"Good-evening!" said Olé Luckoiè, and Yalmar nodded; but he jumped up
and turned the grandfather's portrait to the wall, that it might not
chatter as it had done the night before.
"Now thou shalt tell me a story," said Yalmar, "about the five peas
that live in one pea-pod, and about Hanebeen who cured Honebeen; and
about the darning-needle, that was so fine that it fancied itself a
sewing-needle."
"One might do a deal of good by so doing," said Olé Luckoiè; "but, dost
thou know, I would rather show thee something. I will show thee my
brother; he also is called Olé Luckoiè. He never comes more than once
to anybody,--and when he comes he takes the person away with him on his
horse, and tells him a great and wonderful history. But he only knows
two, one of them is the most incomparably beautiful story, so beautiful
that nobody in the world can imagine it; and the other is so dismal and
sad--oh, it is impossible to describe how sad!"
Having said this, Olé Luckoiè lifted little Yalmar up to the window
and said, "There thou mayst see my brother, the other Olé Luckoiè!
They call him Death! Dost thou see, he does not look horrible as they
have painted him in picture-books, like a skeleton; no, his coat is
embroidered with silver; he wears a handsome Hussar uniform! A cloak of
black velvet flies behind, over his horse. See how he gallops!"
Yalmar looked, and saw how the other Olé Luckoiè rode along, and took
both young and old people with him on his horse. Some he set before
him, and some he set behind; but his first question always was, "How
does it stand in your character-book?"