Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, but thou wast
ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery plaything. Thou art
rightly served."

He then went back to his own little kingdom, and shut the door of his palace
in her face. Now she might well sing,

"Ach! du lieber Augustin,
Alles ist weg, weg, weg!"



THE REAL PRINCESS

There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she must be a
real Princess. He travelled all over the world in hopes of finding such a
lady; but there was always something wrong. Princesses he found in plenty; but
whether they were real Princesses it was impossible for him to decide, for now
one thing, now another, seemed to him not quite right about the ladies. At
last he returned to his palace quite cast down, because he wished so much to
have a real Princess for his wife.

One evening a fearful tempest arose, it thundered and lightened, and the rain
poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was as dark as pitch. All at
once there was heard a violent knocking at the door, and the old King, the
Prince's father, went out himself to open it.

It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain and
the wind, she was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from her hair,
and her clothes clung to her body. She said she was a real Princess.

"Ah! we shall soon see that!" thought the old Queen-mother; however, she said
not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the bedroom,
took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas on the
bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over the three
peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses.

Upon this bed the Princess was to pass the night.

The next morning she was asked how she had slept. "Oh, very badly indeed!" she
replied. "I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not
know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me, and am all over
black and blue. It has hurt me so much!"

Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been
able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty
feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a delicate sense of
feeling.

The Prince accordingly made her his wife; being now convinced that he had
found a real Princess. The three peas were however put into the cabinet of
curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they are not lost.

Wasn't this a lady of real delicacy?



THE SHOES OF FORTUNE

I. A Beginning

Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style of
writing. Those who do not like him, magnify it, shrug up their shoulders, and
exclaim--there he is again! I, for my part, know very well how I can bring
about this movement and this exclamation. It would happen immediately if I
were to begin here, as I intended to do, with: "Rome has its Corso, Naples its
Toledo"--"Ah! that Andersen; there he is again!" they would cry; yet I must,
to please my fancy, continue quite quietly, and add: "But Copenhagen has its
East Street."

Here, then, we will stay for the present. In one of the houses not far from
the new market a party was invited--a very large party, in order, as is often
the case, to get a return invitation from the others. One half of the company
was already seated at the card-table, the other half awaited the result of the
stereotype preliminary observation of the lady of the house:

"Now let us see what we can do to amuse ourselves."

They had got just so far, and the conversation began to crystallise, as it
could but do with the scanty stream which the commonplace world supplied.
Amongst other things they spoke of the middle ages: some praised that period
as far more interesting, far more poetical than our own too sober present;
indeed Councillor Knap defended this opinion so warmly, that the hostess
declared immediately on his side, and both exerted themselves with unwearied
eloquence. The Councillor boldly declared the time of King Hans to be the
noblest and the most happy period.*

* A.D. 1482-1513


While the conversation turned on this subject, and was only for a moment
interrupted by the arrival of a journal that contained nothing worth reading,
we will just step out into the antechamber, where cloaks, mackintoshes,
sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two female figures, a
young and an old one. One might have thought at first they were servants come
to accompany their mistresses home; but on looking nearer, one soon saw they
could scarcely be mere servants; their forms were too noble for that, their
skin too fine, the cut of their dress too striking. Two fairies were they; the
younger, it is true, was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the
waiting-maids of her handmaidens who carry about the lesser good things that


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