"Heaven help me!" cried he. "How did I get up here--and so buried in sleep,
too? After all, that was a very unpleasant, disagreeable dream that haunted
me! The whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!"


VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave

The following day, early in the morning, while the Clerk was still in bed,
someone knocked at his door. It was his neighbor, a young Divine, who lived on
the same floor. He walked in.

"Lend me your Galoshes," said he; "it is so wet in the garden, though the sun
is shining most invitingly. I should like to go out a little."

He got the Galoshes, and he was soon below in a little duodecimo garden, where
between two immense walls a plumtree and an apple-tree were standing. Even
such a little garden as this was considered in the metropolis of Copenhagen as
a great luxury.

The young man wandered up and down the narrow paths, as well as the prescribed
limits would allow; the clock struck six; without was heard the horn of a
post-boy.

"To travel! to travel!" exclaimed he, overcome by most painful and passionate
remembrances. "That is the happiest thing in the world! That is the highest
aim of all my wishes! Then at last would the agonizing restlessness be
allayed, which destroys my existence! But it must be far, far away! I would
behold magnificent Switzerland; I would travel to Italy, and--"

It was a good thing that the power of the Galoshes worked as instantaneously