half as big as Petrine's room. And there the king walks up and down, up and down, and gnashes his teeth with sorrow and rage and roars so that you can hear him ever so far away. Outside his cage stand cowardly people and laugh at him, because he can't get out and eat them up, and poke their sticks through the rails and tease him.
My little boy stands in front of me and looks at me with wide-open eyes:
"Would he eat them up, if he got out?" he asks.
"In a moment."
"But he can't get out, can he?"
"No. That's awfully sad. He can't get out."
"Father, let us go and look at the lion."
I pretend not to hear and go on to tell him of the strange birds there: great eagles, which used to fly over every church-steeple and over the highest trees and mountains and swoop down upon lambs and hares and carry them up to their young in the nest. Now they are sitting in cages, on a perch, like canaries, with clipped wings and blind eyes. I tell him of gulls, which used to fly all day long over the stormy sea: now they splash about in a puddle of water, screaming pitifully. I tell him of wonderful blue and red birds, which, in their youth, used to live among wonderful blue and red flowers, in balmy forests a thousand times bigger than the Frederiksberg Park, where it was as dark as night under the trees with the brightest sun shining down upon the tree-tops: now they sit there in very small cages and hang their beaks while they stare at tiresome boys in dark-blue suits and black stockings and waterproof boots and sailor-hats.
"Are those birds really blue?" asks my little boy.
"Sky-blue," I answer. "And utterly broken-hearted."
"Father, can't we go and look at the birds?"
I take my little boy's hands in mine:
"I don't think we will," I say. "Why should still more silly boys do so? You can't imagine how it goes to one's heart to look at those poor captive beasts."
"Father, I should so much like to go."
"Take my advice and don't. The animals there are not the real animals, you see. They are ill and ugly and angry because of their captivity and their longing and their pain."
"I should so much like to see them."
"Now let me tell you something. To go to the Zoological Gardens costs five cents for you and ten cents for me. That makes fifteen cents altogether, which is an awful lot of money. We won't go there now, but we'll buy the biggest money-box we can find: one of those money-boxes shaped like a pig. Then we'll put fifteen cents in it. And every Thursday we'll put fifteen cents in the pig. By-and-by, that will grow into quite a fortune: it will make such a lot of money that, when you are grown up, you can take a trip to Africa and go to the desert and hear the wild, the real lion roaring and tremble just like the people tremble down there. And you can go to the great, dark forests and see the real blue birds flying proud and free among the flowers. You can't think how glad you will be, how beautiful they will look and how they will sing to you.."
"Father, I would rather go to the Zoological Gardens now."
My little boy does not understand a word of what I say. And I am at my wits' end.
"Shall we go and have some cakes at Josty's?" I ask.
"I would rather go to the Zoological Gardens."
I can read in his eyes that he is thinking of the captive lion. Ugly human instincts are waking up in his soul. The mouse is forgotten and the snail; and the chaffinches have built their nest to no purpose.
At last I get up and say, bluntly, without any further explanation:
"You are not going to the Zoological Gardens. Now we'll go home."
And home we go. But we are not in a good temper.
Of course, I get over it and I buy an enormous money-box pig. Also we put the money into it and he thinks that most interesting.
But, later in the afternoon, I find him in the bed-room engaged in a piteous game.
He has built a cage, in which he has imprisoned the pig. He is teasing it and hitting it with his whip, while he keeps shouting to it:
"You can't get out and bite me, you stupid pig! You can't get out!"
IV
We have beer-soup and Aunt Anna to dinner. Now beer-soup is a nasty dish and Aunt Anna is not very nice either.
She has yellow teeth and a little hump and very severe eyes, which are not even both equally severe. She is nearly always scolding us and, when she sees a chance, she pinches us.
The worst of all, however, is that she is constantly setting us a good example, which can easily end by gradually and inevitably driving us to embrace wickedness.
Aunt Anna does not like beer-soup any more than we do. But of course she eats it with a voluptuous expression on her face and looks angrily at my little boy, who does not even make an attempt to behave nicely:
"Why doesn't the little boy eat his delicious beer-soup?" she asks.
A scornful silence.
"Such delicious beer-soup! I know a poor, wretched boy who would be awfully glad to have such delicious beer-soup."
My little boy looks with great interest at Auntie, who is swallowing her soup with eyes full of ecstatic bliss:
"Where is he?" he asks.
Aunt Anna pretends not to hear.
"Where is the poor boy?" he asks again.
"Yes, where is he?" I ask. "What's his name?"
Aunt Anna gives me a furious glance.
"What's his name, Aunt Anna?" asks my little boy. "Where does he live? He can have my beer-soup with pleasure."
"Mine too," I say, resolutely, and I push my plate from me.
My little boy never takes his great eyes off Aunt Anna's face. Meanwhile, she has recovered herself:
"There are many poor boys who would thank God if they could get such delicious beer-soup," she says. "Very many. Everywhere."
"Yes, but tell us of one, Auntie," I say.
My little boy has slipped down from his chair. He stands with his chin just above the table and both his hands round his plate, ready to march off with the beer-soup to the poor boy, if only he can get his address.
But Aunt Anna does not allow herself to be played with:
"Heaps of poor boys," she says again. "Hun-dreds! And therefore another little boy, whom I will not name, but who is in this room, ought to be ashamed that he is not thankful for his beer-soup."
My little boy stares at Aunt Anna like the bird fascinated by the snake.
"Such delicious beer-soup!" she says. "I must really ask for another little helping."
Aunt Anna revels in her martyrdom. My little boy stands speechless, with open mouth and round eyes.
I
