Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/171

 way;” and he nodded as if quite satisfied at the bare looms, for he would not own that he saw nothing.

All, however, who accompanied the emperor saw no more than he did, yet they agreed with him, when he said again, “Yes, it is very beautiful,” and advised him to have some new clothes made of this magnificent fabric, to wear at the first grand procession. “How delightful! how charming! excellent!” sounded from mouth to mouth, and every one seemed contented, especially when the emperor, decreed that the two weavers should in future bear the title of “Court Weavers.”

The impostors were up the whole night before the day of the grand procession, and had more than twenty lights burning, so that people could see that they were busily at work on the emperor’s new clothes.

They moved their hands as if they were taking the cloth from the loom; they cut with their great scissors in the air, and sewed with needles that held no thread, and said, at last, “See, now, the clothes are quite ready.”

By-and-by the emperor himself arrived with the greatest of his noblemen, and both impostors raised one arm, just as if they were holding something up and said, “Here are the trousers, there is the coat, and here the cloak,” and so forth; “all as light as a spider’s web, so that anyone who wears them might believe he had nothing on, but that is one beauty of the clothes we prepare.”

“Yes,” they all exclaimed; yet they could see nothing, for there was nothing to be seen.

“If your imperial majesty will now please to take off the old clothes,” said the impostors, “we will then dress you in the new ones here, before this large looking-glass.”

The emperor took off his clothes, and the impostors pretended to help him in putting on one article after another of the new clothes, while he twisted and turned himself about before the looking-glass.

“Oh, how becoming they are! how beautifully they fit!” was the general remark; “and the patterns and colours are wonderful; it is truly an imperial dress.”

The master of the ceremonies then appeared and said, “The canopy which is to be carried over your imperial majesty in the procession is quite ready.”

“Well, I am ready also,” said the emperor. “Does not everything fit me well!” And he turned himself about once more before the lookingglass as he spoke, for he wished it to appear that he was admiring himself in his pretty finery.

The pages who were to carry the train stooped and pretended to lift something from the ground, as if they were raising the train, and then followed the emperor, for they also were unwilling for it to be known that they could see nothing.

And thus the emperor walked in the procession under the magnificent canopy, and all the people in the streets and at the windows said.

“Dear heaven! what splendid clothes the emperor has on, and how well they fit! and is not the train magnificent!”