THE GALOSHES OF FORTUNE
1. A BEGINNING
ON EAST STREET IN Copenhagen in one of the houses not far from King’s New Market, there was a big party. Sometimes you have to throw a big party, and then it’s done, and you’re invited in return. Half of the guests were already at the card tables, and the other half were waiting to see what would come from the hostess’s “now we’ll have to think of something!” That’s as far as they had gotten, and the conversation went here and there. Among other things, they talked about the Middle Ages. Some declared it a better time than our own. In fact, Justice Councilman Knap defended this view so eagerly that the hostess soon agreed with him. Then they both started in on rsted’s words in the almanac1 about former and present eras, in which our own time is in most respects considered superior. The councilman considered the age of King Hans2 to be the best and happiest time.
There was a great deal of talk pro and con, and it was only interrupted for a moment when the newspaper came, but there was nothing worth reading in that, so let’s go out to the foyer where the coats and walking sticks, umbrellas, and galoshes have their place. Two maids were sitting there: one young and one old. You might think they had come to escort their mistresses home, one or another old maid or widow. But if you looked a little closer at them, you soon noticed that these were not ordinary servants—their hands were too fine, and their bearing and movements too regal for that. Their clothing also had a quite distinctly daring cut. They were two fairies. The youngest surely wasn’t Good Fortune herself, but rather one of her attendant’s chambermaids, who pass around the lesser of Fortune’s gifts. The elder looked extremely grave. This was Sorrow, who always does her errands in her own distinguished person so that she knows that they are properly carried out.
They talked about their day. The one who was Good Fortune’s attendant’s chambermaid had just taken care of a few minor errands. She said she had saved a new hat from a rain-shower, obtained a greeting for a decent man from a distinguished nonentity, and things like that. But what she had left to do was something quite extraordinary.
“I have to tell you,” she said, “that today is my birthday, and in honor of this I have been entrusted with a pair of galoshes that I am going to give human beings. These galoshes have the characteristic that whoever puts them on is immediately carried to the place or time where he most wants to be. Any wish with respect to time or place is fulfilled at once, and now people will finally find happiness down here!”
“Don’t you believe it,” said Sorrow. “People will be dreadfully unhappy and bless the moment they get rid of those galoshes!”
“How can you say that?” said the other. “I’ll set them here by the door. Someone will mistake them for his own and become the lucky one!”
That was their conversation.
2. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COUNCILMAN
It was late, and Councilman Knap, absorbed in the time of King Hans, wanted to go home. It so happened that he put on Good Fortune’s galoshes instead of his own and walked out onto East Street, but the power of the galoshes’ magic had taken him back to the time of King Hans, and so he stepped straight out into ooze and mud since at that time there was no sidewalk.
“It’s dreadful how muddy it is here!” the judge said. “The sidewalk is gone, and all the street lights are out.”
The moon hadn’t risen high enough yet, and the air was quite foggy so everything disappeared in the dark. At the closest corner a lantern was shining in front of a picture of a Madonna, but it gave off almost no light. He first noticed it when he was standing right under it, and his eyes fell on the painting of the mother and child.
“This must be an art gallery,” he thought, “and they’ve forgotten to take in the sign.”
A couple of people dressed in the clothes of the time walked by him. “What weird outfits! They must have come from a costume party.”
Then he heard drums and flutes, and big torches flared in the dark. The councilman watched an odd procession pass by. A whole troop of drummers marched first, skillfully handling their instruments. They were followed by henchmen with bows and crossbows. The most distinguished person in the parade was a clergyman. The councilman was surprised and asked what this meant and who the man was.
“It’s the Bishop of Zealand,”3 he was told.
“My God, what’s the matter with him?” the judge sighed and shook his head. It certainly couldn’t be the Bishop. Brooding over this and without looking to left or right he walked along East Street and over High Bridge Place. He couldn’t find the bridge to the Palace Plaza, but he glimpsed an expanse of the river, and he finally came across two fellows there in a boat.
“Do you want to be rowed over to Holmen?” they asked him.
“Over to Holmen?” asked the judge, who didn’t know what age he was wandering in. “I want to get over to Christian’s Harbor, to Little Market Street.”
The men just looked at him.
“Just tell me where the bridge is,” he said. ”It’s a disgrace that there aren’t any streetlamps lit here, and it’s as muddy as if you’re walking in a bog.”
The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more incomprehensible they became to him.
“I don’t understand your Bornholm dialect,”4 he finally said angrily and turned his back on them. He absolutely couldn’t find the bridge, and there were no guard rails either. “It’s a scandal, the way things look here!” he said. He had never thought his own age was as miserable as on this evening. “I think I’ll take a cab,” he thought, but where were the cabs? There were none in sight. “I’d better walk back to King’s New Market; there will be some there. Otherwise I’ll never get out to Christian’s Harbor!”
So he walked back to East Street and had nearly walked the length of it when the moon came out.
“Dear God, what kind of scaffolding have they put up here?” he said when he saw the East Gate, which at that
