Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/410

 The moon told me no more, her visit this evening was too short; but I continued to think of the old woman in a narrow, despised street. Only one word, and a noble house would have been raised for her on the banks of the Thames; only one word, and a villa would have stood for her on the bay of Naples. “If I deserted the lonely house, where the fortunes of my sons first began to flourish, fortune would desert them.” It was a superstition, but of such a sort that he who knows the story, and sees this picture, needs only two words to make him understand it; and those two words are “A mother.”

“I knew a clown once,” said the moon, “whom the public applauded uproariously the moment he appeared. His movements were so comic that they threw the house into fits of laughter; and yet his acting had little art in it; it was all natural. His ordinary appearance was so grotesque that when quite a little boy, he was called Punch by his playfellows. Nature had intended him for it, as it seemed, for he had a hump on his back, and another on his chest; but his inner man, his mind, had no deformity. No one could surpass him in deep feeling or ready wit. The theatre was his ideal world. If he had possessed a slender, well-shaped figure, he might have been the first tragedian on any stage. His soul was full of the great and the heroic, and yet he had become a Punchinello. His serious and melancholy feelings increased the comic dryness of his strongly marked features, and excited the laughter of the audience, who overwhelmed their favourite with applause. The lovely columbine was indeed always kind to him, but she preferred to marry the harlequin. It would have been ridiculous for such beauty and such ugliness to be mated together. When Punchinello was in bad spirits, she was the only one who could force him to laugh heartily, or even bring a smile. At first she would be melancholy with him, then she would be quiet, and at last cheerful and happy. ‘I know very well what is the matter with you,’ she said; ‘you are in love.’ He could not help laughing then. ‘I in love!’ he cried; ‘that would look absurd. How the public would shout!’ ‘Certainly you are in love,’ she went on, and added, with a comic smile, ‘and I am the person you are in love with.’ You see, such things can be said when it is quite out of the question to think they are true. But Punchinello burst out laughing, gave a leap in the air, and seemed to forget his melancholy. And yet she had but spoken the truth. He did love her—loved her to adoration, as he loved everything that was great and lofty in art. At her wedding, he was the merriest among the guests; but in the still night he wept, and if the public had seen his poor distorted face then, they would have applauded rapturously.

“A few days ago, columbine died. On the day of the funeral, harlequin was not required to appear on the boards; for he was a disconsolate widower. The manager had to choose a lively piece, that the public might not too painfully miss the pretty columbine and the clever harlequin. Therefore Punchinello had to be more boisterous and extravagant than ever; and he danced and capered, while despair was in his heart. The