His wife was a few years older and
a good deal more ignorant than himself; and when they set up
housekeeping together, in a little back room, they rejoiced in being
able to nail together a bridal bed out of the scaffolding which had
recently supported a dead nobleman's coffin. The black mourning drapery
which yet clung to the wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence.
Their first child, Hans Christian, grew up amid these mean surroundings,
constantly worried by the street boys, who made a butt of him, and
tortured him in the thousand ingenious ways known to their species. He
had no schooling to speak of; but, for all that, was haunted, like
Joseph, by dreams foreshadowing his future greatness. Guided by this
premonition he started, at the age of fourteen, for Copenhagen, a tall,
ugly, and ungainly lad, but resolved, somehow or other, to conquer fame
and honor. He tried himself as a dancer, singer, actor, and failed
lamentably in all his _debuts_. He could not himself estimate the extent
of his own ignorance, nor could he dream what a figure he was cutting.
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