Excerpts from
The Gamekeeper at Aunsbjerg
By Steen Steensen Blicher
As a child I had to stay - or was rather incarcerated - on this estate more frequently and for longer periods than I wished. The owner, Counsellor Steen de Steensen, was in fact my mother“s uncle. He and his wife - Schinkel - had no children; I was named after him, and he was a kindly man. She... Yes, she was really fond of me... she was a "thoroughbred", as they say. And we know that such people are prone to whims that not even the awareness of the "permanent guillotine" is capable of eradicating - she wanted to dominate, no less. "Where is your will, little Steen?" she would often ask me - though only when strangers were present. I was a doll, an automaton; and she had taught me to answer, "In Grandmama“s pocket."
This poor boy“s usual consolation was to tease, in her absence, her favourite dog Manille, which, between you and me, had an extremely peevish and irritable disposition. To my satisfaction, though, it once inadvertently came within range of the tether of an eagle - which was also imprisoned, though to a grassy spot in the garden; whereupon this king of birds murdered the favourite and ate him for lunch. By order of the reigning queen he was court-marshalled, of course, and the sentence - to be shot - was carried out there and then by the gamekeeper Vilhelm.
This same gamekeeper was my favourite; and I was never happier than when allowed to visit him in his room, examine his guns, play with his dogs, and listen to his hunting stories. His name was really Guillaume, which means the same in French as Wilhelm in German, and he was in fact a Frenchman. (I am well aware that I have a reputation for lying; and at this point too someone may perhaps accuse me of fabrication.
Dear readers, do not be vexed because this little story, which can scarcely be regarded as more than a lengthy anecdote, is so fragmentary, mysterious and sorrowful. Is not all earthly knowledge fragmentary? Is not all our wisdom mysterious, and the greater part of our experience... aye, let it be stated here... sorrowful indeed? Many a time in my boyhood I would stand in Vium churchyard in the place where Mette had sat looking at the graves of her husband and child. I sat there when the sun had set behind Lyshoj hill in the northwest and listened to the dirge of the bittern down by Bastrup lake. I too was sad, but my grief contained no bitterness, and still less any doubt or fear. There was something... nay, there was much... that resembled joy, that was indeed joy. An animal does not mourn, except perhaps in human company -
grief is the prerogative of man.
First published in Kornmodn, 1839
Steen Steensen Blicher: The Diary of a Parish Clerk and other Stories, Athlone 1996
Translated by Paula Hostrup-Jessen
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