THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES(Page 11)

knowledge I have, not to speak of my position in life, my
excellent circumstances—I certainly wish that you would
say YOU* to me!’
* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate
acquaintances to use the second person singular, ‘Du,’
(thou) when speaking to each other. When a friendship is
formed between men, they generally affirm it, when
occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to
each other and exclaiming, ‘thy health,’ at the same time
striking their glasses together. This is called drinking
‘Duus": they are then, ‘Duus Brodre,’ (thou brothers) and
ever afterwards use the pronoun ‘thou,’ to each other, it
being regarded as more familiar than ‘De,’ (you). Father
and mother, sister and brother say thou to one another—
without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say
thou to their servants the superior to the inferior. But
servants and inferiors do not use the same term to their
masters, or superiors—nor is it ever used when speaking to
a stranger, or anyone with whom they are but slightly
acquainted —they then say as in English—you.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the learned man; ‘it is an old
habit with me. YOU are perfectly right, and I shall
remember it; but now you must tell me all YOU saw!’
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‘Everything!’ said the shadow. ‘For I saw everything,
and I know everything!’
‘How did it look in the furthest saloon?’ asked the
learned man. ‘Was it there as in the fresh woods? Was it
there as in a holy church? Were the saloons like the starlit
firmament when we stand on the high mountains?’
‘Everything was there!’ said the shadow. ‘I did not go
quite in, I remained in the foremost room, in the twilight,
but I stood there quite well; I saw everything, and I know
everything! I have been in the antechamber at the court of
Poesy.’
‘But WHAT DID you see? Did all the gods of the
olden times pass through the large saloons? Did the old
heroes combat there? Did sweet children play there, and
relate their dreams?’
‘I tell you I was there, and you can conceive that I saw
everything there was to be seen. Had you come over
there, you would not have been a man; but I became so!
And besides, I learned to know my inward nature, my
innate qualities, the relationship I had with Poesy. At the
time I was with you, I thought not of that, but always—
you know it well—when the sun rose, and when the sun
went down, I became so strangely great; in the moonlight
I was very near being more distinct than yourself; at that
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time I did not understand my nature; it was revealed to
me in the antechamber! I became a man! I came out
matured; but you were no longer in the warm lands; as a
man I was ashamed to go as I did. I was in want of boots,
of clothes, of the whole human varnish that makes a man
perceptible. I took my way—I tell it to you, but you will
not put it in any book—I took my way to the cake
woman—I hid myself behind her; the woman didn’t think
how much she concealed. I went out first in the evening; I
ran about the streets in the moonlight; I made myself long
up the walls—it tickles the back so delightfully! I ran up,
and ran down, peeped into the highest windows, into the
saloons, and on the roofs, I peeped in where no one could
peep, and I saw what no one else saw, what no one else
should see! This is, in fact, a base world! I would not be a
man if it were not now once accepted and regarded as
something to be so! I saw the most unimaginable things
with the women, with the men, with parents, and with
the sweet, matchless children; I saw,’ said the shadow,
‘what no human being must know, but what they would
all so willingly know—what is bad in their neighbor. Had
I written a newspaper, it would have been read! But I
wrote direct to the persons themselves, and there was
consternation in all the towns where I came. They were
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so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of
me. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors
gave me new clothes—I am well furnished; the master of
the mint struck new coin for me, and the women said I
was so handsome! And so I became the man I am. And I
now bid you farewell. Here is my card—I live on the
sunny side of the street, and am always at home in rainy
weather!’ And so away went the shadow. ‘That was most
extraordinary!’ said the learned man. Years and days passed
away, then the shadow came again. ‘How goes it?’ said the
shadow.
‘Alas!’ said the learned man. ‘I write about the true, and
the good, and the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such
things; I am quite desperate, for I take it so much to
heart!’
‘But I don’t!’ said the shadow. ‘I become fat, and it is
that one wants to become! You do not understand the
world. You will become ill by it. You must travel! I shall
make a tour this summer; will you go with me? I should
like to have a travelling companion! Will you go with me,
as shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you
with me; I shall pay the travelling expenses!’
‘Nay, this is too much!’ said the learned man.
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‘It is just as one takes it!’ said the shadow. ‘It will do
you much good to travel! Will you be my shadow? You
shall have everything free on the journey!’
‘Nay, that is too bad!’ said the learned man.
‘But it is just so with the world!’ said the shadow, ‘and
so it will be!’ and away it went again.
The learned man was not at all in the most enviable
state; grief and torment followed him, and what he said
about the true, and the good, and the beautiful, was, to
most persons, like roses for a cow! He was quite ill at last.
‘You really look like a shadow!’ said his friends to him;
and the learned man trembled, for he thought of it.
‘You must go to a watering-place!’ said the shadow,
who came and visited him. ‘There is nothing else for it! I
will take you with me for old acquaintance’ sake; I will
pay the travelling expenses, and you write the
descriptions—and if they are a little amusing for me on the
way! I will go to a watering-place—my beard does not
grow out as it ought—that is also a sickness-and one must
have a beard! Now you be wise and accept the offer; we
shall travel as comrades!’
And so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the
master was the shadow; they drove with each other, they
rode and walked together, side by side, before and behind,
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just as the sun was; the shadow always took care to keep
itself in the master’s place. Now the learned man didn’t
think much about that; he was a very kind-hearted man,
and particularly mild and friendly, and so he said one day
to the shadow: ‘As we have now become companions, and
in this way have grown up together from childhood, shall
we not drink ‘thou’ together, it is more familiar?’
‘You are right,’ said the shadow, who was now the
proper master. ‘It is said in a very straight-forward and
well-meant manner. You, as a learned man, certainly
know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot bear to
touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in
every limb if one rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just
such a feeling on hearing you say thou to me; I feel myself
as if pressed to the earth in my first situation with you.
You see that it is a feeling; that it is not pride: I cannot
allow you to say THOU to me, but I will willingly say
THOU to you, so it is half done!’
So the shadow said THOU to its former master.
‘This is rather too bad,’ thought he, ‘that I must say
YOU and he say THOU,’ but he was now obliged to put
up with it.
So they came to a watering-place where there were
many strangers, and amongst them was a princess, who
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was troubled with seeing too well; and that was so
alarming!
She directly observed that the stranger who had just
come was quite a different sort of person to all the others;
‘He has come here in order to get his beard to grow, they
say, but I see the real cause, he cannot cast a shadow.’
She had become inquisitive; and so she entered into
conversation directly with the strange gentleman, on their
promenades. As the daughter of a king, she needed not to
stand upon trifles, so she said, ‘Your complaint is, that you
cannot cast a shadow?’
‘Your Royal Highness must be improving
considerably,’ said the shadow, ‘I know your complaint is,
that you see too clearly, but it has decreased, you are
cured. I just happen to have a very unusual shadow! Do
you not see that person who always goes with me? Other
persons have a common shadow, but I do not like what is
common to all. We give our servants finer cloth for their
livery than we ourselves use, and so I had my shadow
trimmed up into a man: yes, you see I have even given
him a shadow. It is somewhat expensive, but I like to have
something for myself!’
‘What!’ thought the princess. ‘Should I really be cured!
These baths are the first in the world! In our time water
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has wonderful powers. But I shall not leave the place, for
it now begins to be amusing here. I am extremely fond of
that stranger: would that his beard should not grow, for in
that case he will leave us!’
In the evening, the princess and the shadow danced
together in the large ball-room. She was light, but he was
still lighter; she had never had such a partner in the dance.
She told him from what land she came, and he knew that
land; he had been there, but then she was not at home; he
had peeped in at the window, above and below—he had
seen both the one and the other, and so he could answer
the princess, and make insinuations, so that she was quite
astonished; he must be the wisest man in the whole world!
She felt such respect for what he knew! So that when they
again danced together she fell in love with him; and that
the shadow could remark, for she almost pierced him
through with her eyes. So they danced once more
together; and she was about to declare herself, but she was
discreet; she thought of her country and kingdom, and of
the many persons she would have to reign over.
‘He is a wise man,’ said she to herself—‘It is well; and
he dances delightfully—that is also good; but has he solid
knowledge? That is just as important! He must be
examined.’
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So she began, by degrees, to question him about the
most difficult things she could think of, and which she
herself could not have answered; so that the shadow made
a strange face.
‘You cannot answer these questions?’ said the princess.
‘They belong to my childhood’s learning,’ said the
shadow. ‘I really believe my shadow, by the door there,
can answer them!’
‘Your shadow!’ said the princess. ‘That would indeed
be marvellous!’
‘I will not say for a certainty that he can,’ said the
shadow, ‘but I think so; he has now followed me for so
many years, and listened to my conversation-I should
think it possible. But your royal highness will permit me
to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for a
man, that when he is to be in a proper humor—and he
must be so to answer well—he must be treated quite like a
man.’
‘Oh! I like that!’ said the princess.
So she went to the learned man by the door, and she
spoke to him about the sun and the moon, and about
persons out of and in the world, and he answered with
wisdom and prudence.
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‘What a man that must be who has so wise a shadow!’
thought she. ‘It will be a real blessing to my people and
kingdom if I choose him for my consort—I will do it!’
They were soon agreed, both the princess and the
shadow; but no one was to know about it before she
arrived in her own kingdom.
‘No one—not even my shadow!’ said the shadow, and
he had his own thoughts about it!
Now they were in the country where the princess
reigned when she was at home.
‘Listen, my good friend,’ said the shadow to the learned
man. ‘I have now become as happy and mighty as anyone
can be; I will, therefore, do something particular for thee!
Thou shalt always live with me in the palace, drive with
me in my royal carriage, and have ten thousand pounds a
year; but then thou must submit to be called SHADOW
by all and everyone; thou must not say that thou hast ever
been a man; and once a year, when I sit on the balcony in
the sunshine, thou must lie at my feet, as a shadow shall
do! I must tell thee: I am going to marry the king’s
daughter, and the nuptials are to take place this evening!’
‘Nay, this is going too far!’ said the learned man. ‘I will
not have it; I will not do it! It is to deceive the whole
country and the princess too! I will tell everything! That I
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am a man, and that thou art a shadow—thou art only
dressed up!’
‘There is no one who will believe it!’ said the shadow.
‘Be reasonable, or I will call the guard!’
‘I will go directly to the princess!’ said the learned man.
‘But I will go first!’ said the shadow. ‘And thou wilt go
to prison!’ and that he was obliged to do—for the sentinels
obeyed him whom they knew the king’s daughter was to
marry.
‘You tremble!’ said the princess, as the shadow came
into her chamber. ‘Has anything happened? You must not
be unwell this evening, now that we are to have our
nuptials celebrated.’
‘I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone
can live to see!’ said the shadow. ‘Only imagine—yes, it is
true, such a poor shadow-skull cannot bear much—only
think, my shadow has become mad; he thinks that he is a
man, and that I—now only think—that I am his shadow!’
‘It is terrible!’ said the princess; ‘but he is confined, is
he not?’
‘That he is. I am afraid that he will never recover.’
‘Poor shadow!’ said the princess. ‘He is very
unfortunate; it would be a real work of charity to deliver
him from the little life he has, and, when I think properly
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over the matter, I am of opinion that it will be necessary
to do away with him in all stillness!’
‘It is certainly hard,’ said the shadow, ‘for he was a
faithful servant!’ and then he gave a sort of sigh.
‘You are a noble character!’ said the princess.
The whole city was illuminated in the evening, and the
cannons went off with a bum! bum! and the soldiers
presented arms. That was a marriage! The princess and the
shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, and
get another hurrah!
The learned man heard nothing of all this—for they
had deprived him of life.
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THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly
quite dark, and evening— the last evening of the year. In
this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor
little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left
home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good
of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother
had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little
thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street,
because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.
One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had
been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he
thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some
day or other should have children himself. So the little
maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were
quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of
matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in
her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole
livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.
She crept along trembling with cold and hunger—a
very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!
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The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which
fell in beautiful curls around her neck; but of that, of
course, she never once now thought. From all the
windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so
deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New
Year’s Eve; yes, of that she thought.
In a corner formed by two houses, of which one
advanced more than the other, she seated herself down
and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close
up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home
she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and
could not bring a farthing of money: from her father she
would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too,
for above her she had only the roof, through which the
wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were
stopped up with straw and rags.
Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a
match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only
dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against
the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out.
‘Rischt!’ how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm,
bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it
was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden
as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with
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burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire
burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so
delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her
feet to warm them too; but—the small flame went out,
the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burntout
match in her hand.
She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly,
and where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became
transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room.
On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it
was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was
steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried
plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the
goose hopped down from the dish, reeled about on the
floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the
poor little girl; when—the match went out and nothing
but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. She lighted
another match. Now there she was sitting under the most
magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more
decorated than the one which she had seen through the
glass door in the rich merchant’s house.
Thousands of lights were burning on the green
branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen
in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little
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maiden stretched out her hands towards them when—the
match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose
higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven;
one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.
‘Someone is just dead!’ said the little girl; for her old
grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and
who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls,
a soul ascends to God.
She drew another match against the wall: it was again
light, and in the lustre there stood the old grandmother, so
bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression of
love.
‘Grandmother!’ cried the little one. ‘Oh, take me with
you! You go away when the match burns out; you vanish
like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like
the magnificent Christmas tree!’ And she rubbed the
whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for she
wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near
her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was
brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had the
grandmother been so beautiful and so tall. She took the
little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in brightness and
in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither
cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety—they were with God.
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But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the
poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth,
leaning against the wall—frozen to death on the last
evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there
with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt.
‘She wanted to warm herself,’ people said. No one had the
slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen;
no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her
grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.
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THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK
Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not
Tuk, but that was what he called himself before he could
speak plain: he meant it for Charles, and it is all well
enough if one does but know it. He had now to take care
of his little sister Augusta, who was much younger than
himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same
time; but these two things would not do together at all.
There sat the poor little fellow, with his sister on his lap,
and he sang to her all the songs he knew; and he glanced
the while from time to time into the geography-book that
lay open before him. By the next morning he was to have
learnt all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know
about them all that is possible to be known.
His mother now came home, for she had been out, and
took little Augusta on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the
window, and read so eagerly that he pretty nearly read his
eyes out; for it got darker and darker, but his mother had
no money to buy a candle.
‘There goes the old washerwoman over the way,’ said
his mother, as she looked out of the window. ‘The poor
woman can hardly drag herself along, and she must now
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drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy,
Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won’t
you?’
So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he
came back again into the room it was quite dark, and as to
a light, there was no thought of such a thing. He was now
to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead; in it he lay
and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand,
and of all that his master had told him. He ought, to be
sure, to have read over his lesson again, but that, you
know, he could not do. He therefore put his geographybook
under his pillow, because he had heard that was a
very good thing to do when one wants to learn one’s
lesson; but one cannot, however, rely upon it entirely.
Well, there he lay, and thought and thought, and all at
once it was just as if someone kissed his eyes and mouth:
he slept, and yet he did not sleep; it was as though the old
washerwoman gazed on him with her mild eyes and said,
‘It were a great sin if you were not to know your lesson
tomorrow morning. You have aided me, I therefore will
now help you; and the loving God will do so at all times.’
And all of a sudden the book under Tuk’s pillow began
scraping and scratching.
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‘Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!’—that was an old hen
who came creeping along, and she was from Kjoge. ‘I am
a Kjoger hen,’* said she, and then she related how many
inhabitants there were there, and about the battle that had
taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth talking
about.
* Kjoge, a town in the bay of Kjoge. ‘To see the Kjoge
hens,’ is an expression similar to ‘showing a child London,’
which is said to be done by taking his head in both bands,
and so lifting him off the ground. At the invasion of the
English in 1807, an encounter of a no very glorious nature
took place between the British troops and the
undisciplined Danish militia.
‘Kribledy, krabledy—plump!’ down fell somebody: it
was a wooden bird, the popinjay used at the shootingmatches
at Prastoe. Now he said that there were just as
many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he was
very proud. ‘Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.*
Plump! Here I lie capitally.’
* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some
hundred paces from it lies the manor-house Ny Soe,
where Thorwaldsen, the famed sculptor, generally
sojourned during his stay in Denmark, and where he
called many of his immortal works into existence.
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But little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he
was on horseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping
on and on. A knight with a gleaming plume, and most
magnificently dressed, held him before him on the horse,
and thus they rode through the wood to the old town of
Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town.
High towers rose from the castle of the king, and the
brightness of many candles streamed from all the windows;
within was dance and song, and King Waldemar and the
young, richly-attired maids of honor danced together. The
morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the
whole town and the king’s palace crumbled together, and
one tower after the other; and at last only a single one
remained standing where the castle had been before,* and
the town was so small and poor, and the school boys came
along with their books under their arms, and said, ‘2000
inhabitants!’ but that was not true, for there were not so
many.
* Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar, a
considerable place, now an unimportant little town. One
solitary tower only, and some remains of a wall, show
where the castle once stood.
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And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if
he dreamed, and yet as if he were not dreaming; however,
somebody was close beside him.
‘Little Tukey! Little Tukey!’ cried someone near. It was
a seaman, quite a little personage, so little as if he were a
midshipman; but a midshipman it was not.
‘Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town
that is just rising into importance; a lively town that has
steam-boats and stagecoaches: formerly people called it
ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on the sea,’ said
Corsor; ‘I have high roads and gardens, and I have given
birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all
poets are not. I once intended to equip a ship that was to
sail all round the earth; but I did not do it, although I
could have done so: and then, too, I smell so deliciously,
for close before the gate bloom the most beautiful roses.’
* Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before
the introduction of steam-vessels, when travellers were
often obliged to wait a long time for a favorable wind, ‘the
most tiresome of towns.’ The poet Baggesen was born
here.