[Footnote 1: Part of what follows I have already stated in a reprint of
_Perrault's Popular Tales_, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1888.]
[Footnote 2: In forty-one volumes, Paris, 1785-89.]
[Footnote 3: There are complete English translations of the eighteenth
century. Many of the stories have been retold by Miss M. Wright, in the
_Red_ and _Blue Fairy Books_.]
[Footnote 4: I am unacquainted with the date of composition of this
story about a Ring more potent than that of Gyges. (It is printed in the
second volume of _Dialogues des Morts_ Paris, 1718).]
[Footnote 5: From one of these tales by Caylus the author, who but
recently made their acquaintance, finds that he has unconsciously
plagiarised an adventure of Prince Prigio's.]
I
I will tell you something about little Johannes. My tale has much in it
of a fairy story; but it nevertheless all really happened. As soon as
you do not believe it you need read no farther, as it was not written
for you. Also you must never mention the matter to little Johannes if
you should chance to meet him, for that would vex him, and I should get
into trouble for having told you all about it.
Johannes lived in an old house with a large garden. It was difficult to
find one's way about there, for in the house there were many dark
doorways and staircases, and cupboards, and lumber-lofts, and all about
the garden there were sheds and hen-houses. It was a whole world to
Johannes. He could make long journeys there, and he gave names to all he
discovered. He had named the rooms in the house from the animal world;
the caterpillar-loft, because he kept caterpillars there; the hen-room,
because he had once found a hen there. It had not come in of itself; but
Johannes' mother had set it there to hatch eggs. In the garden he chose
names from plants, preferring those of such products as he thought most
interesting. Thus he had Raspberry Hill, Cherry-tree Wood, and
Strawberry Hollow. Quite at the end of the garden was a place he had
called Paradise, and that, of course, was lovely. There was a large
pool, a lake where white water-lilies floated and the reeds held long
whispered conversations with the wind. On the farther side of it there
were the dunes or sand-hills. Paradise itself was a little grassy meadow
on the bank, shut in by bushes, among which the hemlock grew tall. Here
Johannes would sometimes He in the thick grass, looking between the
swaying reeds at the tops of the sand-hills across the water. On warm
summer evenings he was always to be found there, and would lie for
hours, gazing up, without ever wearying of it. He would think of the
depths of the still, clear water in front of him--how pleasant it must
be there among the water-plants, in that strange twilight; and then
again of the distant, gorgeously coloured clouds which swept across the
sand-downs--what could be behind them? How splendid it would be to be
able to fly over to them! Just as the sun disappeared, the clouds
gathered round an opening so that it looked like the entrance to a
grotto, and in the depths of the cavern gleamed a soft, red glow. That
was what Johannes longed to reach. 'If I could but fly there!' thought
he to himself. 'What can there be beyond? If I could only once, just for
once, get there!'
But even while he was wishing it the cavern fell asunder in rolling dark
clouds before he could get any nearer. And then it grew cold and damp by
the pool, and he had to go back to his dark little bedroom in the old
house.
He did not live all alone there; he had his father, who took good care
of him, his dog Presto and the cat Simon. Of course he loved his father
best: but he did not love Presto and Simon so very much less, as a
grown-up man would have done. He told Presto many more secrets than he
ever told his father, and he held Simon in the greatest respect. And no
wonder! Simon was a very big cat with a shining black coat and a bushy
tail. It was easy to see that he was perfectly convinced of his own
importance and wisdom. He was always solemn and dignified, even when he
condescended to play with a rolling cork or to gnaw a stale herring's
head behind a tree. As he watched Presto's flighty behaviour he would
contemptuously blink his green eyes and think: 'Well, well, dogs know no
better!'
Now you may understand what respect Johannes had for him. But he was on
much more familiar terms with little brown Presto. He was not handsome
nor dignified, but a particularly good-natured and clever little dog,
who never went two yards from Johannes' side, and sat patiently
listening to all his master told him. I need not tell you how dearly
Johannes loved Presto. But he had room in his heart for other things as
well. Do you think it strange that his dark bedroom with the tiny
window-panes filled a large place there? He loved the curtains with the
large-flowered pattern in which he could see faces, and which he had
studied so long when he lay awake in the mornings or when he was sick;
he loved the one picture which hung there, in which stiff figures were
represented in a yet stiffer garden, walking by the side of a tranquil
pond where fountains were spouting as high as the clouds, and white
swans were swimming. But most of all he loved the hanging clock. He
pulled up the weights every day with solemn care, and regarded it as an
indispensable civility to look up at it whenever it struck. This of
course could only be done as long as Johannes remained awake. If by some
neglect the clock ran down Johannes felt quite guilty, and begged its
pardon a dozen times over. You would have laughed, no doubt, if you had
heard him talking to his room. But perhaps you sometimes talk to
yourself; that does not seem to you altogether ridiculous; and Johannes
was perfectly convinced that his hearers had quite understood him, and
he required no answer. Still he secretly thought that he might perhaps
have a reply from the clock or the curtains.
Johannes had schoolmates, but they were not exactly friends. He played
with them, and plotted tricks with them in school, and robber-games out
of school; still he never felt quite at home but when he was alone with
Presto. Then he never wanted any boys, and was perfectly at his ease and
safe.
His father was a wise, grave man, who sometimes took Johannes with him
for long walks through the woods and over the sand-hills; but then he
spoke little, and Johannes ran a few steps behind, talking to the
flowers he saw, and the old trees which had always to stay in the same
place, stroking them gently with his little hand on the rough bark. And
the friendly giants rustled their thanks.
Sometimes his father traced letters in the sand as they went along, one
by one, and Johannes spelt the words they made: and sometimes his father
would stop and tell Johannes the name of some plant or animal.
And now and then Johannes would ask about what he saw, and heard many
strange things. Indeed, he often asked very silly questions: Why the
world was just as it was, and why the plants and animals must die, and
whether miracles could ever happen. But Johannes' father was a wise man,
and did not tell him all he knew; and this was better for Johannes.
At night before he went to sleep Johannes always said a long prayer. His
nurse had taught him this. He prayed for his father and for Presto.
Simon did not need it, he thought. He had a long prayer for himself too,
and almost always ended with the wish that just for once a miracle might
happen. And when he had said _Amen_ he would look curiously round the
half-dark room at the figures in the picture, which looked stranger than
ever in the dim twilight, at the door-handle and the clock, wondering
how the miracle would begin. But the clock always ticked in its own old
fashion, and the door-knob did not stir, and it grew darker and darker,
and Johannes fell asleep without any miracle having happened.
But it would happen some day; of that he was sure.