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Among the fishwives of the Gammel Strand there was always lively stir, for their fisk must early find a buyer, and by midday they themselves must be back to their nets and boats. These Danish fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to their English, German, Dutch and French sisters. Not merely must they sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty Danish housewife will not buy. The fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they might do in the sea. The buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that purpose. A fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food by all right-acting Danish stomachs. No dead fish, preserved from becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a Danish kitchen. Is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet fresh fish to any other! Sauntering along the Strand I espied the cod and mackerel and herring under names I did not know, and everywhere foremost among them all the now familiar roed spoette, the Danish epicure’s delight.
The streets of London are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn up in line awaiting fares. In Copenhagen one is struck at once by the absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon the wholesale business streets. One might almost say that the streets would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. There must be many dove-cotes in Copenhagen and the birds certainly have hosts of friends. But the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is the real king of Denmark’s capital. After seeing him in Holland and in France, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master, one almost envies the lot of the dogs of Copenhagen. These beasts abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross their trail. Whether they survive through performing the office of scavenger, as do the dogs of Constantinople, I have never been informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of Copenhagen take as full possession of that town as do the tame vultures of Vera Cruz.
We visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics, one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of Charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of the master paintings of which the Danish capital is so proud; we admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and Peter the Great ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised Fredriks Kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate dome; and H and I spent a delightful hour in the noble Vor Frue Kirke, where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and the Bourse, the imposing new Hotel de Ville – the finest modern building in Denmark – the Legislative Palace, Christiansborg and Rosenborg and Amalienborg and Fredriksberg. We saw what of them the public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine wide Lange Linie Boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors and Free Port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty of the city are wont to ride and drive. We joined in with the multitude upon the long, straight Fredriksberggade, where the life and movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon New Orleans’ Canal Street and New York’s Broadway; and we did all else that well instructed Americans are taught to do. But after all, these are the things that Baedeker and the guide books tell about. To me it is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was only when I met some of my wife’s Danish kin, and a broad and burly Berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon either cheek, ere I knew him to be of her relations, – that I felt my acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the Scandinavian race.
Other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely Tivoli gardens, where all the Copenhagen world, high and low, rich and poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage, equally bent upon having a good time. “Have you seen Tivoli?” is ever almost the first question a Copenhagener will put. There we watched the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a sort of Punch and Judy show; there we entered the great music hall where the Royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving Danes always applaud; there we drank the Danish beer which is admitted to be the best on earth – so a Danish neighbor whispered in my ear. Tivoli is the Copenhagener’s elysium. When he is blue he gets himself to Tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to Tivoli; alone or in company he goes to Tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will permit, which is usually every night.
A most difficult problem for Copenhagen has been that of draining and sewering the city. It lies so low, almost at the dead level of the sea, and the tides of these Baltic waters are so insignificant – ten to twelve inches only – that for many centuries Copenhagen has been a most unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than that of any other city in Europe. But at last the problem is solved. Forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point into the sea, and with this transformation Copenhagen has become a measurably healthy city.
Perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed Copenhagen with so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the sick, – few cities in Europe are so elaborately provided. Hand in hand with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute and very poor. Denmark has never followed England’s pauper-creating system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand.
One of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks, and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. The landward side of the city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. One morning we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely Oersteds Park, when I caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five. She dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of a Duchess of the Court.
Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of people, – about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are crowded – one-fourth of them, – into the city of Copenhagen, or they are gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. And yet this diminutive kingdom puts up $275,000 a year for the keeping of the King, and also provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and estates whereon to fish and hunt and play.
To an American mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept and suffer burdens such as these.
In the great state of New York, with its seven millions of people, with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the Governor is paid $15,000 a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein to dwell. Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, and many other commonwealths, pay their Governors but $1,000 per year, without a mansion for their residence.
The mighty Republic of the United States itself, with a continent for domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its President $50,000 per year, and gives him the use of the White House for his home.
Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young men continually forsake their native land for the greater opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the United States?
The Dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. He is called the “Frenchman of the North.” Graceful and supple in his manners, with a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social diplomat. The blunt Norwegian calls him a fop. The martial Swede sneers at his want of fight. But the Dane has always held his own, and as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing his full share of the Scandinavian brain.
IV
Elsinore and Kronborg – An Evening Dinner Party
Helsinoere, Dannmark, August 29, 1902.
We left Copenhagen Friday evening, about four o’clock, from the Nordbane station. We were in plenty of time. Nobody hurries in Denmark. The train of carriages, with their side doors wide open, stood on the track ready to start. Prospective passengers and their friends moved about chatting, or saying good-bye. It was a local train to Elsinore, where it would connect with the ferry across the Sund to Helsingborg and there with the through express to Stockholm and Kristiania, a night’s ride. We would go to Elsinore, and there spend the night, and go on by daylight in the morning.
A good many acquaintances had come down to see us off, just for the sake of friendliness. I had kissed all the rosy-cheeked Froekens and been kissed by the Frus, having dexterously escaped the embraces of the men, when there loomed large before me an immense Dane, near six feet high and proportionate in girth, brown-bearded and blue-eyed, holding an enormous bouquet in either hand, an American flag waving from the midst of each. He made straight for[Pg 31][Pg 32] me, folded me up among the flowers and kissed me joyfully on either cheek, and all before I really knew just what had taken place; then he doffed his hat, and bowing profoundly, presented first to me and then to H one of the bouquets with which he was loaded. And these bouquets were tied up with great white ribbons! Of course, we were evidently but newly wed. We suddenly became of interest to the entire company. Nor was there escape, for General C is well known and popular in Copenhagen. Others now came up and were introduced, and H and I held a levée right then and there, and of kisses and embraces I made no count.
The ride was along the Sund, that lovely stretch of salt water, only a few miles wide, which joins the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic. It is more like the Hudson River below West Point than anything I know, except that the shores are low and more generally wooded to the water’s edge. Or, perhaps I should say that it is another and narrower Long Island Sound, as you see it a few miles out from Jamaica Bay. The busy waters were alive with a multitudinous traffic from Russia and Germany and Sweden and Denmark itself, and the fishing vessels that abound along these coasts. Here and there villas and fine country houses peeped out among the trees. The Sund is the joy of the Dane. He loves it, and the stranger who looks upon it does not forget it. One then understands why the Danish poets have sung so loudly of it.
Our way lay through much cultivated land, market gardens sending their produce to Copenhagen, dairy farms where is made some of that famous Danish butter every Londoner prefers to buy, and which is sold all around the world. Here and there we passed a little town, always with its sharp-steepled Lutheran church and dominie’s snug manse along its side. The church, the Lutheran church in Denmark, is no trifling power. It is as bigoted and well entrenched as is the Roman hierarchy in Mexico and Spain. We should have liked to be wedded in the Vor Frue Kirke, where the dear old grandmother had been married. But it is a Lutheran church, and we were Dissenters, and without the pale. Nor could we present the necessary proof. We had no papers to show we had been duly born. Nor had we legal documents to prove that our parents were our very own. Nor could we show papers in proof that we had been christened and were legally entitled to our names, nor that we had been regularly confirmed. Without these documents, sealed and authenticated by the state, and in our case also by the United States, no Lutheran pastor would have dared to try and make us one. So we ran the gauntlet of less stringent English law, in itself quite bad enough, and lost the experience of the quaint Danish ceremonial in the noble church.
At the fine big Government station in Helsinoere (Elsinore) – for the Government owns and runs the railroads in Denmark, just as it does in Germany and much of France – we were met by an aunt and uncle and cousin of H’s. They were a charming old couple, and the son was a young naval engineer (shipbuilder), working in the ship yard at Helsinoere. All have lived in America and speak our tongue. We were to dine with them and spend the evening, when General and Mrs. C would go home on the last train at 10 p. m. I left the ladies together, while D and I strolled over to the ancient, yet formidable, fortress of Kronborg, which for centuries has commanded the gateway to the Baltic. Built of Norwegian granite, when erected it was believed to be impregnable. Its casemates, lofty walls, turrets and towers frowned threateningly across the three-mile strait to Helsingborg in Sweden, and no boat sailed past except it first paid the dues. To-day, these walls of rock, these ramparts in the air, no longer terrify the mariner. Sund taxes are no longer levied! The ancient fortress does little else than fire an occasional salute. But the Danes still love and honor it, and a few soldiers are stationed in it, a solitary guard.
A vista of the Sund I tried to kodak from the top of the great tower, and I bribed a soldier for a dime to let me take his manly form, although a camera is forbidden within the precincts of this place of war.
But Kronborg is famous for other things than mere Danish tolls and wars. Kronborg it is, where Hamlet’s shade still nightly wanders along the desolate ramparts. There it is that the Danish prince beheld his father’s ghost. There he kept watch at night with Horatio and Marcellus. And close by in the park of Marienlyst Castle is Hamlet’s grave. We did not see it, but many pilgrims do.
Then we descended into the deep dungeons, or part of them, and a pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Danish lass told us tales of Holger Danske, who lives down in the deepest pits, whose long white beard is fast grown to the table before which he sits, and who is to come forth some day and by his might restore to the Danish race its former great position on the earth; and she told us also of the human tragedies which have in past ages been enacted in these keeps. She spoke in soft, lisping, musical Danish, the only sweet Danish I have heard; for the Copenhagen speech is jerky, the consonants are chopped short, and the vowels are deep gurgled in the throat, difficult for foreign ears to comprehend.
After seeing the fortress, we visited an ancient monastery, suppressed when the Roman church was driven from these northern Lutheran lands, and now become an Old Ladies’ Home – shocking transformation in the contemplation of those monkish shades which may yet roam the forsaken cloisters! – of which institution the old uncle is now Superintendent with Government pension for life!
And then we came to the cozy home where the ladies were already met. We entered a narrow doorway, a sort of interior storm door, and turned to the right into a comfortable sitting room, beyond which was the dining room, with the table set. The aunt is a gentle, round-faced, rosy-cheeked little woman, in a white lace cap and the prettiest of manners. With her was an old spinster friend, Froeken– , a slim, wizen-faced dame of sixty, in brown stuff dress, with tight sleeves and close fitting waist, and old lace at the throat, fastened by a big mediaeval-looking gold brooch, and with a gold chain about her neck. She possessed very small, bright black eyes, and lips that stuck straight out. She courtesied, – dropped down straight about ten inches and came up quick, a sort of bob – smiled, and said in Danish, “she was rejoiced to meet H’s ‘Mand.’” All were very friendly, and H to have caught a Mand, sure enough, was treated with distinction.
The table was set for eight; there was beer in glass decanters, cold fried fish, cold smoked goose breast, cold smoked salmon (raw), cold sardines, cold calveshead jelly, cold beef loaf, cold bread, black bread, rye bread, cold rolls (hard and shiny with caraway seeds in them), gooseberry jelly, spiced currants, and also tea, this latter piping hot. At each place was set a pile of salted butter (at least a pound) on a little dish. I sat next “Tante,” with Froeken– across the table from me, her black eyes boring me through with steady gleam. You take your fish up by the tail and eat him as you would a piece of bread. “Butter him thick, yes, thick,” “Tante” said to me. I laid on about half an inch, she did, they all did. It was delicious butter and that fish went down wonderfully slick. The goose breast was good, but I discerned it to have been a gander. The raw herring I did not find so attractive as the goose. There were also several sorts of cheese, of which every one ate much. You put a heavy layer of butter on your bread, then a layer of thin cut cheese, then a layer of herring or sardine or salmon, and eat it fast. There was no hot food, there never is. The rule is to stow away cold fish, butter and cheese, and wash it down with the strong brown beer. The sweets are then taken to top off with. Pickles and preserves together – just like the Germans. (I have not yet run into the sour foods in which the German stomach delights.) Having begun with a mild cheese, you gradually ascend to the strongest with the final sweets. H says the meal was only “supper,” not dinner, but I confess I am so mixed on these Scandinavian meals, that I cannot yet tell the difference. At breakfast, the Danes take only a cup of coffee and a roll, the Spanish Desayuno; not even an egg, nor English jam. About one or two o’clock in the day, they dine, having soups, meats (roast or boiled), fish (fresh and salt), vegetables and beer. At night, it is about as I have told you, and they often dare to add a little more cold fish and cheese before they finally retire. The soups at dinner are very good; and the meats are better cooked than at a British table, on which, after a while, all meats begin to taste alike, and you grow tired to death of the eternal boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint. I have had very nice cauliflower at Danish tables, and the lettuce of their salads is delicate and crisp, while the coffee of the Danes, like that of the Dutch, is better than you will find in either England, Germany or France; it seems to be the real thing, with neither chicory nor hidden beans. The Danes are skilful cooks, although their palates seem to be fondest of cold victuals and raw smoked fish.
We stayed the night in a comfortable inn, close by the water side, an ancient ale house where sailors used to congregate in the halcyon days when all passing ships must lay-to at Helsinoere to pay the tolls then levied by the King, hard by where now the fishing boats tie up. There were many of these and one in particular was continually surrounded by an excited crowd. It had just arrived loaded down to the decks with a catch of herring. The fishermen had had the luck to run into one of those rare and extraordinary schools of herring which are sometimes chased into the protecting waters of the Sound by a whale or other voracious enemy outside. The nets had been let quickly down and millions of fish as quickly drawn up. The boat had been filled to sinking, and word flagged to brothers of the craft to hasten up and partake of the abounding catch. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth of herring had been caught within a few hours by the fishermen of Helsinoere alone, to say nothing of what were taken by the crews of other fishing boats along the coast. The entire population of the little town is now busy cleaning and salting fish, fish that will feed them well and keep them easy in stomach until the winter shall be past and the spring be come again. Women were selling fish along the streets, boys were peddling fish, how many for a cent I do not know, and men were giving fish, gratis, to whosoever would carry them away. These extraordinary catches do not often happen. No such luck had befallen Helsinoere for many a day. It may be years before it again occurs. The fisherman of these northern waters sails forth upon his cruise each day inflamed with very much the same spirit of adventurous quest as in America are we who, living upon the land, drill wells for oil or dig for gold.
Helsinoere is rich to-night, and the herring is her king.
