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Page 21
"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.
"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!"
"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.
"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!"
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.
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