The Last Temptation of Hans Christian Andersen - podcast episode cover

The Last Temptation of Hans Christian Andersen

Dec 29, 20221 hr 4 min
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Episode description

In our third and final chapter on Hans Christian Andersen, we learn it wasn't all ugly ducklings and awkward sex notes. His buddies Balzac, Dumas, and even Victor Hugo all tried to get him laid, and when that didn't work at least he got an eruption when he climbed an active Mt. Vesuvius! But late in life, he decided to tempt himself with a few trips to Parisian Brothels...

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Back to back. This week we sat through to three hour movies over three hours long. Monday night we saw Babylon and Tuesday night we saw Avatar. That's that's also. Babylon was stressful, but I think it had a reason to be stressful. It worked. Avatar was like the opposite because it took its time on things and you know it was like, let's look at the beautiful things and you were like, I feel so chill. That's very different

three hour experience. Yeah, Babylon was like, by by the ninety minute mark in Babylon, I was like scratching at my shoulder like I need a Zanex or something like I'm so hyper stimulated and stressed out. And then yeah, Avatar, it was like I am at a meditative retreat in the Maldives on the water. Which is not to say the action wasn't good. It was very exciting, but yeah, I think it was just having seen those back to back, I was like, my emotions are very different. Well enough

about the movies. We're gonna go back to what was before movies. Books, those used to stories down and tell them to each other. We are back with a part three of Hans Christian Anderson who knew Thanks again to our VID for suggesting that we look into Hans Charles Dickens. I mean, you knew this was going to spin out into the whole thing, but who knew it was going

to spread out into so much. But we're going to close it out today, still not getting to everything in Hans Christian Anderson's life, but hopefully hitting the biggest points that really kind of round out his character and give us, I don't know, some some sort of idea as to who this guy was and what his whole deal was in the romance department. It's really nothing. Nobody liked him. But I can think that we've looked at so far.

I don't think so. Yeah, he's an interesting guy. I mean, so far we talked about Hans Christian Anderson and his challenging love life. I mean, he fell for men and women alike. They were totally unattainable for him, many of them. And this guy also was an absolutely unhinged masturbator. He seemed to be afraid of actually having sex with anyone, so he just went home and wrote plus signs in

his diary. Look, this guy maybe had some difficulties and understanding his own feelings, we've kind of concluded, and his feelings were usually very strong. Yet guy was playful and imaginative and friendly, but underneath he was also obsessive and lonely and confused. On one hand, you know, we could be grateful because this gave us some great literature. But on the other hand, it did drive a lot of

people crazy. But there are so many stories about the people that Anderson loved in his own way, we're never going to fit them all in. So today we want to talk about a couple of his more passionate love affairs. We also are going to talk about some famous French authors who tried to get him laid, and we're going to discuss how latent life he found himself at most dangerously tempting place he could imagine a Parisian brothel, la la. So yeah, I said, we jump right into this story

because there's just so much to tell. Let's go, hey the French, come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love. It might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons at a concrete wall. But if there's a story. Were the second

Glance Ridiculous Roles a production of I Heart Radio? Okay, all, before we get into the story today, first things first, we have made some egregious mistakes during our Hans Christian Anderson experience, so we have got to put ourselves in corrections corner. You're such a loser. Yes, we're both losers for this one. Uh. Last time we said something about the Danish and the Dutch. I believe my exact quote was I think Dutch is the language and Danish is

the people and the pastry. Well, thank goodness that at menvel Zinc on Instagram commented quote, um, Dutch is the language of the Dutch for sure, but Danish is the language of the Danes. Cannot believe you fell into that trap. Oh well, you won't be the last. Thanks for a great podcast. As always, we really that up. Also, thank you Manveel for softening. That was a great podcast. It was a very dumb mistake. Uh. And Randy Jensen who got us into this mess in the first place by

requesting that we do terrible Danish accents. She wrote, quote, we speak Danish. I know because I'm a Danish teacher, but you said my name perfectly. Thank you so much so. Also, Randy, thank you for softening that blow, letting us at least you said Jensen and that Jensen right. Fine. We did find a great YouTube video about the Danish accent that helped a bit, but we still got a lot to learn. I know. I was like, we need work, okay, I think we watched that video for like five then if

we had some time now. So we wanted to figure this out because Manuel is right, this is a common trap. And we walked right into it, and we did a little digging, and we found that for some reason, there are a bunch of dummies out there just like us, who get Denmark and the Netherlands confused, or they like merge them together into some weird Scandinavian Frankenstein country that does not exist. In fact, the Netherlands is not even

part of Scandinavia, while Denmark is Scandinavia. Facts dot Com says, quote with enough common threads, these two nations and their respective peoples are often tied together, whether they like it or not. Sorry, and they sites as part of the problem that the countries are kind of within proximity to each other. Although they're not adjacent. And they also say, well, both countries are also very flat, and the people in

both are happy and love bicycles. So easy mistakes because you can see, I mean happy people have bicycles, those countries might as well be the same. Basically twins. Yeah, uh, that's embarrassing. It's Dennis, he said it to you. I was like, what the would of course you want to bring Dutch into this in the edit could have caught it too, didn't you know? We just do things so fast round here, and we're dumb dumbs. Well. I also found a woman named Kay Zander Melish who was a

little more forgiving. She says on her blog how to Live in Denmark dot Com that quote confusing the Dutch and the Danes is understandable. They both represent small, peaceful countries with seafaring traditions, countries which are today best known for healthy, blonde people on bicycles, rushing home to see their monarchs on TV and eat Potato Bay East dishes. The Dutch are also known for their windmills, while the

Danes are known for their wind turbines. It's an understandable mistake, so thank you Kay for forgiving us on that one. Thanks Manveel, and thank you Randy for helping us get educated. It's at least we've learned a little geography. Today we learned a little bit more about a silly mistake Demark and the Netherlands. Very nervous that throughout the last two Hans Christian Anderson episodes, I referred to him as Dutch. I know, I'm very well may have Okay, well, let's

just blanket statement. Hans was not Dutch. He was Danish in fact, from Denmark. Not involved in this story at all,

were there? We don't know why we drugged them into this. Alright, So today on the Hans Christian Anderson Show that this has turned into we're going to talk about the time as a young man he fell in love with a woman named reb Vote and she was the sister of one of his classmates and the daughter of the richest man in this girl was extroverted and charming, and this good natured optimism is really what attracted Anderson to begin with.

Yen's writes in his biography that by traditional standards, she wasn't even that pretty. Apparently the drive by on party board what value. But she was great. Everybody loved her personality. All personality right, She's got a great personality, Hans im Well. Hans Christian Anderson wrote a letter to a friend of his, and he called her a quote witty, childish creature, which, as we know, Hans Christian Anderson is basically like him

saying she's an absolute ten. But this girl also falls right into the same pattern as many of his other loves. When they met, she was already engaged to someone else. So surprise, Hans Chrisnanerson fell for someone that he knew was unattainable. As we've said many times, he wrote her some weird letters, but he didn't really seem to be trying to interrupt her wedding plans like he would later do with Edward Collins when he married Henriette. So we

talked to about in Part one. Hunter's biographer YenS Anderson says the first letter was quote duplicitus, with contradictory proclamations of love and the exact opposite of a proposal, just like I don't want you to marry me, I just want to tell you nice things. I guess I'd like to ask that you please not marry me. Would you not be my bride. Would you not make me the happiest man on earth? Please? She's like, yeah, no problem. I've actually engaged this other guy, so that should not

be very easy. Then three months later he wrote to her quote, I will never be happy, but that's how it must be, and so forget me, never give me a thought. You will be happy. And there is nothing more that I wish. Live well. Only once more will I hear from you. Then never again do not feel sad for me. Rewards. God is good and merciful, Live well, Live well forever. She gets this letter that's just like no, no, go on without please, and she's like, okay, I was

gonna that was my plan all along. A lot of exclamation points, so many exclamation points. He didn't do the very twenty one century thing of going back and putting a period at least once, so didn't look crazy, a little too hard. He's just like, I feel it, so I'm writing it had respect, I guess. But look, Hans Christian Anderson was not just a love lorn author who was confused about his sexuality. There's more to this guy. He was a lifelong traveler. He was a collector of stories.

Remember we heard him Part one that him traveling across Europe is a big part of what inspired him to write the stories that he read. He was meeting other people, he was learning folklore, and that's really going to shine through in this episode. I think it's so easy to focus on his misery, but it's only fair to point out that the guy did some really cool stuff too. For example, Uh, we all know Mount Vesuvius, the Italian volcano that buried Pompey in d Great Spot Honeymoon Alerteymoon Alert.

It was a very cloudy day. So it's so cloudy, we're literally walking into the clouds and we get to the top and I think, Diana, you turned to me and you were like, look at this gorgeous view nothing. You couldn't see anything. It was twenty degrees colder as well. It was a nice hot day in Italy, but then we were up there cold as hill then. But it was kind of cool too because it was sort of thundery,

like it was going to rain. It did rain while we were up there, but it kind of sounded like it was coming from the volcano, like a little rumble from the volcano. And then you had all this like fog, But even our Mount Vesuvius pales in comparisons Mount Vesuvius experience. Seriously, I mean, this guy and his buddies hiked this volcano in their twenties while it was erupting. Apparently it was erupting kind of all the time back then, and so the locals turned it into sort of a tourist attraction.

I mean, it wasn't like you know, Pompey erupting, but it was always making little spurts and spew and smoke and lava. I mean, it would black out the sky. And I'm imagining if that was the case today, like the waiver, you'd have to sign to go up there right like you may be buried forever in ash and lava. Sign But it am Hans wrote in his diary quote, we were sinking up to our knees in ash coal, black smoke swirled upwards, and then a ball of fire

and gigantic glowing boulders rolled down onto the plane. There was no path at all. We had to crawl between huge pieces of lava. But showing off how tough he was, he wrote, quote, I sang loudly to show how little it was tiring me. Really defying the lava. Right. I mean, this guy was an experienced junkie, clearly right, I can relate to that. He just wanted to go do stuff

and see stuff and meet people. He often wrote about how frightened he was during his travels, but he wrote about his quote double nature, a fear of day jer and the desire to try it. So despite facing you know, many travels that were like horrific, grueling voyage across Europe, he wrote in his diary once quote to turn around

is utterly against my nature. I'm taking this route. I dread it, and I submit to it absolutely, which I think is such a great affirmation for when you're traveling and it's scary, right, like, you just gotta do it. You've got to submit to that and go for it. Obviously, don't do something stupid, but like climbing an active volcano.

I wonder, because um, he talks about his double nature, I wonder if he had very similar feeling about sex, Like He's like, I am a little afraid of and grossed out by sex, but I also like I like to try things, and I do want to see what it's like, but I just can't bring myself you know, like if he just ever if he kind of felt the same way about about his intimacy issues. Yeah, I mean definitely, I think that's going to come through a lot in in seeing him sort of explore sex and

how close he gets to it a few times. Well, his travels, at least, we're almost always worth the fear that he faced. Um In eighty three, Hans Anderson was hanging around Paris and he got to meet other authors like Honore de Balzac, Alexandre Duma, and none other than our old buddy Victor Hugo. Victor, how you been? We know, was busy, busy, getting busy. Hans seemed to have an amazing time in Paris, which you gotta be trying pretty

hard to not have a good time in Paris. I feel like hey wrote in one letter quote, I thought it would be so difficult to gain admittance to Parisian salons, but nothing is easier. I challenged that notion, you know, from probably a lot of other people who are trying to get into Parisian salons, because like the crop, you

were still Hans Christian Anderson. I mean, by the eight forties, he was a well known author that'd be like Graham Norton or somebodying Like I thought it would be really hard to go to Jennifer Anderson's party, but it was the easiest thing in the world to get invitation. Yeah, you're freaking some See see what happens when I asked Jennifer Aniston for the fight and invite. So far she's always said no. So far, been real, real bit about what are you doing in my house? Who let you

in here? How did you get this dress? How did you get the dress? Had you how did you get past the dogs? Dogs love me? What can I say? I brought a steak. I've gotten my way past some dogs obviously. Now, so he's in these salons and ball Zach invited Hans to sit down on this deep velvet sofa and then sat at Anderson's side, And it sounds like he was a real close talker, so he was

getting real in his face. I can imagine, and on Anderson's other side, ball Zach invited quote a flutatious court is Anne who called herself a baroness and wore a cold black gown with jewels. And nothing happens at this party, of course, partly because Anderson was terrible at speaking French. He's just not good at languages. Yeah, Baz, that called

his French quote original but incomprehensible. And Anderson himself said, sometimes I talked my way into a standstill, but then I say vols two and then I let the other person take the floor. I love that. Just I've exhausted all my French. So I'm just gonna say, anyway, that's it your turn to talk, now, go ahead. Now. Anderson was also invited to hang out with Alexandra Duma, of course,

wrote the Three Musketeers. Yeah now, Anderson showed up at Duma's Parisian home and after knocking on his door, he kind of just stood there and waited for a while and no one answered. Finally a housemaid showed up and she brought him up to Duma's room. Hans described it as they're being papers everywhere, just scattered all over the floor, and he had to tiptoe because he was afraid of stepping on the Great Alexander Dumas work. Right right now.

Duma was in there in the center of the room, in a big pile of pillows, practically naked, and he's like writing furiously and he only briefly looked up to say, I lived like a regular Garson, but you'll have to take me as I am, and then he goes back to writing, and after quite a while of huns Christian Anderson just standing there awkwardly, Dumas shouted, Viva, the third act is done. And he's kind of like a big guy,

and he jumped up out of his pillow pile. He wrapped himself in a blanket like a toga and he starts stomping over towards Anderson, who's like freaked out. He just nervously backs away towards the door, and then Alexandre Duma grabs him by the lapels and says, isn't it grand? Unworthy of it? A scene which Anderson is just like, yeah, yeah, sure man, whatever you say. I think it's great. Please stop molesting my coach down. What is this? They all

right naked? That a writing thing? Maybe we should all be trying it because these guys were prolific and successful. I'm like, I want to like travel back to my creative writing class and be like, also everybody and everyone wrote naked. Maybe that's the answer. Now. A few days later, Duma took Hans to one of his plays, and he tried to set him up with the famed French actress Mademoiselle Rachel feature episode Alert by this woman, She's got

quite the connection now. Anderson saw Rochelle perform four times, and he also got to visit her private quarters where he saw her quote receive a bevy of admiring men at the stroke of eight against the backdrop of a glowing heart, red velvet draperies and a red carpet. I mean, he must say clearly. He was clearly in the corner, like so glad to be here, high Hans, Um, he's got to write about these red velvet draperies. Well, you guys and all the men groping them. Everyone's snaked, okay,

glowing heart, what can we talk about? He's like, I'm gonna save this visual for later when I'm at home busing in my diary. This is for me privately. Duma also dragged Hans into the green room after a ballet show, and then two of them were suddenly surrounded by scantily

clad ballerinas. So of course Hans got really uncomfortable and he tried to dip squeeze his way through the crowd, but Duma grabbed him by the arm, pulls him back into the group of dancers and said, quote, no shirking, my good friend, come over here, and they pleasant to the ladies. Hans is like my worst nightmare being pleasant to the lady. Also, why do these experiences get wasted on Hans Christian Anderson. I know I never get brought

back to the green room after a ballet show. I mean not in a few years anyway, not since I was doing more theater. Yeah, you've been around some scantily clad dancers before in life, I'm sure, and I probably did the same thing. I was probably like, I'm just gonna go I'm respectful or I'm uncomfortable and not confident. Yeah, well that's which can be often mistaken for respectful. It's worked out great for me. Wait a minute, Yeah, this this whole time, I haven't been respecting you. I've just

been afraid to be an asshole. Keep that fear going, all right. Well. Victor Hugo was a much more pleasant visit for Anderson. He first met him in eighteen thirty three when Victor Hugo invited Hans Christian Anderson over his place and Anderson wrote in his biography The fairy Tale of My Life that Victor only wore quote his dressing gown and elegant house slippers. We know he's a busy man, getting laid four or five times a day. What's the

point of getting dressed? And he was writing naked, so he probably came by and Anderson knocked on the door and he's like, oh shit, hang, I'm only put on a robe. At least that's all you get. Well a decade later, in eighteen forty three, during this trip, he met with Victor again, and Anderson said he was still in his slippers and dressing gown, and he invited Hans

to a for dinner. Victor was lovely, he was kind, He was very sweet to Hans Christian Andersen, and he gave him some advice in the form of a little poem that he wrote in Anderson's scrapbook, kind of like a yearbook signature, have a great summer next summer. So let's go down to poetry corner and here Victor Hugo's poem to Hans Christian Anderson. Happy is the one who loves and who in the black of night while he

seeks faith can find love. He has at least a lantern while he awaits the day blessed is his heart to love. That is half a faith. That's nice. I love these French guys are like, I don't get it, man telling me. You're telling me you're in Paris and you don't want to get laid. These women are ready for you, sir r. He's like, while you seek faith, you know, you can be worried about your faith and stuff like that, and also in the middle of it and be getting laid. You know, gets up. It's like

a lantern that lights your way in the darkness. It's half of faith. Yeah, love is half of faith, so you've got to experience it right, So if you have to, you have a full faith. He goes like, you don't believe how much faith that guy? Well? This time, the early eighteen forties were the most romantically intense period of

Hans Krishnanderson's life. His tour of Parisian horn Dogs was only shortly after the opera singer Jenny Lynde had made clear to him that he was like a brother to her, you remember from part one, And around this same time early eighteen forties, he had two passionate pseudo love affairs that actually might have almost turned into something. And we're going to hear about those right after this. Welcome back to the show, Oh beautiful, Welcome back to the show.

Welcome back to the show. Remember very flipfl Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to a show. That's great. I think for getting somewhere, we can finally go to the Netherlands and they'll be like, oh, are you from Denmark. So in eighteen forty three, Hans Anderson was feeling restless. His writing was switching back and forth between these tragic

poems and these pious children's fairy tales. But in November of that year he bumped into an old acquaintance at a party whom he had met once before, like years earlier, and this was a law student named Hendrick Stamp. After the party, Anderson wrote in his calendar quote Hendrik exceedingly lovable. And after that they started to exchange a lot of letters, and it almost looks like Hans might have really fallen

for someone who actually loved him back. Maybe early Hans wrote Hendrick a letter that said, my darling, Henrik, writing to you seems a little odd. Saying, as I could just as spell be with you, speak with you and shake your hand whenever I wish. However, it is easier at least for me to express myself in writing, which we know that about Hans. Let me think about Jenny lind Or. He could barely speak to her, but he like wrote her a marriage proposal in a letter. Yeah,

right exactly, which makes sense. I feel like right. I mean, you want to choose your words very carefully. And he always felt so uncomfortable. Yeah, he was gen z. He was like, I don't like a phone calls. I don't I don't want to be asked questions unprepared text only. Hans goes on to apologize for being curt with Henrick the night before because he wasn't feeling well, and he ends the letter quote, you the person I often believe that I would give up my life board talk to me.

You often say yes, that is what I wished to do, But I, lonely, as always, must do this evening. Henrick wrote back that never before in his life had he quote opened my whole, undivided heart anyone as I have to you, And he asks Hans once quote to have absolute faith in me and always take my part. Now it's come up in our show before that. You know, affectionate letters between men, especially in this time period, can

be really easily misconstrued by today's standards. Men would use very flowery language writing expressing their love for each other women too. Honestly, that's very passionate and it is. It was very romantic in a way, even if the relationship is totally platonic and not physical in any way. To be like you, you know, some two Parisian guys right to each other. Oh, you are my best friend in the whole world. You're so important to me. I love you more than anyone I've ever loved. I want to

put my head between your legs. And I was like, yeah, they're friends. They were really really good friends. I mean, but they're really they're really were people who wrote like that and didn't mean anything like that, like that very much. I love you your like I have your kiss on my lips. I think of it every day or something.

But it's like, it's not about that, you know, it's just like and then it's it kind of makes me sad a little, like I wish that men today felt like they had the permission to be that intimate with one another. Obviously we have a loneliness problem, and at least American men that I think, you know, it's just too bad that you couldn't write that now without someone thinking, oh, you want to you want me to jump in them pants? Man, if somebody ever wrote to me in a letter that

they want my kiss on their lips, all right? So anyway, that is, that is a common and very easy trap to fall into. I think when you're looking at historic relationships and you're trying to find like that hidden like, oh, is there real feelings here, you know, of romance or not. So that might be confusing to us today, but it also might have been just just confusing for our friend, poor Hans Christian Anderson, because he seemed to have a real problem with how he and Henrick felt for each

other over time. And you know, we know he had this problem with Edwards letters too. Yeah. Now, Hanss calendar really kind of paints a picture here for us, and it's cited in YenS Anderson's biography. In December, Hans makes small notes like Henrick lovable or h trusting, sweet little notes, and then just after Christmas, he wrote in his calendar letter from my beloved Henrick. A few days later spoke

sensibly with h who promised me everything. And then in late January he wrote every day at Hendricks, and then on March eleven he wrote, Henrick was here tonight, loving and kind. Then a week later, March eighteenth, he wrote, Henrick suffering from jealousy. Then six weeks pass and on April Henrick indifferent to me. Then may SWO have not seen Hendrick for two days. That's not kind of him. Then May six I went to see him. He was not as he was before. Is love over and departed

at seven in the evening. Henrik saw me out. And during all this Yen's writes Hans is February diary is loaded with little plus signs more than usual. And in March and April, Hans started getting a type of eggs ema and rash, which the biographer calls psycho somatic. So kind of self inflicted stressed out, Hans wrote in his diary things like penis tender, penis sick, and penis very bad, which I guess means it hurts. I thought when I originally saw that, I was like my penis really acted

After misbehaved. Hans knew that he just had to get away from Henrick. His dick could not handle it anymore, so he took his vener to get some schnitzel and spend the whole long, beautiful summer in Germany. And this is where he met the hereditary Grand Duke of Weimar, Carl Alexander von sased Weimar Eisenach. Amazing name, so long Now Anderson and the Grand Duke had another deep and

intense emotional relationship. But maybe finally, this one was actually just more than just a platonic couple of ros who spoke in misleading ways to each other, because Anderson once wrote quote, the hereditary Grand Duke walked arm in arm with me across the courtyard of the castle to my room, kissed me lovingly, asked me always to love him though he was just an ordinary person, asked me to stay

with him for this winter. Fell asleep with the melancholy happy feeling that I was the guest of this strange prince at his castle and loved by him. It is like a fairy tale. Ah, But like was it? Maybe a fairy tale? You know? He wrote this in his diary, But a lot of scholars don't really trust a lot of Anderson's own accounts of his life, Like his autobiography is literally called the fairy Tale of My Life? So is he dressing this up? Is he creating this prince? Like?

You know? His biographer writes that he makes himself sound like one of the princesses from his fairy tales, that this, you know, this prince, this duke came in and just swept him off his feet and carried him away and kissed him and said stay with me for the winter. They were closed, Yeah, but that you kind of want to take it with a grain salt, I see. But

they did exchange loving letters often. This was a tough point in history for them as well, because revolutions were breaking out in Germany in the late eighteen forties and war was brewing between Germany and Denmark. They worked hard to remain friends, and the Grand Duke even wrote to Hans Christian Andersen and sort of posed the question quote, did we love each other because of our political ideas?

But he kind of answers himself and says, quote, no, truly not, but because of the sympathy of our souls, of our hearts, our imagination. It was these things which attracted us to each other, which bound us together, and God willing will also keep us together in the future.

Promise me that the opinions and views of the present shall never never influence our friendship, which is a sweet thing to say, but also like, well, you're the you're the grand Duke, you know, like you're basically saying, promised me that your opinions and views of the politics I'm directly involved with aren't ever going to bother you a little different than like a regular citizen of Germany being like, I mean, whatever happens between our countries, I hope we

can stay friends. You're like, you have some power in the situation about what happens between these countries. It's a little harder to separate you from those politics. And Anderson was really heartbroken by this conflict. I mean, he was really happy to hear Carl say this to him in

this letter. But he also couldn't help pointing out some of the terrible things that were going on with this war, like German newspapers, for example, were saying patently unshrew things about Denmark and the Danes, and so when Anderson wrote about these things in his letters. Carl just wouldn't respond to them in his replies, just didn't bring it up. And when the Grand Duke got directly involved with the war by commanding troops in this disputed territory between the

two nations, Anderson was really hurt by this. He was kind of shocked that he got so directly involved. The Hans wrote back to his old buddy Edward Collins, remember him from part one, and he said he'd received a letter from the Grand Duke saying, hey, buddy, I'm really sorry I haven't heard from you in months. Anderson's like, well, but you've been off fighting this war. I haven't heard

from you. And Anderson wrote that Carl said he quote had thought politics would have nothing to do with our friendship, and I would be very sorry if i'd been to seeved in you. What. Yeah, the Grand Duke here is saying, wow, you know you're so upset about this war. But I thought we promised that we wouldn't let politics get in our way. I guess I was mistaken about you, which is such a twisted thing to say, like, oh gee, I thought you didn't care about that stuff. But maybe

I was wrong about you. Like that's so fucked up for him to treat haunts like that, right, and again because it's like, well, you have some say on this, like I'm writing to my friend who should actually do something about this horrible propaganda against Denmark, but you're not. And then you're telling me to just like shove it, shove it somewhere so you could still be friends and you have no consequences for actions Like that's not really

very fair. Yeah, and wow, I you to me, Yeah, when I'm the one who said promised me that you know this will never come between us. Yeah. He just wanted permission to see whatever he wanted to do and not have to again not suffer any consequences. So unsurprisingly, their relationship kind of fell apart after that, and the letters eventually stopped in eighteen sixty two when a Second

War broke out. Anderson did not hear from Carl Alexander again until eighteen seventy four, when Carl heard that Anderson was dying and decided to try to reconnect. So it really took a long time for this wound to heal. But back in eighteen sixty six, just a few years after the Second War broke out, with Germany, Anderson took another trip through western Europe because he felt unsafe and uneasy at home, so he decided to visit some friends

in Spain. But on his way home, he stopped back in Paris and he ended up in the last place you'd expect him, a brothel. And we will hear about that little trip right after this little trip to the commercials. Welcome back to the show. So the famed authors in Paris weren't the only ones that were trying to get Hans Christian Anderson laid because during a three month trip to Portugal in eighteen sixty six, he visited a friend

named Jose O'Neil in CenTra. Now CenTra was made famous as a romantic pilgrimage destination after Lord Byron himself passed through in the eighteenth century. At the time, Byron had been staying in Lisbon, but he basically got chased out by the husbands of a few women that he was sleeping with. So he was on the run and he fled to CenTra, and he just ended up falling in love with this city, and he called it glorious Eden in one of his poems. And this just set off

like a whole tourism campaign for CenTra. So shortly after Hans Christian Anderson arrived some hundred years later, Jose, his host, told him, quote, I suppose you'll also want to screw and make the acquaintance of young people who screw everybody. Oh my goodness, it's like that. So you're here, I'm imagining you're gonna to go have sex with the locals. That's what people do when they're in Cintra. Jose just kept pestoring Anderson to quote fulfill his obligations as a

modern tourist, and you know, go get busy. I don't understand. We have an entire economy around that. Yes, how dare you not take part? But Anderson said he quote had not wished to galivant around like an Englishman. Instead, every day he took a long hike up a steep road to palasticod Pina, which is Cintra's main landmark. This was a beautiful fairy tale style castle painted in bright primary colors. You can you can see why Hans is interested. I'm interested.

I'm interested. It looks gorgeous like We immediately started planning a trip to Portugal and Spain. If you're give us an hollar, we will come stay on your couch. We might have to work forward every day. Jose bugged him, like, hey, should you be all doing some thing else while you're here? Someone else, you know which I don't know if our

CenTra hosts will say the same thing. Jose asked Hans, well, what are you going to say back home in Denmark when people ask you whether you saw anything in CenTra besides this palace, to which Anderson replied, quote, I'll say no, which I like. In Denmark, we say what we mean. But he loved CenTra. He stayed as long as he could, particularly because he was worried about this second war with Germany back home. Oh, nobody likes the second war with Germany.

It's never it's never good. The first war with Germany is always bad enough. The second I know, like, we got to do this. So we've talked a lot about how Hans Christian Anderson is not only seemingly kind of terrified of sex, but it sounds like he's outright disgusted by it. Whether this is religious or personal or what his deal is, we're not really sure, but he still

seems really fascinated by it. And at times it feels like he's considering sex like in the same way that somebody might stand on the edge of a cliff and peer over the precipice, like daring yourself to plunge into eternity. Right. Remember we mentioned earlier Hans himself wrote about his quote double nature, fear of danger and the desire to try it. Okay, right there, right, And so maybe sex was part of that. I have this I want to try it, but it's

scary to me. I don't want to try it, so I just want to get close to it and then back away. I wonder too, if he's like seeing all these people dedicate a lot of their time and energy to having sex or finding sex or paying for it or whatever, and he's like, if I do it once, do you just like go off a deep end and all you care about? Or like maybe he was a little concerned about the effect it has on you to

have done it. It could be or I'm thinking about people like Tesla, And we've heard of other people, especially in the more modern tech world, not like today. I don't know maybe to but but some of the inventors we've heard of in the past, who who legitimately thought like, oh, sex and romance just gets in the way of my my genius and my ingenuity, and I need to stay away from that otherwise I won't put out the things

I do. And I mean, I don't know. Maybe they're right, Maybe they if they had fallen in love and had a bunch of eggs, they would have not done the things they did. But maybe Hugo is the exception that proves the role. He was like, I still got a lot dumb. I don't know what you are doing. It's called multie. So this sort of fear of sex and wanting to get close but not too close to it

might be why. In eighteen sixty six, on his way home from Portugals, Christian Andersen stopped for a brief twenty four hour visit in Paris, and he really challenged himself there because he himself once called Paris quote the most lustful city under the sun in a letter, and he had even more fun things to say in a poem that he wrote. So let's go down to poetry corner and here Hans Christian Andersen's take on Paris rushing, shifting, fatigueing,

jumble all around me. I am in Paris. Every day here is like a carnival day, a travesty of a new paradise. Whitewashed graves with painted roses, human souls and swaying reads dance around me, smiling, lowering testify the moment that is life. The fig leaf has gone along with all that is ordinary in humankind. I am thinking of Babylon. Eden's tree of Knowledge now grows in Babylon. Wow, sin city. I feel like I'm talking about Babylon and Eden's tree

of Knowledge. He's like, this is a This is a city of intellectualism, right, the city of culture and art. And also you know knowledge is a sin, right, so there's all this kind of sin creeping in around it. Yeah, I wonder. I always find that so strange to consider knowledge a sin. But that, I guess is the story of the Garden of Eden, right, so interesting. Sometimes I'm like, now they're right, we'd be better off if we were dumb.

I mean, ignorance is bliss. So while Hans was in town in Paris, he took a brief meeting with his old buddy Alexander Duma and his daughter, and then he went to dinner by himself and had a few glasses of wine. The Veno gave him the courage that O'Neill, baal Zack and Duma could not, and Anderson decided to go to the last place you'd expect him to visit,

a Parisian brothel. He wrote about this in his diary on August sixty six, saying, quote, during this whole trip, I've been urged to pay a visit to a prostitute. No matter how tired I was, I decided to see one of these kinds. I went to a house. A woman came who was sold human flesh. Four pressitudes appeared for me. The youngest was eighteen. I told her to stay. She was wearing hardly anything more than a shift, and I felt so sorry for her. I paid her five francs,

but didn't do anything. Just looked at that poor child, who uncovered herself completely and seemed astonished that I merely looked at her. Huh, few sold human flesh. He's really bringing it, breaking it down to baree a translation thing? Or is that just how he put it? I mean, I think that's how he felt about it. To his literatey. He was such a literal guy, like both in terms of being a literary person, but also like he took things as he saw them kind of, so I think

he was like, that's what's happening. But how weird that he just went in paid this girl and just was like, I'm just gonna sit here and you can kind of take a clothes off of you want, but we're not going to do anything. But they talked well, and how funny that how astonished she was that he's going to pay her to just stand there little that was that common thing. No, imagine the Victor hugoes that are usually coming in there, like last guy exhausted me, I need

some stamina. You just want to talk, my god? Okay about well after this, Anderson headed home, but there was something different. Now. It was the closest that he had ever, you know, physically been to having sex with someone. He wrote in his diary, quote many Parisian thoughts. It's good that I'm leaving at once. The flesh is weak, Parisian thoughts. That's what I'm gonna call it. Next time I get all hot and bothered Parisians they get in here, Oh

my goodness. But yeah, I think that's kind of I mean, again, you see him on the precipice. Here, this fearful thing. The flesh is weak. I'm so glad that I'm leaving right away, or God, something might happen, which is exactly what I don't want to happen. But the next year, in eighteen sixty seven, he returned. Officially, he was in town to see the World's Fair, which was called for by Napoleon the third, our friend, uh, and he was

marking the beginning of the Second French Empire. But as the biographer ends says, unofficially he was going to test himself further and maybe try and dip more than a toe into the murky waters of his h Parisian thoughts. And over at twelve month period, Anderson went to Paris three more times, and in those he visited four brothels. So did he go through with it well? He wrote in his diary in May of eighteen sixty seven, quote, after dinner, I walked up and down in concupiscence. Then

suddenly went into a human shop. One woman was plastered with powder, the second ordinary, the third quite a lady. I spoke to her, paid her twelve francs, and left without having sin. Indeed, but certainly in my thoughts. She asked me to come back, said I was very innocent for a gentleman. I was so relieved and happy when I exited from that house. Man the same thing again, or just like, oh thank god I got out of there. When I did, I almost had zech woman, I know,

and human shop, human shop. I'm saying, like, bro, get a little flowery with it. Talk you're a writer. These little judge too. Is like first woman was plastered in powder, the second was ordinary, but the third was quite a lady, I know. And it's like that he wanted her because she was a lady, so she was a little better. When the younger, the eighteen year old, he felt that she was maybe more innocent or something like. He definitely got his own ideas about what these women are like

in their private lives. See, all of his visits were basically like this. He would slip into one of these human shops, pay for time with a woman, talk to her, and then leave and that was it. And each time they were all surprised and delighted by his kindness. They all tried to get him into it, but he always just ran home to his diary and marked a plus sign. He wrote quote many would call me a coward? Is

that what I am? But YenS writes that maybe this wasn't just about challenging himself and putting his chastisy to the test, because he wrote about the women that he spoke to in these brothels and all the details that they gave him about their lives. And remember we talked about this. Anderson loved traveling and meeting people and hearing their stories, hearing local folk tales, hearing just like what someone was like in their day to day life, and

he often incorporated that into his own stories. Yends references a fairy tale that Anderson wrote called Auntie Toothache. And this story has a boy in it who has a real talent for writing poetry, but he is discouraged from doing so. So we remember that about his early life.

And the boy goes through garbage bins to collect little scraps of paper that people have written on and thrown out, and the voice starts piecing their lives together and discovers all these random, intricate human experiences and he gets this picture of a very diverse and fascinating world. YenS writes, quote, we should understand Hans Christian Anderson as a traveler, his prayer to the world was allow me to develop freely in accordance with my own nature, and take me as

I am. That's so beautiful because everyone's prayer to the world, I mean, and a lot of it. Yeah, or he's just like, look, I'm I'm just me. I know I don't do things the same way as you do. Take it or leave it. I just I want us to get along. I want us to be friendly with each other. I want us to love each other. Maybe it's hard to love me, but I'm just trying to collect as much as I can in this world while I'm here, right.

And maybe that, like we said, maybe that turned him away from sex a little bit because he's like, why am I gonna waste my time with that when I could be out doing all these like other passionate intimate things with the whole wide array of people. And maybe he thought it even ruined your objectivity about a person. Oh yeah, maybe so. So I don't know. He was

just an interesting guy, he really. I can't decide if he would have like identifies an asexual person today or not, because it seems like he really felt a lot of sexual energy he wanted that kind of release, he just couldn't allow himself to do it for whatever reasons, whether it was religious or physical or or whatever. I think that's honest to me. That's the most important thing to take out of this story, because I think that he really lacked the language and the and the community to

describe or explore or understand his sexuality, right. And you know, things were so much more rigid back than in terms of what people thought of sex, and in some ways they were less rigid to like, you go to Paris and everybody was whatever. I mean, he described Harris as Adam without his fig leaf. He was like, there's just

dicks wagging around everywhere you go. Um. But but you know, but it does sort of speak to that sort of how much rigidity around sexuality has evolved since then too, now in terms of some of the more open conversations we're having about how like I don't fit in a box, and a lot of people still don't fit in a box. And that's why I think this is that's an important

part of this story, is that this isn't new. This isn't because you know, Twitter came around and people are pushing agendas and and trying to I don't know what people think people are trying to do in terms of breaking open sexuality into a larger conversation. But there's always been a lot of people who don't fit the traditional mold of their sexuality or how they want to experience

sex or intimacy or romance. This is not new. This has always been the case, And there's been people like Ella Gablus and Hans Christian Anderson all through his three who just like, sure, maybe most people are totally comfortable with the traditional way that we've always done it, but there's nothing wrong with or weird about people who want

to experience that differently. No, I would say the only problem with the way we talk about it today is that we're so desperate for people to label themselves one or the other um of anything. Yeah, I mean, and you know, you can see it being a little frustrating when you're like, okay, so are you buy or pan or what's the difference? Like why I have to learn all these things? And there's a million flags. I mean, I can see why people get a little like, all right,

what's going on? But it's almost like, you know, it's the it's sort of the other side of that coin. It's like Anderson couldn't explore because there wasn't any conversation, and now it's like you're exploring so much, but there's still this desire to really be able to place you into some neat little category so that I can understand you and conceptualize your life for whatever reason that I need to do that, and not not even a malicious thing,

just like trying to understand another person. But it's like, you know, the thing about a spectrum is that it's weird and there's blurry parts, and I think sexuality is a spectrum and things blur together, and there's so much that goes into a desire for sex and who you want to have sex with and why and when where you know. I like, it's uh, and it's very different

for each person. I think it's one of those things that you could probably make a million, million, billion different categories and you could still find someone doesn't fit into single one of them absolutely, And I think that's sort of what we're learning at the conversation is messy. I mean, I see people within one sort of umbrella category of sexuality or gender, and they're fighting with each other about

of course, you know how how that breaks down. And I think for anyone to get angry about that is silly because it is messy and there aren't a lot of clean answers. And we're good. Then twenty years from now people are going to think differently about it than they do today. Um, hopefully in more open and interesting ways and less judgmental. But but you're right, I mean, it's it's still messy, um, and it's good that it's

just being talked about. I mean, we are living in a conversation and is wacky, and you know, you could just sit back and watch it happen and that's fine. Yeah, most of you, most of us don't need to be involved in that conversation. I'm just like what I'm saying. Yeah, sometimes I'm like, what how do I keep up with this? Who are you? Wait? You can love this person, but your title is that? Okay? Like, so what if I get confused? Sorry? And if I get it wrong, let

me know. And I'm not here to sit here and tell you you're wrong for telling me that. You know, I don't care. Yeah exactly. There's a million ways to live a life and there's really no wrong one. Unless your life is wrapped up in misery and violence and degradation, whether you're the victim or the perpetrator, you know what I mean. It's like, that's kind of, in my opinion, the only wrong way to be. And otherwise I really

don't care. I think the world is so weird and big and has so much space and room for so much, and it's so weird that we limit ourselves every moment of every day. And again, I think it comes from a real human thing of trying to understand each other in the context of one another and where you fit with me, and where I fit with you, and what role I could play in your life. And that's very normal,

you know, it's not something to be ashamed of. But I think it's cool that we're kind of trying to like, oh, I'm gonna shake that off. But what does it matter if if my soul cares about your soul, your essence, your personality, the person you are inside, who cares about the rapper? I don't know why I care about the rapper,

you know. So, I mean, I think it's nice to be thinking about a little outside of that literal box that our bodies are for our insides, you know, um, and if you like a body, and no problem with that. Plenty of bodies to enjoy. Speaking of enjoying bodies, I was really thinking during Anderson's visit these brothels. I was flashing back to a friend of mine who used to

be an exotic dancer. Right. She worked at a at a local strip club and during the day mostly um, she was like night times or bachelor parties and it's awful and it's chaos, and but she said during the day what she would get was rich guys would come in, they drop a few hundred bucks on a v I P room. They'd go in there and she'd you know, she'd start dancing or whatever, and they're like, Nah, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna talk about the day I had or my home life or whatever. And she's like,

I'm doing more therapy here than I am stripping. How many times, though, have we seen that with the with the courtisan comes there, the concubines or stuff where they're like, half the time, I'm not even trying to sleep with you. I just need a sympathetic woman to listen to me. And like, for whatever reason, if they're not finding it in your wife or whatever, and who is you might be a piece of ship to your wife and that's why she don't listen to you. I don't know. She

might suck. I have no idea, but they've found this other woman who, for whatever reason they could put that stuff on, and maybe because she's getting paid, doesn't have to care. So she's like, all right, great, I can listen to that. You can dump all over me, and I can leave that in the VI I p room and head my ass onto my life and I'm not weighed down by your stuff the way a wife or someone who has to like live with your stuff every day would be. I could see that being very therapeutic.

And maybe there's all I know a lot you know, and again making wide assumptions, but I know there's sort of an issue with men in our country going to therapy. Um, so maybe that's what they're finding an outlet in that way. They should just there should really be some kind of crossover industry where therapists the sexy therapists instead of therapist sex therapist, yeah, sexy therapist. So it's sex workers every

time you break there. I take the look. I know quite a few sex workers who have their agree in psychology? Hey why not? And what a study of human psychology? And if we would legalize sex work in this country, they could probably put both those skills to work and really make some serious money if we If we added you had sex work into any industry in this country, and it will skyrocket. I don't know about food service, but made service too, Like they got buffets at strip clubs.

People are you know what? And actually I think they even had some drive through. They had a drive through strip club during the pandemic. And I want to say, uh, Seattle or Portland or somewhere up in the north. I remember hearing about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I guess there was a drive through strip not to drive through. I was like, they're serving fries. I'm over here. That shake, it's right there. It's all working out. The other thing

I wanted to point out too. Back in his trip, it's very briefly mentioned that he stopped to see Alexandra Dumah the day before he went to the brothel for his twenty four hours Harris, and I wonder if it wasn't the same thing where he was like, oh, Alexander will try to get me laid again and I'll come real close, you know. And that's what he was looking for. So I wonder if that was the purpose of that visit. Well, we know he couldn't ask Victor because Napoleon the Third

was celebrating the Second French Empire, which my Victor was right. Um, well, Hans Christian Ederson, he did pass away in eighteventy five. Uh. It seems to be of liver cancer. And I thought this was really sweet. Shortly before his death, he consulted a composer about the music for his funeral and he said, quote, most of the people who walk after me will be children, So make the beat keep time with little steps. So sweet.

I mean, he just like, I don't know, he wasn't basically a big kid his whole life, and he knew kids he he was. We didn't get too much into his literature in this story because obviously we're looking at his romances. But he was always talking about He's like, you don't understand me, but do you know who does? Kids that read my books? And that's I think that's really what he just kind of wanted to be in that place of just childishness. Yeah, I mean, and why

not I don't know. I feel like again, I feel like Margaret wise Brown had a little bit of that as well. Like I just I don't understand why you don't want to look at the world with this wonder and excitement, interest and innocence instead of cynicism and you know, fear, like adults seem to have a lot. You know, there's

something beautiful about that. I was just reading a poem earlier today that was like, why not Everyone always says live each day as it it's your last, But why not live at each day as as if it's your first, and just being astonished by everything you see and like bowled over with enthusiasm about so many normal things and nothing is mundane, you know. And I was like, that's

a really cool question. Why not let me answer first and just like rubbing your eyes in wonderment, maybe like your sixty fifth day, because like, we just met my newborn niece who's like five days old, and she don't care. She's not wondered by anything. She's just like, what the hell am I doing here? Yeah, we should leave each day as if we're about three months old. I was like, wow, trip and ball two hands, WHOA? But I know that is that is something cool about that that energy Hans

had it, that's for sure. Yeah, um, what what a guy there's I'm so fascinated by. I mean, talk about just someone. If I did have my psychology degree and I was doing sex work on the side to pay my bills, I would be really fascinated to analyze was Christian Anderson? You know? And to uh, well, I guess last time we mentioned that maybe he would be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. Today and Randy again shared a link with us, saying that there's a lot

of scholars who believe that now. It's very hard to diagnose that sort of thing, you know, later when they're not here to talk to you, obviously, but a lot of people are thinking that now. So yeah, it's definitely been said. He's just a fascinating character to me. I mean, like, I always love when people's crazy lives lead to them writing these timeless books and novels and stories and stuff that's always so interesting to dig into. But then there's

so much more with this guy. Well, and it's nice to remember that there's people, you know, legendary people who you feel like, oh, it's cool that they you know, sort of marked to the beat of their own drum and they did their own thing. And but you know, it's really cool to like dive into his private world like this and realize that that's really hard to do. That's hard to do no matter who you are, when it is that you know in in history that you're doing it. It's very hard to be out of step

with everybody around you. As much as we act like we value that, it really is hard to watch. And I think people are like, oh, why aren't you little do do the normal thing, you know, So it's nice to see how, you know, how it really messed with his head a lot, to be like, I don't know why I'm different, but I just am. And that's what makes him special. Literally, that's why we care about him. That's why he was able to write what he could write.

To that point, like seeing these legends and their lives were so not mundane but just like they were just they were small people in a giant world. You know, we see them as these like marker points on the historical timeline, right, and that makes someone so epic, so much bigger than than life. And when you could like go to their day to day life. They were just trying to get through it like the rest of us, and confused and worried, and some of them were trying

to get laid. Someone were trying desperately to not get laid, right, Um, making decisions based on emotions on nothing, I mean, yeah, and being worried and and and uh, you know, war and stuff around them having such an impact on their lives. They just anybody else. And I think that that does a couple of things. It takes the idea of celebrity

and legendary people off the pedestal a little bit. And it also, I think teaches us that, you know, despite our struggles, that kind of impact on the world is not out of reach for us as normal as people. Yeah, so if you're weird and feeling weird about it, stay weird and let us know about your weirdness. We'd love

to hear from you right around here. And uh, and how you related to this story and what you thought of Hans and you know, tell us how offended you are as a Dutch or Danish person for being confused between the two. I will never not be mad that we did that. But again, thank you so much to Arvid for suggesting this story to everyone who's reached out about it. I'm so glad that we got to spend a few episodes with this guy, and I hope you

are too. Please let us know your thoughts absolutely send us then email at to ridict Romance at gmail dot com right or we're on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Dianamite Boom, and I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli and the show is at ridict Romance. Thank you again for tune and in for these three episodes spending your time with us. We hope you enjoyed it and we will catch you the next one. I love you, bye, so long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.

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