Fairy Tales

THE FLEA AND THE PROFESSOR

ONCE THERE WAS A balloonist who came to grief. The balloon burst, and the man fell and was smashed to pieces. He had sent his boy down two minutes earlier in a parachute, which was lucky for the boy. He was unhurt and had great knowledge of being a balloonist, but he had no balloon nor any means to obtain one.

He had to live, and so he learned magic tricks and how to talk with his stomach. That’s called being a ventriloquist. He was young and good looking, and when he grew a moustache and wore good clothes, he could be mistaken for a noble youth. The ladies thought he was attractive, and one maiden was even so taken with his appearance and magic arts that she followed him to foreign towns and countries. There he called himself Professor. Nothing less would do.

His constant thought was to get a hold of a hot air balloon and go into the air with his little wife, but they still didn’t have the means.

“It’ll come!” he said.

“If only it would,” she said.

“We are young people, you know, and now I’m a professor. Half a loaf is better than none.”

She helped him faithfully and sat by the door selling tickets to the performances, and that was cold pleasure during the winter. She also helped him with one of the tricks. He put his wife in a table drawer—a big drawer—and then she crept into a back drawer and could not be seen in the front one. It was like an optical illusion.

But one evening when he pulled the drawer out, she had disappeared for him too. She was not in the front drawer, not in the back drawer, not in the whole house, not to be seen, not to be heard. That was her disappearing act. She never came back. She had gotten tired of it, and he was tired of it. He lost his good humor and couldn’t laugh or make jokes anymore, and people stopped coming. His earnings were poor, and so were his clothes. Finally all he owned was a big flea, inherited from his wife, and so he was very fond of it. He dressed it up, taught it some magic tricks, and even how to present arms and shoot off a cannon, but a small one.

The professor was proud of the flea, and it was proud of itself. It had learned something, carried human blood in its veins, and had been in the largest cities. Princes and princesses had seen it perform, and it had won their highest approval. It was written about in newspapers and appeared on posters. It knew that it was a celebrity and could support a professor, even an entire family.

Proud it was and famous it was, and yet when it and the professor traveled, they traveled fourth class on the trains. You arrive just as quickly as first class passengers. They had a tacit agreement that they would never separate, never get married. The flea would become a bachelor, and the professor a widower. It’s the same difference.

“Where you’ve had the greatest success, you mustn’t go back,” said the professor. He knew human nature, and that’s also knowledge.

Finally they had traveled to all countries, except to the uncivilized ones, and so then he wanted to go there. They ate Christian people there, the professor knew, but he was not exactly a Christian, and the flea was not exactly a person so he thought they could travel there and make a good profit.

They traveled by steamship and by sail. The flea did his tricks, and so they traveled for free and then came to the land of the cannibals.

A little princess ruled there. She was only eight years old, but she was the ruler. She had taken power from her father and mother, for she had a strong will and was so exceptionally lovely and naughty.

Immediately when the flea presented arms and shot off the cannon, she was so completely entranced by him that she said, “Him or no one!” She was wild with love for him, and, of course, she was already wild from before.

“Dear sweet, sensible little child,” said her own father. “If one could just make a human being out of him!”

“Leave that to me, old thing,” she said, and that wasn’t nicely said of a little princess talking to her father, but then she was wild.

She placed the flea on her little hand.

“Now you’re a human being, and you’ll rule with me. But you must do what I want, or I’ll kill you and eat the professor.”

The professor was given a large chamber to live in. The walls were of sugar cane, and he could lick them, but he didn’t have a sweet tooth. He got a hammock to sleep in, and it was as if he were lying in the balloon which he had always wished for, and which was his constant thought.

The flea stayed with the princess, sat on her little hand and on her delicate neck. She had taken a hair from her head, and the professor had to tie it around the flea’s leg. The other end she tied to the big piece of coral that she wore in her earlobe.

What a lovely time that was for the princess, and for the flea too, she thought. But the professor was not satisfied. He was a traveling man, and he liked moving from town to town, liked reading about his perseverance in the newspapers, and about his cleverness in teaching a flea human actions. He lay in the hammock day in and day out, lazy and eating good food—fresh bird eggs, elephant eyes, and roasted leg of giraffe. The cannibals didn’t just live off of human flesh. That was a delicacy to them. “Shoulder of child with a pungent sauce,” said the princess’ mother, “is the most delicious.”

The professor was bored and wanted to get away from the uncivilized country, but he had to have the flea with him. That was his wonder child and means of support. How could he catch and keep it? It wasn’t so easy.

He exerted all his mental faculties, and then he said, “I’ve got it!”

“Father of the Princess, let me do something. May I drill the country’s residents in presenting arms? That’s what’s considered culture in the world’s greatest countries.”

“And what can you teach me?” asked the princess’ father.

“My greatest trick,” said the professor, “that of firing a cannon so the whole earth moves, and all of the sky’s most gorgeous birds fall cooked from the sky. There’s some noise to that!”

“Bring the cannon!” said the princess’ father.

But there was no cannon in the whole country except the one the flea had brought, and that one was too small.

“I’ll make a bigger one,” said the professor. “Just give me the means! I must have fine silk material, needle and thread, ropes and cords, and stomach drops for air balloonists—they blow it up so light and airy, and give the bang in the stomach of the cannon.”

And he got everything he requested.

The whole country assembled to see the big cannon. The professor didn’t call them together until he had the balloon completely ready to fill and ascend.

The flea sat on the princess’s hand and watched. The balloon was filled. It billowed and could hardly be held, it was so wild.

“I must have it up in the air to cool it down,” said the professor and got into the basket that hung under it. “I can’t steer it by myself. I have to have a knowledgeable companion along to help me. No one here can do it except the flea.”

“I’ll allow it but not willingly,” said the princess and handed the flea to the professor who set it on his hand.

“Let go of the ropes and cords,” he said. “Up goes the balloon!”

They thought he said, “Let’s make a boom.”

And the balloon rose higher and higher, up over the clouds, away from the uncivilized country.

The little princess, her mother and father, and all the people stood and waited. They are still waiting, and if you don’t believe it, then travel to that uncivilized country. Every child there talks about the flea and the professor and believes that they will come again when the cannon has cooled off. But they won’t come; they are home with us. They’re in their native land, riding on the trains, first class, not fourth. They have good earnings and a big balloon, and no one asks how or where they got it. They are well-to-do folks, honorable folks—the flea and the professor.