From the collected essays Nærmere, ting, til jer [A Closer Look].

This essay in Danish was published by Sentura with the kind permission of Charlotte Standgaard.

Excerpt from Flemming Chr. Nielsen (editor): Nermere, ting, til jer:
journalisten Jens Kruuse. Originally published in Jyllands-Posten.
July 27, 1973:

Jens Kruuse (1908-78) was well known as an author and literary historian—but first and foremost as a cultural journalist and voice of Jyllands-Post, where he was for thirty years one of the brightest and wittiest writers.

The anecdote about Karen Blixen is on the surface a little less serious than many of his other pieces. But don't be fooled: notice how "the melancholy elephant" (as Kruuse called himself) still manages to convey a great deal via his sharp observations of Karen Blixen's habitual surroundings and peculiarly influential nature.

You can read more essays in Flemming Chr. Nielsen (editor): Nærmere, ting, til jer: journalisten Jens Kruuse. Published in May, 2002, Ajour publishers' series, Journalistikkens Klassikerserie [Classics in Journalism].



--For many years Karen Blixen and I had been on good terms—even though we had never been in the same room and had only exchanged letters.
     This must have been because the world-famous lady appreciated that I had recognized her worth early, and had now and then written something that she liked to see written. I don't remember anything more than this. But I do remember my first encounter with her.
     She had many times kindly invited me to Rungstedlund. Once I had to go to Copenhagen, and I asked her if I might come on such and such a day and bring with me my teen-age daughter. She was nineteen. It turned out that I was quite welcome to do so.
     I asked at Gyldendal [her Danish publisher] what they thought I could take along as a gift for the famous author.
     "That's very easy to answer;" said the publishers, "It's a choice between a tub of oysters or a medieval sword."
     Well, I simply chose to take Charlotte along. Karen Blixen came out on the step. She was painfully thin, slenderly clad in black from head to toe--in a way, dressed in pain from within. She greeted us gracefully with her tiny welcoming hands and bid us come in.
     She was doing without her dear secretary. She busied herself with the tea. On the table stood a marvelous cake.
     "Just as we had in my days as a young girl at the dear old manor house."
     It was a little mountain of rich pastry sprinkled with sugar. The plate took up nearly the whole tea table.
      "I ordered the cake as soon as I heard that your young daughter was going to honor me with a visit," she said. "Will you slice it, Charlotte? My hands aren't strong enough."
      Just at a side-glance, it seemed hopeless that anyone could slice it. The baroness gestured toward the dish.
      Anyway, the two women started to chat.
      I felt left out, like a clumsy, melancholy elephant. But I watched and listened. The author showed off her things. Termite-scarred items from Africa. The rooms. The garden.
      And she talked and talked.

The best story that I can even dare try to reproduce convincingly was about her uncle Lars Dinesen. It took place at Katholm.
    "So, you see, Uncle had gone along to Saint Petersburg" (she didn't think for a second that anyone could call the city Petrograd or Leningrad), "at the time when Princess Dagmar was due there for her wedding with the son of the Tsar.
    "He was in the royal guard and very handsome, according to him, dark and sturdy ('sturrrrdy'); therefore he was one of the officers ordered to accompany her, although he wasn't titled ('taahtled'). He never forgot it. And he talked a lot about it even many years later. The trip took place, you know" (did we?), "in 1866, when the princess was nineteen years old.
     She glanced at the red-haired young woman who was struggling again with the gigantic cake.
    "Your elders ('ayuhlders')," she whispered next.
     She was gazing back over hundreds of years.
    "You see, it was a custom in the family to call Uncle Lars ('Layerss') 'Liar-Layerss,' and this was not very nice. He wasn't lying. But what he said was probably not always completely true.
    "I can remember that, at the dinner table one summer at Katholm, he talked about this enormous event in his life, about the feasts and the balls and the magnificent court of the Tsar there in Saint Petersborg.
    "My aunt was sometimes a little skeptical when he launched into the story."
     Just then Karen Blixen got up busily and moved gracefully but with a little trouble around the room. She turned and threw out:
    "But to tell the truth . . . ."
     Nothing more.
     I recognized the drill. The story is everything, she had once written.
    "Slice  yourself a little more cake, my friend," she said, and sat down.
     A few drops fell on the tea table. The cups were thin, and there was very strong tea in the pot. We were again back at the dinner table at Katholm; she conjured us there with a little sigh.
    "Uncle Lars said that at one feast in the Winter Palace they had caviar. Do you like caviar?"
     The girl was unable to answer. I ventured to say that I myself liked it. She looked at me with deep burning dark eyes.
    "Do you have any idea, Jens Kruuse, what I can eat? I can only tolerate oysters."
     I offered a few ineffectual comments, and then we were off again to the dinner table in the aforementioned rural castle.
    "Well, Uncle Layerss said that there was a gigantic tub full to the brim with masses ('mahsses') of caviar.
    "My aunt was sitting at the other end of the table. She interrupted him sharply:
    "'No, Lars, that can't be. How in the world did they manage to get it into the hall?'"
     The storyteller allowed her story to sink in without giving us her uncle's answer about whether the story was true or not. For her it was simply a triumph; and when we were leaving and her tiny black figure was disappearing from our backward glances from the step, we learned more about the truth than before.
    "Do you want to know what Uncle Layerss quite calmly replied?," she said. "He answered, 'Six Africans'."

Note: The anecdote about Karen Blixen appeared originally in the series of articles "Digtere: Mennesker at møde . . . "[Authors: People worth meeting], in which Kruuse also wrote about Zakarias Nielsen, Paul Valéry, Rifbjerg, Bjørnvig, Inger Christensen, Erik Aalbæk Jensen, Vilhelm Moberg and André Malraux.

Trans. Linda Donelson