Auntie Toothache

auntie toothache.
where did we get this story? do you want to know we got it from the barrel,the one with the old paper in it?
many a good and rare book has ended up at the grosses or at the delicatessen,not as reading material but as a basic necessity.
they need it to make paper twists to hold starch and coffee beans and as wrapping paper for salt hair, ring butter and cheese. handwritten materials can also be used. things often end up in the bin that shouldn't be in the bin.
I know a grocery boy, the son of a delicate scent owner he rose up from working in the cellar to the main shop, a boy who has read widely.
paper twist reading both printed and handwritten he has an interesting collection that includes many important documents from the waste paper baskets of various busy and absent minded civil servants.
several confidential letters from one girlfriend to another scandalous reports that were not meant to go any further were not to be discussed with anyone else.
he is a regular rescue society for a not insignificant segment of literature that covers many TOPICS. he has access to the shops of both his parents and employer.
and there he has rescued many a book or pages of a book that would be worth reading twice. he showed me his collection of printed and handwritten materials from the bin, the richest items coming from the delicatessen.
there were several pages from a lengthy diary. the handwriting was particularly beautiful and clear, it attracted my attention at once.
the student wrote that he said the student who lived right across the street and died a month ago he suffered from a terrible toothache as you can see.
it's quite amusing to read. there's only a small amount left of what he wrote,it used to be a whole book and even a little more than that.
my parents gave the student's landlady half a pound of green soap for it. here's what i've managed to salvage.I borrowed it. I read it,and now I'm going to tell you what it said. the title was aunty toothache.
one auntie gave me sweets when I was little. my teeth survived. they didn't get damaged. now i've grown up and become a student. she still spoils me with sweets and tells me I'm a poet.
I have something of the poet in me,but not enough often when I walk along the city streets I feel as if I were walking through a great library.
the buildings are bookshelves, each floor a shelf with books over there stands a book about everyday life,there a good old fashioned comedy and scholarly works in every field.
over here,risky literature and entertaining stories i can fantasize and philosophize about all those books. there is something of the poet in me,but not enough.
many people have demonstrated that they possess just.
as much as i do,and yet they don't wear a sign or a collar that reads poet. both they and I have been granted a gift from god a blessing large enough for ourselves, but much too small to be handed out piecemeal to others.
it appears like a RAY of sunshine filling soul and mind. it appears like the scent of a flower. like a Melody that sounds familiar,yet you can't remember where it's from.
on a recent evening,I was sitting in my room and I felt like reading but didn't have a book not even a page. suddenly, a leaf, fresh and green fell from the linden tree. the breeze brought it into my room.
i examined the branching veins a little bug was moving over them as if it wanted to make a thorough study of the leaf.
that made me think about human wisdom. we too crawl around on the leaf, it's the only thing we know, and then we immediately start lecturing about the whole big tree, the roots, the trunk and the crown.
the big tree god the world and mortality yet of the whole, we know only a little leaf.as I SAT there,I had a visit from aunt t milly. I showed her the leaf with the bug,told her my thoughts and her eyes lit up.
you're a poet,she said,perhaps the greatest we have if it turns out to be true,I will go to my grave contented. ever since brewer rasmussen's funeral,you've always astonished me with your tremendous imagination.
that's what auntie milly said, and then she kissed me. who was aunt time mili and who was brewer rasmus in?
two my mother's aunt was known to US children as auntie. we had no other name for her,she gave US jam and sugar even though they could cause great harm to our teeth.
but she had a weakness for sweet children. she said it was cruel to deny them the tiny amount of sweets that they loved so much.and that's why we loved auntie so dearly.
she had been an old maid for as long as i could remember always old her age,never changed.
for years she had suffered terribly from toothaches and was always talking about them,and that's why her friend brewer rasmussen used his wit and named her auntie toothache.
he hadn't done any brewing in the past few years,but lived on his interest payments. he often came to see auntie,and he was older than she was.he had no teeth at all just a few black stumps.
as a child,he had eaten too much sugar. he told US children,and that's what happens.auntie had apparently never eaten sugar in her childhood. she had the loveliest white teeth.
she also used them sparingly,not even sleeping with them at night. brewer rasmussen said.we children knew that was a wicked thing to say,but auntie told US he didn't mean anything by it.
one day.at lunch,she told us about a horrid dream she had had in the night that one of her teeth had fallen out.it means she said that I'm going to lose a true friend,was it a FALSE tooth? said the brewer with a chuckle.
if so,then it just means you're going to lose a FALSE friend.what an uncivil old man ,you are said，auntie more angry than i've ever seen her either before or since。
later,she said that her old friend was just teasing her. he was the noblest person on earth and one day when he died, he would become one of god's little angels in heaven.
I gave a good deal of thought to this transformation and to whether I would be able to recognize him in his new form. when auntie was young and he was young too,he had proposed to her.
she thought about it for too long and didn't make a move,made no move for too long a time and remained an old maid but always his faithful friend.and then brewer asmussen died.
he was transported to his grave in the most expensive hearse and with a great procession with people in uniform wearing medals.
dressed in mourning, auntie stood at the window with all of US children except for little brother. the stork had brought him only the week before.
then,the hearse and procession passed the street was deserted and auntie prepared to leave,but i didn't want to leave.I was waiting for the angel brewer rasmus in.
he had now become a little winged child of god and would have to put in an appearance. auntie I said,don't you think he'll come now or maybe when the stork brings us another little brother? he'll bring US the angel rasmus in.
auntie was quite overwhelmed by my imagination and said that child is going to be a great poet.she repeated this during all my school years,yes,even after my confirmation and well into my university days.
she was and is the most devoted friend to me when I have both poet aches and toothaches,and I have a tax of both.
just write down all your thoughts,she said,and put them away in your desk drawer. that's what Jean Paul did,he became a great poet.
though I'm not especially fond of him,he doesn't excite me. you have to be exciting and you will be exciting.
the night following that speech,I lay in bed filled with longing and agony with a craving and desire to become the great poet that auntie saw and sensed in me.I lay there suffering from poet ache.
but there is a worse torment,a toothache. it mashed and gnashed me,I became a cringing worm.with an herb compress and a spanish fly plaster.I know what that feels like said,auntie.
there was a sorrowful smile on her lips and her teeth gleamed so white.but I have to start a new section in the story of my aunt.
and myself.three,I moved in to new lodgings and had been living there for a month. I told my aunt all about it.
I'm living with a quiet family. they don't give me a thought,even if I ring the bell three times,and by the way,it's a house full of tumult with the noise and DIN of wind and storms and people.
I live right above the front gate every cart that drives in or out makes the pictures on my wall jump the gate slams and shakes the whole house like an earthquake.
if I'm lying in bed,the jolts shudder through all my limbs,but that's supposed to be fortifying to the nerves if the wind is blowing and it's always blowing in this country.
the long window latches outside swing back and forth,striking the wall. the bell on the neighbor's gate and the courtyard rings with every gust of wind.
the lodgers come trickling home from late in the evening until well into the night. the lodger right above me who gives trombone lessons during the day is the last one home.
and never goes to bed until he has taken a little midnight stroll with heavy footsteps and iron shod boots.
there are no double WINDOWS,but there is a broken pane over which the landlady has glued some paper. the wind still blows in through the crack.sounding like a buzzing butt fly,that's my bedtime music.
when I finally fall asleep,the crowing rooster soon wakes me up.the rooster and hens in the chicken coop kept by the cellar tenant announced that morning is about to arrive.
the little ponies have no stable. they're tethered in the store room under the stairs,and they kick at the door and panelling as they try to move about.
the day dawns,the porter who sleeps in the garret with his family thunders down the stairs. his wooden clogs clatter the gate slams the house shakes.
and when that's over the lodger above me starts his exercises lifting in each hand,a heavy iron ball which he can never hold on to.
they drop over and over again while at the same time the youths of the house who are off to school come rushing out shrieking.
I go over to the window and open it to get some fresh air. it's a relief when i can get it,provided the woman in the back building isn't washing gloves in stain remover.which is how she makes a living.
and by the way,it's a Nice place,and I live with a quiet family.that's the summary I gave auntie about my lodgings. I told it in a much livelier fashion since spoken words have a fresher sound to them than written words.
you're a poet cried auntie,just write down what you told me,and you're as good as dickens. yes,now you're much more interesting to me,you paint when you speak.
you describe your house so i can see it. it makes me shiver keep writing,put something alive into it. people charming people.preferably,unhappy ones.I actually did write down my decision.
of the house,the way it stands there with all its DIN and defects,but i only put myself in it without any plot.that came later.
four one evening that winter after the theatres had closed,a terrible storm blew in a snow storm that made it almost impossible to move.
auntie had gone to the theatre and I was there to escort her home,but I was having trouble enough walking on my own,let alone accompanying anyone else.the handsome cabs had all been taken.
auntie lived a good distance away in the city while my own lodgings were close to the theatre if that had not been the case we would have had to seek shelter in the sentry box for the time being.
we staggered forward through the deep snow with whirling snowflakes rushing around US. I lifted her,I held her,I shoved her a long.only twice did we fall,but we fell softly.
we reached my gate where we shook off the snow on the stairs. we shook our selves again,yet still had enough snow to cover the floor in the entryway.
we took off our overcoats and undercoats and every garment that could be removed,the landlady loaned auntie dry stockings and a dressing gown.
she would need them,said the landlady and added quite truthfully that it would be impossible for my aunt to return home that night.
she invited auntie to make herself comfortable in the parlor. there she would make up the sofa in front of the connecting door to my room that was always kept locked.and that's what happened.
the fire burned in my stove. the tea urn was set on the table,the little room grew quite pleasant,although not as pleasant as auntie's parlour in the winter time with its thick curtains over the doors.
thick curtains at the WINDOWS and double carpets with three layers of thick paper underneath.sitting there is like being in a tightly corked bottle filled with warm air,although,as I said,it was also quite pleasant in my room.
the wind was whistling outside.auntie talked and told stories her youth reappeared the brewer reappeared and old memories.she could remember when I got my first tooth and how the family rejoiced.
my first tooth,the tooth of innocence gleaming like a little white drop of milk,my baby tooth.
one appeared more appeared a whole row of them side by side top and bottom. the loveliest baby teeth,yet they were just the advanced troops.not the real ones that would last my whole life.
they too appeared along with my wisdom teeth,the flank guards in the row borne with pain and great trouble.
they'll leave again everyone of them. they'll leave before their time of service is over,even the very last tooth will leave.and that is not a day for celebrating,that is a day for grieving.
by then you're old even,though your spirits May be young.萨。
thoughts and discussions are not enjoyable,yet we happen to talk about all these things.we returned to my childhood years talking and talking. it was midnight before auntie went to bed in the parlour next door.
good night sweet child,she called I'm going to sleep as snugly as if I were in my own bed.
she settled in peacefully,but there was no peace either inside the house or outdoors. the storm rattled the WINDOWS,battered the long dangling iron latches and rang the neighbor's doorbell in the back courtyard.
the lodger upstairs had come home.
he was still taking a little night time stroll back and forth,then he threw off his boots and got into bed to sleep,but he snores so loudly that anyone with good ears can hear it through the ceiling.
i couldn't sleep,couldn't find any peace,the weather,couldn't find peace,either it was terribly lively,the wind whistled and sang in its own way.
my teeth started to get lively too. they whistled and sang in their own way. they were getting ready for a bad toothache.
a draught came from the window. the moon was shining on the floor,the light came and went the way clouds come and go in stormy weather.
there was a restless shifting of shadow and light,but at last the shadow on the floor took shape. I looked at this moving form and felt an icy gust.
on the floors at a figure tall and sin,the kind a child draws with a pencil on a slate,something that is supposed to look like a person.
a single thin line forms the body one line and then another form the arms. the legs are each one line.the head a polygon.soon the figure grew more distinct.
it was wearing a sort of gown,very thin,very fine,but this showed that the figure was female.I heard a buzzing was it her or the wind that was droning like a botfly through the crack in the pane.no,it was her.madame toothache.
her horrible highness.SATA nia infernal lus god save US from her visits.how Nice it is here,she hummed such Nice quarters marshy ground bogie ground,the mosquitoes have buzzed around here with poison in this.
now I have this stinger and it has to be sharpened on human teeth. they're shining,so white in this fellow in the bed,they've braved sweet and sour hot and cold.
old nut shells and plum pits,but i'll smack them and whack them. i'll mulch the roots with a draught degust and give them cold feet.what a horrible speech.what a horrible guest.
oh,so you're a poet,she said,well,I'm going to write you into all the verses of pain. I'm going to give you ions.deal in your body,put fiber in to all the fibres of your nerves.
it felt as if a glowing all were passing through my cheekbone. I twisted and writhed.what excellent teeth,she said,an organ to play on a mouth organ concert,how splendid.
with kettle drums and trumpets piccolos and trombones in the wisdom tooth.great poet,great music.
oh,yes,she started playing and how horrible she looked even though i could see no more of her than her hand that shadowy grey ice cold hand with the long fingers as thin as all.
s each of them was a torture instrument,her thumb and index finger were the pincers and screw her middle finger ended in a sharp awe.her ring finger was a gimlet and her little finger a syringe full of mosquito poison.
i'll teach you meet adverse. she said a big poet will have a big tooth,ache a little poet,a little toothache.
oh,let me be little I begged. let me not be one at all. I'm not a poet. I just have a tax of poetry,a tax like toothaches,go away,go away.
then do you acknowledge that I am mightier than poetry,philosophy,mathematics and all music,she said?mightier than all those painted and marble carved sensations,I'm older than all of them.
I was born close to the garden of eden outside where the wind blew and the damp toadstools grew.I made Eve put on clothes in the cold wind and Adam too believe me,the first toothache was a powerful one.
I believe everything I said go away,go away.well,if you'll give up being a poet,never set verse to papers late or any form of writing material again,then i'll let you go.
but i'll be back if you ever start writing I swear. I said,if only I never see or feel you again.but you will see me,though,in a more substantial form,one that is dearer to you than I am now.
you will see me as aunty milly and i'll say right my sweet boy. you're a great poet,perhaps the greatest we have.
but believe me,if you start writing,then i'll set your verses to music and play them on your mouth organ. you sweet chat.傻了。
old think of me when you see auntie milly.then she vanished.in farewell,I got what felt like a glowing OL jabbed into my jaw,but it soon faded I felt as if I were floating on gentle water.
I saw the white water lilies with the broad green leaves droop sink below me,whither dissolve and I sank with them.dissolving into peace and rest.
die melt away like the snow is what I heard singing and ringing in the water evaporate into the clouds pass on like the clouds.
shining down through the water toward me were big bright names inscriptions on fluttering victory banners. the proclamation of mortality.written on the wings of a mayfly.
my slumber was deep slumber without dreams. i didn't hear the whistling wind,the slamming gate,the neighbors door bell ringing or the vigorous exercises of the lodger.what bliss?
then came a gust of wind so strong that the locked door to auntie's room blew open auntie leaped to her feet,pulled on her shoes,put on her clothes and came into my room.
I was sleeping like one of god's angels,she said,and she couldn't bear to wake me.I awoke on my own,opened my eyes and had completely forgotten that auntie was in the house,but i quickly remembered.
remembered my toothache vision dream and reality merged into one.you didn't happen to write anything last night after we said good night,did you? she asked how I wished that you had.you're my poet and you always will be.
I thought she smiled so slyly,i couldn't tell if it was the real auntie milly who loved me or the horrible one to whom I had given my promise in the night.have you written anything sweet child,no,no,i cried?
but you are auntie millie.who else she said and she was aunt tim il ley?she kissed me,got into a handsome cab and drove home.I wrote all of this down. it's not in verse,and it will never be published.
and that's where the manuscript ended.my young friend,the budding delicatessen owner couldn't find the missing pages they had gone out into the world as wrapping paper for salted herring butter and green soap.
they had fulfilled their destiny.the brewer is dead,auntie is dead and the student is dead. the one whose sparks of genius ended up in the bin.everything ends up in the bin.and that's the end of the story.
the story about aunty toothache.
we hope that you've enjoyed this production of fairy tales by hans Christian andersen.this programme was executive produced by patty per us and produced by dan musselman.
fairy tales is a production of penguin,audio and books on tape,copyright,two thousand five all rights reserved.the book fairy tales is available wherever viking books are sold.