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Jens had come to the Vandamms in October, when trees were yellow andred in the parks. Then the tinge of frost in the air drove people indoors, and they began to think of Christmas; Jens seemed to know everything about the Christmas tree, the goose with roast apples, and the solemnly joyful church-going on Christmas morning. But it would happen that he mixed up these festivals with others of the season, and described how they were soon all to mask and mum, as children do at Shrovetide. It was as if, from the centre of his happy, playful world, its sundry components showed up less clearly than when seen from afar.

And as the days drew in and the snow fell in the streets of Copenhagen, a change came upon the child. He was not low in spirits, but singularly collected and compact, as if he were shifting the centre of gravitation of his being, and folding his wings. He would stand for long whiles by the window, so sunk in thought that he did not always hear when they called him,—filled with a knowledge which his surroundings could not share.

For within these first months of winter, it became evident that he wasnot at all a person to be permanently set at ease by what the worldcalls fortune. The essence of his nature was longing. The warm roomswith silk curtains, the sweets, his toys and new clothes, the kindnessand concern of his Papa and Mamma, were all of the greatest momentbecause they went to prove the veracity of his visions, they wereinfinitely valuable as embodiments of his dreams. But within themselves they hardly meant anything to him, and they had no power to hold him. He was neither a worldling nor a struggler. He was a poet.

Emilie tried to make him tell her what he had in his mind, but got noway with him. Then one day he confided to her of his own accord.

"Do you know, Mamma," he said, "in my house the stair was so dark andfull of holes that you had to grope your way up it, and the best thingwas really to walk on one’s hands and knees. There was a window brokenby the wind, and below it, on the landing, there lay a drift of snowas high as me. "

"But that is not your house, Jens," said Emilie, "this is your house. "

The child looked round the room. "Yes," he said, "this is my fine house. But I have got another house, that is quite dark and dirty. You know it, you have been there too. When the washing was hung up, one had to twine in and out across that big loft, else the huge, wet, cold sheets would catch one, just as if they were alive. "

"You are never going back to that house," said she.

The child gave her a great, grave glance, and after a moment said: "No. "

But he was going back. She could, by her horror and disgust of the house, keep him from talking of it, as the children there by their indifference had silenced him about his happy home. But when she found him mute and pensive by the window, or at his toys, she knew that his mind had returned to it. And now and again, when they had played together, and their intimacy seemed particularly secure, he opened on the theme.

"In the same street as my house," he said one evening as they were sitting together on the sofa before the fire-place, "there was an old lodging-house, where the people who had got plenty of money could sleep in beds, and the others must stand up and sleep, with a rope under their arms. One night it caught fire, and burned all down. Then, those who were in bed hardly got their trousers on, but ho!—those who stood up and slept were the lucky boys, they got out quick. There was a man who made a song about it, you know. "