A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth

G >> George Brandes >> Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth



E-text prepared by Eric Eldred, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team



[Etext producer's note: Chapter sub-headings in SECOND LONGER STAY
ABROAD are misnumbered in the original hard copy, skipping from VII
to IX.]




RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

BY

GEORGE BRANDES

AUTHOR OF "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE," ETC.







[Illustration: DR. GEORGE BRANDES _From a Sketch by G. Rump_]

DISCOVERING THE WORLD

First Impressions--Going to Bed--My Name--Fresh Elements--School--The
King--Town and Country--The King's Gardens--The Friendly World--Inimical
Forces--The World Widens--The Theatre--Progress--Warlike Instincts--
School Adventures--Polite Accomplishments--My Relations


BOYHOOD'S YEARS

Our House--Its Inmates--My Paternal Grandfather--My Maternal Grandfather
--School and Home--Farum--My Instructors--A Foretaste of Life--Contempt
for the Masters--My Mother--The Mystery of Life--My First Glimpse of
Beauty--The Head Master--Religion--My Standing in School--Self-esteem
--An Instinct for Literature--Private Reading--Heine's _Buch der
Lieder_--A Broken Friendship


TRANSITIONAL YEARS

School Boy Fancies--Religion--Early Friends--_Daemonic Theory_--A
West Indian Friend--My Acquaintance Widens--Politics--The Reactionary
Party--The David Family--A Student Society--An Excursion to Slesvig--
Temperament--The Law--Hegel--Spinoza--Love for Humanity--A Religious
Crisis--Doubt--Personal Immortality--Renunciation


ADOLESCENCE

Julius Lange--A New Master--Inadaption to the Law--The University Prize
Competition--An Interview with the Judges--Meeting of Scandinavian
Students--The Paludan-Müllers--Björnstjerne Björnson--Magdalene
Thoresen--The Gold Medal--The Death of King Frederik VII--The Political
Situation--My Master of Arts Examination--War--_Admissus cum laude
praecipua_--Academical Attention--Lecturing--Music--Nature--A Walking
Tour--In Print--Philosophical Life in Denmark--Death of Ludwig David--
Stockholm


FIRST LONG SOJOURN ABROAD

My Wish to See Paris--_Dualism in our Modern Philosophy_--A
Journey--Impressions of Paris--Lessons in French--Mademoiselle Mathilde
--Taine


EARLY MANHOOD

Feud in Danish Literature--Riding--Youthful Longings--On the Rack--My
First Living Erotic Reality--An Impression of the Miseries of Modern
Coercive Marriage--Researches on the Comic--Dramatic Criticism--A Trip
to Germany--Johanne Louise Heiberg--Magdalene Thoresen--Rudolph Bergh--
The Sisters Spang--A Foreign Element--The Woman Subject--Orla Lehmann--
M. Goldschmidt--Public Opposition--A Letter from Björnstjerne Björnson--
Hard Work


SECOND LONGER STAY ABROAD

Hamburg--My Second Fatherland--Ernest Hello--_Le Docteur Noir_--
Taine--Renan--Marcelin--Gleyre--Taine's Friendship--Renan at Home--
Philarète Chasles' Reminiscences--_Le Théâtre Français_--Coquelin
--Bernhardt--Beginnings of _Main Currents_--The Tuileries--John
Stuart Mill--London--Philosophical Studies--London and Paris Compared--
Antonio Gallenga and His Wife--Don Juan Prim--Napoleon III--London
Theatres--Gladstone and Disraeli in Debate--Paris on the Eve of War--
First Reverses--Flight from Paris--Geneva, Switzerland--Italy--Pasquale
Villari--Vinnie Ream's Friendship--Roman Fever--Henrik Ibsen's
Influence--Scandinavians in Rome


FILOMENA

Italian Landladies--The Carnival--The Moccoli Feast--Filomena's Views


SECOND LONGER STAY ABROAD _Continued_

Reflections on the Future of Denmark--Conversations with Giuseppe
Saredo--Frascati--Native Beauty--New Susceptibilities--Georges
Noufflard's Influence--The Sistine Chapel and Michael Angelo--Raphael's
Loggias--A Radiant Spring




RECOLLECTIONS OF

MY CHILDHOOD

AND YOUTH




DISCOVERING THE WORLD

First Impressions--Going to Bed--My Name--Fresh Elements--School--The
King--Town and Country--The King's Gardens--The Friendly World--Inimical
Forces--The World Widens--The Theatre--Progress--Warlike Instincts--
School Adventures--Polite Accomplishments--My Relations.


I.

He was little and looked at the world from below. All that happened,
went on over his head. Everyone looked down to him.

But the big people possessed the enviable power of lifting him to their
own height or above it. It might so happen that suddenly, without
preamble, as he lay on the floor, rummaging and playing about and
thinking of nothing at all, his father or a visitor would exclaim:
"Would you like to see the fowls of Kjöge?" And with the same he would
feel two large hands placed over his ears and the arms belonging to them
would shoot straight up into the air. That was delightful. Still, there
was some disappointment mingled with it. "Can you see Kjöge now?" was a
question he could make nothing of. What could Kjöge be? But at the other
question: "Do you see the fowls?" he vainly tried to see something or
other. By degrees he understood that it was only a phrase, and that
there was nothing to look for.

It was his first experience of empty phrases, and it made an impression.

It was just as great fun, though, when the big people said to him:
"Would you like to be a fat lamb? Let us play at fat lamb." He would be
flung over the man's shoulder, like a slaughtered lamb, and hang there,
or jump up and ride with his legs round the man's hips, then climb
valiantly several steps higher, get his legs round his shoulders, and
behold! be up on the giddy height! Then the man would take him round the
waist, swing him over, and after a mighty somersault in the air, he
would land unscathed on his feet upon the floor. It was a composite kind
of treat, of three successive stages: first came the lofty and
comfortable seat, then the more interesting moment, with a feeling,
nevertheless, of being on the verge of a fall, and then finally the
jump, during which everything was upside down to him.

But, too, he could take up attitudes down on the floor that added to his
importance, as it were, and obliged the grown-up people to look at him.
When they said: "Can you stand like the Emperor Napoleon?" he would draw
himself up, bring one foot a little forward, and cross his arms like the
little figure on the bureau.

He knew well enough just how he had to look, for when his stout, broad-
shouldered Swedish uncle, with the big beard and large hands, having
asked his parents about the little fellow's accomplishments, placed
himself in position with his arms crossed and asked: "Who am I like?" he
replied: "You are like Napoleon's lackey." To his surprise, but no small
delight, this reply elicited a loud exclamation of pleasure from his
mother, usually so superior and so strict, and was rewarded by her, who
seldom caressed, with a kiss.


II.

The trying moment of the day was when he had to go to bed. His parents
were extraordinarily prejudiced about bedtime, just when he was enjoying
himself most. When visitors had arrived and conversation was well
started--none the less interesting to him because he understood
scarcely half of what was said--it was: "Now, to bed!"

But there were happy moments after he was in bed, too. When Mother came
in and said prayers with him, and he lay there safely fenced in by the
tall trellis-work, each bar of which, with its little outward bend in
the middle, his fingers knew so well, it was impossible to fall out
through them. It was very pleasant, the little bed with its railing, and
he slept in it as he has never slept since.

It was nice, too, to lie on his back in bed and watch his parents
getting ready to go to the theatre, Father in a shining white shirt and
with his curly hair beautifully parted on one side Mother with a crêpe
shawl over her silk dress, and light gloves that smelled inviting as she
came up to say goodnight and good-bye.


III.

I was always hearing that I was pale and thin and small. That was the
impression I made on everyone. Nearly thirty years afterwards an
observant person remarked to me: "The peculiarity about your face is its
intense paleness." Consequently I looked darker than I was; my brown
hair was called black.

Pale and thin, with thick brown hair, difficult hair. That was what the
hairdresser said--Mr. [Footnote: Danish _Herre_.] Alibert, who
called Father Erré: "Good-morning, Erré," "Good-bye, Erré." And all his
assistants, though as Danish as they could be, tried to say the same.
Difficult hair! "There is a little round place on his crown where the
hair will stand up, if he does not wear it rather long," said Mr.
Alibert.

I was forever hearing that I was pale and small, pale in particular.
Strangers would look at me and say: "He is rather pale." Others remarked
in joke: "He looks rather green in the face." And so soon as they began
talking about me the word "thin" would be uttered.

I liked my name. My mother and my aunts said it in such a kindly way.
And the name was noteworthy because it was so difficult to pronounce. No
boy or girl smaller than I could pronounce it properly; they all said
_Gayrok_.

I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry. My
mother was alone and had no help. When the midwife came I had arrived
already. I was so feeble that the first few years great care had to be
taken of me to keep me alive. I was well made enough, but not strong,
and this was the source of many vexations to me during those years when
a boy's one desire and one ambition is to be strong.

I was not clumsy, very agile if anything; I learnt to be a good high
jumper, to climb and run well, was no contemptible wrestler, and by
degrees became an expert fighter. But I was not muscularly strong, and
never could be compared with those who were so.


IV.

The world, meanwhile, was so new, and still such an unknown country.
About that time I was making the discovery of fresh elements.

I was not afraid of what I did not like. To overcome dislike of a thing
often satisfied one's feeling of honour.

"Are you afraid of the water?" asked my brisk uncle from Fünen one day.
I did not know exactly what there was to be afraid of, but answered
unhesitatingly: "No." I was five years old; it was Summer, consequently
rainy and windy.

I undressed in the bathing establishment; the old sailor fastened a cork
belt round my waist. It was odiously wet, as another boy had just taken
it off, and it made me shiver. Uncle took hold of me round the waist,
tossed me out into the water, and taught me to take care of myself.
Afterwards I learnt to swim properly with the help of a long pole
fastened to the cork belt and held by the bathing-man, but my
familiarity with the salt element dated from the day I was flung out
into it like a little parcel. Without by any means distinguishing myself
in swimming, any more than in any other athletic exercise, I became a
very fair swimmer, and developed a fondness for the water and for
bathing which has made me very loth, all my life, to miss my bath a
single day.

There was another element that I became acquainted with about the same
time, and which was far more terrifying than the water. I had never seen
it uncontrolled: fire.

One evening, when I was asleep in the nursery, I was awaked by my mother
and her brother, my French uncle. The latter said loudly: "We must take
the children out of bed."

I had never been awaked in the night before. I opened my eyes and was
thrilled by a terror, the memory of which has never been effaced. The
room was brightly illuminated without any candle having been lighted,
and when I turned my head I saw a huge blaze shoot up outside the
window. Flames crackled and sparks flew. It was a world of fire. It was
a neighbouring school that was burning. Uncle Jacob put his hand under
my "night gown," a long article of clothing with a narrow cotton belt
round the waist, and said laughing: "Do you have palpitations of the
heart when you are afraid?" I had never heard of palpitations of the
heart before. I felt about with my hand and for the first time found my
heart, which really was beating furiously. Small though I was, I asked
the date and was told that it was the 25th of November; the fright I had
had was so great that I never forgot this date, which became for me the
object of a superstitious dread, and when it drew near the following
year, I was convinced that it would bring me fresh misfortune. This was
in so far the case that next year, at exactly the same time, I fell ill
and was obliged to spend some months in bed.


V.

I was too delicate to be sent to school at five years old, like other
boys. My doctor uncle said it was not to be thought of. Since, however,
I could not grow up altogether in ignorance, it was decided that I
should have a tutor of my own.

So a tutor was engaged who quickly won my unreserved affection and made
me very happy. The tutor came every morning and taught me all I had to
learn. He was a tutor whom one could ask about anything under the sun
and he would always know. First, there was the ABC. That was mastered in
a few lessons. I could read before I knew how to spell. Then came
writing and arithmetic and still more things. I was soon so far advanced
that the tutor could read _Frithiof's Saga_ aloud to me in Swedish
and be tolerably well understood; and, indeed, he could even take a
short German extract, and explain that I must say _ich_ and not
_ish_, as seemed so natural.

Mr. Voltelen was a poor student, and I quite understood from the
conversation of my elders what a pleasure and advantage it was to him to
get a cup of coffee extra and fine white bread and fresh butter with it
every day. On the stroke of half-past ten the maid brought it in on a
tray. Lessons were stopped, and the tutor ate and drank with a relish
that I had never seen anyone show over eating and drinking before. The
very way in which he took his sugar--more sugar than Father or Mother
took--and dissolved it in the coffee before he poured in the cream,
showed what a treat the cup of coffee was to him.

Mr. Voltelen had a delicate chest, and sometimes the grown-up people
said they were afraid he could not live. There was a report that a rich
benefactor, named Nobel, had offered to send him to Italy, that he might
recover in the warmer climate of the South. It was generous of Mr.
Nobel, and Mr. Voltelen was thinking of starting. Then he caught another
complaint. He had beautiful, brown, curly hair. One day he stayed away;
he had a bad head, he had contracted a disease in his hair from a dirty
comb at a bathing establishment. And when he came again I hardly
recognised him. He wore a little dark wig. He had lost every hair on his
head, even his eyebrows had disappeared. His face was of a chalky
pallor, and he coughed badly too.

Why did not God protect him from consumption? And how could God find it
in His heart to give him the hair disease when he was so ill already?
God was strange. He was Almighty, but He did not use His might to take
care of Mr. Voltelen, who was so good and so clever, and so poor that he
needed help more than anyone else. Mr. Nobel was kinder to Mr. Voltelen
than God was. God was strange, too, in other ways; He was present
everywhere, and yet Mother was cross and angry if you asked whether He
was in the new moderator lamp, which burnt in the drawing-room with a
much brighter light than the two wax candles used to give. God knew
everything, which was very uncomfortable, since it was impossible to
hide the least thing from Him. Strangest of all was it when one
reflected that, if one knew what God thought one was going to say, one
could say something else and His omniscience would be foiled. But of
course one did not know what He thought would come next. The worst of
all, though, was that He left Mr. Voltelen in the lurch so.


VI.

Some flashes of terrestrial majesty and magnificence shone on my modest
existence. Next after God came the King. As I was walking along the
street one day with my father, he exclaimed: "There is the King!" I
looked at the open carriage, but saw nothing noticeable there, so fixed
my attention upon the coachman, dressed in red, and the footman's plumed
hat. "The King wasn't there!" "Yes, indeed he was--he was in the
carriage." "Was that the King? He didn't look at all remarkable--he had
no crown on." "The King is a handsome man," said Father. "But he only
puts on his state clothes when he drives to the Supreme Court."

So we went one day to see the King drive to the Supreme Court. A crowd
of people were standing waiting at the Naval Church. Then came the
procession. How splendid it was! There were runners in front of the
horses, with white silk stockings and regular flower-pots on their
heads; I had never seen anything like it; and there were postillions
riding on the horses in front of the carriage. I quite forgot to look
inside the carriage and barely caught a glimpse of the King. And that
glimpse made no impression upon me. That he was Christian VIII. I did
not know; he was only "the King."

Then one day we heard that the King was dead, and that he was to lie in
state twice. These lyings in state were called by forced, unnatural
names, _Lit de Parade_ and _Castrum doloris_; I heard them so
often that I learnt them and did not forget them. On the _Lit de
Parade_ the body of the King himself lay outstretched; that was too
sad for a little boy. But _Castrum doloris_ was sheer delight, and
it really was splendid. First you picked your way for a long time along
narrow corridors, then high up in the black-draped hall appeared the
coffin covered with black velvet, strewn with shining, twinkling stars.
And a crowd of candles all round. It was the most magnificent sight I
had ever beheld.


VII.

I was a town child, it is true, but that did not prevent me enjoying
open-air life, with plants and animals. The country was not so far from
town then as it is now. My paternal grandfather had a country-house a
little way beyond the North gate, with fine trees and an orchard; it was
the property of an old man who went about in high Wellington boots and
had a regular collection of wax apples and pears--such a marvellous
imitation that the first time you saw them you couldn't help taking a
bite out of one. Driving out to the country-house in the Summer, the
carriage would begin to lumber and rumble as soon as you passed through
the North gate, and when you came back you had to be careful to come in
before the gate was closed.

We lived in the country ourselves, for that matter, out in the western
suburb, near the Black Horse (as later during the cholera Summer), or
along the old King's Road, where there were beautiful large gardens. In
one such a huge garden I stood one Summer day by my mother's side in
front of a large oblong bed with many kinds of flowers. "This bed shall
be yours," said Mother, and happy was I. I was to rake the paths round
it myself and tend and water the plants in it. I was particularly
interested to notice that a fresh set of flowers came out for every
season of the year. When the asters and dahlias sprang into bloom the
Summer was over. Still the garden was not the real country. The real
country was at Inger's, my dear old nurse's. She was called my nurse
because she had looked after me when I was small. But she had not fed
me, my mother had done that.

Inger lived in a house with fields round it near High Taastrup. There
was no railway there then, and you drove out with a pair of horses. It
was only later that the wonderful railway was laid as far as Roskilde.
So it was an unparalleled event for the children, to go by train to
Valby and back. Their father took them. Many people thought that it was
too dangerous. But the children cared little for the danger. And it went
off all right and they returned alive.

Inger had a husband whose name was Peer. He was nice, but had not much
to say. Inger talked far more and looked after everything. They had a
baby boy named Niels, but he was in the cradle and did not count.
Everything at Inger and Peer's house was different from the town. There
was a curious smell in the rooms, with their chests of drawers and
benches, not exactly disagreeable, but unforgettable. They had much
larger dishes of curds and porridge than you saw in Copenhagen. They did
not put the porridge or the curds on plates. Inger and Peer and their
little visitor sat round the milk bowl or the porridge dish and put
their spoons straight into it. But the guest had a spoon to himself.
They did not drink out of separate glasses, but he had a glass to
himself.

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk
warm from the cow. Inger used to churn, and there was buttermilk to
drink. It was great fun for a little Copenhagen boy to roll about in the
hay and lie on the hay-waggons when they were driven home. And every
time I came home from a visit to Inger Mother would laugh at me the
moment I opened my mouth, for, quite unconsciously, I talked just like
Inger and the other peasants.


VIII.

In the wood attic, a little room divided from the main garret by wooden
bars, in which a quantity of split firewood and more finely chopped fir
sticks, smelling fresh and dry, are piled up in obliquely arranged
heaps, a little urchin with tightly closed mouth and obstinate
expression has, for more than two hours, been bearing his punishment of
being incarcerated there.

Several times already his anxious mother has sent the housemaid to ask
whether he will beg pardon yet, and he has only shaken his head. He is
hungry; for he was brought up here immediately after school. But he will
not give in, for he is in the right. It is not his fault that the grown-
up people cannot understand him. They do not know that what he is
suffering now is nothing to what he has had to suffer. It is true that
he would not go with the nurse and his little brother into the King's
Gardens. But what do Father and Mother know of the ignominy of hearing
all day from the other schoolboys: "Oh! so you are fetched by the
nurse!" or "Here comes your nurse to fetch you!" He is overwhelmed with
shame at the thought of the other boys' scorn. She is not _his_
nurse, she is his brother's. He could find his way home well enough, but
how can he explain to the other boys that his parents will not trust him
with the little one yet, and so send for them both at the same time! Now
there shall be an end to it; he will not go to the King's Gardens with
the nurse again.

It is the housemaid, once more, come to ask if he will not beg pardon
now. In vain. Everything has been tried with him, scolding, and even a
box on the ear; but he has not been humbled. Now he stands here; he will
not give in.

But this time his kind mother has not let the girl come empty-handed.
His meal is passed through the bars and he eats it. It is so much the
easier to hold out. And some hours later he is brought down and put to
bed without having apologised.

Before I had so painfully become aware of the ignominy of going with the
maid to the King's Gardens, I had been exceedingly fond of the place.
What gardens they were for hide and seek, and puss in the corner! What
splendid alleys for playing Paradise, with Heaven and Hell! To say
nothing of playing at horses! A long piece of tape was passed over and
under the shoulders of two playfellows, and you drove them with a tight
rein and a whip in your hand. And if it were fun in the old days when I
only had tape for reins, it was ever so much greater fun now that I had
had a present from my father of splendid broad reins of striped wool,
with bells, that you could hear from far enough when the pair came
tearing down the wide avenues.

I was fond of the gardens, which were large and at that time much larger
than they are now; and of the trees, which were many, at that time many
more than now. And every part of the park had its own attraction. The
Hercules pavilion was mysterious; Hercules with the lion, instructive
and powerful. A pity that it had become such a disgrace to go there!

I had not known it before. One day, not so long ago, I had felt
particularly happy there. I had been able for a long time to read
correctly in my reading-book and write on my slate. But one day Mr.
Voltelen had said to me: "You ought to learn to read writing." And from
that moment forth my ambition was set upon reading _writing_, an
idea which had never occurred to me before. When my tutor first showed
me _writing_, it had looked to me much as cuneiform inscriptions
and hieroglyphics would do to ordinary grown-up people, but by degrees I
managed to recognize the letters I was accustomed to in this their
freer, more frivolous disguise, running into one another and with their
regularity broken up. In the first main avenue of the King's Gardens I
had paced up and down, in my hand the thin exercise-book, folded over in
the middle,--the first book of writing I had ever seen,--and had already
spelt out the title, "Little Red Riding-Hood." The story was certainly
not very long; still, it filled several of the narrow pages, and it was
exciting to spell out the subject, for it was new to me. In triumphant
delight at having conquered some difficulties and being on the verge of
conquering others, I kept stopping in front of a strange nurse-girl,
showed her the book, and asked: "Can you read writing?"

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.