this we all know, that sin came into the world by the law.
dirty's ten commandments have brought it to us.
when she comes, she now always has luther's terrible little catechism[1] and balslev's equally objectionable work with her. her parents evidently look upon it as most natural that she should also cultivate her soul at our house.
her copies of these two classics were not published yesterday. they are probably heirlooms in dirty's family. they are covered in thick brown paper, which again is protected by a heavy layer of dirt against any touch of clean fingers. they can be smelt at a distance.
but my little boy is no snob.
when dirty has finished her studies—she always reads out aloud—he asks her permission to turn over the pages of the works in which she finds those strange words. he stares respectfully at the letters which he cannot read. and then he asks questions.
he asks dirty, he asks the servant, he asks us. before anyone suspects it, he is at home in the whole field of theology.
he knows that god is in heaven, where all good people go to him, while the wicked are put down below in hell. that god created the world in six days and said that we must not do anything on sundays. that god can do everything and knows everything and sees everything.
he often prays, creeps upstairs as high as he can go, so as to be nearer heaven, and shouts as loud as he can. the other day i found him at the top of the folding-steps:
"dear god! you must please give us fine weather tomorrow, for we are going to the wood."
he says du to everybody except god and the grocer.
he never compromises.
the servant is laying the table; we have guests coming and we call her attention to a little hole in the cloth:
"i must lay it so that no one can see it," she says.
"god will see it."
"he is not coming this evening," says the blasphemous hussy.
"yes, he is everywhere," answers my little boy, severely.
he looks after me in particular:
"you mustn't say 'gad,' father. dirty's teacher says that people who say 'gad' go to hell."
"i shan't say it again," i reply, humbly.
one sunday morning, he finds me writing and upbraids me seriously.
"my little boy," i say, distressfully, "i must work every day. if i do nothing on sunday, i do nothing on monday either. if i do nothing on monday, i am idle on tuesday too. and so on."
he ponders; and i continue, with the courage of despair:
"you must have noticed that dirty wants a new catechism? the one she has is dirty and old."
he agrees to this.
"she will never have one, you see," i say, emphatically. "her father rests so tremendously on sunday that he is hardly able to do anything on the other days. he never earns enough to buy a new catechism."
i have won—this engagement. but the war is continued without cessation of hostilities.
the mother of my little boy and i are sitting in the twilight by his bedside and softly talking about this.
"what are we to do?" she asks.
"we can do nothing?" i reply. "dirty is right: god is everywhere. we can't keep him out. and if we could, for a time: what then? a day would come perhaps when our little boy was ill or sad and the priests would come to him with their god as a new and untried miraculous remedy and bewilder his mind and his senses. our little boy too will have to go through luther and balslev and assens and confirmation and all the rest of it. then this will become a commonplace to him; and one day he will form his own views, as we have done."
but, when he comes and asks how big god is, whether he is bigger than the round tower, how far it is to heaven, why the weather was not fine on the day when he prayed so hard for it: then we fly from the face of the lord and hide like adam and eve in the garden of eden.
and we leave dirty to explain.
