Tardy Awakening

By Steen Steensen Blicher

"I cannot recall any death that has caused greater sensation than that of my friend of many years, Dr L in R. People stopped one another on the street and rushed from one house to the other asking, "Have you heard? Did you know? What could have been the reason? Could he have done it when delirious?" and so on. He was an extremely amiable man, universally liked and respected, an excellent doctor with a large practice; as it seemed, happily married; the father of six lovely children, of which the two eldest sons were already making their way in the world, the eldest daughter married to a worthy civil servant, the next eldest recently confirmed, and the two youngest ten and twelve years old. Furthermore, he was comfortably off, a hospitable host, and always the life and soul of the party. He had reached the age of forty-eight and never been ill"...

..."I have known her as an eighteen-year-old girl, and as a wife and mother. I have seen her among the dancers and among the wor-shippers, with playing cards in her hands and with a babe at her breast, at her daughter"s wedding and beside the dead body of her husband. But she was always the same - gentle, calm, attentive, and perfectly composed. I have seen her recently -she is now not far short of fifty - but she has hardly changed: she enjoys perfect health, and always displays the same unruffled cheerfulness. To me the darkest days of the year (after the sorrowful event that took place while I was living in R) were the two on which I had to give her the Holy sacrament. Sometimes I tried to arouse her conscience in my sermons, but there was nothing to arouse. If she should happen to see these pages I am sure she would be able to read them without dropping a stitch or making a single mistake in her sewing."...

First published in the journal Northern Lights 1828

Steen Steensen Blicher: The Diary of a Parish Clerk and other Stories,Athlone 1996

Translated by Paula Hostrup-Jessen