A big old Father-Rat, with his tail bitten off, was relieving
his feelings in loud squeaks; and his family gave their tribute of
concurrence to every word he said:
"I am disgusted with this man-mewing," he cried- "with these
outbursts of ignorance. A fine magnificence, truly! all made up of gas
and petroleum! I can't eat such stuff as that. Everything here is so
fine and bright now, that one's ashamed of one's self, without exactly
knowing why. Ah, if we only lived in the days of tallow candles! and
it does not lie so very far behind us. That was a romantic time, as
one may say."
"What are you talking of there?" asked the Dryad. "I have never
seen you before. What is it you are talking about?"
"Of the glorious days that are gone," said the Rat- "of the
happy time of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Then it
was a great thing to get down here. That was a rat's nest quite
different from Paris. Mother Plague used to live here then; she killed
people, but never rats. Robbers and smugglers could breathe freely
here. Here was the meeting-place of the most interesting personages,
whom one now only gets to see in the theatres where they act
melodrama, up above. The time of romance is gone even in our rat's
nest; and here also fresh air and petroleum have broken in."
Thus squeaked the Rat; he squeaked in honor of the old time,
when Mother Plague was still alive.
A carriage stopped, a kind of open omnibus, drawn by swift horses.
The company mounted and drove away along the Boulevard de
Sebastopol, that is to say, the underground boulevard, over which
the well-known crowded street of that name extended.
The carriage disappeared in the twilight; the Dryad disappeared,
lifted to the cheerful freshness above. Here, and not below in the
vaulted passages, filled with heavy air, the wonder work must be found
which she was to seek in her short lifetime. It must gleam brighter
than all the gas-flames, stronger than the moon that was just
gliding past.
Yes, certainly, she saw it yonder in the distance, it gleamed
before her, and twinkled and glittered like the evening star in the
sky.
She saw a glittering portal open, that led to a little garden,
where all was brightness and dance music. Colored lamps surrounded
little lakes, in which were water-plants of colored metal, from
whose flowers jets of water spurted up. Beautiful weeping willows,
real products of spring, hung their fresh branches over these lakes
like a fresh, green, transparent, and yet screening veil. In the
bushes burnt an open fire, throwing a red twilight over the quiet huts
of branches, into which the sounds of music penetrated- an ear
tickling, intoxicating music, that sent the blood coursing through the
veins.
Beautiful girls in festive attire, with pleasant smiles on their
lips, and the light spirit of youth in their hearts- "Marys," with
roses in their hair, but without carriage and postilion- flitted to
and fro in the wild dance.
Where were the heads, where the feet? As if stung by tarantulas,
they sprang, laughed, rejoiced, as if in their ecstacies they were
going to embrace all the world.
The Dryad felt herself torn with them into the whirl of the dance.
Round her delicate foot clung the silken boot, chestnut brown in
color, like the ribbon that floated from her hair down upon her bare
shoulders. The green silk dress waved in large folds, but did not
entirely hide the pretty foot and ankle.
Had she come to the enchanted Garden of Armida? What was the
name of the place?
The name glittered in gas-jets over the entrance. It was
"Mabille."
The soaring upwards of rockets, the splashing of fountains, and
the popping of champagne corks accompanied the wild bacchantic
dance. Over the whole glided the moon through the air, clear, but with
a somewhat crooked face.
A wild joviality seemed to rush through the Dryad, as though she
were intoxicated with opium. Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke, but the
sound of violins and of flutes drowned the sound of her voice. Her
partner whispered words to her which she did not understand, nor do we
understand them. He stretched out his arms to draw her to him, but
he embraced only the empty air.
The Dryad had been carried away, like a rose-leaf on the wind.
Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a
tower. The beacon light shone from the goal of her longing, shone from
the red lighthouse tower of the Fata Morgana of the Champ de Mars.
Thither she was carried by the wind. She circled round the tower;
the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, and
that now sank down dying.
The moon shone bright, gas-lamps spread light around, through
the halls, over the all-world's buildings scattered about, over the
rose-hills and the rocks produced by human ingenuity, from which
waterfalls, driven by the power of "Master Bloodless," fell down.
The caverns of the sea, the depths of the lakes, the kingdom of the
fishes were opened here. Men walked as in the depths of the deep pond,
and held converse with the sea, in the diving-bell of glass. The water
pressed against the strong glass walls above and on every side. The
polypi, eel-like living creatures, had fastened themselves to the
bottom, and stretched out arms, fathoms long, for prey. A big turbot
was making himself broad in front, quietly enough, but not without
casting some suspicious glances aside. A crab clambered over him,
looking like a gigantic spider, while the shrimps wandered about in
restless haste, like the butterflies and moths of the sea.
In the fresh water grew water-lilies, nymphaea, and reeds; the
gold-fishes stood up below in rank and file, all turning their heads
one way, that the streaming water might flow into their mouths. Fat
carps stared at the glass wall with stupid eyes. They knew that they
were here to be exhibited, and that they had made the somewhat
toilsome journey hither in tubs filled with water; and they thought
with dismay of the land-sickness from which they had suffered so
cruelly on the railway.
They had come to see the Exhibition, and now contemplated it
from their fresh or salt-water position. They looked attentively at
the crowds of people who passed by them early and late. All the
nations in the world, they thought, had made an exhibition of their
inhabitants, for the edification of the soles and haddocks, pike and
carp, that they might give their opinions upon the different kinds.
"Those are scaly animals" said a little slimy Whiting. "They put
on different scales two or three times a day, and they emit sounds
which they call speaking. We don't put on scales, and we make
ourselves understood in an easier way, simply by twitching the corners
of our mouths and staring with our eyes. We have a great many
advantages over mankind."
"But they have learned swimming of us," remarked a well-educated
Codling. "You must know I come from the great sea outside. In the
hot time of the year the people yonder go into the water; first they
take off their scales, and then they swim. They have learnt from the
frogs to kick out with their hind legs, and row with their fore
paws. But they cannot hold out long. They want to be like us, but they
cannot come up to us. Poor people!"
And the fishes stared. They thought that the whole swarm of people
whom they had seen in the bright daylight were still moving around
them; they were certain they still saw the same forms that had first
caught their attention.
A pretty Barbel, with spotted skin, and an enviably round back,
declared that the "human fry" were still there.
"I can see a well set-up human figure quite well," said the
Barbel. "She was called 'contumacious lady,' or something of that
kind. She had a mouth and staring eyes, like ours, and a great balloon
at the back of her head, and something like a shut-up umbrella in
front; there were a lot of dangling bits of seaweed hanging about her.
She ought to take all the rubbish off, and go as we do; then she would
look something like a respectable barbel, so far as it is possible for
a person to look like one!"
"What's become of that one whom they drew away with the hook? He
sat on a wheel-chair, and had paper, and pen, and ink, and wrote
down everything. They called him a 'writer.'"
"They're going about with him still," said a hoary old maid of a
Carp, who carried her misfortune about with her, so that she was quite
hoarse. In her youth she had once swallowed a hook, and still swam
patiently about with it in her gullet. "A writer? That means, as we
fishes describe it, a kind of cuttle or ink-fish among men."
Thus the fishes gossipped in their own way; but in the
artificial water-grotto the laborers were busy; who were obliged to
take advantage of the hours of night to get their work done by
daybreak. They accompanied with blows of their hammers and with
songs the parting words of the vanishing Dryad.
"So, at any rate, I have seen you, you pretty gold-fishes," she
said. "Yes, I know you;" and she waved her hand to them. "I have known
about you a long time in my home; the swallow told me about you. How
beautiful you are! how delicate and shining! I should like to kiss
every one of you. You others, also. I know you all; but you do not
know me."
The fishes stared out into the twilight. They did not understand a
word of it.
The Dryad was there no longer. She had been a long time in the
open air, where the different countries- the country of black bread,
the codfish coast, the kingdom of Russia leather, and the banks of
eau-de-Cologne, and the gardens of rose oil- exhaled their perfumes
from the world-wonder flower.
When, after a night at a ball, we drive home half asleep and
half awake, the melodies still sound plainly in our ears; we hear
them, and could sing them all from memory. When the eye of the
murdered man closes, the picture of what it saw last clings to it
for a time like a photographic picture.
So it was likewise here. The bustling life of day had not yet
disappeared in the quiet night. The Dryad had seen it; she knew,
thus it will be repeated tomorrow.
The Dryad stood among the fragrant roses, and thought she knew
them, and had seen them in her own home. She also saw red
pomegranate flowers, like those that little Mary had worn in her
dark hair.
Remembrances from the home of her childhood flashed through her
thoughts; her eyes eagerly drank in the prospect around, and
feverish restlessness chased her through the wonder-filled halls.
A weariness that increased continually, took possession of her.
She felt a longing to rest on the soft Oriental carpets within, or
to lean against the weeping willow without by the clear water. But for
the ephemeral fly there was no rest. In a few moments the day had
completed its circle.
Her thoughts trembled, her limbs trembled, she sank down on the
grass by the bubbling water.
"Thou wilt ever spring living from the earth," she said
mournfully. "Moisten my tongue- bring me a refreshing draught."
"I am no living water," was the answer. "I only spring upward when
the machine wills it."
"Give me something of thy freshness, thou green grass," implored
the Dryad; "give me one of thy fragrant flowers."
"We must die if we are torn from our stalks," replied the
Flowers and the Grass.
"Give me a kiss, thou fresh stream of air- only a single
life-kiss."
"Soon the sun will kiss the clouds red," answered the Wind;
"then thou wilt be among the dead- blown away, as all the splendor
here will be blown away before the year shall have ended. Then I can
play again with the light loose sand on the place here, and whirl
the dust over the land and through the air. All is dust!"
The Dryad felt a terror like a woman who has cut asunder her
pulse-artery in the bath, but is filled again with the love of life,
even while she is bleeding to death. She raised herself, tottered
forward a few steps, and sank down again at the entrance to a little
church. The gate stood open, lights were burning upon the altar, and
the organ sounded.
What music! Such notes the Dryad had never yet heard; and yet it
seemed to her as if she recognized a number of well-known voices among
them. They came deep from the heart of all creation. She thought she
heard the stories of the old clergyman, of great deeds, and of the
celebrated names, and of the gifts that the creatures of God must
bestow upon posterity, if they would live on in the world.
The tones of the organ swelled, and in their song there sounded
these words:
"Thy wishing and thy longing have torn thee, with thy roots,
from the place which God appointed for thee. That was thy destruction,
thou poor Dryad!"
The notes became soft and gentle, and seemed to die away in a
wail.
In the sky the clouds showed themselves with a ruddy gleam. The
Wind sighed:
"Pass away, ye dead! now the sun is going to rise!"
The first ray fell on the Dryad. Her form was irradiated in
changing colors, like the soap-bubble when it is bursting and
becomes a drop of water; like a tear that falls and passes away like a
vapor.
Poor Dryad! Only a dew-drop, only a tear, poured upon the earth,
and vanished away!
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE DUMB BOOK
by Hans Christian Andersen
IN the high-road which led through a wood stood a solitary
