Even when I lay in my bed, shut in on all four sides by its
trellis-work, the dread of the police was upon me still.
There was only one person to whom I dared mention it, and that was Jens.
When a few weeks had gone by I tried to get an answer out of him. Then I
perceived that Jens did not even know what I was talking about. Jens had
evidently forgotten all about it. Jens had been making fun of me. If my
relief was immense, my indignation was no less. So much torture for
nothing at all! Older people, who had noticed how the word "police" was
to me an epitome of all that was terrible, sometimes made use of it as
an explanation of things that they thought were above my comprehension.
When I was six years old I heard the word "war" for the first time. I
did not know what it was, and asked. "It means," said one of my aunts,
"that the Germans have put police in Schleswig and forbidden the Danes
to go there, and that they will beat them if they stay there." That I
could understand, but afterwards I heard them talking about soldiers.
"Are there soldiers as well?" I asked. "Police and soldiers," was the
answer. But that confused me altogether, for the two things belonged in
my mind to wholly different categories. Soldiers were beautiful, gay-
coloured men with shakos, who kept guard and marched in step to the
sound of drums and fifes and music, till you longed to go with them.
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