Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/275

 The clerk instinctively obeyed and left the cage; at the same moment the half-open door leading to the adjoining room creaked on its hinges, and the cat, with its green, sparkling eyes, stole in and began to pursue him. The canary-bird fluttered in its cage, while the parrot flapped his wings, crying: "Now, let us be men!" The poor clerk experienced the most deadly fright, and flew out of the window, over the houses and across the streets, till at last he was obliged to rest.

A house that stood opposite to him looked familiar. He flew in at the open window, and found himself in his own room. He perched upon the table.

"Now, let us be men!" said he, involuntarily mimicking the parrot, and at the same moment he was the clerk once more—only he was sitting on the table.

"Heaven help me!" said he, "how did I get up here, and fall asleep in this manner? It was an uneasy dream that I had anyhow. The whole of it was most nonsensical stuff."

VI.—THE BEST THING THE GOLOSHES BROUGHT

N the following day, as the clerk still lay a-bed, some one tapped at his door. It was a neighbour of his, a young theologian, living on the same storey as himself, who walked in.

"Pray lend me your goloshes," said he; "it is so, wet in the garden, although the sun is shining brightly, and I want to go down and smoke a pipe."

He drew on the goloshes, and was presently down in the garden, that contained one plum-tree and one apple-tree. Yet even so small a garden as that is a treasure in the midst of a town.

The theologian sauntered up and down the walk. It was now six o'clock, and he heard a postman's horn in the street.

"O travelling—travelling!" cried he, "there is no greater delight in the world! That is the height of all my wishes! My restless feelings would then find a vent and be appeased, provided I went far enough. I should wish to see beautiful Switzerland, and Italy, and—"

It was well the goloshes took immediate effect, or else he would have travelled rather too far, both for himself and for us. He was now journeying through Switzerland, only packed inside a diligence with eight fellow-passengers. His head ached, his neck was stiff, and the blood had rushed downwards to his feet, which were swollen, and sorely pinched by his boots. He was in a dreamy state between waking and sleeping. In his right-hand pocket was a letter of credit, in his left-hand pocket his passport, and a small leather purse, in which a few louis-d'ors were carefully stitched up. Every dream pictured forth the loss of one or other of these valuables, and he would awake from his naps with a feverish start, when the first evolution his hand described was a triangular one from right to left, and to the top of his breast, to feel whether his goods were still in his possession. Umbrellas, sticks, and hats were swinging about in the net above his head, and quite spoiled the prospect, which was a most imposing one. He just peeped at it, while his heart sang the lines, which a poet, whom we know, sang in Switzerland, though hitherto he has not had them printed:—

The landscape around was grand, dark, and gloomy. The forests of fir-trees appeared like so much heath on the high rocks, whose summits were lost in clouds of mist. It now snowed, and a cold wind began to blow.

"Oh, dear!" sighed he; "I wish we were on the other side of the Alps, and then it would be