Prevod
The days of the week once wanted to let themselves go, get together, and hold a feast. Each day was so busy that, all year round, they had no leisure to call their own; they needed a whole day set apart, and this they did have every fourth year: Leap Day, which is added to February to put the calendar to rights.
On Leap Day, then, they would gather for a feast, and since February is the month of Shrovetide, they would come in carnival dress, each according to taste and station; they would eat well, drink well, make speeches, and say pleasant and unpleasant things to one another in the easy spirit of comradeship. The heroes of old used to throw their gnawed meat bones at one another’s heads during meals; the days of the week, by contrast, would pelt one another with tasty morsels of puns and mischievous jokes, such as might crop up in innocent Shrovetide revels.
Then Leap Day came, and they all assembled. Sunday, chairman of the days of the week, appeared in a black silk cloak; pious people would have thought him dressed as a clergyman on his way to church; worldly folk could see that he was wearing a domino to go merry-making, and that the blazing carnation in his buttonhole was the theatre’s little red lantern, announcing: “All sold out—now see that you enjoy yourselves!”
Monday, a young fellow related to Sunday and particularly fond of pleasure, came next. He left the workshop, he said, when the guard turned out on parade.
“I must go out and hear Offenbach’s music; it goes neither to my head nor to my heart, but tickles the muscles in my legs. I must dance, have a spree, get a black eye to sleep on, and then set to work the next day. I am the new moon of the week!”
Tuesday: Tyr’s day, the day of strength. “Yes, that is what I am!” said Tuesday. “I set to work, fasten Mercury’s wings to the merchant’s boots, look round the factories to see that the wheels are greased and turning, and make sure the tailor sits on his table and the paver on his paving stones; everyone must attend to his trade! I keep an eye on it all, so I come in police uniform and call myself Poli-Tuesday. If that is a poor pun, let the rest of you try to make a better one!”
“Then comes my turn!” said Wednesday. “I stand in the middle of the week. The Germans call me Mr. Mittwoch. I stand like a shop assistant behind the counter, like a flower among the other honoured days of the week! When we all march out, I have three days before me and three behind, like a guard of honour; I cannot help thinking I am the most distinguished day of the week!”
Thursday came dressed as a coppersmith, with a hammer and a copper kettle, the emblems of his nobility. “I am of the highest birth!” he said. “Heathen and divine! In the northern lands I am named after Thor, and in the southern lands after Jupiter, both of whom knew how to thunder and flash lightning; it has stayed in the family!”
And he struck the copper kettle to prove his noble birth. Friday was dressed as a young girl and called herself Freya, or, for a change, Venus, according to the language of the country in which she appeared. She was otherwise of a quiet, gentle disposition, she said, but today she was bold and free; after all, it was Leap Day, which gives women their liberty, for then, by ancient custom, they may propose marriage themselves and need not wait to be proposed to.
Saturday appeared as an old housekeeper with a broom and the emblems of cleansing. Her favourite dish was beer-and-bread porridge, though she did not insist that it should be put on the table for everyone on this festive occasion, but only that she might have some herself, and so she did.
Then the days of the week took their seats at the table. Here all seven have been set down, ready to serve in family tableaux; there they may be made as amusing as anyone can manage. We offer them here merely as a jest for February, the only month that gets an extra day.
