A Picture-Book without Pictures and Other Stories/My Boots

by Hans Christian Andersen

For other English-language translations of this work, see My Boots (Andersen).

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MY BOOTS.

There is a street in Rome which is called Via della Purificazione; yet nobody can say of it that it is purified. It goes up-hill and down-hill; cabbage stalks and old broken pots lie scattered about it; the smoke comes curling out of the door of the public-house, and the lady who lives opposite to me—yes, I cannot help it, but it is true—the lady on the opposite side, she shakes her sheets every morning out of the window. In this street there generally live many foreigners; this year, however, fear of the fever and malignant sickness keeps most of them in Naples and Florence. I lived quite alone in a great big house; neither the host nor hostess ever slept there at night.

It was a great, big, cold house, with a little wet garden, in which there grew only one row of peas, and a half-extinguished gillyflower; and yet, in the very next garden, which lay higher, there were hedges of monthly roses, and trees full of yellow lemons. These last, spite of the incessant rain, looked vigorous; the roses, on the contrary, looked as if they had lain for eight days in the sea.

The evenings were so lonesome in the cold large rooms; the black chimney yawning between the windows, and without were rain and mist. All the doors were fastened with locks and iron bolts; but what good could that do? The wind whistled in a tone sharp enough to cut one in two through the cracks in the doors; the thin faggots kindled in the chimney, but did not send out their warmth very far; the cold stone floor, the damp walls and the lofty ceiling seemed only suited to the summer season.

If I would make myself right comfortable, I was obliged to put on my traveling fur-boots, my great coat, my cloak, and my fur-cap,—yes, and then I could do tolerably well. To be sure, the side next the fire was half roasted; but then, in this world, people must learn to turn and twist themselves about, and I turned myself like a sunflower.

The evenings were somewhat long; but then the teeth took it into their heads to get up a nervous concert, and it was extraordinary with what alacrity the proposal was accepted. A downright Danish toothache cannot compare itself to an Italian one. Here the pain played upon the very fangs of the teeth, as if there sate a Liszt or a Thalberg at them; now it thundered in the foreground, now in the background. There was an accordance and strength in the whole thing which at last drove me beside myself.

Besides the evening concerts, there were also nocturnal concerts; and during such a one, while the windows rattled in the storm, and rain poured down in torrents, I threw a half-melancholy glance upon my night-lamp. My writing implements stood just by, and I saw, quite plainly, that the pen was dancing along over the paper as if it were guided by an invisible hand; but it was not so; it was guided by its own hand; it wrote from dictation; and who dictated? Yes, it may sound incredible, but is the truth for all that. And when I say so, people will believe me. It was my boots,—my old Copenhagen boots—which, being soaked through and through with rain-water, now had their place in the chimney, near to the red glowing fire. Whilst I was suffering from toothache, they were suffering from dropsy; they dictated their own autobiography, which, as it seems to me, may throw some light upon the Italian winter of 1840–41.

The Boots said,—

“We are two brothers, Right and Left Boot. Our earliest recollection is of being strongly rubbed over with wax, and after that highly polished. I could see myself reflected in my brother; my brother could see himself reflected in me; and we saw that we were only one body,—a sort of Castor and Pollux; a pair of together-grown Siamese, which fate has ordained to live and die, to exist, and not to exist, together. We were, both of us, native Copenhageners.

The shoemaker’s apprentice carried us out into the world in his own hands, and this gave rise to sweet, but alas! false hopes of our destination. The person to whom we were thus brought, pulled us on by the ears, until we fitted to his legs, and then he went down stairs in us. We creaked for joy! When we got out of doors it rained—we kept creaking on, however; but only for the first day.

“Ah! there is a great deal of bad weather to go through in this world! We were not made for water boots, and therefore did not feel happy. No brushing ever gave us again the polish of our youth; the polish which we possessed when the shoemaker’s apprentice carried us through the streets in his hand. Who can describe our joy, therefore, when we heard it said one morning, that we were going into foreign parts! yes, were even going to Italy, to that mild, warm country, where we should only tread upon marble and classic ground; drink in the sunshine, and, of a certainty, recover the brightness of our youth.

“We set out. Through the longest part of our journey we slept in the trunk, and dreamed about the warm countries. In the cities or the country, we made good use of our eyes; it was, however, bad weather, and wet there also as in Denmark. Our soles were taken ill of palsy, and in Munich were obliged to be taken off, and we had a new pair; but these were so well done, that they looked like native soles.

“ ‘Oh, that we were but across the Alps!’ sighed we; there the weather is mild and good.”

“We came to the other side of the Alps, but we found neither mild nor good weather. It rained and blew; and when we trod upon marble, it was so icy-cold, that it forced the cold perspiration out of our soles; wherever we trod we left behind a wet impression. In the evenings, however, it was very amusing when the shoe-boys at the hotels collected and numbered the boots and shoes; and we were set among all these foreign companions and heard them tell about all the cities where they had been. There was once a pair of beautiful red morocco boots, with black feet, I think it was in Bologna, that told us all about their ascending Vesuvius, where their feet were burned off with the subterranean heat. Ah! we could not help longing to die such a death.

“ ‘If we were but across the Appenines! If we were but in Rome!’ sighed we. And we came thither; but for one week after another have been tramping about in nothing but wet and mud. People must see everything; and wonderful sights and rainy weather, never come to an end. Not a single warm sunbeam has refreshed us; the cold wind is always whistling round us. Oh Rome! Rome! For the first time this night do we inhale warmth in this blessed chimney corner, and we will inhale it till we burst! The upper leathers are gone already,—nothing remains but the hind quarters, and they will soon give way. Before, however, we die this blessed death, we wish to leave our history behind us; and we wish also that our corpses should be taken to Berlin, to repose near to that man who had the heart and the courage to describe ‘Italy as it is,’—even by the truth-loving Nicolai.”

And with these words the boots crumbled to pieces.

All was still: my night-lamp had gone out. I myself slumbered a little; and when towards morning I awoke, I found it was all a dream; but when I glanced towards the chimney-corner, I saw the boots all shrivelled up, standing like mummies beside the cold ashes! I looked at the paper which lay near to my lamp—it was grey paper, full of ink spots—the pen unquestionably had been over it, but the words had all run one into another; however the pen had written the Memoirs of the Boots on grey paper. That, however, which was legible I copied out; and the people will be so good as to recollect that it is not I, but my boots, which make this complaint of La bella Italia.