The living room was very expensively furnished. The boys were greeted by a fat woman, who was laughing. But she was not amused by the sight of the lark. “A common little bird,” she said. But she would let the boys keep it for today, and pointed to an empty cage that stood near the window.
“It’s Polly’s birthday,” she said in a false, mockingly childish voice, “and the little bird of the field has come to pay its respects.”
The parrot didn’t say a single word; it swung back and forth very gracefully. But a pretty little canary, who only last summer had been brought from its warm, fragrant native country to cold Denmark, began to sing.
“Crybaby!” said the lady, and threw a white cloth over its cage.
“Peep,” cried the canary. “What a terrible snowstorm.” It sighed and then was silent.
The cage of the lark—or, as the lady called him, the little common bird—had been put between the canary’s and the parrot’s.
The only words of human speech that Polly had mastered were: “Let us be human!” This often sounded very comical; but everything else it said was as impossible for human beings to understand as the canary’s song. The copyist, however, was now a lark and understood his companions perfectly.
“I flew beneath the palms and flowering almond trees,” sang the canary. “I flew with my brothers and sisters above beautiful flowers, and across a sea that was clear as glass; and the seaweed waved to us. I have seen many parrots, too; and they told us many very long and amusing stories.”
“They were wild birds,” commented the parrot. “They didn’t have any education or culture. Let us be human!” it screeched.
“Why don’t you laugh when I say that? The lady and her guests always laugh, why shouldn’t you? It’s a great fault to lack a sense of humor. Let us be human!”
“Don’t you remember the lovely girls who danced in the tent that was pitched beneath the flowering trees? Don’t you remember the sweet fruits with their succulent juice, and the herbs that grew all over the hillside?”
“Oh yes,” yawned the parrot. “But I like it much better here. I get good food and am properly taken care of. I am clever, what more need I ask for? Let us be human! … You have a poetic soul, as it is called; but I am educated and witty. You may be a genius, but you are too high-strung. You are always trying to reach higher notes, that is why you are covered up. No one would dare to do that to me. I was so expensive, and I am witty, witty, witty. Let us be human!”
“You—little, gray, Danish bird,” began the canary. “You are a prisoner too. I think it is cold now, out in your forest; but, at least, there you are free. They have forgotten to close the door to your cage; and one of the top windows over there is open; fly, little bird, fly!”
In a second the copyist was out of his cage. Just then the cat, with its green, shining eyes, came sneaking into the room through the half-open door and tried to catch the lark. The canary flew around in its cage. Polly flapped her wings and screeched, “Let us be human!”
In mortal fear, the copyist flew toward the open window and escaped. He flew above the roofs of the houses and the streets until he was tired and needed to rest. One of the houses seemed more snug, more cozy, somehow friendlier than the others. A window was open and he flew into his own room, where he perched on the table.
“Let us be human,” he said. He hadn’t meant anything by it, he was only repeating what Polly had said; but he was immediately transformed into his old shape again.
“God preserve me!” he muttered, climbing down from the table. “How did I ever get up here? I must have walked in my sleep. What a strange dream I had; it was all a lot of nonsense!”
PART SIX: HOW THE GALOSHES BROUGHT LUCK
The next morning a young theological student who had rooms on the same floor knocked on the copyist’s door.
“May I borrow your galoshes?” he asked. “I should like to smoke my pipe down in the garden, but the grass is still wet from dew.”
The copyist, who was still in bed, told the young man to take his galoshes, which he did. After he had put them on he went down into the garden. It was very small and had only a plum and a pear tree; but tiny as it was, it was a marvel, here in the middle of the city.
The student walked back and forth on the little path. It was only six o’clock in the morning. From far away he could hear the sound of the horn that is blown as the stagecoach departs.
“Oh, to travel!” he exclaimed. “Nothing in the world would be so wonderful as to be able to travel. It is my greatest wish! The only cure for my restless wanderlust. But I would like to travel far away: to Switzerland or Italy or—”
The galoshes were very prompt in granting wishes, which was fortunate for both him and us, for he might have ended up too far away. As it was, he was journeying through Switzerland. He was in a stagecoach with eight other passengers. He sat squeezed in the middle. He had a headache and a kink in his neck. All his blood seemed to have gone to his legs; in any case, his feet were swollen and his boots pinched.
He slipped back and forth between the waking and the dozing state. In his right-hand pocket he had some letters of credit; in his left, a passport; and on a string around his neck hung a leather purse which contained a few louis d’or. Every time he fell asleep, he dreamed that one of his valuables had been lost; then he would wake with a start and move his hand in a triangle: from left to right and to center, to make sure that everything was there. The umbrellas, canes, and hats hanging from the net above his head made it difficult for him to see out of the window. And when he finally did get a view of the magnificent Swiss mountains, which are so tremendously impressive, he thought exactly what an acquaintance of ours did, who was a poet and wrote his thoughts down in verse, though he hasn’t allowed it to be published yet:
It is so very lovely here.
I can see Mount Blanc, my dear.
Oh, this is the land of milk and honey,
If only I had some more money.
Grand, somber, and dark was the landscape now. The peaks of the mountains were hidden by clouds; and the pine forests looked as scraggy as heather. Now it was beginning to snow and the wind blew; it was very cold.
“Oh!” shivered the student. “I wish I were on the other side of the Alps. There it is already summer; and I would have cashed my letters of credit. The fear that they might not be honored quite spoils my journey. I can’t enjoy Switzerland, I wish I were in Italy!”
Instantly, he was there, traveling between Florence and Rome. Trasimeno Lake, reflecting the rays of the setting sun, shone like gold. The mountains surrounding it were dark blue. Here where Hannibal defeated Flaminius grapevines peacefully intertwined their slender fingers. Underneath a laurel tree was a group of beautiful, half-naked children, who were herding black swine. If this scene had been painted on a canvas, everyone would have shouted: “Oh, beautiful Italy!”
Inside the stagecoach, however, neither the student of theology nor any of his companions felt such enthusiasm. The vehicle was filled with mosquitoes and stinging flies. The sprays of myrtle which the passengers waved back and forth to protect themselves were of no avail; the flies stung anyway. No one escaped; every face was swollen and bloody from insect bites. The poor horses looked like carrion flesh. The flies sat on them in mounds, and it helped little that the driver stopped often to scrape them off.
The sun finally set, and the evening air was icy cold. It was very uncomfortable. The mountains and the clouds turned a remarkable green; everything stood out so clearly, almost brilliantly in the light of evening.—Yes, you must go to Italy and see it for yourself; it is impossible to describe it: a hopeless task.—The travelers would have agreed; but they were hungry, tired, and more interested in finding a night’s lodging than looking at the beauty of nature.
The road passed through olive orchards. The trees looked like the gnarled willow trees in Denmark. Finally the stagecoach stopped in front of a lonely inn. Half a dozen crippled beggars were waiting outside the e
ntrance. The most respectable of them looked like “Hunger’s oldest son, who had reached maturity.” All the others were either blind, lame, or had hands without fingers. They were, in truth, “wretchedness dressed in rags.”
“Eccellenza, miserabili,” they wailed loudly and held out their maimed and deformed limbs for inspection.
The innkeeper’s wife came out to receive her guests. She was barefoot, her hair was unkempt, and her blouse was filthy. The doors were fastened with rope and string. Half the tiles on the floor were missing; and bats flew about above them, just below the high ceilings. It stank foully.
“I wish she would set the table out in the stable instead,” one of the travelers said. “Then at least we would know where the stink came from.”
The windows were opened so that fresh air might enter; but even quicker than the air were the mutilated arms of the beggars and the sound of their whimpering: “Miserabili.… Eccellenza, miserabili.…” The walls were decorated with inscriptions, and half of them had nothing pleasant to say about bella Italia.
At last the food arrived: boiled water with a little pepper and rancid oil in it; it was called soup. The same oil had been used in the salad. The main dish was fried cockscomb and rotten eggs. The wine must have been drawn from the vinegar barrel.
During the night, all the baggage was piled up in front of the door as a barricade; and one of the travelers was to remain awake while the others slept. The first one to stand guard was the student of theology. Pooh! The smell in the room was nauseating, and the heat! From outside came the sound of the miserabili moaning in their sleep; and inside the mosquitoes hummed, as they flew about in search of their next victim.
“Traveling would be fine if we only didn’t have a body,” sighed the student. “If one’s spirit were free to go by itself. No matter where I am, there is always something that presses against my heart: something I need or want to be rid of. I want something better than moments like this.… Something better.… The best: but where is it and how do you get it? I know what I really want: the final goal, where I am sure all happiness lies!”
As soon as these words were spoken, he was back in his own room. The long white curtains were drawn. In the middle of the room was a black coffin; and in it lay the body of the student, sleeping death’s sleep. His soul had gone on the journey he had desired for it, while his body was still. “Call no man happy before he is in his grave.” This story strengthens Solon’s words.
Every dead body is an immortal sphinx. It answers no questions and neither did the body of the student of theology, despite his having asked the questions himself, only a few days before, in a poem:
Death, your silence fills with dread my heart;
Your footprints are the graves and tombs of men.
When my Jacob’s ladder of thought falls apart,
Shall I only arise as grass in death’s garden, then?
The greatest suffering, unseen we bear,
He was alone, even to the last.
Life’s injustice our hearts outwear,
Kind is the earth on the coffin cast.
Two figures were in the room: Sorrow herself, and the lady’s maid to the lady in waiting of the Fairy of Happiness. They were both looking down at the dead body of the student.
“There, you see,” began the Fairy of Sorrow. “How much happiness did your magic galoshes bring humanity?”
The servant of Happiness replied, while she nodded toward the coffin, “At least they brought him who is sleeping there eternal peace.”
“Oh no!” Sorrow argued. “He chose to leave life behind him, he was not called! He did not have the strength within his soul to accomplish that which even he himself had set as his goal. I shall do him a favor.”
Sorrow pulled the galoshes off the student’s feet, and the sleep of death was over; and the resurrected young man rose. Sorrow disappeared, and so did the galoshes; Sorrow thought they belonged to her.
11
The Daisy
Now I will tell you a story!
There once was a country house with a beautiful garden and a white fence around it. On the other side of the fence were a ditch and a road; on the bank above them there grew among the grass a daisy. The sun shone as pleasantly on the little wild flower as it did on the richly colorful, cultivated flowers in the garden, and the daisy grew taller by the hour. One morning it burst into bloom: the petals were white, and in the center of the flower was a yellow button that looked like a little sun. The flower did not realize that no one could see her among the tall grass, nor that she was merely a poor despised wild flower. No, she was content; turning her face toward the warm sun, she looked straight up into it while listening to the song of the lark.
The little daisy was as happy as if the day were a high holiday and not just a common Monday. All the children were in school, sitting at their desks, learning something; and the daisy sat on its stalk and learned something too. It discovered how warm the sun feels and how pleasant life can be; and it decided that the lark’s song was the most beautiful in the whole world, because its melody expressed exactly how she felt. The daisy looked humbly up at the happy bird, which not only could fly but could sing as well. She felt neither envious nor sad because she had not been given such gifts. “I can hear and I can see,” she thought. “The sun shines upon me and the wind kisses me; I was born quite rich.”
In the garden on the other side of the fence many very elegant flowers grew. The less fragrance they had, the prouder they carried themselves. The peonies puffed themselves up; they wanted to be bigger than the roses, though it is not size that counts. The tulips had the most beautiful colors, but they were well aware of it themselves, and stood up straight so that they could not be overlooked. Not one of them noticed the little daisy outside the fence, but she noticed them all and thought, “How rich and lovely they are. I am sure the bird who sings so beautifully will come and visit them. Thank God I grow so near them that I will be able to see it all.”
Just at that moment the lark flew down to the ground, but not among the peonies or the tulips; no, it landed in the grass right beside the daisy. That poor flower felt so honored and got so flustered that it didn’t know what to think.
The little bird danced around the daisy and sang, “How soft is the grass. And how sweet is this little flower, with gold in its heart, wearing a silver dress.” The yellow center of the daisy did (the lark thought) look like gold and its white petals did shine like silver.
The happiness the little daisy felt cannot be described. The bird kissed her with his beak, sang for her; and then flew away, up into the blue summer sky. It took the daisy more than a quarter of an hour to feel like herself again. Shyly she looked into the garden; the flowers in there must have seen the honor paid to her. She felt ever so happy. But the tulips stood just as stiffly as they had before, only their faces were a little redder, for they were annoyed. The peonies were even more thickheaded, and it is a good thing that they couldn’t talk or the little daisy would have been told a thing or two. But the little wild flower sensed their ill humor and it hurt her. Just then a maid came out into the garden with a sharp knife in her hand. She walked right over to the tulips and picked them one after another.
“Oh dear,” the daisy sighed and thought, “How terrible, now life is all over for them.” The maid walked into the house with the flowers; and the daisy was happy that she grew on the other side of the fence in the grass and was only a poor little wild flower. When night came she folded her petals and fell asleep to dream about the bird and the warm sun.
The next day when the flower joyfully unfurled herself and stretched her petals like little white arms out into the fresh morning air, she heard the bird’s song again. But this time its voice was mournful and its song sad. The lark had good reason for its sorrow; it had been caught and now sat near the open window in a cage. He sang of the joy he had felt when he had flown high up in the sky, about the green fields of grain and the strength of his wings when he had
been free. Oh, the poor bird was very unhappy in its little cage!
The little daisy wanted to help him but how was she to do it? It was a difficult problem and the little flower pondered so long over it that she forgot the beauty that surrounded her and how lovely her own white petals were. She could only think about the poor caged bird, whom she could not help.
Two little boys came out of the garden; one of them had a sharp knife in his hand. It was just like the one the maid had used to cut the tulips. The boys stopped in front of the daisy, and she understood what they intended to do.
“Here, we can cut a piece of turf for the lark,” said the boy with the knife, and began marking out a square in the grass in the midst of which the daisy grew. He cut deep into the earth, for he wanted the grass to keep its roots.
“Tear the flower off,” said the other boy, and the daisy shook with fear, for to be “torn off” was the same as to die; and she wanted so badly to be put in the cage with the bird.
“No, let it be,” replied the boy with the knife. “It will look nice.” And the daisy was allowed to stay in the grass turf that was placed in the bottom of the cage.
The poor bird was still bewailing its lost freedom, and beat its wings against the iron grating. The little daisy could not speak, she could not say the words of comfort that she wanted to.
The morning passed and it was noon. “There is no water,” moaned the imprisoned lark. “They have all gone away and forgotten to give me even a few drops of water to drink. My throat is dry and burning! It feels as if there were ice and fire inside me; and the air seems so heavy. I will die, and never again feel the warm sunshine or see the greenness: all the beauty that God has made.”
The little bird buried his bill in the grass because it was cooler there; then it saw the little daisy, nodded, and kissed her. “You must wither and die in here, too, poor little flower! You and this little square of green grass have been given to me in exchange for the whole world I had when I was free. So every blade of grass must now be a tree, and each of your petals a sweet-smelling flower. Oh, the only story you can tell me is the tale of what I have lost.”