I slept with one note On the bedside table he was not dead. Every time he used, he left her very visible, just in case. There are those who carry an amulet, others are entrusted to a saint. The writer Hans Christian Andersen The paper. The Tapefobiapanic to be buried alive, it is not so common today, but there was a time when this fear was stronger than dying. Not because of death itself, but by Possibility of opening your eyes inside a coffin.
In the last days of his life, the author begged Dorothea Melchior That he cut his veins if he seemed to have died, to make sure that it was not a false alarm. According to Jackie Wullschläger In his biography Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storytellershe responded in a joke, telling her to do the usual and leave a note beside her to say: “I only seem to be dead.” That custom of his was no punctual whim. Some claim that he carried the message even hanging from his neck.
The idea of waking buried persecuted him long before getting sick. It was not a light superstition, but a daily concern. Andersen did not trust people to know Distinguish well between a lifeless body and one that only seemed inert. So he took precautions like who has umbrellas even if it doesn’t rain.
A fear that never rested
In your case, the precautions went from papers to more elaborate emergency plans. Each decision was loaded with a thorough calculation against possibilities that only he contemplated with such seriousness.
That type of forecast fit with another of its most persistent fears: a Visceral fear of fires. Not only did he avoid candles or chimneys; When I was traveling, I put a suitcase a rope In case he had to get off the window. Wullschläger tells it naturally, as part of someone’s portrait with an imagination as active as it is runaway.
His biography does not only collect this mania. He also mentions his absolute rejection of dogswho managed to infiltrate even in some of their stories as threatening figures, and their obsession with Do not eat pig for fear of contracting triquinosis.
The food, in general, was a matter. If he noticed a rare taste, sweat entered. There were days that I thought they were poisoning. And the funny thing is that, in his time, that fear was not so far -fetched. The infections transmitted by food They were much more frequent than what is usually imagined now. But his thing went beyond reasonable prevention: he touched panic.
He was not an especially quiet man. His biography is dotted with episodes in which he acts moved by constant fears. Many of them have nothing to do with diseases or accidents, but with daily appearance. But in his head, any detail could become a threat. That mixture between extreme sensitivity and permanent fear also sneaked into their stories, although more subtle.
In the end, there was no rope or notice to save him from the inevitable. He died at the Melchior’s house, surrounded by people who knew their oddities. The note was still there, just in case. Although it was evident that he did not sleep.
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