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The Blue Jar

by Isak Dinesen

1.       There once was an immenselyrich old Englishman who had been a courier and a councillor to the Queen and who now, in his old age, cared fornothing but collecting ancient bluechina. To that end he travelledto Persia, Japan and China, and he was everywhere accompanied by his daughter,the Lady Helena.

2.       It happened, as they sailed inthe China Sea, that the ship caught fire on a still night, and everybody went into the lifeboats and left her. Inthe dark and confusion the old peer was separated from his daughter. Lady Helena got up on deck late, and found the ship quite deserted. In the last moment ayoung English sailor carried her down into a lifeboat that had been forgotten.To the two fugitives it seemed as iffire was following them from all sides, for the phosphorescence played in the dark sea, and, as they looked up, afalling star ran across the sky, as if it was going to drop into the boat. Theysailed for nine days, till they were picked up by a Dutch merchantman, and came home to England.

3.       The old lord had believed hisdaughter to be dead. He now wept with joy, and at once he took her off to afashionable watering-place so thatshe might recover from the hardships she had gone through. And as he thought it must be unpleasant to her that ayoung sailor, who made his bread in the merchant service, should tell the worldthat he had sailed for nine days alone with a peer's daughter, he paid the boya fine sum, and made him promise togo shipping in the other hemisphere and never come back. "For what," said the old nobleman, "would be the good of that?"

4.       When Lady Helena recovered, andthey gave her the news of the Court and of her family, and in the end also told her how the young sailor had beensent away never to come back, they found that her mind had suffered from thetrials, and that she cared for nothing in all the world. She would not go backto her father's castle in its park, nor go to Court, nor travel to any gay town of the continent. The only thing which she now wanted to do was to go,like her father before her, to collect rare blue china. So she began to sail,from one country to the other, and her father went with her.

5.       In her search she told people,with whom she dealt, that she was looking for a particular blue color, andwould pay any price for it. But although she bought many hundred blue jars andbowls, she would always after a time putthem aside and say: "Alas,alas, it is not the right blue." Her father, when they had sailed for manyyears, suggested to her that perhaps the color which she sought did not exist."O God, Papa," said she, "how can you speak so wickedly? Surely there must be some ofit left from the time when all the world was blue."

6.       Her two old aunts in England implored her to come back, still tomake a great match. But she answeredthem: "Nay, I have got to sail.For you must know, dear aunts, that it is all nonsense when learned people tellyou that the seas have got a bottom to them. On the contrary, the water, whichis the noblest of elements, does, ofcourse, go all through the earth, so that our planet really floats in the ether, like a soap bubble. And there,on the other hemisphere, a ship sails, with which I have got to keep pace.

7.       We two are like the reflectionof one another, in the deep sea, and the ship of which I speak is alwaysexactly beneath my own ship, upon the opposite side of the globe. You havenever seen a big fish swimming underneath a boat, following it like a dark-blueshade in the water. But in that way this ship goes, like the shadow of my ship,and I draw it to and for wherever I go, as the moon draws the tides, all through the bulk of the earth. If I stoppedsailing, what would those poor sailors who made their bread in the merchantservice do? But I shall tell you a secret," she said. "In the end myship will go down, to the centre of the globe, and at the very same hour theother ship will sink as well--for people call it sinking, although I can assureyou that there is no up and down in the sea--and there, in the midst of theworld, we two shall meet."

8.       Many years passed, the old lorddied and Lady Helena became old and deaf, but she still sailed. Then ithappened, after the plunder of the summer palace of the Emperor of China, thata merchant brought her a very old blue jar. The moment she set eyes on it shegave a terrible shriek. "Thereit is!" she cried. "I have found it at last. This is the true blue.Oh, how light it makes one. Oh, it is as fresh as a breeze, as deep as a deepsecret, as full as I say not what." With trembling hands, she held the jar to her bosom, and sat for six hours sunk in contemplation of it.

9.       Then she said to her doctor andher lady-companion: "Now I candie. And when I am dead you will cut out my heart and lay it in the blue jar.For then everything will be as it was then. All shall be blue around me, and inthe midst of the blue world my heart will be innocent and free, and will beatgently, like a wake that sings, like the drops that fall from an oar blade." A little later she asked them: "Is it not a sweetthing to think that, if only you have patience, all that has ever been, willcome back to you?" Shortly afterwards the old lady died.