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Sorrow-Acre | Introduction

First published in Danish as part of the collection Winter's Tales, "Sorrow-Acre" is the most frequently anthologized of Dinesen's short stories. Written upon her return to Denmark after more than a decade in Africa, and during the darkest days of World War n, the collection's title has a double meaning, referring to both the cold, northern climate in which Dinesen found herself and to the war raging all around her. As Thomas Whissen writes, "[D]enied a sword, she took up the only weapon she had—her pen—and wrote Winter's Tales. Huddled behind blackout curtains in that draughty old house on the sound, cut off from the world, aware that she was being watched (German soldiers camped in her backyard), she began writing tales again, the first in nearly a decade."

However, it would be a mistake to read the collection, or "Sorrow-Acre," as nothing more than the effect of these causes. Dinesen was one of the more gifted writers of an abundantly gifted era, and all of her gifts are on display in this collection. Donald Hannah gives one obvious example drawn from "Sorrow-Acre" when he observes that Dinesen's "life-long interest in painting is ... reflected by the way in which her imagination in the tales frequently operates in visual terms. She writes like a painter. The striking description of the countryside in the opening paragraphs of 'Sorrow-Acre' is but one example of this." Throughout "Sorrow-Acre," Winter's Tales, and indeed, throughout her entire life's work, she demonstrates the power of her clear-sighted imagination and formal elegance to impressive, often stunning effect.

Sorrow-Acre Summary

At his mother's urgent request, a young man named Adam has returned from England to his ancestral home in Denmark at the height of the short Danish summer. He meets his uncle in a beautiful garden on the estate. After an amiable discussion comparing the tasks confronted by the gods of Rome to those of the earlier Norse gods, Adam notes that his uncle seems distracted. His uncle admits that his thoughts are elsewhere and tells Adam the story of Goske Phi.

One week before Adam's arrival, his uncle says, someone burned down his barn at Rodmosegaard. A few days later, the keeper at Rodmose and a wheelwright came to the house with Goske Fiil, a widow's son, in tow. They swore that Goske was the person who had set the barn on fire. Both men disliked Goske. The keeper suspected him of having poached on the grounds of Rodmose, while the wheelwright suspected Goske of having relations with his own young wife. The boy swore to his innocence, but he was unable to convince Adam's uncle in conversation with the two men that he was truly innocent. Adam's uncle had Goske locked up, meaning to send him to the judge of the district with a letter. The judge, he explained, is an idiot and would have done whatever he thought the uncle wanted him to do: send the boy to prison, put him in the army as a bad character, or even free him.

During a ride through his fields, Adam's uncle met Anne-Marie Pill, Goske's mother. She... » Complete Sorrow-Acre Summary