The Galoshes of Fortune

V

The Copyist’s Transformation

The night-watchman, who I’m sure we haven’t forgotten, now recalled the galoshes he had found and taken with him out to the hospital; he fetched them, but as neither the lieutenant nor anyone else would have anything to do with them, they were handed over at the police station.

‘They look as if they were my own galoshes!’ one of the copyists said when examining the lost property and placed them beside his own. ‘It would take more than the eye of a shoemaker to tell the difference between them!’

‘Mr Copyist!’ said a policeman, who entered with some papers.

The copyist turned round, spoke to the man, but when that was done and he looked at the galoshes, he was completely at a loss as to which pair of them, those to the left or to the right, belonged to him. ‘It must be the ones that are wet!’ he thought; but that was the wrong thing to think, for that was those of Fortune – but why shouldn’t the police also be able to make a mistake! – he put them on, stuffed some papers into his pocket, others under his arm; when back home he would read them through and copy them, but right now it was Sunday morning and the weather fine, a trip to Frederiksberg, he thought, would do me good! and so that was where he went.

No one could be a quieter, more industrious person than this young man, we do not begrudge him this little walk, it would surely be good for him after so much sitting down; to begin with he just walked without thinking about anything in particular, so the galoshes had no opportunity of displaying their magic powers.

In the avenue he met an acquaintance, a young poet, who told him that the following day he was to begin his summer travels.

‘Oh, you’re off again, are you!’ the copyist said. ‘You are also a fortunate, free person. You can fly wherever you want to, whereas the rest of us have a chain round our leg!’

‘But it’s fastened to the bread-tree!’ the poet replied ‘You don’t have to worry about the day that lies ahead, and when you are old, you will get a pension!’

‘You’ve done best though!’ the copyist said, ‘to sit and write poetry, that’s sheer pleasure! the whole world says nice things to you, and you are your own master! You should try wading through tedious court cases!’

The poet shook his head, the copyist also shook his, each kept his own opinion and on that note they parted.

‘They’re a race of their own, those poets!’ the copyist said, ‘I’d like to try and enter into such a nature, to become a poet myself, I’m sure that I wouldn’t write such plaintive stuff as the others do! –– It’s a perfect spring day for a poet! the air is so unusually clear, the clouds so beautiful, and outdoors there is such a lovely smell! yes, I haven’t felt like I do right now for many years.’

We have already noticed that he has become a poet; it wasn’t all that obvious, for it is a stupid idea to suppose that a poet is any different from other people, and there can be many people among ordinary folk who possess a far more poetic nature than many a recognised poet does; the difference is only that the poet has a more finely tuned memory, he can retain the idea and the emotion until it has been clearly and distinctly transposed into words, while others are unable to. But to shift from an everyday nature into a gifted one is always a transition – and this the copyist had now done.

‘The lovely scent!’ he said, ‘oh, how it reminds me of the violets at Aunt Lone’s! Yes, it was when I was a young boy! Great heavens, I haven’t thought about that for ages! the kind old lady! she used to live behind the stock exchange. She always had some small branches or a couple of green shoots in water, the winter could do its worst. The violets gave off their scent while I placed heated copper coins on the frozen window pane and made peepholes. That gave me a fine view. Outside in the canals, the ships lay frozen in the ice, abandoned by all the men, a screeching crow was then the entire crew; but when spring was once more in the air, things got busy; to singing and shouts of hurrah the ice would be sawn through, the ships were tarred and rigged, and then they set sail to foreign lands; I have stayed here and must always do so, always sit at the police station and watch the others get passports to travel abroad, that is my lot! Ah yes!’ he sighed deeply, but suddenly stopped. ‘Great heavens, whatever’s the matter with me? I’ve never thought or felt like this before! It must be the spring air! it’s both alarming and agreeable!’ He took hold of the papers in his pocket. ‘These will give me something else to think about!’ he said and let his eyes glide down the first page. ‘Mrs Sigbrith, original tragedy in five acts’, he read, ‘what’s this? and it’s in my own handwriting. Have I written this tragedy? The Intrigue on the Ramparts, or Great Prayer Day, Vaudeville. – But where have I got this from? Someone must have put it in my pocket, is there a letter here?’ Yes, it was from the theatre management, the plays had been turned down and the letter itself was not at all politely couched. ‘Hm! hm!’ the copyist said, and sat down on a bench; his thoughts were so alive, his heart so sensitive; without thinking, he seized one of the flowers closest to him, it was a common mayweed; what it takes the botanist many lectures to tell us it announced in a single minute; it told the myth of its birth, told of the power of sunlight which stretched out its fine petals and made them give off scent, and then he thought of the struggles of life, which in a similar way evoke feelings in our breast. Air and light were the flower’s suitors, but light was the preferred one, after the light it bowed down, if light disappeared, it would fold its petals together and fall asleep in the air’s embrace. ‘It is light that adorns me,’ the flower said; ‘but the air that allows you to breathe!’ his poet’s voice whispered.

Close by stood a boy, beating in a muddy ditch with his stick, the drops of water splashed up among the green branches, and the copyist thought of the millions of invisible creatures that were flung aloft in the drops, to a height which, in relation to their size, would be like us being whirled up above the clouds. As the copyist thought about this and about the complete change that had taken place in him, he smiled: ‘I’m asleep and dreaming! though it’s strange even so that one can dream naturally and know at the same time that it is only a dream. If only I could remember all of this when I wake up, right now I feel unusually in the mood! I have a clear view of everything, feel myself to be wide-awake, yet am sure that when I recall some of it tomorrow, it will just be nonsense, I’ve tried that before! What happens to all the wise and wonderful things one hears and says in dreams is like the gold of the subterraneans: when one finds it, it is rich and marvellous, but seen in the light of day, nothing but stones and withered leaves: Ah,’ he sighed so sadly and gazed at the birds singing, cheerfully hopping from branch to branch. ‘They’re much better off than I am! flying, that must be a delightful art, how fortunate to be born with that ability! if I were to be something else, then I would like to be such a little lark!’

Immediately, his coattails and sleeves folded into wings, his clothes became feathers and the galoshes claws; he felt this most distinctly and laughed inwardly: ‘well, now I can see that I’m dreaming again! but I’ve never done this so absurdly before,’ and he flew up into the green branches and sang, but there was no poetry in the song, for his poet’s nature had vanished; the galoshes, like anything that can do something thoroughly, can only do one thing at a time – he wanted to be a poet, he became a poet; now he wanted to be a small bird, but by becoming one, the previous peculiarity ceased to exist.

‘It’s not bad at all,’ he said, ‘in the daytime I sit at the police station among all those weighty documents, at night I can dream of flying like a lark in Frederiksberg Gardens, a whole damn popular comedy would be written about it!’

He flew down to the grass, turned his head in all directions and pecked at the pliant blades of grass, which, in relation to his present size, seemed as large as the branches of a North African palm tree.

It took only an instant for everything to go pitch-black around him: it seemed to him as if some huge object had been thrown over him. It was a large cap that a boy from Nyboder threw over the bird, a hand came in under it and seized the copyist by the back and wings, so that he gave a cheep; in his first moment of fear he shouted out: ‘You impudent puppy! I am a copyist at the police station!’ but to the boy it sounded like cheepicheep! he struck the bird on the beak and walked off.

In the avenue this boy met two schoolboys of the educated class who, considered as human beings, as intellects, were among the lowest in the school; they bought the bird for eight pence, and in this way the copyist came to Copenhagen, to the home of a family in Gothersgade.

‘It’s a good thing I’m dreaming!’ the copyist said, ‘otherwise I would be damned angry! first I was a poet, now I’m a lark! it was my poetic nature that caused me to become this small creature! It’s a pitiable thing to fall into the hands of some boys. I wonder how all this is going to finish!’

The boys took him into a very elegant drawing room; a portly, smiling lady received them, but she was not at all pleased with the unassuming field-bird, as she called it, they came in with, but this time she would accept it, and they were to place the bird in the empty cage that stood by the window! ‘that can perhaps please Polly!’ she added and smiled at a large green parrot that was swinging away finely on its ring in its magnificent brass cage. ‘It’s Polly’s birthday!’ she said utterly naively, ‘so the little field-bird wants to wish it many happy returns!’

Poppy did not answer a single word, just swung finely back and forth, although a beautiful canary that had been brought here the previous summer from its warm, fragrant native land started to sing aloud.

‘Loudmouth!’ the lady said and threw a white handkerchief over the cage.

‘Cheepcheep!’ it sighed, ‘that was terrible snowy weather!’ and with that sigh it fell silent.

The copyist, or, as the lady of the house called it, the field-bird, was placed in a small cage close to that of the canary, not far from the parrot. The only human tirade Polly was capable of reeling off, which often had a quite comic effect, was: ‘no, let’s be human!’ All the rest of what it shrieked was just as unintelligible as the canary’s chirping, except for the copyist, who was now a bird himself, he understood his comrades fervently well.

‘I flew beneath the green palm tree and the flowering almond tree!’ the canary sang, ‘I flew with my brothers and sisters over the wonderful flowers and across the glassy sea, where the plants nodded from the sea-bed. I also saw so many delightful parrots that told amusing stories, so long and so many!’

‘They must have been wild birds,’ the parrot answered, ‘they had no breeding. No, let’s be human! – Why don’t you laugh? When the lady and all the strangers can do so, you can too. It is a great lack, not to be able to savour what is amusing. No, let’s be human!’

‘Oh, do you remember the beautiful girls who used to dance under the raised tent close to the blossoming trees? Do you remember the sweet-tasting fruit and the cooling juice from the wild-growing plants?’

‘Indeed I do!’ the parrot answered, ‘but I’m a lot better off here! I have good food and intimate treatment; I know I’ve a good head, and that’s enough for me. Let’s be human! You have a poetic soul, as people call it, and I have solid knowledge and wit, you have that genius, but no restraint, get carried off in all these high-pitched sounds of nature, which is why they cover you over. They don’t subject me to that, oh no, because I’ve cost them a bit more! I impress with my beak, I can let out a ‘Witz! Witz! Witz! no, let’s be human!’

‘Oh, my warm, flowering native land!’ the canary sang, ‘I will sing of your dark-green trees, of your tranquil bays, where the branches kiss the clear surface of the water, sing of all the rejoicing of my sparkling brothers and sisters, where “The Desert’s Plant-Springs” grow!’

‘Oh, stop all that plaintive stuff,’ the parrot said. ‘Say something one can laugh at! Laughter is a sign of the highest intellectual position. See if a dog or horse can laugh! no, they can cry, but laughter is given to mankind alone. Ho, ho, ho!’ the Polly laughed, and added his Witz: ‘Let’s be human.’

‘You little grey Danish bird,’ the canary said, ‘you too have been taken captive! it is sure to be cold in your forests, but there at least there is freedom, fly out! They have forgotten to close your cage completely – the top window is open. Fly, fly!’

Which the copyist then did, in a trice he was out of the cage; at that moment the door ajar to the next room creaked, and nimbly, with green, gleaming eyes, the house cat slipped in and started to chase him. The canary fluttered in its cage, the parrot flapped its wings and shouted: ‘Let’s be human!’ The copyist was scared to death and flew off through the window, above houses and streets – finally he had to take a rest.

The neighbour’s house opposite had something familiar about it; a window stood open, he flew in, it was his own room; he sat down at the table.

‘Let’s be human!’ he said and, without thinking about what he said, he was imitating the parrot, and in the same instant he was the copyist, but was sitting on his table.

‘Good grief!’ he said, ‘how have I got up here and then fallen asleep! it was also a restless dream I was in. A load of nonsense, the whole story!’