You see, there are certain things in the world you have to be very careful in saying, but you should be even more careful when you are wearing the magic galoshes on your feet. Just listen to what happened to the watchman!
So far as we people are concerned, almost all of us know the speed of steam travel. We’ve tried it either on the railroad, or on a ship at sea. But even this pace is like the creeping of the sloth or the march of the snail compared to the speed of light. It flies nineteen million times faster than the best racer, but electricity is even faster. Death is an electric shock to the heart, and our released souls fly to heaven on the wings of electricity. Sunlight takes eight minutes and some seconds to travel a distance of over ninety-three million miles. With the speed of electricity, the soul needs fewer minutes to cover the same distance. For the soul the distance between worlds is no more than that between our friends’ houses in the same town is for us, even if these are pretty close to each other. But this electric shock to the heart costs us our bodies, unless we are, like the watchman, wearing the magic galoshes.
Within a few seconds, the watchman had traveled the nearly 240,000 miles to the moon, which is, as you know, made of a material much lighter than our soil and as soft as newly fallen snow. He found himself on one of the innumerable craters that we know from Dr. Madler’s big moon map.11 You’re familiar with that, of course? On the interior the crater sides went steeply down like a pot for a whole Danish mile, and down there on the bottom was a town that looked like an egg white in a glass of water—just as soft and with the same kind of towers, domes and sail-shaped balconies, transparent and swaying in the thin air. Our world was hovering like a big fire-red ball above his head.
There were a lot of creatures, and all of them, I guess, what we would call human, but they looked a lot different than us. They also had a language, and no one could expect that the watchman’s soul could understand that, but nevertheless he could.
The watchman’s soul understood the residents of the moon very well. They were arguing about our world and doubted that it was inhabited. The air would have to be too thick for any reasonable moonie to live in. They thought that only the moon had living creatures, and that the moon was the original world where life originated.
But let’s go back down to East Street and see how the watchman’s body is getting along.
It was sitting lifeless on the steps. The night stick had fallen out of its hand, and the eyes were looking up at the moon towards the soul that was wandering around up there.
“What’s the time, watchman?” someone asked as he walked by. But the watchman didn’t answer. Then the man snapped his fingers slowly at the watchman’s nose, and the body lost its balance and lay there stretched out —the watchman was dead, after all. The fellow who had snapped his fingers was very upset, but the watchman was dead and stayed dead. The death was reported and discussed, and during the morning the body was carried to the hospital.
Now it would have been a nice kettle of fish for the soul if it had come back and most likely had looked for its body on East Street, but couldn’t find it. It would probably first run up to the police department, then to the Census Bureau so it could be looked for in lost-and-found, then finally to the hospital. But we can take comfort that the soul is most clever when it’s on its own. The body only dumbs it down.
As mentioned, the watchman’s body came to the hospital where it was brought into the morgue. Of course, the first thing they did was take off the galoshes so then the soul had to get back right away. It made a beeline for the body, and suddenly the man was alive again. He insisted that it had been the worst night of his life. He wouldn’t experience such sensations again for neither love nor money, but now it was over.
He was released the same day, but the galoshes remained at the hospital.
4. A HEADY MOMENT. A RECITAL. A MOST UNUSUAL TRIP.
Every resident of Copenhagen knows what the entrance to Frederiks Hospital in Copenhagen looks like, but since it’s likely that some non-residents also are reading this story, we must give a brief description.
The hospital is separated from the street by quite a tall grate, but the thick iron bars are far enough apart so that it’s said that very thin interns were able to squeeze through and in that way make little excursions outside. The part of the body that was most difficult to press through was the head. Here, as often in the world, those with the smallest heads were often the most fortunate. That’s enough of an introduction.
One of the young residents, who was pretty thick-headed in the purely physical sense, was on duty this particular evening. There was pouring rain, but despite these two obstacles, he had to get out for only fifteen minutes. He didn’t think it was anything worth mentioning to the gatekeeper since he could just squeeze through the bars. The galoshes that the watchman had forgotten were lying there, and it didn’t occur to him that they could be Good Fortune’s galoshes; he just thought they would be nice to have in this terrible weather. He put them on— now to see if he could squeeze himself through. He had never tried it before. He stood in front of the bars.
“I wish to God I had my head through,” he said, and right away, although it was very big and thick, it slid through easily, thanks to the galoshes. The body had to follow, but there he stood.
“Ugh, I’m too fat!” he said. “I would have thought my head would have been the hardest, but I can’t get through.”
He quickly tried to pull his head back, but it wouldn’t go. He could only manage to move his neck, but that was all. First he got angry, and then his spirits sank to below zero. The magic galoshes had brought him to this most dreadful position, but unfortunately it didn’t occur to him to wish himself free. No, he struggled but couldn’t budge from the spot. The rain was pouring down, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen on the street. He couldn’t reach the bell so how was he going to get loose? He foresaw that he might have to stay there until morning, and then they would have to get a smithy to saw through the bars. That would take a while. All the boys from the elementary school across the street would come to watch, and all the residents of the neighborhood would see him standing there in pillory. There would be large crowds, more than saw the giant agave12 last year. “Oh, the blood is rushing to my head, I’m going crazy!—Yes, I’m going crazy! Oh, I wish I were free again, then it would be all right.”
See, he should have said that a little sooner. As soon as he thought it, his head was free, and he rushed inside, very confused about the fright he had gotten from the magic galoshes.
We mustn’t think that it’s all over. Oh no, it gets worse.
The night passed, and also the following day, but no one called for the galoshes.
There was going to be a performance at the little theater in Canon Street that evening. The place was packed, and between the recital numbers a new poem was recited. We should hear it. The title was:GRANDMA’S GLASSES
