OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER

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　　　　OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER
　　    1872
　　    FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
　　    OLE THE TOWER-KEEPER
　　    by Hans Christian Andersen
　　    "IN the world it's always going up and down; and now I can't go up
　　    any higher!" So said Ole the tower-keeper. "Most people have to try
　　    both the ups and the downs; and, rightly considered, we all get to
　　    be watchmen at last, and look down upon life from a height."
　　    Such was the speech of Ole, my friend, the old tower-keeper, a
　　    strange, talkative old fellow, who seemed to speak out everything that
　　    came into his head, and who for all that had many a serious thought
　　    deep in his heart. Yes, he was the child of respectable people, and
　　    there were even some who said that he was the son of a privy
　　    councillor, or that he might have been. He had studied, too, and had
　　    been assistant teacher and deputy clerk; but of what service was all
　　    that to him? In those days he lived in the clerk's house, and was to
　　    have everything in the house- to be at free quarters, as the saying
　　    is; but he was still, so to speak, a fine young gentleman. He wanted
　　    to have his boots cleaned with patent blacking, and the clerk could
　　    only afford ordinary grease; and upon that point they split. One spoke
　　    of stinginess, the other of vanity, and the blacking became the
　　    black cause of enmity between them, and at last they parted.
　　    This is what he demanded of the world in general, namely, patent
　　    blacking, and he got nothing but grease. Accordingly, he at last
　　    drew back from all men, and became a hermit; but the church tower is
　　    the only place in a great city where hermitage, office and bread can
　　    be found together. So he betook himself up thither, and smoked his
　　    pipe as he made his solitary rounds. He looked upward and downward, and had his own thoughts, and told in his own way of what he read in books and in himself. I often lent him books- good books; and you may know by the company he keeps. He loved neither the English governess novels nor the French ones, which he called a mixture of empty wind and raisin-stalks: he wanted biographies, and descriptions of the wonders of, the world. I visited him at least once a year, generally directly after New Year's day, and then he always spoke of this and that which the change of the year had put into his head.
            
            

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　　    I will tell the story of three of these visits, and will reproduce
　　    his own words whenever I can remember them.
　　    FIRST VISIT
　　    Among the books which I had lately lent Ole, was one which had
　　    greatly rejoiced and occupied him. It was a geological book,
　　    containing an account of the boulders.
　　    "Yes, they're rare old fellows, those boulders!" he said; "and
　　    to think that we should pass them without noticing them! And over
　　    the street pavement, the paving stones, those fragments of the
　　    oldest remains of antiquity, one walks without ever thinking about
　　    them. I have done the very thing myself. But now I look respectfully
　　    at every paving-stone. Many thanks for the book! It has filled me with
　　    thought, and has made me long to read more on the subject. The romance of the earth is, after all, the most wonderful of all romances. It's a pity one can't read the first volume of it, because it is written in a
　　    language that we don't understand. One must read in the different
　　    strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a
　　    romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it.
　　    We grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball
　　    keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which
　　    we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a
　　    story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands of years and
　　    is still going on. My best thanks for the book about the boulders.
　　    Those are fellows indeed! They could tell us something worth
　　    hearing, if they only knew how to talk. It's really a pleasure now and
　　    then to become a mere nothing, especially when
　　a man is as highly
　　    placed as I am. And then to think that we all, even with patent
　　    lacquer, are nothing more than insects of a moment on that ant-hill
　　    the earth, though we may be insects with stars and garters, places and
　　    offices! One feels quite a novice beside these venerable
　　    million-year-old boulders. On last New Year's eve I was reading the
　　    book, and had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my
　　    usual New Year's diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you
            
            

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　　    don't know what that is!
　　    "The journey of the witches on broomsticks is well enough known-
　　    that journey is taken on St. John's eve, to the Brocken; but we have a
　　    wild journey, also which is national and modern, and that is the
　　    journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets
　　    and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers, and artistic
　　    notabilities,- I mean those who are no good,- ride in the New Year's
　　    night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting
　　    brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them- they're too
　　    stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could
　　    mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to
　　    draw their enmity upon myself, for they don't like people to talk
　　    about their ride to Amack on quill pens. I've a kind of niece, who
　　    is a fishwife, and who, as she tells me, supplies three respectable
　　    newspapers with the terms of abuse and vituperation they use, and
　　    she has herself been at Amack as an invited guest; but she was carried
　　    out thither, for she does not own a quill pen, nor can she ride. She
　　    has told me all about it. Half of what she said is not true, but the
　　    other half gives us information enough. When she was out there, the
　　    festivities began with a song; each of the guests had written his
　　    own song, and each one sang his own song, for he thought that the
　　    best, and it was all one, all the same melody. Then those came
　　    marching up, in little bands, who are only busy with their mouths.
　　    There were ringing bells that rang alternately; and then came the
　　    little drummers that beat their tattoo in the family circle; and
　　    acquaintance was made with those who write without putting their
　　    names, which here means as much as using grease instead of patent
　　    blacking; and then there was the beadle with his boy, and the boy
　　    was worst off, for in general he gets no notice taken of him; then,
　　    too, there was the good street sweeper with his cart, who turns over
　　    the dust-bin, and calls it 'good, very good, remarkably good.' And
　　    in the midst of the pleasure that was afforded by the mere meeting
            
            

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　　    of these folks, there shot up out of the great dirt-heap at Amack a
　　    stem, a tree, an immense flower, a great mushroom, a perfect roof,
　　    which formed a sort of warehouse for the worthy company, for in it
　　    hung everything they had given to the world during the Old Year. Out
　　    of the tree poured sparks like flames omitted taking
　　    my look at the guests, I bowled away on the boulders, rolled back
　　    through millions of years, and saw the stones break loose high up in
　　    the north, saw them drifting about on icebergs, long before Noah's ark was constructed, saw them sink down to the bottom of the sea, and re-appear with a sand-bank, with that one that peered forth from the flood and said, 'This shall be Zealand!' I saw them become the
　　    dwelling-place of birds that are unknown to us, and then become the
　　    seat of wild chiefs of whom we know nothing, until with their axes
　　    they cut their Runic signs into a few of these stones, which then came
　　    into the calendar of time. But as for me, I had gone quite beyond
　　    all lapse of time, and had become a cipher and a nothing. Then three
　　    or four beautiful falling stars came down, which cleared the air,
　　    and gave my thoughts another direction. You know what a falling star
　　    is, do you not? The learned men are not at all clear about it. I
　　    have my own ideas about shooting stars, as the common people in many parts call them, and my idea is this: How often are silent
　　    thanksgivings offered up for one who has done a good and noble action!
　　    The thanks are often speechless, but they are not lost for all that. I
　　    think these thanks are caught up, and the sunbeams bring the silent,
　　    hidden thankfulness over the head of the benefactor; and if it be a
　　    whole people that has been expressing its gratitude through a long
　　    lapse of time, the thankfulness appears as a nosegay of flowers, and
　　    at length falls in the form of a shooting star over the good man's
　　    grave. I am always very much pleased when I see a shooting star,
　　    especially in the New Year's night, and then find out for whom the
　　    gift of gratitude was intended. Lately a gleaming star fell in the
　　    southwest, as a tribute of thanksgiving to many- many! 'For whom was that star intended?' thought I. It fell, no doubt, on the hill by
            
            

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　　    the Bay of Plensberg, where the Danebrog waves over the graves of
　　    Schleppegrell, Lasloes, and their comrades. One star also fell in
　　    the midst of the land, fell upon Soro, a flower on the grave of
　　    Holberg, the thanks of the year from a great many - thanks for his
　　    charming plays!
　　    "It is a great and pleasant thought to know that a shooting star
　　    falls upon our graves. On mine certainly none will fall- no sunbeam
　　    brings thanks to me, for here there is nothing worthy of thanks. I
　　    shall not get the patent lacquer," said Ole, "for my fate on earth
　　    is only grease, after all."
　　    SECOND VISIT
　　    It was New Year's day, and I went up on the tower. Ole spoke of
　　    the toasts that were drunk on the transition from the Old Year into
　　    the New- from one grave into the other, as he said. And he told me a
　　    story about the glasses, and this story had a very deep meaning. It
　　    was this:
　　    "When on the New Year's night the clock strikes twelve, the people
　　    at the table rise up with full glasses in their hands, and drain these
　　    glasses, and drink success to the New Year. They begin the year with
　　    the glass in their hands; that is a good beginning for drunkards. They
　　    begin the New Year by going to bed, and that's a good beginning for
　　    drones. Sleep is sure to play a great part in the New Year, and the
　　    glass likewise. Do you know what dwells in the glass?" asked Ole. "I
　　    will tell you. There dwell in the glass, first, health, and then
　　    pleasure, then the most complete sensual delight; and misfortune and
　　    the bitterest woe dwell in the glass also. Now, suppose we count the
　　    glasses- of course I count the different degrees in the glasses for
　　    different people.
　　    "You see, the first glass, that's the glass of health, and in that
　　    the herb of health is found growing. Put it up on the beam in the
　　    ceiling, and at the end of the year you may be sitting in the arbor of
　　    health.
　　    "If you take the second glass- from this a little bird soars
　　    upward, twittering in guileless cheerfulness, so that a man may listen
            
            

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　　    to his song, and perhaps join in 'Fair is life! no downcast looks!
　　    Take courage, and march onward!'
　　    "Out of the third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot
　　    certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his
　　    veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin- not wishing to hurt or
　　    harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll
　　    sit at your ear and whisper merry thoughts to you; he'll creep into
　　    your heart and warm you, so that you grow very merry, and become a wit, so far as the wits of the others can judge.
　　    "In the fourth glass is neither herb, bird, nor urchin. In that
　　    glass is the pause drawn by reason, and one may never go beyond that sign.
　　    "Take the fifth glass, and you will weep at yourself, you will
　　    feel such a deep emotion; or it will affect you in a different way.
　　    Out of the glass there will spring with a bang Prince Carnival, nine
　　    times and extravagantly merry. He'll draw you away with him; you'll
　　    forget your dignity, if you have any, and you'll forget more than
　　    you should or ought to forget. All is dance, song and sound: the masks will carry you away with them, and the daughters of vanity, clad in silk and satin, will come with loose hair and alluring charms; but tear yourself away if you can!
　　    "The sixth glass! Yes, in that glass sits a demon, in the form
　　    of a little, well dressed, attractive and very fascinating man, who
　　    thoroughly understands you, agrees with you in everything, and becomes quite a second self to you. He has a lantern with him, to give you light as he accompanies you home. There is an old legend about a saint who was allowed to choose one of the seven deadly sins, and who accordingly chose drunkenness, which appeared to him the least, but which led him to commit all the other six. The man's blood is
　　    mingled with that of the demon. It is the sixth glass, and with that
　　    the germ of all evil shoots up within us; and each one grows up with a
　　    strength like that of the grains of mustard-seed, and shoots up into a
　　    tree, and spreads over the whole world: and most people have no choice but to go into the oven, to be re-cast in a new form.
　　    "That's the history of the glasses," said the tower-keeper Ole,
　　    "and it can be told with lacquer or only with grease; but I give it
            
            

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　　    you with both!"
　　    THIRD VISIT
　　    On this occasion I chose the general "moving-day" for my visit
　　    to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the
　　    streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and
　　    remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off rubbish in which
　　    one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children
　　    playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing at "going
　　    to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this
　　    sport. They crept under the straw, and drew an old bit of ragged
　　    curtain over themselves by way of coverlet. "It was splendid!" they
　　    said; but it was a little too strong for me, and besides, I was
　　    obliged to mount up on my visit to Ole.
　　    "It's moving-day to day," he said; "streets and houses are like
　　    a dust-bin- a large dust-bin; but I'm content with a cartload. I may
　　    get something good out of that, and I really did get something good
　　    out of it once. Shortly after Christmas I was going up the street;
　　    it was rough weather, wet and dirty- the right kind of weather to
　　    catch cold in. The dustman was there with his cart, which was full,
　　    and looked like a sample of streets on moving-day. At the back of
　　    the cart stood a fir tree, quite green still, and with tinsel on its
　　    twigs; it had been used on Christmas eve, and now it was thrown out
　　    into the street, and the dustman had stood it up at the back of his
　　    cart. It was droll to look at, or you may say it was mournful- all
　　    depends on what you think ofwhen you see it; and I thought about
　　    it, and thought this and that of many things that were in the cart: or
　　    I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing. There was an
　　    old lady's glove, too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I
　　    tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger
　　    at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also
　　    at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to
　　    speak, a ball night- a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory
            
            

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　　    keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really nothing else to live for!'
　　    This is what the glove thought, or what it might have thought. 'That's
　　    a stupid affair with yonder fir tree,' said the potsherds. You see,
　　    potsherds think everything is stupid. 'When one is in the
　　    dust-cart,' they said, 'one ought not to give one's self airs and wear
　　    tinsel. I know that I have been useful in the world- far more useful
　　    than such a green stick.' This was a view that might be taken, and I
　　    don't think it quite a peculiar one; but for all that, the fir tree
　　    looked very well: it was like a little poetry in the dust-heap; and
　　    truly there is dust enough in the streets on moving-day. The way is
　　    difficult and troublesome then, and I feel obliged to run away out
　　    of the confusion; or, if I am on the tower, I stay there and look
　　    down, and it is amusing enough.
　　    "There are the good people below, playing at 'changing houses.'
　　    They toil and tug away with their goods and chattels, and the
　　    household goblin sits in an old tub and moves with them. All the
　　    little griefs of the lodging and the family, and the real cares and
　　    sorrows, move with them out of the old dwelling into the new; and what gain is there for them or for us in the whole affair? Yes, there was written long ago the good old maxim: 'Think on the great moving-day of death!' That is a serious thought. I hope it is not disagreeable to you that I should have touched upon it? Death is the most certain messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Yes, Death is the omnibus conductor, and he is the passport writer, and he countersigns our service-book, and he is director of the savings bank of life. Do you understand me? All the deeds of our life, the great and the little alike, we put into this savings bank; and when
　　    Death calls with his omnibus, and we have to step in, and drive with
　　    him into the land of eternity, then on the frontier he gives us our
　　    service-book as a pass. As a provision for the journey, he takes
　　    this or that good deed we have done, and lets it accompany us; and
　　    this may be very pleasant or very terrific. Nobody has ever escaped
　　    the omnibus journey. There is certainly a talk about one who was not
　　    allowed to go- they call him the Wandering Jew: he has to ride
　　    behind the omnibus. If he had been allowed to get in, he would have
            
            

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　　    escaped the clutches of the poets.
　　    "Just cast your mind's eye into that great omnibus. The society is
　　    mixed, for king and beggar, genius and idiot, sit side by side. They
　　    must go without their property and money; they have only the
　　    service-book and the gift out of the savings bank with them. But which of our deeds is selected and given to us? Perhaps quite a little
　　    one, one that we have forgotten, but which has been recorded- small as a pea, but the pea can send out a blooming shoot. The poor bumpkin who sat on a low stool in the corner, and was jeered at and flouted, will perhaps have his worn-out stool given him as a provision; and the stool may become a litter in the land of eternity, and rise up then as a throne, gleaming like gold and blooming as an arbor. He who always lounged about, and drank the spiced draught of pleasure, that he might forget the wild things he had done here, will have his barrel given to him on the journey, and will have to drink from it as they go on; and the drink is bright and clear, so that the thoughts remain pure, and all good and noble feelings are awakened, and he sees and feels what in life he could not or would not see; and then he has within him the punishment, the gnawing worm, which will not die through time incalculable. If on the glasses there stood written 'oblivion,' on the barrel 'remembrance' is inscribed.
　　    "When I read a good book, an historical work, I always think at
　　    last of the poetry of what I am reading, and of the omnibus of
　　    death, and wonder, which of the hero's deeds Death took out of the
　　    savings bank for him, and what provisions he got on the journey into
　　    eternity. There was once a French king- I have forgotten his name, for
　　    the names of good people are sometimes forgotten, even by me, but it will come back some day;- there was a king who, during a famine,
　　    became the benefactor of his people; and the people raised up to his
　　    memory a monument of snow, with the inscription, 'Quicker than this
　　    melts didst thou bring help!' I fancy that Death, looking back upon
　　    the monument, gave him a single snow-flake as provision, a
　　    snow-flake that never melts, and this flake floated over his royal
　　    head, like a white butterfly, into the land of eternity. Thus, too,
　　    there was Louis XI. I have remembered his name, for one remembers what is bad- a trait of him often comes into my thoughts, and I wish one could say the story is not true. He had his lord high constable
　　    executed, and he could execute him, right or wrong; but he had the
            
            

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　　    innocent children of the constable, one seven and the other eight
　　    years old, placed under the scaffold so that the warm blood of their
　　    father spurted over them, and then he had them sent to the Bastille,
　　    and shut up in iron cages, where not even a coverlet was given them to protect them from the cold. And King Louis sent the executioner to them every week, and had a tooth pulled out of the head of each,
　　    that they might not be too comfortable; and the elder of the boys
　　    said, 'My mother would die of grief if she knew that my younger
　　    brother had to suffer so cruelly; therefore pull out two of my
　　    teeth, and spare him.' The tears came into the hangman's eyes, but the
　　    king's will was stronger than the tears; and every week two little
　　    teeth were brought to him on a silver plate; he had demanded them, and he had them. I fancy that Death took these two teeth out of the
　　    savings bank of life, and gave them to Louis XI, to carry with him
　　    on the great journey into the land of immortality; they fly before him
　　    like two flames of fire; they shine and burn, and they bite him, the
　　    innocent children's teeth.
　　    "Yes, that's a serious journey, the omnibus ride on the great
　　    moving-day! And when is it to be undertaken? That's just the serious
　　    part of it. Any day, any hour, any minute, the omnibus may draw up.
　　    Which of our deeds will Death take out of the savings bank, and give
　　    to us as provision? Let us think of the moving-day that is not
　　    marked in the calendar."
　　    THE END
　　    LastIndexNext
　　    Written By Andersonof fire; these were the ideas
　　    and thoughts, borrowed from others, which they had used, and which now got free and rushed away like so many fireworks. They played at 'the stick burns,' and the young poets played at 'heart-burns,' and the
　　    witlings played off their jests, and the jests rolled away with a
　　    thundering sound, as if empty pots were being shattered against doors.
　　    'It was very amusing!' my niece said; in fact, she said many things
　　    that were very malicious but very amusing, but I won't mention them,
　　    for a man must be good-natured, and not a carping critic. But you will
　　    easily perceive that when a man once knows the rights of the journey