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The Shoes of Fortune
Hans Christian Anderson
IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's
"Dramatic Readings"--A Most Strange Journey
Every inhabitant of Copenhagen knows, from personal
inspection, how the entrance to Frederick's Hospital looks; but as it is
possible that others, who are not Copenhagen people, may also read this little
work, we will beforehand give a short description of it.
The extensive building is separated from the street by a
pretty high railing, the thick iron bars of which are so far apart, that in all
seriousness, it is said, some very thin fellow had of a night occasionally
squeezed himself through to go and pay his little visits in the town. The part
of the body most difficult to manage on such occasions was, no doubt, the head;
here, as is so often the case in the world, long-headed people get through best.
So much, then, for the introduction.
One of the young men, whose head, in a physical sense
only, might be said to be of the thickest, had the watch that evening. The rain
poured down in torrents; yet despite these two obstacles, the young man was
obliged to go out, if it were but for a quarter of an hour; and as to telling
the door-keeper about it, that, he thought, was quite unnecessary, if, with a
whole skin, he were able to slip through the railings. There, on the floor lay
the galoshes, which the watchman had forgotten; he never dreamed for a moment
that they were those of Fortune; and they promised to do him good service in the
wet; so he put them on. The question now was, if he could squeeze himself
through the grating, for he had never tried before. Well, there he stood.
"Would to Heaven I had got my head through!" said he,
involuntarily; and instantly through it slipped, easily and without pain,
notwithstanding it was pretty large and thick. But now the rest of the body was
to be got through!
"Ah! I am much too stout," groaned he aloud, while fixed
as in a vice. "I had thought the head was the most difficult part of the
matter--oh! oh! I really cannot squeeze myself through!"
He now wanted to pull his over-hasty head back again,
but he could not. For his neck there was room enough, but for nothing more. His
first feeling was of anger; his next that his temper fell to zero. The Shoes of
Fortune had placed him in the most dreadful situation; and, unfortunately, it
never occurred to him to wish himself free. The pitch-black clouds poured down
their contents in still heavier torrents; not a creature was to be seen in the
streets. To reach up to the bell was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help
would have availed him little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be
found caught in a trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself
through! He saw clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner
till dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith must be fetched
to file away the bars; but all that would not be done so quickly as he could
think about it. The whole Charity School, just opposite, would be in motion; all
the new booths, with their not very courtier-like swarm of seamen, would join
them out of curiosity, and would greet him with a wild "hurrah!" while he was
standing in his pillory: there would be a mob, a hissing, and rejoicing, and
jeering, ten times worse than in the rows about the Jews some years ago--"Oh, my
blood is mounting to my brain; 'tis enough to drive one mad! I shall go wild! I
know not what to do. Oh! were I but loose; my dizziness would then cease; oh,
were my head but loose!"
You see he ought to have said that sooner; for the
moment he expressed the wish his head was free; and cured of all his paroxysms
of love, he hastened off to his room, where the pains consequent on the fright
the Shoes had prepared for him, did not so soon take their leave.
But you must not think that the affair is over now; it
grows much worse.
The night passed, the next day also; but nobody came to
fetch the Shoes.
In the evening "Dramatic Readings" were to be given at
the little theatre in King Street. The house was filled to suffocation; and
among other pieces to be recited was a new poem by H. C. Andersen, called, My
Aunt's Spectacles; the contents of which were pretty nearly as follows:
"A certain person had an aunt, who boasted of particular
skill in fortune-telling with cards, and who was constantly being stormed by
persons that wanted to have a peep into futurity. But she was full of mystery
about her art, in which a certain pair of magic spectacles did her essential
service. Her nephew, a merry boy, who was his aunt's darling, begged so long for
these spectacles, that, at last, she lent him the treasure, after having
informed him, with many exhortations, that in order to execute the interesting
trick, he need only repair to some place where a great many persons were
assembled; and then, from a higher position, whence he could overlook the crowd,
pass the company in review before him through his spectacles. Immediately 'the
inner man' of each individual would be displayed before him, like a game of
cards, in which he unerringly might read what the future of every person
presented was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the
powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more fitted for
such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience, and set his
spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents itself before him,
which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet without expressing his
opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set them all thinking and
guessing; but in order to hurt nobody, he wraps his witty oracular judgments in
a transparent veil, or rather in a lurid thundercloud, shooting forth bright
sparks of wit, that they may fall in the powder-magazine of the expectant
audience."
The humorous poem was admirably recited, and the speaker
much applauded. Among the audience was the young man of the hospital, who seemed
to have forgotten his adventure of the preceding night. He had on the Shoes; for
as yet no lawful owner had appeared to claim them; and besides it was so very
dirty out-of-doors, they were just the thing for him, he thought.
The beginning of the poem he praised with great
generosity: he even found the idea original and effective. But that the end of
it, like the Rhine, was very insignificant, proved, in his opinion, the author's
want of invention; he was without genius, etc. This was an excellent opportunity
to have said something clever.
Meanwhile he was haunted by the idea--he should like to
possess such a pair of spectacles himself; then, perhaps, by using them
circumspectly, one would be able to look into people's hearts, which, he
thought, would be far more interesting than merely to see what was to happen
next year; for that we should all know in proper time, but the other never.
"I can now," said he to himself, "fancy the whole row of
ladies and gentlemen sitting there in the front row; if one could but see into
their hearts--yes, that would be a revelation--a sort of bazar. In that lady
yonder, so strangely dressed, I should find for certain a large milliner's shop;
in that one the shop is empty, but it wants cleaning plain enough. But there
would also be some good stately shops among them. Alas!" sighed he, "I know one
in which all is stately; but there sits already a spruce young shopman, which is
the only thing that's amiss in the whole shop. All would be splendidly decked
out, and we should hear, 'Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in; here you will find
all you please to want.' Ah! I wish to Heaven I could walk in and take a trip
right through the hearts of those present!"
And behold! to the Shoes of Fortune this was the cue;
the whole man shrunk together and a most uncommon journey through the hearts of
the front row of spectators, now began. The first heart through which he came,
was that of a middle-aged lady, but he instantly fancied himself in the room of
the "Institution for the cure of the crooked and deformed," where casts of
mis-shapen limbs are displayed in naked reality on the wall. Yet there was this
difference, in the institution the casts were taken at the entry of the patient;
but here they were retained and guarded in the heart while the sound persons
went away. They were, namely, casts of female friends, whose bodily or mental
deformities were here most faithfully preserved.
With the snake-like writhings of an idea he glided into
another female heart; but this seemed to him like a large holy fane.* The white
dove of innocence fluttered over the altar. How gladly would he have sunk upon
his knees; but he must away to the next heart; yet he still heard the pealing
tones of the organ, and he himself seemed to have become a newer and a better
man; he felt unworthy to tread the neighboring sanctuary which a poor garret,
with a sick bed-rid mother, revealed. But God's warm sun streamed through the
open window; lovely roses nodded from the wooden flower-boxes on the roof, and
two sky-blue birds sang rejoicingly, while the sick mother implored God's
richest blessings on her pious daughter.
* temple
He now crept on hands and feet through a butcher's
shop; at least on every side, and above and below, there was nought but flesh.
It was the heart of a most respectable rich man, whose name is certain to be
found in the Directory.
He was now in the heart of the wife of this worthy
gentleman. It was an old, dilapidated, mouldering dovecot. The husband's
portrait was used as a weather-cock, which was connected in some way or other
with the doors, and so they opened and shut of their own accord, whenever the
stern old husband turned round.
Hereupon he wandered into a boudoir formed entirely of
mirrors, like the one in Castle Rosenburg; but here the glasses magnified to an
astonishing degree. On the floor, in the middle of the room, sat, like a
Dalai-Lama, the insignificant "Self" of the person, quite confounded at his own
greatness. He then imagined he had got into a needle-case full of pointed
needles of every size.
"This is certainly the heart of an old maid," thought
he. But he was mistaken. It was the heart of a young military man; a man, as
people said, of talent and feeling.
In the greatest perplexity, he now came out of the last
heart in the row; he was unable to put his thoughts in order, and fancied that
his too lively imagination had run away with him.
"Good Heavens!" sighed he. "I have surely a disposition
to madness--'tis dreadfully hot here; my blood boils in my veins and my head is
burning like a coal." And he now remembered the important event of the evening
before, how his head had got jammed in between the iron railings of the
hospital. "That's what it is, no doubt," said he. "I must do something in time:
under such circumstances a Russian bath might do me good. I only wish I were
already on the upper bank"*
*In these Russian
(vapor) baths the person extends himself on a bank or form, and as he gets
accustomed to the heat, moves to another higher up towards the ceiling,
where, of course, the vapor is warmest. In this manner he ascends gradually
to the highest.
And so there he lay on the uppermost bank in the
vapor-bath; but with all his clothes on, in his boots and galoshes, while the
hot drops fell scalding from the ceiling on his face.
"Holloa!" cried he, leaping down. The bathing attendant,
on his side, uttered a loud cry of astonishment when he beheld in the bath, a
man completely dressed.
The other, however, retained sufficient presence of mind
to whisper to him, "'Tis a bet, and I have won it!" But the first thing he did
as soon as he got home, was to have a large blister put on his chest and back to
draw out his madness.
The next morning he had a sore chest and a bleeding
back; and, excepting the fright, that was all that he had gained by the Shoes of
Fortune.
Next -
V. Metamorphosis of the Copying-Clerk
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