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Page 56
And it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the collar
came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, and on which the
story is printed; and that was because it boasted so terribly afterwards of
what had never happened to it. It would be well for us to beware, that we may
not act in a similar manner, for we can never know if we may not, in the
course of time, also come into the rag chest, and be made into white paper,
and then have our whole life's history printed on it, even the most secret,
and be obliged to run about and tell it ourselves, just like this collar.
THE SHADOW
It is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough! there the people
become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the HOTTEST lands they are burnt to
Negroes. But now it was only to the HOT lands that a learned man had come from
the cold; there he thought that he could run about just as when at home, but
he soon found out his mistake.
He, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors--the
window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the whole
house slept, or there was no one at home.
The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine must
fall there from morning till evening--it was really not to be borne.
The learned man from the cold lands--he was a young man, and seemed to be a
clever man--sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became quite
meagre--even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect on it. It
was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they began to freshen up
again.
In the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out on all
the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one be accustomed
to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the street. Tailors, and
shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the street--chairs and tables
were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes, above a thousand lights were
burning--and the one talked and the other sung; and people walked and
church-bells rang, and asses went along with a dingle-dingle-dong! for they
too had bells on. The street boys were screaming and hooting, and shouting and
shooting, with devils and detonating balls--and there came corpse bearers and
hood wearers--for there were funerals with psalm and hymn--and then the din of
carriages driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough
down in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in
which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one lived
there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so well in the sun's
heat! and that they could not do unless they were watered--and some one must
water them--there must be somebody there. The door opposite was also opened
late in the evening, but it was dark within, at least in the front room;
further in there was heard the sound of music. The learned foreigner thought
it quite marvellous, but now--it might be that he only imagined it--for he
found everything marvellous out there, in the warm lands, if there had only
been no sun. The stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken
the house opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared
to him to be extremely tiresome. "It is as if some one sat there, and
practised a piece that he could not master--always the same piece. 'I shall
master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he plays."
* The word mahogany can be understood, in Danish, as having two meanings.
In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in jest, it signifies
"excessively fine," which arose from an anecdote of Nyboder, in Copenhagen,
(the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was always proud and fine, in her
way, came to her neighbor, and complained that she had got a splinter in her
finger. "What of?" asked the neighbor's wife. "It is a mahogany splinter,"
said the other. "Mahogany! It cannot be less with you!" exclaimed the
woman--and thence the proverb, "It is so mahogany!"--(that is, so excessively
fine)--is derived.
One night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony open--the
curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought that a strange lustre
came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the flowers shone like flames, in
the most beautiful colors, and in the midst of the flowers stood a slender,
graceful maiden--it was as if she also shone; the light really hurt his eyes.
He now opened them quite wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was
on the floor; he crept gently behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone; the
flowers shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as ever; the
door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft and delightful, one
could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it. Yet it was like a piece of
enchantment. And who lived there? Where was the actual entrance? The whole of
the ground-floor was a row of shops, and there people could not always be
running through.
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