ks of snow along their sides. At the
Custom House the bloodhounds would soon be shut in, and the iron gates
opened.

The east wind was strong, rolling the waves in upon Langelinie, and
breaking them in grayish-green foam among the slimy stones, whilst long
swelling billows dashed into the harbour, broke under the Custom House,
and rolled great names and gloomy memories over the stocks round the
fleet's anchorage, where lay the old dismantled wooden frigates in all
their imposing uselessness.

The harbour was still full of ships, and goods were piled high in the
warehouses and upon the quays.

Nobody could know what kind of winter they were to have--whether they
would be cut off for months from the world, or if it would go by with
fogs and snow-slush.

Therefore there lay row upon row of petroleum casks, which, together
with the enormous coal mountains, awaited a severe winter, and there lay
pipes and hogsheads of wine and cognac, patiently waiting for new
adulterations; oil and tallow and cork and iron--all lay and waited,
each its own destiny.

Everywhere lay work waiting--heavy work, coarse work, and fine work,
from the holds of the massive English coal-steamers, right up to the
three gilded cupolas on the Emperor of Russia's new church in Bredgade.

But as yet there was no one to put a hand to all this work. The town
slept heavily, the air was thick, winter hung over the city, and it was
so still in the streets that one could hear the water from the melting
snow on the roofs fall down into the spouts with a deep gurgling, as if
even the great stone houses yet sobbed in semi-slumber.

A little sleepy morning clock chimed over upon Holmen; here and there a
door was opened, and a dog came out to howl; curtains were rolled up and
windows were opened; the servant-girls went about in the houses, and did
their cleaning by a naked light which stood and flickered; at a window
in the palace sat a gilded lacquey and rubbed his nose in that early
morning hour.

The fog lay thick over the harbour, and hung in the rigging of the great
ships as if in a forest; rain and flakes of wet snow made it still
thicker, but the east wind pressed it down between the houses, and
completely filled Amalieplads, so that Frederick V. sat as if in the
clouds, and turned his proud nose unconcernedly towards his
half-finished church.

Some more sleepy clocks now began to chime; a steam-whistle joined in
with a diabolical shriek. In the ta