But I know that if I recall my dream it will only be a lot of nonsense, as has
happened to me so often before. All those brilliant and clever remarks one
makes and one hears in his dreams, are like the gold pieces that goblins
store underground. When one gets them they are rich and shining, but seen
in the daylight they are nothing but rocks and dry leaves. Ah me,” he
sighed, as he sadly watched the singing birds flit merrily from branch to
branch. “They are so much better off than I. Flying is a noble art, and lucky
is he who is born with wings. Yes, if I could change into anything I liked, I
would turn into a little lark.”
In a trice his coat-tails and sleeves grew together as wings, his clothes
turned into feathers, and his galoshes became claws. He noticed the change
clearly, and laughed to himself.
“Now,” he said, “I know I am dreaming, but I never had a dream as silly
as this one.”
Up he flew, and sang among the branches, but there was no poetry in his
song, for he was no longer a poet. Like anyone who does a thoroughgoing
job of it, the galoshes could only do one thing at a time. When he wishes to
be a poet, a poet he became. Then he wanted to be a little bird, and in
becoming one he lost his previous character.
“This is most amusing,” he said. “In the daytime I sit in the police office,
surrounded by the most matter-of-fact legal papers, but by night I can
dream that I'm a lark flying about in the Frederiksberg Garden. What fine
material this would make for a popular comedy.”
He flew down on the grass, twisting and turning his head, and pecking at
the waving grass blades. In proportion to his own size, they seemed as large
as the palm branches in North Africa. But this lasted only a moment. Then
everything turned black, and it seemed as if some huge object had dropped
over him. This was a big cap that a boy from Nyboder had thrown over the
bird. A hand was thrust in. It laid hold of the copying clerk by his back and
wing so tightly that it made him shriek. In his terror he called out, “You
impudent scoundrel! I am the copying clerk at the police office!” But this
