Sala

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Title:     Sala
Author: Hans Christian Andersen [More Titles by Andersen]

Sweden's great King, Germany's preserver, Gustavus Adolphus, founded Sala. The little wood, close by, still preserves legends of the heroic King's youthful love--of his meeting here with Ebba Brahe.

Sala's silver mines are the largest, the deepest, and oldest in Sweden: they reach to the depth of one hundred and seventy fathoms, consequently they are almost as deep as the Baltic. This of itself is enough to awaken an interest for a little town; but what is its appearance? "Sala," says the guide-book, "lies in a valley, in a flat, and not very pleasant district." And so truly it is: it was not very attractive approaching it our way, and the high road led directly into the town, which is without any distinctive character. It consists of a long street with what we may term a nucleus and a few fibres. The nucleus is the market-place, and the fibres are the few lanes diverging from it. The long street--that is to say, long in a little town--is quite without passengers; no one comes out from the doors, no one is to be seen at the windows.

It was therefore with pleased surprise that I at length descried a human being: it was at an ironmonger's, where there hung a paper of pins, a handkerchief and two tea-pots in the window. There I saw a solitary shop-boy, standing quite still, but leaning over the counter and looking out of the open door. He certainly wrote in his journal, if he had one, in the evening: "To-day a traveller drove through the town; who he was, God knows, for I don't!"--yes, that was what the shop-boy's face said, and an honest face it was.

In the inn at which I arrived, there was the same grave-like stillness as in the street. The gate was certainly closed, but all the inner doors were wide open; the farm-yard cock stood uplifted in the middle of the traveller's room and crowed, in order to show that there was somebody at home. The house, however, was quite picturesque: it had an open balcony, from which one might look out upon the yard, for it would have been far too lively had it been facing the street. There hung the old sign and creaked in the wind, as if to show that it at least was alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass in the street had got the mastery over the pavement. The sun shone brightly, but shone as into the bachelor's solitary room, and on the old maid's balsams in the flower-pots. It was as still as a Scotch Sunday--and yet it was a Tuesday. One was disposed for Young's "Night Thoughts."

I looked out from the balcony into the neighbouring yard: there was not a soul to be seen, but children had been playing there. There was a little garden made of dry sticks: they were stuck down in the soft soil and had been watered; a broken pan, which had certainly served by way of watering-pot, lay there still. The sticks signified roses and geraniums.

It had been a delightful garden--alas, yes! We great, grown-up men--we play just so: we make ourselves a garden with what we call love's roses and friendship's geraniums; we water them with our tears and with our heart's blood; and yet they are, and remain, dry sticks without root. It was a gloomy thought; I felt it, and in order to get the dry sticks in my thoughts to blossom, I went out. I wandered in the fibres and in the long threads--that is to say, in the small lanes--and in the great street; and here was more life than I dared to expect. I met a herd of cattle returning or going--which I know not--for they were without a herdsman. The shop-boy still stood behind the counter, leaned over it and greeted me; the stranger took his hat off again--that was my day's employment in Sala.

Pardon me, thou silent town, which Gustavus Adolphus built, where his young heart felt the first emotions of love, and where the silver lies in the deep shafts--that is to say, outside the town, "in a flat, and not very pleasant district."

I knew no one in the town; I had no one to be my guide, so I accompanied the cows, and came to the churchyard. The cows went past, but I stepped over the stile, and stood amongst the graves, where the grass grew high, and almost all the tombstones lay with worn-out inscriptions. On a few only the date of the year was legible. "Anno"--yes, what then? And who rested here? Everything on the stone was erased--blotted out like the earthly life of those mortals that here were earth in earth. What life's dream have ye dead played here in silent Sala?

The setting sun shone over the graves; not a leaf moved on the trees; all was still--still as death--in the city of the silver-mines, of which this traveller's reminiscence is but a frame around the shop-boy who leaned over the counter.

[The end]
Hans Christian Andersen's essay: Sala

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