The General lived in the grand first
floor, and the porter lived in the cellar. There was a great distance between
the two families—the whole of the ground floor, and the difference in rank; but
they lived in the same house, and both had a view of the street, and of the
courtyard. In the courtyard was a grass-plot, on which grew a blooming acacia
tree (when it was in bloom), and under this tree sat occasionally the
finely-dressed nurse, with the still more finely-dressed child of the
General—little Emily. Before them danced about barefoot the little son of the
porter, with his great brown eyes and dark hair; and the little girl smiled at
him, and stretched out her hands towards him; and when the General saw that
from the window, he would nod his head and cry, "Charming!" The
General's lady (who was so young that she might very well have been her
husband's daughter from an early marriage) never came to the window that looked
upon the courtyard. She had given orders, though, that the boy might play his
antics to amuse her child, but must never touch it. The nurse punctually obeyed
the gracious lady's orders.
The sun shone in upon the people in the
grand first floor, and upon the people in the cellar; the acacia tree was
covered with blossoms, and they fell off, and next year new ones came. The tree
bloomed, and the porter's little son bloomed too, and looked like a fresh
tulip.
The General's little daughter became
delicate and pale, like the leaf of the acacia blossom. She seldom came down to
the tree now, for she took the air in a carriage. She drove out with her mamma,
and then she would always nod at the porter's George; yes, she used even to
kiss her hand to him, till her mamma said she was too old to do that now.
One morning George was sent up to carry
the General the letters and newspapers that had been delivered at the porter's
room in the morning. As he was running up stairs, just as he passed the door of
the sand-box, he heard a faint piping. He thought it was some young chicken
that had strayed there, and was raising cries of distress; but it was the
General's little daughter, decked out in lace and finery.
"Don't tell papa and mamma,"
she whimpered; "they would be angry."
"What's the matter, little
missie?" asked George.
"It's all on fire!" she
answered. "It's burning with a bright flame!" George hurried up
stairs to the General's apartments; he opened the door of the nursery. The
window curtain was almost entirely burnt, and the wooden curtain-pole was one
mass of flame. George sprang upon a chair he brought in haste, and pulled down
the burning articles; he then alarmed the people. But for him, the house would
have been burned down.
The General and his lady cross-questioned
little Emily.
"I only took just one
lucifer-match," she said, "and it was burning directly, and the
curtain was burning too. I spat at it, to put it out; I spat at it as much as
ever I could, but I could not put it out; so I ran away and hid myself, for
papa and mamma would be angry."
"I spat!" cried the General's
lady; "what an expression! Did you ever hear your papa and mamma talk
about spitting? You must have got that from down stairs!"
And George had a penny given him. But
this penny did not go to the baker's shop, but into the savings-box; and soon
there were so many pennies in the savings-box that he could buy a paint-box and
color the drawings he made, and he had a great number of drawings. They seemed
to shoot out of his pencil and out of his fingers' ends. His first colored
pictures he presented to Emily.
"Charming!" said the General,
and even the General's lady acknowledged that it was easy to see what the boy
had meant to draw. "He has genius." Those were the words that were
carried down into the cellar.
The General and his gracious lady were
grand people. They had two coats of arms on their carriage, a coat of arms for
each of them, and the gracious lady had had this coat of arms embroidered on
both sides of every bit of linen she had, and even on her nightcap and her
dressing-bag. One of the coats of arms, the one that belonged to her, was a
very dear one; it had been bought for hard cash by her father, for he had not
been born with it, nor had she; she had come into the world too early, seven
years before the coat of arms, and most people remembered this circumstance,
but the family did not remember it. A man might well have a bee in his bonnet,
when he had such a coat of arms to carry as that, let alone having to carry
two; and the General's wife had a bee in hers when she drove to the court ball,
as stiff and as proud as you please.
The General was old and gray, but he had
a good seat on horseback, and he knew it, and he rode out every day, with a
groom behind him at a proper distance. When he came to a party, he looked
somehow as if he were riding into the room upon his high horse; and he had
orders, too, such a number that no one would have believed it; but that was not
his fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumn reviews which
were held in those days. He had an anecdote that he told about those days, the
only one he knew. A subaltern under his orders had cut off one of the princes,
and taken him prisoner, and the Prince had been obliged to ride through the
town with a little band of captured soldiers, himself a prisoner behind the
General. This was an ever-memorable event, and was always told over and over
again every year by the General, who, moreover, always repeated the remarkable
words he had used when he returned his sword to the Prince; those words were,
"Only my subaltern could have taken your Highness prisoner; I could never
have done it!" And the Prince had replied, "You are
incomparable." In a real war the General had never taken part. When war
came into the country, he had gone on a diplomatic career to foreign courts. He
spoke the French language so fluently that he had almost forgotten his own; he
could dance well, he could ride well, and orders grew on his coat in an
astounding way. The sentries presented arms to him, one of the most beautiful
girls presented arms to him, and became the General's lady, and in time they
had a pretty, charming child, that seemed as if it had dropped from heaven, it
was so pretty; and the porter's son danced before it in the courtyard, as soon
as it could understand it, and gave her all his colored pictures, and little
Emily looked at them, and was pleased, and tore them to pieces. She was pretty
and delicate indeed.
"My little Roseleaf!" cried
the General's lady, "thou art born to wed a prince."
The prince was already at the door, but
they knew nothing of it; people don't see far beyond the threshold.
"The day before yesterday our boy
divided his bread and butter with her!" said the porter's wife. There was
neither cheese nor meat upon it, but she liked it as well as if it had been
roast beef. There would have been a fine noise if the General and his wife had
seen the feast, but they did not see it.
George had divided his bread and butter
with little Emily, and he would have divided his heart with her, if it would
have pleased her. He was a good boy, brisk and clever, and he went to the night
school in the Academy now, to learn to draw properly. Little Emily was getting
on with her education too, for she spoke French with her "bonne," and
had a dancing master.
"George will be confirmed at
Easter," said the porter's wife; for George had got so far as this.
"It would be the best thing, now,
to make an apprentice of him," said his father. "It must be to some
good calling—and then he would be out of the house."
"He would have to sleep out of the
house," said George's mother. "It is not easy to find a master who
has room for him at night, and we shall have to provide him with clothes too.
The little bit of eating that he wants can be managed for him, for he's quite
happy with a few boiled potatoes; and he gets taught for nothing. Let the boy
go his own way. You will say that he will be our joy some day, and the
Professor says so too."
The confirmation suit was ready. The
mother had worked it herself; but the tailor who did repairs had cut them out,
and a capital cutter-out he was.
"If he had had a better position,
and been able to keep a workshop and journeymen," the porter's wife said,
"he might have been a court tailor."
The clothes were ready, and the
candidate for confirmation was ready. On his confirmation day, George received
a great pinchbeck watch from his godfather, the old iron monger's shopman, the
richest of his godfathers. The watch was an old and tried servant. It always
went too fast, but that is better than to be lagging behind. That was a costly
present. And from the General's apartment there arrived a hymn-book bound in
morocco, sent by the little lady to whom George had given pictures. At the
beginning of the book his name was written, and her name, as "his gracious
patroness." These words had been written at the dictation of the General's
lady, and the General had read the inscription, and pronounced it
"Charming!"
"That is really a great attention
from a family of such position," said the porter's wife; and George was
sent up stairs to show himself in his confirmation clothes, with the hymn-book
in his hand.
The General's lady was sitting very much
wrapped up, and had the bad headache she always had when time hung heavy upon
her hands. She looked at George very pleasantly, and wished him all prosperity,
and that he might never have her headache. The General was walking about in his
dressing-gown. He had a cap with a long tassel on his head, and Russian boots
with red tops on his feet. He walked three times up and down the room, absorbed
in his own thoughts and recollections, and then stopped and said:
"So little George is a confirmed
Christian now. Be a good man, and honor those in authority over you. Some day,
when you are an old man, you can say that the General gave you this
precept."
That was a longer speech than the
General was accustomed to make, and then he went back to his ruminations, and
looked very aristocratic. But of all that George heard and saw up there, little
Miss Emily remained most clear in his thoughts. How graceful she was, how
gentle, and fluttering, and pretty she looked. If she were to be drawn, it
ought to be on a soap-bubble. About her dress, about her yellow curled hair,
there was a fragrance as of a fresh-blown rose; and to think that he had once
divided his bread and butter with her, and that she had eaten it with enormous
appetite, and nodded to him at every second mouthful! Did she remember anything
about it? Yes, certainly, for she had given him the beautiful hymn-book in
remembrance of this; and when the first new moon in the first new year after
this event came round, he took a piece of bread, a penny, and his hymn-book,
and went out into the open air, and opened the book to see what psalm he should
turn up. It was a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Then he opened the book
again to see what would turn up for little Emily. He took great pains not to
open the book in the place where the funeral hymns were, and yet he got one
that referred to the grave and death. But then he thought this was not a thing
in which one must believe; for all that he was startled when soon afterwards
the pretty little girl had to lie in bed, and the doctor's carriage stopped at
the gate every day.
"They will not keep her with
them," said the porter's wife. "The good God knows whom He will
summon to Himself."
But they kept her after all; and George
drew pictures and sent them to her. He drew the Czar's palace; the old Kremlin
at Moscow, just as it stood, with towers and cupolas; and these cupolas looked
like gigantic green and gold cucumbers, at least in George's drawing. Little
Emily was highly pleased, and consequently, when a week had elapsed, George
sent her a few more pictures, all with buildings in them; for, you see, she
could imagine all sorts of things inside the windows and doors.
He drew a Chinese house, with bells
hanging from every one of sixteen stories. He drew two Grecian temples with
slender marble pillars, and with steps all round them. He drew a Norwegian
church. It was easy to see that this church had been built entirely of wood,
hewn out and wonderfully put together; every story looked as if it had rockers,
like a cradle. But the most beautiful of all was the castle, drawn on one of
the leaves, and which he called "Emily's Castle." This was the kind
of place in which she must live. That is what George had thought, and consequently
he had put into this building whatever he thought most beautiful in all the
others. It had carved wood-work, like the Norwegian church; marble pillars,
like the Grecian temple; bells in every story; and was crowned with cupolas,
green and gilded, like those of the Kremlin of the Czar. It was a real child's
castle, and under every window was written what the hall or the room inside was
intended to be; for instance: "Here Emily sleeps;" "Here Emily
dances;" "Here Emily plays at receiving visitors." It was a real
pleasure to look at the castle, and right well was the castle looked at
accordingly.
"Charming!" said the General.
But the old Count—for there was an old
Count there, who was still grander than the General, and had a castle of his
own—said nothing at all; he heard that it had been designed and drawn by the
porter's little son. Not that he was so very little, either, for he had already
been confirmed. The old Count looked at the pictures, and had his own thoughts
as he did so.
One day, when it was very gloomy, gray,
wet weather, the brightest of days dawned for George; for the Professor at the
Academy called him into his room.
"Listen to me, my friend,"
said the Professor; "I want to speak to you. The Lord has been good to you
in giving you abilities, and He has also been good in placing you among kind
people. The old Count at the corner yonder has been speaking to me about you. I
have also seen your sketches; but we will not say any more about those, for
there is a good deal to correct in them. But from this time forward you may
come twice a-week to my drawing-class, and then you will soon learn how to do
them better. I think there's more of the architect than of the painter in you.
You will have time to think that over; but go across to the old Count this very
day, and thank God for having sent you such a friend."
It was a great house—the house of the
old Count at the corner. Round the windows elephants and dromedaries were
carved, all from the old times; but the old Count loved the new time best, and
what it brought, whether it came from the first floor, or from the cellar, or
from the attic.
"I think," said, the porter's
wife, "the grander people are, the fewer airs do they give themselves. How
kind and straightforward the old count is! and he talks exactly like you and
me. Now, the General and his lady can't do that. And George was fairly wild
with delight yesterday at the good reception he met with at the Count's, and so
am I to-day, after speaking to the great man. Wasn't it a good thing that we
didn't bind George apprentice to a handicraftsman? for he has abilities of his
own."
"But they must be helped on by
others," said the father.
"That help he has got now,"
rejoined the mother; "for the Count spoke out quite clearly and
distinctly."
"But I fancy it began with the
General," said the father, "and we must thank them too."
"Let us do so with all my
heart," cried the mother, "though I fancy we have not much to thank
them for. I will thank the good God; and I will thank Him, too, for letting
little Emily get well."
Emily was getting on bravely, and George
got on bravely too. In the course of the year he won the little silver prize
medal of the Academy, and afterwards he gained the great one too.
"It would have been better, after
all, if he had been apprenticed to a handicraftsman," said the porter's
wife, weeping; "for then we could have kept him with us. What is he to do
in Rome? I shall never get a sight of him again, not even if he comes back; but
that he won't do, the dear boy."
"It is fortune and fame for
him," said the father.
"Yes, thank you, my friend,"
said the mother; "you are saying what you do not mean. You are just as
sorrowful as I am."
And it was all true about the sorrow and
the journey. But everybody said it was a great piece of good fortune for the
young fellow. And he had to take leave, and of the General too. The General's
lady did not show herself, for she had her bad headache. On this occasion the
General told his only anecdote, about what he had said to the Prince, and how
the Prince had said to him, "You are incomparable." And he held out a
languid hand to George.
Emily gave George her hand too, and
looked almost sorry; and George was the most sorry of all.
Time goes by when one has something to
do; and it goes by, too, when one has nothing to do. The time is equally long,
but not equally useful. It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all,
except when he happened to be thinking of his home. How might the good folks be
getting on, up stairs and down stairs? Yes, there was writing about that, and
many things can be put into a letter—bright sunshine and dark, heavy days. Both
of these were in the letter which brought the news that his father was dead,
and that his mother was alone now. She wrote that Emily had come down to see
her, and had been to her like an angel of comfort; and concerning herself, she
added that she had been allowed to keep her situation as porteress.
The General's lady kept a diary, and in
this diary was recorded every ball she attended and every visit she received.
The diary was illustrated by the insertion of the visiting cards of the diplomatic
circle and of the most noble families; and the General's lady was proud of it.
The diary kept growing through a long time, and amid many severe headaches, and
through a long course of half-nights, that is to say, of court balls. Emily had
now been to a court ball for the first time. Her mother had worn a bright red
dress, with black lace, in the Spanish style; the daughter had been attired in
white, fair and delicate; green silk ribbons fluttered like flag-leaves among
her yellow locks, and on her head she wore a wreath of water-lillies. Her eyes
were so blue and clear, her mouth was so delicate and red, she looked like a
little water spirit, as beautiful as such a spirit can be imagined. The Princes
danced with her, one after another of course; and the General's lady had not a
headache for a week afterwards.
But the first ball was not the last, and
Emily could not stand it; it was a good thing, therefore, that summer brought
with it rest, and exercise in the open air. The family had been invited by the
old Count to visit him at him castle. That was a castle with a garden which was
worth seeing. Part of this garden was laid out quite in the style of the old
days, with stiff green hedges; you walked as if between green walls with
peep-holes in them. Box trees and yew trees stood there trimmed into the form
of stars and pyramids, and water sprang from fountains in large grottoes lined
with shells. All around stood figures of the most beautiful stone—that could be
seen in their clothes as well as in their faces; every flower-bed had a
different shape, and represented a fish, or a coat of arms, or a monogram. That
was the French part of the garden; and from this part the visitor came into
what appeared like the green, fresh forest, where the trees might grow as they
chose, and accordingly they were great and glorious. The grass was green, and
beautiful to walk on, and it was regularly cut, and rolled, and swept, and
tended. That was the English part of the garden.
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