The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 05: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English
Philosophy
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 05: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
Then the man went away, intending to go home, but when he got there,
he found a great stone palace, and his wife was just standing on the
steps going in, and she took him by the hand and said, "Come in." So
he went in with her, and in the castle was a great hall paved with
marble, and many servants, who flung wide the doors; and the walls
were all bright with beautiful hangings, and in the rooms were
chairs and tables of pure gold, and crystal chandeliers hung from the
ceiling, and all the rooms and bedrooms had carpets, and food and wine
of the very best were standing on all the tables so that they nearly
broke down beneath it. Behind the house, too, there was a great
courtyard, with stables for horses and cows, and the very best of
carriages; there was a magnificent large garden, too, with the most
beautiful flowers and fruit-trees, and a park quite half a mile long,
in which were stags, deer, and hares, and everything that could
be desired. "Come," said the woman, "isn't that beautiful?" "Yes,
indeed," said the man; "now let it be; we will live in this beautiful
castle and be content." "We will consider about that," said the woman,
"and sleep upon it;" thereupon they went to bed.
Next morning the wife awoke first, and it was just daybreak, and from
her bed she saw the beautiful country lying before her. Her husband
was still stretching himself, so she poked him in the side with her
elbow, and said, "Get up, husband, and just peep out of the window.
Look you, couldn't we be the King over all that land? Go to the
Flounder, we will be the King." "Ah, wife," said the man, "why should
we be King? I do not want to be King." "Well," said the wife, "if you
won't be King, I will; go to the Flounder, for I will be King." "Oh,
wife," said the man, "why do you want to be King? I do not like to
say that to him." "Why not?" asked the woman; "go to him this instant;
I must be King!" So the man went, and was quite unhappy because his
wife wished to be King. "It is not right; it is not right," thought
he. He did not wish to go; but yet he went.
And when he came to the sea, it was quite dark-gray, and the water
heaved up from below, and smelt putrid. Then he went and stood by it,
and said--
"Flounder, Flounder, in the sea,
Come, I pray thee, here to me;
For my wife, good Ilsabil,
Wills not as I'd have her will."
"Well, what does she want, then?" asked the Flounder. "Alas," said the
man, "she wants to be King." "Go to her; she is King already."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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