Men with
Scandinavian sympathies hoped for this solution, by means of which the
three kingdoms would have been united without a blow being struck.
In the middle of the meeting, there arrived a message from Crone, the
Head of Police, which was delivered verbally in this incredibly
irregular form--that the Head of Police was as good a Scandinavian as
anyone, but he begged the students for their own sakes to refrain from
any kind of street disturbance that would oblige him to interfere.
I, who had stood on the open space in front of the Castle, lost in the
crowd, and in the evening at the meeting of the students was auditor to
the passionate utterances let fall there, felt my mood violently swayed,
but was altogether undecided with regard to the political question, the
compass of which I could not fully perceive. I felt anxious as to the
attitude of foreign powers would be in the event of the signing of the
Constitution. Old C.N. David had said in his own home that if the matter
should depend on him, which, however, he hoped it would not, he would
not permit the signing of the Constitution, were he the only man in
Denmark of that way of thinking, since by so doing we should lose our
guarantee of existence, and get two enemies instead of one, Russia as
well as Germany.
The same evening I wrote down: "It is under such circumstances as these
that one realises how difficult it is to lead a really ethical
existence.
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