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| - Translated from the Danish by Hanna Astrup Larsen and Published in Twelve stories as Ak, hvor forandret, 1828 WITH the help of my friend I had soon changed my clothes, but, alas, what a travesty! From the wardrobe of the counsellor I was equipped with a full set of garments: a coat or jacket of rough, heavy green cloth, which was both too wide and too short, and hung around my slender body in great folds but didn't reach down to my wrists; a yellow plush waistcoast, and knee-breeches of the same material which crept up over the knees with every step I took; blue woollen stockings and a pair of boots that slobbered around my legs. I didn't know myself, and alas, my sweet Maren would hardly know me either; _nec mirum;_ for this attire was a hideous contrast to a fashionable black coat, embroidered silk waistcoat, yellow nankeen pantaloons and gaiters to match! No, I am sure I am not mistaken when I ascribe to this confounded outfit the misfortune that fell upon me--the total change in the sentiment of the lovely Miss Lammestrup toward me, which until recently had been so favorable. If I had even known that she, the adored of my soul, was in the house, truly, I would have stayed in my lonely room till my clothes were dry; but Fate, inexorable Fate, which now for half a century has made me the sport of her caprices, had determined otherwise. With a jest on my lips about my own comical appearance, I stepped into the living room, where I expected to see only the hostess, but--the room was full of ladies, and my jest was not needed, for the laughter came of itself. However, this I could have borne, and could even have joined heartily in it myself, if she before whom I would rather have appeared in nobler attire had not been present. She stepped forward, dropped a deep curtsy, addressed me as Mr. Counsellor, and asked how I felt after the hot night and the cold bath. My reader must not think it was her intention to make fun of me--by no means. It was rather a mask she assumed in order to hide her real feelings; for even through her merriest laughter I heard--and perhaps I alone--the unmistakable voice of the heart. When a quarter of an hour had passed, during which I had been a target for the arrows of the roguish young maidens' wit, I suddenly had an idea which must surely have been inspired by my evil genius. I proposed that the feminine part of the company should enjoy the lovely weather and look at the hunt, which was still going on, as we could hear by the frequent reports of the guns. My unlucky proposal was accepted, and we went--I went--toward my undoing. Near the lake and the hunting-ground was a hill from which I decided there would be a good view. In order to reach it we had to cross a little brook, over which there was a footbridge, but without a railing. I passed over easily. (My friend Hans Mikkel had already returned to his duties at the lake.) But when the ladies were to cross, they were all seized by fright, and no one wanted to be the first. One pretty little foot after another was stretched out on the plank and just as quickly withdrawn; they screamed, they laughed, but didn't get any farther. Then a demon whispered to me, "Carry them across! Then you'll have a chance to hold your beloved in your arms." My innocent heart leaped with joy. I made the offer--it was accepted. Still, when I went back for them, and longingly stretched out my arms, no one wanted to be the first to entrust herself to them; each one was ready to let another have the honor. At last the brave Miss Lammestrup came up to me and said, with a gracious smile, "I'll try it; but don't drop me in the water, and remember you've had one bath today." Full of vain conceit, I assured her that she had nothing to fear, lifted her up, and set her on my arm. I remembered the words of Earl Haakon, "How do you like your seat?" etc., but I said nothing, for I felt too much. Her arm lay like a feather, like a hot flatiron, like an electric machine on my neck--I was in a state of bliss, ready to carry her not only over the water but through it for a lifetime--so I thought, poor fool that I was! Yes, the beginning was made, but that was all. Ha! tenfold cursed be the tailor who made Counsellor Svirum's breeches! for it was they that crept up on my knees and made my walk unsteady. Reader, do not laugh, your laughter is cruel, sinful--but you, my tender feminine reader, weep! Peer Fiddler fell in the brook with his lovely burden!!! Pause! Would that the brook had been Lethe! Then neither you, my sympathetic feminine reader, nor I would have wept over my black misfortune. Yes, black, for the brook was more mud than water; it was dirty as Styx itself. Ha! once again, why wasn't it Lethe? Don't ask me, compassionate reader, how we got out of it, what I said, what she said, how loud she screamed, how loud the others screamed, how we came home, and so on--I know nothing of it all. I heard nothing, saw nothing. I was in a, trance and didn't quite awaken until I heard an exclamation, "Counsellor Svirum, your yellow plush breeches are certainly in a state!" At these words I mechanically stuck my head out of the bed where I was lying. "Deuce take the breeches!" cried Mr. Lammestrup, "but Maren, what do you think she looked like?" "Is she alive?" I asked anxiously. "Is she out of danger? And will she forgive me, wretch that I am?" "Afterwards," he said, "it's easy to laugh. She and the other girls are sitting down there gossiping and having fun over certain people who stumble over their own legs." The last words he said with a malicious grin. But I turned my face to the wall like a dying manjånd sighed with the poet: "All ties between us now are severed, Branded in all eternity I stand, And never can this blot be cleansed-- One thing alone I would advise All who set store by mind or life, Let no mortal on that deuced bridge Presume to set his foot! Let it be instantly destroyed, It's poisoned--" "In the name of all periwigs," whispered his reverence, "he's raving; he's making verses--You stay with him, Hans Mikkel, while the rest of us go down and get a drop of tea-punch." At that the sportsmen stole out, leaving me to my bottomless misery. * * * On the third day after this my friend and I were rocking on the waves of the Cattegat.
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