Fairy Tales

THE GALOSHES OF FORTUNE

1. A BEGINNING

ON EAST STREET IN Copenhagen in one of the houses not far from King’s New Market, there was a big party. Sometimes you have to throw a big party, and then it’s done, and you’re invited in return. Half of the guests were already at the card tables, and the other half were waiting to see what would come from the hostess’s “now we’ll have to think of something!” That’s as far as they had gotten, and the conversation went here and there. Among other things, they talked about the Middle Ages. Some declared it a better time than our own. In fact, Justice Councilman Knap defended this view so eagerly that the hostess soon agreed with him. Then they both started in on rsted’s words in the almanac¹ about former and present eras, in which our own time is in most respects considered superior. The councilman considered the age of King Hans² to be the best and happiest time.

There was a great deal of talk pro and con, and it was only interrupted for a moment when the newspaper came, but there was nothing worth reading in that, so let’s go out to the foyer where the coats and walking sticks, umbrellas, and galoshes have their place. Two maids were sitting there: one young and one old. You might think they had come to escort their mistresses home, one or another old maid or widow. But if you looked a little closer at them, you soon noticed that these were not ordinary servants—their hands were too fine, and their bearing and movements too regal for that. Their clothing also had a quite distinctly daring cut. They were two fairies. The youngest surely wasn’t Good Fortune herself, but rather one of her attendant’s chambermaids, who pass around the lesser of Fortune’s gifts. The elder looked extremely grave. This was Sorrow, who always does her errands in her own distinguished person so that she knows that they are properly carried out.

They talked about their day. The one who was Good Fortune’s attendant’s chambermaid had just taken care of a few minor errands. She said she had saved a new hat from a rain-shower, obtained a greeting for a decent man from a distinguished nonentity, and things like that. But what she had left to do was something quite extraordinary.

“I have to tell you,” she said, “that today is my birthday, and in honor of this I have been entrusted with a pair of galoshes that I am going to give human beings. These galoshes have the characteristic that whoever puts them on is immediately carried to the place or time where he most wants to be. Any wish with respect to time or place is fulfilled at once, and now people will finally find happiness down here!”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Sorrow. “People will be dreadfully unhappy and bless the moment they get rid of those galoshes!”

“How can you say that?” said the other. “I’ll set them here by the door. Someone will mistake them for his own and become the lucky one!”

That was their conversation.

2. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COUNCILMAN

It was late, and Councilman Knap, absorbed in the time of King Hans, wanted to go home. It so happened that he put on Good Fortune’s galoshes instead of his own and walked out onto East Street, but the power of the galoshes’ magic had taken him back to the time of King Hans, and so he stepped straight out into ooze and mud since at that time there was no sidewalk.

“It’s dreadful how muddy it is here!” the judge said. “The sidewalk is gone, and all the street lights are out.”

The moon hadn’t risen high enough yet, and the air was quite foggy so everything disappeared in the dark. At the closest corner a lantern was shining in front of a picture of a Madonna, but it gave off almost no light. He first noticed it when he was standing right under it, and his eyes fell on the painting of the mother and child.

“This must be an art gallery,” he thought, “and they’ve forgotten to take in the sign.”

A couple of people dressed in the clothes of the time walked by him. “What weird outfits! They must have come from a costume party.”

Then he heard drums and flutes, and big torches flared in the dark. The councilman watched an odd procession pass by. A whole troop of drummers marched first, skillfully handling their instruments. They were followed by henchmen with bows and crossbows. The most distinguished person in the parade was a clergyman. The councilman was surprised and asked what this meant and who the man was.

“This must be an art gallery, ” he thought, “and they’ve forgotten to take in the sign. ”

“It’s the Bishop of Zealand,”³ he was told.

“My God, what’s the matter with him?” the judge sighed and shook his head. It certainly couldn’t be the Bishop. Brooding over this and without looking to left or right he walked along East Street and over High Bridge Place. He couldn’t find the bridge to the Palace Plaza, but he glimpsed an expanse of the river, and he finally came across two fellows there in a boat.

“Do you want to be rowed over to Holmen?” they asked him.

“Over to Holmen?” asked the judge, who didn’t know what age he was wandering in. “I want to get over to Christian’s Harbor, to Little Market Street.”

The men just looked at him.

“Just tell me where the bridge is,” he said. ”It’s a disgrace that there aren’t any streetlamps lit here, and it’s as muddy as if you’re walking in a bog.”

The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more incomprehensible they became to him.

“I don’t understand your Bornholm dialect,”⁴ he finally said angrily and turned his back on them. He absolutely couldn’t find the bridge, and there were no guard rails either. “It’s a scandal, the way things look here!” he said. He had never thought his own age was as miserable as on this evening. “I think I’ll take a cab,” he thought, but where were the cabs? There were none in sight. “I’d better walk back to King’s New Market; there will be some there. Otherwise I’ll never get out to Christian’s Harbor!”

So he walked back to East Street and had nearly walked the length of it when the moon came out.

“Dear God, what kind of scaffolding have they put up here?” he said when he saw the East Gate, which at that time was at the end of East Street.

He finally found a gate and by going through it, he came out on our New Market, but at that time it was just a big meadow. There was a bush here and there and through the middle of the meadow was a wide channel or creek. On the opposite bank there were some wretched wooden shacks where the Dutch seamen lived, and so the place was called Holland Meadow.

“Either I am seeing fata morgana, a mirage, as it’s called, or I’m drunk,” groaned the councilman. “What is this? What’s going on?”

He turned around again in the firm belief that he was sick. As he came back to the street, he looked a little closer at the houses: most of them were of half-timbered construction, and many had only straw roofs.

“No, I am not at all well,” he sighed. “I only drank one glass of punch, but I can’t tolerate it. It was also very wrong of them to serve punch with poached salmon! I am going to tell the representative’s wife that, too. Should I go back and tell them I’m sick? But it’s so embarrassing. And maybe they’ve already gone to bed.”

He looked for the house, but couldn’t find it.

“This is terrible! I can’t even recognize East Street. Where are the shops? I only see old, miserable hovels as if I were in Roskilde or Ringsted! Oh, I’m sick. There’s no sense in being shy. But where in the world is the Representative’s house? It doesn’t look right, but there are clearly people up in there. Oh, I’m really awfully sick.”

Then he came across a half-opened door with light coming through the crack. It was an inn of that time, a kind of pub, quite country-like. The good folks inside were seamen, citizens of the town, and a few scholars who were in deep conversation over their cups and didn’t pay much attention to him when he came in.

“Excuse me,” the councilman said to the hostess who approached him. “I’m in bad shape. Can you get me a cab out to Christian’s Harbor?”

The woman looked at him, shook her head, and then spoke to him in German. The councilman thought that maybe she couldn’t speak Danish so he repeated his request in German. This, along with his clothing, confirmed for the woman that he was a foreigner. She soon realized that he was ill and gave him a glass of water, admittedly a little brackish since it came from the creek.

The councilman rested his head on his hand, took a deep breath, and pondered his strange surroundings.

“Is that this evening’s Daily?” he asked just to say something when he saw the woman move a big paper.

She didn’t understand what he meant, but handed him the paper. It was a woodcut that showed a vision in the sky above the city of Cologne.

“It’s very old,” the judge said. He was quite excited to run across such an old item. “Where in the world have you gotten this rare print? It’s very interesting, although it’s all a myth. These sky visions are explained by northern lights that people have seen. Most likely they come from electricity.”

Those who were sitting close by and heard him speak looked at him in wonder. One of them got up, took off his hat respectfully, and said, “You are evidently a very highly educated man, Monsieur!”

“Oh no!” The councilman answered. “I can discuss this and that, as one is expected to be able to do.”

“Modesty is a lovely virtue,” the man said, “for that matter, I’ll say that your remarks seem different to me, but I’ll suspend my judicium here!” He spoke mostly in Latin.

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

“I have a Bachelor’s in Theology,” the man continued.

This answer was enough for the councilman. The title matched the outfit: “Must be an old country school teacher,” he thought, “an eccentric fellow, such as those you can still meet up in Jutland.”

“I guess it’s not the place for a lecture,” the man began in Latin, “but I would ask you to continue speaking since it’s clear that you have read a lot of the classics.”

“Yes, I certainly have,” said the judge. “I really like reading useful old writings, but I also enjoy the newer ones. Not Everyday Stories5 though. There are enough of those in reality.”

“Everyday Stories?” asked our scholar.

“Yes, I mean those new fangled novels.”

“Oh,” smiled the man, “but they are very entertaining, and they read them at court. The King is especially fond of the one about Sir Yvain and Sir Gawain. It’s about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He was joking about it with his courtiers.”⁶

“I haven’t read that one yet,” said the councilman. “It must be a pretty new one put out by Heiberg.”⁷

“No,” the man answered. “It was not published by Heiberg, but by Godfred von Gehmen.”⁸

“So that’s the author,” the judge said. “That’s a very old name. The first printer in Denmark had that name.”

“Yes, he’s first among our book publishers,” the man said. So the conversation went pretty well. One of the citizens talked about the terrible pestilence that had raged a couple of years before, meaning the one in 1484. The councilman thought he was talking about the cholera epidemic⁹ so the discussion went swimmingly. The Freebooters War of 1490 was so recent that it had to be mentioned. The English buccaneers had taken ships right in the harbor, they said, and the councilman, who was well versed on the events of 1801, blasted the English with relish. But the rest of the conversation didn’t go as well. There was very often a mutual incomprehensibility. The good scholar was much too ignorant, and the councilman’s most simple utterances struck him as being too audacious and fantastic. They looked at each other, and if it got too bad, the scholar spoke Latin because he thought he would be better understood, but it didn’t help at all.

“How are you doing?” asked the hostess, who pulled at the councilman’s arm. Then he came to his senses because, when he was talking, he had forgotten everything that had happened before.

“Dear God, where am I?” he said and felt dizzy at the thought.

“We’re going to drink claret! Mead and German beer!” yelled one of the men, “and you’ll drink with us!”

Two maids came in. One had two colors in her cap,¹⁰ and they poured and curtsied. The judge felt a shiver go down his spine.

“What is this? What is happening?!” he said, but he had to drink with them. They set to work on the poor man, and he was quite disconsolate. When one of them said that he was drunk, he didn’t doubt the man at all. He just asked them to call him a cab, a drosche, and then they thought that he was speaking Russian.

He had never been in such raw and simple company. You would think the country had fallen back into paganism. “This is the worst moment in my life!” he thought, but at the same time he got the idea that he could slip down under the table, crawl over to the door, and slip out. But when he reached the entrance, the others noticed what he was doing and grabbed him by the legs. Then, luckily for him, the galoshes slipped off, and with them, all the magic.

The councilman saw quite distinctly a clear light burning in front of him, and behind it was a large property. He recognized it and the property next to it. They were on East Street, such as we all know it. He headed for a gate, and next to it the watchman sat sleeping.

“Good God! Have I been lying here on the street dreaming?” he asked. “Of course, this is East Street, with its blessed light and color. It’s simply dreadful how that glass of punch affected me!”

Two minutes later he was sitting in a cab on his way to Christian’s Harbor. He thought about the fear and distress he had overcome and praised with all his heart the reality of our own time with all its defects, still so much better than where he had just been. And that was sensible of the councilman, of course.

3. THE WATCHMAN’S ADVENTURE

“Hm, there’s actually a pair of galoshes lying there!” said the watchman. “They must belong to the lieutenant who lives up above there. They’re lying right by the gate.”

The honest fellow would have rung the bell right away and delivered them since the lights were still on, but since he didn’t want to waken the others in the house he didn’t do it.

“It must be pretty comfortable to walk around with those things on,” he thought. “They are such soft leather.” They fit beautifully. “How strange the world is! The lieutenant could go to his warm bed, but he doesn’t do that; he’s pacing about. He’s a happy fellow, has neither a wife nor children, and goes to parties every night. I wish I were him, I’d be a happy man then!”

As he said that, the galoshes worked their magic. The watchman passed into the lieutenant’s person and thoughts. There he stood, up in the lieutenant’s room, holding between his fingers a little pink piece of paper with a poem on it, written by the lieutenant himself, for who has not at one time or another been inspired to write poetry? And if you write down the thoughts, then the poem is there. On the paper was written:“I wish I were rich!”“I wish I were rich!” That was my song

When I was barely a meter long.

“I wish I were rich. ” I joined the army,

Had a uniform, cap and saber on me.

With time a lieutenant I came to be.

But sorry to say nothing could I afford—

Help me Lord!

One eve as I sat young and gay,

A young girl kissed my lips to repay.

Rich in stories and tales I was willing,

Although in money I hadn’t a shilling.

But the child thought the stories were thrilling.

Rich I was then, but not in gold’s hoard—

Knows the Lord!

“I wish I were rich, ” still to God I pray.

That young girl is all grown up today.

So lovely, so clever and so good,

If she my heart’s story understood,

If she to me now would be as good—

Too poor to speak, silence I hoard—

So wills the Lord!Oh were I rich in faith, my soul at rest,

My sorrow wouldn’t herein be expressed.

You whom I love, if me you understand,

Read this as a missive from a youthful hand.

It would be best you do not understand.

For I am poor, my future dark, abhorred—

But bless you will the Lord!

Yes, you write these kinds of lines when you’re in love, but a sensible man wouldn’t have them printed. A lieutenant, love and poverty: that’s a triangle, or just as good, you can say it’s the broken half of the square of happiness. The lieutenant felt that way, and that’s why he leaned his head against the windowsill and sighed deeply:

“That poor watchman out on the street is far happier than I am! He doesn’t want for anything. He has a home, a wife, and children, who cry with him in sorrow and are happy with his joys. If I were more fortunate than I am, I could trade places with him, because he is happier than I am.”

At that moment the watchman became the watchman again since it was through the magic galoshes that he had become the lieutenant. As we have seen, he felt much less satisfied, and wanted to be what he really was. So the watchman was the watchman again.

“That was a bad dream,” he said, “but diverting too. I thought I was the lieutenant up there, and it wasn’t fun at all. I missed my wife and the kids, who are always ready to smother me with kisses.”

He sat down again and nodded off. The dream wasn’t completely out of his mind. He was still wearing the galoshes. A falling star flew across the sky.

“There one fell!” he said, “but there are enough of them anyway. I would like to see those things closer up, especially the moon because then it wouldn’t disappear between two hands. The student that my wife washes for says that when we die, we fly from star to star. That’s a lie, but it would be rather fun anyway. I wish I could just make a little jump up there, and my body could just stay here on the steps.”

Yes, you write these kinds of lines when you’re in love.

You see, there are certain things in the world you have to be very careful in saying, but you should be even more careful when you are wearing the magic galoshes on your feet. Just listen to what happened to the watchman!

So far as we people are concerned, almost all of us know the speed of steam travel. We’ve tried it either on the railroad, or on a ship at sea. But even this pace is like the creeping of the sloth or the march of the snail compared to the speed of light. It flies nineteen million times faster than the best racer, but electricity is even faster. Death is an electric shock to the heart, and our released souls fly to heaven on the wings of electricity. Sunlight takes eight minutes and some seconds to travel a distance of over ninety-three million miles. With the speed of electricity, the soul needs fewer minutes to cover the same distance. For the soul the distance between worlds is no more than that between our friends’ houses in the same town is for us, even if these are pretty close to each other. But this electric shock to the heart costs us our bodies, unless we are, like the watchman, wearing the magic galoshes.

Within a few seconds, the watchman had traveled the nearly 240,000 miles to the moon, which is, as you know, made of a material much lighter than our soil and as soft as newly fallen snow. He found himself on one of the innumerable craters that we know from Dr. Madler’s big moon map.¹¹ You’re familiar with that, of course? On the interior the crater sides went steeply down like a pot for a whole Danish mile, and down there on the bottom was a town that looked like an egg white in a glass of water—just as soft and with the same kind of towers, domes and sail-shaped balconies, transparent and swaying in the thin air. Our world was hovering like a big fire-red ball above his head.

There were a lot of creatures, and all of them, I guess, what we would call human, but they looked a lot different than us. They also had a language, and no one could expect that the watchman’s soul could understand that, but nevertheless he could.

The watchman’s soul understood the residents of the moon very well. They were arguing about our world and doubted that it was inhabited. The air would have to be too thick for any reasonable moonie to live in. They thought that only the moon had living creatures, and that the moon was the original world where life originated.

But let’s go back down to East Street and see how the watchman’s body is getting along.

It was sitting lifeless on the steps. The night stick had fallen out of its hand, and the eyes were looking up at the moon towards the soul that was wandering around up there.

“What’s the time, watchman?” someone asked as he walked by. But the watchman didn’t answer. Then the man snapped his fingers slowly at the watchman’s nose, and the body lost its balance and lay there stretched out—the watchman was dead, after all. The fellow who had snapped his fingers was very upset, but the watchman was dead and stayed dead. The death was reported and discussed, and during the morning the body was carried to the hospital.

Now it would have been a nice kettle of fish for the soul if it had come back and most likely had looked for its body on East Street, but couldn’t find it. It would probably first run up to the police department, then to the Census Bureau so it could be looked for in lost-and-found, then finally to the hospital. But we can take comfort that the soul is most clever when it’s on its own. The body only dumbs it down.

As mentioned, the watchman’s body came to the hospital where it was brought into the morgue. Of course, the first thing they did was take off the galoshes so then the soul had to get back right away. It made a beeline for the body, and suddenly the man was alive again. He insisted that it had been the worst night of his life. He wouldn’t experience such sensations again for neither love nor money, but now it was over.

He was released the same day, but the galoshes remained at the hospital.

4. A HEADY MOMENT. A RECITAL. A MOST UNUSUAL TRIP.

Every resident of Copenhagen knows what the entrance to Frederiks Hospital in Copenhagen looks like, but since it’s likely that some non-residents also are reading this story, we must give a brief description.

The hospital is separated from the street by quite a tall grate, but the thick iron bars are far enough apart so that it’s said that very thin interns were able to squeeze through and in that way make little excursions outside. The part of the body that was most difficult to press through was the head. Here, as often in the world, those with the smallest heads were often the most fortunate. That’s enough of an introduction.

One of the young residents, who was pretty thick-headed in the purely physical sense, was on duty this particular evening. There was pouring rain, but despite these two obstacles, he had to get out for only fifteen minutes. He didn’t think it was anything worth mentioning to the gatekeeper since he could just squeeze through the bars. The galoshes that the watchman had forgotten were lying there, and it didn’t occur to him that they could be Good Fortune’s galoshes; he just thought they would be nice to have in this terrible weather. He put them on—now to see if he could squeeze himself through. He had never tried it before. He stood in front of the bars.

“I wish to God I had my head through,” he said, and right away, although it was very big and thick, it slid through easily, thanks to the galoshes. The body had to follow, but there he stood.

“Ugh, I’m too fat!” he said. “I would have thought my head would have been the hardest, but I can’t get through.”

He quickly tried to pull his head back, but it wouldn’t go. He could only manage to move his neck, but that was all. First he got angry, and then his spirits sank to below zero. The magic galoshes had brought him to this most dreadful position, but unfortunately it didn’t occur to him to wish himself free. No, he struggled but couldn’t budge from the spot. The rain was pouring down, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen on the street. He couldn’t reach the bell so how was he going to get loose? He foresaw that he might have to stay there until morning, and then they would have to get a smithy to saw through the bars. That would take a while. All the boys from the elementary school across the street would come to watch, and all the residents of the neighborhood would see him standing there in pillory. There would be large crowds, more than saw the giant agave¹² last year. “Oh, the blood is rushing to my head, I’m going crazy!—Yes, I’m going crazy! Oh, I wish I were free again, then it would be all right.”

See, he should have said that a little sooner. As soon as he thought it, his head was free, and he rushed inside, very confused about the fright he had gotten from the magic galoshes.

We mustn’t think that it’s all over. Oh no, it gets worse.

The night passed, and also the following day, but no one called for the galoshes.

There was going to be a performance at the little theater in Canon Street that evening. The place was packed, and between the recital numbers a new poem was recited. We should hear it. The title was:GRANDMA’S GLASSESMy Grandmother’s wisdom is popular lore,

She’d be burned at the stake in times of yore.

She knows all that occurs and even more,

Can see future events, that is for sure.

The following decades she can see

But she wouldn’t reveal her secrets to me.

What’ll happen next year? What wonders great?

Yes, I would gladly see my own fate!

My fate, the arts, the country and empire,

But Grandmother wouldn’t let me inquire.

I pestered then and it went very well,

First silence, and then she gave me hell.

Lectured me up and down, and yet

There is no doubt that I am her pet!

“For once, your wishes I’ll grant, ” she said

And she gave me the glasses from her head.

“Now hurry out and choose a place

Where flocks of people sit or pace,

Stand where you can see what passes

And look at the masses through my glasses.

Trust my word on this, you’ll at once be able

To see the crowd like cards on a table.

And from these cards you can foresee

The future that is meant to be. ”

“Thanks, ” I said and ran to see,

But then, where would most people be?

On Long Line? There one catches cold.

On East Street ? Bah! Dirt, filth and mold!

But in the theater? Ah, that’d be dandy,

Tonight’s entertainment was so handy-

Here I am, then! Myself I’ll introduce,

Permit me Grandma’s glasses to produce,

So I can see—No, don’t go away!

To see, if a playing card display

Truly can predict what Time will make.

Your silence for a “Yes” I’ll take;

For thanks, you’ll be confirmed into the group,

All together here within the troupe.

I’ll predict for you, for me, for country and more,

And we’ll see what the cards can have in store.

(And then he put the glasses on.)

Yes, that’s right! Now I laugh! Hee hee,

Oh, if you could just come up and see!

Where here are many manly cards,

And a whole row of Queens of Hearts.

The black ones there—clubs, spades too,

Now soon I’ll have a perfect view.

The Queen of Spades with intense attack

Has turned her thoughts to Diamond Jack.

Oh yes, this view’s making me quite drunk

There’s lots of money in here sunk,

And strangers from afar return—

But that’s not what we want to learn.

Politicians? Let’s see! Yes, The Times!

We’ll read it later, save our dimes.Slander now would harm the paper’s fate,

Let’s not take the best bone from the plate.

The theater then ? What news ? tone and taste?

The good graces of the director I can’t waste.

My own future? Yes, you know, one’s fate,

Lays on our hearts a heavy weight.

I see!—I cannot say just what I see,

But you will hear it immediately.

Who is the happiest in our sphere?

The happiest ? Easily I’ll find him here.

It is, of course,—No, that will disconcert,

And many surely will be hurt!

Who’ll live the longest? The lady there? That man?

No, revealing that is a worser plan!

About—? Yes, in the end, I myself don’t know; when,

Being shy and so embarrassed, it’s easy to offend.

Now I would know what you believe and think

I should with seer’s power offer you to drink?

You think? No, beg pardon, what?

You think it will end up in naught?

You surely know it’s merely ring-a-ding.

I’ll not say more, dear honored gathering.

And let you have your own view of this thing.

The poem was superbly delivered and was very well received. Among the audience was the intern from the hospital, who seemed to have forgotten his adventure of the night before. He was wearing the galoshes since no one had claimed them, and since the street was muddy, they were useful to him.

He liked the poem.

He was very taken with the notion and would really have liked to have such glasses. Maybe if they were used correctly, you could look right into people’s hearts. That was really more interesting, he thought, than to find out what would happen next year. After all, you’ll find that out, but never the other. “Imagine if one could look into the hearts of that row of ladies and gentlemen there in the first row. There would have to be some kind of opening, a kind of shop; how my eyes would go shopping then! In that lady over there I would most likely find a dress shop. At that one over there—the store is empty, but it needs to be cleaned out. But there are some well established shops too! Well, well,” he sighed. “I know one in which everything is of the best, but there is already a clerk there, and he is the only thing wrong with the whole store! Some of them would call out, ‘Please come in.’ Oh, I wish I could go in, like a lovely little thought right through their hearts.”

See, that was enough for the galoshes. The intern shrunk together and began a most unusual trip right through the hearts of the audience in the front row. The first heart he passed through was a woman’s, but he thought at once that he was at the Orthopedic Institute, which is what you call those places where doctors take off growths to help people straighten their backs. He was in the room where the plaster casts of the deformed limbs were hanging on the walls. The difference was that at the Institute they were cast when the patients come in, but here in this heart they were preserved as the healed patients went out. The casts of the physical and mental flaws of friends were preserved here.

Then he quickly passed into another woman’s heart, but this one seemed to him like a big, holy church. The white dove of innocence was fluttering over the high altar, and he would have sunk to his knees here, but he had to hurry into the next heart. He could still hear the organ music, and he felt that he had become a new and better person. He did not feel unworthy to set foot in the next shrine which was a poor garret with a sick mother, but God’s warm sun was shining through the open window. Lovely roses were nodding from the little wooden crate by the roof, and two sky-blue birds were singing about childhood’s joy, while the sick mother prayed for blessings for her daughter.

Then he crept on his hands and feet through an overfilled butcher shop. All he saw was meat and more meat. This was the heart of a rich, respectable man, whose name you would know from the newspaper.

Next he was in the heart of the rich man’s wife. It was an old, run-down pigeon coop. The husband’s picture was the weather vane and was connected to the doors, and these opened and closed as the man moved.

Then he quickly passed into another woman’s heart, but this one seemed to him like a big, holy church.

Then he came into a room of mirrors like the one in Rosenborg Castle, but here the mirrors enlarged objects to a great extent. In the middle of the floor sat, like the Dali Lama, the person’s insignificant self, amazed to see its own greatness.

After that he thought he was in a cramped needle case full of sharp needles. This must be the “heart of an old maid,” he thought, but that was not the case. It was a quite young military man with several medals. A man of both spirit and heart, it was said.

The poor intern came out of the last heart in the row terribly dizzy. He wasn’t able to gather his thoughts, and thought that his overactive imagination had run away with him.

“Dear God,” he sighed. “I definitely have a touch of madness! It’s also incredibly hot in here! The blood is rushing to my head.” Then he remembered the big adventure of the night before when his head had been stuck between the iron bars at the hospital. “That’s where I must have caught it,” he thought. “I have to nip this in the bud. A steam bath would be good. I wish I were already lying on the top bench.”

And then he was lying on the top bench in the steam bath, but he had all his clothes on including his boots and galoshes. The hot water from the roof dripped on his face.

“Yikes!” he cried and hurried down to get a shower. The attendant also gave a loud cry when he saw a fully dressed man in there.

The intern was quick minded enough to whisper to him, “It’s a bet.” But the first thing he did when he got to his own room was to apply a big Spanish-fly plaster to the back of his neck and one down his back, to draw out the craziness.

The next morning he had a bloody back, and that’s all he got from Good Fortune’s galoshes.

5. THE CLERK’S TRANSFORMATION

In the meantime the watchman, whom we haven’t forgotten, remembered the galoshes that he had found and brought along to the hospital. He picked them up there, but when neither the lieutenant nor anyone else in the street claimed them, they were delivered to the police department.

“They look just like my own galoshes,” said one of the clerks, as he observed the lost property and set them side by side with his own. “Not even a shoemaker’s eye could tell them apart!”

“Look here!” said an employee who came in with some papers.

The clerk turned around and talked to the man, but when he was finished and looked at the galoshes again, he was completely bewildered about whether his were the ones on the left or those on the right. “Mine must be the wet ones,” he thought, but that was wrong because they were Good Fortune’s. But why can’t the police also make mistakes? He put them on and put some papers in his pocket and others under his arm. He was going to read through and sign them at home, but it was Sunday morning, and the weather was nice. He thought it would do him good to take a little walk to Frederiksberg, and so he went out there.

No one could be more unassuming and diligent than this young man, and we won’t begrudge him his little walk. It will undoubtedly be good for him because he sits so much. In the beginning he just walked without thinking about anything so the galoshes did not have a chance to show their magic power.

On the street he met an acquaintance, a young poet, who told him that he was going on a summer trip the next day.

“So, you’re off again!” said the clerk. “You’re a lucky, free spirit! You can go wherever you want. The rest of us have chains on our feet.”

“But they’re attached to a breadfruit tree,” answered the poet. “You don’t have to worry about tomorrow, and when you’re old, you’ll get a pension.”

“But you’re better off!” said the clerk. “It’s a pleasure to sit and write poetry. The whole world pays you compliments, and you’re your own boss. You should try sitting in court with trivial cases!”

The poet shook his head. The clerk shook his head, too. Each retained his own opinion, and so they separated.

“Those poets are a race apart,” the clerk said. “I should try becoming such a nature, become a poet myself. I’m sure I wouldn’t write such wimpy verse as the others do! This really is a spring day for a poet! The air is so unusually clear, the clouds so pretty, and there is such fragrance in all the greenery! I haven’t felt like I do at this moment for many years.”

We notice that he has become a poet already. It wasn’t exactly glaring, since it’s a foolish conceit to think that a poet is different from other people. These can have much more poetic natures among them than many a great and famous poet. The difference is just that the poet has a better spiritual memory. He can maintain ideas and feelings until they clearly flow over into words. Others can’t do that. But to change from an everyday nature to a gifted one is always a transition, and the clerk had now done that.

“Oh what a lovely smell,” he said. “How it reminds me of the violets at Aunt Lona’s house. That was when I was a little boy. Dear God, I haven’t thought about that for a very long time! Dear old auntie. She lived there behind the stock exchange. She always had a twig or a couple of green shoots standing in water, no matter how cold the winter was. I smelled the violets as I laid warmed-up copper pennies on the frozen windowpane and made peepholes—what a strange perspective! Out in the canal the boats lay frozen in ice, deserted by all hands. The only crew was a shrieking crow. But things got busy when the spring breezes came. They cut the ice apart, singing and shouting ”hurrah.” The ships were tarred and rigged and then departed for foreign lands. I remained behind here and must always remain. Sit always at the police station and see others get passports to travel abroad. That’s my fate! Alas.” He sighed deeply, but then stopped suddenly. “Dear God, what’s become of me? I have never thought or felt like this before! It must be the spring air. It’s both worrying and pleasant.” He grasped the papers in his pocket. “This will give me something else to think about,” he said and skimmed through the first page. “Mrs. Sigbrith, original tragedy in five acts,” he read. “What’s this? But it’s my own handwriting! Have I written this play? Intrigue on the Ramparts or Big Holiday. Comedy.—But where have I gotten this? Someone must have put it in my pocket. Here’s a letter.” It was from the theater director. Both pieces were rejected, and the letter itself was not at all polite. “Hm, hm,” the clerk said and sat down on a bench. His thoughts were so agitated, his heart so moved. Spontaneously he picked one of the closest flowers. It was a simple little daisy, and it proclaimed in a minute what the botanists tell us in many lectures. It told the myth of its birth and of the power of the sunshine that develops the fine petals and forces their scent. Then he thought about life’s struggles that awaken feelings in our breasts in the same way. The air and light were the flower’s lovers, but light was the favorite. It turned to the light, and if that disappeared, it rolled its petals together and slept in the embrace of the air. “It’s light that adorns me,” said the flower. “But the air lets you breathe,” whispered the poet’s voice.

A boy was standing nearby hitting a muddy ditch with a stick. Drops of water flew up into the green branches, and the clerk thought about the millions of invisible little animals in the drops that were hurled so high that, for their size, it would be as if we were flung high over the clouds. As the clerk was thinking about this and about the change that had happened to him, he smiled. “I’m sleeping and dreaming! But it’s remarkable anyway, that you can dream so naturally and still know that it’s a dream. I wish I could remember it tomorrow when I wake up! I seem to be in an unusually good mood right now. I have an open eye for everything and feel so fit, but I’m sure that when I remember parts of it tomorrow, it’ll all be nonsense. I’ve experienced that before. All the wisdom and magnificence you hear and see in dreams is like the gold of the mound people. When you get it, it’s splendid and glorious, but seen in the light of day, it’s just rocks and shriveled leaves, alas.” He sighed quite sadly and looked at the chirping birds hopping from branch to branch quite happily. “They are better off than I am. To be able to fly is a wonderful skill. How lucky they are who are born with that ability! If I were to be anything other than what I am, I’d be a little lark like that!”

At once his sleeves and arms changed into wings. His clothes became feathers, and the galoshes turned to claws. He noticed it all and laughed to himself. “Well, now I can see that I’m dreaming, but I’ve never dreamed anything so silly before.” Then he flew up into the branches and sang, but there was no poetry in the song because the poetic nature was gone. As is the case with anything done thoroughly, the galoshes could only do one thing at a time. He wanted to be a poet, and he became one. Then he wanted to be a little bird, but in becoming that, he gave up the former characteristic feature.

“This is good though,” he said. “During the day I sit at the police station in piles of prosaic papers, and at night I dream of flying like a lark in Frederiksberg Garden. You could actually write a whole play about it.”

Then he flew down into the grass and turned his head from side to side and pecked with his beak at the soft blades of grass that, in comparison to his size now, were as big as palm trees in North Africa.

Within a second everything was as black as midnight around him. Some monstrous object was thrown over him. It was a big cap that a boy from Nyboder had thrown over the bird. A hand came in and grabbed the clerk around his body and wings, so he peeped. In his first fright he called aloud, “You impertinent pup! I’m a clerk at the police department,” but to the boy it sounded just like chirping. He slapped the bird’s beak and wandered off.

On the street he met two upper-class schoolboys. Upper class as people, that is to say. From a spiritual point of view, they were among the school’s lowest. They bought the bird for 25 cents, and in this way the clerk came to Copenhagen, home to a family in Gothers Street.

“It’s a good thing I’m dreaming,” said the clerk, “otherwise I’d be really angry. First I was a poet, now a lark. It was my poetic nature that transported me into the little animal. But it’s a pitiful thing, especially when you fall into the hands of boys like these. I would like to know how this will end.”

The boys brought him into an extremely elegant living room where they were greeted by a fat, laughing woman. She was not at all happy that a simple field bird, as she called the lark, was brought in. She’d let it pass today, however, and told them to put the bird in the empty cage by the window. “Maybe it will amuse Poppy-boy,” she added and laughed at a big green parrot that was swinging proudly on his ring in a magnificent brass cage. “It’s Poppy-boy’s birthday,” she said childishly, “and the little field bird is here to congratulate him.”

Poppy-boy didn’t say a single word in reply, but just kept rocking in a dignified way back and forth. But, in contrast, a beautiful canary, which had been brought there the past summer from its warm, luxuriant native land, began to sing loudly.

“Loudmouth!” the woman said and threw a white handkerchief over its cage.

“Pip, pip,” it sighed, “What a terrible snowstorm,” and then it fell silent.

The clerk, or the field bird, as the woman called him, was placed in a little cage close to the canary and not far from the parrot. The only human sentence the parrot could prattle was, “Come, let’s now be human,” which was often quite comical. Everything else he said was as unintelligible as the song of the canary except to the clerk, who was now himself a bird and could understand his companions very well.

“I flew under the green palms and the flowering almond trees,” sang the canary. “I flew with my brothers and sisters above the splendid flowers and over the crystal clear sea with plants waving on the bottom. I also saw many lovely parrots who told the most amusing stories—long ones and so many of them!”

“Those were wild birds,” said the parrot. “They had no education. Come, let’s now be human! Why aren’t you laughing? If the woman and all the strangers can laugh, so can you. It’s a great flaw not to be able to appreciate the comical. Come, let’s now be human.”

“Oh, do you remember the beautiful girls who danced under the tents stretched from the flowering trees? Do you remember the soft fruit and the soothing juices of the wild herbs?”

“Yes, yes,” answered the parrot. “But I’m much better off here! I get good food and am treated very well. I know that I’m clever, and I don’t need anything more. Come, let’s now be human. You are a poetic soul, as they call it, but I have deep knowledge and wit. You have your genius but no moderation. You fly into these high natural raptures, and that’s why they cover you up. They don’t do that to me because I have cost them a lot more. I tell jokes by the beaker-full and impress them with that. Come, let’s now be human!”

“Oh, my warm, flowering native land!” the canary sang. “I’ll sing about your dark green trees, about your quiet coves, where the branches kiss the clear surface of the water. I’ll sing about all my brilliant brothers’ and sisters’ joy, where the desert’s plant source¹³ grows.”

“Lay off those whining notes,” said the parrot. “Say something we can laugh at. Laughter is a sign of the highest spiritual stage. See if a dog or a horse can laugh. No, they can cry, but laughter only belongs to people. Ho, ho, ho,” laughed Poppy-boy and added his joke, “Come, let’s now be human.”

“You little grey Danish bird,” said the canary. “You have also been captured. It must be cold in your forests, but at least there’s freedom there. Fly away! They have forgotten to close the cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, fly!”

And that’s what the clerk did. In a second he was out of the cage. At the same moment the half-opened door to the next room creaked, and the housecat with green shining eyes snuck lithely in and started hunting him. The canary fluttered around in its cage. The parrot flapped his wings and shrieked, “Come, let’s now be human!” The clerk felt a deadly fear and flew away through the window over houses and streets. Finally he had to rest for a while.

The house across the street had something familiar about it, and a window was open. He flew in there and found that it was his own room! He sat down on the table.

“Come, let’s now be human,” he said without thinking about what he said. He was copying the parrot, but in the same instance he became the clerk again, but he was sitting on the table.

“God save us!” he said, “How did I get up here and then fall asleep? That was really a troubling dream I had. The whole thing was a lot of stupid nonsense.”

6. THE BEST THING THE GALOSHES BROUGHT

Early the next morning when the clerk was still in bed, someone knocked on his door. It was his neighbor on the same floor, a student who was studying to become a minister. He walked in.

“Let me borrow your galoshes,” he said. “It’s so wet in the yard, but the sun is shining so beautifully, and I want to go smoke a pipe down there.”

He put on the galoshes and was soon down in the garden where there was a plum tree and a pear tree. Even a little garden like this is considered wonderful in central Copenhagen.

The student walked up and down the path. It was only six o’clock, and out on the street he heard a coach horn.

“Oh, travel, travel!” he exclaimed. “That’s the most splendid thing in the world. That’s my heart’s fondest desire and would quiet this restlessness I feel. But it has to be far away! I want to see the wonders of Switzerland, travel in Italy, and—”

Well it’s a good thing that the galoshes work so quickly, or he would have gotten around way too much for both himself and for us. He traveled. He was in the middle of Switzerland, but was packed with eight others into a stagecoach. His head hurt, his neck was tired, and the blood had settled into his legs, which were swollen and pinched by his boots. He swayed between a dozing and waking state. In his right hand pocket he had his letter of credit, in his left he had his passport, and in a little leather pouch on his chest he had sewn some gold coins. Every dream proclaimed that one or another of these treasures was lost, and therefore he leapt up feverishly, and the first movement his hand made was a triangle from right to left and up to his chest to feel if he had them or not. There were umbrellas, canes, and hats rocking in the net above him, and they obstructed much of the view, which he saw was really impressive when he glimpsed it. Meanwhile his heart was singing with thoughts that at least one poet, whom we know, has written in Switzerland (but which have not yet appeared in print):Here’s beauty and more, sublime to tout

I’m eyeing Mt. Blanc, my dear.

If only my money will hold out

Oh, it would be good to stay here.

All of nature around was grand, severe and dark. The fir forests looked like a carpet of heather on the high mountains whose tops were hidden in the clouds. Then it started to snow, and the cold wind blew.

“Oh,” he sighed. “I wish we were on the other side of the Alps, then it would be summer, and I would have gotten money on my letter of credit. I can’t enjoy Switzerland because of the anxiety I have about this. Oh I wish I were on the other side!”

And so he was on the other side, deep within Italy, between Florence and Rome. Lake Trasimeno lay bathed in evening sun, like flaming gold, between the dark blue mountains. Here, where Hannibal defeated Flaminius, the grapevines now stood peacefully with green fingers intertwined. Delightful half-naked children were shepherding a litter of coal-black pigs under a grove of fragrant laurel trees by the side of the road. If we showed this as a painting, everyone would shout, “Lovely Italy,” but the young theologian and his traveling companions in the hired coach surely didn’t say that.

Thousands of poisonous flies and mosquitoes flew into the coach. In vain they swatted at them with a myrtle branch, but the flies bit anyway. There wasn’t a person in the coach whose face wasn’t bloated and bloody from bites. The poor horses looked like carrion. The flies were sitting on them like big crusts, and it only helped momentarily when the driver got down and scraped them off. Then the sun went down, and a short but icy chill went through all of nature. It was not at all pleasant, but the mountains and clouds had the most beautiful green color, so clear and shining. Go and see for yourself—that’s better than reading this description! It was unparalled! The travelers thought so too, but their stomachs were empty, their bodies tired. With all their hearts they yearned for a place to spend the night, but where would this be? They were looking more for that than at the beautiful view of nature.

The road went through an olive grove. It was like driving through a gnarled forest of willows at home. There lay a lone inn there. Ten to twelve crippled beggars were camped outside. The best of them looked like “Famine’s eldest son just arriving to years of discretion.”¹⁴ The others were either blind, had withered legs and crept on their hands, or shriveled arms with fingerless hands. It was pure misery wrung from the rags. “Eccellenza, miserabili!” they sighed and reached out their withered limbs. The innkeeper’s wife met the travelers herself. She was barefoot, had uncombed hair, and was wearing a dirty blouse. The doors were tied together with twine, and the floor tiles in the rooms were partly dug up. Bats were flying around under the roof and the smell in there—

“Well, she should set up our table down in the stable,” said one of the travelers. “At least there we’d know what we’re breathing.”

The windows were opened so that a little fresh air could get in, but, quicker than that, came the withered arms and the perpetual whimpering: miserabili, Eccellenza! There were a lot of inscriptions on the walls, and at least half of them were critical of bella Italia.

The food was brought out. There was a soup of water, spiced with pepper and rancid oil and then the same oil on the salad. The main course was tainted eggs and roasted rooster combs. Even the wine had a sour taste. It was a real mish-mash.

At night the suitcases were piled up against the door, and one of the travelers stood watch while the others slept. The student had the watch. Oh, how stuffy it was in there! The heat was oppressive, the mosquitoes swarmed and stung, and outside the miserabili whimpered in their sleep.

“Yes, traveling is very well,” sighed the student, “if one just didn’t have a body! If only the body could rest and the spirit could travel. Wherever I am, there are miseries that press on my heart. I want something better than the present. Yes, something better, the best. But where and what is it? After all, I do know what I want—to go to a happy place, the happiest place of all!”

And when the word was spoken, he was in his home. The long white curtains hung in front of the windows, and in the middle of the floor stood the black coffin. He lay there in the quiet sleep of death. His wish was granted—his body rested, his spirit traveled. “Call him till he dies, not happy but fortunate,” said Solon.¹⁵ These words were reaffirmed once again.

Every corpse is the Sphinx of Immortality. And the sphinx here in the black coffin couldn’t say what the student had written only two days earlier:Oh strong death, dread is your silent token,

Your only footprint does the churchyard save.

Shall the Jacob’s ladder of thought be broken—

Shall I arise as grass upon death’s grave?

Our greatest sufferings here we don’t impart,

You who were alone at last, and often;

Know that in life much presses harder on the heart

Than all the soil that’s cast upon your coffin.

Two figures moved in the room, and we know both of them. It was the Fairy of Sorrow and Good Fortune’s messenger. They leaned over the dead man.

“Do you see what Good Fortune your galoshes brought to humankind?” asked Sorrow.

“At least they brought the man who’s resting here a lasting good!” answered Good Fortune’s messenger.

“Oh no,” said Sorrow. “He went away on his own; he was not called. His spiritual power here was not strong enough to gain the treasures that he was destined for. I will do him a favor.”

And she took the galoshes from his feet. The sleep of death ended, and the resurrected arose. Sorrow disappeared, but also the galoshes. She must have considered them her property.

NOTES

1 A professor at the University of Copenhagen, H. C. Ørsted (1777-1851) wrote an essay entitled “Gamle og nye Tider” (“Old and New Times”). Andersen admired Ørsted, who discovered electromagnetism.

2 King Hans was born in 1455 and ruled Denmark and Norway from 1481 to 1513.

3 Zealand is the largest island of Denmark, separated from Funen by the Great Belt and from Scania in Sweden by the Øresund. Copenhagen is partly located on the eastern shore of Zealand and partly on Amager.

4 The medieval dialect of Copenhagen was similar to that of the present day island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea, and could be somewhat comical to those who live in Copenhagen.

5 After Thomasine Gyllembourg, a popular author of the time, published En Hverdagshistorie (A Story of Everyday Life) in 1828, the term hverdagshistorie came into use as a genre definition for stories of contemporaneous Copenhagen. Andersen was not an admirer of the genre.

6 In his Danmarks Riges Historie, Holberg tells how one day King Hans was joking with the famous Otto Rud, of whom he was very fond. The King had been reading about King Arthur and said, “Yvain and Gawain, whom I read about in this book, were remarkable knights. You don’t find knights like that anymore.” To which Otto Rud replied, “If there were Kings like King Arthur, you would find knights like Yvain and Gawain.” [Andersen’s note] Andersen cites Holberg’s “The History of the Kingdom of Denmark.” Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754) was the most important writer in eighteenth-century Denmark/Norway. [translator’s note]

7 Writer and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860); he published writings of his mother, Thomasine Gyllembourg, among others.

8 Godfred von Gehmen was the first publisher in Copenhagen; in 1493 he published Latin grammars for the new university.

9 Cholera was a serious problem in most of Europe from 1830 to 1837, but except for Holstein, Denmark was not much affected.

10 A statute of 1496 prescribed that prostitutes wear caps that were half red and half black, to distinguish them from other women.

11 Johann Heinrich von Mädler was a German astronomer who (with Wilhelm Beer) issued Mappa Selenographica (1834-1836) in four volumes; it presented the most complete map of the moon at that time.

12 The agave is a tropical plant that in Denmark flowers only in greenhouses after a period of forty to sixty years; in 1836 a sixty-year-old plant that bloomed in Copenhagen was nearly 20 feet tall.

13 Cactus. [Andersen’s note]

14 Snarleyyow. [Andersen’s note] The citation, given in the original English, is from Snarleyyow; or, The Dog Fiend (1837), a historical novel by Captain Frederick Marryat, a naval officer and writer of adventure novels. [translator’s note]

15 Statesman and poet (c.630-560 B.C.), known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.