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"Why, there is a pair of galoshes, as sure as I'm alive!" said the watchman,
awaking from a gentle slumber. "They belong no doubt to the lieutenant who
lives over the way. They lie close to the door."
The worthy man was inclined to ring and deliver them at the house, for there
was still a light in the window; but he did not like disturbing the other
people in their beds, and so very considerately he left the matter alone.
"Such a pair of shoes must be very warm and comfortable," said he; "the
leather is so soft and supple." They fitted his feet as though they had been
made for him. "'Tis a curious world we live in," continued he, soliloquizing.
"There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to bed if he chose, where
no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease; but does he do it? No; he
saunters up and down his room, because, probably, he has enjoyed too many of
the good things of this world at his dinner. That's a happy fellow! He has
neither an infirm mother, nor a whole troop of everlastingly hungry children
to torment him. Every evening he goes to a party, where his nice supper costs
him nothing: would to Heaven I could but change with him! How happy should I
be!"
While expressing his wish, the charm of the shoes, which he had put on, began
to work; the watchman entered into the being and nature of the lieutenant. He
stood in the handsomely furnished apartment, and held between his fingers a
small sheet of rose-colored paper, on which some verses were written--written
indeed by the officer himself; for who has not', at least once in his life,
had a lyrical moment? And if one then marks down one's thoughts, poetry is
produced. But here was written:
OH, WERE I RICH!
"Oh, were I rich! Such was my wish, yea such
When hardly three feet high, I longed for much.
Oh, were I rich! an officer were I,
With sword, and uniform, and plume so high.
And the time came, and officer was I!
But yet I grew not rich. Alas, poor me!
Have pity, Thou, who all man's wants dost see.
"I sat one evening sunk in dreams of bliss,
A maid of seven years old gave me a kiss,
I at that time was rich in poesy
And tales of old, though poor as poor could be;
But all she asked for was this poesy.
Then was I rich, but not in gold, poor me!
As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see.
"Oh, were I rich! Oft asked I for this boon.
The child grew up to womanhood full soon.
She is so pretty, clever, and so kind
Oh, did she know what's hidden in my mind--
A tale of old. Would she to me were kind!.
But I'm condemned to silence! oh, poor me!
As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see.
"Oh, were I rich in calm and peace of mind,
My grief you then would not here written find!
O thou, to whom I do my heart devote,
Oh read this page of glad days now remote,
A dark, dark tale, which I tonight devote!
Dark is the future now. Alas, poor me!
Have pity Thou, who all men's pains dost see."
Such verses as these people write when they are in love! But no man in his
senses ever thinks of printing them. Here one of the sorrows of life, in which
there is real poetry, gave itself vent; not that barren grief which the poet
may only hint at, but never depict in its detail--misery and want: that animal
necessity, in short, to snatch at least at a fallen leaf of the bread-fruit
tree, if not at the fruit itself. The higher the position in which one finds
oneself transplanted, the greater is the suffering. Everyday necessity is the
stagnant pool of life--no lovely picture reflects itself therein. Lieutenant,
love, and lack of money--that is a symbolic triangle, or much the same as the
half of the shattered die of Fortune. This the lieutenant felt most
poignantly, and this was the reason he leant his head against the window, and
sighed so deeply.
"The poor watchman out there in the street is far happier than I. He knows not
what I term privation. He has a home, a wife, and children, who weep with him
over his sorrows, who rejoice with him when he is glad. Oh, far happier were
I, could I exchange with him my being--with his desires and with his hopes
perform the weary pilgrimage of life! Oh, he is a hundred times happier than
I!"
In the same moment the watchman was again watchman. It was the shoes that
caused the metamorphosis by means of which, unknown to himself, he took upon
him the thoughts and feelings of the officer; but, as we have just seen, he
felt himself in his new situation much less contented, and now preferred the
very thing which but some minutes before he had rejected. So then the watchman
was again watchman.
"That was an unpleasant dream," said he; "but 'twas droll enough altogether. I
fancied that I was the lieutenant over there: and yet the thing was not very
much to my taste after all. I missed my good old mother and the dear little
ones; who almost tear me to pieces for sheer love."
He seated himself once more and nodded: the dream continued to haunt him, for
he still had the shoes on his feet. A falling star shone in the dark
firmament.
"There falls another star," said he: "but what does it matter; there are
always enough left. I should not much mind examining the little glimmering
things somewhat nearer, especially the moon; for that would not slip so easily
through a man's fingers. When we die--so at least says the student, for whom
my wife does the washing--we shall fly about as light as a feather from one
such a star to the other. That's, of course, not true: but 'twould be pretty
enough if it were so. If I could but once take a leap up there, my body might
stay here on the steps for what I care."
Behold--there are certain things in the world to which one ought never to give
utterance except with the greatest caution; but doubly careful must one be
when we have the Shoes of Fortune on our feet. Now just listen to what
happened to the watchman.
As to ourselves, we all know the speed produced by the employment of steam; we
have experienced it either on railroads, or in boats when crossing the sea;
but such a flight is like the travelling of a sloth in comparison with the
velocity with which light moves. It flies nineteen million times faster than
the best race-horse; and yet electricity is quicker still. Death is an
electric shock which our heart receives; the freed soul soars upwards on the
wings of electricity. The sun's light wants eight minutes and some seconds to
perform a journey of more than twenty million of our Danish* miles; borne by
electricity, the soul wants even some minutes less to accomplish the same
flight. To it the space between the heavenly bodies is not greater than the
distance between the homes of our friends in town is for us, even if they live
a short way from each other; such an electric shock in the heart, however,
costs us the use of the body here below; unless, like the watchman of East
Street, we happen to have on the Shoes of Fortune.
*A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English.
In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our miles up
to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of matter much lighter
than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft as newly-fallen snow. He
found himself on one of the many circumjacent mountain-ridges with which we
are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's "Map of the Moon." Within, down it
sunk perpendicularly into a caldron, about a Danish mile in depth; while below
lay a town, whose appearance we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by
beating the white of an egg in a glass Of water. The matter of which it was
built was just as soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars,
transparent and rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was
rolling like a large fiery ball.
He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what we call
"men"; yet they looked different to us. A far more, correct imagination than
that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and if they had been placed in
rank and file, and copied by some skilful painter's hand, one would, without
doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily, "What a beautiful arabesque!"
*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said to be by
Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its inhabitants,
written with such a semblance of truth that many were deceived by the
imposture.
Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard A.
Locke, and originally published in New York.
They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the
watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend it; for in
our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor mortals, despite all
our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she not show us--she the queen in the
land of enchantment--her astounding dramatic talent in all our dreams? There
every acquaintance appears and speaks upon the stage, so entirely in
character, and with the same tone of voice, that none of us, when awake, were
able to imitate it. How well can she recall persons to our mind, of whom we
have not thought for years; when suddenly they step forth "every inch a man,"
resembling the real personages, even to the finest features, and become the
heroes or heroines of our world of dreams. In reality, such remembrances are
rather unpleasant: every sin, every evil thought, may, like a clock with alarm
or chimes, be repeated at pleasure; then the question is if we can trust
ourselves to give an account of every unbecoming word in our heart and on our
lips.
The watchman's spirit understood the language of the inhabitants of the moon
pretty well. The Selenites* disputed variously about our earth, and expressed
their doubts if it could be inhabited: the air, they said, must certainly be
too dense to allow any rational dweller in the moon the necessary free
respiration. They considered the moon alone to be inhabited: they imagined it
was the real heart of the universe or planetary system, on which the genuine
Cosmopolites, or citizens of the world, dwelt. What strange things men--no,
what strange things Selenites sometimes take into their heads!
*Dwellers in the moon.
About politics they had a good deal to say. But little Denmark must take care
what it is about, and not run counter to the moon; that great realm, that
might in an ill-humor bestir itself, and dash down a hail-storm in our faces,
or force the Baltic to overflow the sides of its gigantic basin.
We will, therefore, not listen to what was spoken, and on no condition run in
the possibility of telling tales out of school; but we will rather proceed,
like good quiet citizens, to East Street, and observe what happened meanwhile
to the body of the watchman.
He sat lifeless on the steps: the morning-star,* that is to say, the heavy
wooden staff, headed with iron spikes, and which had nothing else in common
with its sparkling brother in the sky, had glided from his hand; while his
eyes were fixed with glassy stare on the moon, looking for the good old fellow
of a spirit which still haunted it.
*The watchmen in Germany, had formerly, and in some places they still carry
with them, on their rounds at night, a sort of mace or club, known in ancient
times by the above denomination.
"What's the hour, watchman?" asked a passer-by. But when the watchman gave no
reply, the merry roysterer, who was now returning home from a noisy drinking
bout, took it into his bead to try what a tweak of the nose would do, on which
the supposed sleeper lost his balance, the body lay motionless, stretched out
on the pavement: the man was dead. When the patrol came up, all his comrades,
who comprehended nothing of the whole affair, were seized with a dreadful
fright, for dead be was, and he remained so. The proper authorities were
informed of the circumstance, people talked a good deal about it, and in the
morning the body was carried to the hospital.
Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back and
looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. No doubt it would,
in its anxiety, run off to the police, and then to the "Hue and Cry" office,
to announce that "the finder will be handsomely rewarded," and at last away to
the hospital; yet we may boldly assert that the soul is shrewdest when it
shakes off every fetter, and every sort of leading-string--the body only makes
it stupid.
The seemingly dead body of the watchman wandered, as we have said, to the
hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room: and the first
thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the galoshes--when the
spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must have returned with the
quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement. It took its direction towards
the body in a straight line; and a few seconds after, life began to show
itself in the man. He asserted that the preceding night had been the worst
that ever the malice of fate had allotted him; he would not for two silver
marks again go through what he had endured while moon-stricken; but now,
however, it was over.
The same day he was discharged from the hospital as perfectly cured; but the
Shoes meanwhile remained behind.
Read next: Chapter IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's "Dramatic Readings"--A Most Strange Journey
Read previous: Chapter II. What Happened to the Councillor
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