Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/273

 as soon as it disappears, rolls up its leaves, and sleeps in the embraces of the air. "It is light that adorns me," said the flower. "But the air gives you life," whispered the poet's voice.

Close by stood a boy, striking with a stick in a swampy ditch; and as drops of water splashed through the green boughs, the clerk thought what millions of animalcules were thrown up into the air in each single drop, and to a distance as great for them, in proportion to their size, as it would be for us to be whirled up above the clouds. While these reflections crossed the clerk's mind, and as he mused upon the change that had come over him, he smiled, and said to himself: "I am sleeping and dreaming! Still, it is remarkable how naturally we can dream, and yet be aware all the time that it is nothing but a dream. I hope I shall be able to remember it to-morrow when I wake. I seem to be most unusually capable of doing so. I have a clear perception of everything, and feel quite awake, yet I am sure that if I retain any of it to-morrow, it will seem most stupid stuff—this has happened to me before! It fares just the same with all the wise and witty things one says and hears in dreams, as with the money of the underground folk—which is rich and splendid when one receives it, but turns to stones and dried leaves by daylight. Ah!" sighed he sorrowfully, as he gazed at the birds that were warbling, and hopping from branch to branch, "they are far better off than I. Flying is a splendid gift! Happy he who is born with it! Yes; if I could transform myself into any other shape, I would assume that of a little lark!"

At the same moment the skirts and sleeves of his coat became wings, his clothes turned to feathers, and his goloshes to claws. On perceiving this metamorphosis, he smiled inwardly, observing: "This is the finishing stroke to convince me that I am dreaming. But I never before dreamt such foolish things." And he flew up into a green branch and sang—but there was no poetry in his song, for the poetical element had left him. The goloshes, like all those who do things thoroughly, could only attend to one thing at a time. He wanted to be a poet, and he was one. Now he wanted to be a little bird, and in order to become a bird, he must abdicate his former individuality.

"This is delightful!" said he. "By day I sit in the police-office, amongst the most matter-of-fact deeds; and by night I can dream that I am flying about as a lark in the Fredericksberg garden. Really, a whole comedy might be written on the subject."

He now flew down to the grass, twisted his head about in all directions, and pecked at the pliant blades, that appeared to him, in proportion to his present size, like the palm-trees of Northern Africa.

In another moment it was as dark as pitch all round him. An enormous object seemed to be thrown over him, which was in reality only a large cap that a sailor boy flung over the bird. A hand was thrust under the cap, which seized the clerk by the back and wings, till he screeched again. In his first alarm he cried out: "You shameless scapegrace! I'm a clerk in the police-office." But to the boy it only sounded like "tweat-tweat!" He gave the bird a knock on its bill, and took him away.

In the avenue he met a couple of schoolboys, belonging to the educated class; that is to say, in a social point of view; for as regards intellect they might be reckoned as appertaining to the lowest class of the school. They purchased the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned to Copenhagen.

"It is well that I am only dreaming," said the clerk, "or else I should be quite angry. I was first a poet, and now I'm a lark. It was the poetical element, to a certainty, that transformed me into this little animal. It is a lamentable story, especially when one falls into boys' hands. I shall like to know how it will end."