Pictures of Sweden: Ch. 13 - Upsala

Ch. 13 - Upsala

It is commonly said, that Memory is a young girl with light blue eyes.
Most poets say so; but we cannot always agree with most poets. To us
memory comes in quite different forms, all according to that land, or
that town to which she belongs. Italy sends her as a charming Mignon,
with black eyes and a melancholy smile, singing Bellini's soft,
touching songs. From Scotland Memory's sprite appears as a powerful
lad with bare knees; the plaid hangs over his shoulder, the
thistle-flower is fixed on his cap; Burns's songs then fill the air
like the heath-lark's song, and Scotland's wild thistle flowers
beautifully fragrant as the fresh rose. But now for Memory's sprite
from Sweden, from Upsala. He comes thence in the form of a student--at
least, he wears the Upsala student's white cap with the black rim. To
us it points out its home, as the Phrygian cap denotes Ganymede.

It was in the year 1843, that the Danish students travelled to Upsala.
Young hearts met together; eyes sparkled: they laughed, they sang.
Young hearts are the future--the conquering future--in the beautiful,
true and good; it is so good that brothers should know and love each
other. Friendship's meeting is still annually remembered in the
palace-yard of Upsala, before the monument of Gustavus Vasa--by the
hurra! for Denmark, in warm-hearted compliment to me.

Two summers afterwards, the visit was returned. The Swedish students
came to Copenhagen, and that they might there be known amongst the
multitude, the Upsala students wore a white cap with a black rim: this
cap is accordingly a memorial,--the sign of friendship's bridge over
that river of blood which once flowed between kindred nations. When
one meets in heart and spirit, a blissful seed is then sown. Memory's
sprite, come to us! we know thee by the cap from Upsala: be thou our
guide, and from our more southern home, after years and days, we will
make the voyage over again, quicker than if we flew in Doctor Faustus'
magic cloak. We are in Stockholm: we stand on the Ridderholm where the
steamers lie alongside the bulwarks: one of them sends forth clouds of
thick smoke from its chimney; the deck is crowded with passengers, and
the white cap with the black rim is not wanting.

We are off to Upsala; the paddles strike the waters of the M�lar, and
we shoot away from the picturesque city of Stockholm. The whole
voyage, direct to Upsala, is a kaleidescope on a large scale. It is
true, there is nothing of the magical in the scenery, but landscape
gives place to landscape, and clouds and sunshine refresh their
variegated beauty. The M�lar lake curves, is compressed, and widens
again: it is as if one passed from lake to lake through narrow canals
and broad rivers. Sometimes it appears as if the lake ended in small
rivulets between dark pines and rocks, when suddenly another large
lake, surrounded by corn fields and meadows, opens itself to view: the
light-green linden trees, which have just unfolded their leaves, shine
forth before the dark grey rocks. Again a new lake opens before us,
with islets, trees and red painted houses, and during the whole voyage
there is a lively arrival and departure of passengers, in flat
bottomed boats, which are nearly upset in the billowy wake of the
vessel.

It appears most dangerous opposite to Sigtuna, Sweden's old royal
city: the lake is broad here; the waves rise as if they were the
waters of the ocean; the boats rock--it is fearful to look at! But
here there must be a calm; and Sigtuna, that little interesting town
where the old towers stand in ruins, like outposts along the rocks,
reflects itself in the water.

We fly past! and now we are in Tyris rivulet! Part of a meadow is
flooded; a herd of horses become shy from the snorting of the
steamer's engine; they dash through the water in the meadow, and it
spurts up all over them. It glitters there between the trees on the
declivity: the Upsala students lie encamped there, and exercise
themselves in the use of arms.

The rivulet forms a bay, and the high plain extends itself. We see old
Upsala's hills; we see Upsala's city with its church, which, like
Notre Dame, raises its stony arms towards heaven. The university rises
to the view, in appearance half palace and half barracks, and there
aloft, on the greensward-clothed bank, stands the old red-painted huge
palace with its towers.

We stop at the bulwark near the arched bridge, and so go on shore.
Whither wilt thou conduct us first, thou our guide with the
white-and-black student's cap? Shall we go up to the palace, or to
Linnaeus's garden! or shall we go to the church-yard where the nettles
grow over Geier's and T�rnro's graves? No, but to the young and the
living Upsala's life--the students. Thou tellest us about them; we
hear the heart's pulsations, and our hearts beat in sympathy!

In the first year of the war between Denmark and the insurgents, many
a brave Upsala student left his quiet, comfortable home, and entered
the ranks with his Danish brothers. The Upsala students gave up their
most joyous festival--the May-day festival--and the money they at
other times used to contribute annually towards the celebration
thereof, they sent to the Danes, after the sum had been increased by
concerts which were given in Stockholm and Vesteraas. That
circumstance will not be forgotten in Denmark.

Upsala student, thou art dear to us by thy disposition! thou art dear
to us from thy lively jests! We will mention a trait thereof. In
Upsala, it had become the fashion to be Hegelianers--that is to say,
always to interweave Hegel's philosophical terms in conversation. In
order to put down this practice, a few clever fellows took upon
themselves the task of hammering some of the most difficult technical
words into the memory of a humorous and commonly drunken country
innkeeper, at whose house many a _Sexa_ was often held; and the man
spoke Hegelianic in his mellow hours, and the effect was so absurd,
that the employment of philosophical scraps in his speech was
ridiculed, understood, and the nuisance abandoned.

Beautiful songs resound as we approach: we hear Swedish, Norwegian and
Danish. The melody's varied beacon makes known to us where Upsala's
students are assembled. The song proceeds from the assembly-room--from
the tavern saloon, and like serenades in the silent evening, when a
young friend departs, or a dear guest is honoured. Glorious melodies!
ye enthral, so that we forget that the sun goes down, and the moon
rises.

   "Herre min Gud hvad din M�nen lyser
     Se, hvilken Glands ut ofver Land och Stad!"

is now sung, and we see:

    "H�gt opp i Slottet hvarenda ruta
     Blixtrar some vore den en �delsten."[O]
[Footnote O: Lord, my God, how Thy moon shines! See what lustre over
land and city! High up in the palace every pane glistens as if it
were a gem.]

Up thither then is our way! lead us, memory's sprite, into the palace,
the courteous governor of Upland's dwelling; mild glances greet us; we
see dear beings in a happy circle, and all the leading characters of
Upsala. We again see him whose cunning quickened our perceptions as to
the mysteries of vegetable life, so that even the toad-stool is
unveiled to us as a building more artfully constructed than the
labyrinths of the olden time. We see "The Flowers'" singer, he who led
us to "The Island of Bliss;" we meet with him whose popular lays are
borne on melodies into the world; his wife by his side. That quiet,
gentle woman with those faithful eyes is the daughter of Frithiof's
bard; we see noble men and women, ladies of the high nobility, with
sounding and significant family names with _silver_ and
_lilies_,--_stars_ and _swords_.

Hark! listen to that lively song. Gunnar Wennerberg, Gluntarra's poet
and composer, sings his songs with Boronees,[P] and they acquire a
dramatic life and reality.

[Footnote P: Gluntarra duets, by Gunnar Wennerberg.]

How spiritual and enjoyable! one becomes happy here, one feels proud
of the age one lives in, happy in being distant from the horrible
tragedies that history speaks of within these walls.

We can hear about them when the song is silent, when those friendly
forms disappear, and the festal lights are extinguished: from the
pages of history that tale resounds with a clang of horror. It was in
those times, which the many still call poetic--the romantic middle
ages--that bards sang of its most brilliant periods, and covered with
the radiance of their genius the sanguinary gulf of brutality and
superstition. Terror seizes us in Upsala's palace: we stand in the
vaulted hall, the wax tapers burn from the walls, and King Erik the
Fourteenth sits with Saul's dark despondency, with Cain's wild looks.
Niels Sture occupies his thoughts, the recollection of injustice
exercised against him lashes his conscience with scourges and
scorpions, as deadly terrible as they are revealed to us in the page
of history.

King Erik the Fourteenth, whose gloomy distrust often amounted to
insanity, thought that the nobility aimed at his life. His favourite,
Goran Persson, found it to his advantage to strengthen him in this
belief. He hated most the popularly favoured race of the Stures, and
of them, the light-haired Niels Sture in particular; for Erik thought
that he had read in the stars that a man with light hair should hurl
him from the throne; and as the Swedish General after the lost battle
of Svarteaa, laid the blame on Niels Sture, Erik directly believed it,
yet dared not to act as he desired, but even gave Niels Sture royal
presents. Yet because he was again accused by one single person of
having checked the advance of the Swedish army at B�h�s, Erik invited
him to his palace at Svartsj�, gave him an honourable place at his
royal table, and let him depart in apparent good faith for Stockholm,
where, on his arrival, the heralds were ordered to proclaim in the
streets: "Niels Sture is a traitor to his country!"

There Goran Persson and the German retainers seized him, and sat him
by force on the executioner's most miserable hack; struck him in the
face so that the blood streamed down, placed a tarred straw crown on
his head, and fastened a paper with derisive words, on the saddle
before him. They then let a row of hired beggar-boys and old
fish-wives go in couples before, and to the tail of the horse they
bound two fir-trees, the roots of which dragged on the ground and
swept the street after the traitor. Niels Sture exclaimed that he had
not deserved this treatment from his King and he begged the groom, who
went by his side, and had served him in the field of battle, to attest
the truth like an honest man; when they all shouted aloud, that he
suffered innocently, and had acted like a true Swede. But the
procession was driven forward through the streets without stopping,
and at night Niels Sture was conducted to prison.

King Erik sits in his royal palace: he orders the torches and candles
to be lighted, but they are of no avail--his thoughts' scorpions sting
his soul.

"I have again liberated Niels Sture," he mutters; "I have had placards
put up at every street-corner, and let the heralds proclaim that no
one shall dare to speak otherwise than well of Niels Sture! I have
sent him on an honourable mission to a foreign court, in order to sue
for me in marriage! He has had reparation enough made to him; but
never will he, nor his mighty race, forget the derision and shame I
have made him suffer. They will all betray me--kill me!"

And King Erik commands that all Sture's kindred shall be made
prisoners.

King Erik sits in his royal palace: the sun shines, but not into the
King's heart. Niels Sture enters the chamber with an answer of consent
from the royal bride, and the King shakes him by the hand, making fair
promises--and the following evening Niels Sture is a prisoner in
Upsala Palace.

King Erik's gloomy mind is disturbed; he has no rest; he has no peace,
between fear and distrust. He hurries away to Upsala Palace; he will
make all straight and just again by marrying Niels Sture's sister.
Kneeling, he begs her imprisoned father's consent, and obtains it; but
in the very moment, the spirit of distrust is again upon him, and he
cries in his insanity:

"But you will not forgive me the shame I brought on Niels!"

At the same time, Goran Persson announced that King Erik's brother,
John, had escaped from his prison, and that a revolt was breaking out.
And Erik ran, with a sharp dagger into Niels Sture's prison.

"Art thou there, traitor to thy country!" he shouted, and thrust the
dagger into Shire's arm; and Sture drew it out again, wiped off the
blood, kissed the hilt, and returned the weapon to the King, saying:

"Be lenient with me, Sire; I have not deserved your disfavour."

Erik laughed aloud.

"Ho! ho! do but hear the villain! how he can pray for himself!"

And the King's halberdier stuck his lance through Niels Sture's eye,
and thus gave him his death. Sture's blood cleaves to Upsala
Palace--to King Erik always and everlastingly. No church masses can
absolve his soul from that base crime.

Let us now go to the church.

A little flight of stairs in the side aisle leads us up to a vaulted
chamber, where kings' crowns and sceptres, taken from the coffins of
the dead, are deposited in wooden closets. Here, in the corner, hangs
Niels Sture's blood-covered clothes and knight's hat, on the outside
of which a small silk glove is fastened. It was his betrothed one's
dainty glove--that which he, knight-like, always bore.

O, barbarous era! highly vaunted as you are in song, retreat, like the
storm-cloud, and be poetically beautiful to all who do not see thee in
thy true light.

We descend from the little chamber, from the gold and silver of the
dead, and wander in the church's aisles. The cold marble tombs, with
shields of arms and names, awaken other, milder thoughts.

The walls shine brightly, and with varied hues, in the great chapel
behind the high altar. The fresco paintings present to us the most
eventful circumstances of Gustavus Vasa's life. Here his clay
moulders, with that of his three consorts. Yonder, a work in marble,
by Sargel, solicits our attention: it adorns the burial-chapel of the
De Geers; and here, in the centre aisle, under that flat stone, rests
Linnaeus. In the side chapel, is his monument, erected by _amici_ and
_discipuli_: a sufficient sum was quickly raised for its erection, and
the King, Gustavus the Third, himself brought his royal gift. The
projector of the subscription then explained to him, that the purposed
inscription was, that the monument was erected only by friends and
disciples, and King Gustavus answered: "And am not I also one of
Linnaeus's disciples?"

The monument was raised, and a hall built in the botanical garden,
under splendid trees. There stands his bust; but the remembrance of
himself, his home, his own little garden--where is it most vivid? Lead
us thither.

On yonder side of Fyri's rivulet, where the street forms a declivity,
where red-painted, wooden houses boast their living grass roofs, as
fresh as if they were planted terraces, lies Linnaeus's garden. We
stand within it. How solitary! how overgrown! Tall nettles shoot up
between the old, untrimmed, rank hedges. No water-plants appear more
in that little, dried-up basin; the hedges that were formerly clipped,
put forth fresh leaves without being checked by the gardener's shears.

It was between these hedges that Linnaeus at times saw his own
double--that optical illusion which presents the express image of a
second self--from the hat to the boots.

Where a great man has lived and worked, the place itself becomes, as
it were, a part and parcel of him: the whole, as well as a part, has
mirrored itself in his eye; it has entered into his soul, and become
linked with it and the whole world.

We enter the orangeries: they are now transformed into assembly-rooms;
the blooming winter-garden has disappeared; but the walls yet show a
sort of herbarium. They are hung round with the portraits of learned
Swedes--herbarium from the garden of science and knowledge. Unknown
faces--and, to the stranger, the greatest part are unknown names--meet
us here.

One portrait amongst the many attracts our attention: it looks
singular; it is the half-length figure of an old man in a shirt, lying
in his bed. It is that of the learned theologian, Oedmann, who after
he had been compelled to keep his bed by a fever, found himself so
comfortable in it, that he continued to lie there during the remainder
of his long life, and was not to be induced to get up. Even when the
next house was burning, they were obliged to carry him out in his bed
into the street. Death and cold were his two bugbears. The cold would
kill him, was his opinion; and so, when the students came with their
essays and treatises, the manuscripts were warmed at the stove before
he read them. The windows of his room were never opened, so that there
was a suffocating and impure air in his dwelling. He had a
writing-desk on the bed; books and manuscripts lay in confusion round
about; dishes, plates, and pots stood here or there, as the
convenience of the moment dictated, and his only companion was a deaf
and dumb laughter.

She sat still in a corner by the window, wrapped up in herself, and
staring before her, as if she were a figure that had flown out of the
frame around the dark, mouldy canvas, which had once shown a picture
on the wall.

Here, in the room, in this impure atmosphere, the old man lived
happily, and reached his seventieth year, occupied with the
translation of travels in Africa. This tainted atmosphere, in which he
lay, became, to his conceit, the dromedary's high back, which lifted
him aloft in the burning sun; the long, hanging-down cobwebs were the
palm-trees' waving banners, and the caravan went over rivers to the
wild bushmen. Old Oedmann was with the hunters, chasing the elephants
in the midst of the thick reeds; the agile tiger-cat sprang past, and
the serpents shone like garlands around the boughs of the trees: there
was excitement, there was danger--and yet he lay so comfortably in his
good and beloved bed in Upsala.

One winter's day, it happened that a Dalecarlian peasant mistook the
house, and came into Oedmann's chamber in his snow-covered skin cloak,
and with his beard full of ice. Oedmann shouted to him to go his way,
but the peasant was deaf, and therefore stepped quite close up to the
bed. He was the personification of Winter himself, and Oedmann fell
ill from this visit: it was his only sickness during the many years he
lay here as a polypus, grown fast, and where he was painted, as we see
his portrait in the assembly-room.

From the hall of learning we will go to its burial-place--that is to
say, its open burial-place--the great library. We wander from hall to
hall, up stairs and down stairs. Along the shelves, behind them and
round about, stand books, those petrifactions of the mind, which might
again be vivified by spirit. Here lives a kind-hearted and mild old
man, the librarian, Professor Schr�der. He smiles and nods as he hears
how memory's sprite takes his place here as guide, and tells of and
shows, as we see, Tegner's copy and translation of Ochlenschloeger's
"Hakon Jarl and Palnatoke." We see Vadstene cloister's library, in
thick hog's leather bindings, and think of the fair hands of the nuns
that have borne them, the pious, mild eyes that conjured the spirit
out of the dead letters. Here is the celebrated Codex Argentius, the
translation of the "Four Evangelists."[Q] Gold and silver letters
glisten from the red parchment leaves. We see ancient Icelandic
manuscripts, from de la Gardie's refined French saloon, and Thauberg's
Japanese manuscripts. By merely looking at these books, their bindings
and names, one at last becomes, as it were, quite worm-eaten in
spirit, and longs to be out in the free air--and we are there; by
Upsala's ancient hills. Thither do thou lead us, remembrance's elf,
out of the city, out on the far extended plain, where Denmark's church
stands--the church that was erected from the booty which the Swedes
gained in the war against the Danes. We follow the broad high road: it
leads us close past Upsala's old hills--Odin's, Thor's and Freia's
graves, as they are called.

[Footnote Q: A Gothic translation of the Four Evangelists, and
ascribed to the Moesogothic Archbishop Ulphilas.]

There once stood ancient Upsala, here now are but a few peasants'
farms. The low church, built of granite blocks, dates from a very
remote age; it stands on the remains of the heathen temple. Each of
the hills is a little mountain, yet each was raised by human hands.
Letters an ell long, and whole names, are cut deep in the thin
greensward, which the new sprouting grass gradually fills up. The old
housewife, from the peasant's cot close by the hill, brings the
silver-bound horn, a gift of Charles John XIV., filled with mead. The
wanderer empties the horn to the memory of the olden time, for Sweden,
and for the heart's constant thoughts--young love!

Yes, thy toast is drunk here, and many a beauteous rose has been
remembered here with a heartfelt hurra! and years after, when the same
wanderer again stood here, she, the blooming rose, had been laid in
the earth; the spring roses had strown their leaves over her coffined
clay; the sweet music of her lips sounded but in memory; the smile in
her eyes and around her mouth, was gone like the sunbeams, which then
shone on Upsala's hills. Her name in the greensward is grown over; she
herself is in the earth, and it is closed above her; but the hill
here, closed for a thousand years, is open.

Through the passage which is dug deep into the hills, we come to the
funereal urns which contain the bones of youthful kindred; the dust of
kings, the gods of the earth.

The old housewife, from the peasant's cot, has lighted half a hundred
wax candles and placed them in rows in the otherwise pitchy-dark,
stone-paved passage. It shines so festally in here over the bones of
the olden time's mighty ones, bones that are now charred and burnt to
ashes. And whose were they? Thou world's power and glory, thou world's
posthumous fame--dust, dust like beauty's rose, laid in the dark
earth, where no light shines; thy memorials are but a name, the name
but a sound. Away hence, and up on the hill where the wind blows, the
sun shines, and the eye looks over the green plain, to the sunlit,
dear Upsala, the student's city.

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