Marie Grubbe Read online

  The crowds of respectable citizens, made restless by rumours of great dangers, were gone. Instead there was a maelstrom of strange figures whose like had not been seen within the ramparts and who did not have the appearance at all of inhabiting these decent, sober houses with all their many signs of ordinary, respectable life. What passion lurking in waistcoats and breeches! What hellish sounds from serious lips! What violent gestures by arms restrained by narrow sleeves! No one could bear to be alone, no one wanted to be inside. They stood there, in the streets, with their fear and despair, with their miseries and tears.

  A dignified old man, bare headed with bloodshot eyes, turned his ash-grey face towards the wall, pummelling it with his bare fists. Meanwhile a fat tanner cursed the King’s Council and the whole damn war! There stood a young man, his cheeks visibly burning with hatred of the enemy who was about to bring all those horrors he had already seen in his mind’s eye.

  They roared with anger that they were as powerless as they felt. And God in Heaven, what prayers, what insane prayers!

  Wagons stood still in the middle of the road, while servants put down pails and baskets in porches and doorways. Here and there people left their houses in a hurry. They were wearing their best clothes and were red-faced from their exertions. Taken by surprise, they looked round, became self-conscious, and rushed about among the crowd talking, anxious to distract attention from their fine clothes. What were they thinking? And from where did all those disgusting drunken men come? They were all over the place, ranting and raving, fighting and falling over. They were sick on steps, and laughed while chasing women and picking fights with men.

  That was the first wave of terror: the terror of instinct. By noon, it was over. People had been summoned to the ramparts, had worked with the energy of a Sunday; they had seen their spades deepen the ditches and the ramparts grow. Soldiers had marched past, while craftsmen, students and the servants of the nobility were keeping watch, armed with a medley of curious weapons. Canons had been positioned. The king had ridden along the ramparts, making it clear to the people that he would stay.1 Everything seemed to be making sense and people felt the urge to be sensible.

  The following day, some time in the afternoon, a fire started among the buildings outside the West Gate. The smell of burning was carried into the city, making people uneasy. At dusk, while the fire threw a red glow on the grey, weathered walls of the tower of Our Lady and played with the golden balls on the spire of St Peter’s, a rumour spread that the enemy was coming down the hill at Valdby, and it was as if the whole city breathed a sigh of fear. Through streets, alleys and passageways shouts were heard, scared and anxious: the Swedes, the Swedes! Boys were running through the town, shouting the news in their shrill voices. People rushed to the doors and looked anxiously to the west. Shops were closed, iron-mongers quickly collected all their scraps of metal. It was as if all these harmless people expected at any moment the mighty army of the enemy to pour into the city.

  The ramparts and the nearby streets were thick with people staring at the fire; but there were also large crowds assembled in places from where the fire was not to be seen, such as Waterworks Square and the nearby bridge. Many things were being discussed. The most burning question was when would the Swedes begin their attack? Would it start that very night or would they wait till dawn?

  Gert Pyper, the dyer at Waterworks Square, believed that this would happen as soon as the soldiers had been drawn up after the march. Why would they wait any longer?

  Erik Lauritzen, an Icelandic trader from Farvergade, was of the opinion that to seize an unfamiliar city at night and in the dark would be a daring deed for an enemy who could barely tell land from water.

  “Water!” exclaimed Gert, the dyer. “I wish to God we were half as familiar with our own affairs as the Swedes are! Don’t mention it! They’ve got their spies, they have, where you least expect it! Oh yes! And the mayor and his council know that only too well, and from dawn the district heads have been going around everywhere, through every building, trying to catch those spies.

  But catch them if you can! The Swede is a cunning fellow, particularly when it comes to that kind of business for which he has nature’s gift. I know that only too well. It’s about half a dozen or so years ago, but I shall never forget the rascal. You see, the colour indigo, it can come out black, deep blue or a paler dark blue, it all depends on the mordant.2 It’s the mordant that’s the key. To heat and make up the dye watts any fool can do, but the mordant, that requires art. If you use too strong a mordant, then you singe the yarn or the material or whatever you’re dyeing, and all the threads unravel, and if the mordant is too weak, then the dye is never fast, even if you are using the most precious Campeche wood. That’s why a mordant is a deep secret that you never share with anyone, your son perhaps, but never a fellow craftsman. No, never…”

  “Quite so,” said the merchant. “Quite so.”

  “Now,” continued the dyer, “as I was saying, I employed, half a dozen years ago, a lad who had a Swede for his mother. He’d made up his mind that he’d get hold of the secret of my mordant for cinnamon brown. But as I always do my weighing for a mordant behind closed doors, that wasn’t an easy matter. Then, you won’t believe what that rascal gets up to! Just listen! There’s a bad case of vermin in the square, they devour both wool and yarn, and for this reason we are always hanging the stuff for dyeing up under the rafters in great sacks of sail cloth. And so he cooks up the devilish scheme of getting one of the lads to hoist him up inside a sack; I come in, I weigh and I mix, and do some adjusting. I am halfway through when, curiously, the fellow up there in the sack gets cramp in his leg. He starts screaming and shouting that I should help him down… and did I help him! Death and damnation! What a piece of knavish chicanery he practised on me. Yes, they’re all like him! Every single Swede! You can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.”

  “There’s some truth in your words. They’re an ugly lot, those Swedes,” interjected Erik Lauritzen. “They’ve got nothing at all at home to put between their teeth, and so when they’re abroad, they’ll never stop swilling and filling their stomachs. They’re like orphans in a poorhouse who eat to satisfy past, present and future hunger, all in one go. They loot and pilfer. They’re worse than crows and gypsies, and so bloodthirsty! It’s for good reason we say, ‘as quick to use a knife as a Swede’.”

  “And so full of animal passions,” added the dyer. “Whenever it happens that a woman is being flogged out of town by the executioner’s lad, and you happen to ask who she might be, why then you’ll be told that she’s a Swedish whore.”

  “Yes, men are as different by nature as wild beasts. The Swede resembles that brute creature, the monkey; there is such a fire and heat burning in his soul that the natural sense which God has given to all people can’t control his passions and sinful desires.”

  The dyer nodded a couple of times in agreement with what the merchant was saying. “You’re right, Erik Lauritzen. The Swede has a strange and sinful nature, quite different from that of other people. When a foreigner wanders into my shop, I can always smell if he’s a Swede or not. There’s such a stench in a Swede, like in a goat, or fish lye. I have often thought about this, and it’s just as you say, this reeks of his violent animal humours.”

  “It’s hardly strange that Turks and Swedes should smell different from Christians,” observed an old woman close by.

  “What nonsense you talk, Mette Mustard,” interrupted the dyer. “Don’t you think Swedes are Christians?”

  “You can call them Christians, Gert the Dyer if that pleases you. But in my book Finns, heathens and trolls have never been Christians, and I swear that at the time of blessed King Christian, when the Swedes were occupying Jutland, a whole regiment of them, one night when the moon was new and they were marching along, suddenly at the stroke of midnight began to run in all directions like werewolves and other devilry, howling and stamping through marsh and woods, wreaking havoc among men and beas
ts.”

  “But they go to church on a Sunday, I believe, and have priests and deacons like the rest of us.”

  “Well, you won’t make me believe that! That pack of devils goes to church in the same way witches fly off for evensong when the Lucifer celebrates mass at the feast of Saint Hans at Hekla. No, they’re bewitched, and bullets don’t hurt them, fire and gunpowder is to no avail, and half of them have got the evil eye. Why else is there always smallpox about whenever those rascals have set their damned feet in this country? Can ye tell me that, Master Dyer, explain that if ye can!”

  The dyer was just about to answer when Erik Lauritzen who for some time had been looking around anxiously, exclaimed, “Quiet, quiet, Gert the Dyer. Tell me, who is that man yonder making some kind of sermon and surrounded by a great crowd?”

  They hurried towards the crowd while Gert the Dyer explained that he was of the opinion it was a certain Jesper Kiim, who used to preach in the Church of the Holy Ghost, but whose faith, he’d been told by more learned folk, was not of sufficient orthodoxy that it would advance either his soul or his career in the priesthood.

  He was a small man, about thirty, who resembled a mastiff, with long, black and straight hair, a broad face, small thick nose, lively brown eyes and red lips. He was standing on a doorstep gesticulating eagerly, and he was speaking quickly and passionately in a somewhat thick and lisping voice:

  “And it says in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, verse fifty-one to fifty-four: ‘And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” ’

  “Yes, beloved countrymen, thus it must be. At this very moment, beyond the weak ramparts and poor defences of this city lie encamped a mighty host of well-armed warriors whose king and commanders have spoken and given orders and instructions that they with fire and sword, by storm and siege, make this city and whoever belongs to it their slave and chattel.

  “And those who are in this city, seeing their safety in danger, their destruction decided upon without pity, they gird themselves with arms, they bring catapults and other weapons of destruction onto the ramparts and ask themselves, ‘Should we not attack with burning fire and drawn swords those who have broken the peace and intend our utter destruction?’ For what purpose has God in Heaven planted courage and valour in men’s breasts if not to resist such an enemy and destroy him? And like Peter the Apostle they draw their swords and wish suddenly to smote off the ear of Malcho. But Jesus says: ‘Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ Well might these words seem strange to those who are full of senseless fury, and foolish to those who are blinded by hatred. But the Word is not like the blast of a trumpet, just a sound to be heard. Like a ship’s store that has been filled with useful instruments, so the Word is full of good sense and thoughtfulness, for the Word is a path to understanding and wisdom. Therefore, let us examine the Word carefully so that we may, little by little, lay bare its true meaning. Wherefore should the sword stay in its place and all they that take the sword perish with the sword? This is for us to consider in the light of three propositions:

  “The first is that man is a wisely and wonderfully crafted microcosm, or one might say, he resembles this small earth, this world of both good and evil. For, if it is true as Jacob the Apostle says, that the tongue alone is a world of iniquity, how much more is the entire body a world! The eyes of desire, the feet so fleet, the hands that seize? The insatiable belly, the knees of those in prayer and the watchful ears? And if the body be a world, how much more is our precious and immortal soul not a world? Yes, it is like a garden full of sweet and bitter herbs, full of the ravenous beasts of desire and the white lambs of virtue. And is he who lays waste to such a world to be considered any differently from a conflagrator, a cut-throat or a cattle thief? And thou know well what kind of punishment such a man should have and suffer.”

  It was quite dark, and the crowd of people surrounding the preacher appeared only as a big, dark, still growing mass, though it barely seemed to stir.

  “The second proposition is that man is a microtheos, that is, a reflection or image of God the Almighty. And is he who lays hands on the image of God not to be considered worse than someone who steals the holy vessels or vestments, or profanes the church? And you know well what punishment such a man should have to suffer.

  “The third and final proposition is that man has duties to God and owes it to Him to struggle without ceasing, clad in the untarnished, shining armour of virtue, and girded with the flaming sword of truth. Thus armed, it is his duty to fight, a warrior of the Lord tearing open the neck of Hell, and tearing open the belly of Hell. Therefore, we should put our worldly sword into his place, for verily we face struggles enough with that of the spirit.”

  From time to time people appeared from either end of the street carrying small lanterns to light their way home. When they came across the crowd, they stood still at its edge, which quickly grew into a semi-circle of tiny blinking lights whose shine faded and grew with the movement of the people. Now and then a lantern would be raised high into the air, its uncertain rays searching whitewashed walls and dark windows, to rest finally on the earnest face of the preacher.

  “But how should that be, you might well be asking in your hearts. Should we hand ourselves over to the enemy, bound hand and foot, and endure the bitter ignominy of slavery? Oh, my beloved friends, do not speak so! For then you are to be reckoned like those who think that Jesus could not ask his Father to send him more than twelve legions of angels. Oh, do not fall into doubt, do not murmur in your hearts against the council of the Lord, do not make your liver black against his will. For he the Lord wishes to destroy will be crushed, he whom He wishes to raise, will be safe. It is He who has ways to lead us out of the dangers of the desert and the wilderness. Can He not turn the heart of the enemy, did He not make the angel of death pass through Sanschreib’s camp? Or have you forgotten the rising waves of the Red Sea or how swiftly the pharaoh was destroyed…?”

  At this point Jesper Kiim’s sermon was interrupted. The throng had been listening to him fairly quietly, although some threatening whispers were occasionally heard coming from the edge of the crowd. Suddenly the shrill angry voice of Mette Mustard could be heard. “You fiend from Hell. Will you be silent, you big black hound? Don’t listen to him. It is Swedish gold that is speaking through his mouth.”

  For a moment they were all quite silent but then the shouting began: a wave of taunts, oaths and profanities engulfed him. He tried to speak, but the shouts grew louder, and those close to the steps began to move threateningly towards him. A small, white-haired man just in front of him, who had been sobbing all the while he was speaking, now angrily pointed a long, silver-topped walking stick at him.

  There were shouts of: “Down with him! Down with him. He’ll eat his words, he’ll admit that he’s been paid to betray us. Down with him! We’re going to make him confess! We’ll get it out of him.”

  “Put him in the dungeon,” others were shouting. “Take him to the Town Hall dungeon. Throw him down, throw him down.”

  A couple of strong lads had already grabbed hold of him. The wretch was clinging to the wooden railing of the steps and so they threw both him and the railing down into the street, right into the mob. He was received with kicks and blows. Old women pulled his hair and tore his clothes, making the little boys who were watching and holding their fathers’ hands jump up and down for joy.

  “Come on, Mette,” came shouts from behind. “Move aside, aside. She’ll question him.”

  Mette came forward. “Will you retract all
that devil’s talk, will you, you Lucifer?”

  “Never, never! One should obey the Lord, not men, as it is said.”

  “Should one!” said Mette taking off her wooden clog and waving it. “But men have wooden clogs, they do, and you’re in the pay of the devil, you are, not the Lord. I’ll beat you till your brains splatter yonder wall.” And she hit him with her clog.

  “Do not sin, Mette,” groaned the priest.

  “By the devil himself!” she shrieked.

  “Quiet, quiet,” came a voice. “Beware, beware, let the crowd disperse. Gyldenløve, the lieutenant general is coming.”3

  A tall figure rode past.

  “Long live Gyldenløve! Gyldenløve the brave,” roared the mob.

  Hats and caps were flung in the air, and the shouting wouldn’t cease. Then the figure disappeared in the direction of the rampart. That was the lieutenant general of the army, colonel in charge of infantry and cavalry, Christian Gyldenløve, the king’s half-brother.

  The crowd began to disperse until only a few remained.

  “It’s certainly curious,” said Gert the Dyer. “We’ll crack the skull of anyone who talks peace, but we shout ourselves hoarse over someone who is most to blame for this war.”

  “God be with you, Gert Pyper, God be with you, and I wish you a good night,” said the merchant, interrupting his flow and hurrying away.

  “He’s thinking of Mette’s clog,” whispered the dyer. Then he, too, departed.

  Only Jesper Kiim was left, sitting on the steps, his sore head in his hands. On the ramparts the guards were walking slowly back and forth, staring out over a land of darkness where all was quiet, despite thousands of enemy soldiers being encamped out there.