Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard

ISAK DINESEN
  

Isak Dinesen is the pseudonym of Karen Blixen, born in Denmark in 1885. After her marriage in 1914 to Baron Bror Blixen, she and her husband lived in British East Africa, where they owned a coffee plantation. She was divorced from her husband in 1921 but continued to manage the plantation for another ten years, until the collapse of the coffee market forced her to sell the property and return to Denmark in 1931. There she began to write in English under the
nom de plume
Isak Dinesen. Her first book, and literary success, was
Seven Gothic Tales
. It was followed by
Out of Africa, The Angelic Avengers
(written under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel),
Winter’s Tales, Last Tales, Anecdotes of Destiny, Shadows on the Grass
, and
Ehrengard
. She died in 1962.

ALSO BY

Last Tales
Out of Africa
Seven Gothic Tales
Shadows on the Grass
Winter’s Tales

M
IRA JAMA told this story:

In Shiraz lived a young student of theology by the name of Saufe who was highly gifted and pure of heart. As he read and re-read the Koran he became so absorbed in the thought of the angels that his soul dwelt with them more than with his mother or his brothers, his teachers or fellow-students or any other people of Shiraz.

He repeated to himself the words of the Holy Book: “… by the angels, who tear forth the souls of men with violence, and by those who draw forth the souls of others with gentleness, by those who glide swimmingly through the air with the commands of God, by those who precede and usher the righteous into Paradise, and by those who subordinately govern the affairs of this world …”

“The throne of God,” he thought, “will needs be placed so sky-high that the eye of man cannot reach it, and the mind of man reels before it. But the radiant angels move between God’s azure halls and our dark houses and schoolrooms. It should be possible to us to see them and communicate with them.

“Birds,” he reflected, “must be, of all creatures, most like angels. Says not the Scripture: ‘Whatever moveth both in heaven and on earth worshippeth God, and the angels also’—and surely the birds move both in heaven and on earth. Says it not further, of the angels: ‘They are not elated with pride so as to disdain their service, they sing, and perform that which they are commanded’—and surely the birds do the same. If we endeavor to imitate the birds in all this, we shall become more like the angels than we are now.

“But in addition to these things, birds have wings, as have the angels. It would be good if men could make wings for themselves, to lift them into high regions, where dwells a
clear and eternal light. A bird, if she strains the capacity of her wings to the utmost, may meet or pass an angel upon one of the wild paths of the ether. Perhaps the wing of the swallow has brushed an angel’s foot, or the gaze of the eagle, at the moment when her strength was almost exhausted, has met the calm eyes of one of God’s messengers.

“I shall,” he decided, “employ my time and my learning in the task of constructing such wings for my fellow-men.”

So he made up his mind that he would leave Shiraz to study the ways of the winged creatures.

Till now he had, by teaching rich men’s sons and by copying put ancient manuscripts, supported his mother and his small brothers, and they complained that they would become poor without him. But he argued that, some time, his achievement would compensate them manifold for the privations of the present. His teachers, who had foreseen a fine career for him, came to see him and expostulated with him that, since the world had gone on for so long without men communicating with angels, it must be meant to do so, and might do so in the future as well.

The young Softa respectfully contradicted them.

“Until this day,” he said, “nobody has seen the trekking-birds take their way toward such warmer spheres as do not exist, or the rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home. Also,” he cried out, carried away by his own course of thought, “how much better would not the world of man go, if he could consult with angels and from them learn to understand the pattern of the universe, which they read with ease because they see it from above!”