and besides I doubt whether her household is still awake.” He searched for
the house, but wasn't able to find it.
“This is terrible!” he cried. “I don't even recognize East Street. There's
not a shop to be seen; wretched old ramshackle huts are all I see, as if I
were in Roskilde or Ringstedt. Oh, but I'm ill! There's no point in standing
on ceremony, but where on earth is the agent's house? This hut doesn't look
remotely like it, but I can hear that the people inside are still awake. Ah, I'm
indeed a very sick man.”
He reached a half-open door, where light flickered through the crack. It
was a tavern of that period-a sort of alehouse. The room had the look of a
farmer's clay-floored kitchen in Holstein, and the people who sat there were
sailors, citizens of Copenhagen, and a couple of scholars. Deep in
conversation over their mugs, they paid little attention to the newcomer.
“Pardon me,” the Councilor of Justice said to the landlady who came
toward him, “but I am far from well. Would you send someone for a cab to
take me to Christian's Harbour?”
The woman stared at him, shook her head, and addressed him in German.
As the Councilor of Justice supposed that she could not speak Danish, he
repeated his remarks in German. This, and the cut of his clothes, convinced
the woman that he was a foreigner. She soon understood that he felt unwell,
and fetched him a mug of water, decidedly brackish, for she drew it directly
from the sea-level well outside. The Councilor put his head in his hands,
took a deep breath, and thought over all of the queer things that surrounded
him.
“Is that tonight's number of The Day?” he remarked from force of habit,
as he saw the woman putting away a large folded sheet.
Without quite understanding him, she handed him the paper. It was a
woodcut, representing a meteor seen in the skies over Cologne.
“This is very old,” said the Councilor, who became quite enthusiastic
about his discovery. “Where did you get this rare old print? It's most
interesting, although of course the whole matter is a myth. In this day and
