ON the last house in a little village stood a stork’s nest. The mother-stork sat in it with her four young ones, who stretched out their heads with the pointed black beaks, for their beaks had not yet turned red. A little way off stood the father-stork, all alone on the ridge of the roof, quite upright and stiff. He had drawn up one of his legs, so as not to be quite idle while he stood sentry. One would have thought he had been carved out of wood, so still did he stand. He thought, “It must look very grand, that my wife has a sentry standing by her nest. They can’t tell that it is her husband. They certainly think I have been commanded to stand here. That looks so aristocratic!” And he went on standing on one leg.
Below, in the street, a whole crowd of children were playing; and when they caught sight of the storks, one of the boldest of the boys, and afterward all of them, sang the old verse about the storks. But they only sang it just as he could remember it:
“Just hear what those boys are saying!” said the little stork-children. “They say we are to be hanged and killed.”
“You’re not to care for that!” said the mother-stork. “Don’t listen to it, and then it, and then it won’t matter.”
But the boys went on singing, and pointed at the storks mockingly with their fingers. Only one boy, whose name was Peter, declared that it was a sin to make a jest of animals, and he would not join in it at all.
The mother-stork comforted her children. “Don’t you mind it at all,” she said. “See how quiet your father stands, though it’s only on one leg.”
“We are very much afraid,” said the young storks; and they drew their heads far back into the nest.
Now to-day, when the children came out again to play, and saw the storks, they sang their song:
“Shall we be hanged and beaten?” asked the young storks.
“No, certainly not,” replied the mother. “You shall learn to fly. I’ll exercise you; then we shall fly out into the meadows and pay a visit to the frogs. They will bow before us in the water, and sing ‘Croak! Croak!” and then we shall eat them up. That will be a real pleasure.”
“And what then?” asked the young storks.
“Then all the storks will assemble, all that are here in the whole country, and the autumn exercises begin. Then one must fly well, for that is highly important; for whoever cannot fly properly will be thrust dead by the general’s beak. So take care and learn well when the exercising begins.”
“But then we shall be killed, as the boy says; and only listen, now they’re singing again.”
128“Listen to me, and not to them,” replied the mother-stork. “After the great review we shall fly away to the warm countries, far away from here, over mountains and forest. We shall fly to Egypt, where there are three covered houses of stone, which curl in a point and tower above the clouds; they are called pyramids, and are older than a stork can imagine. There is a river in that country which runs out of its bed, and then all the land is turned to mud. One walks about in the mud, and eats frogs.”
“Oh-h-h!” cried the young ones.
“Yes. It is glorious there! One does nothing all day long but eat; and while we are so comfortable over there, here there is not a green leaf on the trees; here it is so cold that the clouds freeze to pieces, and fall down in little white rags!”
It was snow that she meant, but she could not explain it in any other way.
“And do the naughty boys freeze to pieces?” asked the young storks.
“No, they do not freeze to pieces; but they are not far from it, and must sit in a dark room and cower. You, on the other hand, can fly about in foreign lands, where there are flowers, and the sun shines warm.”
Now some time had elapsed, and the nestlings had grown so large that they could stand upright in the nest and look far around; and the father-stork came every day with delicious frogs, little snakes, and all kinds of stork dainties as he found them. Oh, it looked funny when he performed feats before them! He laid his head quite back upon his tail, and clapped with his beak as if he had been a little clapper; and then he told them stories, all about the marshes.
“Listen! Now you must learn to fly,” said the mother-stork 129 one day; and all the four young ones had to go out on the ridge of the roof. Oh, how they tottered! How they balanced themselves with their wings, and yet they were nearly falling down!
“Only look at me,” said the mother. “Thus you must hold your heads. Thus you must pitch your feet. One, two! One, two! That’s what will help you on in the world.”
Then she flew a little way, and the young ones made a little clumsy leap. Bump! there they lay, for their bodies were too heavy.
“I will not fly!” said one of the young storks, and crept back into the nest. “I don’t care about getting to the warm countries.”
“Do you want to freeze to death here when the winter comes? Are the boys to come and hang you, and singe you, and roast you? Now I’ll call them.”
“Oh, no!” cried the young stork, and hopped out on to the roof again like the rest.
On the third day they could actually fly a little, and then they thought they could also soar and hover in the air. They tried it, but — bump! down they tumbled, and they had to flap their wings again quickly enough. Now the boys came into the street again, and sang their song:
“Stork, stork, fly away!”
“Shall we fly down and pick their eyes out?” asked the young storks.
“No,” replied the mother, let them alone. Only listen to me; that’s far more important. One, two, three! now we fly round to the right. One, two, three! now to the left, round the chimney. See, that was very good! The last kick with the feet was so neat and correct that you shall have 130 permission to-morrow to fly with me to the marsh! Several nice stork families go there with their young; show them that mine are the nicest, and that you can start proudly; that looks well, and will get you consideration.
“But are we not to take revenge on the rude boys?” asked the young storks.
“Let them scream as much as they like. You will fly up to the clouds, and get to the land of the pyramids, when they will have to shiver, and not have a green leaf or a sweet apple.”
“Yes, but we will revenge ourselves!” they whispered to one another; and then the exercising went on.
Among all the boys down in the street, the one most bent upon singing the teasing song was he who had begun it, and he was quite a little boy. He could hardly be more than six years old. The young storks certainly thought he was a hundred, for he was much bigger than their mother and father; and how should they know how old children and grown-up people can be? Their revenge was to come upon this boy, for it was he who had begun, and he always kept on. The young storks were very angry, and as they grew bigger they were less inclined to bear it; at last their mother had to promise them that they should be revenged, but not till the last day of their stay.
“We must first see how you behave at the grand review. If you get through badly, so that the general stabs you through the chest with his beak, the boys will be right, at least, in one way. Let us see.”
“Yes, you shall see!” cried the young storks; and then they took all imaginable pains. They practiced every day, and flew so neatly and so lightly that it was a pleasure to see them.
131Now the autumn came on; all the storks began to assemble, to fly away to the warm countries, while it is winter here. That was a review. They had to fly over forests and villages, to show how well they could soar, for it was a long journey they had before them. The young storks did their part so well that they got, as a mark, “Remarkably well, with frogs and snakes.” That was the highest mark; and they might eat the frogs and snakes; and that is what they did.
“Now we will be revenged!” they said.
“Yes, certainly,” said the mother-stork. “What I have thought of will be the best. I know the pond in which all the little mortals lie till the stork comes and brings them to their parents. The pretty little babies lie there and dream so sweetly as they never dream afterward. All parents are glad to have such a child, and all children want to have a sister or a brother. Now we will fly to the pond, and bring one for each of the children who have not sung the naughty song and laughed at the storks.”
“But he who began to sing — that naughty, ugly boy!” screamed the young storks; “what shall we do with him?”
“There is a little dead child in the pond, one that has dreamed itself to death; we will bring that for him. Then he will cry because we have brought him a little dead brother. But that good boy— you have not forgotten him, the one who said, ‘It is wrong to laugh at animals!’ — for him we will bring a brother and a sister too. And as his name is Peter, all of you shall be called Peter too.”
And it was done as she said; all the storks were named Peter, and so they are all called even now.
A WHIP-TOP and a little ball were together in a drawer among some other toys; and the top said to the ball, “Shall we not be bridegroom and bride, as we live together in the same box?”
But the ball, which had a coat of morocco leather, and was just as conceited as any fine lady, would make no answer to such a proposal.
Next day the little boy came to whom the toys belonged; he painted the top red and yellow, and hammered a brass nail into it; and it looked splendid when the top turned round!
“Look at me!” he cried to the ball. “What do you say now? Shall we not be engaged to each other? We suit one another so well! You jump, and I dance! No one could be happier than we two should be.”
“Indeed! Do you think so?” replied the little ball. “Perhaps you do not know my papa and mama were morocco slippers, and that I have a Spanish cork inside me?”
“Yes, but I am made of mahogany,” said the top; “and the mayor himself turned me. He has a turning-lathe of his own, and it amuses him greatly.”
“Can I depend upon that?” asked the little ball.
“May I never be whipped again if it is not true!” replied the little top.
“You can speak well for yourself,” observed the ball, “but I cannot grant your request. I am as good as engaged to a swallow; every time I leap up into the air she puts her head 133 out of her nest and says, ‘Will you?’ and now I have silently said ‘Yes,’ and that is as good as half engaged. But I promise I will never forget you.”
“Yes, a lot of good that will be!” said the top.
And they spoke no more to each other.
The next day the ball was taken out by the boy. The top saw how it flew high into the air, like a bird; at last one could no longer see it. Each time it came back again, but gave a high leap when it touched the earth, and that was done either from its longing to mount up again, or because it had a Spanish cork in its body. But the ninth time the little ball remained absent, and did not come back again; and the boy sought and sought, but it was gone.
“I know very well where it is!” sighed the top. “It is in the swallow’s nest, and has married the swallow.”
The more the top thought of this the more it longed for the ball. Just because it could not get the ball, its love increased; and the fact that the ball had chosen another formed a peculiar feature in the case. So the top danced round and hummed, but always thought of the little ball, which became more and more beautiful in his fancy. Thus several years went by, and now it was an old love.
And the top was no longer young! But one day he was gilt all over; never had he looked so handsome; he was now a golden top, and sprang till he hummed again. Yes, that was something worth seeing! But all at once he sprang up too high, and — he was gone.
They looked and looked, even in the cellar, but he was not to be found. Where could he be?
He had jumped into the dust-box, where all kinds of things were lying: cabbage-stalks, sweepings, and rubbish that had fallen down from the roof.
134“Here’s a nice place to lie in! The gilding will soon leave me here. Among what a rabble have I alighted!
And then he looked sideways at a long, leafless cabbage-stump, and at a curious round thing that looked like an old apple; but it was not an apple — it was an old ball, which had lain for years in the gutter on the roof, and was quite saturated with water.
“Thank goodness, here comes one of us, with whom one can talk!” said the little ball, and looked at the gilt top. “I am really morocco, worked by maiden’s hands, and have a Spanish cork within me; but no one would think it, to look at me. I was very nearly marrying a swallow, but I fell into the gutter on the roof, and have lain there full five years, and become wet through. You may believe me; that’s a long time for a young girl.”
But the top said nothing. He thought of his old love; and the more he heard, the clearer it became to him that this was she.
Then came the servant-girl and wanted to turn out the dust-box.
“Ah, there’s a gilt top!” she cried.
And so the top was brought again to notice and honor, but nothing was heard of the little ball. And the top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved object has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through. Yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust-box.
MY father left me the best inheritance, to wit, good humor. And who was my father? Why, that has nothing to do with the humor. He was lively and stout, round and fat; and his outer and inner man was in direct contradiction to his calling. And pray what was he by profession and calling in civil society? Yes, if this were to be written down and printed in the very beginning of a book, it is probable that many when they read it would lay the book aside, and say, “It looks so uncomfortable; I don’t like anything of that sort.” And yet my father was neither a horse-slaughterer nor an executioner; on the contrary, his office placed him at the head of the most respectable gentry of the town; and he held his place by right, for it was his right place. He had to go first before the bishop even, and before the princes of the blood. He always went first — for he was the driver of the hearse!
There, now it’s out! And I will confess that when people saw my father sitting perched up on the omnibus of death, dressed in his long, wide, black cloak, and with his black-bordered, three-cornered hat on his head — and then his face, exactly as the sun is drawn, round and jocund — it was difficult for them to think of the grave and of sorrow. The face said, “It doesn’t matter — it doesn’t matter; it will be better than you think.”
You see I have inherited my good humor from him, and also the habit of going often to the churchyard, which is a good thing to do if it be done in the right spirit; and then I take in the Intelligencer, just as he used to do.
136I am not quite young. I have neither wife, nor children, nor a library; but, as aforesaid, I take in the Intelligencer, and that’s my favorite newspaper, as it was also my father’s. It is very useful, and contains everything that a man needs to know — such as who preaches in the church, and the new books. And then, what a lot of charity, and what a number of innocent, harmless verses are found in it! Advertisements for husbands and wives, and requests for interviews — all quite simple and natural. Certainly, one may live merrily and be contentedly buried if one takes in the Intelligencer. And as a concluding advantage, by the end of his life a man will have such a capital store of paper, that he may use it as a soft bed, unless he prefers to rest upon wood shavings.
The newspaper and my walk to the churchyard were always my most exciting occupations; they were like bathing-places for my good humor.
The newspaper every one can read for himself. But please come with me to the churchyard; let us wander there, where the sun shines and the trees grow green. Each of the narrow houses is like a closed book, with the back placed uppermost, so that one can only read the title and judge what the book contains, but can tell nothing about it. But I know something about them. I heard it from my father, or found it out myself. I have it all down in my record, that I wrote out for my own use and pleasure. All that lie here, and a few more, too, are chronicled in it.
Now, we are in the churchyard.
Here, behind the white railing, where once a rose-tree grew — it is gone now, but a little evergreen from the next grave stretches out its green fingers to make a show — there rests a very unhappy man; and yet, when he lived, he was in what 137 they call a good position. He had enough to live upon, and something over; but worldly cares, or, to speak more correctly, his great artistic taste, weighed heavily upon him. If in the evening he sat in the theater to enjoy himself thoroughly, he would be quite annoyed if the machinist had put too strong a light into one side of the moon, or if the sky-pieces hung down over the scenes when they ought to have hung behind them, or when a palm-tree was introduced into a scene representing the Berlin Zoological Gardens, or a cactus in a view of the Tyrol, or a beech-tree in the far north of Norway. As if that was of any consequence. Is it not quite immaterial? Who would fidget about such a trifle? I’s only make-believe, after all, and every one is expected to be amused. Then sometime’s the public applauded too much to suit his taste, and sometimes too little. “They’re like wet wood this evening,” he would say; “they won’t kindle at all!” And then he would look about to see what kind of people they were; and sometimes he would find them laughing at the wrong time, when they ought not to have laughed, and that vexed him; and he fretted and was an unhappy man, and at last fretted himself into his grave.
Here rests a very happy man; that is to say, a very grand man. He was of high birth, and that was lucky for him, for other wise he would never have been anything worth speaking of; and Nature orders all that very wisely, so that it’s quite charming when we think of it. He used to go about in a coat embroidered back and front, and appeared in the saloons of society just like one of those costly, pearl-embroidered bell-pulls which have always a good, thick, serviceable cord behind them to do the work. He likewise had a good stout cord behind him in the shape of a substitute, who did his duty, and who still continues to do it behind another embroidered 138 bell-pull. Everything is so nicely managed, it’s enough to put one into a good humor.
Here rests — well, it’s a very mournful reflection — here rests a man who spent sixty-seven years considering how he should get a good idea. The sole object of his life was to say a good thing, and at last he felt convinced in his own mind that he had got one; was so glad of it that he died of pure joy at having caught an idea at last. Nobody derived any benefit from it, and nobody even heard what the good thing was. Now, I can fancy that this same good thing won’t let him lie quiet in his grave; for let us suppose that it is a good thing which can only be brought out at breakfast if it is to make an effect, and that he, according to the received opinion concerning ghosts, can only rise and walk at midnight. Why, then the good thing would not suit the time, and the man must carry his good idea down with him again. What an unhappy man he must be!
Here rests a remarkably stingy woman. During her lifetime she used to get up at night and mew, so that the neighbors might think she kept a cat — she was so remarkably stingy.
Here is a maiden of another kind. When the canary-bird of the heart begins to chirp, reason puts her fingers in her ears. The maiden was going to be married, but — Well, it’s an every-day story, and we will let the dead rest.
Here sleeps a widow, who carried melody in her mouth and gall in her heart. She used to go out for prey in the families round about; and the prey she hunted was her neighbors’ faults, and she was an indefatigable hunter.
Here’s a family sepulcher. Every member of this family held so firmly to the opinions of the rest, that if all the world, and the newspapers into the bargain, said of a certain thing it 139 is so and so, and the little boy came home from school and said, “I’ve learned it thus and thus,” they declared his opinion to be the only true one, because he belonged to the family. And it is an acknowledged fact, that if the yard cock of the family crowed at midnight, they would declare it was morning, though the watchman and all the clocks in the city were crying out that it was twelve o’clock at night.
The great poet Goethe concludes his Faust with the words “May be continued”; and our wanderings in the churchyard may be continued too. If any of my friends, or my enemies, get too fast for me, I go out to my favorite spot, and select a mound, and bury him or her there — bury that person who is yet alive; and there those I bury must stay till they come back as new and improved characters. I inscribe their life and their deeds, looked at in my fashion, in my record; and that’s what all people ought to do. They ought not to be vexed when any one goes on ridiculously, but bury him directly, and maintain their good humor, and keep to the Intelligencer, which is often a book written by the people with its hand guided.
When the time comes for me to be bound with my history in the boards of the grave, I hope they will put up as my epitaph, “A good-humored one.”
THE last railway-station is at Perpignan, but it is only a few hours’ journey from that place into Spain. The said journey had been described to me as very terrible. The stage-coaches were represented as vehicles specially designed 140 for torture — great, heavy omnibuses, with only one door at the side, so that there was no way of getting out if there was an upset, which occurred with fatal regularity. Protestants were despised in this part of the country, and persecuted as if they were ungodly heathens, so I was told; travelers were constantly being attacked and robbed by armed brigands; and, as for the food, none of it was eatable. I had heard and read all this, and now I was to experience it.
The stage-coach was to leave Perpignan at three o’clock in the morning. To start at three means getting up at two; and if you are to rise as early as that, you might as well not go to bed at all. I lay down, nevertheless, and managed to obtain a few scattered winks, in the intervals between which I looked at my watch or stared at the sky. Finally, at half past two, I waked up the man who was to have called me, and having consumed a glass of cold water — the only breakfast available at that hour — I made my way to the starting-place. A lantern on a barrel disclosed six stage-coaches jammed closely together. There was not much room for the numbers who intended to go. The travelers appeared one by one. Not a soul knew another; not a word was spoken. One sat down on an empty wooden box, another on a trunk, another stumbled about among the harness, and a good many were lost to view in dark corners. The coaches were loaded with luggage and human freight, while twelve horses with jingling bells were fastened to each. I secure a place in the inner compartment, with a Spanish lady and her daughter, both of them wearing enormous crinolines. If they had gone to Skagen, the mother alone would have covered the whole of the northern part of that promontory. I felt as if I was sitting beside a balloon that was being inflated.
141The postilions cracked their whips, and off we went, swinging from side to side in the narrow streets. We passed over the drawbridge and through the fortifications — the sort of scenery you would expect in a melodrama of the Middle Ages. After a time we got out upon the open highroad. The señora was asleep. She was probably dreaming of her beautiful Spain, where she once had loved and been loved — seeing that she had a daughter. I, too, dreamed of Spain — with my eyes wide open, wondering what was in store for me there. The daughter neither slept nor dreamed. All her attention seemed to be centered upon a knitted bag which she held in her lap, and which she was perpetually lifting up and putting down again.
The bag began to worry me (I had got used to the crinoline), and I found myself speculating on its possible contents. I imagined that the thing in it prized most highly was neither gold nor silver money, nor jewelry, nor any fine Parisian frills to be smuggled across the frontier. No; my poetical eye penetrated the secret of the bag, and I saw there a man, a handsome man, on a photograph, all spick and span, from his frizzled curls to the tips of his shining boots, though in his proper person he was no doubt still more beautiful. I interfered with him, being so close to his lady-love, and he interfered with me in his case — that ponderous bag, which now bumped against my stomach and now against my chest, as the Spanish damsel, clinging to her treasure, assumed various plastic attitudes. Mama meanwhile was sleeping soundly, and executing nasal runs and trills such as sleepers give forth when it is inconvenient to put any restraint on their breathing.
A star in the west, out over the sea, shone so wonderfully clearly, and looked so large, that I was uncertain whether I 142 saw a star or a lighthouse. I had long been wishing to begin a conversation with the young Spaniard, hoping that my stock of Spanish, which consisted in some of the commonest expressions, would come out in the right order, and relying upon my talent for that sort of enterprise. But what a lighthouse might be in Spanish I had no idea, and so I commenced with what I did know — “Estrella.” The word took like a spark, and kindled the fire of eloquence in the Spanish girl. She talked and she talked. Words flowed from her lips like the waters spouting from a fountain. But not a thing did I understand. Presently day dawned, and I beheld the sea. I then exclaimed, “El mar!” Thereupon ensued another attempt at conversation. “Inglés?” she asked. “Danés!” I replied, and we began to chat — that is to say, I would give a cue, and she would spin out the thread of the discourse. I said, “La poesia de la España — Cervantes, Calderon, Moreto!” All I did was to mention names, and as each name was uttered her animation increased, so that her mama was at length awakened, when her daughter informed her that I had been talking in the most interesting manner about Spanish literature. But it was herself who had done the talking; I did not know how.