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_The Beetle_ was written by Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875), and was translated from the Danish by
M. R. James (1862-1936) as part of his
_Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ (1930).

Title: Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories -- The Beetle
Author: Andersen, Hans Christian (1805-1875)
Translator: James, Montague Rhodes (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Faber and Faber, 1953
Date first posted: 25 January 2010
Date last updated: 25 January 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #466

This ebook was produced by:
David T. Jones, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




The Beetle

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ [1930],
translated by M. R. James)


The Emperor's horse was being shod with gold; a golden shoe on each
foot. Why was he shod with gold?

He was the most beautiful beast, with slender legs, wise eyes, and a
mane that hung over his neck like a veil of silk. He had borne his
master through the clouds of powder smoke, and the rain of bullets,
had heard the balls whistle and scream; had bitten, kicked, joined in
the fight when the enemy pressed hard, had leapt with his Emperor over
the fallen horse of the foe in a single bound, had saved his Emperor's
crown of red gold, saved his Emperor's life that was more precious
than the red gold, and that was why the Emperor's horse was shod with
gold, a golden shoe on each foot.

The Dung Beetle crawled out.

"First the big ones, then the little ones," said he, "though it's not
the size that tells." With which he stuck out his thin leg. "What do
_you_ want?" asked the Smith.

"Gold shoes," replied the Beetle.

"You haven't slept it off yet," said the Smith. "Do you mean you want
gold shoes too?"

"Gold shoes," said the Beetle. "Aren't I as good as that big beast,
who must forsooth be waited on and curry-combed and looked after and
have his food and his drink? Don't I belong to the Emperor's stable
just as much?"

"Yes, but _why_ does the horse have gold shoes?" said the Smith.
"Don't you understand that?"

"Understand? I understand that it's a piece of spite against me," said
the Beetle. "It's an insult, so I shall go out at once into the wide
world."

"Cut along," said the Smith.

"Coarse being!" said the Beetle, and went out. He flew a short way
and found himself in a pretty little flower garden, fragrant with
roses and lavender.

"Isn't it delightful here?" said one of the little Ladybirds who were
flying about, with black spots on their red shield-like wing-cases.
"How sweet it smells here, and how pretty everything is!"

"I am accustomed to better surroundings," said the Beetle. "Do you
call this pretty? Why, there isn't even a dung-heap in the place." So
he went further, into the shadow of a large stock. A Caterpillar was
creeping over it.

"What a beautiful place the world is!" said the Caterpillar. "The sun
is so warm! Everything so pleasant! And when I fall asleep some time,
and die, as they call it, I shall wake up and be a butterfly."

"Only fancy!" said the Beetle. "We're going to fly about as
butterflies, are we? I come from the Emperor's stables, but nobody
there, not even the Emperor's own horse, who by the way goes about in
my cast-off shoes, has such ideas. Get wings? Fly? Very well, I
_shall_ fly." So off he went. "I don't want to get cross, but I am
getting cross all the same."

And he plumped down on a large grass plot, where he lay for a little
and then went to sleep.

Mercy, what a deluge came pouring down! The Beetle was woken up by the
splashing, and tried to get into the ground at once, but couldn't; he
rolled about, he floated on his stomach and on his back--there was no
question of flying--he was sure he would never get away from the place
alive. He lay where he was and did not stir.

When it cleared a little and the Beetle had blinked the water out of
his eyes, he got a glimpse of something white--it was linen being
bleached. He went towards it and crept into a fold of the wet stuff;
it wasn't quite the same as lying in the warm dung-heap in the stable,
but there was nothing better to be had on the spot, so he stayed there
a whole day and a whole night, and still it rained. In the morning the
Beetle crept out; he was extremely cross with the climate.

On the linen were sitting two frogs, whose bright eyes glistened with
pure pleasure. "It's divine weather," said one of them. "How it does
freshen one up, and the linen holds the water together beautifully; it
gives me a quivering in my hind legs as if I was going to swim."

"I should like to know", said the other, "whether the swallow, who
flies so far in all directions, has found on his many journeys abroad
a better climate than ours. Such drizzle as we get! Such moistness!
One might be lying in a wet ditch! Anyone who does not enjoy it is no
true lover of his country."

"You have, I suppose, never been in the Emperor's stable?" asked the
Beetle. "There there is both moisture and fragrance. That is what I am
accustomed to; that is the climate for me, but it is impossible to
take it with one on a journey. Is there no dung-heap in this garden,
in which persons of quality like myself could lodge and feel
themselves at home?"

But the frogs either did not or would not understand him. "I never ask
a question twice," said the Beetle, after he had asked this one three
times and got no answer. So he went on a little to where there lay a
broken pot; it had no business to lie there, but being there it
offered a shelter. Here lived several families of Earwigs, who do not
require much accommodation, but like society. The ladies are richly
endowed with motherly affection, so here the children of each were the
prettiest and cleverest that could be.

"Our son has become engaged," said one mother, "the sweet innocent.
His highest aim is to be able to creep one day into a clergyman's ear.
He is so deliciously childlike, and his engagement will keep him from
running wild; that is a great joy for a mother."

"Our son," said the second mother, "the moment he came out of the egg
was at his tricks; he bubbles over with life, he'll run his feelers
off. An immense joy for a mother; is it not so, Mr. Beetle?" She knew
the visitor by his figure.

"You are both perfectly right," said the Beetle, whereupon he was
invited to come indoors--so far as he could get under the broken pot.

"Now you shall see my little Earwig too," said a third and a fourth of
the mothers. "They are darling children, and so droll! They are never
naughty except when they've got a stomach-ache, but that is a thing
one so easily gets at their age." So each of the mothers talked about
her young ones, and the young ones talked too, and used the little
pincers on their tails to tweak the Beetle's moustache.

"Little rascals, they're always after something," said the mothers,
beaming with maternal affection. But it bored the Beetle, so he
inquired if it was far from there to the dung-heap.

"Oh, that is right out in the world, on the other side of the ditch,"
said an Earwig. "So far, I do hope, none of my children will ever go.
I should die of it."

"So far, however, I shall try to get," said the Beetle, and set off
without taking leave: that is the most correct fashion.

At the ditch he met with several of his own race, all dung-beetles.
"Here we live," they said, "and very cosy it is; may we venture to
invite you down into the best mud? You must, I am sure, be tired with
your journey."

"Indeed I am," said the Beetle. "I have had to lie upon linen in the
rain, and cleanliness is very bad for me. I have besides got gout in
my wing-joint from standing in a draught under a broken pot. It is
really refreshing to get to one's own people at last."

"You come, I presume, from the dung-heap?" the eldest Beetle asked.

"From a more elevated station," said the Beetle. "I come from the
Emperor's stable where I was born, shod with gold. I am travelling on
a secret mission, about which you must ask me no questions, for I
shall not answer them." With this the Beetle climbed down into the
rich mud. There sat three young lady beetles, who giggled, for they
did not know what to say.

"They are not engaged," said their mother, and they giggled
again--this time from embarrassment.

"None fairer have I ever seen in the Emperor's stable," said the
travelling Beetle.

"Do not trifle with my daughters. Do not speak to them unless your
intentions are serious--but that they are, I am sure, and I give you
my blessing."

"Hurrah!" cried all the others, and the Beetle was betrothed:
betrothal first, then wedding, there was no reason to delay. The next
day passed very happily, the following one was got over somehow; but
on the third the Beetle had to think about providing food for a wife,
and perhaps little ones.

"I have allowed myself to be taken in," he said. "I must just take
them in in return." And so he did. He was gone, gone all day, gone all
night, and his wife was left a widow. The other beetles said it was a
rank adventurer whom they had adopted into the family. Now there was
his wife on their hands. "Well," said her mother, "she can take her
place as a girl again, take her place as my child. Shame on the
loathsome wretch who has abandoned her!"

He meanwhile was on a voyage; he had set sail on a cabbage leaf to
cross the ditch. Later in the morning two people came by, saw the
Beetle, picked him up, turned him over and over, and both--especially
one of them, a boy--were very learned about him. "Allah sees the black
Beetle in the black stone in the black rock. Isn't there something
like that in the Koran?" he asked, and went on to translate the
Beetle's name into Latin and discourse about its species and habits.
The elder scholar objected to taking the Beetle home, for, said he,
"they had every bit as good specimens". And this, the Beetle thought,
was by no means a polite remark, so he flew out of his hand, flew for
some distance, for his wings were now dried, and eventually came to
the hot-house, where he could with the greatest ease, a window being
open, slip in and bury himself in the fresh manure. "This", he said,
"is luxury."

He very soon fell asleep, and dreamt that the Emperor's horse had
fallen down dead, and that Lord Beetle had received its golden shoes
and the promise of two more. This was gratifying, and when the Beetle
woke up, he crawled out and looked about him. What splendour was here
in the hot-house! Great fan-leaved palms spread out above; the sun
made them transparent, and beneath them grew a profusion of green, and
flowers shone there, red as fire, yellow as amber, white as new fallen
snow.

"What matchless splendour of vegetation," said the Beetle. "How nice
it will taste when it goes rotten! This is a capital larder: some of
my family are sure to be living here. I will go and explore and see if
I can find some suitable company. I _am_ proud, and I am proud to be
so." So on he went, thinking about his dream and the golden shoes he
had won.

Suddenly a hand grasped the Beetle: he was squeezed and tumbled about.

The gardener's little boy and a friend were in the hot-house, had
caught sight of the Beetle, and meant to have some fun with him.
Wrapped in a vine-leaf, he was thrust down into a hot trouser-pocket.
He scrabbled and scrambled, but only got a squeeze from the boy's
hand, who was running to the big lake at the end of the garden. Here
the Beetle was first put into an old broken wooden shoe that had lost
its instep. A peg was stuck in for a mast, and to this the Beetle was
tethered with a bit of worsted. So now he was a skipper, and must put
out to sea.

It was a very large lake; the Beetle thought it must be an ocean, and
was so bewildered that he tumbled over on his back, and waved his legs
in the air. The wooden shoe sailed along, for there was a current in
the water; but as soon as the vessel got a little too far out, one of
the boys turned up his trousers, waded out and brought it back.
However, when it began drifting a second time someone called the boys,
and sharply too, and they hurried off and left the wooden shoe to its
fate. It drifted further and further out from land--steadily onward.
It was appalling for the Beetle; he couldn't fly, he was bound fast to
the mast.

He now received a visit from a fly.

"Beautiful weather we're having," said the fly. "I can rest here, and
sun myself. Very pleasant situation, this, of yours."

"A lot of sense you've got, talking like that. Don't you see I'm
tethered up?"

"Well, I'm not," said the fly, and off he went.

"Now I know the world," said the Beetle, "and it's a despicable world.
I am the only honourable being in it. First of all, they refuse me
gold shoes, next I have to lie out on wet linen, and stand in a
draught, and after that they foist a wife on me. I make a bold dash
into the world, to see how people are circumstanced, and how I ought
to be, and then comes a human whelp, tethers me up, and sets me
sailing on the roaring ocean. Meanwhile the Emperor's horse goes about
in gold shoes; that's what rankles with me most. But it's no good
looking for sympathy in this world. My life-history is interesting in
the highest degree; but what's the use of that if nobody knows it? Nor
does the world deserve to know it, or it would have given me gold
shoes in the Emperor's stable when his horse stuck out its legs and
was shod. If I'd had the gold shoes, I should have been a credit to
the stable. As it is, the stable has lost me, and the world has lost
me, and it's all over."

But all wasn't over yet; a boat with some young girls in it came
along.

"There's a wooden shoe sailing about," said one.

"There's a little creature tethered up in it," said the second. They
came quite close to the wooden shoe and picked it up, and one of the
girls took out a little pair of scissors and clipped the worsted
without hurting the Beetle, and when they got to land, she put him
down on the grass.

"Crawl off, crawl off! Fly away, fly away, if you can!" she said.
"Freedom's a blessing."

And the Beetle flew straight in at the window of a large building, and
sank down, tired out, upon the long soft silky mane of the Emperor's
own horse, as it stood in its stall--the home of it and of the Beetle.
He clung to the mane and sat there for a little and composed himself.
"Here am I sitting on the Emperor's own horse--sitting like its rider.
Now what's that I was saying? To be sure, now it comes back to me. A
good notion, and a sound one--why did the horse have golden shoes
given it? That's what the smith asked me, too. Now I've got the rights
of it. It was on my account that the horse got gold shoes." And
thereupon the Beetle was put in a good humour. "Travelling does clear
one's ideas," he said.

The sun shone in upon him very pleasantly. "The world isn't such a bad
place after all," said the Beetle, "if only you know how to take it."

So the world was beautiful because the Emperor's horse had been given
gold shoes in order that the Beetle might ride on it.

"I shall now go down to the other Beetles and tell them how much has
been done for me. I shall tell them of all the comforts I have enjoyed
on my foreign tour, and I shall say that I now propose to remain at
home until the horse has worn out his gold shoes."




[End of _The Beetle_ by Hans Christian Andersen, from _Hans
Andersen Forty-Two Stories_, translated by M. R. James]
