“‘One of the happiest!’ he said, and it was as if he tasted the words. ‘Are you happy?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I’m happy and I’m welcomed in all the towns where I come with my company. It’s true that there’s one wish that sometimes comes over me like a nightmare and disrupts my good mood, and that’s to become a theater manager for a real live troupe of human beings.’ ‘You wish that your puppets would come to life. You wish they would become real actors,’ he said, ‘and you yourself the director. You think you would be completely happy then?’ He didn’t believe it, but I did, and we talked back and forth, and we both kept our own opinion, but we toasted each other, and the wine was very good. But there had to be something magical in it because otherwise the whole story would simply be that I got drunk. It wasn’t that because I saw quite clearly. There was a kind of sunshine in the room, shining out of the technological candidate’s face, and it made me think about the old gods with their eternal youth, when they walked the earth. I told him that, and he smiled, and I would have sworn that he was a disguised god, or one of their family. And that’s what he was! My highest wish would be granted, the puppets become real, and I would be a director of people. We drank to it. He packed all my puppets in the wooden case, tied it to my back, and then he had me fall through a coil. I can still hear how I fell. I was lying on the floor—this is all true—and the entire company jumped out of the case. The spirit had come over all of them, and every puppet had become a remarkable artist—they said so themselves—and I was the director.”
“Everything was ready for the first performance. All the actors wanted to talk to me, and the audience too. The dancer said that if she didn’t get to pirouette, the performance would be a flop. She was the star of the show and wanted to be treated that way. The puppet who played the empress wanted to be treated like the empress off the stage as well because otherwise she would be out of practice. He who had the part of coming in with a letter was just as self-important as the star lover, since he said that there were no small actors, only small parts. Then the hero demanded that all his lines should be exit lines, since they always got the applause. The primadonna would only perform under red lights—not blue ones—because they were the most becoming to her. It was like flies in a bottle, and as the director, I was in the middle of the bottle. I lost my breath, I lost my wits, and I was as miserable as a person can be. These were new types of people I was among, and I wished that I had them all back in the box, and that I had never become a director. I told them straight out that they really were all just puppets, and then they beat me to death. Then I was lying on the bed in my room. How I got there from the technological student’s room he must know, because I don’t. The moon was shining in on the floor where the puppet case had tipped over, and all the puppets were spread around, big and little ones, all of them. But I didn’t waste any time. I jumped out of bed and got them all in the box, some on their heads and some on their feet. I slammed down the lid and then sat down on the box. It was quite a sight, can you see it? I can. ‘Now you can stay in there,’ I said, ‘and never again will I wish that you were flesh and blood!’ I was in such a good mood, and the happiest person. The technological candidate had purified me. I sat there in pure bliss and fell asleep on the case, and in the morning—it was actually in the afternoon, but I slept so strangely long in the morning—I was still sitting there, happy, because I had learned that the only thing I’d ever wished for had been stupid. I asked about the technological candidate, but he was gone, like the Greek or Roman gods. And from that time on, I have been the happiest of men. I am a happy manager for my personnel doesn’t argue with me, nor does the public. They enjoy themselves thoroughly. I freely put together the pieces myself, and take the best parts of the plays I want, and nobody bothers about it. I produce pieces that are now despised on the stage, but that the audience flocked to and cried over thirty years ago. I give them to the young ones, and they cry like father and mother did. I do Johanna von Montfaucon1 and Dyveke,2 but I shorten them because the young ones don’t care for a lot of love nonsense. They want it sad but quick. I have traveled up and down Denmark, back and forth, and I know everyone, and they all know me. Now I’m going to Sweden, and if I do well there and earn good money, then I’ll become a Pan-Scandinavian.3 Otherwise, I won’t. I can tell you this since you’re my countryman.”
And I, as his countryman, am repeating it immediately, of course, just for the fun of telling it.
NOTES
1 Five-act tragedy by German playwright August von Kotzebue (1761-1819), translated and adapted by N. T. Bruun, with music by Claus Schall; it was performed for the first time at Copenhagen’s Royal Theater on April 29, 1804.
2 Tragedy by Ole Johan Samsøe; it was performed for the first time at Copenhagen’s Royal Theater on January 30, 1796.
3 Reference to the movement called Scandinavianism, which called for a closer union between Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; the movement was particularly active in the 1840s and 1850s.
“SOMETHING”
“I WANT TO BE something!” said the eldest of five brothers. “I want to be of some use in the world, be it ever so humble a position. As long as I am doing something good, it will be something. I will make bricks. You can’t do without them! Then I will have done something anyway!”
“But an all-too-little something!” said the second brother. “What you’re doing is as good as nothing. It’s just a helping job, something that can be done by a machine. No, become a mason instead. That’s something I want to be. That’s a trade! With that I’ll get into a guild and become a middle-class citizen. I’ll have my own banner and my own public house. If I do well, I’ll be able to have journeymen, become a master, and my wife will become a Mrs. Master Mason! That is something!”
“That’s absolutely nothing!” said the third. “That’s completely outside of the middle-class structure, and there are many classes in town that are above the master Masons. You can be a worthy man, but as a master you are only what is called a ‘common’ worker. No! I know something better. I want to be a builder, and get into the artistic area, the theoretical, and rise up to the highest in the realm of the mind. Of course I have to start at the bottom. I might as well admit it straight out. I have to begin as a carpenter’s apprentice and wear a cap, even though I’m used to a silk hat, and run to get beer and spirits for the lowly journeymen. They’ll be familiar and say “du” to me, and that’s bad, but I’ll just imagine that it’s all a masquerade, and the masks will come off tomorrow—that is to say when I become a journeyman and go off on my own, it’ll be no business of theirs. I’ll go to the academy and learn to draw. I’ll become an architect! That’s something! That’s something big! I can become both high-born and well-born with a little something more in front and back of my name, and I’ll build and build like those who came before me. That’s something you can always rely on, and all of it is something!”