Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/265

 luck. The lieutenant felt this to be the case, and, therefore, leant his head against the window-frame, and sighed deeply.

"The poor watchman out in the street," thought he, "is happier than I am. He does not suffer from the same penury as I do. He has a home, a wife, and children, who weep at his sorrows, and rejoice over his joys. I should be far happier could I exchange my existence for his, and wander through life with no higher hopes and expectations than his. Yes, he is far happier than I."

At the same moment, the watchman again became a watchman; for, after having passed into

"It was an ugly dream," said he, "but funny enough. I thought myself the lieutenant up above there, and yet I was not satisfied. I missed my wife and my brats, who are all ready to smother me with their kisses."

He sat down again, and began to nod. He could not get his dream out of his head; for he had still the goloshes on his feet. A falling star shot across the sky.

"There goes one," said he; "however, there are plenty left. I should like to be able to examine them a little closer, and particularly the moon, for that would not slip through one's fingers. When we die, says the student for whom my wife washes, we fly about from one star to the other. It is not true; but it would be very pretty, if it were. I wish I could take a leap up thither, while my body remained lying here on the doorsteps."

There are certain things in the world that one must be very cautious of pronouncing aloud; and one need be doubly so when one has the Goloshes of Happiness on one's feet. Now you shall hear what befell the watchman.

We are nearly all of us acquainted with the locomotive powers of steam, which we have experienced either on a railway or in a steamer; yet such modes of transport are like the pace of the sloth or the snail compared to the rapidity with which light journeys. It flies nineteen million times faster than the best racer, yet electricity is more rapid still. Death is an electric shock, which we receive in our hearts; and our soul, thus set free, flies away on the wings of electricity. A sunbeam requires only eight minutes and a few seconds to perform a journey of twenty millions of miles; but, with the aid of an express train of electricity, the soul requires still fewer minutes to achieve its flight. The space between the spheres is no greater for the soul than the distance is for us, in the same town, from one friend's house to another, supposing them to lie in the same neighbourhood. Nevertheless, this electric shock through our hearts costs us the use of our bodies here below, unless we happen, like the watchman, to be wearing the Goloshes of Happiness.

In a few seconds, the watchman had cleared the 52,000 miles up to the moon, which, as we all know, is of a much lighter material than the earth, and as soft as new-fallen snow, as we should call it. He found himself on one of the countless circular ranges of mountains that we see in Dr. Madler's large map of the moon. In the interior it formed a kind of caldron, of the perpendicular depth of about half a mile. Below, there lay a town, of the appearance of which we can form a