[Footnote K:  The water-sprite.]

It is a very little semi-circular island, on which the arches of the bridge rest; a garden full of flowers and trees, which we overlook from the high parapet of the bridge.  Ladies and gentlemen promenade there; musicians play, families sit there in groups, and take refreshments in the vaulted halls under the bridge, and look out between the green trees over the open water, to the houses and mansions, and also to the woods and rocks:  we forget that we are in the midst of the city.

It is the bridge here that unites Stockholm with Nordmalen, where the greatest part of the fashionable world live, in two long Berlin-like streets; yet amongst all the great houses we will only visit one, and that is the theatre.

We will go on the stage itself—­it has an historical signification.  Here, by the third side-scene from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there, close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and the motley group of harlequins, polichinellos, wild men, gods and goddesses with unmasked faces, pale and terrified crept together; the dancing ballet-farce had become a real tragedy.

This theatre is Jenny Lind’s childhood’s home.  Here she has sung in the choruses when a little girl; here she first made her appearance in public, and was cheeringly encouraged when a child; here, poor and sorrowful, she has shed tears, when her voice left her, and sent up pious prayers to her Maker.  From hence the world’s nightingale flew out over distant lands, and proclaimed the purity and holiness of art.

How beautiful it is to look out from the window up here, to look over the water and the Streamparterre to that great, magnificent palace, to Ladegaards land, with the large barracks, to Skipholmen and the rocks that rise straight up from the water, with Soedermalm’s gardens, villas, streets, and church cupolas between the green trees:  the ships lie there together, so many and so close, with their waving flags.  The beautiful, that a poet’s eye sees, the world may also see!  Roll, ye runes!

There sketches the whole varied prospect; a rainbow extends its arch like a frame around it.  Only see! it is sunset, the sky becomes cloudy over Soedermalm, the grey sky becomes darker and darker—­a pitch-dark ground—­and on it rests a double rainbow.  The houses are illumined by so strong a sunlight that the walls seem transparent; the linden-trees in the gardens, which have lately put forth their leaves, appear like fresh, young woods; the long, narrow windows in the Gothic buildings on the island shine as if it were a festal illumination, and between the dark firs there falls a lustre from the panes behind them as of a thousand flames, as if the trees were covered with flickering—­Christmas lights; the colours of the rainbow become stronger and stronger, the background darker and darker, and the white sun-lit sea-gulls fly past.