Short Fiction

It is the same moon you laughed at the other day in the nursery window.”

Again the little boy sits still and ponders. Then comes yet another question:

“Papa, is it very long ago this city was burned? Is it as long ago as when we went away on the Princess Ingeborg?”

“It is much, much longer ago,” answers the father. “When that city burned, neither you nor I nor mamma nor grandma was here.”

The boy’s face becomes very serious all at once. He looks positively troubled. He sits quiet a long while pondering. But it seems as if things would not work out for him.

“Tell me, papa,” he finally asks, “where was I when that city was burned? Was it when I was at Grenna with mamma?”

“No, old fellow,” replies the father, “when that city burned you didn’t yet exist.”

The boy sticks out his under lip again with an attitude as much as to say: no, I can’t agree to such a thing as that. He then repeats with emphasis:

“Yes, but where was I then?”

His father answers, “You didn’t exist at all.”

The boy looks at his father with round eyes. Suddenly all the little face brightens, the boy tears himself away from his father, and begins to skip and dance again in the sunny spots on the green carpet, crying at the top of his lungs:

“Oho yes, I did just the same. I was somewhere, I was somewhere!”

He thought his father was only joking with him. Such an idea was clearly too ridiculous! The maids used sometimes to talk nonsense to him in jest, and he thought his father had done the same.

So he skips and dances in the sunlight.

Archimedes’ Point

I once knew a little street arab.

He was the same age as I and lived in the same square. But he was superior to me in everything, not only in experience and courage but also in accomplishments; for with the aid of a piece of red chalk or charcoal he could fill the walls of the street with words and symbols whose meaning I did not understand. When I was going out and was alone and unprotected, I used first to stick my nose out of the gate and glance down the street to assure myself that the little rowdy was not in the neighborhood. For he was stronger than I and could never endure with equanimity the appearance of my clothes, which were cleaner and in better condition than his.

But one day it happened that I was given a sled by my father. It was covered with a piece of red-flowered felt, the runners were of sharp steel, which shone in the sun, and it had also a little bell in front. When I first came down into the gateway with this sled, and the scent of new-fallen snow pricked my nose so that I sneezed, I was suddenly possessed by such a mad delight that I completely forgot my usual caution and rushed out of the gate without looking to left or to right, skipping and dancing like a jumping-jack, while I gave vent to wild war-cries.

Just beyond our gate the street began to slope. I at once sat myself astride the sled and let it slide down the incline, but the slope was not steep, and it went but slowly, so that now and then I had to help with my feet. An icy wind swept through the street, my ears began to freeze, and my joy had already begun to chill, great as it had been but a moment before. As the cold wind crept in under my clothes, such reflections as these began to steal into my soul: I’m not having nearly such a good time as I had just now when I came down through the gateway with my sled.

While I was thinking this within myself, I suddenly caught sight of the little rowdy as he stood at his gate with hands in his trousers’ pockets. He was dirty, scrofulous, and hideous to look at, and his appearance filled my heart with fear and trembling, for he really was a dreadful little mucker.

I saw no chance of getting away. I sat still on my sled without stirring a limb, like a rabbit before a boa-constrictor, waiting till the little rowdy should come out of his gate and thrash me.

But, lo and behold! my guardian angel was watching over me. The little rowdy did not come out of his gate; he stood where he was with his hands in his pockets and, looking at me with indifference rather than hate, spoke only the following words:

“Give yourself a shove from behind, kid, and you’ll go faster!”

Thereupon he took a piece of charcoal from his pocket, scratched a monosyllabic word on the wall, and vanished in at the gate.

But I continued down the slope, scrambling with my feet to keep going, for the track was not very steep. Suddenly, however, it struck me that there might be some truth in the little rowdy’s words. If I sit on my sled, thought I, and someone comes behind and gives me a push on the back, I shall slide on a bit. So if I push myself on the back now, it will naturally have the same effect as if someone else did it. It was so simple: how stupid I was not to have thought of that before! I looked around cautiously to assure myself that the rowdy was not near, for I did not want him to see that I was following his advice. After that I began to thump myself on the back as hard as I could.

But as the sled did not stir from its place, I thumped my back till I was red and hot, and two serving-maids stood still and laughed at me; but the sled never moved.

Then I grew vexed and cross, took my sled by the rope and ran home with it, wishing I had an elder