The whole scene affected the curate like the revelation of a dream. He was a town-bred child, and only knew winter by the smoke, fog, and mud of the city. It was only a couple of days since he had been wandering about the Copenhagen streets with their inch deep mud; deafened by the rattle of cabs, the bells of the trams, and the hoarse cries of the mussel sellers—now he was sitting wrapped in the Provst's bearskin coat, gliding through fairy land, where the trees and bushes rose up from the fields like branches of white coral tinged with blue, and the sledge rushed on noiselessly with a swaying motion as if borne on long soft wings.
All at once he became violently agitated. The image of his poor dead mother rose before him, and he wished most earnestly that she could have seen him at that moment. He knew that it had been her dearest wish to live to see that day; and he felt more strongly than ever before, how entirely it was owing to her that he had found courage to follow the call to the ministry of the Holy Word.
And how grateful he was to her for it!
It was no good now for his father, the Etatsraad, to shake his head at his "wild ideas." The die was cast! His gay brother, a lieutenant in the guards, shortly to be "Kammeryunker," might for the future save himself the trouble of turning down a side street, for fear of meeting him in a hat which did not come up to the latest fashion;
