Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/62

40 "At that moment the door opened, it was the servant, and they all stood still, nobody uttered a sound. But not a pot among them which didn't know its capabilities, or how distinguished it was, 'If I had chosen, we might have had a merry evening, and no mistake,' they all thought.

"The servant took the matches and struck a light; preserve us! how they spluttered and blazed up.

"'Now every one can see,' they thought, 'that we are the first. How brilliantly we shine! What a light we shed around!'—And then they were burnt out."

"That was a splendid story," said the Queen; "I quite felt that I was in the kitchen with the matches. Yes, indeed, you shall marry our daughter."

"Certainly!" said the King. "Thou shalt marry her on Monday!" They said "du" (thou) to him now, as they were to be related.

So the wedding was decided upon, and the evening before the town was illuminated. Buns and cakes were scattered broadcast; the street boys stood on tiptoe and shouted hurrah, and whistled through their fingers. Everything was most gorgeous.

"I suppose I shall have to do something, too," said the merchant's son; so he bought a lot of rockets, squibs, and all sorts of fireworks, put them in his trunk, and flew up into the air with them.

All the Turks jumped at the sight, so that their slippers flew up into the air; they had never seen a flight of meteors like that before. They saw now without doubt that it was the prophet himself, who was about to marry the princess.

As soon as the merchant's son got down again into the wood with his trunk, he thought, "I will just go into the town to hear what was thought of the display," and it was quite reasonable that he should do so.

Oh, how every one talked! Every single man he spoke to had his own opinion about it, but that it had been splendid was the universal opinion.