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There was once a girl in Karup Inn whose name was Karen. She
did the serving all by herself because the innkeeper’s wife was always looking for her keys. Many came to Karup Inn—both
locals who sought companionship on autumn evenngs, sipping coffee punch in the inn’s pub with no distinct purpose, and
travelers and transients who came tramping in—blue with cold and windblown, to get some warmth that would them keep
going until the next inn.
But Karen could manage everything very well, charmingly going about her work in silence and
never seemed to be in a hurry.
She was small and slight, fairly young, serious and quiet, so that travelling merchants
could not expect to have any fun out of her. But decent folk who came into the inn with serious purpose and who valued the
prompt service of scalding hot coffee, held Karen in high regard. And when she threaded her way among the guests with her
tray heavy with mugs in an unusually quick pace, they made way for her, and the chatter stopped for a moment; they all watched
her, as she was so beautiful.
Karen’s eyes were large and gray, which seemed as if they saw something far an
deep into the distance, and the eyebrows were arched as if in wonderment. Thus, strangers thought that she did not correctly
understand what they ordered. But she understood well and never made a mistake. It was just that there was something strange
about her, as if she was looking for something, or listening, or waiting, or dreaming.
The wind came from the west
over low plains. It carried the long, heavy waves over to the western ocean, salty and wet with foam and then cast itself
over the coast. But the towering cliffs were dry and filled with sand and weeds, so that when the westwind came to Karup Inn,
it was so broad that it could hardly open the doors to the stables.
But the wind filled the big room from the kitchen
door that stood ajar. Finally there came such a gust of wind that the doors at the other end of the stable also burst open,
and now the triumphant westwind swung the lantern that hung from the ceiling, took off the cap of the stable boy and carried
it out into the dark, blew the blanket over the horses’ heads, blew off a white hen from its perch and into the water
trough. The hen set up a frightful cackling, the stable boy cursed, and the horses squealed, and the smoke in the kitchen
were choked off, and the horses turned jittery and beat sparks on the stones, even the ducks, which were closely huddled near
the feeding bins so that they would be the first to get at the spilled grain, took to screeching, and the wind brushed past
with a hellish alarm. At this moment two men came out of the inn’s main room, set their backs against the doors and
pushed them back together, while the sparks from their pipes got into their beards.
After this, the wind cast itself
down in the heather field, darted deep into the ditches and took a strong grip of the postal wagon, which it met half a mile
from the inn. “. The wind has always been in a devilish rush to come to Karup Inn,” grumbled Anders, the local
postman, and gave the sweating horses a little smack.
It was the nth time that the postrider had let the window go
down to shout something or other up to him. First there was a friendly invitation for him to drink coffee punch at the inn;
but afterwards the firiendliness was less warm, and the window went down with a bang, and there were curt comments both over
the horse and the driver, which Anders couldn’t did not want to hear.
Meanwhile, the wind blew slowly down to
the ground and sighed strangely for a long time among the heather. It was full moon; but the sky was heavily overcast, so
there lay just a whitish haze over the night. Behind Karup Inn lay a dry dark marsh with black dry brush and a deep treacherous
crevice. Between the marsh patches grew a strip of grass that seemed to be a path, but there was no path, because it ended
at the edge of a turf hole that was bigger than the others and deeper too.
In the strip of grass lay the fox quite
flat and waiting, and the hare hopped on light feet over the heather. It was easy for the fox to reckon that the hare would
not scamper long into the evening. It carefully raised its pointed snout and took a sniff at the passing wind to find a good
place where it could watch where the hare will stop its scuttling and lay down, thinking with a self-satisfied air about how
foxes have always been smarter and the hares always more foolhardy.
Inside the inn, it was unusually full of activity,
because a couple of travelling merchants ordered fried hare. The innkeeper was at an auction in Thisted and the innkeeper’s
wife was never used to working at anything else than the kitchen. But it had become so incovenient because the solicitor wanted
to get hold of the innkeeper. Since the innkeeper was not at home, the wife had to receive a long message and a very important
letter, which completely confused her.
By the fireplace stood a strange man clad in a raincoat, waiting for a bottle
of mineral water; two fish buyers had added cognac three times to the coffee; the innkeeper’s helper stood with an empty
lantern and waited for a light, and a tall withered farmer followed Karen uneasily with his eyes, because he still had a change
of 63 øre from the one kroner (crown) that he paid.
But Karen went to and fro without haste and without getting confused.
One could hardly believe that she could manage everything right. The large eyes and the wondering eyebrows seemed excitingly
expectant; and she held her small shapely head calm and erect—so as not to be confused in everything that she had to
think about. Her blue knitted wool dress wa a bit tight for her, so that the lining at the throat scuffed a little and made
a little fold on the skin at the nape below the hair. “These serving girls have such white skins,” said one of
the fish buyers; they were young and talked about Karen in a familiar way.
Over there at the window was a man who looked
up at the clock and said, “The mail comes early this evening.” There was a rumbling over the cobbled street outside;
the door to the stables got unfastened, and the wind rushed in again through all the doorways and put out the smoke out of
the ovens.
As Karen sneaked out to the kitchen, the inn’s front door opened. The postrider came in and greeted
everyone a nice evening.
He was a tall, handsome man with dark eyes, black curly beard and a small curly head. The
long, rich cape of the splendid red Danish royal uniform was decorated with a broad collar of leather creased down to the
shoulders.
The modest light from the paraffin lamps that hang over the main table seemed to cast loving rays over the
red color that stood starkly against all the grays and blacks in the room. And the tall figure with the curly hair, the broad
collar and the long scarlet folds, walked through the low, smoke-filled inn’s pub, till one wondered at such good looks
and magnificence.
Karen came hurrying in from the kitchen with her tray, she bowed her head, so that one could not
see her face, while she hurried from guest to guest.
She placed the fried hare right in front of the two fish buyers,
then she opened a bottle of mineral water for each of the two travelling merchants who sat in the inn’s main lounge.
Next she gave the worried farmer a tall candlestick, and just before she went on her way again, she stuck 63 øre in the hands
of the stranger standing by the oven.
The innkeeper’s wife was desperate, she had no idea how she found her keys;
but she had misplaced the solicitor’s letter, and now the inn is in a most hectic situation; nobody had got what they
had ordered, the two travelling merchants rang constantly with the table clock, the fish buyers were laughing hysterically
at the fried hare that lay with its leg spread wide on the platter before them; but the anxious farmer plucked at the innkeeper
wife’s shoulder with his candlestick—he was trembling for his change of 63 øre. And through all these hopeless
confusion, Karen had inexplicably disappeared.
Anders the local postman sat on the driver’s seat, the innkeeper’s
helper stood ready to open the doors, the two travellers inside the wagon became impatient, and the horses too— obviously
they had nothing to be glad about, and the wind rushed and shrieked through the stalls.
At last came the postrider,
for whom they had been waiting. He had his cape on his arm, then he walked over to the wagon and made a little apology for
making them wait. The lantern’s light fell on his face and he looked like he felt quite hot, and this he also admitted
with a smile, then he put on his cape and took his seat beside the driver.
The doors opened and the mail wagons rumbled
away. Anders the postman let the horses go slowly, for now there was no need to hurry. Now and then he glanced at the postrider
at his side; who sat smiling to himself and letting the wind rush through his hair.
Anders the postman smiled also
in his way; he began to understand. The wind followed the wagons until the road turned, cast itself again over the plain,
shrieking and screeching so long and dreadfully in the dry heather fields. The fox lay in his place, everything was satisfactory,
certain that the hare must be right there.
Inside the inn, Karen had finally reappeared and the confusion lessened.
The worried farmer got rid of his candle and received his change of 63 øre, and the travelling itinerant merchants had thrown
themselves heartily to eating the fried hare.
The innkeeper’s wife whined a bit but she never scolded Karen,
there was nobody in this world who could scold Karen.
Quietly and without haste, she walked again to and fro, and the
soothing calm that always followed after her spread over the warm, half dark room. But the two fish buyers who had drank both
one and two cognacs with their coffee were quite infatuated with her. She had a little color in her cheeks and her face held
a tiny half-hidden gleam of a smile, and when she raised her eyes once, they went through the whole body. But when she felt
their eyes were following her, she went inside the lounge where the itinerant merchants sat eating and she went to polish
some teaspoons at the sideboard.
“Did you notice the postrider?” asked one of the merchants.
“No, I had only a glimpse of him because he went out
so soon after he arrived,” answer the other with his mouth full.
“Devilish handsome man! I have indeed been dancing at
his wedding.”
”So, is he married, then?”
“Of, yes! His wife lives in Lemvig; they already have
two children. She was the daughter of an innkeeper in Ulstrup; and I had just arrived there in the evening of the day they
were married. It was a happy night—that you can believe!”
Karen
dropped the teaspoons and walked out. She did not hear what the two in the living room shouted at her; she walked out to the
garden to her room, locked the door and, half senseless, she began to tidy up her bedsheets. Her eyes stood staring in the
dark; she held her head in her hands, then her breast. She moaned, she did not understand—she did not understand. But
when she heard the innkeeper’s wife crying pathetically, ”Karen! Please, Karen!” she ran out through the
garden around the back of the house—and out to the moorland.
In the half light, the little strips of grass looped
between the marshy ground, as if there was a path; but there was no path there, nobody must ever think there was a path, because
it ended right at the edge of the big crevice.
The hare jumped up; it had heard a splash. It scampered away as if it
had gone mad, in long hops, tucked in with its legs under and its back bent, then stretched out at once, unbelievably long—like
a flying accordion—hopped out of its shelter over the marsh.
The fox raised its sharp snout and stared incredulously
at the hare. The fox had not heard any splash because, according to the rules of the game, it had crouched deep in its ditch.
And because the fox was not aware that it had made an error, it could not understand the hare's sudden flight. For a long
time, the fox stood with its head up, its body slouched and the great bushy tail gleamed in the heather, and it began to think
things over—if the hares had become smarter or the foxes had become dimwitted.
The westwind had come and gone.
Then it was the northwind, until it was the eastwind, and after that, it was the summer wind, until at last it came again
over the sea as the westwind, and cast itself onto the cliff and sighed so long and hauntingly in the dry heather fields.
But in the Karup Inn, they missed two wondering gray eyes and a blue knitted wool dress that was a little bit tight. And the
innkeeper’s wife whined at every little thing; she could not understand it—nobody could understand it, except
Anders the postman—and another one.
But when the old folks want to give the young people a serious warning, they
always begin with, “There was once at Karup Inn a girl whose name was Karen… “
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