New Himmerland Tales

By Johannes V. Jensen

Shortly after New Year, the message came to the district that Kirsten Smith was dead. It made a peculiar impression on people; Kirsten had been completely forgotten for the last decade, and yet it was an odd thought that she could be dead. The papers came to Kirsten´s nephew. She had died at the asylum in Aalborg, and now Christen Sørensen, as the nearest relative, had to decide about her burial.
    It was out of the question that Kirsten should not be brought back and buried in the cemetery where Anders Smith and all of Kirsten´s children rested. That had been Kirsten´s only wish while she still possessed her reason, and it had become something of a tradition in the family. Christen Sørensen got his wagon ready and, together with his hired man, drove off to fetch his aunt. They had to drive thirty-five miles to Aalborg. The weather was clear and crisp on Tuesday when they left the farm, and the agreement was that they should be back the next clay, when the burial was to take place.
    But that evening, there was a terrible storm, a southeaster with blinding snow, which didn´t let up. It was a three-day snow storm which was starting; it brought biting cold, fierce winds, and snow, so that heaven and earth were as one. The weather lifted a bit Wednesday noon, and when they came outside it could be seen that there were already drifts as high is a man. The storm grew bitter and ice-cold; the whole was in a whistling blizzard.
    The clergyman trudged up to the church at two o´clock and found some ten exhausted people from the parish who were huddled together in one corner at the entrance to the church, half blinded by snow and cold. The corpse had not arrived. The clergyman joined the mourners and they talked about the situation, and stood closely grouped at the base of the tower, scarcely able to see one another. The snow swept through the deserted churchyard in swirls high as a house; here and there bits of naked iron crosses protruded through the drifts.
    I don´t believe they´ll ever get through, cried Jørgen Pors.
    No, it´s not possible, yelled the merchant from his wet scarf. There´s neither road nor ditch anymore. It´s impossible.
    The snow whistled about their heads. High up, the wind sounded dully in the openings in the tower and the bell was heard now and then with an almost imperceptible shrill tone when the wind honed its edge; it sounded so plaintive and distressed.
    The clergyman took it all calmly; he was old and . When the parish-clerk came somewhat later, snorting and exhausted from straddling drifts, they entered the vestibule, stood there and waited for an hour and froze. - Jørgen Pors, who had dug the grave, went over and cleared it of snow once more. A man was sent down to Christen Sørensen´s to ask for news. Twilight had already begun to fall, and the few men present stood in the darkening room and looked clear-eyed through the crack in the door where the snow was sifting in, fine and icy cold. The churchyard outside was a furious conflagration of snow and the darkness grew more threatening. The cold made all the men so small.




Johannes V. Jensen: Kirstens Last Journey.
From: Anthology of Danish Literature (Southern Illinois University Press, 1964)

Translated by Lee Marshall