My little boy has got a rival, whose name is Henrik, a popinjay who not
only is six years old, but has an unlimited supply of liquorice at his
disposal. And, to fill the measure of my little boy's bitterness, Henrik
is to go to the dancing-school; and I am, therefore, not surprised when
my little boy asks to be taught to dance, so that he may not be left
quite behind in the contest.
"I don't advise you to do that," I say. "The dancing which you learn at
school is not pretty and does not play so great a part in love as you
imagine. I don't know how to dance; and many charming ladies used to
prefer me to the most accomplished ornaments of the ball-room. Besides,
you know, you are knock-kneed."
And, to cheer him up, I sing a little song which we composed when we
were small and had a dog and did not think about women:
See, my son, that little basset,
Running with his knock-kneed legs!
His own puppy, he can't catch it:
He'll fall down as sure as eggs!
Knock-kneed Billy!
Isn't he silly?
Silly Billy!
But poetry fails to comfort him. Dark is his face and desperate his
glance. And, when I see that the case is serious, I resolve to resort to
serious measures.
I take him with me to a ball, a real ball, where people who have learnt
to dance go to enjoy themselves. It is difficult to keep him in a more
or less waking condition, but I succeed.
We sit quietly in a corner and watch the merry throng. I say not a word,
but look at his wide-open eyes.
"Father, why does that man jump like that, when he is so awfully hot?"
"Yes; can you understand it?"
"Why does that lady with her head on one side look so tired? . . . Why
does that fat woman hop about so funnily, Father? . . . Father, what
queer legs that man there has!"
It rains questions and observations. We make jokes and laugh till the
tears come to our eyes. We whisper naughty things to each other and go
into a side-room and mimic a pair of crooked legs till we can't hold
ourselves for laughter. We sit and wait till a steam thrashing-machine
on its round comes past us; and we are fit to die when we hear it puff
and blow.
We enjoy ourselves beyond measure.
And we make a hit.
The steam thrashing-machine and the crooked legs and the fat woman and
the hot gentleman and others crowd round us and admire the dear little
boy. We accept their praises, for we have agreed not to say what we
think to anybody, except to Mother, when we come home, and then, of
course, to Dirty.
And we wink our eyes and enjoy our delightful fun until we fall asleep
and are driven home and put to bed.
And then we have done with the dancing-school.
My little boy paints in strong colours, for his Dirty's benefit, what
Henrik will look like when he dances. It is no use for that young man to
deny all that my little boy says and to execute different elegant steps.
I was prepared for this; and my little boy tells exultantly that this is
only something with which they lure stupid people at the start and that
it will certainly end with Henrik's getting very hot and hopping round
on crooked legs with a fat woman and a face of despair.
In the meantime, of course, I do not forget that, if we pull down
without building up we shall end by landing ourselves in an unwholesome
scepticism.
We therefore invent various dances, which my little boy executes in the
courtyard to Dirty's joy and to Henrik's most jealous envy. We point
emphatically to the fact that the dances are our own, that they are
composed only for the woman we love and performed only for her.
There is, for instance, a dance with a stick, which my little boy
wields, while Henrik draws back. Another with a pair of new mittens for
Dirty. And, lastly, the liquorice dance, which expresses an
extraordinary contempt for that foodstuff.
That Dirty should suck a stick of liquorice, which she has received from
Henrik, while enjoying her other admirer's satire, naturally staggers my
little boy. But I explain to him that that is because she is a woman and
that _that_ is a thing which can't be helped.
What Bournonville[2] would say, if he could look down upon us from his
place in Heaven, I do not know.
But I don't believe that he can.
If he, up there, could see how people dance down here, he really would
not stay there.
[Footnote 2: A famous French ballet-master who figured at the Copenhagen
Opera House in the eighteenth century.--A. T. de M.]