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I passed only one day in Odense I feel myself there more of a stranger than in the great cities of Germany. As a child I was solitary, and had therefore no youthful friend; most of the families whom I knew have died out; a new generation passes along the streets; and the streets even are altered. The later buried have concealed the miserable graves of my parents. Everything is changed.

It was necessary, therefore, either that I should find some vessel to take me home, or put myself to work with some handicraftsman. I considered that the last was the wiser of the two, because, if I returned to Odense, I must there also put myself to work of a similar kind; besides which, I knew very well that the people there would laugh at me if I came back again.

"It goes on badly at the hall," said Heinrich. "Sidsel is really put in prison, and will be taken to-morrow to Odense, to the red house by the river." "It is what she has deserved!" said Otto. "I did not bring it about." "O no!" answered Heinrich; "in a certain way we bring nothing about; but you can put in a good word for her. You must see that this punishment does not befall her."

He had heard of a celebrated danseuse, a Madame Schall. To her he goes with a letter of introduction, which he had coaxed out of an old printer in Odense, who, though he protested he did not know the lady, was still prevailed upon to write the letter.

During the summer before my confirmation, a part of the singers and performers of the Theatre Royal had been in Odense, and had given a series of operas and tragedies there. The whole city was taken with them. I, who was on good terms with the man who delivered the play- bills, saw the performances behind the scenes, and had even acted a part as page, shepherd, etc., and had spoken a few words.

She therefore appeared to me as the queen of everything, and in my imagination I regarded her as the one who would be able to do everything for me, if I could only obtain her support. Filled with these thoughts, I went to the old printer Iversen, one of the most respectable citizens of Odense, and who, as I heard, had had considerable intercourse with the actors when they were in the town.

I cannot mention it. For that reason I have never had a desire to go to Odense. The old lady in the Colonel's family concealed, out of kindness, her loss; but by accident it was discovered. The Colonel was greatly embittered. My mother was overwhelmed by shame and misfortune: the first error had plunged her into all this. She was taken to the House of Correction in Odense.

Andersen himself said: "My life has been so wonderful and so like a fairy-tale, that I think I had a fairy godmother who granted my every wish, for if I had chosen my own life's way, I could not have chosen better." Hans C. Andersen was the son of a poor shoemaker, an only child, born in Odense, the capital of the Island of Funen.

Our description will be only a shadow; it will be that, perhaps, which the many will find it to be. Already in the suburbs the crowd of people, and the outspread earthenware of the potters, which entirely covered the trottoir, announced that the fair was in full operation. The carriage drove down from the bridge across the Odense River. "See, how beautiful it is here!" exclaimed Wilhelm.

His mother, careless as she was, began to see that matters must change that the boy could not go on all his life in this aimless fashion; but since he steadily declined to be a tailor or a cobbler, or indeed to take up any trade, it seemed no easy question to settle. However, in 1818, there came to Odense a troupe of actors who gave plays and operas.