Ved et tilfælde er jeg fornylig blevet opmærksom på en artikel, der stod i tidsskriftet “The Dickensian” i 1966 under overskriften „Andersen, Dickens, and ‘Herr von Müffe’“.[1] Artiklens forfatter er Anne Lohrli, en Dickens-specialist fra New Mexico Highlands University.
Anne Lohrli begynder sin artikel med at henvise til den engelske udgave af min bog om H.C. Andersen og Dickens,[2] som havde været anmeldt i “The Dickensian” i maj 1957, og hvorom hun nu skrev: “Elias Bredsdorff’s detailed study of the friendship between Hans Christian Andersen and Dickens leaves little unsaid concerning the relationship of the two writers. On one minor point of relationship noted by Mr. Bredsdorff, however, this paper gives further details; in addition, it discusses two circumstances which had not come to his attention.” Det første “minor point” drejer sig om Andersens omtale af baggrunden for eventyret „Skarnbassen“, som jeg citerede fra MLE Forts.:
„I et Nummer af “Household words” havde Dickens samlet en Deel arabiske Ordsprog og Talemaader, mellem disse fremhævede han i en Note:
‘When they came to shoe the Pasha’s horses, the beetle stretched out his leg. (Arabic. This is exquisite; we commend it to the attention of Hans Christian Andersen.’) Jeg følte stor Lyst til at give Eventyret, men det kom ikke. Først nu, ni Aar efter, netop paa Aarets næstsidste Dag, under Besøget paa Basnæs, hvor jeg tilfældigt læste Dickens’s Ord, sprang pludseligt frem Eventyret ‘Skarnbassen‘ …«[3].
Anne Lohrli gør opmærksom på, at citatet, som er korrekt anført af Andersen, stammer fra “Household Words” for februar 1852[4]; men hun kan samtidig oplyse, at citatet forekom i en artikelrække, som havde den fælles overskrift “Strings of Proverbs”[5], og at denne artikelrække ikke var skrevet af Dickens, men af en af hans medarbejdere ved “Household Words”, Richard H. Horne – hvilket Andersen naturligvis ikke kunne vide, da denne artikel (som de fleste andre artikler i tidsskriftet) var trykt uden angivelse af forfatternavn.
Anne Lohrli kan samtidig dokumentere, at Richard H. Horne allerede den 20. september 1851 havde fremhævet Andersen som børnebogsforfatter i en (ligeledes anonymt skrevet) artikel i “Household Words”. Mr. Horne, der selv var børnebogsforfatter, havde i det pågældende nummer af “Household Words” en artikel med overskriften “A Witch in the Nursery”, hvorfra følgende citat er hentet:
“In educational books – education of children by means of books of a direct and practical kind – we are supplied to overflowing. More than enough have we of little primers of all the arts and sciences, and geographies, and histories, and the useful knowledges; but, of books well suited to the earliest and best feelings, and the purest moral principles, as indirectly, but no less profoundly, instilled through the heart and the imagination – oh! how few, in comparison with the masses of trash, or of sanguinary and otherwise unwholesome excitement! At the top of this class of books we should place the children’s stories of Hans Christian Andersen …”
Andersen har næppe kendt dette citat, som ville have glædet ham, ikke mindst fordi han ville have troet, at det var skrevet af Dickens, der redigerede “Household Words”.
Anne Lohrli kunne også oplyse om noget andet, som var undgået min opmærksomhed, nemlig at eventyret „Verdens deiligste Rose“, der i Danmark først var trykt i november 1851, og som blev medtaget i det udvalg, der i Charles Beckwith’s oversættelse udkom i England i februar 1853 under fællestitlen “A Poet’s Day Dreams”, og som af Andersen var dediceret til Dickens, uden Andersens vidende allerede havde været trykt på engelsk i “Household Words” den 11. september 1852 under overskriften “The World’s Fairest Rose”, dog uden nogen form for forfatterangivelse. Og det er tydeligt nok en helt anden oversættelse end den, der kom i “A Poet’s Day Dreams” – der er ikke tvivl om, at den anonyme oversættelse i “Household Words” er bedre end Beckwith’s. Om eventyrets forekomst i “Household Words” skriver Anne Lohrli:
“The story, indeed, is a kind of curiosity in Household Words, being the only Andersen item to appear there. The ‘Office Book’ to the periodical credits it to Andersen, but records no payment; nor does it indicate through whose agency the story arrived at the editorial office.”[6]
Intet tyder på, at Andersen på noget tidspunkt under sit ophold hos Dickens i 1857 eller ved sine besøg på “Household Words” kontor i London er blevet gjort opmærksom på, at tidsskriftet fem år tidligere havde bragt et af hans eventyr i engelsk oversættelse.
Langt vigtigere end disse detaljer er imidlertid Anne Lohrlis påvisning af, at Andersens besøg hos Dickens i 1857 inspirerede Wilkie Collins til en litterær karikatur, hvor en udenlandsk digter-gæst ved navn Herr von Müffe har en umiskendelig lighed med Andersen, sådan som Wilkie Collins oplevede ham i England i sommeren 1857.
I min bog om Andersen og Dickens[7] har jeg under omtalen af besøget i 1857 nævnt, at Andersen ved flere lejligheder traf Dickens’s gode ven, forfatteren Wilkie Collins, der havde skrevet det stykke, “The Frozen Deep”, som Andersen så opført ved en forestilling for særligt indbudte personer den 4. juli 1857.[8] Efter forestillingen var de sammen til en fest på “Household Words” kontor i London, og næste dag var Wilkie Collins gæst på Dickens’s landsted, “Gad’s Hill”. Det må formodentlig have været ved den lejlighed, at Andersen uden Wilkie Collins’s vidende pyntede hans bredskyggede hat med en blomsterkrans af bellis, så han til sin store forbavselse vakte munterhed hos den lokale befolkning, da han spadserede afsted med denne hat på hovedet.[9] Ved en senere fest hos Albert Smith traf Andersen påny Wilkie Collins og forærede ham ved denne lejlighed et eksemplar af den lige udkomne engelske udgave af „At være eller ikke være“.[10] Wilkie Collins må have gjort gengæld ved at forære Andersen et eksemplar af sin nyligt udkomne roman i to bind, “The Dead Secret” (1857), for det fremgår af auktionskataloget over Andersens efterladte bøger, at han ejede et eksemplar af denne bog med personlig indskrift fra forfatteren.[11]
I et af sine breve til Dickens efter hjemkomsten fra England skrev Andersen: „Collins lovede mig at jeg skulde faae the frozen Deep, jeg havde nok Lyst til at bringe den paa Scenen i Kjøbenhavn, dersom han ikke har derimod“.[12] I en senere introduktionsskrivelse for Grimur Thomsen mindede Andersen Wilkie Collins om løftet, da han gerne ville oversætte “The Frozen Deep“ og sørge for at få det opført i Danmark.[13] Herpå svarede Wilkie Collins i et brev den 1. juli 1858, at han på grund af en forstuvet ankel desværre var forhindret i at modtage Grimur Thomsen, og om stykket skrev han, at det stadig kun eksisterede i manuskript; han havde ikke villet lade det trykke, da han ikke ville risikere, at det blev opført i England, hvor der efter hans mening ikke fandtes egnede skuespillere eller skuespillerinder til stykkets hovedroller.[14]
I 1863 udkom i London i to bind Wilkie Collins’s “My Miscellanies”, i hvis andet bind der forekommer en række såkaldte “Sketches of Character”, ganske vittige og let skrevne karakteristikker af tilsyneladende fiktive personer. Alle disse skitser havde imidlertid først været trykt (uden forfatterangivelse) i ugebladet “All the Year Round”, som Dickens redigerede.
Den fjerde af disse “Sketches of Character” havde titlen “The Bachelor Bedroom” og stod oprindelig trykt i “All the Year Round” den 6. august 1859. Det er denne artikel, jeg igennem Anne Lohrlis essay er blevet opmærksom på, og som jeg derefter har haft lejlighed til at gennemlæse både i “All the Year Round” og i “My Miscellanies”.
I denne humoristiske skitse skildrer Wilkie Collins indledningsvis begrebet „den ugifte gæsts værelse“ som et begreb, der kendes af alle, som enten selv ejer et landsted eller har boet som gæst et sådant sted. Wilkie Collins skildrer så først tre sådanne „faste typer“, Mr. Bigg, Mr. Jollins og Mr. Smart, som hver især har deres komiske sider. Som en fjerde – af en helt anden art – tilføjer han derefter en udlænding, Herr von Müffe, der betegnes som “a distinguished foreigner” og senere som “the distinguished German poet, whose far-famed Songs Without Sense have aided so immeasurably in thickening the lyric obscurities of his country’s Harp”. (Læs „Billedbog uden Billeder“ for “Songs Without Sense”.)
Herr von Müffe skildres som en gæst hos “Sir John” (Charles Dickens) i “Coolcup House” (“Gad’s Hill Place”), hvor det er lykkedes ham, “in the most amiable manner imaginable, to upset all the established arrangements of Coolcup House – inside the Bachelor Bedroom, as well as outside it – from the moment he entered its doors, to the moment when he left them behind him on his auspicious return to his native country”.
Vi erfarer, at Herr von Müffe efter at være ankommet til London har sendt sin introduktionsskrivelse til Sir John, som derpå prompte har inviteret ham til at komme og bo på Coolcup House.
Herr von Müffes ankomst skildres således:
“The eminent poet arrived barely in time to dress for dinner; and made his first appeareance in our circle while we were waiting in the drawing-room for the welcome signal of the bell. He waddled in among us softly and suddenly, in the form of a very short, puffy, florid, roundabout old gentleman, with flowing grey hair and a pair of huge circular spectacles”.
Denne beskrivelse passer slet ikke på Andersen, så Wilkie Collins har tydeligt nok helt bevidst ændret Andersens udseende, så den ydre lighed ikke skulle være alt for slående.
De følgende linier passer næppe heller på Andersen:
“The extreme shabbiness and dinginess of his costume was so singularly set off by the quantity of foreign orders of merit which he wore all over the upper part of it, that a sarcastic literary gentleman among the guests defined him to me, in a whisper, as a compound of ‘decorations and dirt’.”
Men herefter er der ikke tvivl om, at Wilkie Collins med sin skildring af Herr von Müffe har haft Andersen i tankerne.
I sine memoirer beskriver Dickens’s søn Henry (den senere Sir Henry Dickens), hvad der skete, da Dickens den 12. juni 1857 skulle tage Miss Burdett-Coutts tilbords: “At dinner time, on the same day, he (Andersen) greatly embarrassed my father, who was offering his arm to a lady to take her into dinner, by suddenly seizing his hand, putting it into his own bosom and leading him triumphantly into the dining-room”.[15] Netop således opførte Herr von Müffe sig også:
“Sir John advanced to greet his distinguished guest, with friendly right hand extended as usual. Herr von Müffe, without saying a word, took the hand carefully in both his own, by transferring it forthwith to that vacant space between his shirt and his waistcoat which extended over the region of the heart. Sir John turned scarlet, and tried vainly to extricate his hand from the poet’s too affectionate bosom. The dinner-bell rang, but Herr von Müffe still held fast. The principal lady in the company half rose, and looked perplexedly at her host — Sir John made another and a desperate effort to escape — failed again — and was marched into the dining-room, in full view of his servants and his guests, with his hand sentimentally imprisoned in his foreign visitor’s waistcoat”.
Så følger der en beskrivelse af Herr von Müffes optræden ved bordet, en optræden som vidnede om, at “he was decidedly the reverse of a sentimentalist in the matter of eating and drinking”. Her skildres Herr von Müffe som en ædedolk, der uden nogen form for vinkultur tyller alle slags drikkevarer i sig én pêle-mêle:
“Neither dish nor bottle passed the poet, without paying heavy tribute, all through the repast. He mixed his liquors, especially, with the most sovereign contempt for alle sanitary considerations; drinking champagne and beer, the sweetest Constantia and the tawniest port, all together, with every appearance of the extremest relish”.
Andersens mangel på vinkultur kan meget vel have chokeret Wilkie Collins og andre englændere, men skildringen er sikkert vildt overdrevet.
I et brev til William Jerdan skrev Charles Dickens efter Andersens afrejse fra England i sommeren 1857 om sin danske gæst: “His unintelligible vocabulary was marvellous. In French or Italian, he was Peter the Wild Boy; in English, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. My eldest boy swears that the ear of man cannot recognise his German, and his translatress declares to Bentley that he can’t speak Danish!”[16]
Dette svarer ganske til Wilkie Collins’s beskrivelse af Herr von Müffes sproglige evner:
“Conversation with Herr von Müffe, both at dinner, and all through the evening, was found to be next to impossible, in consequence of his knowing all languages (his own included) equally incorrectly. His German was pronounced to be a dialect never heard before; his French was inscrutable; his English was a philological riddle which all of us guessed at and none of us found out”.
Der er mange vidnesbyrd om Andersens emotionelle natur og om, hvor let han havde til tårer — også under besøget hos Dickens. Wilkie Collins’s beskrivelse fortsætter da også:
“He talked, in spite of these difficulties, incessantly; and, seeing that he shed tears several times in the course of the evening, the ladies assumed that his topics were mostly of a pathetic nature, while the coarser men compared notes with each other, and all agreed that the distinguished guest was drunk”.
Det var en fast skik i Coolcup House, at alle de mandlige gæster om aftenen samledes i “the Bachelor Bedroom”, hvor drikkevarerne blev bragt ind på “the footman’s tray”. Såsnart Herr von Müffe blev klar over denne skik, blev han pludselig meget gæstfri og “unreasonably fond of his gay young English friends”.
Og nu følger så hos Wilkie Collins en beretning, der ganske svarer til, hvad Dickens fortalte William Jerdan om Andersen i sit brev af 21. juli 1857: “One day he came to Tavistock House, apparently suffering from corns that had ripened in two hours. It turned out that a cab driver had brought him from the City, by way of the new unfinished thoroughfare through Clerkenwell. Satisfied that the cabman was bent on robbery and murder, he had put his watch and money into his boots — together with a Bradshaw, a pocket-book, a pair of scissors, a pen-knife, a book or two, a few letters of introduction, and some other miscellaneous property”.[17] Denne historie har Wilkie Collins naturligvis hørt Dickens fortælle, og han indføjer derfor en tilsvarende historie i sin beretning om det natlige samvær i Herr von Müffes gæsteværelse i Coolcup House:
“While we were settling ourselves in our places round the bed, a member of the company kicked over one of the poet’s capacious Wellington boots. To the astonishment of every one, there instantly ensued a tinkling of coin, and some sovereigns and shillings rolled surprisingly out on the floor from the innermost recesses of the boot. On receiving his money back, Herr von Müffe informed us, without the slightest appearance of embarrassment, that he had not had time, before dinner, to take more than his watch, rings, and decorations, out of his boots. Seeing us all stare at this incomprehensible explanation, our distinguished friend kindly endeavoured to enlighten us further by a long personal statement in his own polyglot language. From what we could understand of this narrative (which was not much), we gathered that Herr von Müffe had started at noon, that day, as a total stranger in our metropolis, to reach the London-bridge station in a cab; and that the driver had taken him, as usual, across Waterloo-bridge. On going through the Borough, the narrow streets, miserable houses, and squalid population, had struck the lively imagination of Herr von Müffe, and had started in his mind a horrible suspicion that the cabman was driving him into a low neighbourhood, with the object of murdering a helpless foreign fare, in perfect security, for the sake of the valuables he carried on his person. Chilled to the very marrow of his bones by this idea, the poet raised the ends of his trousers stealthily in the cab, slipped his watch, rings, orders, and money into the legs of his Wellington boots, arrived at the station quaking with mortal terror, and screamed ‘Help!’ at the top of his voice, when the railway policeman opened the cab door. The immediate starting of the train had left him no time to alter the singular travelling arrangements he had made in the Borough; and he arrived at Coolcup House, the only individual who had ever yet entered that mansion with his property in his boots”.
Historien gør dog ikke det indtryk på de forsamlede gæster, som den under normale omstændigheder ville have gjort; årsagen hertil er den kvælende dårlige luft i gæsteværelset, hvilket skyldes Herr von Müffes modvilje mod åbne vinduer:
“Although it was then the sultry middle of summer, and we were all smoking, Herr von Müffe insisted on keeping the windows of the Bachelor Bedroom fast closed, because it was one of his peculiarities to distrust the cooling effect of the night air. We were more than half inclined to go, under these circumstances; and we were altogether determined to remove, when the tray came in, and when we found our German friend madly mixing his liquors again by pouring gin and sherry together into the same tumbler. We warned him, with a shuddering prevision of consequences, that he was mistaking gin for water; and he blandly assured us in return that he was doing nothing of the kind. “It is good for My – – – ” said Herr von Müffe, supplying his ignorance of the word stomach by laying his chubby forefinger on the organ in question, with a sentimental smile. “It is bad for Our – – – ” retorted the wag of the party, imitating the poet’s action, and turning quickly to the door. We all followed him – and, for the first time in the annals of Coolcup House, the Bachelor Bedroom was emptied of company before midnight”.
Andersens dagbog for 12. juni 1857, hvilket var morgenen efter, at han var ankommet til “Gad’s Hill Place”, indledes med disse ord: „Der kom Ingen at hente mit Tøi til Morgen, Klokken 8 stod jeg da op, fik fat paa Pigen, Barbeer er her ikke at finde men den Udvei at jeg om Morgenen kan kjøre med den ældste Søn til en Station henved 3 Miil borte og der findes Een . . ,“[18] Sir Henry Dickens (der var otte år, da Andersen besøgte hans forældre) har i sine erindringer givet en oplysning, der supplerer Andersens beretning; han skriver: “On the first morning after his arrival… he sent for my eldest brother to shave him, to the intense indignation of the boys; and with the result that he was afterwards driven every morning to the barber’s at Rochester to get the necessary shave”.[19]
Denne oplevelse, som åbenbart har gjort et stort indtryk på familien Dickens, går igen i Wilkie Collins’s beretning om Herr von Müffe: “Early the next morning, one of Sir John’s younger sons burst into my room in a state of violent exitement.
“I say, what’s to be done with Müffe?” inquired the young gentleman, with wildly staring eyes.
“Open his windows, and fetch the doctor”, I answered, inspired by the recollection of the past night.
“Doctor!” cried the boy; “the doctor won’t do – it’s the barber”.
“Barber?” I repeated.
“He’s been asking me to shave him!” roared my young friend, with vehement comic indignation. “He rang his bell, and asked for ‘the Son of the House’ — and they made me go; and there he was, grinning in the big arm-chair, with his mangy little shaving-brush in his hand, and a towel over his shoulder. ‘Good morning, my dear. Can you shave My – – -’ says he, and taps his quivering old double chin with his infernal shaving-brush. Curse his impudence! What’s to be done with him?”
I arranged to explain to Herr von Müffe, at the first convenient opportunity, that it was not the custom in England, whatever it might be in Germany, for “the Son of the House” to shave his father’s guests; and undertook, at the same time, to direct the poet to the residence of the village barber. When the German guest joined us at breakfast, his unshaven chin, and the external result of his mixed potations and his seclusion from fresh air, by no means tended to improve his personal appearance. In plain words, he looked the picture of dyspeptic wretchedness.
”I am afraid, sir, you are hardly so well this morning as we could all wish?” said Sir John, kindly.
Herr von Müffe looked at his host affectionately, surveyed the company all round the table, smiled faintly, laid the chubby forefinger once more on the organ whose name he did not know, and answered with the most enchanting innocence and simplicity:
“I am so sick!””
I skildringen af Herr von Müffe er der for den komiske virknings skyld megen bevidst overdrivelse; men der er tilstrækkelig mange genkendelige episoder til, at i hvert fald hele familien Dickens og deres omgangskreds har været ganske klar over, hvem der havde inspireret Wilkie Collins til beskrivelsen af Herr von Müffe. Og i slutningsafsnittet har Wilkie Collins nok temmelig præcist gengivet det hovedindtryk, som familien Dickens og deres nære venner havde af Andersen i sommeren 1857:
“There was no harm – upon my word, there was no harm in Herr von Müffe. On the contrary, there was a great deal of good-nature and genuine simplicity in his composition. But he was a man naturally destitute of all power of adapting himself to new persons and new circumstances; and he became amiably insupportable, in consequence, to everybody in the house, throughout the whole term of his visit. He could not join one of us in any country diversions. He hung about the house and garden in a weak, pottering, aimless manner, always turning up at the wrong moment, and always attaching himself to the wrong person. He was dexterous in a perfectly childish way at cutting out little figures of shepherds and shepherdesses in paper;[20] and he was perpetually presenting these frail tributes of admiration to the ladies, who always tore them up and threw them away in secret the moment his back was turned. When he was not occupied with his paper figures, he was out in the garden, gathering countless little nosegays,[21] and sentimentally presenting them to everybody; not to the ladies only, but to lusty agricultural gentlemen as well, who accepted them with blank amazement; and to schoolboys, home for the holidays, who took them, bursting with internal laughter at the ‘molly-coddle’ gentleman from foreign parts. As for poor Sir John, he suffered more than any of us; for Herr von Müffe was always trying to kiss him. In short, with the best intentions in the world, this unhappy foreign bachelor wearied out the patience of everybody in the house;[22] and, to our shame be it said, we celebrated his departure, when he left us at last, by a festival-meeting in the Bachelor Bedroom, in honour of the welcome absence of Herr von Müffe”.
Og så til slut: en anelse dårlig samvittighed hos Wilkie Collins over, at han og hans venner betragtede den fremmede gæst med en sådan intolerance. Samvittighedskvalerne er dog ikke alvorligere, end at forfatteren håber, hans skildring har moret læserne:
“I cannot say in what spirit my fellow-revellers have reflected on our behaviour since that time; but I know, for my part, that I now look back at my personal share in our proceedings with rather an uneasy conscience. I am afraid we were all of us a little hard on Herr von Müffe; and I hereby desire to offer him my own individual tribute of tardy atonement, by leaving him to figure as the last and crowning type of the Bachelor species presented in these pages. If he has produced anything approaching to a pleasing effect on the reader’s mind, that effect shall not be weakened by the appearance of any more single men, native or foreign. Let the door of the Bachelor Bedroom close our final glimpse of the German guest; and permit the present chronicler to lay down the pen when it has traced penitently, for the last time, the name of Herr von Müffe”.
Det var en guds lykke, at Andersen aldrig så denne engelske arrogant-humoristiske beskrivelse, der yderligere bekræfter, at set fra Dickens og hans venners synspunkt var Andersens besøg i England i 1857 en total fiasko.[23]
“For this act he had two motives, both contemptible. First, he tended to confuse Andersen with the Germans, the only foreigners he disliked. Second, he was pleasing Dickens, who had an indecent desire to see his guest ridiculed in print. As usual, Wilkie acted as Dickens’ agent, expressing the things Dickens felt diffident about writing with his own pen.
One reason the two were irritated at Andersen was that he got in the way of their amateur theatricals. Douglas Jerrold had died on June 8, several weeks before, and left his family without income. Among the other benefits Dickens planned for them was a revival of The Frozen Deep. The house at Rochester bustled with preparations all the time Andersen was there.”
