Ch. 10 - Stockholm - Page 2

retainers burn the
Swedes alive within its walls. Stockholm is, however, the heart of the
kingdom: that the Danes know well; that the Swedes know too, and there
is strife and bloody combating. Blood flows by the executioner's hand,
Denmark's Christian the Second, Sweden's executioner, stands in the
market-place.

Roll, ye runes! see over Brunkaberg sand-ridge, where the Swedish
people conquered the Danish host, there they raise the May-pole: it is
midsummer-eve--Gustavus Vasa makes his entry into Stockholm.

Around the May-pole there grow fruit and kitchen-gardens, houses and
streets; they vanish in flames, they rise again; that gloomy fortress
towards the tower is transformed into a palace, and the city stands
magnificently with towers and draw-bridges. There grows a town by
itself on the sand-ridge, a third springs up on the rock towards the
south; the old walls fall at Gustavus Adolphus's command; the three
towns are one, large and extensive, picturesquely varied with old
stone houses, wooden shops, and grass-roofed huts; the sun shines on
the brass balls of the towers, and a forest of masts stands in that
secure harbour.

Rays of beauty shoot forth into the world from Versailles' painted
divinity; they reach the Mälar's strand into Tessin's[J] palace, where
art and science are invited as guests with the King, Gustavus the
Third, whose effigy cast in bronze is raised on the strand before the
splendid palace--it is in our times. The acacia shades the palace's
high terrace on whose broad balustrades flowers send forth their
perfume from Saxon porcelain; variegated silk curtains hang half-way
down before the large glass windows; the floors are polished smooth as
a mirror, and under the arch yonder, where the roses grow by the wall,
the Endymion of Greece lives eternally in marble. As a guard of honour
here, stand Fogelberg's Odin, and Sergei's Amor and Psyche.

[Footnote J: The architect Tessin.]

We now descend the broad, royal staircase, and before it, where, in

by-gone times, Oluf Skötkonge stretched the iron chains across the
mouth of the Mälar Lake, there is now a splendid bridge with shops
above and the Streamparterre below: there we see the little steamer
'Nocken,'[K] steering its way, filled with passengers from Diurgarden
to the Streamparterre. And what is the Streamparterre? The Neapolitans
would tell us: It is in miniature--quite in miniature--the
Stockholmers' "Villa Reale." The Hamburgers would say: It is in
miniature--quite in miniature--the Stockholmers' "Jungfernstieg."

[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,