Part 10

Johan has just come home from Boston, bringing incredible stories about having talked in a machine called telephone. It was nothing but a wire, one end in Boston and the other end in Cambridge. He said he could hear quite plainly what the person in Cambridge said. Mr. Graham Bell, our neighbor, has invented this. How wonderful it must be! He has put up wires about Boston, but not farther than Cambridge--yet. He was ambitious enough to suggest Providence. "What!" cried the members of the committee. "You think you can talk along a wire in the air over that distance?" "Let me just try it," said Bell. "I will bear half the expense of putting up the wire if you will bear the other half."

He was ultra-convinced of his success when, on talking to his brother in Cambridge from Boston in order to invite him to dinner, adding, "Bring your mother-in-law," he heard, distinctly but feebly, the old lady's voice: "Good gracious! Again! What a bore!"

There is also another invention, called phonograph, where the human voice is reproduced, and can go on for ever being reproduced. I sang in one through a horn, and they transposed this on a platina roll and wound it off. Then they put it on another disk, and I heard my voice--for the first time in my life. If that is my voice, I don't want to hear it again! I could not believe that it could be so awful! A high, squeaky, nasal sound; I was ashamed of it. And the faster the man turned the crank the higher and squeakier the voice became. The intonation--the pronunciation--I could recognize as my own, but the voice!... Dear me!

"BJÖRNEMOSE," December 20, 1877.

Dear Mother,--Denmark looks very friendly under its mantle of snow, glistening with its varnish of ice. It is lovely weather. The sun shines brightly, but it is as cold as Greenland. They tell me it is a very mild winter. Compared with Alaska, it may be! The house, which is heated only by large porcelain stoves, is particularly cold. These stoves are filled with wood in the early morning, and when the wood is burned out they shut the door and the porcelain tiles retain the heat--still, the ladies all wear shawls over their shoulders and shiver. I go and lean my back up against the huge white monument, but this is not considered good form.

The Baltic Sea, which is at the foot of the snow-covered lawn, is filled with floating ice. It must be lovely here in the summer, when one can see the opposite shores of Thuro across the blue water.

My new family, taken singly and collectively, is delightful. I shall tell you later about the dear, genial General--my father-in-law--the kind mother, and the three devoted sisters. Now I shall only write--as I promised you--my first impressions.

We live in a manner which is, I fancy, called "patriarchal," and which reminds me continually of Frederika Bremer's book called Home. A great many things in the way of food are new to me. For instance, there is a soup made of beer, brown bread, and cream, and another made of the insides of a goose, with its long neck and thin legs, boiled with prunes, apples, and vinegar. Then rice porridge is served as soup and mixed with hot beer, cinnamon, butter, and cream. These all seem very queer, but they taste very good, I asked for oatmeal porridge, but I was told that oatmeal was used only for cataplasms. Corn is known only as ornamental shrubbery, and tomatoes, alas! are totally unknown.

Every one I have met so far has been most kind and hospitable. We have been invited out to dinner several times. I will describe the first one, which was unique as a début.

The distances are enormous between country houses in this land; and, as the hour named for dinner was six o'clock, we had to begin dressing in the afternoon at the early hour of three. At four we were packed in the family landau, with a mountain of rugs and different things to keep our feet warm. We jogged along the hard, slippery highroad at a monotonous pace; and, as it is dark at four o'clock, nothing could have been more conducive to slumber and peaceful dreams. Finally we arrived. Every one was standing up when we entered the salon. There seemed to be a great number of people. I was presented to all the ladies, and the gentlemen were brought up one by one and named to me. They bowed, shook my hand, and retired. I noticed that all the ladies wore long trailing skirts--lilac or gray--and had real flowers in their hair and on their bosoms. Dinner was announced. Then there came a pause. The host and the hostess were looking about for some one to undertake me--some one who could tale Engelsk (talk English). Finally they decided upon a lank, spectacled gentleman, who offered me his arm and took me in.

My father-in-law, who was the person highest in rank, sat on the left of the hostess. I thought this peculiar, but such is the custom here. From the moment we sat down until we rose from the table my English-speaking friend never stopped talking. He told me he had learned my language when a boy, but had forgotten a great deal; if he had said he had forgotten it entirely he would have been nearer the truth.

He wanted to tell me the family history of a gentleman opposite us, and began by saying: "Do you see that gentleman? He has been washing you all the time."

"Washing me?" I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"Yes, the one with the gray hairs and the bird."

I looked about for a canary perched on some one's nose.

"It is a pity," he went on to say, "that he has no shield."

"How is that?" I asked. "I thought every one had a shield of some sort?" To make it clearer to me, he said, uln Danish we call a shield a barn."

"Is he a farmer?" said I, much puzzled.

"Oh dear, no! He is a lawyer like me."

"Then what does he want with a barn?"

"Every couple [pronounced copol] wants burn," he replied.

"What is it they want?" I asked. "What do you call burn?"

"Burn," he explained, "is pluriel for barn. Eight barn, two burn."

"What?" I cried, "eight barns to burn! Why do they want to burn eight barns? They must be crazy!"

All this will sound to you as idiotic as it did to me, but you will get the explanation at the end of the chapter, as I did--on the drive home--the two hours of which were entirely taken up in laughing at the mistakes of the good lawyer, who did his best.

Our conversation languished after this. My brain could not bear such a strain. Suddenly he got up from his chair. I thought that he was going to take himself and his English away, but after he had quaffed a whole glass of wine, at one swallow, bowed over it, and pointed his empty glass at Johan, he resumed his seat, and conversation flowed again.

It seems that Johan had honored him with a friendly nod and an uplifted glass, which obliged him to arise and acknowledge the compliment.

In Denmark there is a great deal of skaal-drinking (skaal, in Danish, means drinking a toast). I think there must be an eleventh commandment--"Thou shalt not omit to skaal." The host drinks with every one, and every one drinks with every one else. It seems to me to be rather a cheap way of being amiable, but it looks very friendly and sociable. When a person of high rank drinks with one of lower the latter stands while emptying his glass.