The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Síða 21

SPRING / SUMMER 1995
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
131
failed to understand and had to ask that
they be repeated in English.
Upon my return to Cornell University
in the fall of 1937, I took Halldor
Herniannsson’s course in Danish, even
though I had a moderately good command
of the language after my intensive three-
week course in Copenhagen. Danish was
understandably easy for me and I read with
good comprehension the texts that Halldor
Hermannsson was able to procure in a suf-
ficiently larger number of copies — eight
— so that each member of the class could
have the same text. As a consequence, the
choice was limited by items that were avail-
able. We first read Christian Hostrup’s play
Eventyr paa Fodrejsen followed by a volume
of Henrik Pontoppidan’s memoirs. Since
the Danish was not difficult for me, I was
able to help a football player who was also
taking Danish perhaps in the mistaken be-
lief that it was a very easy course. It was not
easy for him, and we met many times in
order to help him understand the text and
something of the structure of Danish.
An anecdote from a day in Copenhagen
bears retelling. After we had had lunch to-
gether, Halldor Hermannsson asked me if
I wanted to see a beautiful woman. I was a
bit taken aback by the question, but I said
yes, whereupon we walked over to the
square called Graabr0dretorv in Copenha-
gen where there was a second-hand book
shop on the mezzanine of a building. We
walked into the bookshop together and a
man, probably the owner, came out and
Halldor Hermannsson muttered to me,
“That's her husband.” He asked then about
a specific book and the bookseller said that
he would have to ask his wife about it,
whereupon his wife appeared and got the
book that Halldor Hermannsson had asked
about and the two of them looked at the
book together and discussed the condition
of the book. There was a question whether
Halldor Hermannsson would purchase it
or not. He made no decision and left the
matter in the air. We left the shop together
and when we got outside, Halldor
Hermannsson asked me, “Well, Mitchell,
what do you think?” Assuming that he was
referring to the book, and its physical con-
dition, I said, “A little shop-worn.” To which
he replied, “No, no, the woman, not the
book.” I was greatly amused by this confu-
sion. The lady was middle-aged and pleas-
ant looking. Whether she was indeed a
beautiful woman is a matter of conjecture.
In the connection, perhaps I should men-
tion that in his apartment in Ithaca, where
Halldor lived in the last years of his life,
there was a framed photograph of a woman
in an evening gown in the living room. He
never referred to the picture and never told
me who it was and I wondered was this per-
haps the Danish lady, or possibly someone
in this country? I could not tell from the
picture. There were several clippings in the
collection which we have found in recent
years, sent to him from ‘Karen.’ Whether
the lady in the picture was Karen, I am
unable to say, although Karen did send her
‘love’ in English, from Denmark.
While I was working on my dissertation,
which dealt with Old Norse literature in
Germany, I visited Ithaca, in order to use
the Fiske Icelandic Collection once or twice
a year, and each time enjoyed valuable bib-
liographical assistance from Halldor
Hermannsson. Although I had harboured
bibliographical interests for some time, it
was only through my association with him
that I could gradually come to call myself a
bibliographer. He had introduced me to
many works that I would have otherwise
missed and to the technique of biblio-
graphical description. As soon as I had re-
ceived my Ph. D. from the University of Il-
linois in 1942,1 returned east and became
Halldor Hermannsson’s assistant with my
major task helping him read proof and also
checking on the accuracy of certain entries
in the second supplement to the catalogue
of the collection and occasionally making
some corrections in the master copy of the
original catalogue and its first supplement.