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The Shoes of Fortune
Hans Christian Anderson
VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave
The following day, early in the morning, while the Clerk
was still in bed, someone knocked at his door. It was his neighbor, a young
Divine, who lived on the same floor. He walked in.
"Lend me your Galoshes," said he; "it is so wet in the
garden, though the sun is shining most invitingly. I should like to go out a
little."
He got the Galoshes, and he was soon below in a little
duodecimo garden, where between two immense walls a plumtree and an apple-tree
were standing. Even such a little garden as this was considered in the
metropolis of Copenhagen as a great luxury.
The young man wandered up and down the narrow paths, as
well as the prescribed limits would allow; the clock struck six; without was
heard the horn of a post-boy.
"To travel! to travel!" exclaimed he, overcome by most
painful and passionate remembrances. "That is the happiest thing in the world!
That is the highest aim of all my wishes! Then at last would the agonizing
restlessness be allayed, which destroys my existence! But it must be far, far
away! I would behold magnificent Switzerland; I would travel to Italy, and---"
It was a good thing that the power of the Galoshes
worked as instantaneously as lightning in a powder-magazine would do, otherwise
the poor man with his overstrained wishes would have travelled about the world
too much for himself as well as for us. In short, he was travelling. He was in
the middle of Switzerland, but packed up with eight other passengers in the
inside of an eternally-creaking diligence; his head ached till it almost split,
his weary neck could hardly bear the heavy load, and his feet, pinched by his
torturing boots, were terribly swollen. He was in an intermediate state between
sleeping and waking; at variance with himself, with his company, with the
country, and with the government. In his right pocket he had his letter of
credit, in the left, his passport, and in a small leathern purse some double
louis d'or, carefully sewn up in the bosom of his waistcoat. Every dream
proclaimed that one or the other of these valuables was lost; wherefore he
started up as in a fever; and the first movement which his hand made, described
a magic triangle from the right pocket to the left, and then up towards the
bosom, to feel if he had them all safe or not. From the roof inside the
carriage, umbrellas, walking-sticks, hats, and sundry other articles were
depending, and hindered the view, which was particularly imposing. He now
endeavored as well as he was able to dispel his gloom, which was caused by
outward chance circumstances merely, and on the bosom of nature imbibe the milk
of purest human enjoyment.
Grand, solemn, and dark was the whole landscape around.
The gigantic pine-forests, on the pointed crags, seemed almost like little tufts
of heather, colored by the surrounding clouds. It began to snow, a cold wind
blew and roared as though it were seeking a bride.
"Augh!" sighed he, "were we only on the other side the
Alps, then we should have summer, and I could get my letters of credit cashed.
The anxiety I feel about them prevents me enjoying Switzerland. Were I but on
the other side!"
And so saying he was on the other side in Italy, between
Florence and Rome. Lake Thracymene, illumined by the evening sun, lay like
flaming gold between the dark-blue mountain-ridges; here, where Hannibal
defeated Flaminius, the rivers now held each other in their green embraces;
lovely, half-naked children tended a herd of black swine, beneath a group of
fragrant laurel-trees, hard by the road-side. Could we render this inimitable
picture properly, then would everybody exclaim, "Beautiful, unparalleled Italy!"
But neither the young Divine said so, nor anyone of his grumbling companions in
the coach of the vetturino.
The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by
thousands; in vain one waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious
insect population did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the
well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their ravenous
bites. The poor horses, tortured almost to death, suffered most from this truly
Egyptian plague; the flies alighted upon them in large disgusting swarms; and if
the coachman got down and scraped them off, hardly a minute elapsed before they
were there again. The sun now set: a freezing cold, though of short duration
pervaded the whole creation; it was like a horrid gust coming from a
burial-vault on a warm summer's day--but all around the mountains retained that
wonderful green tone which we see in some old pictures, and which, should we not
have seen a similar play of color in the South, we declare at once to be
unnatural. It was a glorious prospect; but the stomach was empty, the body
tired; all that the heart cared and longed for was good night-quarters; yet how
would they be? For these one looked much more anxiously than for the charms of
nature, which every where were so profusely displayed.
The road led through an olive-grove, and here the
solitary inn was situated. Ten or twelve crippled-beggars had encamped outside.
The healthiest of them resembled, to use an expression of Marryat's, "Hunger's
eldest son when he had come of age"; the others were either blind, had withered
legs and crept about on their hands, or withered arms and fingerless hands. It
was the most wretched misery, dragged from among the filthiest rags. "Excellenza,
miserabili!" sighed they, thrusting forth their deformed limbs to view. Even the
hostess, with bare feet, uncombed hair, and dressed in a garment of doubtful
color, received the guests grumblingly. The doors were fastened with a loop of
string; the floor of the rooms presented a stone paving half torn up; bats
fluttered wildly about the ceiling; and as to the smell therein--no--that was
beyond description.
"You had better lay the cloth below in the stable," said
one of the travellers; "there, at all events, one knows what one is breathing."
The windows were quickly opened, to let in a little
fresh air. Quicker, however, than the breeze, the withered, sallow arms of the
beggars were thrust in, accompanied by the eternal whine of "Miserabili,
miserabili, excellenza!" On the walls were displayed innumerable inscriptions,
written in nearly every language of Europe, some in verse, some in prose, most
of them not very laudatory of "bella Italia."
The meal was served. It consisted of a soup of salted
water, seasoned with pepper and rancid oil. The last ingredient played a very
prominent part in the salad; stale eggs and roasted cocks'-combs furnished the
grand dish of the repast; the wine even was not without a disgusting taste--it
was like a medicinal draught.
At night the boxes and other effects of the passengers
were placed against the rickety doors. One of the travellers kept watch ' while
the others slept. The sentry was our young Divine. How close it was in the
chamber! The heat oppressive to suffocation--the gnats hummed and stung
unceasingly--the "miserabili" without whined and moaned in their sleep.
"Travelling would be agreeable enough," said he
groaning, "if one only had no body, or could send it to rest while the spirit
went on its pilgrimage unhindered, whither the voice within might call it.
Wherever I go, I am pursued by a longing that is insatiable--that I cannot
explain to myself, and that tears my very heart. I want something better than
what is but what is fled in an instant. But what is it, and where is it to be
found? Yet, I know in reality what it is I wish for. Oh! most happy were I,
could I but reach one aim--could but reach the happiest of all!"
And as he spoke the word he was again in his home; the
long white curtains hung down from the windows, and in the middle of the floor
stood the black coffin; in it he lay in the sleep of death. His wish was
fulfilled--the body rested, while the spirit went unhindered on its pilgrimage.
"Let no one deem himself happy before his end," were the words of Solon; and
here was a new and brilliant proof of the wisdom of the old apothegm.
Every corpse is a sphynx of immortality; here too on the
black coffin the sphynx gave us no answer to what he who lay within had written
two days before:
"O mighty Death! thy silence teaches nought,
Thou leadest only to the near grave's brink;
Is broken now the ladder of my thoughts?
Do I instead of mounting only sink?
Our heaviest grief the world oft seeth not,
Our sorest pain we hide from stranger eyes:
And for the sufferer there is nothing left
But the green mound that o'er the coffin lies."
Two figures were moving in the chamber. We knew them
both; it was the fairy of Care, and the emissary of Fortune. They both bent over
the corpse.
"Do you now see," said Care, "what happiness your
Galoshes have brought to mankind?"
"To him, at least, who slumbers here, they have brought
an imperishable blessing," answered the other.
"Ah no!" replied Care. "He took his departure himself;
he was not called away. His mental powers here below were not strong enough to
reach the treasures lying beyond this life, and which his destiny ordained he
should obtain. I will now confer a benefit on him."
And she took the Galoshes from his feet; his sleep of
death was ended; and he who had been thus called back again to life arose from
his dread couch in all the vigor of youth. Care vanished, and with her the
Galoshes. She has no doubt taken them for herself, to keep them to all eternity.
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