O. T.
A Danish Romance

by Hans Christian Andersen
Author of the "Improvisatore" and the "Two Baronesses"




CHAPTER I

"Quod felix faustumque sit!"

There is a happiness which no poet has yet properly sung, which no
lady-reader, let her be ever so amiable, has experienced or ever
will experience in this world. This is a condition of happiness
which alone belongs to the male sex, and even then alone to the
elect. It is a moment of life which seizes upon our feelings,
our minds, our whole being. Tears have been shed by the innocent,
sleepless nights been passed, during which the pious mother, the
loving sister, have put up prayers to God for this critical moment
in the life of the son or the brother.

Happy moment, which no woman, let her be ever so good, so
beautiful, or intellectual, can experience--that of becoming a
student, or, to describe it by a more usual term, the passing of
the first examination!

The cadet who becomes an officer, the scholar who becomes an
academical burgher, the apprentice who becomes a journeyman, all