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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.
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 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 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, 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 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:
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.
-THE END-
'The Shoes of Fortune',a short story
from a collection of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
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