Dirty"s Ten Commandments have brought it to us.
When she comes, she now always has Luther"s terrible Little Catechism[1]
and Balslev"s equally objectionable work with her. Her parents evidently look upon it as most natural that she should also cultivate her soul at our house.
[Footnote 1: _Luther"s Lille Katekismus_, the Lutheran catechism in general use in Denmark.--A. T. de M.]
Her copies of these two cla.s.sics were not published yesterday. They are probably heirlooms in Dirty"s family. They are covered in thick brown paper, which again is protected by a heavy layer of dirt against any touch of clean fingers. They can be smelt at a distance.
But my little boy is no sn.o.b.
When Dirty has finished her studies--she always reads out aloud--he asks her permission to turn over the pages of the works in which she finds those strange words. He stares respectfully at the letters which he cannot read. And then he asks questions.
He asks Dirty, he asks the servant, he asks us. Before anyone suspects it, he is at home in the whole field of theology.
He knows that G.o.d is in Heaven, where all good people go to Him, while the wicked are put down below in h.e.l.l. That G.o.d created the world in six days and said that we must not do anything on Sundays. That G.o.d can do everything and knows everything and sees everything.
He often prays, creeps upstairs as high as he can go, so as to be nearer Heaven, and shouts as loud as he can. The other day I found him at the top of the folding-steps:
"Dear G.o.d! You must please give us fine weather tomorrow, for we are going to the wood."
He says _Du_ to everybody except G.o.d and the grocer.
He never compromises.
The servant is laying the table; we have guests coming and we call her attention to a little hole in the cloth:
"I must lay it so that no one can see it," she says.
"G.o.d will see it."
"He is not coming this evening," says the blasphemous hussy.
"Yes, He is everywhere," answers my little boy, severely.
He looks after me in particular:
"You mustn"t say "gad," Father. Dirty"s teacher says that people who say "gad" go to h.e.l.l."
"I shan"t say it again," I reply, humbly.
One Sunday morning, he finds me writing and upbraids me seriously.
"My little boy," I say, distressfully, "I must work every day. If I do nothing on Sunday, I do nothing on Monday either. If I do nothing on Monday, I am idle on Tuesday too. And so on."
He ponders; and I continue, with the courage of despair:
"You must have noticed that Dirty wants a new catechism? The one she has is dirty and old."
He agrees to this.
"She will never have one, you see," I say, emphatically. "Her father rests so tremendously on Sunday that he is hardly able to do anything on the other days. He never earns enough to buy a new catechism."
I have won--this engagement. But the war is continued without cessation of hostilities.
The mother of my little boy and I are sitting in the twilight by his bedside and softly talking about this.
"What are we to do?" she asks.
"We can do nothing?" I reply. "Dirty is right: G.o.d is everywhere. We can"t keep Him out. And if we could, for a time: what then? A day would come perhaps when our little boy was ill or sad and the priests would come to him with their G.o.d as a new and untried miraculous remedy and bewilder his mind and his senses. Our little boy too will have to go through Luther and Balslev and a.s.sens and confirmation and all the rest of it. Then this will become a commonplace to him; and one day he will form his own views, as we have done."
But, when he comes and asks how big G.o.d is, whether He is bigger than the Round Tower, how far it is to Heaven, why the weather was not fine on the day when he prayed so hard for it: then we fly from the face of the Lord and hide like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
And we leave Dirty to explain.
XIII
My little boy has got a rival, whose name is Henrik, a popinjay who not only is six years old, but has an unlimited supply of liquorice at his disposal. And, to fill the measure of my little boy"s bitterness, Henrik is to go to the dancing-school; and I am, therefore, not surprised when my little boy asks to be taught to dance, so that he may not be left quite behind in the contest.
"I don"t advise you to do that," I say. "The dancing which you learn at school is not pretty and does not play so great a part in love as you imagine. I don"t know how to dance; and many charming ladies used to prefer me to the most accomplished ornaments of the ball-room. Besides, you know, you are knock-kneed."
And, to cheer him up, I sing a little song which we composed when we were small and had a dog and did not think about women:
See, my son, that little ba.s.set, Running with his knock-kneed legs!
His own puppy, he can"t catch it: He"ll fall down as sure as eggs!
Knock-kneed Billy!
Isn"t he silly?
Silly Billy!
But poetry fails to comfort him. Dark is his face and desperate his glance. And, when I see that the case is serious, I resolve to resort to serious measures.
I take him with me to a ball, a real ball, where people who have learnt to dance go to enjoy themselves. It is difficult to keep him in a more or less waking condition, but I succeed.
We sit quietly in a corner and watch the merry throng. I say not a word, but look at his wide-open eyes.
"Father, why does that man jump like that, when he is so awfully hot?"
"Yes; can you understand it?"
"Why does that lady with her head on one side look so tired? . . . Why does that fat woman hop about so funnily, Father? . . . Father, what queer legs that man there has!"
It rains questions and observations. We make jokes and laugh till the tears come to our eyes. We whisper naughty things to each other and go into a side-room and mimic a pair of crooked legs till we can"t hold ourselves for laughter. We sit and wait till a steam thrashing-machine on its round comes past us; and we are fit to die when we hear it puff and blow.
We enjoy ourselves beyond measure.