THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES(Page 4)

constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you
good-for-nothing rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch
birds in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue
uniform betrays where you come from.’ This fine tirade
sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere
‘Pippi-pi.’ He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak,
and walked on.
He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper classthat
is to say as individuals, for with regard to learning
they were in the lowest class in the school; and they
bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk came to
Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family
living in Gother Street.
‘‘Tis well that I’m dreaming,’ said the clerk, ‘or I really
should get angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few
pence as a lark; no doubt it was that accursed poetical
nature which has metamorphosed me into such a poor
harmless little creature. It is really pitiable, particularly

when one gets into the hands of a little blackguard, perfect
in all sorts of cruelty to animals: all I should like to know
is, how the story will end.’
The two schoolboys, the proprietors now of the
transformed clerk, carried him into an elegant room. A
stout stately dame received them with a smile; but she
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expressed much dissatisfaction that a common field-bird, as
she called the lark, should appear in such high society. For
to-day, however, she would allow it; and they must shut
him in the empty cage that was standing in the window.
‘Perhaps he will amuse my good Polly,’ added the lady,
looking with a benignant smile at a large green parrot that
swung himself backwards and forwards most comfortably
in his ring, inside a magnificent brass-wired cage. ‘To-day
is Polly’s birthday,’ said she with stupid simplicity: ‘and the
little brown field-bird must wish him joy.’
Mr. Polly uttered not a syllable in reply, but swung to
and fro with dignified condescension; while a pretty
canary, as yellow as gold, that had lately been brought
from his sunny fragrant home, began to sing aloud.
‘Noisy creature! Will you be quiet!’ screamed the lady
of the house, covering the cage with an embroidered
white pocket handkerchief.
‘Chirp, chirp!’ sighed he. ‘That was a dreadful
snowstorm"; and he sighed again, and was silent.
The copying-clerk, or, as the lady said, the brown
field-bird, was put into a small cage, close to the Canary,
and not far from ‘my good Polly.’ The only human sounds
that the Parrot could bawl out were, ‘Come, let us be
men!’ Everything else that he said was as unintelligible to
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everybody as the chirping of the Canary, except to the
clerk, who was now a bird too: he understood his
companion perfectly.
‘I flew about beneath the green palms and the
blossoming almond-trees,’ sang the Canary; ‘I flew
around, with my brothers and sisters, over the beautiful
flowers, and over the glassy lakes, where the bright waterplants
nodded to me from below. There, too, I saw many
splendidly-dressed paroquets, that told the drollest stories,
and the wildest fairy tales without end.’
‘Oh! those were uncouth birds,’ answered the Parrot.
‘They had no education, and talked of whatever came into
their head.
If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I
say, so may you too, I should think. It is a great fault to
have no taste for what is witty or amusing—come, let us
be men.’
‘Ah, you have no remembrance of love for the
charming maidens that danced beneath the outspread tents
beside the bright fragrant flowers? Do you no longer
remember the sweet fruits, and the cooling juice in the
wild plants of our never-to-be-forgotten home?’ said the
former inhabitant of the Canary Isles, continuing his
dithyrambic.
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‘Oh, yes,’ said the Parrot; ‘but I am far better off here. I
am well fed, and get friendly treatment. I know I am a
clever fellow; and that is all I care about. Come, let us be
men. You are of a poetical nature, as it is called—I, on the
contrary, possess profound knowledge and inexhaustible
wit. You have genius; but clear-sighted, calm discretion
does not take such lofty flights, and utter such high natural
tones. For this they have covered you over—they never
do the like to me; for I cost more. Besides, they are afraid
of my beak; and I have always a witty answer at hand.
Come, let us be men!’
‘O warm spicy land of my birth,’ sang the Canary bird;
‘I will sing of thy dark-green bowers, of the calm bays
where the pendent boughs kiss the surface of the water; I
will sing of the rejoicing of all my brothers and sisters
where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance.’
‘Spare us your elegiac tones,’ said the Parrot giggling.
‘Rather speak of something at which one may laugh
heartily. Laughing is an infallible sign of the highest degree
of mental development. Can a dog, or a horse laugh? No,
but they can cry. The gift of laughing was given to man
alone. Ha! ha! ha!’ screamed Polly, and added his
stereotype witticism. ‘Come, let us be men!’
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‘Poor little Danish grey-bird,’ said the Canary; ‘you
have been caught too. It is, no doubt, cold enough in your
woods, but there at least is the breath of liberty; therefore
fly away. In the hurry they have forgotten to shut your
cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, my friend; fly
away. Farewell!’
Instinctively the Clerk obeyed; with a few strokes of his
wings he was out of the cage; but at the same moment the
door, which was only ajar, and which led to the next
room, began to creak, and supple and creeping came the
large tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The
frightened Canary fluttered about in his cage; the Parrot
flapped his wings, and cried, ‘Come, let us be men!’ The
Clerk felt a mortal fright, and flew through the window,
far away over the houses and streets. At last he was forced
to rest a little.
The neighboring house had a something familiar about
it; a window stood open; he flew in; it was his own room.
He perched upon the table.
‘Come, let us be men!’ said he, involuntarily imitating
the chatter of the Parrot, and at the same moment he was
again a copying-clerk; but he was sitting in the middle of
the table.
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‘Heaven help me!’ cried he. ‘How did I get up here—
and so buried in sleep, too? After all, that was a very
unpleasant, disagreeable dream that haunted me! The
whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!’
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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 postboy.
‘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,
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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 powdermagazine
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.
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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:
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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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THE FIR TREE
Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir Tree. The place
he had was a very good one: the sun shone on him: as to
fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew
many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the
little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.
He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air;
he did not care for the little cottage children that ran about
and prattled when they were in the woods looking for
wild-strawberries. The children often came with a whole
pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on a
straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, ‘Oh,
how pretty he is! What a nice little fir!’ But this was what
the Tree could not bear to hear.
At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and
after another year he was another long bit taller; for with
fir trees one can always tell by the shoots how many years
old they are.
‘Oh! Were I but such a high tree as the others are,’
sighed he. ‘Then I should be able to spread out my
branches, and with the tops to look into the wide world!
Then would the birds build nests among my branches: and
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when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much
stateliness as the others!’
Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds
which morning and evening sailed above him, gave the
little Tree any pleasure.
In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground,
a hare would often come leaping along, and jump right
over the little Tree. Oh, that made him so angry! But two
winters were past, and in the third the Tree was so large
that the hare was obliged to go round it. ‘To grow and
grow, to get older and be tall,’ thought the Tree—‘that,
after all, is the most delightful thing in the world!’
In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled
some of the largest trees. This happened every year; and
the young Fir Tree, that had now grown to a very comely
size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent great trees
fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches
were lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they
were hardly to be recognised; and then they were laid in
carts, and the horses dragged them out of the wood.
Where did they go to? What became of them?
In spring, when the swallows and the storks came, the
Tree asked them, ‘Don’t you know where they have been
taken? Have you not met them anywhere?’
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The swallows did not know anything about it; but the
Stork looked musing, nodded his head, and said, ‘Yes; I
think I know; I met many ships as I was flying hither from
Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture
to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I may
congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most
majestically!’
‘Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But
how does the sea look in reality? What is it like?’
‘That would take a long time to explain,’ said the
Stork, and with these words off he went.
‘Rejoice in thy growth!’ said the Sunbeams. ‘Rejoice in
thy vigorous growth, and in the fresh life that moveth
within thee!’
And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears
over him; but the Fir understood it not.
When Christmas came, quite young trees were cut
down: trees which often were not even as large or of the
same age as this Fir Tree, who could never rest, but always
wanted to be off. These young trees, and they were always
the finest looking, retained their branches; they were laid
on carts, and the horses drew them out of the wood.
‘Where are they going to?’ asked the Fir. ‘They are not
taller than I; there was one indeed that was considerably
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shorter; and why do they retain all their branches?
Whither are they taken?’
‘We know! We know!’ chirped the Sparrows. ‘We
have peeped in at the windows in the town below! We
know whither they are taken! The greatest splendor and
the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them.
We peeped through the windows, and saw them planted
in the middle of the warm room and ornamented with the
most splendid things, with gilded apples, with gingerbread,
with toys, and many hundred lights!
‘And then?’ asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every
bough. ‘And then? What happens then?’
‘We did not see anything more: it was incomparably
beautiful.’
‘I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a
career,’ cried the Tree, rejoicing. ‘That is still better than
to cross the sea! What a longing do I suffer! Were
Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my branches
spread like the others that were carried off last year! Oh!
were I but already on the cart! Were I in the warm room
with all the splendor and magnificence! Yes; then
something better, something still grander, will surely
follow, or wherefore should they thus ornament me?
Something better, something still grander must follow—
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but what? Oh, how I long, how I suffer! I do not know
myself what is the matter with me!’
‘Rejoice in our presence!’ said the Air and the Sunlight.
‘Rejoice in thy own fresh youth!’
But the Tree did not rejoice at all; he grew and grew,
and was green both winter and summer. People that saw
him said, ‘What a fine tree!’ and towards Christmas he was
one of the first that was cut down. The axe struck deep
into the very pith; the Tree fell to the earth with a sigh; he
felt a pang—it was like a swoon; he could not think of
happiness, for he was sorrowful at being separated from his
home, from the place where he had sprung up. He well
knew that he should never see his dear old comrades, the
little bushes and flowers around him, anymore; perhaps
not even the birds! The departure was not at all agreeable.
The Tree only came to himself when he was unloaded
in a court-yard with the other trees, and heard a man say,
‘That one is splendid! We don’t want the others.’ Then
two servants came in rich livery and carried the Fir Tree
into a large and splendid drawing-room. Portraits were
hanging on the walls, and near the white porcelain stove
stood two large Chinese vases with lions on the covers.
There, too, were large easy-chairs, silken sofas, large tables
full of picture-books and full of toys, worth hundreds and
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hundreds of crowns—at least the children said so. And the
Fir Tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with
sand; but no one could see that it was a cask, for green
cloth was hung all round it, and it stood on a large gailycolored
carpet. Oh! how the Tree quivered! What was to
happen? The servants, as well as the young ladies,
decorated it. On one branch there hung little nets cut out
of colored paper, and each net was filled with sugarplums;
and among the other boughs gilded apples and walnuts
were suspended, looking as though they had grown there,
and little blue and white tapers were placed among the
leaves. Dolls that looked for all the world like men—the
Tree had never beheld such before—were seen among the
foliage, and at the very top a large star of gold tinsel was
fixed. It was really splendid—beyond description splendid.
‘This evening!’ they all said. ‘How it will shine this
evening!’
‘Oh!’ thought the Tree. ‘If the evening were but come!
If the tapers were but lighted! And then I wonder what
will happen! Perhaps the other trees from the forest will
come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will beat against
the windowpanes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and
winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!’
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He knew very much about the matter—but he was so
impatient that for sheer longing he got a pain in his back,
and this with trees is the same thing as a headache with us.
The candles were now lighted—what brightness! What
splendor! The Tree trembled so in every bough that one
of the tapers set fire to the foliage. It blazed up famously.
‘Help! Help!’ cried the young ladies, and they quickly
put out the fire.
Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state
he was in! He was so uneasy lest he should lose something
of his splendor, that he was quite bewildered amidst the
glare and brightness; when suddenly both folding-doors
opened and a troop of children rushed in as if they would
upset the Tree. The older persons followed quietly; the
little ones stood quite still. But it was only for a moment;
then they shouted that the whole place re-echoed with
their rejoicing; they danced round the Tree, and one
present after the other was pulled off.
‘What are they about?’ thought the Tree. ‘What is to
happen now!’ And the lights burned down to the very
branches, and as they burned down they were put out one
after the other, and then the children had permission to
plunder the Tree. So they fell upon it with such violence
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that all its branches cracked; if it had not been fixed firmly
in the ground, it would certainly have tumbled down.
The children danced about with their beautiful
playthings; no one looked at the Tree except the old
nurse, who peeped between the branches; but it was only
to see if there was a fig or an apple left that had been
forgotten.
‘A story! A story!’ cried the children, drawing a little fat
man towards the Tree. He seated himself under it and said,
‘Now we are in the shade, and the Tree can listen too.
But I shall tell only one story. Now which will you have;
that about Ivedy-Avedy, or about Humpy-Dumpy, who
tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne
and married the princess?’
‘Ivedy-Avedy,’ cried some; ‘Humpy-Dumpy,’ cried the
others. There was such a bawling and screaming—the Fir
Tree alone was silent, and he thought to himself, ‘Am I
not to bawl with the rest? Am I to do nothing whatever?’
for he was one of the company, and had done what he
had to do.
And the man told about Humpy-Dumpy that tumbled
down, who notwithstanding came to the throne, and at
last married the princess. And the children clapped their
hands, and cried. ‘Oh, go on! Do go on!’ They wanted to
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hear about Ivedy-Avedy too, but the little man only told
them about Humpy-Dumpy. The Fir Tree stood quite still
and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had never
related the like of this. ‘Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs,
and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes! That’s the way
of the world!’ thought the Fir Tree, and believed it all,
because the man who told the story was so good-looking.
‘Well, well! who knows, perhaps I may fall downstairs,
too, and get a princess as wife! And he looked forward
with joy to the morrow, when he hoped to be decked out
again with lights, playthings, fruits, and tinsel.
‘I won’t tremble to-morrow!’ thought the Fir Tree. ‘I
will enjoy to the full all my splendor! To-morrow I shall
hear again the story of Humpy-Dumpy, and perhaps that
of Ivedy-Avedy too.’ And the whole night the Tree stood
still and in deep thought.
In the morning the servant and the housemaid came in.
‘Now then the splendor will begin again,’ thought the
Fir. But they dragged him out of the room, and up the
stairs into the loft: and here, in a dark corner, where no
daylight could enter, they left him. ‘What’s the meaning
of this?’ thought the Tree. ‘What am I to do here? What
shall I hear now, I wonder?’ And he leaned against the
wall lost in reverie. Time enough had he too for his
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reflections; for days and nights passed on, and nobody
came up; and when at last somebody did come, it was
only to put some great trunks in a corner, out of the way.
There stood the Tree quite hidden; it seemed as if he had
been entirely forgotten.
‘‘Tis now winter out-of-doors!’ thought the Tree. ‘The
earth is hard and covered with snow; men cannot plant me
now, and therefore I have been put up here under shelter
till the spring-time comes! How thoughtful that is! How
kind man is, after all! If it only were not so dark here, and
so terribly lonely! Not even a hare! And out in the woods
it was so pleasant, when the snow was on the ground, and
the hare leaped by; yes—even when he jumped over me;
but I did not like it then! It is really terribly lonely here!’
‘Squeak! Squeak!’ said a little Mouse, at the same
moment, peeping out of his hole. And then another little
one came. They snuffed about the Fir Tree, and rustled
among the branches.