BEAUTY OF FORM
AND BEAUTY OF MIND
by Hans Christian Andersen
THERE was once a sculptor,
named Alfred, who having won the large gold medal and obtained a
travelling scholarship, went to Italy, and then came back to his native
land. He was young at that time- indeed, he is young still, although he is
ten years older than he was then. On his return, he went to visit one of
the little towns in the island of Zealand. The whole town knew who the
stranger was; and one of the richest men in the place gave a party in his
honor, and all who were of any consequence, or who possessed some
property, were invited. It was quite an event, and all the town knew of
it, so that it was not necessary to announce it by beat of drum.
Apprentice-boys, children of the poor, and even the poor people
themselves, stood before the house, watching the lighted windows; and the
watchman might easily fancy he was giving a party also, there were so many
people in the streets. There was quite an air of festivity about it, and
the house was full of it; for Mr. Alfred, the sculptor, was there. He
talked and told anecdotes, and every one listened to him with pleasure,
not unmingled with awe; but none felt so much respect for him as did the
elderly widow of a naval officer. She seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was
concerned, to be like a piece of fresh blotting-paper that absorbed all he
said and asked for more. She was very appreciative, and incredibly
ignorant- a kind of female Gaspar Hauser.
"I should like to see
Rome," she said; "it must be a lovely city, or so many
foreigners would not be constantly arriving there. Now, do give me a
description of Rome. How does the city look when you enter in at the
gate?"
"I cannot very well
describe it," said the sculptor; "but you enter on a large open
space, in the centre of which stands an obelisk, which is a thousand years
old."
"An organist!"
exclaimed the lady, who had never heard the word 'obelisk.' Several of the
guests could scarcely forbear laughing, and the sculptor would have had
some difficulty in keeping his countenance, but the smile on his lips
faded away; for he caught sight of a pair of dark-blue eyes close by the
side of the inquisitive lady. They belonged to her daughter; and surely no
one who had such a daughter could be silly. The mother was like a fountain
of questions; and the daughter, who listened but never spoke, might have
passed for the beautiful maid of the fountain. How charming she was! She
was a study for the sculptor to contemplate, but not to converse with; for
she did not speak, or, at least, very seldom.
"Has the pope a great
family?" inquired the lady.
The young man answered
considerately, as if the question had been a different one, "No; he
does not come from a great family."
"That is not what I
asked," persisted the widow; "I mean, has he a wife and
children?"
"The pope is not
allowed to marry," replied the gentleman.
"I don't like
that," was the lady's remark.
She certainly might have
asked more sensible questions; but if she had not been allowed to say just
what she liked, would her daughter have been there, leaning so gracefully
on her shoulder, and looking straight before her, with a smile that was
almost mournful on her face?
Mr. Alfred again spoke of
Italy, and of the glorious colors in Italian scenery; the purple hills,
the deep blue of the Mediterranean, the azure of southern skies, whose
brightness and glory could only be surpassed in the north by the deep-blue
eyes of a maiden; and he said this with a peculiar intonation; but she who
should have understood his meaning looked quite unconscious of it, which
also was charming.
"Beautiful
Italy!" sighed some of the guests.
"Oh, to travel
there!" exclaimed others.
"Charming!
Charming!" echoed from every voice.
"I may perhaps win a
hundred thousand dollars in the lottery," said the naval officer's
widow; "and if I do, we will travel- I and my daughter; and you, Mr.
Alfred, must be our guide. We can all three travel together, with one or
two more of our good friends." And she nodded in such a friendly way
at the company, that each imagined himself to be the favored person who
was to accompany them to Italy. "Yes, we must go," she
continued; "but not to those parts where there are robbers. We will
keep to Rome. In the public roads one is always safe."
The daughter sighed very
gently; and how much there may be in a sigh, or attributed to it! The
young man attributed a great deal of meaning to this sigh. Those deep-blue
eyes, which had been lit up this evening in honor of him, must conceal
treasures, treasures of heart and mind, richer than all the glories of
Rome; and so when he left the party that night, he had lost it completely
to the young lady. The house of the naval officer's widow was the one most
constantly visited by Mr. Alfred, the sculptor. It was soon understood
that his visits were not intended for that lady, though they were the
persons who kept up the conversation. He came for the sake of the
daughter. They called her Kaela. Her name was really Karen Malena, and
these two names had been contracted into the one name Kaela. She was
really beautiful; but some said she was rather dull, and slept late of a
morning.
"She has been
accustomed to that," her mother said. "She is a beauty, and they
are always easily tired. She does sleep rather late; but that makes her
eyes so clear."
What power seemed to lie
in the depths of those dark eyes! The young man felt the truth of the
proverb, "Still waters run deep:" and his heart had sunk into
their depths. He often talked of his adventures, and the mamma was as
simple and eager in her questions as on the first evening they met. It was
a pleasure to hear Alfred describe anything. He showed them colored plates
of Naples, and spoke of excursions to Mount Vesuvius, and the eruptions of
fire from it. The naval officer's widow had never heard of them before.
"Good heavens!"
she exclaimed. "So that is a burning mountain; but is it not very
dangerous to the people who live near it?"
"Whole cities have
been destroyed," he replied; "for instance, Herculaneum and
Pompeii."
"Oh, the poor people!
And you saw all that with your own eyes?"
"No; I did not see
any of the eruptions which are represented in those pictures; but I will
show you a sketch of my own, which represents an eruption I once
saw."
He placed a pencil sketch
on the table; and mamma, who had been over-powered with the appearance of
the colored plates, threw a glance at the pale drawing and cried in
astonishment, "What, did you see it throw up white fire?"
For a moment, Alfred's
respect for Kaela's mamma underwent a sudden shock, and lessened
considerably; but, dazzled by the light which surrounded Kaela, he soon
found it quite natural that the old lady should have no eye for color.
After all, it was of very little consequence; for Kaela's mamma had the
best of all possessions; namely, Kaela herself.
Alfred and Kaela were
betrothed, which was a very natural result; and the betrothal was
announced in the newspaper of the little town. Mama purchased thirty
copies of the paper, that she might cut out the paragraph and send it to
friends and acquaintances. The betrothed pair were very happy, and the
mother was happy too. She said it seemed like connecting herself with
Thorwalsden.
"You are a true
successor of Thorwalsden," she said to Alfred; and it seemed to him
as if, in this instance, mamma had said a clever thing. Kaela was silent;
but her eyes shone, her lips smiled, every movement was graceful,- in
fact, she was beautiful; that cannot be repeated too often. Alfred decided
to take a bust of Kaela as well as of her mother. They sat to him
accordingly, and saw how he moulded and formed the soft clay with his
fingers.
"I suppose it is only
on our account that you perform this common-place work yourself, instead
of leaving it to your servant to do all that sticking together."
"It is really
necessary that I should mould the clay myself," he replied.
"Ah, yes, you are
always so polite," said mamma, with a smile; and Kaela silently
pressed his hand, all soiled as it was with the clay.
Then he unfolded to them
both the beauties of Nature, in all her works; he pointed out to them how,
in the scale of creation, inanimate matter was inferior to animate nature;
the plant above the mineral, the animal above the plant, and man above
them all. He strove to show them how the beauty of the mind could be
displayed in the outward form, and that it was the sculptor's task to
seize upon that beauty of expression, and produce it in his works. Kaela
stood silent, but nodded in approbation of what he said, while
mamma-in-law made the following confession:-
"It is difficult to
follow you; but I go hobbling along after you with my thoughts, though
what you say makes my head whirl round and round. Still I contrive to lay
hold on some of it."
Kaela's beauty had a firm
hold on Alfred; it filled his soul, and held a mastery over him. Beauty
beamed from Kaela's every feature, glittered in her eyes, lurked in the
corners of her mouth, and pervaded every movement of her agile fingers.
Alfred, the sculptor, saw this. He spoke only to her, thought only of her,
and the two became one; and so it may be said she spoke much, for he was
always talking to her; and he and she were one. Such was the betrothal,
and then came the wedding, with bride's-maids and wedding presents, all
duly mentioned in the wedding speech. Mamma-in-law had set up
Thorwalsden's bust at the end of the table, attired in a dressing-gown; it
was her fancy that he should be a guest. Songs were sung, and cheers
given; for it was a gay wedding, and they were a handsome pair.
"Pygmalion loved his Galatea," said one of the songs.
"Ah, that is some of
your mythologies," said mamma-in-law.
Next day the youthful pair
started for Copenhagen, where they were to live; mamma-in-law accompanied
them, to attend to the "coarse work," as she always called the
domestic arrangements. Kaela looked like a doll in a doll's house, for
everything was bright and new, and so fine. There they sat, all three; and
as for Alfred, a proverb may describe his position- he looked like a swan
amongst the geese. The magic of form had enchanted him; he had looked at
the casket without caring to inquire what it contained, and that omission
often brings the greatest unhappiness into married life. The casket may be
injured, the gilding may fall off, and then the purchaser regrets his
bargain.
In a large party it is
very disagreeable to find a button giving way, with no studs at hand to
fall back upon; but it is worse still in a large company to be conscious
that your wife and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot
depend upon yourself to produce a little ready wit to carry off the
stupidity of the whole affair.
The young married pair
often sat together hand in hand; he would talk, but she could only now and
then let fall a word in the same melodious voice, the same bell-like
tones. It was a mental relief when Sophy, one of her friends, came to pay
them a visit. Sophy was not, pretty. She was, however, quite free from any
physical deformity, although Kaela used to say she was a little crooked;
but no eye, save an intimate acquaintance, would have noticed it. She was
a very sensible girl, yet it never occurred to her that she might be a
dangerous person in such a house. Her appearance created a new atmosphere
in the doll's house, and air was really required, they all owned that.
They felt the want of a change of air, and consequently the young couple
and their mother travelled to Italy.
"Thank heaven we are
at home again within our own four walls," said mamma-in-law and
daughter both, on their return after a year's absence.
"There is no real
pleasure in travelling," said mamma; "to tell the truth, it's
very wearisome; I beg pardon for saying so. I was soon very tired of it,
although I had my children with me; and, besides, it's very expensive work
travelling, very expensive. And all those galleries one is expected to
see, and the quantity of things you are obliged to run after! It must be
done, for very shame; you are sure to be asked when you come back if you
have seen everything, and will most likely be told that you've omitted to
see what was best worth seeing of all. I got tired at last of those
endless Madonnas; I began to think I was turning into a Madonna
myself."
"And then the living,
mamma," said Kaela.
"Yes, indeed,"
she replied, "no such a thing as a respectable meat soup- their
cookery is miserable stuff."
The journey had also tired
Kaela; but she was always fatigued, that was the worst of it. So they sent
for Sophy, and she was taken into the house to reside with them, and her
presence there was a great advantage. Mamma-in-law acknowledged that Sophy
was not only a clever housewife, but well-informed and accomplished,
though that could hardly be expected in a person of her limited means. She
was also a generous-hearted, faithful girl; she showed that thoroughly
while Kaela lay sick, fading away. When the casket is everything, the
casket should be strong, or else all is over. And all was over with the
casket, for Kaela died.
"She was
beautiful," said her mother; "she was quite different from the
beauties they call 'antiques,' for they are so damaged. A beauty ought to
be perfect, and Kaela was a perfect beauty."
Alfred wept, and mamma
wept, and they both wore mourning. The black dress suited mamma very well,
and she wore mourning the longest. She had also to experience another
grief in seeing Alfred marry again, marry Sophy, who was nothing at all to
look at. "He's gone to the very extreme," said mamma-in-law;
"he has gone from the most beautiful to the ugliest, and he has
forgotten his first wife. Men have no constancy. My husband was a very
different man,- but then he died before me."
"'Pygmalion loved his
Galatea,' was in the song they sung at my first wedding," said
Alfred; "I once fell in love with a beautiful statue, which awoke to
life in my arms; but the kindred soul, which is a gift from heaven, the
angel who can feel and sympathize with and elevate us, I have not found
and won till now. You came, Sophy, not in the glory of outward beauty,
though you are even fairer than is necessary. The chief thing still
remains. You came to teach the sculptor that his work is but dust and clay
only, an outward form made of a material that decays, and that what we
should seek to obtain is the ethereal essence of mind and spirit. Poor
Kaela! our life was but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world,
where we shall know each other from a union of mind, we shall be but mere
acquaintances."
"That was not a
loving speech," said Sophy, "nor spoken like a Christian. In a
future state, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, but
where, as you say, souls are attracted to each other by sympathy; there
everything beautiful develops itself, and is raised to a higher state of
existence: her soul will acquire such completeness that it may harmonize
with yours, even more than mine, and you will then once more utter your
first rapturous exclamation of your love, 'Beautiful, most
beautiful!
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