The collar was a little jagged at the edge, and so came the long scissors to cut off the jagged part.
"Oh!" said the collar, "you are certainly the first opera dancer. How well you can stretch your legs out! It is the most graceful performance I have ever seen. No one can imitate you."
"I know it," said the scissors.
"You deserve to be a baroness," said the collar. "All that I have is a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a hair-comb. If I only had the barony!"
"Do you seek my hand?" said the scissors; for she was angry; and without more ado, she cut him , and then he was condemned.
"I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. It is surprising how well you preserve your teeth, Miss," said the collar. "Have you never thought of being betrothed?"
"Yes, of course! you may be sure of that," said the hair comb. "I am betrothed to the boot-jack!"
"Betrothed!" exclaimed the collar. Now there was no other to court, and so he despised it.
A long time passed away, then the collar came into the rag chest at the paper mill; there was a large company of rags, the fine by themselves, and the coarse by themselves, just as it should be. They all had much to say, but the collar the most; for he was a real boaster.
"I have had such an immense number of sweet-hearts!" said the collar, "I could not be in peace! It is true, I was always a fine starched-up gentleman! I had both a bootjack and a hair-comb, which I never used! You should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay down! I shall never forget my first love she was a girdle, so fine, so soft, and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! my own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort of thing; but I am extremely sorry for the garter I mean the girdle that went into the water-tub. I have much on my conscience, I want to become white paper!"
And it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the collar came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, and on which the story is printed; and that was because it boasted so terribly afterwards of what had never happened to it. It would be well for us to beware, that we may not act in a similar manner, for we can never know if we may not, in the course of time, also come into the rag chest, and be made into white paper, and then have our whole life's history printed on it, even the most secret, and be obliged to run about and tell it ourselves, just like this collar.
THE SHADOW
hottest hotHe, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors, the window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the whole house slept, or there was no one at home.
The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine must fall there from morning till evening it was really not to be borne.
The learned man from the cold lands he was a young man, and seemed to be a clever man sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became quite meagre
even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they began to freshen up again.
In the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out on all the balconies in the street for one must have air, even if one be accustomed to be mahogany! It was lively both up and down the street. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the street chairs and tables were brought forth and candles burnt yes, above a thousand lights were burning and the one talked and the other sung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along with a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys were screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and detonating balls: and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers, for there were funerals with psalm and hymn, and then the din of carriages driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough down in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one lived there, for there stood flowers in the balcony they grew so well in the sun's heat and that they could not do unless they were watered and some one must water them there must be somebody there. The door opposite was also opened late in the evening, but it was dark within, at least in the front room; further in there was heard the sound of music. The learned foreigner thought it quite marvellous, but now it might be that he only imagined it for he found everything marvellous out there, in the warm lands, if there had only been no sun. The stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared to him to be extremely tiresome. "It is as if some one sat there, and practised a piece that he could not master always the same piece. 'I shall master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he plays."