person. He did not feel unworthy to set foot in the next shrine which was a poor garret with a sick mother, but God’s warm sun was shining through the open window. Lovely roses were nodding from the little wooden crate by the roof, and two sky-blue birds were singing about childhood’s joy, while the sick mother prayed for blessings for her daughter.
Then he crept on his hands and feet through an overfilled butcher shop. All he saw was meat and more meat. This was the heart of a rich, respectable man, whose name you would know from the newspaper.
Next he was in the heart of the rich man’s wife. It was an old, run-down pigeon coop. The husband’s picture was the weather vane and was connected to the doors, and these opened and closed as the man moved.
Then he came into a room of mirrors like the one in Rosenborg Castle, but here the mirrors enlarged objects to a great extent. In the middle of the floor sat, like the Dali Lama, the person’s insignificant self, amazed to see its own greatness.
After that he thought he was in a cramped needle case full of sharp needles. This must be the “heart of an old maid,” he thought, but that was not the case. It was a quite young military man with several medals. A man of both spirit and heart, it was said.
The poor intern came out of the last heart in the row terribly dizzy. He wasn’t able to gather his thoughts, and thought that his overactive imagination had run away with him.
“Dear God,” he sighed. “I definitely have a touch of madness! It’s also incredibly hot in here! The blood is rushing to my head.” Then he remembered the big adventure of the night before when his head had been stuck between the iron bars at the hospital. “That’s where I must have caught it,” he thought. “I have to nip this in the bud. A steam bath would be good. I wish I were already lying on the top bench.”
And then he was lying on the top bench in the steam bath, but he had all his clothes on including his boots and galoshes. The hot water from the roof dripped on his face.
“Yikes!” he cried and hurried down to get a shower. The attendant also gave a loud cry when he saw a fully dressed man in there.
The intern was quick minded enough to whisper to him, “It’s a bet.” But the first thing he did when he got to his own room was to apply a big Spanish-fly plaster to the back of his neck and one down his back, to draw out the craziness.
The next morning he had a bloody back, and that’s all he got from Good Fortune’s galoshes.
5. THE CLERK’S TRANSFORMATION
In the meantime the watchman, whom we haven’t forgotten, remembered the galoshes that he had found and brought along to the hospital. He picked them up there, but when neither the lieutenant nor anyone else in the street claimed them, they were delivered to the police department.
“They look just like my own galoshes,” said one of the clerks, as he observed the lost property and set them side by side with his own. “Not even a shoemaker’s eye could tell them apart!”
“Look here!” said an employee who came in with some papers.
The clerk turned around and talked to the man, but when he was finished and looked at the galoshes again, he was completely bewildered about whether his were the ones on the left or those on the right. “Mine must be the wet ones,” he thought, but that was wrong because they were Good Fortune’s. But why can’t the police also make mistakes? He put them on and put some papers in his pocket and others under his arm. He was going to read through and sign them at home, but it was Sunday morning, and the weather was nice. He thought it would do him good to take a little walk to Frederiksberg, and so he went out there.
No one could be more unassuming and diligent than this young man, and we won’t begrudge him his little walk. It will undoubtedly be good for him because he sits so much. In the beginning he just walked without thinking about anything so the galoshes did not have a chance to show their magic power.
On the street he met an acquaintance, a young poet, who told him that he was going on a summer trip the next day.
“So, you’re off again!” said the clerk. “You’re a lucky, free spirit! You can go wherever you want. The rest of us have chains on our feet.”
“But they’re attached to a breadfruit tree,” answered the poet. “You don’t have to worry about tomorrow, and when you’re old, you’ll get a pension.”
“But you’re better off!” said the clerk. “It’s a pleasure to sit and write poetry. The whole world pays you compliments, and you’re your own boss. You should try sitting in court with trivial cases!”
The poet shook his head. The clerk shook his head, too. Each retained his own opinion, and so they separated.
“Those poets are a race apart,” the clerk said. “I should try becoming such a nature, become a poet myself. I’m sure I wouldn’t write such wimpy verse as the others do! This really is a spring day for a poet! The air is so unusually clear, the clouds so pretty, and there is such fragrance in all the greenery! I haven’t felt like I do at this moment for many years.”
We notice that he has become a poet already. It wasn’t exactly glaring, since it’s a foolish conceit to think that a poet is different from other people. These can have much more poetic natures among them than many a great and famous poet. The difference is just that the poet has a better spiritual memory. He can maintain ideas and feelings until they clearly flow over into words. Others can’t do that. But to change from an everyday nature to a gifted one is always a transition, and the clerk had now done that.
“Oh what a lovely smell,” he said. “How it reminds me of the violets at Aunt Lona’s house. That was when I was a little boy. Dear God, I haven’t thought about that for a very long time! Dear old auntie. She lived there behind the stock exchange. She always had a twig or a couple of green shoots standing in water, no matter how cold the winter was. I smelled the violets as I laid warmed-up copper pennies on the frozen windowpane and made peepholes—what a strange perspective! Out in the canal the boats lay frozen in ice, deserted by all hands. The only crew was a shrieking crow. But things got busy when the spring breezes came. They cut the ice apart, singing and shouting ”hurrah.” The ships were tarred and rigged and then departed for foreign lands. I remained behind here and must always remain. Sit always at the police station and see others get passports to travel abroad. That’s my
