Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/95

Rh In youth's first flash I sat at eventide, A sweetheart maid of seven by my side; For I had many fairy tales to tell, And legends rare; but as for wealth—ah, well! She cared not but for elf or goblin's spell. Then was I rich, but not—heaven knows!—in gold, Or silver coins untold.

Were I but rich is still my prayer to heaven. Though now grown tall, I love the maid of seven, So good is she, so sweet, so fair to see. Would that she knew my heart's wild fantasy! Would that she, as of yore, could care for me! But I am poor, and so my lips are sealed, My love is unrevealed.

Were I but rich in comfort and repose, My pain I would not to the world disclose. If you, my love, can understand, then read This as a mem'ry of the past. Yet heed! 'T were best, perhaps, your heart were hard indeed! I 'm poor, alas! my future dark and drear, But may God bless you, dear!

Yes, these are the kind of verses one writes when one is in love, but a sensible man does not let them get into print. Lieutenant, love, and poverty form a triangle, or perhaps, rather, the one half of the broken die of fortune. The lieutenant himself felt this keenly, and therefore leaned his head against the window frame and sighed deeply.

"The poor watchman in the street is far happier than I! He does not know what I call privation! He has a home, a wife, and children, who weep with him in his sorrows and rejoice with him in his joys! Oh, I should be happier than I am, if I could change places with him, for he is much happier than I am!"

At the same moment the watchman became again a watchman, for it was through the galoshes of fortune that he had become the lieutenant, but then, as we have just heard, he felt still less contented, and preferred to be what he really was. So the watchman was a watchman once more.

"It was a terrible dream, but funny enough!" he said. "I thought I was the lieutenant up there, and I did not like it at all. I missed the wife and the youngsters, who are always ready to hug me to death!"

He sat down again and began nodding; he could not quite get rid of the dream, and he still had the galoshes on his feet. Just then a falling star shot across the heavens.

"There it goes!" he said, "but there are plenty more. I should like to have a look at those little things a little nearer, especially the moon, for she is not likely to slip through one's fingers. The student for whom my