The sun now set:  the atmosphere glowed like fire.  It was still in the woods, so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn, and said:  “I cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night is coming—­the dark, dark night.  Yet perhaps I may be able once more to see the round red sun before he entirely disappears.  I will climb up yonder rock.”

And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of trees—­climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing and the toads were croaking—­and he gained the summit before the sun had quite gone down.  How magnificent was the sight from this height!  The sea—­the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves against the coast—­was stretched out before him.  And yonder, where sea and sky meet, stood the sun, like a large shining altar, all melted together in the most glowing colors.  And the wood and the sea sang a song of rejoicing, and his heart sang with the rest:  all nature was a vast holy church, in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the pillars, flowers and grass the velvet carpeting, and heaven itself the large cupola.  The red colors above faded away as the sun vanished, but a million stars were lighted, a million lamps shone; and the King’s Son spread out his arms towards heaven, and wood, and sea; when at the same moment, coming by a path to the right, appeared, in his wooden shoes and jacket, the poor boy who had been confirmed with him.  He had followed his own path, and had reached the spot just as soon as the son of the king had done.  They ran towards each other, and stood together hand in hand in the vast church of nature and of poetry, while over them sounded the invisible holy bell:  blessed spirits floated around them, and lifted up their voices in a rejoicing hallelujah!

THE OLD HOUSE

In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house—­it was almost three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great beam on which the date of the year was carved:  together with tulips and hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and over every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam.  The one story stood forward a great way over the other; and directly under the eaves was a leaden spout with a dragon’s head; the rain-water should have run out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly, for there was a hole in the spout.

All the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large window panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would have nothing to do with the old house:  they certainly thought, “How long is that old decayed thing to stand here as a spectacle in the street?  And then the projecting windows stand so far out, that no one can see from our windows what happens in that direction!  The steps are as broad as those of a palace, and as high as to a church tower.  The iron railings look just like the door to an old family vault, and then they have brass tops—­that’s so stupid!”