Ch. 25 - The Swine

That capital fellow, Charles Dickens, has told us about the swine, and
since then it puts us into a good humour whenever we hear even the
grunt of one. Saint Anthony has taken them under his patronage, and if
we think of the "prodigal son," we are at once in the midst of the
sty, and it was just before such a one that our carriage stopped in
Sweden. By the high road, closely adjoining his house, the peasant had
his sty, and that such a one as there is probably scarcely its like in
the world. It was an old state-carriage, the seats were taken out of
it, the wheels taken off, and thus it stood, without further ceremony,
on its own bottom, and four swine were shut in there. If these were
the first that had been in it one could not determine; but that it was
once a state-carriage everything about it bore witness, even to the
strip of morocco that hung from the roof inside, all bore witness of
better days. It is true, every word of it.

"Uff," said the occupiers within, and the carriage creaked and
complained--it was a sorrowful end it had come to.

"The beautiful is past!" so it sighed; so it said, or it might have
said so.

We returned here in the autumn. The carriage, or rather the body of
the carriage, stood in its old place, but the swine were gone: they
were lords in the forests; rain and drizzle reigned there; the wind
tore the leaves off all the trees, and allowed them neither rest nor
quiet: the birds of passage were gone.

"The beautiful is past!" said the carriage, and the same sigh passed
through the whole of nature, and from the human heart it sounded: "The
beautiful is past! with the delightful green forest, with the warm
sunshine, and the song of birds--past! past!" So it said, and so it
creaked in the trunks of the tall trees, and there was heard a sigh,
so inwardly deep, a sigh direct from the heart of the wild rose-bush,
and he who sat there was the rose-king. Do you know him! he is of a
pure breed, the finest red-green breed: he is easily known. Go to the
wild rose hedges, and in autumn, when all the flowers are gone, and
the red hips alone remain, one often sees amongst these a large
red-green moss-flower: that is the rose-king. A little green leaf
grows out of his head--that is his feather: he is the only male person
of his kind on the rose-bush, and he it was who sighed.

"Past! past! the beautiful is past! The roses are gone; the leaves of
the trees fall off!--it is wet here, and it is cold and raw!--The
birds that sang here are now silent; the swine live on acorns; the
swine are lords in the forest!"

They were cold nights, they were gloomy days; but the raven sat on the
bough and croaked nevertheless: