“One that can make you laugh, too,” added the king.
“Yes certainly,” he said and told this story. Listen carefully.
“Once upon a time there was a package of matches that were extremely stuck-up because they were of such high origin. Their family tree, that is to say, the big pine tree that each of them was a little stick of, had been a tall old tree in the forest. The matches were now lying on a shelf between a tinderbox and an old iron kettle, and they told them stories about their youth. ‘Yes, when we were riding high,’ they said, ‘we really were riding high! Every morning and evening we had diamond tea, that was the dew. We had the sunshine all day when the sun was shining, and all the little birds had to tell us stories. We could easily tell that we were rich because the ordinary trees only wore clothes in the summer, but our family could afford nice green clothes both summer and winter. But then the foresters came. It was the big revolution, and our family tree was split up. The head of the family got a place as the topmast on a magnificent ship that could sail around the world if it wanted to. The other branches went to other places, and we now have the task of bringing light to the common crowd. That’s how we who are so noble came to be here in this kitchen.’
“‘Yes, it’s quite different for me,’ said the iron kettle, standing next to the matches. ‘From the time I came into the world, I have been in hot water many times. I have the responsibility for the most substantial work and am strictly speaking the most important one in the house. My only joy is to sit here clean and tidy after dinner and have pleasant conversations with my companions. But with the exception of the water pail, who gets out in the yard once in a while, we all live a secluded indoor life. Our only news comes from the marketing basket, but he talks very critically of the government and the people. Just the other day an old jug over there fell over in alarm at what he said and smashed to pieces. He’s markedly liberal, I’ll tell you.’ ‘You spout off too much,’ the tinderbox said, and the flint struck the stone so the sparks flew. ‘Let’s have a cheerful, merry evening.’
“‘Yes, let’s talk about who is most distinguished,’ the matches said.
“‘No, I don’t like talking about myself,’ said the clay pot. ‘Let’s have an evening of entertainment. I’ll start. I’ll tell about something that we’ve all experienced. Everyone can follow along then, and it’s so amusing: On the Baltic where the Danish beech trees ...’
“‘That’s a great beginning,’ all the plates said, ‘this’ll definitely be a story we’ll like.’
“‘Yes, I spent my youth there with a quiet family. The furniture was polished, the floors washed, and there were clean curtains every other week.’
“‘How interestingly you tell that!” said the broom. ‘You can hear at once that it’s a woman telling the story— there’s no dirt in it at all.’
“‘Yes, one can tell that,” the water pail said, and it made a little hop of joy so that there was a splash on the floor.
“And the pot continued the story, and the ending was as good as the beginning.
“All the plates were rattling with pleasure, and the broom took some green parsley out of the parsley pot and crowned the pot with a wreath because he knew it would irritate the others, and ‘if I crown her today,’ he thought, ‘she’ll crown me tomorrow.’
“‘Now I’ll dance,’ said the fire tongs and danced. Oh, God bless us, how she could kick a leg in the air! The old seat cover in the corner split from watching it! ‘May I also be crowned?’ asked the fire tongs, and so she was.
“‘These are just riffraff,’ thought the matches.
“Then the tea urn was supposed to sing, but she had a cold, she said. She couldn’t sing unless she was warmed up. Actually it was due to conceit because she didn’t want to sing except for the master and mistress in the dining room.
“On the windowsill sat an old quill pen that the maid used for writing. There was nothing remarkable about him, except that he had been dipped too deeply in the inkwell, but he was proud of that. ‘If the tea urn doesn’t want to sing,’ he said, ‘then she doesn’t have to. There is a nightingale hanging outside in a cage. It can sing. Granted it hasn’t had lessons, but we won’t criticize it this evening.’
“‘I find it highly inappropriate,’ said the tea kettle, who usually sang in the kitchen and was a half sister of the tea urn, ‘that a foreign bird like that should sing. Is that patriotic? I’ll let the marketing basket judge!’
“‘I’m just so annoyed,’ the marketing basket said. ‘I’m so thoroughly annoyed, you can’t imagine! Is this an appropriate way to spend the evening? Wouldn’t it be better to rearrange things and set the house in order? Then everyone would be in his correct place, and I would control the whole shebang. That would be something else!’
“‘Yes, let’s cause a riot!’ they all said. At that moment the door opened. It was the maid, and so everyone stopped talking. No one said a word. But there wasn’t a pot who didn’t know what it could do and how dignified it was. ‘Well, if I had wanted it,’ they all thought, ‘it really would have been a merry evening!’
“The maid took the matches and made a fire with them—God bless us, how they sizzled and burned in flames!
“‘Now everyone can see,’ they thought, ‘that we are the best! What radiance we have! What light!’—and then they were burned out.”
“That was a lovely fairy tale,” the queen said. “I felt just like I was in the kitchen with the matches. You may certainly marry our daughter.”
“Of course,” the king agreed, “you’ll marry our daughter on Monday!” Now they said “du” to him, since he was going to be part of the family. 1
So the wedding day was decided, and the evening before the whole town was lit up. Rolls and pastries were thrown to the crowds. Street urchins stood on their toes, shouted hurrah, and whistled through their fingers. It was extremely splendid.
“Well, I’d better also do something,” the merchant’s son thought, and so he bought some rockets, caps, and all the fireworks you could think of, put them in his trunk, and flew up in the air with it.
Whoosh, how it went! And how it popped and puffed!
All the Turks jumped in the air at this so that their slippers flew around their ears. They had never seen such a sight in the sky before. Now they understood that it really was the Turkish God himself who was going to marry the princess.
