Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/108

 96 He could not find the bridge, nor was there any paling. 'It is quite scandalous how things look here!' he said—never had he thought his own times so miserable as this evening. 'I think it will be best if I take a cab,' thought he. But where were the cabs?—not one was to be seen. 'I shall have to go back to the King's New Market, where there are many carriages standing, otherwise I shall never get as far as Christian's Haven.'

Now he went towards East Street, and had almost gone through it when the moon burst forth.

'What in the world have they been erecting here?' he exclaimed, when he saw the East Gate, which in those days stood at the end of East Street.

In the meantime, however, he found a passage open, and through this he came out upon our New Market; but it was a broad meadow. Single bushes stood forth, and across the meadow ran a great canal or stream. A few miserable wooden booths for skippers from Holland were erected on the opposite shore.

'Either I behold a Fata Morgana, or I am tipsy,' sighed the councillor. 'What can that be? what can that be?'

He turned back, in the full persuasion that he must be ill. In walking up the street he looked more closely at the houses; most of them were built of laths, and many were only thatched with straw.

'No, I don't feel well at all!' he lamented. 'And yet I only drank one glass of punch! But I cannot stand that; and besides, it was very foolish to give us punch and warm salmon. I shall mention that to our hostess—the agent's lady. Suppose I go back, and say how I feel? But that looks ridiculous, and it is a question if they will be up still.'

He looked for the house, but could not find it.

'That is dreadful!' he cried; 'I don't know East Street again. Not one shop is to be seen; old, miserable, tumble-down huts are all I see, as if I were at Roskilde or Ringstedt. Oh, I am ill! It 's no use to make ceremony. But where in all the world is the agent's house? It is no longer the same; but within there are people up still. I certainly must be ill! '

He now reached a half -open door, where the light shone