Bab Bab 4 · The Shoes of Fortune

. The Shoes of Fortune

I. A Beginning

Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style

of writing. Those who do not like him, magnify it, shrug up their

shoulders, and exclaim--there he is again! I, for my part, know very

well how I can bring about this movement and this exclamation. It would

happen immediately if I were to begin here, as I intended to do, with:

“Rome has its Corso, Naples its Toledo”--“Ah! that Andersen; there he is

again!” they would cry; yet I must, to please my fancy, continue quite

quietly, and add: “But Copenhagen has its East Street.”

Here, then, we will stay for the present. In one of the houses not far

from the new market a party was invited--a very large party, in order,

as is often the case, to get a return invitation from the others. One

half of the company was already seated at the card-table, the other half

awaited the result of the stereotype preliminary observation of the lady

of the house:

“Now let us see what we can do to amuse ourselves.”

They had got just so far, and the conversation began to crystallise,

as it could but do with the scanty stream which the commonplace world

supplied. Amongst other things they spoke of the middle ages: some

praised that period as far more interesting, far more poetical than our

own too sober present; indeed Councillor Knap defended this opinion

so warmly, that the hostess declared immediately on his side, and both

exerted themselves with unwearied eloquence. The Councillor boldly

declared the time of King Hans to be the noblest and the most happy

period.*

* A.D. 1482-1513

While the conversation turned on this subject, and was only for a moment

interrupted by the arrival of a journal that contained nothing worth

reading, we will just step out into the antechamber, where cloaks,

mackintoshes, sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two

female figures, a young and an old one. One might have thought at first

they were servants come to accompany their mistresses home; but on

looking nearer, one soon saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their

forms were too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their

dress too striking. Two fairies were they; the younger, it is true,

was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the waiting-maids of her

handmaidens who carry about the lesser good things that she distributes;

the other looked extremely gloomy--it was Care. She always attends to

her own serious business herself, as then she is sure of having it done

properly.

They were telling each other, with a confidential interchange of ideas,

where they had been during the day. The messenger of Fortune had only

executed a few unimportant commissions, such as saving a new bonnet from

a shower of rain, etc.; but what she had yet to perform was something

quite unusual.

“I must tell you,” said she, “that to-day is my birthday; and in honor

of it, a pair of walking-shoes or galoshes has been entrusted to me,

which I am to carry to mankind. These shoes possess the property of

instantly transporting him who has them on to the place or the period

in which he most wishes to be; every wish, as regards time or place, or

state of being, will be immediately fulfilled, and so at last man will

be happy, here below.”

“Do you seriously believe it?” replied Care, in a severe tone of

reproach. “No; he will be very unhappy, and will assuredly bless the

moment when he feels that he has freed himself from the fatal shoes.”

“Stupid nonsense!” said the other angrily. “I will put them here by

the door. Some one will make a mistake for certain and take the wrong

ones--he will be a happy man.”

Such was their conversation.

II. What Happened to the Councillor

It was late; Councillor Knap, deeply occupied with the times of King

Hans, intended to go home, and malicious Fate managed matters so that

his feet, instead of finding their way to his own galoshes, slipped

into those of Fortune. Thus caparisoned the good man walked out of the

well-lighted rooms into East Street. By the magic power of the shoes he

was carried back to the times of King Hans; on which account his foot

very naturally sank in the mud and puddles of the street, there having

been in those days no pavement in Copenhagen.

“Well! This is too bad! How dirty it is here!” sighed the Councillor.

“As to a pavement, I can find no traces of one, and all the lamps, it

seems, have gone to sleep.”

The moon was not yet very high; it was besides rather foggy, so that

in the darkness all objects seemed mingled in chaotic confusion. At the

next corner hung a votive lamp before a Madonna, but the light it gave

was little better than none at all; indeed, he did not observe it before

he was exactly under it, and his eyes fell upon the bright colors of the

pictures which represented the well-known group of the Virgin and the

infant Jesus.

“That is probably a wax-work show,” thought he; “and the people delay

taking down their sign in hopes of a late visitor or two.”

A few persons in the costume of the time of King Hans passed quickly by

him.

“How strange they look! The good folks come probably from a masquerade!”

Suddenly was heard the sound of drums and fifes; the bright blaze of a

fire shot up from time to time, and its ruddy gleams seemed to contend

with the bluish light of the torches. The Councillor stood still, and

watched a most strange procession pass by. First came a dozen drummers,

who understood pretty well how to handle their instruments; then came

halberdiers, and some armed with cross-bows. The principal person in the

procession was a priest. Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked

what was the meaning of all this mummery, and who that man was.

“That's the Bishop of Zealand,” was the answer.

“Good Heavens! What has taken possession of the Bishop?” sighed the

Councillor, shaking his head. It certainly could not be the Bishop; even

though he was considered the most absent man in the whole kingdom, and

people told the drollest anecdotes about him. Reflecting on the matter,

and without looking right or left, the Councillor went through East

Street and across the Habro-Platz. The bridge leading to Palace Square

was not to be found; scarcely trusting his senses, the nocturnal

wanderer discovered a shallow piece of water, and here fell in with two

men who very comfortably were rocking to and fro in a boat.

“Does your honor want to cross the ferry to the Holme?” asked they.

“Across to the Holme!” said the Councillor, who knew nothing of the age

in which he at that moment was. “No, I am going to Christianshafen, to

Little Market Street.”

Both men stared at him in astonishment.

“Only just tell me where the bridge is,” said he. “It is really

unpardonable that there are no lamps here; and it is as dirty as if one

had to wade through a morass.”

The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their

language become to him.

“I don't understand your Bornholmish dialect,” said he at last, angrily,

and turning his back upon them. He was unable to find the bridge: there

was no railway either. “It is really disgraceful what a state this place

is in,” muttered he to himself. Never had his age, with which, however,

he was always grumbling, seemed so miserable as on this evening. “I'll

take a hackney-coach!” thought he. But where were the hackney-coaches?

Not one was to be seen.

“I must go back to the New Market; there, it is to be hoped, I

shall find some coaches; for if I don't, I shall never get safe to

Christianshafen.”

So off he went in the direction of East Street, and had nearly got to

the end of it when the moon shone forth.

“God bless me! What wooden scaffolding is that which they have set up

there?” cried he involuntarily, as he looked at East Gate, which, in

those days, was at the end of East Street.

He found, however, a little side-door open, and through this he went,

and stepped into our New Market of the present time. It was a huge

desolate plain; some wild bushes stood up here and there, while across

the field flowed a broad canal or river. Some wretched hovels for the

Dutch sailors, resembling great boxes, and after which the place was

named, lay about in confused disorder on the opposite bank.

“I either behold a fata morgana, or I am regularly tipsy,” whimpered out

the Councillor. “But what's this?”

He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was seriously ill. He

gazed at the street formerly so well known to him, and now so strange in

appearance, and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them were

of wood, slightly put together; and many had a thatched roof.

“No--I am far from well,” sighed he; “and yet I drank only one glass of

punch; but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong to give

us punch and hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first

opportunity. I have half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer.

But no, that would be too silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up

still.”

He looked for the house, but it had vanished.

“It is really dreadful,” groaned he with increasing anxiety; “I cannot

recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent shop from one

end to the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere; just

as if I were at Ringstead. Oh! I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any

longer. Where the deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very

spot; yet there is not the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a

degree has everything changed this night! At all events here are some

people up and stirring. Oh! oh! I am certainly very ill.”

He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of which a faint light

shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of public-house.

The room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in Holstein; a

pretty numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen burghers, and

a few scholars, sat here in deep converse over their pewter cans, and

gave little heed to the person who entered.

“By your leave!” said the Councillor to the Hostess, who came bustling

towards him. “I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have the

goodness to send for a hackney-coach to take me to Christianshafen?”

The woman examined him with eyes of astonishment, and shook her head;

she then addressed him in German. The Councillor thought she did not

understand Danish, and therefore repeated his wish in German. This, in

connection with his costume, strengthened the good woman in the belief

that he was a foreigner. That he was ill, she comprehended directly; so

she brought him a pitcher of water, which tasted certainly pretty strong

of the sea, although it had been fetched from the well.

The Councillor supported his head on his hand, drew a long breath, and

thought over all the wondrous things he saw around him.

“Is this the Daily News of this evening?” he asked mechanically, as he

saw the Hostess push aside a large sheet of paper.

The meaning of this councillorship query remained, of course, a riddle

to her, yet she handed him the paper without replying. It was a coarse

wood-cut, representing a splendid meteor “as seen in the town of

Cologne,” which was to be read below in bright letters.

“That is very old!” said the Councillor, whom this piece of antiquity

began to make considerably more cheerful. “Pray how did you come into

possession of this rare print? It is extremely interesting, although the

whole is a mere fable. Such meteorous appearances are to be explained in

this way--that they are the reflections of the Aurora Borealis, and it

is highly probable they are caused principally by electricity.”

Those persons who were sitting nearest him and heard his speech,

stared at him in wonderment; and one of them rose, took off his hat

respectfully, and said with a serious countenance, “You are no doubt a

very learned man, Monsieur.”

“Oh no,” answered the Councillor, “I can only join in conversation on

this topic and on that, as indeed one must do according to the demands

of the world at present.”

“Modestia is a fine virtue,” continued the gentleman; “however, as to

your speech, I must say mihi secus videtur: yet I am willing to suspend

my judicium.”

“May I ask with whom I have the pleasure of speaking?” asked the

Councillor.

“I am a Bachelor in Theologia,” answered the gentleman with a stiff

reverence.

This reply fully satisfied the Councillor; the title suited the dress.

“He is certainly,” thought he, “some village schoolmaster--some queer

old fellow, such as one still often meets with in Jutland.”

“This is no locus docendi, it is true,” began the clerical gentleman;

“yet I beg you earnestly to let us profit by your learning. Your reading

in the ancients is, sine dubio, of vast extent?”

“Oh yes, I've read something, to be sure,” replied the Councillor. “I

like reading all useful works; but I do not on that account despise the

modern ones; 'tis only the unfortunate 'Tales of Every-day Life' that I

cannot bear--we have enough and more than enough such in reality.”

“'Tales of Every-day Life?'” said our Bachelor inquiringly.

“I mean those new fangled novels, twisting and writhing themselves in

the dust of commonplace, which also expect to find a reading public.”

“Oh,” exclaimed the clerical gentleman smiling, “there is much wit in

them; besides they are read at court. The King likes the history of Sir

Iffven and Sir Gaudian particularly, which treats of King Arthur, and

his Knights of the Round Table; he has more than once joked about it

with his high vassals.”

“I have not read that novel,” said the Councillor; “it must be quite a

new one, that Heiberg has published lately.”

“No,” answered the theologian of the time of King Hans: “that book is

not written by a Heiberg, but was imprinted by Godfrey von Gehmen.”

“Oh, is that the author's name?” said the Councillor. “It is a very

old name, and, as well as I recollect, he was the first printer that

appeared in Denmark.”

“Yes, he is our first printer,” replied the clerical gentleman hastily.

So far all went on well. Some one of the worthy burghers now spoke of

the dreadful pestilence that had raged in the country a few years back,

meaning that of 1484. The Councillor imagined it was the cholera that

was meant, which people made so much fuss about; and the discourse

passed off satisfactorily enough. The war of the buccaneers of 1490 was

so recent that it could not fail being alluded to; the English

pirates had, they said, most shamefully taken their ships while in the

roadstead; and the Councillor, before whose eyes the Herostratic [*]

event of 1801 still floated vividly, agreed entirely with the others in

abusing the rascally English. With other topics he was not so fortunate;

every moment brought about some new confusion, and threatened to become

a perfect Babel; for the worthy Bachelor was really too ignorant, and

the simplest observations of the Councillor sounded to him too daring

and phantastical. They looked at one another from the crown of the head

to the soles of the feet; and when matters grew to too high a

pitch, then the Bachelor talked Latin, in the hope of being better

understood--but it was of no use after all.

* Herostratus, or Eratostratus--an Ephesian, who wantonly

set fire to the famous temple of Diana, in order to

commemorate his name by so uncommon an action.

“What's the matter?” asked the Hostess, plucking the Councillor by the

sleeve; and now his recollection returned, for in the course of the

conversation he had entirely forgotten all that had preceded it.

“Merciful God, where am I!” exclaimed he in agony; and while he so

thought, all his ideas and feelings of overpowering dizziness, against

which he struggled with the utmost power of desperation, encompassed

him with renewed force. “Let us drink claret and mead, and Bremen beer,”

shouted one of the guests--“and you shall drink with us!”

Two maidens approached. One wore a cap of two staring colors, denoting

the class of persons to which she belonged. They poured out the liquor,

and made the most friendly gesticulations; while a cold perspiration

trickled down the back of the poor Councillor.

“What's to be the end of this! What's to become of me!” groaned he; but

he was forced, in spite of his opposition, to drink with the rest. They

took hold of the worthy man; who, hearing on every side that he was

intoxicated, did not in the least doubt the truth of this certainly

not very polite assertion; but on the contrary, implored the ladies

and gentlemen present to procure him a hackney-coach: they, however,

imagined he was talking Russian.

Never before, he thought, had he been in such a coarse and ignorant

company; one might almost fancy the people had turned heathens again.

“It is the most dreadful moment of my life: the whole world is leagued

against me!” But suddenly it occurred to him that he might stoop down

under the table, and then creep unobserved out of the door. He did so;

but just as he was going, the others remarked what he was about; they

laid hold of him by the legs; and now, happily for him, off fell his

fatal shoes--and with them the charm was at an end.

The Councillor saw quite distinctly before him a lantern burning, and

behind this a large handsome house. All seemed to him in proper order as

usual; it was East Street, splendid and elegant as we now see it. He lay

with his feet towards a doorway, and exactly opposite sat the watchman

asleep.

“Gracious Heaven!” said he. “Have I lain here in the street and dreamed?

Yes; 'tis East Street! How splendid and light it is! But really it is

terrible what an effect that one glass of punch must have had on me!”

Two minutes later, he was sitting in a hackney-coach and driving to

Frederickshafen. He thought of the distress and agony he had endured,

and praised from the very bottom of his heart the happy reality--our own

time--which, with all its deficiencies, is yet much better than that in

which, so much against his inclination, he had lately been.

III. The Watchman's Adventure

“Why, there is a pair of galoshes, as sure as I'm alive!” said the

watchman, awaking from a gentle slumber. “They belong no doubt to the

lieutenant who lives over the way. They lie close to the door.”

The worthy man was inclined to ring and deliver them at the house, for

there was still a light in the window; but he did not like disturbing

the other people in their beds, and so very considerately he left the

matter alone.

“Such a pair of shoes must be very warm and comfortable,” said he; “the

leather is so soft and supple.” They fitted his feet as though they

had been made for him. “'Tis a curious world we live in,” continued he,

soliloquizing. “There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to

bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease;

but does he do it? No; he saunters up and down his room, because,

probably, he has enjoyed too many of the good things of this world at

his dinner. That's a happy fellow! He has neither an infirm mother, nor

a whole troop of everlastingly hungry children to torment him. Every

evening he goes to a party, where his nice supper costs him nothing:

would to Heaven I could but change with him! How happy should I be!”

While expressing his wish, the charm of the shoes, which he had put on,

began to work; the watchman entered into the being and nature of the

lieutenant. He stood in the handsomely furnished apartment, and held

between his fingers a small sheet of rose-colored paper, on which some

verses were written--written indeed by the officer himself; for who has

not, at least once in his life, had a lyrical moment? And if one then

marks down one's thoughts, poetry is produced. But here was written:

OH, WERE I RICH!

“Oh, were I rich! Such was my wish, yea such

When hardly three feet high, I longed for much.

Oh, were I rich! an officer were I,

With sword, and uniform, and plume so high.

And the time came, and officer was I!

But yet I grew not rich. Alas, poor me!

Have pity, Thou, who all man's wants dost see.

“I sat one evening sunk in dreams of bliss,

A maid of seven years old gave me a kiss,

I at that time was rich in poesy

And tales of old, though poor as poor could be;

But all she asked for was this poesy.

Then was I rich, but not in gold, poor me!

As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see.

“Oh, were I rich! Oft asked I for this boon.

The child grew up to womanhood full soon.

She is so pretty, clever, and so kind

Oh, did she know what's hidden in my mind--

A tale of old. Would she to me were kind!

But I'm condemned to silence! oh, poor me!

As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see.

“Oh, were I rich in calm and peace of mind,

My grief you then would not here written find!

O thou, to whom I do my heart devote,

Oh read this page of glad days now remote,

A dark, dark tale, which I tonight devote!

Dark is the future now. Alas, poor me!

Have pity Thou, who all men's pains dost see.”

Such verses as these people write when they are in love! But no man

in his senses ever thinks of printing them. Here one of the sorrows of

life, in which there is real poetry, gave itself vent; not that

barren grief which the poet may only hint at, but never depict in its

detail--misery and want: that animal necessity, in short, to snatch

at least at a fallen leaf of the bread-fruit tree, if not at the fruit

itself. The higher the position in which one finds oneself transplanted,

the greater is the suffering. Everyday necessity is the stagnant pool of

life--no lovely picture reflects itself therein. Lieutenant, love, and

lack of money--that is a symbolic triangle, or much the same as the

half of the shattered die of Fortune. This the lieutenant felt most

poignantly, and this was the reason he leant his head against the

window, and sighed so deeply.

“The poor watchman out there in the street is far happier than I. He

knows not what I term privation. He has a home, a wife, and children,

who weep with him over his sorrows, who rejoice with him when he is

glad. Oh, far happier were I, could I exchange with him my being--with

his desires and with his hopes perform the weary pilgrimage of life! Oh,

he is a hundred times happier than I!”

In the same moment the watchman was again watchman. It was the shoes

that caused the metamorphosis by means of which, unknown to himself, he

took upon him the thoughts and feelings of the officer; but, as we have

just seen, he felt himself in his new situation much less contented,

and now preferred the very thing which but some minutes before he had

rejected. So then the watchman was again watchman.

“That was an unpleasant dream,” said he; “but 'twas droll enough

altogether. I fancied that I was the lieutenant over there: and yet

the thing was not very much to my taste after all. I missed my good old

mother and the dear little ones; who almost tear me to pieces for sheer

love.”

He seated himself once more and nodded: the dream continued to haunt

him, for he still had the shoes on his feet. A falling star shone in the

dark firmament.

“There falls another star,” said he: “but what does it matter; there

are always enough left. I should not much mind examining the little

glimmering things somewhat nearer, especially the moon; for that would

not slip so easily through a man's fingers. When we die--so at least

says the student, for whom my wife does the washing--we shall fly about

as light as a feather from one such a star to the other. That's, of

course, not true: but 'twould be pretty enough if it were so. If I could

but once take a leap up there, my body might stay here on the steps for

what I care.”

Behold--there are certain things in the world to which one ought never

to give utterance except with the greatest caution; but doubly careful

must one be when we have the Shoes of Fortune on our feet. Now just

listen to what happened to the watchman.

As to ourselves, we all know the speed produced by the employment of

steam; we have experienced it either on railroads, or in boats when

crossing the sea; but such a flight is like the travelling of a sloth in

comparison with the velocity with which light moves. It flies nineteen

million times faster than the best race-horse; and yet electricity is

quicker still. Death is an electric shock which our heart receives; the

freed soul soars upwards on the wings of electricity. The sun's light

wants eight minutes and some seconds to perform a journey of more than

twenty million of our Danish [*] miles; borne by electricity, the soul

wants even some minutes less to accomplish the same flight. To it the

space between the heavenly bodies is not greater than the distance

between the homes of our friends in town is for us, even if they live a

short way from each other; such an electric shock in the heart, however,

costs us the use of the body here below; unless, like the watchman of

East Street, we happen to have on the Shoes of Fortune.

* A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English.

In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our

miles up to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of

matter much lighter than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft

as newly-fallen snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent

mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's

“Map of the Moon.” Within, down it sunk perpendicularly into a caldron,

about a Danish mile in depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance

we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white of

an egg in a glass of water. The matter of which it was built was just as

soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars, transparent and

rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was rolling like

a large fiery ball.

He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what

we call “men”; yet they looked different to us. A far more correct

imagination than that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and

if they had been placed in rank and file, and copied by some skilful

painter's hand, one would, without doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily,

“What a beautiful arabesque!”

*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said

to be by Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its

inhabitants, written with such a semblance of truth that many were

deceived by the imposture.

Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard

A. Locke, and originally published in New York.

They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of

the watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend

it; for in our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor

mortals, despite all our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she

not show us--she the queen in the land of enchantment--her astounding

dramatic talent in all our dreams? There every acquaintance appears and

speaks upon the stage, so entirely in character, and with the same tone

of voice, that none of us, when awake, were able to imitate it. How

well can she recall persons to our mind, of whom we have not thought for

years; when suddenly they step forth “every inch a man,” resembling the

real personages, even to the finest features, and become the heroes

or heroines of our world of dreams. In reality, such remembrances are

rather unpleasant: every sin, every evil thought, may, like a clock with

alarm or chimes, be repeated at pleasure; then the question is if we can

trust ourselves to give an account of every unbecoming word in our heart

and on our lips.

The watchman's spirit understood the language of the inhabitants of the

moon pretty well. The Selenites* disputed variously about our earth,

and expressed their doubts if it could be inhabited: the air, they said,

must certainly be too dense to allow any rational dweller in the moon

the necessary free respiration. They considered the moon alone to

be inhabited: they imagined it was the real heart of the universe or

planetary system, on which the genuine Cosmopolites, or citizens of the

world, dwelt. What strange things men--no, what strange things Selenites

sometimes take into their heads!

* Dwellers in the moon.

About politics they had a good deal to say. But little Denmark must

take care what it is about, and not run counter to the moon; that

great realm, that might in an ill-humor bestir itself, and dash down a

hail-storm in our faces, or force the Baltic to overflow the sides of

its gigantic basin.

We will, therefore, not listen to what was spoken, and on no condition

run in the possibility of telling tales out of school; but we will

rather proceed, like good quiet citizens, to East Street, and observe

what happened meanwhile to the body of the watchman.

He sat lifeless on the steps: the morning-star,* that is to say, the

heavy wooden staff, headed with iron spikes, and which had nothing else

in common with its sparkling brother in the sky, had glided from his

hand; while his eyes were fixed with glassy stare on the moon, looking

for the good old fellow of a spirit which still haunted it.

*The watchmen in Germany, had formerly, and in some places they still

carry with them, on their rounds at night, a sort of mace or club, known

in ancient times by the above denomination.

“What's the hour, watchman?” asked a passer-by. But when the watchman

gave no reply, the merry roysterer, who was now returning home from a

noisy drinking bout, took it into his head to try what a tweak of the

nose would do, on which the supposed sleeper lost his balance, the body

lay motionless, stretched out on the pavement: the man was dead. When

the patrol came up, all his comrades, who comprehended nothing of the

whole affair, were seized with a dreadful fright, for dead he was,

and he remained so. The proper authorities were informed of the

circumstance, people talked a good deal about it, and in the morning the

body was carried to the hospital.

Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back

and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. No doubt

it would, in its anxiety, run off to the police, and then to the

“Hue and Cry” office, to announce that “the finder will be handsomely

rewarded,” and at last away to the hospital; yet we may boldly assert

that the soul is shrewdest when it shakes off every fetter, and every

sort of leading-string--the body only makes it stupid.

The seemingly dead body of the watchman wandered, as we have said, to

the hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room:

and the first thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the

galoshes--when the spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must

have returned with the quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement.

It took its direction towards the body in a straight line; and a few

seconds after, life began to show itself in the man. He asserted that

the preceding night had been the worst that ever the malice of fate had

allotted him; he would not for two silver marks again go through what he

had endured while moon-stricken; but now, however, it was over.

The same day he was discharged from the hospital as perfectly cured; but

the Shoes meanwhile remained behind.

IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's “Dramatic Readings”--A

Most Strange Journey

Every inhabitant of Copenhagen knows, from personal inspection, how

the entrance to Frederick's Hospital looks; but as it is possible that

others, who are not Copenhagen people, may also read this little work,

we will beforehand give a short description of it.

The extensive building is separated from the street by a pretty high

railing, the thick iron bars of which are so far apart, that in

all seriousness, it is said, some very thin fellow had of a night

occasionally squeezed himself through to go and pay his little visits

in the town. The part of the body most difficult to manage on such

occasions was, no doubt, the head; here, as is so often the case in

the world, long-headed people get through best. So much, then, for the

introduction.

One of the young men, whose head, in a physical sense only, might be

said to be of the thickest, had the watch that evening. The rain poured

down in torrents; yet despite these two obstacles, the young man was

obliged to go out, if it were but for a quarter of an hour; and as

to telling the door-keeper about it, that, he thought, was quite

unnecessary, if, with a whole skin, he were able to slip through the

railings. There, on the floor lay the galoshes, which the watchman

had forgotten; he never dreamed for a moment that they were those of

Fortune; and they promised to do him good service in the wet; so he put

them on. The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the

grating, for he had never tried before. Well, there he stood.

“Would to Heaven I had got my head through!” said he, involuntarily; and

instantly through it slipped, easily and without pain, notwithstanding

it was pretty large and thick. But now the rest of the body was to be

got through!

“Ah! I am much too stout,” groaned he aloud, while fixed as in a vice.

“I had thought the head was the most difficult part of the matter--oh!

oh! I really cannot squeeze myself through!”

He now wanted to pull his over-hasty head back again, but he could not.

For his neck there was room enough, but for nothing more. His first

feeling was of anger; his next that his temper fell to zero. The

Shoes of Fortune had placed him in the most dreadful situation; and,

unfortunately, it never occurred to him to wish himself free. The

pitch-black clouds poured down their contents in still heavier torrents;

not a creature was to be seen in the streets. To reach up to the bell

was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help would have availed him

little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be found caught in a

trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself through! He saw

clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner till

dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith must be

fetched to file away the bars; but all that would not be done so quickly

as he could think about it. The whole Charity School, just opposite,

would be in motion; all the new booths, with their not very

courtier-like swarm of seamen, would join them out of curiosity, and

would greet him with a wild “hurrah!” while he was standing in his

pillory: there would be a mob, a hissing, and rejoicing, and jeering,

ten times worse than in the rows about the Jews some years ago--“Oh, my

blood is mounting to my brain; 'tis enough to drive one mad! I shall go

wild! I know not what to do. Oh! were I but loose; my dizziness would

then cease; oh, were my head but loose!”

You see he ought to have said that sooner; for the moment he expressed

the wish his head was free; and cured of all his paroxysms of love, he

hastened off to his room, where the pains consequent on the fright the

Shoes had prepared for him, did not so soon take their leave.

But you must not think that the affair is over now; it grows much worse.

The night passed, the next day also; but nobody came to fetch the Shoes.

In the evening “Dramatic Readings” were to be given at the little

theatre in King Street. The house was filled to suffocation; and among

other pieces to be recited was a new poem by H. C. Andersen, called, My

Aunt's Spectacles; the contents of which were pretty nearly as follows:

“A certain person had an aunt, who boasted of particular skill in

fortune-telling with cards, and who was constantly being stormed by

persons that wanted to have a peep into futurity. But she was full of

mystery about her art, in which a certain pair of magic spectacles

did her essential service. Her nephew, a merry boy, who was his aunt's

darling, begged so long for these spectacles, that, at last, she lent

him the treasure, after having informed him, with many exhortations,

that in order to execute the interesting trick, he need only repair to

some place where a great many persons were assembled; and then, from a

higher position, whence he could overlook the crowd, pass the company in

review before him through his spectacles. Immediately 'the inner man' of

each individual would be displayed before him, like a game of cards, in

which he unerringly might read what the future of every person presented

was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the

powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more

fitted for such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience,

and set his spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents

itself before him, which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet

without expressing his opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set

them all thinking and guessing; but in order to hurt nobody, he wraps

his witty oracular judgments in a transparent veil, or rather in a lurid

thundercloud, shooting forth bright sparks of wit, that they may fall in

the powder-magazine of the expectant audience.”

The humorous poem was admirably recited, and the speaker much applauded.

Among the audience was the young man of the hospital, who seemed to have

forgotten his adventure of the preceding night. He had on the Shoes; for

as yet no lawful owner had appeared to claim them; and besides it was so

very dirty out-of-doors, they were just the thing for him, he thought.

The beginning of the poem he praised with great generosity: he even

found the idea original and effective. But that the end of it, like the

Rhine, was very insignificant, proved, in his opinion, the author's

want of invention; he was without genius, etc. This was an excellent

opportunity to have said something clever.

Meanwhile he was haunted by the idea--he should like to possess such a

pair of spectacles himself; then, perhaps, by using them circumspectly,

one would be able to look into people's hearts, which, he thought, would

be far more interesting than merely to see what was to happen next year;

for that we should all know in proper time, but the other never.

“I can now,” said he to himself, “fancy the whole row of ladies and

gentlemen sitting there in the front row; if one could but see into

their hearts--yes, that would be a revelation--a sort of bazar. In that

lady yonder, so strangely dressed, I should find for certain a large

milliner's shop; in that one the shop is empty, but it wants cleaning

plain enough. But there would also be some good stately shops among

them. Alas!” sighed he, “I know one in which all is stately; but there

sits already a spruce young shopman, which is the only thing that's

amiss in the whole shop. All would be splendidly decked out, and we

should hear, 'Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in; here you will find all

you please to want.' Ah! I wish to Heaven I could walk in and take a

trip right through the hearts of those present!”

And behold! to the Shoes of Fortune this was the cue; the whole man

shrunk together and a most uncommon journey through the hearts of the

front row of spectators, now began. The first heart through which he

came, was that of a middle-aged lady, but he instantly fancied himself

in the room of the “Institution for the cure of the crooked and

deformed,” where casts of mis-shapen limbs are displayed in naked

reality on the wall. Yet there was this difference, in the institution

the casts were taken at the entry of the patient; but here they were

retained and guarded in the heart while the sound persons went away.

They were, namely, casts of female friends, whose bodily or mental

deformities were here most faithfully preserved.

With the snake-like writhings of an idea he glided into another female

heart; but this seemed to him like a large holy fane. [*] The white dove of

innocence fluttered over the altar. How gladly would he have sunk upon

his knees; but he must away to the next heart; yet he still heard the

pealing tones of the organ, and he himself seemed to have become a newer

and a better man; he felt unworthy to tread the neighboring sanctuary

which a poor garret, with a sick bed-rid mother, revealed. But God's

warm sun streamed through the open window; lovely roses nodded from

the wooden flower-boxes on the roof, and two sky-blue birds sang

rejoicingly, while the sick mother implored God's richest blessings on

her pious daughter.

* temple

He now crept on hands and feet through a butcher's shop; at least on

every side, and above and below, there was nought but flesh. It was the

heart of a most respectable rich man, whose name is certain to be found

in the Directory.

He was now in the heart of the wife of this worthy gentleman. It was an

old, dilapidated, mouldering dovecot. The husband's portrait was used as

a weather-cock, which was connected in some way or other with the doors,

and so they opened and shut of their own accord, whenever the stern old

husband turned round.

Hereupon he wandered into a boudoir formed entirely of mirrors, like

the one in Castle Rosenburg; but here the glasses magnified to an

astonishing degree. On the floor, in the middle of the room, sat, like a

Dalai-Lama, the insignificant “Self” of the person, quite confounded at

his own greatness. He then imagined he had got into a needle-case full

of pointed needles of every size.

“This is certainly the heart of an old maid,” thought he. But he was

mistaken. It was the heart of a young military man; a man, as people

said, of talent and feeling.

In the greatest perplexity, he now came out of the last heart in the

row; he was unable to put his thoughts in order, and fancied that his

too lively imagination had run away with him.

“Good Heavens!” sighed he. “I have surely a disposition to madness--'tis

dreadfully hot here; my blood boils in my veins and my head is burning

like a coal.” And he now remembered the important event of the evening

before, how his head had got jammed in between the iron railings of the

hospital. “That's what it is, no doubt,” said he. “I must do something

in time: under such circumstances a Russian bath might do me good. I

only wish I were already on the upper bank.” [*]

*In these Russian (vapor) baths the person extends himself

on a bank or form, and as he gets accustomed to the heat,

moves to another higher up towards the ceiling, where, of

course, the vapor is warmest. In this manner he ascends

gradually to the highest.

And so there he lay on the uppermost bank in the vapor-bath; but with

all his clothes on, in his boots and galoshes, while the hot drops fell

scalding from the ceiling on his face.

“Holloa!” cried he, leaping down. The bathing attendant, on his side,

uttered a loud cry of astonishment when he beheld in the bath, a man

completely dressed.

The other, however, retained sufficient presence of mind to whisper to

him, “'Tis a bet, and I have won it!” But the first thing he did as soon

as he got home, was to have a large blister put on his chest and back to

draw out his madness.

The next morning he had a sore chest and a bleeding back; and, excepting

the fright, that was all that he had gained by the Shoes of Fortune.

V. Metamorphosis of the Copying-Clerk

The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile

of the galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now

went to fetch them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in

the street, claimed them as his property, they were delivered over to

the police-office.*

*As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal,

but any circumstance, however trifling, is reduced to writing, the

labor, as well as the number of papers that thus accumulate, is

enormous. In a police-office, consequently, we find copying-clerks among

many other scribes of various denominations, of which, it seems, our

hero was one.

“Why, I declare the Shoes look just like my own,” said one of the

clerks, eying the newly-found treasure, whose hidden powers, even he,

sharp as he was, was not able to discover. “One must have more than

the eye of a shoemaker to know one pair from the other,” said he,

soliloquizing; and putting, at the same time, the galoshes in search of

an owner, beside his own in the corner.

“Here, sir!” said one of the men, who panting brought him a tremendous

pile of papers.

The copying-clerk turned round and spoke awhile with the man about the

reports and legal documents in question; but when he had finished, and

his eye fell again on the Shoes, he was unable to say whether those to

the left or those to the right belonged to him. “At all events it must

be those which are wet,” thought he; but this time, in spite of his

cleverness, he guessed quite wrong, for it was just those of Fortune

which played as it were into his hands, or rather on his feet. And why,

I should like to know, are the police never to be wrong? So he put them

on quickly, stuck his papers in his pocket, and took besides a few under

his arm, intending to look them through at home to make the necessary

notes. It was noon; and the weather, that had threatened rain, began

to clear up, while gaily dressed holiday folks filled the streets. “A

little trip to Fredericksburg would do me no great harm,” thought he;

“for I, poor beast of burden that I am, have so much to annoy me, that I

don't know what a good appetite is. 'Tis a bitter crust, alas! at which

I am condemned to gnaw!”

Nobody could be more steady or quiet than this young man; we therefore

wish him joy of the excursion with all our heart; and it will certainly

be beneficial for a person who leads so sedentary a life. In the park

he met a friend, one of our young poets, who told him that the following

day he should set out on his long-intended tour.

“So you are going away again!” said the clerk. “You are a very free

and happy being; we others are chained by the leg and held fast to our

desk.”

“Yes; but it is a chain, friend, which ensures you the blessed bread

of existence,” answered the poet. “You need feel no care for the coming

morrow: when you are old, you receive a pension.”

“True,” said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders; “and yet you are

the better off. To sit at one's ease and poetise--that is a pleasure;

everybody has something agreeable to say to you, and you are always your

own master. No, friend, you should but try what it is to sit from one

year's end to the other occupied with and judging the most trivial

matters.”

The poet shook his head, the copying-clerk did the same. Each one kept

to his own opinion, and so they separated.

“It's a strange race, those poets!” said the clerk, who was very fond of

soliloquizing. “I should like some day, just for a trial, to take such

nature upon me, and be a poet myself; I am very sure I should make

no such miserable verses as the others. Today, methinks, is a most

delicious day for a poet. Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening

into life. The air is so unusually clear, the clouds sail on so

buoyantly, and from the green herbage a fragrance is exhaled that fills

me with delight. For many a year have I not felt as at this moment.”

We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is become a poet; to

give further proof of it, however, would in most cases be insipid, for

it is a most foolish notion to fancy a poet different from other men.

Among the latter there may be far more poetical natures than many an

acknowledged poet, when examined more closely, could boast of; the

difference only is, that the poet possesses a better mental memory, on

which account he is able to retain the feeling and the thought till they

can be embodied by means of words; a faculty which the others do not

possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature to one that is

richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap over a

certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden

change with the clerk strike the reader.

“The sweet air!” continued he of the police-office, in his dreamy

imaginings; “how it reminds me of the violets in the garden of my aunt

Magdalena! Yes, then I was a little wild boy, who did not go to school

very regularly. O heavens! 'tis a long time since I have thought on

those times. The good old soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She

always had a few twigs or green shoots in water--let the winter rage

without as it might. The violets exhaled their sweet breath, whilst I

pressed against the windowpanes covered with fantastic frost-work the

copper coin I had heated on the stove, and so made peep-holes.

What splendid vistas were then opened to my view! What change--what

magnificence! Yonder in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted

by their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole occupant. But

when the spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival,

a new and busy life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn

asunder, the ships were fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail

away to distant lands. But I have remained here--must always remain

here, sitting at my desk in the office, and patiently see other people

fetch their passports to go abroad. Such is my fate! Alas!”--sighed he,

and was again silent. “Great Heaven! What is come to me! Never have I

thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air that affects

me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing.”

He felt in his pocket for the papers. “These police-reports will soon

stem the torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious

overflowing of the time-worn banks of official duties”; he said to

himself consolingly, while his eye ran over the first page. “DAME

TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts.” “What is that? And yet it is undeniably

my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy? Wonderful, very

wonderful!--And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE RAMPARTS; or

THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with new songs to the most favorite

airs.' The deuce! Where did I get all this rubbish? Some one must have

slipped it slyly into my pocket for a joke. There is too a letter to me;

a crumpled letter and the seal broken.”

Yes; it was not a very polite epistle from the manager of a theatre, in

which both pieces were flatly refused.

“Hem! hem!” said the clerk breathlessly, and quite exhausted he seated

himself on a bank. His thoughts were so elastic, his heart so tender;

and involuntarily he picked one of the nearest flowers. It is a simple

daisy, just bursting out of the bud. What the botanist tells us after

a number of imperfect lectures, the flower proclaimed in a minute. It

related the mythus of its birth, told of the power of the sun-light that

spread out its delicate leaves, and forced them to impregnate the air

with their incense--and then he thought of the manifold struggles of

life, which in like manner awaken the budding flowers of feeling in our

bosom. Light and air contend with chivalric emulation for the love of

the fair flower that bestowed her chief favors on the latter; full of

longing she turned towards the light, and as soon as it vanished, rolled

her tender leaves together and slept in the embraces of the air. “It is

the light which adorns me,” said the flower.

“But 'tis the air which enables thee to breathe,” said the poet's voice.

Close by stood a boy who dashed his stick into a wet ditch. The drops of

water splashed up to the green leafy roof, and the clerk thought of the

million of ephemera which in a single drop were thrown up to a height,

that was as great doubtless for their size, as for us if we were to

be hurled above the clouds. While he thought of this and of the whole

metamorphosis he had undergone, he smiled and said, “I sleep and dream;

but it is wonderful how one can dream so naturally, and know besides so

exactly that it is but a dream. If only to-morrow on awaking, I could

again call all to mind so vividly! I seem in unusually good spirits; my

perception of things is clear, I feel as light and cheerful as though

I were in heaven; but I know for a certainty, that if to-morrow a dim

remembrance of it should swim before my mind, it will then seem nothing

but stupid nonsense, as I have often experienced already--especially

before I enlisted under the banner of the police, for that dispels like

a whirlwind all the visions of an unfettered imagination. All we hear

or say in a dream that is fair and beautiful is like the gold of the

subterranean spirits; it is rich and splendid when it is given us, but

viewed by daylight we find only withered leaves. Alas!” he sighed quite

sorrowful, and gazed at the chirping birds that hopped contentedly from

branch to branch, “they are much better off than I! To fly must be a

heavenly art; and happy do I prize that creature in which it is innate.

Yes! Could I exchange my nature with any other creature, I fain would be

such a happy little lark!”

He had hardly uttered these hasty words when the skirts and sleeves

of his coat folded themselves together into wings; the clothes became

feathers, and the galoshes claws. He observed it perfectly, and laughed

in his heart. “Now then, there is no doubt that I am dreaming; but I

never before was aware of such mad freaks as these.” And up he flew into

the green roof and sang; but in the song there was no poetry, for the

spirit of the poet was gone. The Shoes, as is the case with anybody who

does what he has to do properly, could only attend to one thing at a

time. He wanted to be a poet, and he was one; he now wished to be a

merry chirping bird: but when he was metamorphosed into one, the former

peculiarities ceased immediately. “It is really pleasant enough,” said

he: “the whole day long I sit in the office amid the driest

law-papers, and at night I fly in my dream as a lark in the gardens of

Fredericksburg; one might really write a very pretty comedy upon it.” He

now fluttered down into the grass, turned his head gracefully on every

side, and with his bill pecked the pliant blades of grass, which, in

comparison to his present size, seemed as majestic as the palm-branches

of northern Africa.

Unfortunately the pleasure lasted but a moment. Presently black night

overshadowed our enthusiast, who had so entirely missed his part of

copying-clerk at a police-office; some vast object seemed to be thrown

over him. It was a large oil-skin cap, which a sailor-boy of the quay

had thrown over the struggling bird; a coarse hand sought its way

carefully in under the broad rim, and seized the clerk over the back

and wings. In the first moment of fear, he called, indeed, as loud as

he could--“You impudent little blackguard! I am a copying-clerk at

the police-office; and you know you cannot insult any belonging to the

constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you good-for-nothing

rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch birds in the royal gardens of

Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where you come from.”

This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere

“Pippi-pi.” He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak, and walked on.

He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper class--that is to say as

individuals, for with regard to learning they were in the lowest class

in the school; and they bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk

came to Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family living in

Gother Street.

“'Tis well that I'm dreaming,” said the clerk, “or I really should get

angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few pence as a lark; no doubt

it was that accursed poetical nature which has metamorphosed me

into such a poor harmless little creature. It is really pitiable,

particularly when one gets into the hands of a little blackguard,

perfect in all sorts of cruelty to animals: all I should like to know

is, how the story will end.”

The two schoolboys, the proprietors now of the transformed clerk,

carried him into an elegant room. A stout stately dame received them

with a smile; but she expressed much dissatisfaction that a common

field-bird, as she called the lark, should appear in such high society.

For to-day, however, she would allow it; and they must shut him in the

empty cage that was standing in the window. “Perhaps he will amuse my

good Polly,” added the lady, looking with a benignant smile at a large

green parrot that swung himself backwards and forwards most comfortably

in his ring, inside a magnificent brass-wired cage. “To-day is Polly's

birthday,” said she with stupid simplicity: “and the little brown

field-bird must wish him joy.”

Mr. Polly uttered not a syllable in reply, but swung to and fro with

dignified condescension; while a pretty canary, as yellow as gold, that

had lately been brought from his sunny fragrant home, began to sing

aloud.

“Noisy creature! Will you be quiet!” screamed the lady of the house,

covering the cage with an embroidered white pocket handkerchief.

“Chirp, chirp!” sighed he. “That was a dreadful snowstorm”; and he

sighed again, and was silent.

The copying-clerk, or, as the lady said, the brown field-bird, was

put into a small cage, close to the Canary, and not far from “my good

Polly.” The only human sounds that the Parrot could bawl out

were, “Come, let us be men!” Everything else that he said was as

unintelligible to everybody as the chirping of the Canary, except to the

clerk, who was now a bird too: he understood his companion perfectly.

“I flew about beneath the green palms and the blossoming almond-trees,”

sang the Canary; “I flew around, with my brothers and sisters, over

the beautiful flowers, and over the glassy lakes, where the bright

water-plants nodded to me from below. There, too, I saw many

splendidly-dressed paroquets, that told the drollest stories, and the

wildest fairy tales without end.”

“Oh! those were uncouth birds,” answered the Parrot. “They had no

education, and talked of whatever came into their head.

“If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you

too, I should think. It is a great fault to have no taste for what is

witty or amusing--come, let us be men.”

“Ah, you have no remembrance of love for the charming maidens that

danced beneath the outspread tents beside the bright fragrant flowers?

Do you no longer remember the sweet fruits, and the cooling juice in

the wild plants of our never-to-be-forgotten home?” said the former

inhabitant of the Canary Isles, continuing his dithyrambic.

“Oh, yes,” said the Parrot; “but I am far better off here. I am well

fed, and get friendly treatment. I know I am a clever fellow; and that

is all I care about. Come, let us be men. You are of a poetical nature,

as it is called--I, on the contrary, possess profound knowledge and

inexhaustible wit. You have genius; but clear-sighted, calm discretion

does not take such lofty flights, and utter such high natural tones.

For this they have covered you over--they never do the like to me; for

I cost more. Besides, they are afraid of my beak; and I have always a

witty answer at hand. Come, let us be men!”

“O warm spicy land of my birth,” sang the Canary bird; “I will sing of

thy dark-green bowers, of the calm bays where the pendent boughs

kiss the surface of the water; I will sing of the rejoicing of all my

brothers and sisters where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance.”

“Spare us your elegiac tones,” said the Parrot giggling. “Rather speak

of something at which one may laugh heartily. Laughing is an infallible

sign of the highest degree of mental development. Can a dog, or a horse

laugh? No, but they can cry. The gift of laughing was given to man

alone. Ha! ha! ha!” screamed Polly, and added his stereotype witticism.

“Come, let us be men!”

“Poor little Danish grey-bird,” said the Canary; “you have been caught

too. It is, no doubt, cold enough in your woods, but there at least

is the breath of liberty; therefore fly away. In the hurry they have

forgotten to shut your cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, my

friend; fly away. Farewell!”

Instinctively the Clerk obeyed; with a few strokes of his wings he was

out of the cage; but at the same moment the door, which was only ajar,

and which led to the next room, began to creak, and supple and creeping

came the large tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The

frightened Canary fluttered about in his cage; the Parrot flapped his

wings, and cried, “Come, let us be men!” The Clerk felt a mortal fright,

and flew through the window, far away over the houses and streets. At

last he was forced to rest a little.

The neighboring house had a something familiar about it; a window stood

open; he flew in; it was his own room. He perched upon the table.

“Come, let us be men!” said he, involuntarily imitating the chatter of

the Parrot, and at the same moment he was again a copying-clerk; but he

was sitting in the middle of the table.

“Heaven help me!” cried he. “How did I get up here--and so buried in

sleep, too? After all, that was a very unpleasant, disagreeable dream

that haunted me! The whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!”

VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave

The following day, early in the morning, while the Clerk was still in

bed, someone knocked at his door. It was his neighbor, a young Divine,

who lived on the same floor. He walked in.

“Lend me your Galoshes,” said he; “it is so wet in the garden, though

the sun is shining most invitingly. I should like to go out a little.”

He got the Galoshes, and he was soon below in a little duodecimo garden,

where between two immense walls a plumtree and an apple-tree were

standing. Even such a little garden as this was considered in the

metropolis of Copenhagen as a great luxury.

The young man wandered up and down the narrow paths, as well as the

prescribed limits would allow; the clock struck six; without was heard

the horn of a post-boy.

“To travel! to travel!” exclaimed he, overcome by most painful and

passionate remembrances. “That is the happiest thing in the world! That

is the highest aim of all my wishes! Then at last would the agonizing

restlessness be allayed, which destroys my existence! But it must be

far, far away! I would behold magnificent Switzerland; I would travel to

Italy, and--”

It was a good thing that the power of the Galoshes worked as

instantaneously as lightning in a powder-magazine would do, otherwise

the poor man with his overstrained wishes would have travelled about

the world too much for himself as well as for us. In short, he was

travelling. He was in the middle of Switzerland, but packed up with

eight other passengers in the inside of an eternally-creaking diligence;

his head ached till it almost split, his weary neck could hardly bear

the heavy load, and his feet, pinched by his torturing boots, were

terribly swollen. He was in an intermediate state between sleeping and

waking; at variance with himself, with his company, with the country,

and with the government. In his right pocket he had his letter of

credit, in the left, his passport, and in a small leathern purse some

double louis d'or, carefully sewn up in the bosom of his waistcoat.

Every dream proclaimed that one or the other of these valuables was

lost; wherefore he started up as in a fever; and the first movement

which his hand made, described a magic triangle from the right pocket to

the left, and then up towards the bosom, to feel if he had them all safe

or not. From the roof inside the carriage, umbrellas, walking-sticks,

hats, and sundry other articles were depending, and hindered the view,

which was particularly imposing. He now endeavored as well as he

was able to dispel his gloom, which was caused by outward chance

circumstances merely, and on the bosom of nature imbibe the milk of

purest human enjoyment.

Grand, solemn, and dark was the whole landscape around. The gigantic

pine-forests, on the pointed crags, seemed almost like little tufts of

heather, colored by the surrounding clouds. It began to snow, a cold

wind blew and roared as though it were seeking a bride.

“Augh!” sighed he, “were we only on the other side the Alps, then we

should have summer, and I could get my letters of credit cashed. The

anxiety I feel about them prevents me enjoying Switzerland. Were I but

on the other side!”

And so saying he was on the other side in Italy, between Florence and

Rome. Lake Thracymene, illumined by the evening sun, lay like flaming

gold between the dark-blue mountain-ridges; here, where Hannibal

defeated Flaminius, the rivers now held each other in their green

embraces; lovely, half-naked children tended a herd of black swine,

beneath a group of fragrant laurel-trees, hard by the road-side.

Could we render this inimitable picture properly, then would everybody

exclaim, “Beautiful, unparalleled Italy!” But neither the young Divine

said so, nor anyone of his grumbling companions in the coach of the

vetturino.

The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one

waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population

did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the

well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their

ravenous bites. The poor horses, tortured almost to death, suffered most

from this truly Egyptian plague; the flies alighted upon them in large

disgusting swarms; and if the coachman got down and scraped them off,

hardly a minute elapsed before they were there again. The sun now set: a

freezing cold, though of short duration pervaded the whole creation;

it was like a horrid gust coming from a burial-vault on a warm summer's

day--but all around the mountains retained that wonderful green tone

which we see in some old pictures, and which, should we not have seen a

similar play of color in the South, we declare at once to be unnatural.

It was a glorious prospect; but the stomach was empty, the body tired;

all that the heart cared and longed for was good night-quarters; yet

how would they be? For these one looked much more anxiously than for the

charms of nature, which every where were so profusely displayed.

The road led through an olive-grove, and here the solitary inn was

situated. Ten or twelve crippled-beggars had encamped outside. The

healthiest of them resembled, to use an expression of Marryat's,

“Hunger's eldest son when he had come of age”; the others were either

blind, had withered legs and crept about on their hands, or withered

arms and fingerless hands. It was the most wretched misery, dragged

from among the filthiest rags. “Excellenza, miserabili!” sighed they,

thrusting forth their deformed limbs to view. Even the hostess, with

bare feet, uncombed hair, and dressed in a garment of doubtful color,

received the guests grumblingly. The doors were fastened with a loop of

string; the floor of the rooms presented a stone paving half torn

up; bats fluttered wildly about the ceiling; and as to the smell

therein--no--that was beyond description.

“You had better lay the cloth below in the stable,” said one of the

travellers; “there, at all events, one knows what one is breathing.”

The windows were quickly opened, to let in a little fresh air. Quicker,

however, than the breeze, the withered, sallow arms of the beggars were

thrust in, accompanied by the eternal whine of “Miserabili, miserabili,

excellenza!” On the walls were displayed innumerable inscriptions,

written in nearly every language of Europe, some in verse, some in

prose, most of them not very laudatory of “bella Italia.”

The meal was served. It consisted of a soup of salted water, seasoned

with pepper and rancid oil. The last ingredient played a very prominent

part in the salad; stale eggs and roasted cocks'-combs furnished the

grand dish of the repast; the wine even was not without a disgusting

taste--it was like a medicinal draught.

At night the boxes and other effects of the passengers were placed

against the rickety doors. One of the travellers kept watch while the

others slept. The sentry was our young Divine. How close it was in the

chamber! The heat oppressive to suffocation--the gnats hummed and stung

unceasingly--the “miserabili” without whined and moaned in their sleep.

“Travelling would be agreeable enough,” said he groaning, “if one only

had no body, or could send it to rest while the spirit went on its

pilgrimage unhindered, whither the voice within might call it. Wherever

I go, I am pursued by a longing that is insatiable--that I cannot

explain to myself, and that tears my very heart. I want something better

than what is but what is fled in an instant. But what is it, and where

is it to be found? Yet, I know in reality what it is I wish for. Oh!

most happy were I, could I but reach one aim--could but reach the

happiest of all!”

And as he spoke the word he was again in his home; the long white

curtains hung down from the windows, and in the middle of the floor

stood the black coffin; in it he lay in the sleep of death. His wish

was fulfilled--the body rested, while the spirit went unhindered on its

pilgrimage. “Let no one deem himself happy before his end,” were the

words of Solon; and here was a new and brilliant proof of the wisdom of

the old apothegm.

Every corpse is a sphynx of immortality; here too on the black coffin

the sphynx gave us no answer to what he who lay within had written two

days before:

“O mighty Death! thy silence teaches nought,

Thou leadest only to the near grave's brink;

Is broken now the ladder of my thoughts?

Do I instead of mounting only sink?

Our heaviest grief the world oft seeth not,

Our sorest pain we hide from stranger eyes:

And for the sufferer there is nothing left

But the green mound that o'er the coffin lies.”

Two figures were moving in the chamber. We knew them both; it was the

fairy of Care, and the emissary of Fortune. They both bent over the

corpse.

“Do you now see,” said Care, “what happiness your Galoshes have brought

to mankind?”

“To him, at least, who slumbers here, they have brought an imperishable

blessing,” answered the other.

“Ah no!” replied Care. “He took his departure himself; he was not called

away. His mental powers here below were not strong enough to reach the

treasures lying beyond this life, and which his destiny ordained he

should obtain. I will now confer a benefit on him.”

And she took the Galoshes from his feet; his sleep of death was ended;

and he who had been thus called back again to life arose from his

dread couch in all the vigor of youth. Care vanished, and with her the

Galoshes. She has no doubt taken them for herself, to keep them to all

eternity.