Recollections of My Childhood and Youth | Page 8

home, but had to be at my grandfather's. One day Jens
surprised me and pretty angry he was. "A nice little boy you are! If you
pull the rope at a wrong time you will cut the expensive rope through,
and it cost 90 Rigsdaler! What do you think your grandfather will say?"
[Footnote: A Rigsdaler was worth about two shillings and threepence,
English money. It is a coin that has been out of use about 40 years.]
It was, of course, very alarming to think that I might destroy such a

valuable thing. Not that I had any definite ideas of money and numbers.
I was well up in the multiplication table and was constantly wrestling
with large numbers, but they did not correspond to any actual
conception in my mind. When I reckoned up what one number of
several digits came to multiplied by another of much about the same
value, I had not the least idea whether Father or Grandfather had so
many Rigsdaler, or less, or more. There was only one of the uncles who
took an interest in my gift for multiplication, and that was my stout,
rich uncle with the crooked mouth, of whom it was said that he owned
a million, and who was always thinking of figures. He was hardly at the
door of Mother's drawing-room before he called out: "If you are a sharp
boy and can tell me what 27,374 times 580,208 are, you shall have four
skilling;" and quickly slate and pencil appeared and the sum was
finished in a moment and the four skilling pocketed. [Footnote: Four
skilling would be a sum equal to 1-1/2d. English money.]
I was at home then in the world of figures, but not in that of values. All
the same, it would be a terrible thing to destroy such a value as 90
Rigsdaler seemed to be. But might it not be that Jens only said so? He
surely could not see from the rope whether it had been pulled or not.
So I did it again, and one day when Jens began questioning me sternly
could not deny my guilt. "I saw it," said Jens; "the rope is nearly cut in
two, and now you will catch it, now the policeman will come and fetch
you."
For weeks after that I did not have one easy hour. Wherever I went, or
whatever I did, the fear of the police followed me. I dared not speak to
anyone of what I had done and of what was awaiting me. I was too
much ashamed, and I noticed, too, that my parents knew nothing. But if
a door opened suddenly I would look anxiously at the incomer. When I
was walking with the nurse and my little brother I looked all round on
every side, and frequently peeped behind me, to see whether the police
were after me. Even when I lay in my bed, shut in on all four sides by
its trellis-work, the dread of the police was upon me still.
There was only one person to whom I dared mention it, and that was
Jens. When a few weeks had gone by I tried to get an answer out of him.
Then I perceived that Jens did not even know what I was talking about.
Jens had evidently forgotten all about it. Jens had been making fun of
me. If my relief was immense, my indignation was no less. So much

torture for nothing at all! Older people, who had noticed how the word
"police" was to me an epitome of all that was terrible, sometimes made
use of it as an explanation of things that they thought were above my
comprehension.
When I was six years old I heard the word "war" for the first time. I did
not know what it was, and asked. "It means," said one of my aunts,
"that the Germans have put police in Schleswig and forbidden the
Danes to go there, and that they will beat them if they stay there." That
I could understand, but afterwards I heard them talking about soldiers.
"Are there soldiers as well?" I asked. "Police and soldiers," was the
answer. But that confused me altogether, for the two things belonged in
my mind to wholly different categories. Soldiers were beautiful, gay-
coloured men with shakos, who kept guard and marched in step to the
sound of drums and fifes and music, till you longed to go with them.
That was why soldiers were copied in tin and you got them on your
birthday in boxes. But police went by themselves, without music,
without beautiful colours on their uniforms, looked stern and
threatening, and had a stick in their hands. Nobody dreamt of copying
them in tin. I was very