FullReads

Jakob looked at his wife, she looked into the book. He did not expectsense from a child, and was soon playing with the boy and tumbling himabout.

In the midst of a game, Jens set his hands against Jakob’s chest. "Youhave not got your star on," he said.

After a moment Emilie went out of the room. She thought: "I have takenthis upon me to meet my husband’s wish, but it seems that I must bearthe burden of it alone. "

Jens took possession of the mansion in Bredgade, and brought it to submission, neither by might nor by power, but in the quality of that fascinating and irresistible personage, perhaps the most fascinating and irresistible in the whole world: the dreamer whose dreams come true. The old house fell a little in love with him. Such is ever the lot of dreamers, when dealing with people at all susceptible to the magic of dreams. The most renowned amongst them, Rachel’s son, as all the world knows, suffered hardships and was even cast in prison on that account.

Except for his size Jens had no resemblance to the classic portraitsof Cupid, all the same it was evident that, unknowingly, the shipownerand his wife had taken unto them an amoretto. He carried wings intothe house, and was in league with the sweet and merciless powers ofnature, and his relation to each individual member of the householdbecame a kind of airy love affair. It was upon the strength of thissame magnetism, Jakob had picked out the boy as heir to the firm attheir first meeting, and that Emilie was afraid to be alone with him. The old magnate and the servants of the house no more escaped theirdestiny—as was once the case with Potiphar, captain to the guard ofEgypt; before they knew where they were, they had committed all theyhad into his hands.

One effect of this particular spell was this: that people were made tosee themselves with the eyes of the dreamer, and were impelled to liveup to an ideal, and that for this their higher existence, they becamedependent upon him. During the time that Jens lived in the house, itwas much changed, and dissimilar from the other houses of the town, itbecame a Mount Olympus, the abode of divinities.

The child took the same lordly, laughing pride in the old ship-owner,who ruled the waters of the universe, as in Jakob’s staunch,protective kindness and Emilie’s silk-clad gracefulness. The oldhousekeeper, who had before often grumbled at her lot in life, for thewhile was transformed into an all-powerful, benevolent guardian of human welfare, a Ceres in cap and apron. And for the same length of time, the coachman, a monumental figure, elevated sky-high above the crowd, and combining within his own person the vigour of the two bay horses, majestically trotted down Bredgade on eight shod and clattering hoofs. It was only after Jens’s bed hour, when, immovable and silent, his cheek buried in the pillow, he was exploring new areas of dream, that the house resumed the aspect of a rational, solid Copenhagen mansion.

Jens was himself ignorant of his power. As his new family did not scold him or find fault with him, it never occurred to him that they were at all looking at him. He gave no preference to any particular member of the household, they were all within his scheme of things and must there fit into their place. The relation of the one to the other was the object of his keen, subtle observation. One phenomenon in his daily life never ceased to entertain and please him: that Jakob, so big, broad and fat, should be attentive and submissive to his slight wife. In the world that he had known till now, bulk was of supreme moment.