Babette's Feast and Other Stories

  Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

  * * *

  BABETTE’S FEAST AND OTHER STORIES

  Contents

  The Diver

  Babette’s Feast

  Tempests

  The Immortal Story

  The Ring

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  BABETTE’S FEAST AND OTHER STORIES

  Karen Blixen was born in Rungsted, Denmark, in 1885. After studying art at Copenhagen, Paris and Rome, she married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. Together they managed a coffee plantation in Kenya until they divorced in 1925. She continued on the farm until a collapse in the coffee market forced her back to Rungsted in 1931.

  Although she had written occasional contributions to Danish periodicals since 1905 (under the nom de plume of Osceola), her real debut took place in 1934 with the publication of Seven Gothic Tales, written in English under the pen name, Isak Dinesen. Out of Africa (1937) is an autobiographical account of the years she spent in Kenya. All of her subsequent books were published in both English and Danish, including Winter’s Tales (1942) and The Angelic Avengers (1936). Among her other collections of stories are Last Tales (1957), Shadows on the Grass (1960) and posthumously Ehrengard (1963). In the 1950s she was mentioned several times as a candidate to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

  Baroness Blixen died in Rungsted in 1962. In 1991 her house was opened as The Karen Blixen Museum.

  THE DIVER

  * * *

  Mira Jama told this story:

  In Shiraz lived a young student of theology by the name of Saufe who was highly gifted and pure of heart. As he read and re-read the Koran he became so absorbed in the thought of the angels that his soul dwelt with them more than with his mother or his brothers, his teachers or fellow-students or any other people of Shiraz.

  He repeated to himself the words of the Holy Book: “… by the angels, who tear forth the souls of men with violence, and by those who draw forth the souls of others with gentleness, by those who glide swimmingly through the air with the commands of God, by those who precede and usher the righteous into Paradise, and by those who subordinately govern the affairs of this world …”

  “The throne of God,” he thought, “will needs be placed so sky-high that the eye of man cannot reach it, and the mind of man reels before it. But the radiant angels move between God’s azure halls and our dark houses and schoolrooms. It should be possible to us to see them and communicate with them.

  “Birds,” he reflected, “must be, of all creatures, most like angels. Says not the Scripture: ‘Whatever moveth both in heaven and on earth worshippeth God, and the angels also’—and surely the birds move both in heaven and on earth. Says it not further, of the angels: ‘They are not elated with pride so as to disdain their service, they sing, and perform that which they are commanded’—and surely the birds do the same. If we endeavor to imitate the birds in all this, we shall become more like the angels than we are now.

  “But in addition to these things, birds have wings, as have the angels. It would be good if men could make wings for themselves, to lift them into high regions, where dwells a clear and eternal light. A bird, if she strains the capacity of her wings to the utmost, may meet or pass an angel upon one of the wild paths of the ether. Perhaps the wing of the swallow has brushed an angel’s foot, or the gaze of the eagle, at the moment when her strength was almost exhausted, has met the calm eyes of one of God’s messengers.

  “I shall,” he decided, “employ my time and my learning in the task of constructing such wings for my fellow-men.”

  So he made up his mind that he would leave Shiraz to study the ways of the winged creatures.

  Till now he had, by teaching rich men’s sons and by copying out ancient manuscripts, supported his mother and his small brothers, and they complained that they would become poor without him. But he argued that, some time, his achievement would compensate them manifold for the privations of the present. His teachers, who had foreseen a fine career for him, came to see him and expostulated with him that, since the world had gone on for so long without men communicating with angels, it must be meant to do so, and might do so in the future as well.

  The young Softa respectfully contradicted them.

  “Until this day,” he said, “nobody has seen the trekking-birds take their way toward such warmer spheres as do not exist, or the rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home. Also,” he cried out, carried away by his own course of thought, “how much better would not the world of man go, if he could consult with angels and from them learn to understand the pattern of the universe, which they read with ease because they see it from above!”

  So strong was his faith in his undertaking that in the end his teachers gave up opposing him, and reflected that the fame of their pupil might, in time to come, make them themselves famous with him.

  The young Softa now for a whole year stayed with the birds. He made his bed in the long grass of the plain, wherein the quail chirps; he climbed the old trees, in which the ring-dove and the thrush build; found for himself a seat in the foliage and sat so still there that he did not disturb them at all. He wandered in high mountains and, just below the snow-line, neighbored with a pair of eagles, watching them come and go.

  He returned to Shiraz with much insight and knowledge gathered, and set himself to work upon his wings.

  In the Koran he read: “Praise be unto God, who maketh the angels, furnished with two, or three, or four pairs of wings,” and resolved to make for himself three pairs, one for his shoulders, one for his waist and one for his feet. During his wanderings he had collected many hundred flight-feathers of eagles, swans and buzzards; he shut himself up with these and worked with such zeal that for a long time he did not see or speak to anyone. But he sang as he worked, and the passers-by stopped and listened, and said: “This young Softa praises God and performs that which is commanded.”

  But when he had finished his first pair of wings, tried them on and felt their uplifting power, he could not keep his triumph to himself, but spoke of it to his friends.

  At first the great people of Shiraz, the divines and high officials smiled at the rumor of his feat. But as the rumors spread, and were asserted by many young people, they grew alarmed.

  “If indeed,” they said to one another, “this flying boy meets and communicates with angels, the people of Shiraz, as is their wont when anything unusual happens, will go mad with wonder and joy. And who knows what new and revolutionary things the angels may not tell him? For after all,” they remarked, “there may be angels in heaven.”

  They pondered the matter, and the oldest amongst them, a minister to the King whose name was Mirzah Aghai, said: “This young man is dangerous, in as much as he has great dreams. But he is harmless, and will be easy to handle, in as much as he has neglected the study of our real world, in which dreams are tested. We will, in one single lesson, both prove and disprove to him the existence of angels. Or are there no young women in Shiraz?”

  The next day he sent for one of the King’s dancers, whose name was Thusmu. He explained to her as much of the case as he thought it good for her to know and promised to reward her if she obeyed him. But if she failed, another young dancing-girl, her friend, would be promoted to her place within the royal dancing-troup, at the festival of gathering roses for making attar.

  In this way it came to pass that one night, when the Softa had gone up on the roof of his house
to look at the stars and calculate how fast he might travel from one of them to the other, he heard his name softly called behind him, and as he turned round caught sight of a slim radiant shape in a robe of gold and silver, who stood up erect, her feet close together, on the edge of the roof.

  The young man had his mind filled with the idea of angels; he did not doubt the identity of his visitor, and was not even much surprised, but only overwhelmed with joy. He sent one glance to the sky, to see if the flight of the angel had not left a shining wake therein, and the while the people below pulled down the ladder by which the dancer had ascended his roof. Then he fell down on his knees before her.

  She bent her head kindly to him, and looked at him with dark, thick-fringed eyes. “You have carried me in your heart a long time, my servant Saufe,” she whispered. “I have come now to inspect that small lodging of mine. How long I shall stay with you in your house depends upon your humility and upon your readiness to carry out my will.”

  She then sat down cross-legged on the roof, while he still remained on his knees, and they talked together.

  “We angels,” she said, “do not really need wings to move between heaven and earth, but our own limbs suffice. If you and I become real friends it will be the same with you, and you may destroy the wings on which you are working.”

  All trembling with ecstasy he asked her how such flight could possibly be performed against all laws of science. She laughed at him, with a laughter like a little clear bell.

  “You men,” she said, “love laws and argument, and have great faith in the words that come out through your beards. But I am going to convince you that we have a mouth for sweeter debates, and a sweeter mouth for debates. I am going to teach you how angels and men arrive at perfect understanding without argument, in the heavenly manner.” And this she did.

  For a month the Softa’s happiness was so great that his heart gave way beneath it. He forgot all about his work, as time after time he gave himself up to the celestial understanding. He said to Thusmu: “I see now how right was the angel Eblis, who said to God: ‘I am more excellent than Adam. Thou hast created him of clay only, but thou hast created me of fire.’ ” And again he quoted the Scripture to her and sighed: “ ‘Whoever is an ememy to the angels is an enemy to God.’ ”

  He kept the angel in his house, for she had told him that the sight of her loveliness would blind the uninitiated people of Shiraz. Only in the night did she go with him to the house-top, and together they looked at the new moon.

  Now it happened that the dancer became very fond of the theologian, for he had a lovely face, and his unexpended vigor made him a great lover. She began to believe him capable of anything. Also she had gathered from her talk with the old minister that he held the boy and his wings in fear, as perilous to himself, his colleagues and the state, and she reflected that she would like to see the old minister, his colleagues and the state perish. Her tenderness for her young friend made her heart almost as soft as his.

  When the moon grew full and all the town lay bathed in her light, the two sat close together on the roof. He let his hands run over her and said: “Since I met you, my hands have acquired a life of their own. I realize that God, when He gave men hands, showed them as great a loving-kindness as if He had given them wings.” And he lifted up his hands and looked at them.

  “Blaspheme not,” said she and sighed a little. “It is not I but you who are an angel, and indeed your hands have wonderful strength and life in them. Let me feel so once more, and then show me, tomorrow, the grand things which you have made with them.”

  To please her he brought her, the next day, all veiled, to his workshop. Then he saw that rats had eaten his eagles’ flight-feathers and that the frame of his wings was broken and scattered about. He looked at them and remembered the time when he had worked upon them. But the dancer wept.

  “I did not know that this was what he meant to do,” she cried, “and is not Mirzah Aghai a bad man!”

  Astounded the Softa asked her what she meant, and in her sorrow and indignation she told him all.

  “And oh, my love,” she said, “I cannot fly, although they tell me that when I dance I am of an extraordinary lightness. Be not angry with me, but remember that Mirzah Aghai and his friends are great people, against whom a poor girl can do nothing. And they are rich, and own lovely things. And you cannot expect a dancing-girl to be an angel.”

  At that he fell upon his face and did not speak a word. Thusmu sat down beside him and her tears dropped in his hair as she wound it round her fingers.

  “You are such a wonderful boy,” she said. “With you everything is great and sweet and truly heavenly, and I love you. So do not worry, dear.”

  He lifted his head, looked at her and said: “God has appointed none but angels to preside over hell-fire.”

  “There is nobody,” said she, “who recites from the Holy Book as beautifully as you.”

  Again he looked at her. “And if,” he said, “thou didst behold when the angels cause the unbelievers to die. They strike their faces and say unto them: ‘Taste ye pain of burning, this shall ye suffer for what your hands have done.’ ”

  After a while she said: “Perhaps you can still repair the wings and they may be as good as new.”

  “I cannot repair them,” he said, “and now that your work is done you must go, since it will be dangerous to you to stay with me. For Mirzah Aghai and his friends are great men. And you are to dance at the festival of gathering roses for making attar.”

  “Do you forget Thusmu?” said she.

  “No,” said he.

  “Will you come and see me dance?” she asked.

  “Yes, if I can,” he answered.

  “I shall always,” she said gravely, as she got up, “hope that you will come. For without hope one cannot dance.”

  And with that she went away sadly.

  Saufe now could not stay in his house; he left the door of his workshop open and wandered about in the town. But he could not stay in the town, so went away to the woods and the plains. But he could not bear the sight or song of the birds and soon returned to the streets. Here at times he stopped in his wanderings in front of a bird-seller’s shop and for a long while watched the birds in their cages.

  When his friends talked to him he did not recognize them. But when boys in the streets laughed at him and cried: “Behold the Softa who believed Thusmu to be an angel,” he stood still, looked at them and said: “I believe so still. It is not my faith in the dancer that I have lost, but my faith in the angels. Today I cannot remember how, when I was young, I imagined the angels to look. I feel that they will be terrible to behold. Whoever is an enemy to the angels is an enemy to God, and whoever is an enemy to God has no hope left. I have no hope, and without hope you cannot fly. This is what makes me restless.”

  In this way the unfortunate Softa roamed about for a year. I myself, when I was a small boy, have met him in the streets, wrapped in his shabby black cloak and in a darker cloak of everlasting loneliness.

  At the end of the year he went away, and was no more seen in Shiraz.

  “This,” said Mira Jama, “is the first part of my story.”

  But it befell, many years later, when as a youth I first began to tell tales to delight the world and make it wiser, that I traveled to the sandy seashores, to the villages of the pearl-fishers, in order to hear the adventures of these men, and to make them mine.

  For many things happen to those who dive to the bottom of the sea. Pearls in themselves are things of mystery and adventure; if you follow the career of a single pearl it will give you material for a hundred tales. And pearls are like poets’ tales: disease turned into loveliness, at the same time transparent and opaque, secrets of the depths brought to light to please young women, who will recognize in them the deeper secrets of their own bosoms.

  Later in life I have recounted to Kings, with much success, the stories which were first told me by these meek and simple fishermen.

 
; Now within their narratives a name came back so often that I grew curious, and begged them to tell me more about the person who wore it. Then they informed me that the man had become famous amongst them because of his audacity and of his exceptional and inexplicable luck. In fact, the name, Elnazred, which they had given him, in their dialect meant “the successful” or “the happy and content” person. He would dive down into greater depths and stay down there longer than any other fisherman, and he never failed to bring up such oysters as contained the finest pearls. It was believed in the pearl-fishers’ villages that he had got, in the deep water, a friend—maybe some fair young mermaid or maybe again some demon of the sea—to guide him. While the other fishermen were exploited by their trading companies and would remain poor all their time, the happy person had made a neat fortune for himself, had purchased a house and a garden inland, brought his mother to live there, and married off his brothers. But he still kept for his own use a small hut on the beach. In spite of his demoniacal reputation he was, it seemed, on dry land and in daily life, a peaceful man.

  I am a poet, and something in these reports brought back to me tales of long ago. I resolved to look up this successful person and to make him tell me about himself. First, I sought him in vain in his pleasant house and garden; then one night I walked along the beach to his hut.

  The moon was full in the sky, the long gray waves came in one by one, and everything around me seemed to agree to keep a secret. I looked at it all, and felt that I was going to hear, and to compose, a beautiful story.

  The man I sought was not in his hut, but was sitting on the sand, gazing at the sea and from time to time throwing a pebble into it. The moon shone upon him, and I saw that he was a pretty, fat man, and that his tranquil countenance did indeed express harmony and happiness.

  I saluted him with reverence, told him my name and explained that I was out for a walk in the clear, warm night. He returned my greeting courteously and benevolently and informed me that I was already known to him by repute as a youth keen to perfect himself in the art of story-telling. He then invited me to sit down on the sand beside him. He talked for a while of the moon and the sea. After a pause he remarked that it was a long time since he had heard a tale told. Would I, as we were sitting so pleasantly together in the clear, warm night, tell him a story?