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The Shoes of Fortune
Hans Christian Anderson
II. What Happened to the Councillor
It was late; Councillor Knap, deeply occupied with the
times of King Hans, intended to go home, and malicious Fate managed matters so
that his feet, instead of finding their way to his own galoshes, slipped into
those of Fortune. Thus caparisoned the good man walked out of the well-lighted
rooms into East Street. By the magic power of the shoes he was carried back to
the times of King Hans; on which account his foot very naturally sank in the mud
and puddles of the street, there having been in those days no pavement in
Copenhagen.
"Well! This is too bad! How dirty it is here!" sighed
the Councillor. "As to a pavement, I can find no traces of one, and all the
lamps, it seems, have gone to sleep."
The moon was not yet very high; it was besides rather
foggy, so that in the darkness all objects seemed mingled in chaotic confusion.
At the next corner hung a votive lamp before a Madonna, but the light it gave
was little better than none at all; indeed, he did not observe it before he was
exactly under it, and his eyes fell upon the bright colors of the pictures which
represented the well-known group of the Virgin and the infant Jesus.
"That is probably a wax-work show," thought he; "and the
people delay taking down their sign in hopes of a late visitor or two."
A few persons in the costume of the time of King Hans
passed quickly by him.
"How strange they look! The good folks come probably
from a masquerade!"
Suddenly was heard the sound of drums and fifes; the
bright blaze of a fire shot up from time to time, and its ruddy gleams seemed to
contend with the bluish light of the torches. The Councillor stood still, and
watched a most strange procession pass by. First came a dozen drummers, who
understood pretty well how to handle their instruments; then came halberdiers,
and some armed with cross-bows. The principal person in the procession was a
priest. Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked what was the meaning of
all this mummery, and who that man was.
"That's the Bishop of Zealand," was the answer.
"Good Heavens! What has taken possession of the Bishop?"
sighed the Councillor, shaking his bead. It certainly could not be the Bishop;
even though he was considered the most absent man in the whole kingdom, and
people told the drollest anecdotes about him. Reflecting on the matter, and
without looking right or left, the Councillor went through East Street and
across the Habro-Platz. The bridge leading to Palace Square was not to be found;
scarcely trusting his senses, the nocturnal wanderer discovered a shallow piece
of water, and here fell in with two men who very comfortably were rocking to and
fro in a boat.
"Does your honor want to cross the ferry to the Holme?"
asked they.
"Across to the Holme!" said the Councillor, who knew
nothing of the age in which he at that moment was. "No, I am going to
Christianshafen, to Little Market Street."
Both men stared at him in astonishment.
"Only just tell me where the bridge is," said he. "It
is really unpardonable that there are no lamps here; and it is as dirty as if
one had to wade through a morass."
The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more
unintelligible did their language become to him.
"I don't understand your Bornholmish dialect," said he
at last, angrily, and turning his back upon them. He was unable to find the
bridge: there was no railway either. "It is really disgraceful what a state this
place is in," muttered he to himself. Never had his age, with which, however, he
was always grumbling, seemed so miserable as on this evening. "I'll take a
hackney-coach!" thought he. But where were the hackneycoaches? Not one was to be
seen.
"I must go back to the New Market; there, it is to be
hoped, I shall find some coaches; for if I don't, I shall never get safe to
Christianshafen."
So off he went in the direction of East Street, and had
nearly got to the end of it when the moon shone forth.
"God bless me! What wooden scaffolding is that which
they have set up there?" cried he involuntarily, as he looked at East Gate,
which, in those days, was at the end of East Street.
He found, however, a little side-door open, and through
this he went, and stepped into our New Market of the present time. It was a huge
desolate plain; some wild bushes stood up here and there, while across the field
flowed a broad canal or river. Some wretched hovels for the Dutch sailors,
resembling great boxes, and after which the place was named, lay about in
confused disorder on the opposite bank.
"I either behold a fata morgana, or I am regularly
tipsy," whimpered out the Councillor. "But what's this?"
He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was
seriously ill. He gazed at the street formerly so well known to him, and now so
strange in appearance, and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them
were of wood, slightly put together; and many had a thatched roof.
"No--I am far from well," sighed he; "and yet I drank
only one glass of punch; but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong
to give us punch and hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first
opportunity. I have half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer. But no,
that would be too silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up still."
He looked for the house, but it had vanished.
"It is really dreadful," groaned he with increasing
anxiety; "I cannot recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent
shop from one end to the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere;
just as if I were at Ringstead. Ohl I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any
longer. Where the deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very spot; yet
there is not the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a degree has everything
changed this night! At all events here are some people up and stirring. Oh! oh!
I am certainly very ill."
He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of
which a faint light shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of
public-house. The room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in
Holstein; a pretty numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen burghers,
and a few scholars, sat here in deep converse over their pewter cans, and gave
little heed to the person who entered.
"By your leave!" said the Councillor to the Hostess, who
came bustling towards him. "I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have
the goodness to send for a hackney-coach to take me to Christianshafen?"
The woman examined him with eyes of astonishment, and
shook her head; she then addressed him in German. The Councillor thought she did
not understand Danish, and therefore repeated his wish in German. This, in
connection with his costume, strengthened the good woman in the belief that he
was a foreigner. That he was ill, she comprehended directly; so she brought him
a pitcher of water, which tasted certainly pretty strong of the sea, although it
had been fetched from the well.
The Councillor supported his head on his hand, drew a
long breath, and thought over all the wondrous things he saw around him.
"Is this the Daily News of this evening?" be asked
mechanically, as he saw the Hostess push aside a large sheet of paper.
The meaning of this councillorship query remained, of
course, a riddle to her, yet she handed him the paper without replying. It was a
coarse wood-cut, representing a splendid meteor "as seen in the town of
Cologne," which was to be read below in bright letters.
"That is very old!" said the Councillor, whom this piece
of antiquity began to make considerably more cheerful. "Pray how did you come
into possession of this rare print? It is extremely interesting, although the
whole is a mere fable. Such meteorous appearances are to be explained in this
way--that they are the reflections of the Aurora Borealis, and it is highly
probable they are caused principally by electricity."
Those persons who were sitting nearest him and beard his
speech, stared at him in wonderment; and one of them rose, took off his hat
respectfully, and said with a serious countenance, "You are no doubt a very
learned man, Monsieur."
"Oh no," answered the Councillor, "I can only join in
conversation on this topic and on that, as indeed one must do according to the
demands of the world at present."
"Modestia is a fine virtue," continued the gentleman;
"however, as to your speech, I must say mihi secus videtur: yet I am willing to
suspend my judicium."
"May I ask with whom I have the pleasure of speaking?"
asked the Councillor.
"I am a Bachelor in Theologia," answered the gentleman
with a stiff reverence.
This reply fully satisfied the Councillor; the title
suited the dress. "He is certainly," thought he, "some village schoolmaster-some
queer old fellow, such as one still often meets with in Jutland."
"This is no locus docendi, it is true," began the
clerical gentleman; "yet I beg you earnestly to let us profit by your learning.
Your reading in the ancients is, sine dubio, of vast extent?"
"Oh yes, I've read a something, to be sure," replied the
Councillor. "I like reading all useful works; but I do not on that account
despise the modern ones; 'tis only the unfortunate 'Tales of Every-day Life'
that I cannot bear--we have enough and more than enough such in reality."
"'Tales of Every-day Life?'" said our Bachelor
inquiringly.
"I mean those new fangled novels, twisting and writhing
themselves in the dust of commonplace, which also expect to find a reading
public."
"Oh," exclaimed the clerical gentleman smiling, "there
is much wit in them; besides they are read at court. The King likes the history
of Sir Iffven and Sir Gaudian particularly, which treats of King Arthur, and his
Knights of the Round Table; he has more than once joked about it with his high
vassals."
"I have not read that novel," said the Councillor; "it
must be quite a new one, that Heiberg has published lately."
"No," answered the theologian of the time of King Hans:
"that book is not written by a Heiberg, but was imprinted by Godfrey von Gehmen."
"Oh, is that the author's name?" said the Councillor.
"It is a very old name, and, as well as I recollect, he was the first printer
that appeared in Denmark."
"Yes, he is our first printer," replied the clerical
gentleman hastily.
So far all went on well. Some one of the worthy burghers
now spoke of the dreadful pestilence that had raged in the country a few years
back, meaning that of 1484. The Councillor imagined it was the cholera that was
meant, which people made so much fuss about; and the discourse passed off
satisfactorily enough. The war of the buccaneers of 1490 was so recent that it
could not fail being alluded to; the English pirates had, they said, most
shamefully taken their ships while in the roadstead; and the Councillor, before
whose eyes the Herostratic* event of 1801 still floated vividly, agreed entirely
with the others in abusing the rascally English. With other topics he was not so
fortunate; every moment brought about some new confusion, and threatened to
become a perfect Babel; for the worthy Bachelor was really too ignorant, and the
simplest observations of the Councillor sounded to him too daring and
phantastical. They looked at one another from the crown of the head to the soles
of the feet; and when matters grew to too high a pitch, then the Bachelor talked
Latin, in the hope of being better understood--but it was of no use after all.
* Herostratus, or
Eratostratus--an Ephesian, who wantonly set fire to the famous temple of
Diana, in order to commemorate his name by so uncommon an action.
"What's the matter?" asked the Hostess, plucking the
Councillor by the sleeve; and now his recollection returned, for in the course
of the conversation he had entirely forgotten all that had preceded it.
"Merciful God, where am I!" exclaimed he in agony; and
while he so thought, all his ideas and feelings of overpowering dizziness,
against which he struggled with the utmost power of desperation, encompassed him
with renewed force. "Let us drink claret and mead, and Bremen beer," shouted one
of the guests--"and you shall drink with us!"
Two maidens approached. One wore a cap of two staring
colors, denoting the class of persons to which she belonged. They poured out the
liquor, and made the most friendly gesticulations; while a cold perspiration
trickled down the back of the poor Councillor.
"What's to be the end of this! What's to become of me!"
groaned he; but he was forced, in spite of his opposition, to drink with the
rest. They took hold of the worthy man; who, hearing on every side that he was
intoxicated, did not in the least doubt the truth of this certainly not very
polite assertion; but on the contrary, implored the ladies and gentlemen present
to procure him a hackney-coach: they, however, imagined he was talking Russian.
Never before, he thought, had he been in such a coarse
and ignorant company; one might almost fancy the people had turned heathens
again. "It is the most dreadful moment of my life: the whole world is leagued
against me!" But suddenly it occurred to him that he might stoop down under the
table, and then creep unobserved out of the door. He did so; but just as he was
going, the others remarked what he was about; they laid hold of him by the legs;
and now, happily for him, off fell his fatal shoes--and with them the charm was
at an end.
The Councillor saw quite distinctly before him a lantern
burning, and behind this a large handsome house. All seemed to him in proper
order as usual; it was East Street, splendid and elegant as we now see it. He
lay with his feet towards a doorway, and exactly opposite sat the watchman
asleep.
"Gracious Heaven!" said he. "Have I lain here in the
street and dreamed? Yes; 'tis East Street! How splendid and light it is! But
really it is terrible what an effect that one glass of punch must have had on
me!"
Two minutes later, he was sitting in a hackney-coach and
driving to Frederickshafen. He thought of the distress and agony he had endured,
and praised from the very bottom of his heart the happy reality--our own
time--which, with all its deficiencies, is yet much better than that in which,
so much against his inclination, he had lately been.
Next
III. The Watchman's
Adventure
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