Andersen's Fairy Tales
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,