The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf (i can read book club TXT) 📕

But now they had caught sight of him in every stall, all along the street. Wherever he looked stood a salesman and beckoned to him. They left their costly wares, and thought only of him. He saw how they hurried into the most hidden corner of the stall to fetch the best that they had to sell, and how their hands trembled with eagerness and haste as they laid it upon the counter.

When the boy continued to go on, one of the merchants jumped over the counter, caught hold of him, and spread before him silver cloth and woven tapestries, which shone with brilliant colours.

The boy couldn’t do anything but laugh at him. The salesman certainly must understand that a poor little creature like him couldn’t buy such things. He stood still and held out his two empty hands, so they would understand that he had nothing and let him go in peace.

But the merchant raised a finger and nodded and pushed the whole pile of beautiful things over to him.

“Can he mean that he will sell all this for a gold piece?” wondered the boy.

The merchant brought out a tiny worn and poor coin⁠—the smallest that one could see⁠—and showed it to him. And he was so eager to sell that he increased his pile with a pair of large, heavy, silver goblets.

Then the boy began to dig down in his pockets. He knew, of course, that he didn’t possess a single coin, but he couldn’t help feeling for it.

All the other merchants stood still and tried to see how the sale would come off, and when they observed that the boy began to search in his pockets, they flung themselves over the counters, filled their hands full of gold and silver ornaments, and offered them to him. And they all showed him that what they asked in payment was just one little penny.

But the boy turned both vest and breeches pockets inside out, so they should see that he owned nothing. Then tears filled the eyes of all these regal merchants, who were so much richer than he. At last he was moved because they looked so distressed, and he pondered if he could not in some way help them. And then he happened to think of the rusty coin, which he had but lately seen on the strand.

He started to run down the street, and luck was with him so that he came to the selfsame gate which he had happened upon first. He dashed through it, and commenced to search for the little green copper penny which lay on the strand a while ago.

He found it too, very promptly; but when he had picked it up, and wanted to run back to the city with it⁠—he saw only the sea before him. No city wall, no gate, no sentinels, no streets, no houses could now be seen⁠—only the sea.

The boy couldn’t help that the tears came to his eyes. He had believed in the beginning, that that which he saw was nothing but an hallucination, but this he had already forgotten. He only thought about how pretty everything was. He felt a genuine, deep sorrow because the city had vanished.

That moment Herr Ermenrich awoke, and came up to him. But he didn’t hear him, and the stork had to poke the boy with his bill to attract attention to himself. “I believe that you stand here and sleep just as I do,” said Herr Ermenrich.

“Oh, Herr Ermenrich!” said the boy. “What was that city which stood here just now?”

“Have you seen a city?” said the stork. “You have slept and dreamt, as I say.”

“No! I have not dreamt,” said Thumbietot, and he told the stork all that he had experienced.

Then Herr Ermenrich said: “For my part, Thumbietot, I believe that you fell asleep here on the strand and dreamed all this.

“But I will not conceal from you that Bataki, the raven, who is the most learned of all birds, once told me that in former times there was a city on this shore, called Vineta. It was so rich and so fortunate, that no city has ever been more glorious; but its inhabitants, unluckily, gave themselves up to arrogance and love of display. As a punishment for this, says Bataki, the city of Vineta was overtaken by a flood, and sank into the sea. But its inhabitants cannot die, neither is their city destroyed. And one night in every hundred years, it rises in all its splendour up from the sea, and remains on the surface just one hour.”

“Yes, it must be so,” said Thumbietot, “for this I have seen.”

“But when the hour is up, it sinks again into the sea, if, during that time, no merchant in Vineta has sold anything to a single living creature. If you, Thumbietot, only had had an ever so tiny coin, to pay the merchants, Vineta might have remained up here on the shore; and its people could have lived and died like other human beings.”

“Herr Ermenrich,” said the boy, “now I understand why you came and fetched me in the middle of the night. It was because you believed that I should be able to save the old city. I am so sorry it didn’t turn out as you wished, Herr Ermenrich.”

He covered his face with his hands and wept. It wasn’t easy to say which one looked the more disconsolate⁠—the boy, or Herr Ermenrich.

Monday, April eleventh.

On the afternoon of Easter Monday, the wild geese and Thumbietot were on the wing. They travelled over Gottland.

The large island lay smooth and even beneath them. The ground was checked just as it was in Skåne and there were many churches and farms. But there was this difference, however, that there were more leafy meadows between the fields here, and then the farms were not built up with small houses. And there were no large manors with ancient tower-ornamented castles.

The wild geese had taken