the tears streamed down her face. I did not know what either the
_Christian VIII_. or the _Gefion_ were, and it was only now
that the maid explained to me that they were ships. But I understood
that a great misfortune had happened, and soon, too, how people were
blown up with gunpowder, and what a good thing it was that one of our
acquaintances, an active young man who was liked by everyone and always
got on well, had escaped with a whole skin, and had reached Copenhagen
in civilian's dress.


X.

About this time it dawned upon me in a measure what birth and death
were. Birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards
there was one child more in the house. One day, when I was sitting on
the sofa between Grandmamma and Grandpapa at their dining-table in
Klareboderne, having dinner with a fairly large company, the door at the
back of the room just opposite to me opened. My father stood in the
doorway, and, without a good-morning, said: "You have got a little
brother"--and there really was a little one in a cradle when I went
home.

Death I had hitherto been chiefly acquainted with from a large, handsome
painting on Grandfather's wall, the death of the King not having
affected me. The picture represented a garden in which Aunt Rosette sat
on a white-painted bench, while in front of her stood Uncle Edward with
curly hair and a blouse on, holding out a flower to her. But Uncle
Edward was dead, had died when he was a little boy, and as he had been
such a very good boy, everyone was very sorry that they were not going
to see him again. And now they were always talking about death. So and