The Little Glass Man, and Other Stories. Вильгельм ГауфЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Fairy Queen sat in her office drinking afternoon tea. Fairy Queen, thinking how she could please children best, had turned publisher. She had come to London, she had taken an office up a steep flight of stairs, and had sent out her fairies all over Europe in search of children’s books. Off they had gone in all directions, and so many manuscripts and books had been sent in or brought back by them, that Fairy Queen published volume after volume of the Children’s Library, and still there remained a lot of work to be done.

      There she sat now thinking over the tales she had published and over those she was planning to publish, as the clock of St. Paul’s slowly struck five. Fairy Queen poured out a last cup of tea; she finished sorting a heap of letters which she packed away in the drawers of her writing-table, and listened in the direction of the room next to hers. There were steps on the stairs coming and going. Then there was a good deal of banging about the room, and Fairy Queen’s ear caught snatches of a song.

      In that room were stored books, and manuscripts, and letters and brown paper parcels, and there by the side of the big, big waste-paper basket of Fairy Queen’s publishing firm, sat Gogul Mogul reading manuscripts. Gogul Mogul was a long-legged creature, with a tiny head, who had come out of Fairyland to help publish tales suitable for child readers. He was devoted to Fairy Queen, and read through piles and piles of manuscript with great perseverance, though he frequently groaned, longing to be back in Fairyland.

      But he was not groaning now. As Fairy Queen opened the door calling to him, he was lightly dancing a double shuffle and waving a telegram to the tune. At sight of her he burst into a joyous laugh.

      ‘Her absence need not cast a shadow on us all,’ he cried; ‘the fairy from Germany is on her way home. She telegraphs to me from Dover; she will be here in time for the fairies’ meeting. And having passed the seas and crossed the sands, she found the story of the Little Glass Man at last.’

      ‘A good thing, a good thing,’ said Fairy Queen, taking the telegram; ‘as it is, I have lost all patience with her. From France, from Ireland, from Greece, even from Russia, numbers of tales have arrived. And from Germany, so much nearer to us, so much more literary, nothing comes. Just as though there were not plenty of fairy tales to be found there! But I have no doubt she has wasted so much time looking for these special stories, just because you had set your heart on having them.’

      ‘Upon my word,’ Gogul Mogul said. And he jumped over his toes, a feat he was fond of performing, serenely smiling at the large blot of ink which ornamented his forefinger.

      ‘Of course you will meet her at the station,’ said Fairy Queen; ‘see her home, and call for her again in a cab. The meeting begins at nine; all the fairies who are in town will be there. And mind you do not keep us waiting as you did last month!’

      Her tone was severe; but Gogul Mogul went on smiling his sweetest smile, while he muttered to himself—

      ‘Then skilful most, when most severely judged,

       But chance it not.’

      A few hours later daylight had passed away and a bright moon looked down into the thronged thoroughfare of Holborn, putting to shame the yellow lights of the gas lamps and the glare of the few shop windows that were lit up by electric light. Into side courts and up winding alleys the moon made her way, and poured down full into a narrow passage up which ladies’ figures, bundled in ulsters and shawls, were hurrying in twos and threes.

      Under an arched doorway they disappeared. The moon could not look round the corner, but above there was a row of arched stone windows. She looked in at these into a long large wainscotted old hall, and there she found those figures and knew them again.

      I doubt if you would have known them. I should not myself but that I had been helping downstairs in the cloak-room, taking hats and wraps and ulsters, even one pair of goloshes, and mixing them up for the surprise of seeing what lovely creatures came out from those dark clothes. Have you ever seen a butterfly squeeze out of a chrysalis, I wonder? Have you seen those shining creatures shake themselves free from their dark covering, take flight, and vanish away? But those lovely creatures whose cloaks I helped to ticket could not vanish away from me altogether. Like the moon, I managed to find them again.

      For I knew of a small window upstairs from which one could overlook the old hall. When there were smoking concerts this window was open for ventilation to let out the smoke; to-night it should be open for me to peep in. So when the old lady in the cloak-room said she required my help no longer, she thought it was time for me to go to bed; I said ‘Thank you,’ and went upstairs and made my way along the passages to the small window, and sat close to it and looked down into the old hall.

      Oh, the colour, the movement, the loveliness of it all! I once went to a pantomime and saw the Transformation Scene with all the fairies. It was very beautiful and a little like what I saw now. Only there the fairies were all made up with painted faces, and curls which had not grown on their heads, while here you could see at a glance that everything was quite real. And they were so lovely, these fairies! I made myself comfortable at the window, no one could see me from below. Only the moon from the big window opposite stared me full in the face. ‘No matter what you think,’ I said, nodding at her; ‘don’t you talk about inquisitiveness. Why there isn’t a window or a cranny but you take a peep in if you get the chance!’

      Down below, at one end of the hall, there was a raised platform; on this, in the largest of the chairs, sat Fairy Queen with a crown on her head and a long silver train. A few other fairies, all with long trains, sat by her, and the rest moved about in the hall. In one corner, just below where I sat, there was a long table, on which were set out plates with pasties and sweets and sandwiches; there were coloured glasses also and flagons of wine. Near the table stood Gogul Mogul greeting the fairies as they arrived and handing them refreshments. He was dressed in green tights, his hair stood up in a great mop. Among all those ladies he was the only gentleman; but he knew his importance, and he looked it.

      ‘Oh yes, she has come,’ I heard him say in answer to inquiries; ‘what heart could wish for more! she is without, putting herself straight. Did you say raspberry tart or cherry tart?’ he asked, turning to a fairy. And taking up a flagon, he quoted—

      ‘Here