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was then a little boy!"
"How very, very lonely he must have been!" said she.
"Very, very lonely!" said the pewter soldier. "But it is delightful not to be forgotten!"
"Delightful!" shouted something close by; but no one, except the pewter soldier, saw that it was a piece of the
hog's-leather hangings; it had lost all its gilding, it looked like a piece of wet clay, but it had an opinion, and it
gave it:
"The gilding decays, But hog's leather stays!"
This the pewter soldier did not believe.
THE HAPPY FAMILY
Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one holds it before one, it is like a whole apron,
and if one holds it over one's head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, for it is so immensely
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large. The burdock never grows alone, but where there grows one there always grow several: it is a great
delight, and all this delightfulness is snails' food. The great white snails which persons of quality in former
times made fricassees of, ate, and said, "Hem, hem! how delicious!" for they thought it tasted so
delicate--lived on dock-leaves, and therefore burdock seeds were sown.
Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails, they were quite extinct; but the
burdocks were not extinct, they grew and grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get the
mastery over them--it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple and a plum-tree, or else
one never would have thought that it was a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the two last venerable
old snails.
They themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember very well that there had been many
more; that they were of a family from foreign lands, and that for them and theirs the whole forest was planted.
They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was still something more in the world, which was
called the manor-house, and that there they were boiled, and then they became black, and were then placed on
a silver dish; but what happened further they knew not; or, in fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a
silver dish, they could not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful, and particularly genteel. Neither
the chafers, the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any
information--none of them had been boiled or laid on a silver dish.
The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the world, that they knew; the forest was planted
for their sake, and the manor-house was there that they might be boiled and laid on a silver dish.
Now they lived a very lonely and happy life; and as they had no children themselves, they had adopted a little
common snail, which they brought up as their own; but the little one would not grow, for he was of a common
family; but the old ones, especially Dame Mother Snail, thought they could observe how he increased in size,
and she begged father, if he could not see it, that he would at least feel the little snail's shell; and then he felt
it, and found the good dame was right.
One day there was a heavy storm of rain.
"Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!" said Father Snail.
"There are also rain-drops!" said Mother Snail. "And now the rain pours right down the stalk! You will see
that it will be wet here! I am very happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has his also!
There is more done for us than for all other creatures, sure enough; but can you not see that we are folks of
quality in the world? We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock forest is planted for our
sakes! I should like to know how far it extends, and what there is outside!"
"There is nothing at all," said Father Snail. "No place can be better than ours, and I have nothing to wish for!"
"Yes," said the dame. "I would willingly go to the manorhouse, be boiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our
forefathers have been treated so; there is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!"
"The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!" said Father Snail. "Or the burdocks have grown up over it,
so that they cannot come out. There need not, however, be any haste about that; but you are always in such a
tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same. Has he not been creeping up that stalk these
three days? It gives me a headache when I look up to him!"
"You must not scold him," said Mother Snail. "He creeps so carefully; he will afford us much pleasure--and
we have nothing but him to live for! But have you not thought of it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do
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you not think that there are some of our species at a great distance in the interior of the burdock forest?"
"Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of," said the old one. "Black snails without a house--but they are
so common, and so conceited. But we might give the ants a commission to look out for us; they run to and fro
as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a wife for our little snail!"
"I know one, sure enough--the most charming one!" said one of the ants. "But I am afraid we shall hardly
succeed, for she is a queen!"
"That is nothing!" said the old folks. "Has she a house?"
"She has a palace!" said the ant. "The finest ant's palace, with seven hundred passages!"
"I thank you!" said Mother Snail. "Our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]