasant humor, making up stories of how I had entered a castle full of robbers. Late in the night my parents went home, carrying me, the rain, for it was rough weather, dashing against my face.
Odense was in my childhood quite another town from what it is now, when it has shot ahead of Copenhagen, with its water carried through the town and I know not what else! Then it was a hundred years behind the times; many customs and manners prevailed which long since disappeared from the capital. When the guilds removed their signs, they went in procession with flying banners and with lemons dressed in ribbons stuck on their swords. A harlequin with bells and a wooden sword ran at the head; one of them, an old fellow, Hans Struh, made a great hit by his merry chatter and his face, which was painted black, except the nose, that kept its genuine red color. My mother was so pleased with him that she tried to find out if he was in any way related to us, but I remember very well that I, with all the pride of an aristocrat, protested against any relationship with the "fool."
The first Monday in Lent the butchers used to lead through the streets a fat ox, adorned with wreaths of flowers and ridden by a boy in a white shirt and wearing wings.
The sailors also passed through the streets with music and flags and streamers flying --two of the boldest ended by wrestling on a plank placed between two boats, and the one that did not tumble into the water was the hero.
But what especially was fixed in my memory, and is very often revived by being spoken about, was the stay of the Spaniards in Funen in 1808. Denmark was in alliance with Napoleon, who had declared war against Sweden, and before anybody was aware of it, a French army and Spanish auxiliary troops, under command of Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Pontecorvo, entered Funen in order to pass over into Sweden.
I was at that time not more than three years old, but I remember very well those dark-brown men bustling in the streets, and the cannon that were fired in the market-place and before the bishop's residence; I saw the foreign soldiers stretching themselves on the sidewalks and on bundles of straw in the half-burned St. John's Church. The castle of Kolding was burnt, and Pontecorvo came to Odense, where his wife and his son Oscar were staying. The school-houses all about were changed into guard-rooms, and the mass was celebrated under the large trees in the fields and on the road. The French soldiers were said to be haughty and arrogant, the Spanish good-natured and friendly; a fierce hatred existed between them; the poor Spaniards excited most interest.
A Spanish soldier one day took me up in his arms and pressed against my lips a silvery image, which he carried on his breast. I remember that my mother became angry because, as she said, it was something Catholic, but I was pleased with the image, and the foreign soldier danced with me, kissed me, and shed tears; he had, perhaps, children himself at home. I saw one of his comrades carried to execution for having killed a Frenchman. Many years afterward, in remembrance of that, I wrote my little poem, "The Soldier," which, translated into German by Chamisso, has become popular, and is found in German "Soldier Songs" as an original German song.
Quite as lively as the impression of the Spaniards was a later event, in my sixth year, namely, the great comet of 1811--my mother told me that it would destroy the earth, or that other horrible things threatened us, to be found in the book of "the prophecies of Sibylla." I listened to all these superstitious stories and fully believed them. With my mother and some of the neighboring women I stood in St. Canut's church-yard and looked at the frightful and mighty fire-ball with its large, shining tail.
All talked about the signs of evil and the day of doom. My father joined us, but he was not of the others' opinion at all, and gave them a correct and sound explanation; then my mother sighed, the women shook their heads, my father laughed and went away. I caught the idea that my father was not of our faith, and that threw me into a great fright! In the evening my mother and my old grandmother talked together, and I do not know how she explained it; but I sat in her lap, looked into her mild eyes, and expected every moment that the comet would rush down, and the day of judgment come.
The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it only for a moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was her joy and her delight. She was a quiet and most amiable old woman, with mild blue eyes and a fine figure, which life had severely tried. From having been the wife of a countryman in easy circumstances she had now fallen into great poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a little house, which was the last, poor remains of their property.
I never saw her shed a tear; but it made all the deeper impression upon me when she quietly sighed, and told me about her own mother's mother, — how she had been a rich, noble lady, in the city of Cassel, and that she had married a "comedy-player,"—that was as she expressed it,—and run away from parents and home, for all of which her posterity had now to do penance. I never can recollect that I heard her mention the family name of her grandmother; but her own maiden name was Nommesen. She was employed to take care of the garden belonging to a lunatic asylum, and every Sunday evening she brought us some flowers, which they gave her permission to take home with her. These flowers adorned my mother's cupboard; but still they were mine, and to me it was allowed to put them in the glass of water. How great was this pleasure! She brought them all to me; she loved me with her whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it.
She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the garden; on such occasions she took me with her to the asylum, and I lay upon the great heaps of green leaves and pea-straw I had many flowers to play with, and—which was a circumstance upon which I set great importance—I had here better food to eat than I could expect at home.
All such patients as were harmless were permitted to go freely about the court: they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw herself against the door where I lay; the little valve through which she received her food burst open; she stared down upon me, and stretched out her long arm toward me. I screamed for terror—I felt the tips of her fingers touching my clothes—I was half dead when the attendant came; and even in later years that sight and that feeling remained within my soul.
Close beside the place where the leaves were burned the poor old women had their spinning-room. I often went in there, and was very soon a favorite. When with these people, I found myself possessed of an eloquence which filled them with astonishment. I had accidentally heard about the internal mechanism of the human frame, of course without understanding anything about it , but all these mysteries were very captivating to me; and with chalk, therefore, I drew a quantity of flourishes on the door, which were to represent the intestines; and my description of the heart and the lungs made the deepest impression. I passed for a remarkably wise child, that would not live long; and they rewarded my eloquence by telling me tales in return; and thus a world as rich as that of the Thousand and One Nights, was revealed to me.
The stories told by these old ladies, and the insane figures which I saw around me in the asylum, operated in the mean time so powerfully upon me, that when it grew dark I scarcely dared to go out of the house. I was therefore permitted, generally at sunset, to lay down in my parents' bed with its long, flowered curtains, because the press-bed in which I slept could not conveniently be put down so early in the evening on account of the room it occupied in our small dwelling; and here, in the paternal bed, lay I in a waking dream, as if the actual world did not concern me.
Andersen, Hans Christian. The Story of My Life. Hurd and Houghton, 1871.
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