Fairy Tales

THE BUTTERFLY

THE BUTTERFLY WANTED A sweetheart, and naturally he wanted one of the pretty little flowers. He looked at them. Each sat so quietly and steadily on her stalk, just like a maiden should sit when she’s not yet engaged. But there were so many to choose among—it was too much trouble, and the butterfly couldn’t be bothered, so he flew away to the daisy. The French call her Margrethe. They know that she can tell fortunes, which she does when people pick petal after petal, and with each one say, “She loves me—She loves me not—She loves me—She loves me not,” or something like that. Everyone asks in his own language. The butterfly came to ask too, but he didn’t pluck the petals off. Instead he kissed each one, believing that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

“Sweet Margrethe Daisy,” he said. “You’re the wisest woman of all the flowers. You know how to tell fortunes. Tell me, will I have that one, or that one? Who will I get? When I know that, I’ll fly right over and propose.”

But Margrethe didn’t answer at all. She didn’t like being called a woman because she was an unmarried virgin and wasn’t properly speaking a woman yet. He asked a second and then a third time. When he couldn’t get a single word out of her, he couldn’t be bothered to ask again, but flew directly away to propose.

It was early spring, and there were lots of snowdrops and crocuses. “They are very pretty,” said the butterfly. “Sweet little things who have just come out, but somewhat tasteless.” Like all young men, he looked for older girls. So then he flew to the anemones, but they were a little too bitter for him, and the violets a bit too romantic. The tulips were too ostentatious, the narcissus too simple, and the lime blossoms were too small and had too many relations. The apple blossoms really did look like roses, but they were here today and gone tomorrow according to how the wind blew. He thought that would be too short a marriage! The sweet pea was the one who pleased him the most. She was red and white, pure and delicate. She was one of those domestic girls who look good and are also useful in the kitchen. He was just about to propose to her, but just then he saw a pea-pod with a withering flower on the end hanging close to her.

They were here today and gone tomorrow.

“Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s my sister,” said the sweet pea.

“Oh, so that’s what you’ll look like later!” That scared the butterfly, and he flew off.

The honeysuckle was hanging over the fence, full of those young ladies with long faces and sallow skin. He didn’t care for that type. But what did he like? You’ve got to ask him yourself.

Spring passed, summer passed, and then it was autumn. But he got nowhere. And the flowers were wearing the most beautiful dresses, but that didn’t help. They didn’t have that fresh fragrance of youth. Fragrance is just what the heart needs with age, and there’s not much of that in dahlias and hollyhocks. And so the butterfly flew down to the curled mint.

“She actually has no flower, but is a whole flower, fragrant from root to tip. She has fragrance in every leaf. I’ll take her!”

And so he finally proposed.

But the curled mint stood stiff and silent, and at last she said, “Friendship—but nothing more! I am old, and you are old. We could certainly live for each other, but get married? No! Let’s not make fools of ourselves in our old age.”

So the butterfly got no one. He had searched too long, and one shouldn’t do that. The butterfly became a bachelor.

It was late in the autumn, with rain and rough weather. The wind blew cold down the backs of the old willow trees so that they creaked. It was not the time to flit around in summer clothes—then you’d be in for it, as the saying goes. But the butterfly wasn’t flying outside. He’d happened to get inside, where there was a fire in the stove. It was warm like summer. Here he could live, but “living is not enough,” he said. “You must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower!”

And he flew towards the window pane, was seen, admired, and mounted on a pin in a curio case. More couldn’t be done for him.

“Now I’m sitting on a stalk just like the flowers,” said the butterfly. “But it’s certainly not perfectly comfortable. It must be like being married—you’re pinned down then!” And he consoled himself with this thought.

“That’s poor consolation,” said the potted flowers in the living room.

“But you can’t quite trust potted plants,” thought the butterfly. “They associate too much with people!”