Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/102

70 man, and was worthy to enter the next sanctuary, which showed him a poor garret with a sick mother; but through the open window shone God's warm sun, and from the little wooden box on the roof hung lovely roses, while two azure blue-birds sang of the joys of childhood, and the sick mother prayed for blessings on her daughter.

He next crept on all fours through a well-stocked butcher's shop: it was meat and nothing but meat he came across; it was the heart of a rich, respectable man, whose name was sure to be found in the directory.

He then entered the heart of this man's wife: it was an old dilapitated dove-cote; the husband's portrait was used as a weather-cock, which was connected with the doors in such a way that they opened and shut as the husband veered round.

Afterward he entered a glass cabinet, like the one we have in Rosenberg Castle, only the glass magnified everything to an incredible degree. In the middle of the floor sat a Dalai Lama, the insignificant "I" of the person surprised at seeing his own greatness.

Then he fancied himself in a narrow needle-case, full of sharp needles, and he could not help thinking it must be the heart of an old maid; but that was not the case; it was quite a young officer, with many orders, a man of spirit and heart, as they said.

The poor student came out of the last heart in the row in quite a confused condition; he was not able to collect his thoughts and could only believe it must have been his too vivid imagination which had run away with him.

"Good gracious!" he sighed, "I must have a tendency to madness! Besides, it is insufferably hot in here! the blood is rushing to my head!" And now he remembered his great adventure of the previous evening; how his head had stuck fast between the iron railings of the hospital. "That's where I must have caught it!" he thought. "I must do something at once. A Russian bath would be a good thing. I wish I were lying on the uppermost shelf of one."

And so he found himself lying on the uppermost shelf in a vapor bath, but he was lying with all his clothes on, in his boots and with the galoshes on; the hot drops of water from the ceiling were dripping onto his face.

"Ugh!" he cried, and sprang down from the shelf to get a shower-bath. The attendant uttered a loud cry on seeing a person with all his clothes on in the bath.

The student had, however, sufficient presence of mind to whisper to him: "It is a wager"; but the first thing he did when he got to his own room was to get a large blister on the back of his neck, and another down his back, in order to draw out the madness. Next morning his back was quite raw; and that was all he gained by the galoshes of fortune.