The night went by, and the next day passed, but nobody came for the
galoshes. That evening there was to be a performance at the little theatre in
Kannike Street. The house was packed and in the audience was our friend,
the interne, apparently none the worse for his adventure of the night before.
He had again put on the galoshes. After all, no one had claimed them, and
the streets were so muddy that he thought they would stand him in good
stead.
At the theatre a new sketch was presented. It was called “My
Grandmother's Spectacles and had to do with a pair of eyeglasses which
enabled anyone who wore them to read the future from people's faces, just
as a fortune teller reads it from cards.
The idea occupied his mind very much. He would like to own such a pair
of spectacles. Properly used, they might enable one to see into people's
hearts. This, he thought, would be far more interesting than foresee what
would happen next year. Future events would be known in due time, but no
one would ever know the secrets that lie in people's hearts.
“Look at those ladies and gentlemen in the front row,” he said to himself.
“If I could see straight into their hearts what stores of things-what great
shops full of goods would I behold. And how my eyes would rove about
those shops. In every feminine heart, no doubt I should find a complete
millinery establishment. There sits one whose shop is empty, but a good
cleaning would do it no harm. And of course some of the shops would be
well stocked. Ah me,” he sighed, “I know of one where all the goods are of
the very best quality, and it would just suit me, but-alas and alack-there's a
shopkeeper there already, and he's the only bad article in the whole shop.
Many a one would say, “Won't you walk in?” and I wish I could. I would
pass like a nice little thought through their hearts.”
The galoshes took him at his word. The interne shrank to almost nothing,
and set out on a most extraordinary journey through the hearts of all the
spectators in the first row. The first heart he entered was that of a lady, but
at first he mistook it for a room in the Orthopaedic Institute, or Hospital,
where the plaster casts of deformed limbs are hung upon the walls. The only
