s every window has a balcony, and the people came out on
all the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one be
accustomed to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the
street. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the
street--chairs and tables were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes,
above a thousand lights were burning--and the one talked and the other
sung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along with
a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys were
screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and
detonating balls--and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers--for
there were funerals with psalm and hymn--and then the din of carriages
driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough down
in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in
which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one
lived there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so
well in the sun's heat! and that they could not do unless they were
watered--and some one must water them--there must be somebody there.
The door opposite was also opened late in the evening, but it was dark
within, at least in the front room; further in there was heard the sound
of music. The learned foreigner thought it quite marvellous, but now--it
might be that he only imagined it--for he found everything marvellous
out there, in the warm lands, if there had only been no sun. The
stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house
opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared
to him to be extremely tiresome. "It is as if some one sat there, and
practised a piece that he could not master--always the same piece. 'I
shall master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he
plays."

* The word mahogany can be understood, in Danish, as having two
meanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in
jest, it signifies "excessively fine," which arose from an anecdote of
Nyboder, in Copenhagen, (the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was
always proud and fine, in her way, came to her neighbor, and complained
that she had got a splinter in her finger. "What of?" asked the
neighbor's wife. "It is a mahogany splinter," said the other. "Mahogany!
It cannot be less with you!" exclaimed the woman--and thence the
proverb, "It is so mahogany!"--