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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Midsummer Days and Other Tales
+by August Strindberg
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: In Midsummer Days and Other Tales
+
+Author: August Strindberg
+
+Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6694]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 14, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, IN MIDSUMMER DAYS AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nicole Apostola.
+
+
+
+IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+AND OTHER TALES.
+
+BY AUGUST STRINDBERG
+
+TRANSLATED BY ELLIE SCHLEUSSNER
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+THE BIG GRAVEL-SIFTER
+THE SLUGGARD
+THE PILOT'S TROUBLES
+PHOTOGRAPHER AND PHILOSOPHER
+HALF A SHEET OF FOOLSCAP
+CONQUERING HERO AND FOOL
+WHAT THE TREE-SWALLOW SANG IN THE BUCKTHORN TREE
+THE MYSTERY OF THE TOBACCO SHED
+THE STORY OF THE ST. GOTTHARD
+THE STORY OF JUBAL WHO HAD NO "I"
+THE GOLDEN HELMETS IN THE ALLEBERG
+LITTLE BLUEWING FINDS THE GOLDPOWDER
+
+
+
+
+IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+
+In Midsummer days when in the countries of the North the earth is
+a bride, when the ground is full of gladness, when the brooks are
+still running, the flowers in the meadows still untouched by the
+scythe, and all the birds singing, a dove flew out of the wood and
+sat down before the cottage in which the ninety-year-old granny
+lay in her bed.
+
+The old woman had been bedridden for twenty years, but she could
+see through her window everything that happened in the farmyard
+which was managed by her two sons.  But she saw the world and the
+people in her own peculiar manner, for time and the weather had
+painted her window-panes with all the colours of the rainbow; she
+need but turn her head a little and things appeared successively
+red, yellow, green, blue, and violet.  If she happened to look out
+on a cold winter's day when the trees were covered with hoar-frost
+and the white foliage looked as if it were made of silver, she
+had but to turn her head a little on the pillow, and all the trees
+were green; it was summer-time, the ploughed fields were yellow,
+and the sky looked blue even if a moment before it had been ever
+so grey. And therefore the old granny imagined that she could work
+magic, and was never bored.
+
+But the magical window-panes possessed another quality; they bulged
+a little and consequently they magnified or reduced every object
+which came into their field of vision. Whenever, therefore, her
+grown-up son came home in a bad temper and scolded everybody, granny
+had but to wish him to be a good little boy again, and straightway
+she saw him quite small. Or, when she watched her grandchildren
+playing in the yard, and thought of their future--one, two,
+three--she changed her position ever so slightly, and they became
+grown-up men and women, as tall as giants.
+
+Ail during the summer the window stood open, for then the window-panes
+could not show her anything so beautiful as the reality. And now,
+on Midsummer Eve, the most beautiful time of all the year, she lay
+there and looked at the meadows and towards the wood, where the dove
+was singing its song. It sang most beautifully of the Lord Jesus,
+and the joy and splendour of the Kingdom of Heaven, where all are
+welcome who are weary and heavy laden.
+
+The old woman listened to the song for a little while, and then she
+laid that she was much obliged, but that Heaven could be no more
+beautiful than the earth itself, and she wanted nothing better.
+
+Thereupon the dove flew away over the meadow into the mountain
+glen, where the farmer stood digging a well.  He stood in a deep
+hole which he had dug, three yards below the surface; it was just
+as if he were standing in his grave.
+
+The dove settled on a fir tree and sung of the joy of Heaven, quite
+convinced that the man in the hole, who could see neither sky, nor
+sea, nor meadow, must be longing for Heaven.
+
+"No," said the farmer, "I must first dig a well; otherwise my summer
+guest will have no water, and the unhappy little mother will take
+her child and go and live elsewhere."
+
+The dove flew down to the strand, when the farmer's brother was busy
+hauling in the fishing-nets; it sat among the rushes and began to
+sing.
+
+"No," said the farmer's brother, "I must provide food for my family,
+otherwise my children will cry with hunger.  Later on!  Later on,
+I tell you!  Let's live first and die afterwards."
+
+
+***
+
+And the dove flew to the pretty cottage, where the unhappy little
+mother had taken rooms for the summer.  She sat on the verandah,
+working at a sewing machine; her face was as white as a lily, and
+her red felt hat looked like a huge poppy on her hair, which was
+as black as a mourning veil.  She was busy making a pinafore which
+her little girl was to wear on Midsummer Eve, and the child sat at
+her feet on the floor, cutting up little pieces of material which
+were not wanted.
+
+"Why isn't daddy coming home?" asked the little girl, looking up.
+
+That was a very difficult question, so difficult that the young
+mother could not answer it; and very possibly daddy could not have
+answered it either, for he was far away in a foreign country with
+his grief, which was twice as great as mammy's.
+
+The sewing machine was not in good order, but it stitched and
+stitched; it made as many pricks as a human heart can bear before
+it breaks, but every prick only served to pull the thread tighter--it
+was curious!
+
+"I want to go to the village, mammy," said the little girl. "I want
+to see the sun, for it is so dark here."
+
+
+"You shall go and play in the sunshine this afternoon, darling."
+
+I must tell you that it was very dark between the high cliffs on
+this side of the island; the cottage stood in a gloomy pine-grove,
+which completely hid the view of the sea.
+
+"And I want you to buy me a lot of toys, mammy."
+
+"Darling, we have so little money to buy toys with," answered the
+mother, bending her head still lower over their work.
+
+And that was the truth; for their comfort had changed into penury.
+They had no servant, and the mother had to do the whole house-work
+herself.
+
+But when she saw the sad face of the little girl, she took her on
+her knees.
+
+"Put your little arms round mammy's neck," she said.
+
+The little one obeyed.
+
+"Now give mammy a kiss!"
+
+The rosy little half-open mouth, which looked like the mouth of a
+little bird, was pressed against her lips; and when the blue eyes,
+blue as the flower of the flax, smiled into hers, her beautiful
+face reflected the sweet innocence of the little one, and made her
+look like a happy child herself, playing in the sunshine.
+
+"No use my singing to them of the Kingdom of Heaven," thought the
+dove, "but if I can in any way serve them, I will."
+
+And then it flew away towards the sunny village, for it had work
+to do there.
+
+***
+
+It was afternoon now; the little mother took a basket on one arm
+and the child's little hand into hers, and they left the cottage.
+She had never been to the village, but she knew that it was situated
+somewhere towards sunset, on the other side of the island, and the
+farmer had told her that she would have to get over six stiles and
+walk through six latticed gates before she could get there.
+
+And on they went.
+
+Their way lay along a footpath, full of stones and old tree-roots,
+so that she was obliged to carry the little girl, and that was very
+hard work. The doctor had told her that the child must not strain
+her left foot, because it was so weak that it might easily have
+grown deformed.
+
+The young mother staggered along, under her beloved burden, and
+large beads of perspiration stood like pearls on her forehead, for
+it was very hot in the wood.
+
+"I am so thirsty, mammy," whispered the little, complaining voice.
+
+"Have patience, darling, there will be plenty of water when we get
+there."
+
+And she kissed the little parclied mouth, and the child smiled and
+forgot all about her thirst.
+
+But the scorching rays of the sun burned their skin and there was
+not a breath of air in the wood.
+
+"Try and walk a little, darling," said the mother, putting the
+child down.
+
+But the little foot gave way and the child could not walk a step.
+
+"I am so tired, mammy," she laid, sitting down and beginning to
+cry.
+
+But the prettiest little flowers, which looked like rose-coloured
+bells and smelt of sweet almonds, grew all over the spot where she
+was sitting. She smiled when she saw them, for she had never seen
+anything half as lovely, and her smile strengthened the heart of
+the mother so that she could continue her walk with the child in
+her arms.
+
+Now they had arrived at the first gate. They passed through it and
+carefully re-fastened the latch.
+
+All of a sudden they heard a noise like a loud neighing; a horse
+galloped towards them, blocked the path and neighed again; its
+neighing was answered on the right and the left and from all sides
+of the wood; the ground trembled, the branches of the trees cracked,
+and the stones were scattered in all directions by the approaching
+hoofs. In less than no time the poor, frightened travellers were
+surrounded on all sides by a herd of savage horses.
+
+The child hid her face on her mother's shoulder, and her little
+heart ticked with fear like a watch.
+
+"I am so frightened!" she whispered.
+
+"Oh! Father in Heaven, help us!" prayed the mother.
+
+At the same moment a blackbird, sitting on a fir tree, began to
+sing; the horses scudded away as fast as they could, and there was
+once more silence in the wood.
+
+They came to the second gate, walked through and re-fastened the
+latch.
+
+They were on fallow ground now, and the sun scorched them even
+worse than it had done before.  They saw before them rows and rows
+of dull clods of earth, but in a steep place the clods suddenly began
+to move, and then they knew that what they had taken for clods of
+earth were really the backs of a flock of sheep.
+
+Sheep are quite gentle and inoffensive, especially the little lambs,
+but that is a good deal more than can be said of the ram, who is a
+savage brute and often takes a delight in attacking those who have
+never done him any harm. There he was already, jumping over a ditch
+right into the middle of their path. He lowered his head and walked
+a few steps backwards.
+
+"I am so frightened, mammy," said the little girl, and her heart
+began to beat fast.
+
+"Oh! Merciful Father in Heaven, help us!" sighed the mother, with
+an imploring look upwards.
+
+And high up, in the blue vault of the sky, fluttering its wings
+like a butterfly, a little lark began to sing. And as it sang the
+ram disappeared among the grey clods.
+
+They stood before the third gate. They were on a slope now;
+the ground was swampy and before long they came to a crevice. The
+hillocks looked like little graves, overgrown with vetch or white
+cotton-flowers and they had to be careful to avoid sinking into
+the swamp. Black berries of a poisonous kind grew in abundance
+everywhere; the little girl wanted to gather them, and because
+her mother would not permit it, she began to cry, for she did not
+understand what poisonous meant.
+
+And as they walked on, they noticed a white sheet, which looked
+as if it had been drawn in and out through the trees; the sun
+disappeared behind a bank of clouds and a white darkness, which
+was very went towards them, hoping to find some water in the place
+whence they came.
+
+On their way they passed a white cottage, behind a green fence
+with a white gate; the gate stood hospitably open.  They entered
+and found themselves in a garden where peonies and colombines grew.
+The mother noticed that the curtains in the lower storey were all
+drawn before the windows, and that all the curtains were white.  But
+one of the attic windows stood open and a white hand appeared above
+the pots of touch-me-nots.  It waved a little white handkerchief,
+as if it were waving a last farewell to one who was going on a long
+journey.
+
+They walked as far as the cottage; in the high grass lay a wreath
+of myrtle and white roses. But it was too big for a bridal wreath.
+
+They went through the front door and the mother called out if
+anybody were in?  As there was no reply they went into the parlour.
+On the floor, surrounded by a whole forest of flowers, stood a black
+coffin with silver feet and in the coffin lay a young girl with a
+bridal crown on her head.
+
+The walls of the room were made of new pinewood and only varnished
+with oil, so that all the knots were visible.  And the knots in
+the knot-holes looked for all the world like so many eyes.
+
+"Oh!  Just look at all the eyes, mammy," exclaimed the little girl.
+
+Yes, there were eyes of every description; big eyes, eloquent eyes,
+grave eyes; little shining baby eyes, with a lurking smile in the
+corner; wicked eyes, which showed too much white; frank and candid
+eyes, which looked one straight into the heart; and, over there,
+a big, gentle mother's eye, which regarded the dead girl lovingly;
+and a transparent tear of resin trembled on the lid, and sparkled
+in the setting sun like a green and red diamond.
+
+"Is she asleep?" asked the child, looking into the face of the dead
+girl.
+
+"Yes, she is asleep."
+
+"Is she a bride, mammy?"
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+The mother had recognised her. It was the girl who was to be a
+bride on Midsummer day, when her sailor lover would return home;
+but the sailor had written to say that he would not be home until
+the autumn, and his letter had broken her heart; for she could
+not bear to wait until the autumn, when the leaves would drop dead
+from the trees and the winter wind have a rough game with them in
+the lanes and alleys.
+
+She had heard the song of the dove and taken it to heart.
+
+The young mother left the cottage; now she knew where she would go.
+She put the heavy basket down outside the gate and took the child
+into her arms; and so she walked across the meadow which separated
+her from the shore.
+
+The meadow was a perfect sea of flowers, waving and whispering round
+her ankles, and the pollen water was calm and blue; and presently
+it was not water through which they sailed, but the blue blossoms
+of the flax, which she gathered in her outstretched hands.
+
+And the flowers bent down and rose up again, whispering, lapping
+against the sides of the boat like little waves. The flax-field
+before them appeared to be infinite, but presently a white mist
+enveloped them, and they heard the plashing of real waves, but
+above the mist they heard a lark singing.
+
+"How does the lark come to sing on the sea?" asked the child.
+
+"The sea is so green that the lark takes it for a meadow," answered
+the mother.
+
+The mist had dispersed again. The sky was blue and the lark was
+still singing.
+
+Then they saw, straight before them, in the middle of the sea, a
+green island with a white, sandy beach, and people, dressed all in
+pure white, walking hand in hand. The setting sun shone on the golden
+roof of a colonnade, where white fires burnt in sacred sacrificial
+vessels; and the green island was spanned by a rainbow, the colour
+of which was rose-red and sedge-green.
+
+"What is it, mammy?"
+
+The mother could make no reply.
+
+"Is it the Kingdom of Heaven of which the dove sang? What is the
+Kingdom of Heaven, mammy?"
+
+"A place, darling, where all people love one another," answered
+the mother, "where there is neither grief nor strife."
+
+"Then let us go there," said the child.
+
+"Yes, we will go," said the tired, forsaken little mother.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIG GRAVEL-SIFTER
+
+An eel-mother and her son were lying at the bottom of the sea, close
+to the landing-stage, watching a young fisherman getting ready his
+line.
+
+"Just look at him!" said the eel-mother, "there you have an example
+of the malice and cunning of the world . ... Watch him! He is
+holding a whip in his hand; he throws out the whip-lash--there it
+is!  attached to it is a weight which makes it sink--there's the
+weight! and below the weight is the hook with the worm. Don't take
+it in your mouth, whatever you do, for if you do, you are caught.
+As a rule only the silly bass and red-eyes take the bait.  There!
+Now you know all about it."
+
+The forest of seaweed with its shells and snails began to rock; a
+plashing and drumming could be heard and a huge red whale passed
+like a flash over their heads; he had a tail-fin like a cork-screw,
+and that was what he worked with.
+
+"That's a steamer," said the eel-mother; "make room!"
+
+She had hardly spoken these words when a furious uproar arose above.
+There was a tramping and stamping as if the people overhead were
+intent on building a bridge between the shore and the boat in two
+seconds. But it was difficult to see anything on account of the
+oil and soot which were making the water thick and muddy.
+
+There was something very heavy on the bridge now, so heavy that it
+made it creak, and men's voices were shouting:
+
+"Lift it up!--Ho, there!--Up!--Hold tight!--Up with it!--Up!--Push
+it along!--Lift it up!"
+
+Then something indescribable happened.  First it sounded as if
+sixty piles of wood were all being sawn at the same time; then a
+cleft opened in the water which went down to the bottom of the sea,
+and there, wedged between three stones, stood a black box, which
+sang and played and tinkled and jingled, close to the eel-mother
+and her son, who hastily disappeared in the lowest depths of the
+ocean.
+
+Then a voice up above shouted:--
+
+"Three fathoms deep! Impossible! Leave it alone. It isn't worth
+while hauling the old lumber up again; it would cost more to repair
+than it's worth."
+
+The voice belonged to the master of the mine, whose piano had fallen
+into the sea.
+
+Silence followed; the huge fish with a fin like a screw swam away,
+and the silence deepened.
+
+After sunset a breeze arose; the black box in the forest of seaweed
+rocked and knocked against the stones, and at every knock it played,
+so that the fishes came swimming from all directions to watch and
+to listen.
+
+The eel-mother was the first to put in an appearance.  And when
+she saw herself reflected in the polished surface, she said: "It's
+a wardrobe with a plate-glass door."
+
+There was logic in her remark, and therefore all the others said:
+"It is a wardrobe with a plate-glass door."
+
+Next a rock-fish arrived and smelt at the candlesticks, which had
+not yet come off. Tiny bits of candle ends were still sticking in
+the sockets. "That's something to eat," it said, "if only it weren't
+for the whipcord!"
+
+Then a great bass came and lay flat on the pedal; but immediately
+there arose such a rumbling in the box that all the fishes hastily
+swam away.
+
+They got no further on that day.
+
+At night it blew half a gale, and the musical box went thump, thump,
+thump, like a pavier's beetle, until sunrise. When the eel-mother
+and all the rest of them returned, they found that it had undergone
+a change.
+
+The lid stood open like a shark's mouth; they saw a row of teeth,
+bigger than they had ever seen before, but every other tooth was
+black. The whole machine was swollen at the sides like a seed-fish;
+the boards were bent, and the pedal pointed upwards like a foot
+in the act of walking; the arms of the candlesticks looked like
+clenched fists. It was a dreadful sight!
+
+"It's falling to pieces," screamed the bass, and spread out a fin,
+ready to turn.
+
+And now the boards fell off, the box was open, and one could see
+what it was like inside; and that was the prettiest sight of all.
+
+"It's a trap! Don't go too near!" said the eel-mother.
+
+"It's a hand-loom!" said the stickleback, who builds a nest for
+itself and understands the art of weaving.
+
+"It's a gravel-sifter," said a red-eye, who lived below the
+lime-quarry.
+
+It may have been a gravel-sifter.  But there were a great many
+fallals and odds and ends which were not in the least like the
+sifter which they use for riddling sand. There were little manichords
+which resembled toes in white woollen stockings, and when they
+moved it was just as if a foot with two hundred skeleton toes were
+walking; and it walked and walked and yet never left the spot.
+
+It was a strange thing. But the game was up, for the skeleton no
+longer touched the strings; it played on the water as if it were
+knocking at a door with its fingers, asking whether it might come
+in.
+
+The game was up. A school of sticklebacks came and swam right through
+the box, and when they trailed their spikes over the strings, the
+strings sounded again; but they played in a new way, for now they
+were tuned to another pitch.
+
+***
+
+On a rosy summer evening soon afterwards two children, a boy and
+a girl, were sitting on the landing-bridge. They were not thinking
+of anything in particular, unless it was a tiny piece of mischief,
+when all at once they heard soft music from the bottom of the sea,
+which startled them.
+
+"Do you hear it?"
+
+"Yes, what is it? It sounds like scales."
+
+"No, it's the song of the gnats."
+
+"No, it's a mermaid!"
+
+"There are no mermaids. The schoolmaster said so."
+
+"The schoolmaster doesn't know."
+
+"Oh! do listen!"
+
+They listened for a long time, and then they went away, home.
+
+Presently two newly arrived summer guests sat down on the bridge;
+he looked into her eyes, which reflected the golden sunset and the
+green shores.  Then they heard the sounds of music; it sounded as
+if somebody were playing on musical glasses, but in a strange new
+key, only heard in the dreams of those who dream of giving a new
+message to the world.  But they never thought of looking for any
+outside source, they believed that it was the song which their own
+hearts were singing.
+
+Next a couple of annual visitors came sauntering along; they knew
+the trick and took a delight in saying in a loud voice:
+
+"It is the submerged piano of the master of the mine."
+
+But whenever there were only new arrivals present, who did not know
+anything about it, they were puzzled and enjoyed the music, until
+some of the older ones came and enlightened them. And then they
+enjoyed it no longer.
+
+The musical box lay there all the summer. The sticklebacks taught
+their art to the bass, who became much more expert. And the piano
+became a regular fishing-ground for the summer guests, where they
+could always be sure to catch bass; the pilots spread out their
+nets round about it, and once a waiter fished there for red-eyes.
+But when his line with the old bell weight had run out, and he tried
+to wind it up again, he heard a run in X minor, and then the hook
+was caught. He pulled and pulled, and in the end he brought up five
+fingers with wool at the fingertips, and the bones cracked like
+the bones of a skeleton. Then he was frightened and flung his catch
+back into the sea, although he knew quite well what it was.
+
+In the dog days, when the water is warm and all the fish retire to
+the greater depths to enjoy the coolness, the music ceased. But on
+a moonlit night in August, the summer guests held a regatta. The
+master of the mine and his wife were present. They sat in a white
+boat and were slowly rowed about by their sons. And as their boat
+was gliding over the black water, the surface of which was like
+silver and gold in the moonlight, they heard a sound of music just
+below their boat.
+
+"Ha ha!" laughed the master of the mine, "listen to our old piano!
+Ha ha!"
+
+But he was silent when he saw that his wife hung her head, in the
+way pelicans do in pictures; it looked as if she wanted to bite
+her own neck and hide her face.
+
+The old piano and its long history had awakened memories in her of
+the first dining-room they furnished together, the first of their
+children which had had music lessons, the boredom of the long
+evenings, only to be chased away by the crashing volumes of sound
+which overcame the dulness of everyday life, changed bad temper
+into cheerfulness, and lent new beauty even to the old furniture
+. . . . But that is a story which belongs elsewhere.
+
+When it was autumn and the winter wind began to blow, the pilchards
+came in their thousands and swam through the musical box. It was
+like a farewell concert, and nothing else, and the seagulls and
+stormy petrels came in crowds to listen to it. And in the night the
+musical box was carried out to sea; that was the end of the matter.
+
+
+
+THE SLUGGARD
+
+Conductor Crossberg was fond of lying in bed in the morning,
+firstly, because  he had to conduct the orchestra in the evening,
+and secondly, because he drank more than one glass of beer before
+he went home and to bed. He had tried once or twice to get up early,
+but had found no sense in it.  He had called on a friend, but had
+found him asleep; he had wanted to pay money into the bank, but had
+found it still closed; he had gone to the library to borrow music,
+but it was not yet open; he had wanted to use the electric trams,
+but they had not yet started running. It was impossible to get a
+cab at this hour of the morning; he could not even buy a pinch of
+his favourite snuff; there was nothing at all for him to do. And
+so he had eventually formed the habit of staying in bed until late;
+and after all, he had no one to please but himself.
+
+He loved the sun and flowers and children; but he could not live on
+the sunny side of the street on account of his delicate instruments,
+which were out of tune almost as soon as they were put into a sunny
+room.
+
+Therefore, on the 1st of April, he took rooms which faced north.
+He was quite sure that there was no mistake about this, for he
+carried a compass on his watch-chain, and he could find the Great
+Bear in the evening sky.
+
+So far, so good; but then the spring came, and it was so warm that
+it was really pleasant to live in rooms with a northern aspect.
+His bedroom joined the sitting-room; he always kept his bedroom
+in pitch-black darkness by letting down the Venetian blinds; there
+were no Venetian blinds in the sitting-room, because they were not
+wanted there.
+
+And the early summer came and everything grew green. The conductor
+had dined at the restaurant "Hazelmount," and had drunk a bottle of
+Burgundy with his dinner, and therefore he slept long and soundly,
+especially as the theatre was closed on that day.
+
+He slept well, but while he slept it grew so warm in the room that
+he woke up two or three times, or, at any rate, he thought he did.
+Once he fancied that his wall-paper was on fire, but that was probably
+the effect of the Burgundy; another time he felt as if something
+hot had touched his face, but that was certainly the Burgundy; and
+so he turned over and fell asleep again.
+
+At half-past nine he got up, dressed, and went into the sitting-room
+to refresh himself with a glass of milk which always stood ready
+for him in the morning.
+
+It was anything but cool in the sitting-room this morning; it
+was almost warm, too warm. And the cold milk was not cold; it was
+lukewarm, unpleasantly lukewarm.
+
+The conductor was not a hot-tempered man, but he liked order and
+method in everything. Therefore he rang for old Louisa, and since
+he made his first fifty remonstrances always in a very mild tone,
+he spoke kindly but firmly to her, as she put her head through the
+door.
+
+"Louisa," he said, "you have given me lukewarm milk."
+
+"Oh! no, sir," replied Louisa, "it was quite cold, it must have
+got warm in standing."
+
+"Then you must have had a fire in the room; it's very warm here
+this morning."
+
+No, Louisa had not had a fire; and she retired into the kitchen,
+very much hurt.
+
+He forgave her for the milk. But a look round the sitting-room
+made him feel very depressed. I must tell you that he had built a
+little private altar in a corner, near the piano, which consisted
+of a small table with two silver candlesticks, a large photograph
+of a young woman, and a tall, gold-edged champagne glass. This
+glass--it was the glass he had used on his wedding-day, and he was
+a widower now--always contained a red rose in memory of and as an
+offering to her who once had been the sunshine of his life. Whether
+it was summer or winter, there was always a rose; and in the winter
+time it lasted a whole week, that is to say if he trimmed the stem
+occasionally and put a little salt into the water. Now, he had put
+a fresh rose into the glass only last night, and to-day it was faded,
+shrivelled up, dead, with its head drooping.  This was a bad omen.
+He knew what sensitive creatures flowers are, and had noticed that
+they thrive with some people and not with others. He remembered how
+sometimes, in his wife's lifetime, her rose, which always stood on
+her little work-table, had faded and died quite unexpectedly. And
+he had also noticed that this always happened when _his sun_ was
+hiding behind a cloud, which after a while would dissolve in large
+drops to the accompaniment of a low rumbling. Roses must have peace
+and kind words; they can't bear harsh voices. They love music, and
+sometimes he would play to the roses and they opened their buds
+and smiled.
+
+Now Louisa was a hard woman, and often muttered and growled to
+herself when she turned out the room. There were days when she was
+in a very bad temper, so that the milk curdled in the kitchen, and
+the whole dinner tasted of discord, which the conductor noticed
+at once; for he was himself like a delicate instrument, whose soul
+responded to moods and influences which other people did not feel.
+
+He concluded that Louisa had killed the rose; perhaps if she had
+scolded the poor thing, or knocked the glass, or breathed on the
+flower angrily, a treatment which it could not bear. Therefore he
+rang again; and when Louisa put in her head, he said, not unkindly,
+but more firmly than before:
+
+"What have you done to my rose, Louisa?"
+
+"Nothing, sir!"
+
+"Nothing? Do you think the flower died without a very good reason?
+You can see for yourself that there is no water in the glass! You
+must have poured it away!"
+
+As Louisa had done no such thing, she went into the kitchen and began
+to cry, for it is disagreeable to be blamed when one is innocent.
+
+Conductor Crossberg, who could not bear to see people crying, said
+no more, but in the evening he bought a new rose, one which had
+only just been cut, and, of course, was not wired, for his wife
+had always had an objection to wired flowers.
+
+And then he went to bed and fell asleep. And again he fancied in
+his sleep that the wall-paper was on fire, and that his pillow was
+very hot; but he went on sleeping.
+
+On the following morning, when he came into the sitting-room, to
+say his morning prayers before the little altar--alas! there lay
+his rose, all the pink petals scattered by the side of the stem.
+He was just stretching out his hand to touch the bell, when he saw
+the photograph of his beloved, half rolled up, lying by the side
+of the champagne glass.  Louisa could not have done that!
+
+"She, who was my all, my conscience and my muse," he thought in his
+childlike mind, "she is dissatisfied and angry with me; what have
+I done?"
+
+Well, when he put this question to his conscience, he found, as
+usual, more than one little fault, and he resolved to eradicate
+his faults, gradually, of course.
+
+Then he had the portrait framed and a glass shade put over the rose,
+hoping that now things would be all right, but secretly fearing
+that they would not.
+
+After that he went on a week's journey; he returned home late at
+night and went straight to bed.  He woke up once, imagining that
+the hanging lamp was burning.
+
+When he entered the sitting-room late on the following morning, it
+was downright hot there, and everything looked frightfully shabby.
+The blinds were faded; the cover on the piano had lost its bright
+colours; the bound volumes of music looked as if they were deformed;
+the oil in the hanging-lame had evaporated and hung in a trembling
+drop under the ornament, where the flies used to dance; the water
+in the water-bottle was warm.
+
+But the saddest thing of all was that her portrait, too, was faded,
+as faded as autumn leaves. He was very unhappy, and whenever he
+was very unhappy he went to the piano, or took up his violin, as
+the case might be . ...
+
+This time he sat down at the piano, with a vague notion of
+playing the sonata in E minor, Grieg's, of course, which had been
+her favourite, and was the best and finest, in his opinion, after
+Beethoven's sonata in D minor; not because E comes after D, but
+because it was so.
+
+But the piano was very refractory to-day. It was out of tune, and
+made all sorts of difficulties, so that he began to believe that
+his eyes and fingers were in a bad temper. But it was not their
+fault.  The piano, quite simply, was out of tune, although a very
+clever tuner had only just tuned it. It was like a piano bewitched,
+enchanted.
+
+He seized his violin; he had to tune it, of course.  But when he
+wanted to tighten the E string, the screw refused to work. It had
+dried up; and when the conductor tried to use force, the string
+snapped with a sharp sound, and rolled itself up like a dried
+eel-skin.
+
+It was bewitched!
+
+But the fact that her photograph had faded was really the worst
+blow, and therefore he threw a veil over the altar.
+
+In doing this, he threw a veil over all that was most beautiful
+in his life; and he became depressed, began to mope, and stopped
+going out in the evening.
+
+It would be Midsummer soon. The nights were shorter than the days,
+but since the Venetian blinds kept his bedroom dark, the conductor
+did not notice it.
+
+At last, one night--it was Midsummer night--he awoke, because the
+clock in the sitting-room struck thirteen. There was something
+uncanny about this, firstly, because thirteen is an unlucky number,
+and secondly, because no well-behaved clock can strike thirteen.
+He did not fall asleep again, but he lay in his bed, listening.
+There was a peculiar ticking noise in the sitting-room, and then
+a loud bang, as if a piece of furniture had cracked. Directly
+afterwards he heard stealthy footsteps, and then the clock began
+to strike again; and it struck and struck, fifty times--a hundred
+times. It really was uncanny!
+
+And now a luminous tuft shot into his bedroom and threw a figure
+on the wall, a strange figure, something like a fylfot, and it came
+from the sitting-room.  There was a light, then, in the sitting-room?
+But who had lit it? And there was a tinkling of glasses, just as
+if guests were there; champagne glasses of cut-crystal; but not a
+word was uttered.  And now he heard more sounds, sounds of canvas
+being furled, or clothes passed through a mangle, or something of
+that sort.
+
+The conductor felt compelled to get up and look, and he went,
+commending his soul into the hands of the Almighty.
+
+Well, first of all he saw Louisa's print-dress disappearing through
+the kitchen door; then he saw blinds, but blinds which had been
+pulled up; he saw the dining-table covered with flowers, arranged
+in glasses; as many flowers as there had been on his wedding-day
+when he had brought his bride home.
+
+And behold! The sun, the sun shone right into his face, shone on
+blue fjords and distant woods; it was the sun which had illuminated
+the sitting-room and played all the little tricks. He blessed the
+sun which had been up so early in the morning and made a game of
+the sluggard.  And he blessed the memory of her whom he called the
+sun of his life.  It was not a new name, but he could not think of
+a better one, and as it was, it was good enough.
+
+And on his altar stood a rose, quite fresh, as fresh as _she_ had
+been before the never-ending work had tired her. Tired her! Yes,
+she had not been one of the strong ones; and life with its blows
+and knocks had been too brutal for her! He had not forgotten how,
+after a day's cleaning or ironing, she would throw herself on the
+sofa and say in a complaining little voice, "I am so tired!" Poor
+little thing, this earth had not been her home, she had only played
+once, on tour, as it were, and then had gone far away.
+
+"She lacked sunshine," the doctor had said, for at that time they
+couldn't afford sun, because rooms on the sunny side are so expensive.
+
+But now he had sun without having known it; he stood right in the
+sunlight, but it was too late.  Midsummer was past, and soon the
+sun would disappear again, stay away for a year and then come back.
+Things are very strange in this world!
+
+
+
+THE PILOT'S TROUBLES
+
+The pilot cutter lay outside, beyond the last beacon fire on the
+headland; the winter sun had set long ago and the sea ran high; it
+was the real sea with real huge breakers. Suddenly the first mate
+signalled: "Sailing ship to windward."
+
+Far out at sea, a long way off the harbour, a brig was visible; she
+had backed her sails and hoisted the pilot's flag; she was asking
+to be taken into port.
+
+"Look out!" shouted the master-pilot, who was standing at the helm.
+"We'll have a job in this sea, but we must try and get hold of her
+in tacking, and you, Victor, throw yourself into her rigging as
+soon as you get the chance ... bring the boat round!  Now! Clear!"
+
+The cutter turned and steered a course to the brig which lay outside,
+pitching.
+
+"Queer that she should have furled all her canvas.   ... Can any
+one see a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either!
+Look out, Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood
+waiting on the gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of
+a big wave, he leapt into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter
+sheered off, tacked, and made for the harbour.
+
+Victor sat in the rigging, half-way between deck and cross-trees,
+trying to recover his breath before descending on deck. As soon as
+he came down he went to the helm, which was quite the right thing
+for him to do. Imagine how shocked he was when he found it deserted!
+He shouted "Ho there!" but received no reply.
+
+"They're all inside, drinking," he thought, peering through the
+cabin windows. No, not a soul!  He crossed over to the kitchen,
+examined the quarterdeck,--not a living being anywhere. Then he
+realised that he was on a deserted ship; he concluded that she had
+sprung a leak and was sinking.
+
+He tried to discover the whereabouts of the cutter, but she had
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+It was quite impossible for him to make port.  To set the sails,
+haul in the brails and bowlines, and at the same time stand at the
+helm, was more than any sailor could manage.
+
+There was nothing to b0e done, then, but let the vessel drift,
+although he was aware of the fact that she was drifting out to sea.
+
+It would not be true to say that he was pleased, but a pilot is
+prepared for anything, and the thought that he might possibly meet
+a sailing ship by and by, reassured him. But it was necessary to
+show a light and signal.
+
+He made his way towards the kitchen, intending to look for matches
+and a lantern. Although the sea was very rough, he noticed that
+the ship did not move, a fact which astonished him very much.  But
+when he came to the mainmast, he was even more astonished to find
+himself walking on a parqueted floor, partly covered by a strip
+of carpet of a small blue and white checked pattern. He walked and
+walked, but still the carpet stretched before him, and still he
+came no nearer to the kitchen. It was certainly uncanny, but it
+was also amusing, for it was a new experience.
+
+He was a long way off the end of the carpet yet, when he found
+himself at the entrance to a passage with brilliantly illuminated
+shops on either side.  On his right stood a weighing machine and
+an automatic figure. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped on the
+little platform of the weighing machine and slipped a penny in the
+slot. As he was quite sure that he weighed eleven stone, he could
+not help smiling when the indicator registered only one.  Either
+the machine has gone wrong, he thought, or I have been transported
+to some other planet, ten times larger, or ten times smaller than
+the earth; he had been a pupil at the School of Navigation, you
+see, and knew something of astronomy.
+
+He jumped off and turned to the automatic figure, eager to find
+out what it contained; his penny had hardly dropped when a little
+flap opened and a large, white envelope, sealed with a big, red seal,
+fell out.  He couldn't make out the letters on the seal, but that
+was neither here nor there, as he did not know who his correspondent
+was.
+
+He tore open the envelope and read  ... first of all the signature,
+just as everybody else does. The letter began ... but I'll tell
+you that later on; it's sufficient for you to know now that he read
+it three times and then put it into his breast-pocket with a very
+thoughtful mien; a very thoughtful mien.
+
+Then he penetrated into the heart of the passage, all the time
+keeping carefully in the centre of the carpet. There were all sorts
+of shops, but not a single human being, either before or behind
+the counters. When he had walked a little way, he stopped before a
+big shop window, behind which a great number of shells and snails
+were exhibited.  As the door stood open, he went in. The walls of
+the shop were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and filled
+with snails collected from all the oceans of the world. Nobody was
+in the shop, but a ring of tobacco smoke hung in the air, which
+looked as if somebody had only just blown it. Victor, who was a
+bright lad, put his finger through it. "Hurrah!" he laughed, "now
+I'm engaged to Miss Tobacco!"
+
+A queer sound, like the ticking of a clock, fell on his ear, but
+there was no clock anywhere, and presently he discovered that the
+sound came from a bunch of keys. One of the keys had apparently
+just been put into the cash-box, and the other keys swung to and
+fro with the regular movement of a pendulum. This went on for quite
+a little while.  Then there was silence once more, and when it was
+as still as still could be, a low whistling sound, like the wind
+blowing through the rigging of a ship, or steam escaping through
+a narrow tube, could be heard.  The sound was made by the snails;
+but as they were of different sizes, each one of them whistled in
+a different key; it sounded like a whole orchestra of whistlers.
+Victor, who was born on a Thursday, and therefore understood the
+birds' language, pricked up his ears and tried to catch what they
+were whistling. It was not long before he understood what they were
+saying.
+
+"I have the prettiest name," said one of them, "for I am called
+Strombus pespelicanus!"
+
+"I'm much the best looking," said the purple-snail, whose name was
+Murex and something else quaint.
+
+"But I've the best voice," said the tiger-shell; it is called
+tiger-shell because it looks like a panther.
+
+"Oh!  tut, tut!" said the common garden-snail, "I'm more in demand
+than any other snail in the world; you'll find me all over the
+flower-beds in the summer, and in the winter I lie in the wood-shed
+in a cabbage tub. They call me uninteresting, but they can't do
+without me."
+
+"What dreadful creatures they are," thought Victor, "they think
+of nothing but blowing their own trumpets"; and to while away the
+time he took up a book which lay on the counter. As he had learned
+to use his eyes, he saw at a glance that it opened at page 240 and
+that chapter 51 began at the top of the left-hand side, and had
+for a motto a verse written by Coleridge, the gist of which struck
+him like a flash of lightning. With burning cheeks and bated breath
+he read ... I'll tell you what he read later on, but I may admit
+at once that it had nothing whatever to do with snails.
+
+Victor liked the shop and sat down at a little distance from
+the cash-box, the immediate vicinity of which is never without a
+certain risk. He began to ponder over all the queer animals which
+went down to the sea as he did; he was sure that they could not
+find it too warm at the bottom of the sea and yet they perspired;
+and whenever they perspired chalk, it immediately became a new
+house. They wriggled like worms, some to the right and some to the
+left; it was clear that they had to wriggle in some direction and,
+of course, they could not all turn to the same side.
+
+All at once a voice came from the other side of the green curtain
+which separated the shop from the back parlour.
+
+"Yes, we know all that," shouted the voice, "but what we don't
+know is this: the cockle of the ear belongs to the species of the
+Helix, and the little bones near the drum are exactly like the
+animal in Limnaeus stagnalis, and that's printed in a book."
+
+Victor, who realised at once that the voice belonged to a thought-reader,
+shouted back brutally, but without showing the least surprise:--
+
+"We know all that, but why we should have a Helix in our ears is
+as unknown to the book as to the dealer in snails--"
+
+"I'm not a dealer in snails," bellowed the voice behind the curtain.
+
+"What are you, then?" Victor bellowed back.
+
+"I'm ... a troll!"
+
+At the same moment the curtains were drawn aside a little, and
+a head appeared in the opening of so terrifying an aspect, that
+anybody but Victor would have taken to his heels. But he, who
+knew exactly how to treat a troll, looked steadily at the glowing
+pipe-bowl; for that is exactly what the troll looked like as he
+stood blowing rings through the parted curtains. When the smoke
+rings had floated within his reach, he caught them with his fingers
+and threw them back.
+
+"I see you can play quoits," snarled the troll.
+
+"A little bit," answered Victor.
+
+"And you aren't afraid?"
+
+"A sailor must never be afraid of anything; if he is, the girls
+won't like him."
+
+And as he was tired of the snails, Victor seized the opportunity
+to beat a retreat without appearing to run away. He left the shop,
+walking backwards, for he knew that a man must never show his back
+to the enemy, because his back is far more sensitive than ever his
+face could be.
+
+And on he went on the blue and white carpet.  The passage was not
+a straight one, but wound and curved so that it was impossible to
+see the end of it; and still there were new shops, and still no
+people and no shop proprietors. But Victor, taught by his experience,
+understood that they were all in the back parlours.
+
+At last he came to a scent shop, which smelt of all the flowers of
+wood and meadow; he thought of his sweetheart and decided to go in
+and buy her a bottle of Eau-de-Cologne.
+
+No sooner thought than done. The shop was very much like the snail
+shop, but the scent of the flowers was so overpowering that it made
+his head ache, and he had to sit down on a chair. A strong smell
+of almonds caused a buzzing in his cars, but left a pleasant taste
+in his mouth, like cherry-wine.  Victor, never at a loss, felt in
+his pocket for his little brass box, that had a tiny mirror on the
+inside of the lid, and put a piece of chewing tobacco in his mouth;
+this cleared his brain and cured his headache.  Then he rapped on
+the counter and shouted:--
+
+"Hallo! Any one there?"
+
+There was no answer. "I'd better go into the back parlour," he
+thought, "and do my shopping there." He took a little run, put his
+right hand on the counter and cleared it at a bound. Then he pushed
+the curtains aside and peeped into the room.  A sight met his eyes
+which completely dazzled him.  An orange tree, laden with blossoms
+and fruit, stood on a long table covered with a Persian rug, and
+its shining leaves looked like the leaves of a camellia.  There
+were rows of cut-crystal glasses filled with all the most beautiful
+scented flowers of the whole world, such as jasmine, tuberoses,
+violets, lilies of the valley, roses, and lavender. On one end
+of the table, half hidden by the orange tree, he saw two delicate
+white hands and a pair of slender wrists under turned-up sleeves,
+busy with a small distilling apparatus, made of silver. He did not
+see the lady's face, and she, too, did not appear to see him.  But
+when he noticed that her dress was green and yellow, he knew at once
+that she was a sorceress, for the caterpillar of the hawk-moth is
+green and yellow, and it, too, knows how to bewitch the eye.  The
+lower end of its body looks as if it were its head and has a horn
+like a unicorn, so that it frightens away its enemies with its
+mock face, while it feeds in peace with that part of its body which
+looks like its hind quarter.
+
+"I know that I'll have a bit of a tussle with her," thought Victor,
+"but I'd better let her begin!" He was quite right, because if one
+wants to make people talk, one has but to remain silent oneself.
+
+"Are you the gentleman who is looking for a summer resort?" asked
+the lady, coming towards him.
+
+"That's me!" said Victor, merely in order to say something, for
+he had never thought of looking for a summer resort in the winter
+time.
+
+The lady seemed embarrassed, but she was as beautiful as sin, and
+cast a bewitching glance at the pilot.
+
+"It's no use trying to bewitch me, for I am engaged to a very nice
+girl," he said, staring between her second and third finger in the
+manner of a witch, when she wants to charm the judge.
+
+The lady was young and beautiful from the waist upwards, but below
+the waist she seemed very old; it was just as if she had been
+patched together of two pieces which didn't match.
+
+"Well, show me the summer resort," said the pilot.
+
+"If you please, sir," replied the lady, opening a door in the
+background.
+
+They went out and at once found themselves in a wood, consisting
+entirely of oak trees.
+
+"We'll only just have to cross the wood, and we'll be there," said
+the lady, beckoning to the pilot to go on, for she did not want to
+show him her back.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if there were a bull somewhere about," said
+the pilot, who had all his wits about him.
+
+"Surely you aren't afraid of a bull?" replied the lady.
+
+"We'll see," answered the pilot.
+
+They walked across stony hillocks, tree-roots, moors and fells,
+clearings and deep recesses, but Victor could not help turning
+round every now and then to see whether she was following him, for
+he could not hear her footsteps. And even when he had turned round
+and had her right before his eyes he had to look very hard, for
+her green and yellow dress made her almost invisible.
+
+At last they came to an open space, and when Victor had reached
+the centre of the clearing, there was the bull; it was just as if
+it had stood there all the time waiting for him. It was jet black,
+with a white star in the middle of its forehead, and the corners
+of its eyes were blood-red.
+
+Escape was impossible; there was nothing for it but to fight. Victor
+glanced at the ground and behold! there lay a stout cudgel, newly
+cut. He seized it and took up his position.
+
+"You or I!" he shouted. "Come on! One--two--three!"  The fight
+began.  The bull backed like a steam-boat, smoke came through its
+nostrils, it moved its tail like a propeller, and then came on at
+full speed.
+
+The cudgel flashed through the air and with a sound like a shot hit
+the bull right between the eyes.  Victor sprang aside, and the bull
+dashed past him.  Then everything seemed to change, and Victor,
+terrified, saw the monster make for the border of the wood, from
+whence his sweetheart, in a light summer dress, emerged to meet
+him.
+
+"Climb up the tree, Anna," he shouted. "The bull's coming!" It was
+a cry of anguish from the very bottom of his soul.
+
+And he ran after the monster and hit it on the slenderest part of
+its hind-legs in the hope of breaking its shin-bone. With superhuman
+strength he felled the giant. Anna was saved, and the pilot held
+her in his arms.
+
+"Where shall we go?" he asked. "Home, of course?"
+
+It did not occur to him to ask her whence she had come, for reasons
+which we shall learn hereafter.
+
+They walked along the footpath, hand in hand, happy at their
+unexpected meeting. When they had gone a little way, Victor suddenly
+stood still.
+
+"Just wait a moment," he said. "I must go and have a look at the
+bull; I'm sorry for it, poor brute!"
+
+The expression of Anna's face changed, and the corners of her eyes
+grew bloodshot. "All right!  I'll wait," she said, with a savage
+and malicious glance at the pilot.
+
+Victor gazed at her sadly, for he knew that she had told him an
+untruth. But he followed her.  There was something extraordinary
+about her walk, and all at once the whole of his left side grew as
+cold as ice.
+
+When they had proceeded a little further, Victor stopped again.
+
+"Give me your hand," he said. "No, the left one."  He saw that she
+was not wearing her engagement ring.
+
+"Where's your ring?" he asked.
+
+"I've lost it," she replied.
+
+"You are my Anna, and yet you are not," he exclaimed. "A stranger
+has taken possession of you."
+
+As he said these words, she looked at him with a side-long glance,
+and all at once he realised that her eyes were not human, but the
+blood-shot eyes of a bull; and then he understood.
+
+"Begone, witch!" he cried, and breathed into her face.
+
+If you could only have seen what happened now!  The would-be Anna
+was immediately transformed, her face grew green and yellow like
+gall, and she burst with rage; at the next moment a black rabbit
+jumped over the bilberry bushes and disappeared in the wood.
+
+Victor stood alone in the perplexing, bewildering forest, but he
+was not afraid. "I will go on," he thought, "and if I should meet
+the devil himself, I will not be afraid; I shall say the Lord's
+Prayer, and that will go a long way towards protecting me."
+
+He trudged on and presently he came to a cottage.  He knocked; the
+door was opened by an old woman; he inquired whether he could stay
+the night. He could stay, if he liked, but the old dame had nothing
+to offer him but a small attic, which was only so so.
+
+Victor did not mind what it was like, as long as it was a place
+where he could sleep.
+
+When they were agreed about the price, he followed her upstairs
+to the attic. A huge wasp's nest hung right over the bed, and the
+old dame began to make excuses for harbouring such guests.
+
+"It doesn't matter in the least," interrupted the pilot, "wasps
+are like human beings, quite inoffensive until you irritate them.
+Perhaps you keep snakes, too?"
+
+"Well, there are some, of course."
+
+"I thought so; they like the warmth of the bed, so we shall get
+on. Are they adders or vipers? I don't very much mind which, but
+on the whole I prefer vipers."
+
+The old dame watched him breathlessly while he arranged his bed,
+and in every way betrayed his firm resolution to spend the night
+in her cottage.
+
+All at once an excited buzzing could be heard outside the closed
+window, and a huge hornet bumped against the glass.
+
+"Let the poor thing come in," said the pilot, opening the window.
+
+"No, no, not that one, kill it!" yelled the old dame.
+
+"Why should I? Perhaps its young ones are in this room, and would
+starve. Am I to lie here and listen to the screaming of hungry
+babies? No, thank you! Come in, little wasp!"
+
+"It will sting you!" shrieked the old dame.
+
+"No, indeed it won't. It only stings the wicked."
+
+The window was open now. A big hornet, as large as a pigeon's egg,
+flew in; buzzing like a bass string, it flew at once to the nest.
+And then it was still.
+
+The old dame left the attic, and the pilot got between the sheets.
+
+When he came downstairs into the parlour on the following morning,
+the old dame was not there. A black cat sat on the only chair and
+purred; cats have been condemned to purr, because they are such
+lazy beasts, and they must do something.
+
+"Get up, pussy," said the pilot, "and let me sit down."
+
+And he took the cat and put it on the hearth.  But it was no
+ordinary cat, for immediately sparks began to fly from its fur,
+and the chips caught file.
+
+"If you can light a fire, you can make me some coffee," said the
+pilot.
+
+But the cat is so constituted that it never wants to do what it
+is told, and so it began at once to swear and spit until the fire
+was out.
+
+In the meantime the pilot had heard somebody leaning a spade against
+the wall of the cottage. He looked out of the window and saw the
+old dame standing in a pit which she had dug in the garden.
+
+"I see you are digging a grave for me, old woman," he said.
+
+The old dame came in. When she saw Victor safe and sound, she was
+beside herself with amazement; she confessed that up to now nobody
+had ever left the attic alive, and that therefore she had dug his
+grave in anticipation.
+
+She was a little short-sighted, but it seemed to her that the pilot
+was wearing a strange handkerchief round his neck.
+
+"Ha ha! Have you ever seen such a handkerchief in all your life?"
+laughed Victor, putting his hand up to his throat.
+
+Wound round his neck was a snake which had tied itself in front
+into a knot with two bright yellow spots; the spots were its ears,
+and its eyes shone like diamonds.
+
+"Show auntie your scarfpins, little pet," said the pilot, gently
+scratching its head, and the snake opened its mouth and disclosed
+two sharp, pointed teeth right in the middle of it.
+
+At the sight of them the old dame fell on her knees and said, "Now
+I see that you have received my letter and understood its meaning.
+You are a brave lad!"
+
+"So the letter I got out of the automatic machine was from you,"
+said the pilot, taking it from his breast pocket. "I shall have it
+framed when I get home."
+
+Would you like to know what was written in the letter? Just these
+few words in plain English, "Don't be bluffed," which might be
+translated, "Fortune favours the Brave."
+
+***
+
+Yes, but how was it that the pilot could walk from the ship down the
+passage?" asked Annie-Mary, when her mama had finished the story.
+"And did he come back, or had he dreamed the whole story?"
+
+"I'll tell you another time, little Miss Curiosity," said her mama.
+
+"And then there was a verse in the book--"
+
+"What verse? Oh, I see ... in the snail shop.  ... Well, I'm afraid
+I've forgotten it. But you mustn't ask too many details, for it's
+only a fairy tale, little girlie."
+
+
+
+
+
+PHOTOGRAPHER AND PHILOSOPHER
+
+Once upon a time there was a photographer.  He was a splendid
+photographer; he did profiles and full-faces, three-quarter and
+full-length portraits; he could develop and fix, tone and print
+them. He was the deuce of a fellow!  But he was always discontented,
+for he was a philosopher, a great philosopher and a discoverer. His
+theory was that the world was upside down. It was plainly proved by
+the plate in the developer. Everything that was on the right side
+of the original, now appeared on the left; everything that was
+dark, became light; light became shade;  blue turned into white,
+and silver buttons looked as dark as iron.  The world was upside
+down.
+
+He had a partner, quite an ordinary man, full of petty characteristics.
+For instance, he smoked cigars all day long; he never shut a door;
+he put his knife into his mouth, instead of using his fork; he
+wore his hat in the room; he cleaned his nails in the studio, and
+in the evening he drank three glasses of beer.
+
+He was full of faults!
+
+The philosopher, on the other hand, was perfect, and therefore
+he nursed resentment against his imperfect brother; he would have
+liked to dissolve the partnership, but he could not, because their
+business held them together; and because they were bound to remain
+in partnership, the resentment of the philosopher turned into an
+unreasonable hatred. It was dreadful!
+
+When the spring came they decided to take a lodging in a summer
+resort, and the partner was despatched to find one. He did find
+one. And one Saturday they departed together on a steamer.
+
+The philosopher sat all day long on deck and drank punch. He was
+a very stout man and suffered from several things; his liver was
+out of order, and there was something wrong with his feet, perhaps
+rheumatism, or some similar disease. When they arrived, they crossed
+the bridge and went ashore.
+
+"Is this the place?" asked the philosopher.
+
+"A very little walk will take us there," answered the partner.
+
+They went along a footpath, full of roots, and the path ended
+abruptly before a stile. They had to climb over it. Then the road
+became stony, and the philosopher complained of his feet, but he
+forgot all about his pains when they came to another stile.  After
+that, all trace of the road disappeared; they walked on the bare
+rock through shrubs and bilberry bushes.
+
+Behind the third fence stood a bull, who chased the philosopher
+to the fourth stile, where he arrived in a bath of perspiration,
+which opened all the pores of his skin. When they had crossed the
+sixth stile, they could see the house. The philosopher went in and
+immediately stepped on to the verandah.
+
+"Why are there so many trees?" he asked.  "They interrupt the view."
+
+"But they shelter the house from the strong sea-breezes," answered
+the partner.
+
+"And the place looks like a churchyard; why, the house stands in
+the centre of a pine-wood."
+
+"A very healthy spot," replied the partner.
+
+Then they wanted to go and bathe. But there was no proper bathing-place,
+in the philosophical sense of the word. There was nothing but the
+stony ground and mud.
+
+After they had bathed the philosopher felt thirsty, and wanted to
+drink a glass of water at the spring.  It was of a reddish-brown
+colour, and had a peculiar, strong taste. It was no good. Nothing
+was any good. And meat was unobtainable, there was nothing to be
+had but fish.
+
+The philosopher grew gloomy and sat down under a pumpkin to deplore
+his fate. But there was no help for it. He had to stay, and his
+partner returned to town to look after the business during his
+friend's absence.
+
+Six weeks passed and then the partner returned to his philosopher.
+
+He was met on the bridge by a slender youth with red cheeks and a
+sunburnt neck. It was the philosopher, rejuvenated and full of high
+spirits.
+
+He jumped over the six stiles and chased the bull.
+
+When they were sitting on the verandah, the partner said to him:--
+
+"You are looking very well, what sort of a time have you had?"
+
+"Oh! an excellent time!" said the philosopher.  "The fences have
+taken off my fat; the stones have massaged my feet; the mud-baths
+have cured me of my rheumatism; the plain food has cured my liver,
+and the pine-trees my lungs; and, could you believe it, the brown
+spring-water contained iron, just what I wanted!"
+
+"Well, you old philosopher," said the partner, "don't you understand
+that from the negative you get a positive, where all the shade
+becomes light again? If you would only take such a positive picture
+of me and try and find out what faults I do _not_ possess, you would
+not dislike me so much.  Only think: I don't drink, and therefore
+I am able to manage the business; I don't steal; I never talk evil of
+you behind your back; I never complain; I never make white appear
+black; I am never rude to the customers; I rise early in the morning;
+I clean my nails so as to keep the developer clean; I leave my
+hat on so that no hairs shall fall on the plates; I smoke so as to
+purify the air of poisonous gases; I keep the door ajar so as not
+to make a noise in the studio; I drink beer in the evening so as
+to escape the temptation of drinking whisky; and I put the knife
+into my mouth because I am afraid of pricking myself with the fork."
+
+"You really are a great philosopher," said the photographer,
+"henceforth we will be friends!  Then we shall get on in life!"
+
+
+
+HALF A SHEET OF FOOLSCAP
+
+The last furniture van had left; the tenant, a young man with
+a crape band round his hat, walked for the last time through the
+empty rooms to make sure that nothing had been left behind. No,
+nothing had been forgotten, nothing at all. He went out into the
+front hall, firmly determined never to think again of all that
+had happened to him in these rooms. And all at once his eyes fell
+on half a sheet of foolscap, which somehow had got wedged between
+the wall and the telephone; the paper was covered with writing,
+evidently the writing of more persons than one.  Some of the
+entries were written quite legibly with pen and ink, while others
+were scribbled with a lead-pencil; here and there even a red pencil
+had been used. It was a record of everything that had happened to
+him in the short period of two years; all these things, which he
+had made up his mind to forget, were noted down. It was a slice of
+a human life on half a sheet of foolscap.
+
+He detached the paper; it was a piece of scribbling paper, yellow
+and shining like the sun. He put it on the mantelpiece in the
+drawing-room and glanced at it. Heading the list was a woman's name:
+"Alice," the most beautiful name in the world, as it had seemed
+to him then, for it was the name of his fiancée. Next to the name
+was a number, "15,11." It looked like the number of a hymn, on the
+hymn-board. Underneath was written "Bank." That was where his work
+lay, his sacred work to which he owed bread, home, and wife--the
+foundations of life.  But a pen had been drawn through the word, for
+the Bank had failed, and although he had eventually found another
+berth, it was not until after a short period of anxiety and
+uneasiness.
+
+The next entries were: "Flower-shop and livery-stable." They related
+to his betrothal, when he had plenty of money in his pockets.
+
+Then came "furniture dealer and paper-hanger "--they were furnishing
+their house. "Forwarding agents"--they were moving into it. The
+"Box-office of the Opera-house, No. 50,50"--they were newly married,
+and went to the opera on Sunday evenings; the most enjoyable hours
+of their lives were spent there, for they had to sit quite still,
+while their souls met in the beauty and harmony of the fairyland
+on the other side of the curtain.
+
+Then followed the name of a man, crossed out.  He had been a friend
+of his youth, a man who had risen high in the social scale, but
+who fell, spoilt by success, fell irremediably, and had to leave
+the country.
+
+So unstable was fortune!
+
+Now, something new entered the lives of husband and wife. The next
+entry was in a lady's hand: "Nurse." What nurse? Well, of course,
+the kindly woman with the big cloak and the sympathetic face, who
+walked with a soft footfall, and never went into the drawing-room,
+but walked straight down the passage to the bedroom.
+
+Underneath her name was written "Dr. L."
+
+And now, for the first time, a relative appeared on the list:
+"Mama." That was his mother-in-law, who had kept away discreetly,
+so as not to disturb their newly found happiness, but was glad to
+come now, when she was needed.
+
+A great number of entries in red and blue pencil followed: "Servants'
+Registry Office"--the maid had left and a new one had to be engaged.
+"The chemist's"--hm! life was growing dark. "The dairy"--milk had
+been ordered--sterilised milk!
+
+"Butcher, grocer, etc." The affairs of the house were being conducted
+by telephone; it argued that the mistress was not at her post. No,
+she wasn't, for she was laid up.
+
+He could not read what followed, for it grew dark before his eyes;
+he might have been a drowning man trying to see through salt water.
+And yet, there it was written, plainly enough: "undertaker--a large
+coffin and a small one." And the word "dust" was added in parenthesis.
+
+It was the last word of the whole record. It ended with "dust"!
+and that is exactly what happens in life.
+
+He took the yellow paper, kissed it, folded it carefully, and put
+it in his pocket.
+
+In two minutes he had lived again through two years of his life.
+
+But he was not bowed down as he left the house.  On the contrary,
+he carried his head high, like a happy and proud man, for he knew
+that the best things life has to bestow had been given to him.  And
+he pitied all those from whom they are withheld.
+
+
+
+CONQUERING HERO AND FOOL
+
+It was on the evening of a spring day in 1880 (a day which will never
+be forgotten in Sweden, because it is the day of commemoration of
+a national event), when an old couple, simple country people, were
+standing on the headland at the entrance to the harbour of Stockholm,
+looking at the dark watercourse under the dim stars, and watching
+a man who was busy with a dark, undefinable object on the landing
+bridge. They stood there for a long, long time, now gazing at the
+dark watercourse, now looking at the brilliant lights of the town.
+
+At last a light appeared on the fjord, then another, then many
+lights. The old man seized the woman's hand and pressed it, and
+in silence, under the stars, they thanked God for having safely
+brought home their son whom they had mourned as dead for a whole
+year.
+
+It is true, he had not been the leader of the expedition, but he
+had been one of the crew. And now he was to dine with the long,
+receive an order, and, in addition to a sum of money from the
+nation, which Parliament had voted for the purpose, an appointment
+which would mean bread and butter for the rest of his life.
+
+The lights grew in size as they approached; a small steamer was
+towing a big dark craft, which, seen close by, looked as plain and
+simple as most great things do.
+
+And now the man on the bridge, who had been very busy about the
+dark object, struck a match.
+
+"Whatever is it?" said the old man, much puzzled. "It looks like
+huge wax candles."
+
+They went nearer to examine it more closely.
+
+"It looks like a frame for drying fishes," said the old woman, who
+had been born on the coast.
+
+Ratsh! It-sh! Si-si-si-si! it said, and the old people were instantly
+surrounded by fire and flames.
+
+Great fiery globes rose up to the skies and, bursting, lit up the
+night with a shower of stars; an astronomer, observing the heavens
+with a telescope, might have come to the conclusion that new stars
+had been born.  And he would not have been altogether wrong, for
+in the year 1880 new thoughts were kindled in new hearts, and new
+light and new discoveries vouchsafed to mankind. Doubtless, there
+were weeds, too, growing up together with the splendid wheat; but
+weeds have their uses, also; shade and moisture depend on their
+presence, and they will be separated from the wheat at harvest
+time. But there must be weeds, they are as inseparable from wheat
+as chaff is from corn.
+
+What had puzzled the old couple, however, was a rocket frame, and
+when all the smoke had cleared away--for there is no fire without
+smoke--not a trace of all the magnificence was left.
+
+"It would have been jolly to have been in town with them to-night,"
+said the old woman.
+
+"Oh, no!" replied the man. "We should have been in the way, poor
+people like we ought never to push themselves to the front. And
+there's plenty of time to-morrow for seeing the boy, after he has
+left his sweetheart, who is dearer to him than we are."
+
+It was a very sensible speech for the old man to make; but who in
+the world is to have sense, if old people have not?
+
+And then they continued their way to the town.
+
+***
+
+Now, let us see what happened to the son.
+
+He was the leadsman, that is to say, it was his business to sound
+the depths of the sea; he had plumbed the profound abysses of the
+ocean, calculated the elevation of the land and the apparent motion
+of the sky; he knew the exact time by looking at the sun, and he
+could tell from the stars how far they had travelled. He was a man
+of importance; he believed that he held heaven and earth in his
+hand, measured time and regulated the clock of eternity.  And after
+he had been the king's guest and received an order to wear on his
+breast, he fancied that he was made of finer stuff than most men;
+he was not exactly haughty when he met his poor parents and his
+sweetheart, but, although they said nothing, they felt that he
+thought himself their superior. Possibly he was a little stiff, he
+was built that way.
+
+Well, the official ceremonies were over, but the students also had
+decided to pay homage to the heroes, who had returned home after
+a prolonged absence. And they went to the capital in full force.
+
+Students are queer people, who read books and study under Dr.
+Know-all; consequently they imagine that they know more than other
+people. They are also young, and therefore they are thoughtless
+and cruel.
+
+The respectful and sensible speeches which the old professors had
+been making all the afternoon in honour of the explorers had come
+to an end, and the procession of the students had started.
+
+The leadsman and his sweetheart were sitting on a balcony in the
+company of the other great men. The ringing of the church bells
+and the booming of the guns mingled with the sound of the bugles
+and the rolling of the drums; flags were waving and fluttering in
+the breeze. And then the procession marched by.
+
+It was headed by a ship, with sailors and everything else belonging
+to it; next walruses came and polar bears, and all the rest of it;
+then students in disguise, representing the heroes; the Great Man
+himself was represented in his fur coat and goggles.  It wasn't
+quite respectful, of course; it wasn't a very great honour to be
+impersonated in this way; but there it was! It was well meant, no
+doubt. And gradually every member of the expedition passed by, one
+after the other, all represented by the students.
+
+Last of all came the leadsman. It was true, nobody could ever have
+dreamt of calling him handsome, but there is no need for a man to
+be handsome, as long as he is an able leadsman, or anything else
+able. The students had chosen a hideous old grumbler to impersonate
+him. That alone would not have mattered; but nature had made one of
+his arms shorter than the other, and his representative had made
+a feature of this defect. And that was too bad; for a defect is
+something for which one ought not to be blamed.
+
+But when the fool who played the leadsman approached the balcony,
+he said a few words with a provincial accent, intended to cast
+ridicule on the leadsman, who was born in one of the provinces.
+It was a silly thing to do, for every man speaks the dialect which
+his mother has taught him; and it is nothing at all to be ashamed
+of.
+
+Everybody laughed, more from politeness than anything else, for
+the entertainment was gratuitous, but the girl was hurt, for she
+hated to see her future husband laughed at. The leadsman frowned
+and grew silent. He no longer enjoyed the festivities.  But he
+carefully hid his real feelings, for otherwise he would have been
+laughed at for a fool unable to appreciate a joke. But still worse
+things happened, for his impersonator danced and cut all sorts of
+ridiculous antics, in the endeavour to act the leadsman's name in
+dumb charade; first his surname, which he had inherited from his
+father, and then his Christian name, which his mother had chosen
+for him at his baptism. These names were sacred to him, and although
+there may have been a little boastful sound about them, he had
+always scorned to change them.
+
+He wanted to rise from his chair and leave, but his sweetheart
+caught hold of his hand, and he stayed where he was.
+
+When, the procession was over and everybody who had been sitting
+on the balcony had risen, the great man laid a friendly hand on
+the girl's shoulder, and said, with his kindly smile:--
+
+"They have a strange way here of celebrating their heroes, one
+mustn't mind it!"
+
+In the evening there was a garden party and the leadsman was
+present, but his pleasure was gone; he had been laughed at, and he
+had grown small in his own estimation, smaller than the fool, who
+had made quite a hit as a jester. Therefore he was despondent,
+felt uneasy at the thought of the future and doubtful of his own
+capability. And wherever he went he met the fool who was caricaturing
+him.  He saw his faults enlarged, especially his pride and his
+boastfulness; all his secret thoughts and weaknesses were made
+public.
+
+For three painful hours he examined the account book of his
+conscience; what no man had dared to tell him before, the fool had
+told him. Perfect knowledge of oneself is a splendid thing, Socrates
+calls it the highest of all goods. Towards the end of the evening
+the leadsman had conquered himself, admitted his faults, and resolved
+to turn over a new leaf.
+
+As he was passing a group of people he heard a voice behind a hedge
+saying:--
+
+"It's extraordinary, how the leadsman has improved. He's really
+quite a delightful fellow!"
+
+These words did him good; but what pleased him more than anything
+else were a few whispered words from his sweetheart.
+
+"You are so nice to-night," she said, "that you look quite handsome."
+
+He handsome? It must have been a miracle then, and miracles don't
+happen nowadays. Yet he had to believe in a miracle, for he knew
+himself to be a very plain man.
+
+Finally the Great Man touched his glass with his knife, and
+immediately there was silence, for every body wanted to hear what
+he had to say.
+
+"When a Roman conqueror was granted a triumphal procession," he
+began, "a slave always stood behind him in the chariot and incessantly
+called out, 'Remember that you are but a man!' while senate and
+people paid him homage. And at the side of the triumphal car, which
+was drawn by four horses, walked a fool, whose business it was to
+dim the splendour of his triumph by shouting insults, and casting
+suspicion on the hero's character by singing libellous songs. This
+was a good old custom, for there is nothing so fatal to a man than
+to believe that he is a god, and there is nothing the gods dislike
+so much as the pride of men. My dear young friends! The success
+which we, who have just returned home, have achieved, has perhaps
+been overrated, our triumph went to our heads, and therefore it was
+good for us to watch your antics to-day! I don't envy the jester
+his part--far from it; but I thank you for the somewhat strange
+homage which you have done us. It has taught me that I have still
+a good deal to learn, and whenever my head is in danger of being
+turned by flattery, it will remind me that I am nothing but an
+ordinary man!"
+
+"Hear! Hear!" exclaimed the leadsman, and the festivities continued,
+undisturbed even by the fool, who had felt a little ashamed of
+himself and had quietly withdrawn from the scene.
+
+So much for the Great Man and the leadsman. Now let us see what
+happened to the fool.
+
+As he was standing close to the table during the Great Man's speech,
+he received a glance from the leadsman, which, like a small fiery
+arrow, was capable of setting a fortress aflame. And as he went out
+into the night, he felt beside himself, like a man who is clothed
+in sheets of fire. He was not a nice man. True, fools and jailers
+are human beings, like the rest of us, but they are not the very
+nicest specimen. Like everybody else he had many faults and weaknesses,
+but he knew how to cloak them. Now something extraordinary happened.
+Through having mimicked the leadsman all day long, and also, perhaps,
+owing to all the drink he had consumed, he had become so much the
+part which he had played that he was unable to shake it off; and
+since he had brought into prominence the faults and weaknesses of
+the leadsman, he had, as it were, acquired them, and that flash
+from the leadsman's eye had rammed them down to the very bottom of
+his soul, just as a ramrod pushes the powder into the barrel of a
+gun. He was charged with the leadsman, so to speak, and therefore,
+as he stepped out into the street he at once began to shout and
+boast. But this time luck was against him. A policeman ordered him
+to be quiet. The fool said something funny, imitating the leadsman's
+provincial accent. But the policeman, who happened to be a native
+of the same province, was annoyed and wanted to arrest the fool.
+Now it is just as difficult for a fool to take a thing seriously
+as it is for a policeman to understand a joke; therefore the fool
+resisted and created such a disturbance that the policeman struck
+him with his truncheon.
+
+He received a sound beating, and then the policeman let him go.
+
+You would think that he had had enough trouble now--far from it!
+
+The chastisement which he had received had only embittered him,
+and he went on the warpath, like a red Indian, to see on whom he
+might avenge his wrongs.
+
+Accident, or some other power, guided his footsteps to a locality
+mainly frequented by peasants and labourers.  He entered a brewery
+and found a number of millers and farmer's labourers sitting round
+a table, drinking the health of the explorers. When they saw the
+fool they took him for the leadsman, and were highly delighted when
+he condescended to take a glass in their company.
+
+Now the demon of pride entered into the soul of the fool. He boasted
+of his great achievements; he told them that it was he who had led
+the expedition, for would they not have foundered if he had not
+sounded the depth of the sea? Would they ever have returned home
+if he had not read the stars?
+
+Smack! an egg hit him between the eyebrows.
+
+"Leadsman, you're a braggart!" said the miller. "We've known that
+for a long time; we knew it when you wrote to the paper saying the
+Great Man was another Humboldt!"
+
+Now another of the leadsman's weaknesses gained the upper hand.
+
+"The Great Man is a humbug!" he exclaimed, which was not true.
+
+This was too much for the assembly. They rose from their seats like
+one man, seized the fool, and with a leather strap bound him to a
+sack of flour. They covered him with flour until he was white from
+top to toe, and blackened his face with the wick from one of the
+lanterns.  The millers' apprentice sewed him to the sack; they
+lifted him, sack and lantern, on to the cart, and amid shouting
+and laughter proceeded to the market-place.
+
+There he was exhibited to the passers-by, and everybody laughed at
+him.
+
+When they let him go at last, he went and sat on some stone stairs
+and cried. The big fellow sobbed like a little child; one might
+almost have felt sorry for him.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THE TREE-SWALLOW SANG IN THE BUCKTHORN TREE
+
+If you are standing at the harbour where all the steamers call, and
+look out towards the sea, you will see a mountain on your left,
+covered with green trees, and behind the trees a large house built in
+the shape of a spider. For in the centre there is a round building
+from which radiate eight wings, that look very much like the eight
+legs on the round body of a spider. The people who enter the house
+do not leave it again at will, and some of them stay there for the
+rest of their life, for the house is a prison.
+
+In the days of King Oscar I, the mountain was not green. On the
+contrary, it was grey and cold, for neither moss nor heart's-ease
+would grow there, although these plants generally thrive on the
+bare rock. There was nothing but grey stone and grey people, who
+looked as if they had been turned into stone, and who quarried
+stone, broke stone, and carried stone. And among these people there
+was one who looked stonier than all the others.
+
+He was still a youth when, in the reign of King Oscar I., he was
+shut up in this prison because he had killed a man.
+
+He was a prisoner for life, and sewn on his grey prison garb was
+a large black "L."
+
+He was always on the mountain, in winter days and summer time,
+breaking stones. In the winter he had only the empty and deserted
+harbour to look at; the semicircular bridge with its poles had the
+appearance of a yawning row of teeth, and he could see the wood-shed,
+the riding-school, and the two gigantic, denuded lime trees.
+Sometimes an ice-yacht would sail past the islet; sometimes a few
+boys would pass on skates; otherwise it was quiet and forsaken.
+
+In the summer time it was much jollier. For then the harbour was
+full of smart boats, newly painted and decorated with flags. And the
+lime trees, in the shade of which he had sat when he was a child,
+waiting for his father, who was an engineer on one of the finest
+boats, were green.
+
+It was many years now since he had heard the rustling of the breeze
+in the trees, for nothing grew on his cliff, and the only thing in
+the world he longed for was to hear once again the whispering of
+the wind in the branches of the lime trees at Knightsholm.
+
+Sometimes, on a summer's day, a steamer would pass the islet; then
+he heard the plashing of the waves, or, perhaps, snatches of music;
+and he saw bright faces which grew dark as soon as their eyes fell
+on the grey stone men on the mountain.
+
+And then he cursed heaven and earth, his fate and the cruelty of men.
+He cursed, year in, year out. And he and his companions tormented
+and cursed each other day and night; for crime isolates, but
+misfortune draws men together.
+
+In the beginning his fate was unnecessarily cruel, for the keepers
+ill-treated the prisoners, mercilessly and at their pleasure.
+
+But one day there was a change; the food was better, the treatment
+was less harsh, and every prisoner was given a cell of his own to
+sleep in. The king himself had loosened the chains of the prisoners
+a little; but since hopelessness had petrified the hearts of these
+unfortunate men, they were unable to feel anything like gratitude,
+and so they continued to curse; and now they came to the conclusion
+that it was more pleasant to sleep together in one room, for then
+they could talk all night. And they continued to complain of the
+food, the clothes, and the treatment, just as before.
+
+One fine day all the bells of the town were ringing, and those of
+Knightsholm rang louder than any of the others.  King Oscar was
+dead, and the prisoners had a holiday.  Since they could talk to
+one another now, they talked of murdering the guards and escaping
+from prison; and they also talked of the dead king, and they spoke
+evil of him.
+
+"If he had been a just man, he would have set us free," said one
+of the prisoners.
+
+"Or else he would have imprisoned all the criminals who are at
+large."
+
+"Then he himself would have had to be Governor of the Prison, for
+the whole nation are criminals."
+
+It is the way of prisoners to regard all men as criminals, and to
+maintain that they themselves were only caught because they were
+unlucky.
+
+But it was a hot summer's day, and the stone man walked along the
+shore, listening to the tolling of the bells for Oscar the king.
+He raised the stones and looked for tadpoles and sticklebacks, but
+could find none; not a fish was visible in the water, and consequently
+there was not a sign of a sea-gull or a tern. Then he felt that a
+curse rested on the mountain, a curse so strong that it kept even
+the fishes and the birds away. He fell to considering the life he
+was leading. He had lost his name, both Christian and surname, and
+was no more now than No. 65, a name written in figures, instead of
+in letters. He was no longer obliged to pay taxes. He had forgotten
+his age. He had ceased to be a man, ceased to be a living being,
+but neither was he dead. He was nothing but something grey moving
+on the mountain and being terribly scorched by the sun. It burned
+on his prison garb and on his head with the close-cropped hair,
+which in days long passed had been curly, and was combed with a
+tooth-comb every Saturday by his mother's gentle hand. He was not
+allowed to wear a cap to-day, because it would have facilitated an
+attempt at escape. And as the sun scorched his head, he remembered
+the story of the prophet Jonah, to whom the Lord gave a gourd so
+that he might sit in its shade.
+
+"A nice gift, that!" he sneered, for he did not believe in anything
+good; in fact, he did not believe in anything at all.
+
+All at once he saw a huge birch branch tossed about in the surf.
+It was quite green and fresh and had a white stem; possibly it had
+fallen off a pleasure-boat. He dragged it ashore, shook the water
+off and carried it to a gully where he put it up, wedged firmly
+between three stones. Then he sat down and listened to the wind
+rustling through its leaves, which smelt of the finest resin.
+
+When he had sat for a little while in the shade of the birch he
+fell asleep.
+
+And he dreamed a dream.
+
+The whole mountain was a green wood with lovely trees and odorous
+flowers. Birds were singing, bees and humble-bees buzzing, and
+butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. But all by itself
+and a little aside stood a tree which he did not know; it was more
+beautiful than all the rest; it had several stems, like a shrub,
+and the branches looked like lacework. And on one of its branches,
+half hidden by its foliage, sat a little black-and-white bird which
+looked like a swallow, but wasn't one.
+
+In his dream he could interpret the language of the birds, and
+therefore he understood to some extent what the bird was singing.
+And it sang:
+
+Mud, mud, mud, mud here!  We'll throw, throw, throw here!  In mud,
+mud, mud you died, From mud, mud, mud you'll rise.
+
+It sang of mud, death, and resurrection; that much he could make
+out.
+
+But that was not all. He was standing alone on the cliff in the
+scorching heat of the sun. All his fellows-in-misfortune had forsaken
+him and threatened his life, because he had refused to be a party
+to their setting the prison on fire. They followed him in a crowd,
+threw stones at him and chased him up the mountain as far as he
+could go.
+
+And finally he was stopped by a stone wall.
+
+There was no possibility of climbing over it, and in his despair
+he resolved to kill himself by dashing his head against the stones.
+He rushed down the mountain, and behold! a gate was opened at the
+same moment--a green garden gate ... and ...  he woke up.
+
+When he thought of his life and realised that the green wood was
+nothing but the branch of a birch tree, he grew very discontented
+in his heart.
+
+"If at least it had been a lime tree," he grumbled.  And as he
+listened he found that it was the birch which had sung so loudly;
+it sounded as if some one were sifting sand or gravel, and again
+he thought of the lime trees, which make the soft velvety sounds
+that touch the heart.
+
+On the following day his birch was faded and gave little shade.
+
+On the day after that the foliage was as dry as paper and rattled
+like teeth. And finally there was nothing left but a huge birch
+rod, which reminded him of his childhood.
+
+He remembered the gourd of the prophet Jonah, and he cursed when
+the sun scorched his head.
+
+***
+
+A new king had come to the throne, and he brought fresh life into
+the government of the country. The town was to have a new watercourse,
+and therefore all the prisoners were commanded to dredge.
+
+It was for the first time after many years that he was allowed to
+leave his cliff. He was in the boat, swimming on the water, and
+saw much in his native town that was new to him; he saw the railway
+and the locomotive. And they began dredging just below the railway
+station.
+
+And gradually they brought up all the corruption which lay buried
+at the bottom of the sea. Drowned cats, old shoes, decomposed
+fat from the candle factory, the refuse from the dye works called
+"The Blue Hand," tanners' bark from the tannery, and all the human
+misery which the laundresses had batted off the clothes for the
+last hundred years. And there was such a terrible smell of sulphur
+and ammonia that only a prisoner could be expected to bear it.
+
+When the boat was full, the prisoners wondered what was going to
+be done with their cargo of dirt? The riddle was solved when the
+overseer steered for their own cliff.
+
+All the mud was unloaded there and thrown on the mountain, and soon
+the air was filled with the foulest of smells. They waded ankle-deep
+in filth, and their clothes, hands, and faces were covered with
+it.
+
+"This is like the infernal regions!" said the prisoners.
+
+They dredged and unloaded on the cliff for several years, and
+ultimately the cliff disappeared altogether.
+
+And the white snow fell winter after winter on all the corruption
+and threw a pure white cover over it.
+
+And when the spring came once again and all the snow had melted,
+the evil smell had disappeared, and the mud looked like mould. There
+was no more dredging after this spring, and our stone man was sent
+to work at the forge and never came near the cliff. Only once,
+in the autumn, he went there secretly, and then he saw something
+wonderful.
+
+The ground was covered with green plants. Ugly sappy plants, it
+was true, mostly bur-marigolds, that look like a nettle with brown
+flowers, which is ugly because flowers should be white, yellow,
+blue or red. And there were true nettles with green blossoms, and
+burs, sorrel, thistles, and notch-weed; all the ugliest, burning,
+stinging, evil-smelling plants, which nobody likes, and which grow
+on dust-heaps, waste land, and mud.
+
+"We cleaned the bottom of the sea, and now we have all the dirt
+here; this is all the thanks we get!" said the prisoner.
+
+Then he was transferred to another cliff, where a fort was to be
+built, and again he worked in stone; stone, stone, stone!
+
+Then he lost one of his eyes, and sometimes he was flogged.
+And he remained a very long time there, so long that the new king
+died and was followed by his successor.  On coronation day one of
+the prisoners was to be released.  And it was to be the one who
+had behaved best during all the time and had arrived at a clear
+understanding that he had sinned. And that was he! But the other
+prisoners considered that it would be a wrong towards them, for in
+their circles a man who repents is considered a fool, "because he
+has done what he couldn't help doing."
+
+And so the years passed. Our stone man had grown very old, and
+because he was now unable to do hard work, he was sent back to his
+cliff and set to sew sacks.
+
+One day the chaplain on his round paused before the stone man, who
+sat and sewed.
+
+"Well," said the clergyman, "and are you never to leave this cliff?"
+
+"How would that be possible?" replied the stone man.
+
+"You will go as soon as you come to see that you did wrong."
+
+"If ever I find a human being who does not only do right, but more
+than is right, I will believe that I did wrong! But I don't believe
+that there is such a being."
+
+"To do more than that which is right is to have compassion. May it
+please God that you will soon come to know it!"
+
+One day the stone man was sent to repair the road on the cliff,
+which he had not seen for, perhaps, twenty years.
+
+It was again a warm summer's day, and from the passing steamers,
+bright and beautiful as butterflies, came the sounds of music and
+gay laughter.
+
+When he arrived at the headland he found that the cliff had disappeared
+under a lovely green wood, whose millions of leaves glittered and
+sparkled in the breeze like small waves. There were tall, white
+birch trees and trembling aspens, and ash trees grew on the shore.
+
+Everything was just as it had been in his dream.  At the foot of
+the trees tall grasses nodded, butterflies played in the sunshine,
+and humble-bees buzzed from flower to flower. The birds were singing,
+but he could not understand what they said, and therefore he knew
+that it was not a dream.
+
+The cursed mountain had been transformed into a mountain of bliss,
+and he could not help thinking of the prophet and the gourd.
+
+"This is mercy and compassion," whispered a voice in his heart, or
+perhaps it was a warning.
+
+And when a steamer passed, the faces of the passengers did not grow
+gloomy, but brightened at the sight of the beautiful scenery; he
+even fancied that he saw some one wave a handkerchief, as people
+on a steamer do when they pass a summer resort.
+
+He walked along a path beneath waving trees. It is true, there was
+not one lime tree; but he did not dare to wish for one, for fear
+the birches might turn into rods. He had learnt that much.
+
+As he walked through a leafy avenue, he saw in the distance a white
+wall with a green gate. And somebody was playing on an instrument
+which was not an organ, for the movement was much jollier and
+livelier. Above the wall the pretty roof of a villa was visible,
+and a yellow and blue flag fluttered in the wind.
+
+And he saw a gaily coloured ball rise and fall on the other side
+of the wall; he heard the chattering of children's voices, and
+the clinking of plates and glasses told him that a table was being
+laid.
+
+He went and looked through the gate. The syringa was in full
+flower, and the table stood under the flowering shrubs; children
+were running about, the piano was being played and somebody sang
+a song.
+
+"This is Paradise," said the voice within him.
+
+The old man stood a long time and watched, so long that in the end
+he broke down, overcome by fatigue, hunger, and thirst, and all
+the misery of life.
+
+Then the gate was opened and a little girl in a white dress came
+out. She carried a silver tray in her hand, and on the tray stood
+a glass filled with wine, the reddest wine which the old man had
+ever seen. And the child went up to the old man and said:
+
+"Come now, daddy, you must drink this!"
+
+The old man took the glass and drank. It was the rich man's wine,
+which had grown a long way off in the sunny South; and it tasted
+like the sweetness of a good life when it is at its very best.
+
+"This is compassion," said his own old broken voice.  "But you,
+child, in your ignorance, you wouldn't have brought me this wine
+if you had known who I am. Do you know what I am?"
+
+"Yes, you are a prisoner, I know that," replied the little girl.
+
+When the old stone man went back, he was no longer a man of stone,
+for something in him had begun to quicken.
+
+And as he passed a steep incline, he saw a tree with many trunks,
+which looked like a shrub. It was more beautiful than the others; it
+was a buckthorn tree, but the old man did not know it. A restless
+little bird, black and white like a swallow, fluttered from
+branch to branch. The peasants call it tree-swallow, but its name
+is something else. And it sat in the foliage and sang a sweet sad
+song:
+
+In mud, in mud, in mud you died, From mud, from mud, from mud you
+rose.
+
+It was exactly as it had been in his dream. And now the old man
+understood what the tree-swallow meant.
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE TOBACCO SHED
+
+Listen to the story of a young opera-singer who was so beautiful
+that the people in the street turned round to stare at her when she
+passed. And she was not only very beautiful, but she had a better
+voice than most singers.
+
+The conductor of the orchestra, who was also a composer, came and
+laid his heart and all his possessions at her feet. She took his
+possessions, but left his heart lying in the dust.
+
+Now she was famous, more famous than any other singer; she drove
+through the streets in her elegant victoria, and nodded to her
+portrait, which greeted her from all the stationers' and booksellers'
+shop windows.
+
+And as her fame grew, her picture appeared on post-cards, soap and
+cigar boxes. Finally her portrait was hung up in the foyer of the
+theatre, amongst all the dead immortals; and as a result her head
+began to swell.
+
+One day she was standing on a pier, the sea was very rough and
+there was a strong current. The conductor, of course, stood by her
+side, and a great many young men were present, paying her court.
+The beauty was playing with a rose; all the cavaliers coveted the
+flower, but she said that it should become the property of him who
+knew how to earn it, and she flung it far out into the sea. The
+cavaliers looked at it with longing glances, but the conductor
+jumped off the pier without a moment's hesitation, swam like a
+sea-gull on the crests of the waves and soon held the flower between
+his lips.
+
+The cavaliers cheered, and the swimmer could read the promise of
+love in his lady's eyes. But when he struck out for the shore, he
+found that he could not move from the spot. He had been caught in
+the current. The singer on the pier did not realise his danger,
+but merely thought he was fooling, and therefore she laughed. But
+the conductor, who saw death staring him in the face, misunderstood
+her laughter; a bitter pang shot through his heart, and then his
+love for her was dead.
+
+However, he came ashore at last, with bleeding hands, for he had
+cut them at the pier in many places.
+
+"I will marry you," said the beauty.
+
+"No, thank you," replied the conductor; turned, and walked away.
+
+This was an offence for which she swore that she would be revenged.
+
+Only the people connected with the theatre, who  understand these
+things, know how it happened that the conductor lost his post. He
+had been firmly established, and it took two years to get rid of
+him.
+
+But he was got rid of; she watched the downfall of her benefactor
+and triumphed, and her head swelled still more, in fact it swelled
+so much that everybody noticed it. The public, who realised that
+the heart underneath the beautiful form was wicked, ceased to be
+touched by her singing, and no longer believed in her smiles and
+tears.
+
+She soon became aware of it, and it embittered her.  But she continued
+ruling at the theatre, suppressed all young talents, and used her
+influence with the press to ruin their careers.
+
+She lost the love and respect of her audiences, but she did not
+mind that as long as she remained in power; and as she was wealthy,
+influential, and contented, she throve and prospered.
+
+Now, when people are prosperous, they do not lose flesh; on the
+contrary, they are inclined to grow stout; and she really began
+to grow corpulent.  It came so gradually that she had no idea
+of it until it was too late. Bang! The downhill journey is ever a
+fast journey, and in her case it was accom-plished with startling
+rapidity. She tried every remedy--in vain! She kept the best table
+in the whole town, but she starved herself, and the more she starved,
+the stouter she grew.
+
+One more year, and she was no longer a great star, and her pay was
+reduced. Two more years and she  was half forgotten, and her place
+was filled by others.  After the third year she was not re-engaged,
+and she went and rented an attic.
+
+"She is suffering from an unnatural corpulency," said the stage-manager
+to the prompter.
+
+"It's not corpulency at all," replied the prompter, "she's just
+puffed up with pride."
+
+***
+
+Now she lived in the attic and looked out on a large plantation. In
+the middle of this plantation stood a tobacco shed, which pleased
+her, because it had no windows behind which curious people could sit
+and stare at her. Sparrows had built their nests under the eaves,
+but the shed was no longer used for drying or storing tobacco,
+which was not, now, grown on the plantation.
+
+There she lived during the summer, looking at the shed and wondering
+what purpose it could possibly serve, for the doors were locked
+with large padlocks, padlocks, and nobody ever went in or out.
+
+She knew that it contained secrets, and what these secrets were,
+she was to learn sooner than she expected.
+
+A few little shreds of her great reputation, to which she clung
+desperately, and which helped her to bear her life, were still
+left: the memory of her best parts, Carmen and Aida, for which
+no successor had yet been found; the public still remembered her
+impersonation of these parts, which had been beyond praise.
+
+Very well, August came; the street lamps were again lighted in the
+evenings, and the theatres were reopened.
+
+The singer sat at her window and looked at the tobacco shed, which
+had been painted a bright red, and, moreover, had just received a
+new red-tiled roof.
+
+A man walked across the potato field; he carried a large rusty key,
+with which he opened the shed and went in.
+
+Then two other men arrived; two men whom she thought she had seen
+before; and they, too, disappeared in the shed.
+
+It began to be interesting.
+
+After a while the three men reappeared, carrying large, strange
+objects, which looked like the bottom of a bed or a big screen.
+
+When they had passed the gate, they turned the screens round
+and leaned them against the wall; one of them represented a badly
+painted tiled stove, another the door of a country cottage, perhaps
+a forester's cottage. Others a wood, a window, and a library.
+
+She understood. It was the scenery of a play. And after a while
+she recognised the rose tree from Faust.
+
+The shed was used by the theatre for storing scenes and stage
+properties; she herself had more than once stood by the side of
+the rose tree, singing "Gentle flowers in the dew."
+
+The thought that they were going to play Faust wrung her heart, but
+she had one little comfort: she had never sung the principal part
+in it, for the principal part is Margaret's.
+
+"I don't mind Faust; but I shall die if they play Carmen or Aida."
+
+And she sat and watched the change in the repertoire.  She knew a
+fortnight before the papers what was going to be played next. It
+was amusing in a way. She knew when the Freischütz was going to
+be played, for she saw the wolves' den being brought out; she knew
+when they were going to put on the Flying Dutchman, for the ship
+and the sea came out of the shed; and Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin,
+and many others.
+
+But the inevitable day dawned--for the inevitable must happen. The
+men had again gone into the shed (she remembered that the name of
+one of them was Lindquist, and that it was his business to look after
+the pulleys), and presently reappeared with a Spanish market-place.
+The scene was not standing straight up, so that she could not see
+at once what it was, but one of the men turned it slowly over,
+and when he stood it up on its side she could see the back, which
+is always very ugly.  And one after the other, slowly, as if they
+warded to prolong the torture, huge, black letters appeared: CARMEN.
+It was Carmen!
+
+"I shall die," said the singer.
+
+But she did not die, not even when they played  Aida. But her
+name was blotted out from the memory of the public, her picture
+disappeared from the stationers' windows, and from the post-cards;
+finally her portrait was removed from the foyer of the theatre by
+an unknown hand.
+
+She could not understand how men could forget so quickly. It was
+quite inexplicable! But she mourned for herself as if she were
+mourning a friend who had died; and wasn't it true, that the singer,
+the famous singer, was dead?
+
+One evening she was strolling through a deserted street.  At one
+end of the street was a rubbish shoot. Without knowing why, she
+stood still, and then she had an object lesson on the futility of
+all earthly things. For on the rubbish heap lay a post-card, and
+on the post-card was her picture in the part of Carmen.
+
+She walked away quickly, suppressing her tears. She came to a little
+side street, and stopped before a stationer's shop.  It had been
+her custom to look at the shop windows to see whether her portrait
+was exhibited. But it was not exhibited here; instead of that her
+eyes fell on a text and she read it, unconsciously:
+
+"The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the
+remembrance of them from the earth."
+
+Them that do evil! That was the reason why her memory was blotted
+out. That was the explanation of the forgetfulness of men.
+
+"But is it not possible to undo the wrong I have done?" she moaned.
+"Have I not been sufficiently punished?"
+
+And she wandered in the direction of the wood, where she was not
+likely to meet anybody. And as she was walking along, crushed,
+humiliated, her heart full of despair, she met another lonely
+being, who stopped her as she was going to pass him. His eyes begged
+permission to speak to her.
+
+It was the conductor. But his eyes did not reproach her, nor did they
+pity her, they only expressed admiration, admiration and tenderness.
+
+"How beautiful and slender you have grown, Hannah," he said.
+
+She looked at herself, and she could not help admitting that he
+was right. Grief had burnt all her superfluous fat and she was more
+beautiful than she had ever been.
+
+"And you look as young as ever! Younger!"
+
+It was the first kind word which she had heard for many a day; and
+since it had been spoken by him whom she had wronged, she realised
+what a splendid character he had, and said so.
+
+"I hope you haven't lost your voice?" asked the conductor, who
+could not bear flattery.
+
+"I don't know," she sobbed.
+
+"Come to me to-morrow ... yes, come to the Opera-house, and then
+we shall see. I am conducting there.  ..."
+
+The singer went, not once or twice, but many times, and regained
+her former position.
+
+The public had forgiven and forgotten all the evil she had done.
+And she became greater and more famous than she had been before.
+
+Isn't that an edifying story?
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ST. GOTTHARD
+
+It was Saturday night in Göschenen, in the canton of Uri, that
+part of Switzerland which William Tell and Walter Fürst have made
+famous. The pretty green village on the northern side of the St.
+Gotthard is situated on a little stream which drives a mill-wheel
+and contains trout. Quiet, kindly people live there, who speak the
+German language and have home rule, and the "sacred wood" protects
+their homes from avalanche and landslip.
+
+On the Saturday night I am speaking of, all the folks were gathering
+round the village pump, underneath the great walnut tree, at the
+hour when the church bells were ringing the Angelus. The postmaster,
+the magistrate, and the colonel were there, all in their shirt-sleeves
+and carrying scythes. They had been mowing all day long, and had
+come to the pump to wash their scythes, for in the little village
+work was sacred and every man was his own servant. Then the young
+men came trooping through the village street, carrying scythes too,
+and the maids with their milk-pails; finally the cows, a gigantic
+breed, every cow as big as a bull. The country is rich and fertile,
+but it bears neither wine nor olives, neither the mulberry tree
+nor the luxurious maize.  Nothing but green grass and golden corn,
+the walnut tree and the luscious beet-root grow there.
+
+At the foot of the steep wall of the St. Gotthard, close to the pump,
+stood the inn, "The Golden Horse." All the tired men, regardless
+of rank or position, were sitting at a long table in the garden,
+not one of them was missing: the magistrate, the postmaster, the
+colonel and the farmers' labourers; the straw-hat manufacturer and
+his workmen, the little village shoemaker, and the schoolmaster,
+they were all there.
+
+They talked of cattle breeding and harvest time; they sang songs,
+reminiscent in their simplicity of cowbells and the shepherd's
+flute. They sang of the spring and its pure joys, of its promise
+and its hope.  And they drank the golden beer.
+
+After a while the young men rose to play, to wrestle and to jump,
+for on the following day was the annual festival of the Rifle
+Club, and there would be trials of strength, and competitions; it
+was im-portant therefore that their limbs should be supple.
+
+And at an early hour that night the whole village was in bed, for
+no man must be late on the morning of the festival, and no one must
+be sleepy or dull.  The honour of the village was involved.
+
+***
+
+It was Sunday morning; the sun was shining  brightly and the church
+bells were ringing. Men and women from the neighbouring villages,
+in their best Sunday clothes, were gathering on the village green,
+and all of them looked happy and very wide awake. Nearly every man
+carried a gun instead of the scythe; and matrons and maids looked
+at the men with scrutinising and encouraging eyes, for it was for
+the defence of their country and their homes that they had learned
+to handle a gun; and to-night the best shot would have the honour
+of opening the dance with the prettiest girl of the village.
+
+A large waggon, drawn by four horses, gaily decorated with flowers
+and ribbons, drew up; the whole waggon had been transformed into a
+summer arbour; one could not see the people inside, but one could
+hear their songs. They sang of Switzerland and the Swiss people,
+the most beautiful country and the bravest people in the world.
+
+Behind the waggon walked the children's procession. They went by
+twos, hand in hand, like good friends or little brides and bridegrooms.
+
+And with the pealing of bells the procession slowly wound up the
+mountain to the church.
+
+After divine service the festivities began, and very soon shots
+were fired on the rifle-range, which was built against the rocky
+wall of the St. Gotthard.
+
+The postmaster's son was the best shot in the village, and nobody
+doubted that he would win the prize. He hit the bull's-eye four
+times out of six.
+
+From the summit of the mountain came a hallooing and a crashing;
+stones and gravel rolled down the precipice, and the fir trees in
+the sacred wood rocked as if a gale were blowing. On the top of
+a cliff, his rifle slung across his shoulders, frantically waving
+his hat, appeared the wild chamois hunter Andrea of Airolo, an
+Italian village on the other side of the mountain.
+
+"Don't go into the wood!" screamed the riflemen.
+
+Andrea did not understand.
+
+"Don't go into the sacred wood," shouted the magistrate, "or the
+mountain will fall on us!"
+
+"Let it fall, then," shouted Andrea, running down the cliff with
+incredible rapidity.
+
+"Here I am!"
+
+"You're too late!" exclaimed the magistrate.
+
+"I have never been too late yet!" replied Andrea; went to the
+shooting-range, raised his rifle six times to his cheek, and each
+time hit the bull's-eye.
+
+Now, he really was the best shot, but the club had its regulations,
+and, moreover, the dark-skinned men from the other side of the
+mountain, where the wine grew and the silk was spun, were not very
+popular. An old feud raged between them and the men of Göschenen,
+and the newcomer was disqualified.
+
+But Andrea approached the prettiest girl in the grounds, who
+happened to be the magistrate's own daughter, and politely asked
+her to open the dance with him.
+
+Pretty Gertrude blushed, for she was fond of Andrea, but she was
+obliged to refuse his request.
+
+Andrea frowned, bowed and whispered words into her ear, which
+covered her face with crimson.
+
+"You shall be my wife," he said, "even if I have to wait ten years
+for you. I have walked eight hours across the mountain to meet you;
+that is why I am so late; next time I shall be in good time, even
+if I should have to walk right through the mountain itself."
+
+The festivities were over. All the riflemen were sitting in
+"The Golden Horse," Andrea in the midst of them. Rudi, the son of
+the postmaster, sat at the head of the table, because he was the
+prize-winner according to the regulations, even if Andrea was the
+best shot in reality.
+
+Rudi was in a teasing mood.
+
+"Well, Andrea," he said, "we all know you for a mighty hunter; but,
+you know, it's easier to shoot a chamois than to carry it home."
+
+"If I shoot a chamois I carry it home," replied Andrea.
+
+"Maybe you do! But everybody here has had a shot at Barbarossa's
+ring, although nobody has won it yet!" answered Rudi.
+
+"What is that about Barbarossa's ring?" asked a stranger who had
+never been in Göschenen.
+
+"That's Barbarossa's ring, over there," said Rudi.
+
+He pointed to the side of the mountain, where a large copper ring
+hung on a hook, and went on:
+
+"This is the road by which King Frederick Barbarossa used to travel
+to Italy; he travelled over it six times, and was crowned both in
+Milan and in Rome. And as this made him German-Roman emperor, he
+caused this ring to be hung up on the mountain, in remembrance of
+his having wedded Germany to Italy. And if this ring, so goes the
+saying, can be lifted off its hook, then the marriage, which was
+not a happy one, will be annulled."
+
+"Then I will annul it," said Andrea. "I will break the bonds as my
+fathers broke the bonds which bound my poor country to the tyrants
+of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden."
+
+"Are you not a Swiss, yourself ?" asked the magistrate severely.
+
+"No, I am an Italian of the Swiss Confederation."
+
+He slipped an iron bullet into his gun, took aim and shot.
+
+The ring was lifted from below and jerked off the hook.  Barbarossa's
+ring lay at their feet.
+
+"Long live Italy!" shouted Andrea. throwing his hat into the air.
+
+Nobody said a word.
+
+Andrea picked up the ring, handed it to the magistrate and said:
+
+"Keep this ring in memory of me and this day, on which you did me
+a wrong."
+
+He seized Gertrude's hand and kissed it; climbed up the mountain
+and disappeared; was seen again and vanished in a cloud. After a
+while he reappeared, high above them; but this time it was merely
+his gigantic shadow thrown on a cloud. And there he stood, shaking
+a threatening fist at the village.
+
+"That was Satan himself," said the colonel.
+
+"No, it was an Italian," said the postmaster.
+
+"Since it is late in the evening," said the magistrate, "I'll
+tell you an official secret, which will be read in all the papers
+to-morrow."
+
+"Hear! hear!"
+
+"We have received information that when it became known that the
+Emperor of France was made a prisoner at Sedan, the Italians drove
+the French troops out of Rome, and that Victor Emanuel is at this
+moment on his way to the capital."
+
+"This is great news. It puts an end to Germany's dreams of promenades
+to Rome. Andrea must have known about it when he boasted so much."
+
+"He must have known more," said the magistrate.
+
+"What? What?"
+
+"Wait, and you'll see."
+
+And they saw.
+
+***
+
+One day strangers came and carefully examined the mountain through
+their field-glasses. It looked as if they were gazing at the place
+where Barbarossa's ring had hung, for that was the spot at which
+they directed their glasses.  And then they consulted the compass,
+as if they did not know which was the North and which was the South.
+
+There was a big dinner at "The Golden Horse," at which the magistrate
+was present. At dessert they talked of millions and millions of
+money.
+
+A short time after "The Golden Horse" was pulled down; next came
+the church, which was taken down piece by piece and built up again
+on another spot; half the village was razed to the ground; barracks
+were built, the course of the stream deflected, the mill-wheel
+taken away, the factory closed, the cattle sold.
+
+And then three thousand Italian-speaking labourers with dark hair
+and olive skins arrived on the scene.
+
+The beautiful old songs of Switzerland and the pure joys of spring
+were heard no more.
+
+Instead of that, the sound of hammering could be heard day and
+night. A jumper was driven into the mountain at the exact spot
+where Barbarossa's ring had hung; and then the blasting began.
+
+It would not have been so very difficult (as everybody knew) to
+make a hole through the mountain, but it was intended to make two
+holes, one on each side, and the two holes were to meet in the
+middle; nobody believed that this was possible, for the tunnel was
+to be nearly nine miles long. Nearly nine miles!
+
+And what would happen if they did not meet? Well, they would have
+to begin again at the beginning.
+
+But the engineer-in-chief had assured them that they would meet.
+
+Andrea, on the Italian side, had faith in the engineer-in-chief,
+and since he was himself a very capable fellow, as we know, he
+applied for work under him and soon was made a foreman.
+
+Andrea liked his work. He no longer saw daylight, the green fields
+and snow-clad Alps. But he fancied that he was cutting a way for
+himself through the mountain to Gertrude, the way which he had
+boasted he would come.
+
+For eight years he stood in darkness, living the life of a dog,
+stripped to the waist, for he was working in a temperature of a
+hundred degrees. Now the way was blocked by a spring, and he had to
+work standing in the water; now by a deposit of loam, and he stood
+almost knee-deep in the mire; the atmosphere was nearly always
+foul, and many of his fellow-labourers succumbed to it; but new
+ones were ever ready to take their place. Finally Andrea, too,
+succumbed, and was taken into the hospital.  He was tortured by the
+idea that the two tunnels would never meet. Supposing they never
+met!
+
+There were also men from the other side in the hospital; and at
+times, when they were not delirious, they would ask one another
+the all-absorbing question: "Would they meet?"
+
+The people from the South had never before been so anxious to meet
+the people from the North as they were now, deep down in the heart
+of the mountain.  They knew that if they met, their feud of over
+a thousand years' standing would be over, and they would fall into
+each other's arms, reconciled.
+
+Andrea recovered and returned to work; he was in the strike of
+1875, threw a stone, and underwent a term of imprisonment.
+
+In the year 1877 his native village, Airolo, was destroyed by fire.
+
+"Now I have burnt my boats behind me," he said, "there is no going
+back--I must go on."
+
+The 19th of July 1879 was a day of mourning. The engineer-in-chief
+had gone into the mountain to measure and to calculate; and, all
+absorbed in his work, he had had a stroke and died. Died with his
+race only half run!  He ought to have been buried where he fell,
+in a more gigantic stone pyramid than any of the Egyptian Pharaohs
+had built for tees, and his name, Favre, should have been carved
+into the stone.
+
+However, time passed, Andrea gained money, experience, and strength.
+He never went to Göschenen, but once a year he went to the "sacred
+wood" to contemplate the devastation, as he said.
+
+He never saw Gertrude, never sent her a letter; there was no need
+for it, he was always with her is his thoughts, and he felt that
+her will was his.
+
+In the seventh year the magistrate died, in poverty.
+
+"What a lucky thing that he died a poor man," thought Andrea; and
+there are not many sons-in-law who would think like that.
+
+In the eighth year something extraordinary happened; Andrea,
+foremost man on the Italian side of the tunnel, was hard at work,
+beating on his jumper. There was scarcely any air; he felt suffocated,
+and suffered from a disagreeable buzzing in his ears. Suddenly he
+heard a ticking, which sounded like the ticking of a wood-worm,
+whom people call "the death-watch."
+
+"Has my last hour come?" he said, thinking aloud.
+
+"Your last hour!" replied a voice; he did not know whether it was
+within or without him, but he felt afraid.
+
+On the next day he again heard the ticking, but more distinctly,
+so that he came to the conclusion that it must be his watch.
+
+But on the third day, which was a holiday, he heard nothing; and now
+he believed that it must have been something supernatural; he was
+afraid and went to mass, and in his heart he deplored the futility
+of life. He would never see the great day, never win the prize
+offered to the man who would first walk through the dividing wall,
+never win Gertrude.
+
+On the Monday, however, he was again the foremost of the men in
+the tunnel, but he felt despondent, for he no longer believed that
+they would meet the Germans in the mountain.
+
+He beat and hammered, but without enthusiasm, slowly, as his weakened
+heart was beating after the tunnel-sickness. All of a sudden he
+heard something like a shot and a tremendous crashing noise inside
+the mountain on the other side.
+
+And now a light burst on him; they had met.
+
+He fell on his knees and thanked God. And then he arose and began
+to work. He worked during breakfast, during dinner, during recreation
+time, and during supper. When his right arm was lame with exertion,
+he worked with the left one. He thought of the engineer-in-chief,
+who had been struck down before the wall of rock; he sang the song
+of the three men in the fiery furnace, for it seemed to him that
+the air around him was red-hot, while the perspiration dropped from
+his forehead, and his feet stood in the mire.
+
+On the stroke of seven, on the 28th of January, he fell forward
+on his jumper, which pierced the wall right through. Loud cheering
+from the other side roused him, and he understood; he realised
+that they had met, that his troubles were over, and that he was
+the winner of ten thousand lire.
+
+After a sigh of thanksgiving to the All-Merciful God, he pressed
+his lips to the bore-hole and whispered the name, of Gertrude; and
+then he called for three times three cheers for the Germans.
+
+At eleven o'clock at night, there were shouts of "attention!"
+on the Italian side, and with a  thunderous crash, a noise like
+the booming of cannon at a siege, the wall fell down. Germans and
+Italians embraced one another and wept, and all fell on their knees
+and sang the "Te Deum laudamus."
+
+It was a great moment; it was in 1880, the year in which Stanley's
+work in Africa was done, and Nordensköld had accomplished his task.
+
+When they had sung the "Te Deum" a German workman stepped forward
+and handed to the Italians a beautifully got-up parchment. It was
+a record and an appreciation of the services of the engineer-in-chief,
+Louis Favre.
+
+He was to be the first man to pass through the tunnel, and Andrea
+was appointed to carry the memorial and his name by the little
+workmen's train to Airolo.
+
+And Andrea accomplished his mission faithfully, sitting before the
+locomotive on a barrow.
+
+Yes, it was a great day, and the night was no less great.
+
+They drank wine in Airolo, Italian wine, and let off fireworks.
+They made speeches on Louis Favre, Stanley, and Nordensköld; they
+made a speech on the St.  Gotthard, which, for thousands of years
+had been a barrier between Germany and Italy, between the North and
+the South. A barrier it had been, and at the same time a uniter,
+honestly dividing its waters between the German Rhine, the French
+Rhone, the North Sea and the Mediterranean . ...
+
+"And the Adriatic," interrupted a man from Tessin. "Don't forget
+the Ticino, which is a tributary to the largest river of Italy,
+the mighty Po . ..."
+
+"Bravo! That's better still! Three cheers for the St. Gotthard,
+the great Germany, the free Italy, and the new France!"
+
+It was a great night, following a great day.
+
+***
+
+On the following morning Andrea called at the Engineering Offices.
+He wore his Italian shooting-dress; an eagle's feather ornamented
+his hat, and a gun and a knapsack were slung across his shoulder.
+His face and his hands were white.
+
+"So you have done with the tunnel," said the cashier, or the
+"moneyman," as they called him. "Well, nobody can blame you for
+it, for what remains to be done is mason's work. To your account,
+then!"
+
+The moneyman opened a book, wrote something on a piece of paper,
+and handed Andrea ten thousand lire in gold.
+
+Andrea signed his name, put the gold into his knapsack and went.
+
+He jumped into a workman's train, and in ten minutes he had arrived
+at the fallen barrier. There were fires burning in the mountain,
+the workmen cheered when they saw him and waved their caps. It was
+splendid!
+
+Ten more minutes and he was at the Swiss side. When he saw the
+daylight shining through the entrance to the tunnel, the train
+stopped and he got out.
+
+He walked towards the green light, and came to the village and the
+green world, bathed in sunlight; the village had been rebuilt and
+looked prettier than before. And when the workmen saw him they
+saluted their first man.
+
+He went straight up to a little house, and there, under a walnut
+tree, by the side of the bee-hives, stood Gertrude, calm, and a
+hundred times more beautiful and gentle. It looked as if she had
+stood there for eight years, waiting for him.
+
+"Now I have come," he said, "as I intended to come! Will you follow
+me to my country?"
+
+"I will follow you wherever you go!"
+
+"I gave you a ring long ago; have you still got it?"
+
+"I have it still!"
+
+"Then let us go at once! No, don't turn back! Don't take anything
+with you!"
+
+And they went away, hand in hand, but not through the tunnel.
+
+"On to the mountain!" said Andrea, turning in the direction of the
+old pass; "through darkness I came to you, but in light I will live
+with you and for you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF JUBAL WHO HAD NO "I"
+
+Once upon a time there was a king whose name was John Lackland,
+and it is not difficult to imagine the reason why.
+
+But another time there lived a great singer who was called "Jubal,
+who had no I," and I am now going to tell you the reason.
+
+The name which he had inherited from his father, a soldier, was
+Peal, and undeniably there was music in the name. But nature had
+also given him a strong will, which stiffened his back like an iron
+bar, and that is a splendid gift, quite invaluable in the struggle
+for an existence. When he was still a baby, only just able to
+stammer a few words, he would never refer to his own little person
+as "he," as other babies do, but from the very first he spoke of
+himself as "I."  You have no "I," said his parents. When he grew
+older, he expressed every little want or desire by "I will." But
+then his father said to him, "You have no will," and "Your will
+grows in the wood."
+
+It was very foolish of the soldier, but he knew no better; he had
+learned to will only what he was ordered to do.
+
+Young Peal thought it strange that he should be supposed to have
+no will when he had such a very strong one, but he let it pass.
+
+When he had grown into a fine, strong youth, his father said to
+him one day, "What trade will you learn?"
+
+The boy did not know; he had ceased to will anything, because he was
+forbidden to do so. It is true, he had a leaning towards music, but
+he did not dare to say so, for he was convinced that his parents
+would not allow him to become a musician. Therefore, being an
+obedient son, he replied, "I don't will anything."
+
+"Then you shall be a tapster," said the father.
+
+Whether it was because the father knew a tapster, or because wine
+had a peculiar attraction for him, is a matter of indifference.
+It is quite enough to know that young Peal was sent to the wine
+vaults, and he might have fared a good deal worse.
+
+There was a lovely smell of sealing-wax and French wine in the
+cellars, and they were large and had vaulted roofs, like churches.
+When he sat at the casks and tapped the red wine, his heart was
+filled with gladness, and he sang, in an undertone at first, all
+sorts of tunes which he had picked up.
+
+His master, to whom wine spelt life, loved song and gaiety, and
+never dreamed of stopping his  singing; it sounded so well in the
+vaults, and, moreover, it attracted customers, which was a splendid
+thing from the master's point of view.
+
+One day a commercial traveller dropped in; he had started life as
+an opera-singer, and when he heard Peal, he was so delighted with
+him that he invited him to dinner.
+
+They played nine-pins, ate crabs with dill, drank punch, and, above
+everything, sang songs. Between two songs, and after they had sworn
+eternal friendship, the commercial traveller said:
+
+"Why don't you go on the stage?"
+
+"I?" answered Peal, "how could I do that?"
+
+"All you have to do is to say 'I will.'"
+
+This was a new doctrine, for since his third year young Peal
+had not used the words "I" and "will." He had trained himself to
+neither wish nor will, and he begged his friend not to lead him
+into temptation.
+
+But the commercial traveller came again; he came many times, and
+once he was accompanied by a famous singer; and one evening Peal,
+after much applause from a professor of singing, took his fate into
+his own hands.
+
+He said good-bye to his master, and over a glass of wine heartily
+thanked his friend, the commercial traveller, for having given
+him self-confidence and will,--"will, that iron bar, which keeps
+a man's back erect and prevents him from grovelling on all fours."
+And he swore a solemn oath never to forget his friend, who had
+taught him to have faith in himself.
+
+Then he went to say good-bye to his parents.
+
+"I will be a singer," he said in a loud voice, which echoed through
+the room.
+
+The father glanced at the horse-whip, and the mother cried; but it
+was no use.
+
+"Don't lose yourself, my darling boy," were the mother's last words.
+
+***
+
+Young Peal managed to raise enough money to enable him to go abroad.
+There he learned singing according to all the rules of the art, and
+in a few years' time he was a very great singer indeed. He earned
+much money and travelled with his own impresario.
+
+Peal was prospering now and found no difficulty in saying "I will,"
+or even "I command." His "I" grew to gigantic proportions, and he
+suffered no other "I's" near him. He denied himself nothing, and
+did not put his light under a bushel. But now, as he was about to
+return to his own country, his impresario told him that no man could
+be a great singer and at the same time be called Peal; he advised
+him to adopt a more elegant name, a foreign name by preference,
+for that was the fashion.
+
+The great man fought an inward struggle, for it is not a very nice
+thing to change one's name; it looks as if one were ashamed of
+one's father and mother, and is apt to create a bad impression.
+
+But hearing that it was the fashion, he let it pass.
+
+He opened his Bible to look for a name, for the Bible is the very
+best book for the purpose.
+
+And when he came to Jubal, "who was the son of Lamech, and the
+father of all such as handle the harp and organ," he considered
+that he could not do better. The impresario, who was an Englishman,
+suggested that he should call himself Mr. Jubal, and Peal agreed.
+Henceforth he was Mr. Jubal.
+
+It was all quite harmless, of course, since it was the fashion,
+but it was nevertheless a strange thing with the new name Peal
+had changed his nature. His past was blotted out. Mr. Jubal looked
+upon himself as an Englishman born and bred, spoke with a foreign
+accent, grew side-whiskers and wore very high collars; a checked
+suit grew round him as the bark grows round a tree, apparently
+without any effort on his part. He carried himself stiffly, and
+when he met a friend in the street he acknowledged his friendly
+bow with the flicker of an eyelid. He never turned round if anybody
+called after him, and he always stood right in the middle of a
+street car.
+
+He hardly knew himself.
+
+He was now at home again, in his own country, and engaged to sing
+at the Opera-house. He played kings and prophets, heroes and demons,
+and he was so good an actor that whenever he rehearsed a part, he
+instantly became the part he impersonated.
+
+One day he was strolling along the street. He was playing some sort
+of a demon, but he was also Mr.   Jubal. Suddenly he heard a voice
+calling after him, "Peal!" He did not turn round, for no Englishman
+would do such a thing, and, moreover, his name was no longer Peal.
+
+But the voice called again, "Peal!" and his friend, the commercial
+traveller, stood before him, looking at him searchingly, and yet
+with an expression of shy kindliness.
+
+"Dear old Peal, it _is_ you!" he said.
+
+Mr. Jubal felt that a demon was taking possession of him; he opened
+his mouth so wide that he showed all his teeth, and bellowed a curt
+"No!"
+
+Then his friend felt quite convinced that it was he and went away.
+He was an enlightened man, who knew men, the world and himself
+inside out, and therefore he was neither sorry nor astonished.
+
+But Mr. Jubal thought he was; he heard a voice within him saying,
+"Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice," and he did what
+St. Peter had done, he went away and wept bitterly. That is to say,
+he wept in imagination, but the demon in his heart laughed.
+
+Henceforth he was always laughing; he laughed at good and evil,
+sorrow and disgrace, at everything and everybody.
+
+His father and mother knew, from the papers, who Mr.  Jubal really
+was, but they never went to the Opera-house, for they fancied it
+had something to do with hoops and horses, and they objected to
+seeing their son in such surroundings.
+
+Mr. Jubal was now the greatest living singer; he had lost a lot of
+his "I," but he still had his will.
+
+Then his day came. There was a little ballet-dancer who could bewitch
+men, and she bewitched Jubal. She bewitched him to such an extent
+that he asked her whether he might be hers. (He meant, of course,
+whether she would be his, but the other is a more polite way of
+expressing it.)
+
+"You shall be mine," said the sorceress,  if I may take you."
+
+"You may do anything you like," replied Jubal.
+
+The girl took him at his word and they married. First of all he
+taught her to sing and play, and then he gave her everything she
+asked for. But since was a sorceress, she always wanted the things
+which he most objected to giving to her, and so, gradually, she
+wrested his will from him and made him her slave.
+
+One fine day Mrs. Jubal had become a great singer, so great that
+when the audience called "Jubal!" it was not Mr. but Mrs. Jubal
+who took the call.
+
+Jubal, of course, longed to regain his former position, but he
+scorned to do it at his wife's expense.
+
+The world began to forget him.
+
+The brilliant circle of friends who had surrounded Mr.  Jubal in
+his bachelor chambers now surrounded his wife, for it was she who
+was "Jubal."
+
+Nobody wanted to talk to him or drink with him, and when he attempted
+to join in the conversation, nobody listened to his remarks; it
+was just as if he were not present, and his wife was treated as if
+she were an unmarried woman.
+
+Then Mr. Jubal grew very lonely, and in his loneliness he began to
+frequent the cafes.
+
+One evening he was at a restaurant, trying to find somebody to talk
+to, and ready to talk to anybody willing to listen to him. All at
+once he caught sight of his old friend the commercial traveller,
+sitting at a table by himself, evidently very bored. "Thank
+goodness," he thought, "here's somebody to spend an hour with--it's
+old Lundberg."
+
+He went to Mr. Lundberg's table and said "good evening." But no sooner
+had he done so than his friend's face changed in so extraordinary
+a manner that Jubal wondered whether he had made a mistake.
+
+"Aren't you Lundberg?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Don't you know me? I'm Jubal!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Don't you know your old friend Peal?"
+
+"Peal died a long time ago."
+
+Then Jubal understood that he was, from a certain point of view,
+dead, and he went away.
+
+On the following day he left the stage for ever and opened a school
+for singing, with the title of a professor.
+
+Then he went to foreign countries, and remained abroad for many
+years.
+
+Sadness, for he mourned for himself as for a dead friend, and sorrow
+were fast making an old man of him. But he was glad that it should
+be so, for, he thought, if I'm old, it won't last much longer. But
+as he did not age quite as fast as he would have liked, he bought
+himself a wig with long white curls. He felt better after that,
+for it disguised him completely, so completely that he did not know
+himself.
+
+With long strides, his hands crossed on his back, he walked up and
+down the pavements, lost in a brown study; he seemed to be looking
+for some one, or expecting some one. If his eyes met the glance of
+other eyes, he did not respond to the question in them; if anybody
+tried to make his acquaintance, he would never talk of anything but
+things and objects. And he never said "I" or "I find," but always
+"it seems." He had lost himself, as he did one day just as he was
+going to shave. He was sitting before his looking-glass, his chin
+covered with a lather of soap; he raised the hand which held the
+razor and looked into the glass; then he beheld the room behind his
+back, but he could not see his face, and all at once he realised
+how matters stood. Now he was filled with a passionate yearning to
+find himself again. He had given the best part of himself to his
+wife, for she had his will, and so he decided to go and see her.
+
+When he was back in his native country and walked through the
+streets in his white wig, not a soul recognised him. But a musician
+who had been in Italy, meeting him in town one day, said in a loud
+voice, "There goes a maestro!"
+
+Immediately Jubal imagined that he was a great composer.  He bought
+some music paper and started to write a score; that is to say, he
+wrote a number of long and short notes on the lines, some for the
+violins, of course, others for the wood-wind, and the remainder
+for the brass instruments. He sent his work to the Conservatoire.
+But nobody could play the music, because it was not music, but only
+notes.
+
+A little later on he was met by an artist who had been in Paris.
+"There goes a model!" said the artist. Jubal heard it, and at once
+believed that he was a model, for he believed everything that was
+said of him, because he did not know who or what he was.
+
+Presently he remembered his wife, and he resolved to go and see
+her. He did go, but she had married again, and she and her second
+husband, who was a baron, had gone abroad.
+
+At last he grew tired of his quest, and, like all tired men, he
+felt a great yearning for his mother. He knew that she was a widow
+and lived in a cottage in the mountains, so one day he went to see
+her.
+
+"Don't you know me?" he asked.
+
+"What is your name?" asked the mother.
+
+"My name is your son's name. Don't you know it?"
+
+"My son's name was Peal, but yours is Jubal, and I don't know
+Jubal."
+
+"You disown me?"
+
+"As you disowned yourself and your mother."
+
+"Why did you rob me of my will when I was a little child?"
+
+"You gave your will to a woman."
+
+"I had to, because it was the only way of winning her. But why did
+you tell me I had no will?"
+
+"Well, your father told you that, my boy, and he knew no better;
+you must forgive him, for he is dead now. Children, you see, are
+not supposed to have a will of their own, but grown-up people are."
+
+"How well you explain it all, mother! Children are not supposed to
+have a will, but grown-up people are."
+
+"Now, listen to me, Gustav," said his mother, "Gustav Peal . ..."
+
+These were his two real names, and when he heard them from her
+lips, he became himself again. All the parts he had played--kings
+and demons, the maestro and the model--cut and ran, and he was but
+the son of his mother.
+
+He put his head on her knees and said, "Now, let me die here, for
+at last I am at home."
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN HELMETS IN THE ALLEBERG
+
+Anders was the son of poor people, and in his youth he had wandered
+through many kingdoms, with a bale of cloth and a yard-measure on
+his back. But as he grew older he carne to the conclusion that it
+would be better to wear the king's uniform and carry a rifle on
+his shoulder, and therefore he went and enlisted in the Västgotadal
+regiment. And one day it happened that he was sent to Stockholm on
+sentry duty.
+
+Friend Cask, as he was now called, was on leave one day, and he
+made up his mind to spend it at the "Fort." But when he came to the
+gate he found that he had not a sixpence, and consequently he had
+to remain outside.
+
+For a long time he stood staring at the railings, and then he
+thought, "I'll just walk round; perhaps I'll come across a stile;
+if the worst comes to the worst, I'll climb over."
+
+The sun was setting; he walked along the shore, at the foot of the
+mountain, and the railings were high above him; he could hear the
+sound of music and singing.  Cask went round and round, but found
+no stile, and at last the railings disappeared in a forest of nut
+trees. When he was tired he sat down on a hillock and began to
+crack nuts.
+
+Suddenly a squirrel appeared before him and put up its tail.
+
+"Leave my nuts alone!" it said.
+
+"I will, if you'll take me to a stile," said Cask.
+
+"Part of the way, then," said the squirrel. It hopped along and
+the soldier followed, until all at once it had vanished.
+
+Then a hedgehog came rustling along.
+
+"Come with me and I'll show you the stile," it said.
+
+"Go with you? not if I know it."
+
+But in spite of his remark the hedgehog followed him.
+
+Next an adder joined them. It was very genteel; it lisped and could
+twist itself into a knot.
+
+"Follow me," it said, "_I_ will show you the stile."
+
+"I follow," said Cask.
+
+"But you mutht be genteel; you muthtn't t stread as me. I like
+nithe people."
+
+"Well, a soldier isn't exactly genteel," said Cask, "but I'm not
+so terribly uncouth."
+
+"Tread on it," said the hedgehog, "else it will bite you, ever so
+genteely."
+
+The adder reared its neck and rustled away.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the hedgehog, attacking the snake. "I am not as
+genteel as you are, but I show my bristles openly, I do!"
+
+And then it killed the snake and disappeared.
+
+Now the soldier was alone in the wood and very sorry he felt that
+he had rejected the society of the prickly hedgehog.
+
+It had grown dark, but the crescent of the moon shone between the
+birch leaves, and it was quite still.
+
+The soldier fancied that he could see a big yellow hand moving
+backwards and forwards. He went close up to it, and then he saw
+that it was a yellow leaf, which seemed to gesticulate with its
+fingers, although nobody could possibly understand what it wanted
+to say.
+
+As he stood there, watching it, he heard an asp trembling:
+
+"Huh! I'm so cold," said the asp, "for my feet are wet, and I _am_
+so frightened."
+
+"What are you frightened of?" asked the soldier.
+
+"Well, of the dwarf who is sitting in the mountain."
+
+Now the soldier realised what the maple leaf meant, and there was
+no doubt about it, he saw a dwarf sitting in the mountain, cooking
+porridge.
+
+"Who are you?" asked the dwarf.
+
+"I belong to the Västgotadal regiment; where do you come from?"
+
+"I," said the dwarf, "I am in the Alleberg."
+
+"The Alleberg is in the Västgota country," answered the soldier.
+
+"We have removed it to this place," replied the dwarf.
+
+"You lie!" exclaimed the soldier, seized the pot by its handle and
+threw the porridge into the fire.
+
+"Now we'll have a look at the mouse-hole," he said, and went right
+into the mountain.
+
+There he found a giant sitting by a huge fire, making an iron bar
+red-hot.
+
+"Good day, good day," said the soldier, stretching out his hand.
+
+"Good day to you," said the giant, giving him the red-hot iron bar.
+
+Cask took the iron and pressed it so hard that it hissed.
+
+"You have got very warm hands, I must say," he said.  "What's your
+name?"
+
+"I'm the giant Swede," said the troll.
+
+"That was a Swedish hand-shake of yours, anyhow, and now I realise
+that I am in the Alleberg. Are the golden helmets still asleep?"
+
+"Will you be quiet!" exclaimed the giant, threatening him with the
+red-hot bar.
+
+"You shall see them, because you belong to the Västgotadal regiment,
+but first of all you must solve my riddle," he continued.
+
+"If you want to fight one of your own countrymen, well and good.
+But first of all, put that fiery thing away!"
+
+"Very well, Cask, you shall recite the history of Sweden while I
+smoke my pipe. Then I will show you the golden helmets. The whole
+history of Sweden, please."
+
+"I can easily do that, although I was not one of the top dogs at
+the military school. Let me try and recall it to memory."
+
+"There is one condition: you must not mention the name of a single
+king; for if you do, those inside will get angry; and when they
+get angry, then, you know . ..."
+
+"It will be awfully difficult. But light your pipe and I'll begin.
+Here's a match!"
+
+The soldier scratched his head and began:
+
+"One--two--three! In the year 1161, or thereabouts, Sweden first
+came into existence; a kingdom, a king, and an archbishop--is
+that enough?"
+
+"No," said Swede, "not at all. Begin again."
+
+"Very well, then! In the year 1359 the Swedish people became a
+nation, for then the Parliament of the four estates first met, and
+it continued to meet, with interruptions, until 1866."
+
+"Well, but you're a soldier," said Swede, "surely you'll have a
+few words to say about wars."
+
+"There are only two wars of any importance, and they ended, the
+first with the peace of Brömsebro in 1645, when we got Herjedalen,
+Jämtland, and Gottland, and the second with the peace of Röskilde
+in 1658, when we got Schonen, Halland, Blekinge, and Bohuslän. And
+that is all there is of the history of Sweden."
+
+"But you forget the constitutions?"
+
+"Well, we had an autocracy from 1680 to 1718 then there followed
+a period of freedom until 1789, and this was followed again by an
+autocracy. Then came Adlersparre's revolution in 1809, and he got
+Hans Järke to draw up the constitution which is still surviving.
+That is all you need know. Haven't you finished your pipe yet?"
+
+"There!" said the giant. "It wasn't so bad on the whole! And now
+you shall see the golden helmets."
+
+The troll arose with difficulty and went into the inferior of the
+mountain; the soldier followed at his heels.
+
+"Tread softly!" said the giant, pointing to a light with a golden
+helmet who was leaning against a door, made of rock, apparently
+fast asleep. But before the words had been out of his mouth, Cask
+stumbled and the iron on the heel of his shoe struck a stone so
+forcibly that it emitted sparks. The golden helmet awoke at once,
+just as if he had been a sleeping sentry, and called:
+
+"Is it time?"
+
+"Not yet!" answered the giant.
+
+The knight with the golden helmet sat down again and instantly fell
+asleep.
+
+The giant opened a mountain wall and the soldier looked into a huge
+hall. A table, that seemed to  have no end, ran through the centre
+of the hall, and in the twilight the soldier could see a brilliant
+gathering of knights with golden helmets sitting in arm-chairs,
+the backs of which were decorated with golden crowns. At the head
+of the table sat a man who seemed head and shoulders taller than
+the rest; his beard reached to his waist, like the beard of Moses
+or Joshua, and he held a hammer all his hand.
+
+All of them seemed fast asleep, although it was neither the sleep
+which restores strength, nor the sleep which is called eternal
+sleep.
+
+"Now, pay attention," said the giant, "to-day is the great
+commemoration day."
+
+He pressed a finger on a lark garnet in the mountain rock, and a
+thousand flames shot up.
+
+The golden helmets awoke.
+
+"Who goes there?" asked the man with the prophet's beard.
+
+"Swede," answered the giant.
+
+"A good name!" replied Gustav Eriksson Wasa, for it was he. "How
+much time has passed away?"
+
+"In years, after the birth of Christ, one thousand nine hundred
+and three."
+
+"Time flies. But have you made arty progress? Are you still a
+country and a nation?"
+
+"We are. But since Gustavus I, the country has grown.  Jämtland,
+Herjedalen, and Gottland have been added."
+
+"Who conquered them?"
+
+"Well, it was in the time of Queen Christina; but her guardians
+really conquered them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then we got Schonen, Halland, Blekinge, and Bohuslän."
+
+"The deuce you did! Who won them?"
+
+"Charles X."
+
+"Well, and then?"
+
+"Nothing else."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+Somebody knocked on the table.
+
+"Erich the saint wishes to speak," said Gustav Wasa.
+
+"My name is Erich Jedvardson, and I never was a saint. May I be
+allowed to ask Swede what became of my Finland?"
+
+"Finland belongs to Russia, by its own wish, after the peace of
+Fredrikshamn in 1809, when the Finnish nation sore allegiance to
+the Czar."
+
+Gustavus II., Adolfus, asked permission to speak.
+
+"Where are the Baltic provinces?" he asked.
+
+"Reclaimed by their rightful owner," answered Swede.
+
+"And the emperor? Is there still an emperor?"
+
+"There are two; one in Berlin. and one in Vienna."
+
+"Two of the House of Habsburg?"
+
+"No, one of the House of Habsburg and the other of the House of
+Hohenzollern."
+
+"Incredible! And the Catholics in North Germany--are they converted?"
+
+"No, the Catholics form the majority in the German Parliament, and
+the emperor at Berlin is trying to put pressure on the College of
+Cardinals, with a view to influencing the choice of the next Pope."
+
+"There is still a Pope, then?"
+
+"Oh! yes, although one of them has just died."
+
+"And what does the Hohenzollern want in Rome?"
+
+"No one knows; some say that it is his ambition to become Roman-German
+emperor of the Evangelical Confession."
+
+"A syncretistic emperor dreamt of by John George of Saxony!  I don't
+want to hear anymore. The ways of Providence are strange, and we
+mortals, what are we? Dust and ashes!"
+
+Charles XII. asked permission to speak.
+
+"Can Swede tell me what has become of Poland?"
+
+"Poland is no more. It has been split up."
+
+"Split up? And Russia?"
+
+"Russia recently celebrated the foundation of Petersburg, and the
+Lord Mavor of Stockholm walked in the procession."
+
+"As a prisoner?"
+
+"No, as a guest. All nations are on friendly terms now, and not
+very long ago a French army, commanded by a German field-marshall,
+invaded China."
+
+"Delicious! Are people now the friends of their enemies?"
+
+"Yes, they are all penetrated by a Christian spirit, and there is
+a permanent Committee for the Preservation of Peace established at
+the Hague."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A permanent Committee for the Preservation of Peace."
+
+"Then my time is over! God's will be done!"
+
+The king closed his visor and remained silent.
+
+Charles, XI. claimed attention.
+
+"Well, Swede, what about the finances of the old country?"
+
+"It's difficult to answer your question, for I'm afraid they know
+nothing of keeping accounts. But one or two things are certain:
+that quite half kingdom has been pledged to the foreigner for about
+three hundred millions."
+
+"Oh! Lord!"
+
+"And the municipal debts amount to about two hundred millions."
+
+"Two hundred!"
+
+"And in the years 1881 to 1885 one hundred and forty-six thousand
+Swedes emigrated."
+
+"Enough! I don't want to hear any more!"
+
+Gustav Wasa knocked on the table with his hammer.
+
+"As far as I can understand the matter, the country is in a bad
+way. Sluggards you are, lazy, envious, irresponsible sluggards;
+too idle to bestir yourselves, but quick enough to prevent anybody
+else from doing anything. But tell me, Swede, what about my church
+and my priests?"
+
+"The priests of the church are farmers and dairy-keepers. The bishops
+have an income of thirty thousand crowns, and collect money, exactly
+as they did before the Recess of Vesteraes; moreover, nearly all
+of them are heretics, or free-thinkers, as they call themselves.
+Men are beginning to expect some sort of a Reformation."
+
+"Indeed? ... And what is the meaning of this music and singing up
+here?"
+
+"This is the 'Fort.' That is, a mountain, where they have
+a collection of all the national keepsakes, just as if the nation
+were anticipating its end and making its last will and testament,
+gathering together all the mementoes of the past. It shows reverence
+for the ancestors, but nothing else."
+
+"What we have heard on this commemoration day seems to prove that
+the deeds of our forefathers have been engulfed in the ocean of
+time. One thing swims on the surface, another sinks to the bottom.
+Here we are sitting like the shadows of our former selves, and to
+you, who are alive, we must remain shadows . ... Put out the lights!"
+
+The giant Swede extinguished the lights and went out; the soldier
+followed close behind him and climbed into something which looked
+like a cage.
+
+"If you say a word to anybody of what you have seen and heard,"
+said the giant, "you will be sorry for it."
+
+"I can quite believe that," answered Cask, "but shall always remember
+it. That they should have squandered the old country in drink and
+pledge to the foreigner! It's too bad--if it's true."
+
+"Click" went the turbine; and the lift with soldier shot upwards to
+the "Fort." And there stood, in the sunset, and the country looked
+just as it had looked when the chimes in the belfry Häsjoer chimed,
+and Gustav Wasa entered Stockholm, surrounded by his generals.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BLUEWING FINDS THE GOLDPOWDER
+
+The rich man had visited the poor island and fallen in love with it.
+He could not have said why, but he was charmed; probably the island
+resembled some memory of his childhood, or, perhaps, a beautiful
+dream.
+
+He bought the island, built a villa, and planted all sorts of
+lovely trees, shrubs, and flowers. And all around was the sea; he
+had his own landing-stage, with a flag-staff and white boats; oak
+trees, as tall as a church, shaded his house, and cool breezes
+gently swept the green meadows. He had a wife, children, servants,
+cattle; he had everything, except one thing: it was but a trifle,
+but it was more important than anything else in the world, and yet
+he had forgotten it until the very last: he had no spring water.
+Wells were sunk and rocks were blasted, but all he got was brown,
+brackish water; it was filtered until it looked as clear as crystal,
+but it remained brackish. And that was where the shoe pinched.
+
+Then there came to the island a man endowed with great gifts; he had
+been lucky in all his enterprises, and was one of the most famous
+men in the world.  Everybody remembered how he struck the mountain
+with his diamond staff and produced water from the rock, like Moses.
+Now he was to bore or the island and see whether the mountain would
+yield water, as other mountains had done. They spent a hundred,
+a thousand, several thousand crowns, but found none but brackish
+water. There was no blessing on their undertaking. And it was brought
+home to the rich man that money will not buy everything, not even,
+when the worst comes to the worst, a drink of fresh water.  Thereupon
+he grew despondent and life seemed to hold no more happiness in
+store for him.
+
+The schoolmaster searched the old books, and then sent for a venerable
+old man, who came and brought his divining rod; but it was no use.
+
+But the clergyman was a great deal wiser. He assembled all the
+school children one day, and offered a prize to the one who could
+bring him a plant called "goldpowder," in Latin Chrysosplenium,
+which will only grow near a spring.
+
+"It has a flower," he said, "like the bird's-eye and leaves like the
+saxifrage, and it looks as if it had gold dust on its top leaves.
+Remember that!"
+
+"A flower like the bird's-eye and leaves like the saxifrage,"
+repeated the children; and they ran into the wood and the fields
+to look for the goldpowder.
+
+Not one of the children found it; a little boy, it is true, came
+home with some milk-weed, which have a tiny bit of gold dust on
+the points of its leaves; but the milk-weed is poisonous, and it
+was not at all what was wanted. And finally the children grew tired
+of looking for it and gave it up.
+
+But there lived on the island a little girl, too small yet to go to
+school. Her father had served in the dragoons, and owned a little
+farm, but he was rather poor than rich. His only treasure was
+his little daughter, whom everybody in the village called "Little
+Bluewing," because she always wore a ski blue dress with wide
+sleeves, which fluttered like wings when she moved. There is, by
+the bye, a little blue butterfly whom the people call bluewing; you
+can see it in the summer sitting on the tall blades of the grass,
+and its wings resemble a flax blossom; a fluttering flax blossom
+with antenna instead of filaments.
+
+Little Bluewing, the dragoon's little bluewing, that is, was not
+like other children; she always talked very sensibly, but she often
+said queer things, and everybody was puzzled to know where she got
+them from. All living things loved her, even the animals; fowls
+and calves ran up to her when they saw her, and she even dared
+to stroke the bull. She frequently went out by herself and stayed
+away a long tune, but when anybody asked her where she had  been,
+she could not tell. But she had had the most wonderful adventures;
+she had seen strange things; she had met venerable old men and
+women, who ha told her no end of wonderful stories. The dragoon
+let her do as she liked, for he knew that a guardian spirit was
+watching over her.
+
+***
+
+One morning Little Bluewing went out for a walk.  She ran through
+fields and meadows, singing songs which nobody had ever heard,
+and which came into her heart from nowhere. The morning sun shone
+brightly and seemed so young, as if it had only just been born; the
+air was fresh and sweet, and the evaporating dew cooled her little
+face.
+
+When she came to the wood, she met an old man in a green dress.
+
+"Good morning, Little Bluewing," said the old man, "I am the gardener
+at Sunnyglade; come and look at my flowers."
+
+"Too much honour for me," answered Little Bluewing.
+
+"Not at all, for you have never ill-used flowers."
+
+They walked together to the strand and crossed a little bridge,
+which led to an islet.
+
+On the islet was a wonderful garden. Every flower, large and small,
+grew there, and everything was in order, just as if the garden had
+been a book.
+
+The old man lived in a house which was built of growing ever-green
+trees-pines, fir trees, and junipers; the floor consisted of growing
+ever-green shrubs. Moss and lichen grew in the crevices and held
+them together. The roof was made entirely of creepers, Virginia
+creeper, Caprifolium, and ivy, and it was so thick that not a drop
+of rain could come through. A number of bee-hives stood before the
+door, but butterflies lived in them instead of bees; just think of
+the lovely sight when they swarmed!
+
+"I don't like torturing bees," explained the old man. "And,
+moreover, I consider them not at all pretty; they look like hairy
+coffee-beans and sting like adders."
+
+And then they went into the garden.
+
+"Now, you may read in the book of nature and learn the secrets and
+sensibilities of the plants. But you must not ask questions, only
+listen to what I say and answer me . ...  Now, look here, little
+one, on this grey stone something is growing which looks like grey
+paper. This is the first thing which grows when the rock becomes
+damp. It grows mouldy, you see, and the mould is called lichen.
+Here are two kinds: one looks like the horns of a reindeer, it is
+called reindeer-moss, and the reindeer feeds on it; and the other
+is called Iceland-moss, and looks like ... now, what does it look
+like?"
+
+"It looks like lungs, anyhow it says so in the natural history
+book."
+
+"Quite right; looked at through a magnifying glass, it has exactly
+that appearance, and that is how people came to think of using it
+as a remedy for all sorts of diseases of the chest. Later, when
+the lichen has gathered enough vegetable soil, the mosses appear;
+they have quite simple flowers and grow seed. They are not unlike
+ice-flowers, but they are also like heather and fir trees and all
+sorts of other things, for all plants are related.  The wall-moss
+here looks like a fir tree, but it has seed cases, like a poppy,
+only rather more simple. Once moss has begun to grow an a spot,
+heather is not very long in coming.  And if you examine heather
+through a strong magnifying-glass, it is like milk-wort, Epilobium
+in Latin or a rhododendron, or like an elm tree, which is nothing
+more nor less than a huge nettle.
+
+"Now, we have a perfect covering for the rocks, and in this mould
+everything will grow. Man has domesticated a number of plants, but
+nature herself has directed him which to take and how to use their
+is so extraordinary as the colour and ornaments which the flowers
+have acquired to tell the bees where the honey is. You have often seen
+an ear of rye, which shows a baker's implements like a signboard.
+And if you look at the flax, the most useful of all the plants,
+you will have to admit that it is the plant itself which has taught
+man to spin. Look right into the heart of the flower and you will
+find the filaments wound round the style like flax round a spindle.
+And to make her meaning even more plain, nature has planted a
+parasite, the bind-weed by its side, which winds itself round and
+round the plant up and down, to and fro, like a weaver's shuttle.
+And isn't it wonderful that not a man, but a butterfly, first
+thought of spinning the flax?  People call it 'flax-spinner,' for
+with its own silk and the leaves of the plant it weaves little
+sheets and blankets for its young ones. And so cunning it is that
+when flax began to be cultivated, it completely adapted itself to
+the new conditions, so that the young ones should be hatched before
+the flax was harvested. And now, look at the medicinal herbs! Look
+at the large poppy, for instance, fiery red it is, like fever and
+insanity!  But in the heart of the blossom is a black cross, just
+like the cross on the chemist's label which he puts on his poisons.
+In the middle of the cross is a Roman vase with little grooves.
+When these grooves are pricked the drug runs out, the powerful
+drug, which will call either death, or death's gentle brother,
+sleep. Yes, now you can form an idea of the generosity and wisdom
+of nature.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder."
+
+He paused to see whether Little Bluewing was at all curious. But
+she was not.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder," he repeated.
+
+Another pause! No, Little Bluewing could hold her tongue, although
+she was as not much more than a baby.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder," he said for the third
+time, "which has flowers like the bird's-eye and leaves like the
+saxifrage. That's its distinctive mark, and tells you where water
+can be found. The bird's-eye collects dew and water in its leaves,
+and is in itself a tiny, clear rivulet; but the saxifrage can
+break mountain rocks. There is no spring without a mountain, be
+the mountain never so distant.  This is what the goldpowder tells
+all those who can understand its message. It grows here, on this
+island, and you shall know the spot, because your heart is pure.
+The rich man shall receive water for his parched soul from your
+tiny hand, and through you all the island shall be blessed. Go in
+peace, my child, and when you come to the wood where the nuts grow,
+you will find a silver-linden on your right; at its foot lies a
+copper coloured slow-worm, which is not dangerous. It show you the
+way to the goldpowder. But before you go, you must give the old
+man a kiss, that is to say, if you want to."
+
+Little Bluewing held up her lips and kissed the old man, and
+immediately his face changed and he looked fifty years younger.
+
+"I have kissed a child, I have grown young again," said the gardener.
+"You owe me no thanks.  Farewell!"
+
+Little Bluewing went to the wood where the nuts grew.  The silver-linden
+was rustling in the breeze, and the humble-bees hummed and buzzed
+round its blossoms. The slow-worm was really there, although its
+copper looked a bit rusty.
+
+"Hallo! There is Little Bluewing, who is to have the goldpowder,"
+said the copper snake.  "Well, you shall have it on three conditions:
+no to talk, not to be led astray, not to be inquisitive. Now go
+straight ahead and you will find the goldpowder."
+
+Little Bluewing went straight ahead. On her way she met a woman.
+
+"Good morning, child," said the woman. "Have you been to see the
+gardener at Sunnyglade?"
+
+"Good morning, woman," said Little Bluewing without stopping.
+
+"Well, you aren't a gossip," said the woman.
+
+Next she met a gipsy.
+
+"Where are you going to?" asked the gipsy.
+
+"Straight ahead," answered Little Bluewing.
+
+"Then you won't be led astray," said the gipsy.
+
+Then she met a milkman. But she could not understand why the horse
+was inside the cart and the milkman harnessed to the shafts.
+
+"Now I shall shy and run away," said the milkman, and gave such
+a start that the horse fell out of the cart into the ditch . ...
+"Now I shall water the rye," he went on, and took the lid off one
+of his milk cans.
+
+Little Bluewing thought it strange, but continued her way without
+giving him as much as a look.
+
+"And you aren't curious, either," said the milkman.
+
+And now Little Bluewing was standing at the foot of the mountain;
+the sunbeams fell through the hazel bushes on the green leaves of
+a luxurious plant which shone like gold.
+
+It was the goldpowder. Little Bluewing noticed how it followed
+the vein of the spring down the mountain side into the rich man's
+meadow.
+
+She belt down and gathered three flowers, put them carefully into
+her pinafore and took them home to her father.
+
+The dragoon put on sword, helmet, and uniform, and went with his
+little daughter to the clergyman. And all three went to the rich
+man.
+
+"Little Bluewzng has found the goldpowder!" said the clergyman, as
+soon as he entered the drawing-room.  "And now the whole village
+will be rich before long, because it is sure to become a summer
+resort."
+
+And it became a summer resort before long; steamers and shop people
+arrived; an inn and a post-office were built; a doctor settled on
+the island, and a chemist. Gold poured into the village all during
+the summer, and that is the story of the goldpowder, which
+can transform poverty into wealth.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, IN MIDSUMMER DAYS AND OTHER TALES ***
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