Prevod

Outside the factory stood towering heaps of rags, gathered from far and wide; every rag had its history, every one had its tale to tell, but one cannot listen to them all. Some were homegrown, others came from foreign lands. Here a Danish rag lay beside a Norwegian rag; one was Danish through and through, the other every inch Norwegian, and that was the amusing thing about the pair, as any sensible Norwegian or Dane will tell you.

They recognized each other by their language, though the two tongues, the Norwegian said, were as different as French and Hebrew. "We go to the hills for what is raw and original, while the Dane cooks up his sickly-sweet, insipid bardic babble."

The rags talked, and rags are rags in every country; they count for something only in the rag heap. "I am Norwegian!" said the Norwegian, "and when I say I am Norwegian, I believe I have said enough! My fibres are as firm as the primeval mountains of old Norway, the land with a constitution like that of free America! It tickles my fibres to think what I am, and to let the thought ring out like metal in words of granite!"

"But we have a literature!" said the Danish rag. "Do you understand what that is?" "Understand!" repeated the Norwegian. "Dweller of the flatlands, shall I lift him to the mountaintops and shine the northern lights upon him, rag that he is! When the ice thaws beneath the Norwegian sun, Danish pear boats come up to us with butter and cheese—quite edible wares! And Danish literature comes along as ballast. We have no need of it! One gladly does without flat beer where the fresh spring gushes forth, and here is a well that has not been drilled, not gossiped into European fame through newspapers, cronies, and authors travelling abroad. I speak freely, straight from the lungs, and the Dane must grow accustomed to that free sound, and so he will, as he clings in Scandinavian brotherhood to our proud land of rock, the world's primeval crag!"

"Now, no Danish rag could ever talk like that!" said the Dane. "It is not in our nature. I know myself, and all our rags are just like me: we are so good-natured, so modest, we think too little of ourselves, and certainly one gains nothing by that, but I like it so much, I find it so charming! Besides, I can assure you that I am fully aware of my own fine quality, but I do not talk about it; no one shall ever accuse me of such a failing. I am soft and pliable, I put up with everything, envy no one, and speak well of everybody, though there is not much good to be said of most others—but that is their affair! I always make a joke of it, for I am so gifted!"

"Do not talk that soft, sticky language of the flatlands to me; it turns my stomach!" said the Norwegian, and the wind loosened him from the heap and carried him over to another.

They both became paper, and chance would have it that the Norwegian rag became a sheet on which a Norwegian wrote a faithful love letter to a Danish girl, while the Danish rag became the manuscript of a Danish ode in praise of Norway's strength and splendour.

Something good can come of rags, too, once they are out of the rag heap and have been transformed into truth and beauty; they shine in mutual understanding, and in that there is a blessing.

That is the story; it is quite amusing and gives offence to absolutely no one except—the rags.