(1838)
I. A Beginning
It was in Copenhagen, in one of the houses on East Street, not far from
King's Newmarket, that someone was giving a large party. For one must
give a party once in a while, if one expects to be invited in return. Half of
the guests were already at the card tables, and the rest were waiting to see
what would come of their hostess's query:
“What can we think up now?”
Up to this point, their conversation had gotten along as best it might.
Among other things, they had spoken of the Middle Ages. Some held that it
was a time far better than our own. Indeed Councilor of Justice Knap
defended this opinion with such spirit that his hostess sided with him at
once, and both of them loudly took exception to Oersted's article in the
Almanac, which contrasted old times and new, and which favored our own
period. The Councilor of Justice, however, held that the time of King Hans,
about 1500 A.D., was the noblest and happiest age.
While the conversation ran pro and con, interrupted only for a moment by
the arrival of a newspaper, in which there was nothing worth reading, let us
adjourn to the cloak room, where all the wraps, canes, umbrellas, and
galoshes were collected together. Here sat two maids, a young one and an
old one. You might have thought they had come in attendance upon some
spinster or widow, and were waiting to see their mistress home. However, a
closer inspection would reveal that these were no ordinary serving women.
Their hands were too well kept for that, their bearing and movements too
graceful, and their clothes had a certain daring cut.
They were two fairies. The younger one, though not Dame Fortune
herself, was an assistant to one of her ladies in waiting, and was used to
