FullReads

“My mother was on a visit to a great family in town. My grandmother, I think, had been housekeeper to the count’s mother. The great nobleman and my mother were alone in the room, when the former noticed that an old woman came limping on crutches into the courtyard. Indeed, she was accustomed to come every Sunday, and carry away a gift with her. ‘Ah, there is the poor old lady,’ said the nobleman: ‘walking is a great toil to her;’ and before my mother understood what he meant, he had gone out of the room and run down the stairs, to save the old woman the toilsome walk, by carrying to her the gift she had come to receive.

“Now, that was only a small circumstance, but, like the widow’s two mites in the Scripture, it has a sound that finds an echo in the depths of the heart in human nature; and these are the things the poet should show and point out; especially in these times should he sing of it, for that does good, and pacifies and unites men. But where a bit of mortality, because it has a genealogical tree and a coat of arms, rears up like an Arabian horse, and prances in the street, and says in the room, ‘People out of the street have been here,’ when a commoner has been–that is nobility in decay, and become a mere mask–a mask of the kind that Thespis created; and people are glad when such an one is turned into satire.”

This was the speech of the clergyman’s son. It was certainly rather long, but then the flute was being finished while he made it.

At the castle there was a great company. Many guests came from the neighbourhood and from the capital. Many ladies, some tastefully, and others tastelessly dressed, were there, and the great hall was quite full of people. The clergymen from the neighbourhood stood respectfully congregated in a corner, which made it look almost as if there were to be a burial there. But it was not so, for this was a party of pleasure, only that the pleasure had not yet begun.

A great concert was to be performed, and consequently the little baron had brought in his willow flute; but he could not get a note out of it, nor could his papa, and therefore the flute was worth nothing. There was instrumental music and song, both of the kind that delight the performers most–quite charming!

“You are a performer?” said a cavalier–his father’s son and nothing else–to the tutor. “You play the flute and make it too–that’s genius. That should command, and should have the place of honour!”

“No indeed,” replied the young man, “I only advance with the times, as every one is obliged to do.”

“Oh, you will enchant us with the little instrument, will you not?” And with these words he handed to the clergyman’s son the flute cut from the willow tree by the pool, and announced aloud that the tutor was about to perform a solo on that instrument.

Now, they only wanted to make fun of him, that was easily seen; and therefore the tutor would not play, though indeed he could do so very well; but they crowded round him and importuned him so strongly, that at last he took the flute and put it to his lips.

That was a wonderful flute! A sound, as sustained as that which is emitted by the whistle of a steam engine, and much stronger, echoed far over courtyard, garden, and wood, miles away into the country; and simultaneously with the tone came a rushing wind that roared, “Everything in its right place!” And papa flew as if carried by the wind straight out of the hall and into the shepherd’s cot; and the shepherd flew, not into the hall, for there he could not come–no, but into the room of the servants, among the smart lacqueys who strutted about there in silk stockings; and the proud servants were struck motionless with horror at the thought that such a personage dared to sit down to table with them.

But in the hall the young baroness flew up to the place of honour at the top of the table, where she was worthy to sit; and the young clergyman’s son had a seat next to her; and there the two sat as if they were a newly-married pair. An old count of one of the most ancient families in the country remained untouched in his place of honour; for the flute was just, as men ought to be. The witty cavalier, the son of his father and nothing else, who had been the cause of the flute-playing, flew head-over-heels into the poultry-house–but not alone.

For a whole mile round about the sounds of the flute were heard, and singular events took place. A rich banker’s family, driving along in a coach and four, was blown quite out of the carriage, and could not even find a place on the footboard at the back. Two rich peasants who in our times had grown too high for their corn-fields, were tumbled into the ditch. It was a dangerous flute, that: luckily, it burst at the first note, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back into the owner’s pocket. “Everything in its right place.”

The day afterwards not a word was said about this marvellous event; and thence has come the expression “pocketing the flute.” Everything was in its usual order, only that the two old portraits of the dealer and the goose-girl hung on the wall in the banqueting hall. They had been blown up yonder, and as one of the real connoisseurs said they had been painted by a master’s hand, they remained where they were, and were restored. “Everything in its right place.”

And to that it will come; for hereafter is long–longer than this story.