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 taverns which 'open before the clock
strikes' they were already serving early refections of hot coffee and
schnapps; girls with hair hanging down their backs, after a wild night,
came out of the sailors' houses by Nyhavn, and sleepily began to clean
windows.

It was bitterly cold and raw, and those who had to cross Kongens Nytorv