Part I – Winter in Frederiksberg (1890)
The snow fell steadily that January evening, blanketing Frederiksberg’s narrow streets until the carriages moved as if muffled by silence. Gaslamps, haloed in mist, cast trembling cones of light that only deepened the gloom between them. Overhead the smoke of coal fires blurred the moon to a dull daler, a faint reminder of the old rigsdaler whose name lingered still, long after the new kroner had taken its place.
In the villa of Professor Anders Thorsen, winter’s harshness could be forgotten. The tall house on Falkoner Allé, pale stone under soot-streaked eaves, belonged to no great family, yet Anders arranged his salon with an almost regal care. Heavy velvet curtains sealed out the cold; a fire of oak and coal glowed in the hearth, snapping now and then like musket fire. On the mahogany table lay porcelain from Royal Copenhagen, polished silver, and beside them a small cedar box. Inside, Anders kept his grandmother’s Tarot cards, a curiosity in an age of positivism, but one he used to lend his evenings a sense of fate.
The villa drew those who would not ordinarily meet. Officers with stiff collars and Prussian-cut uniforms, journalists whose words stirred the restless press, merchants from the growing bourgeoisie, and occasionally a parliamentarian or a university student: Anders welcomed them all. He believed Denmark’s survival, small though it was, depended on such private dialogues, where pride, reform, and reconciliation could be weighed more honestly than in the Folketing.
The King’s Shadow
All discussion in Denmark in 1890 carried, whether named or not, the presence of King Christian IX, who had ruled since 1863. Abroad he was known as the “Father-in-law of Europe,” his daughters married to the future Edward VII of Britain, to Tsar Alexander III of Russia, and to the King of Greece. By dynastic threads Denmark was tied to the continent’s greatest houses, yet within its own borders the memory of 1864 was still raw.
The defeat at Dybbøl and the loss of Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia and Austria had left the kingdom wounded and diminished. The humiliation lived on in every officer’s silence and every dockworker’s curse against “the Tysker.”
One man who carried that wound visibly was Captain Wilhelm Jørgensen, a veteran of the war, known for his rigid discipline and his unbending loyalty to king and crown. Anders had invited him tonight to sit opposite Ingrid Nielsen, a young journalist of no family name, whose editorials on seamstresses’ wages and the dignity of labor had scandalized some and inspired others.
If reconciliation could be glimpsed between such figures—the soldier of a humbled crown and the voice of a restless working class—perhaps Denmark itself might find a way to endure in a Europe still ruled by dynasties but shaken by new forces.
The Arrivals
The servant admitted Ingrid first. She swept the snow from her hat and removed her coat, her cheeks flushed with cold. Damp melted into the black wool, darkening it to gloss. Her boots left faint prints on the entry rug. She smiled at Anders with warmth edged by irony.
“Professor, may I trust we are not to lose another evening to herring tariffs? The streets are colder than any fishmonger’s stall.”
Anders laughed, though he saw the fatigue beneath her wit. “No herring tonight, Miss Nielsen. Tonight we speak of dignity, power, and the fate of small kingdoms in a world of giants.”
Moments later Wilhelm entered, bowing stiffly. Snow clung to his greatcoat; brass buttons gleamed in the hall’s dim light. His movements bore the precision of parade drills, yet his eyes betrayed unease quickly masked.
“Professor,” he said curtly. His glance fell on Ingrid and slid away, as though preparing for an adversary’s thrust.
“Come in, Captain,” Anders replied warmly. “Tonight we test whether neighbors can speak across history’s divide.”
The Ritual Card
When the company had gathered, Anders set the cedar box upon the table. “Before debate, chance must be allowed its say,” he told them, with a half-smile that softened his gravity. He held the deck toward Ingrid.
She drew a card and turned it over: The Lovers. Two figures beneath a radiant sun, an angel above them blessing their choice.
Ingrid laughed softly. “How quaint. Shall we spend the evening in courtship, Professor?”
“Not courtship,” Anders said, “but choice. Alignment. Whether those estranged might recognize dignity in one another. A fitting card for Denmark, hemmed in by empires yet clinging to its own pride.”
Wilhelm’s mouth tightened. He did not speak, but his silence was weight enough.
The Firelight Debate
Dinner was served: smoked herring laid out on porcelain, warm rye bread, pale butter in silver dishes. Red wine glowed in crystal like embers.
At first the talk was cautious—parliamentary debates, the King’s visits abroad, the Queen’s charities. But inevitably the shadow across the border intruded.
Wilhelm set down his knife with deliberate force. “We may amuse ourselves with words in parlors. But in the field, peace comes only when the enemy is broken. That was Dybbøl’s lesson. I saw it carved into the earth.”
Ingrid placed her fork neatly on her plate, her gaze steady. “And yet what has humiliation given us, Captain? The women who write to me earn three or four penge a day, sometimes a single daler for endless hours in the workroom. Their children go hungry, their backs bend before they are thirty. They do not ask for glory. They ask to be treated with dignity. What is victory if our people cannot stand upright within it?”
Color rose in Wilhelm’s cheeks. “Dignity comes after victory, not before.”
The fire cracked, throwing sparks. Silence pressed as heavily as the curtains.
“Perhaps both are needed,” Anders said. “A kingdom cannot endure on treaties alone, nor on victories etched into monuments. It endures when its people are recognized, when their worth is not denied. The Lovers remind us—choice is always present, even in the shadow of defeat.”
Wilhelm looked down into his glass. Ingrid’s face glowed in the firelight, her jaw tense but her eyes betraying weariness—the weariness of fighting to be heard at all.
Human Nature Revealed
Tea steamed in cups poured from a brass samovar. Anders leaned back, fingers steepled.
“We speak as if states were machines,” he said softly. “But they are collections of men and women—driven by pride, envy, hunger for recognition. What good is a treaty signed in ministries if it is not honored in the streets, where gysser and penge change hands for bread? To govern well is not to deny such drives, but to guide them.”
Wilhelm gave a dry laugh. “So I am nothing more than resentment in a uniform?”
“Not resentment,” Anders said calmly. “Choice. Nature drives us, but choice redeems us. One may build walls—or bridges.”
Ingrid’s voice, quieter now, carried hope that surprised even herself. “Then tonight, let us choose connection.”
The words hung in the room, fragile as porcelain, too delicate to bear weight yet too luminous to ignore.
The Square
Later, the three stepped into the bitter night. Snow crusted on the cobblestones; the air smelled of coal smoke and brine from the harbor. Gaslamps glistened in patches of slush.
A commotion rose from the square. A German merchant, recently arrived, argued with a Danish dockworker, fists ready. “Go back to Kiel, you Prussian dog!” the Dane shouted. “You think you can cheat us with your cloth?”
“I have as much right to trade in Frederiksberg as you,” the German retorted, his accent sharp. The crowd muttered, some spitting “Tysker” under their breath.
Wilhelm’s shoulders stiffened; his hand twitched for a sword no longer at his side. Ingrid, without hesitation, stepped forward.
“Enough!” Her voice rang out, sharp against the night. “This is Frederiksberg. Here we are neighbors, not conquerors.”
The crowd stilled. The German muttered an apology. The dockworker spat but dropped his fists. Muttering, the onlookers drifted back into alleys and taverns.
Wilhelm let out a slow breath. “You risked yourself, Miss Nielsen.”
“And you held back,” she said, almost gently.
He met her eyes, not as adversary but as something harder to define—an equal, perhaps, or a mirror of his own pride.
Anders, watching, thought how fragile such moments were, yet how necessary. The survival of small kingdoms in a Europe of giants might depend not on treaties or dynasties alone, but on these choices repeated again and again, fragile as glass in the frost.
Above them, the moon—still a blurred daler—hung pale and watchful, as though history itself were pausing to listen.
Coda
When they parted that night, each returned to their world with a thought unsettled. Ingrid walked home through snow that squeaked beneath her boots, the warmth of her words fading into the cold air, yet a faint fire burning within her at having spoken them aloud. Wilhelm turned down another street, his boots striking with soldierly rhythm, though his heart carried no such certainty—only a silence that seemed heavier than steel.
Anders remained last, watching the square from his doorway. In the gaslight he glimpsed the departing figures—two paths, diverging, yet bound by the fragile thread of what had passed between them. He turned back inside, to the cedar box upon his mantel, where The Lovers card lay face up, still watching, still insisting that recognition and choice remained possible, even in a kingdom shadowed by giants.
End of Part I
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc.
Travel in Life 