Prevod

The Emperor’s horse was given golden shoes—golden shoes on every foot. Why was he given golden shoes? He was the most magnificent creature, with slender legs, such intelligent eyes, and a mane that fell about his neck like a silken veil. He had carried his master through gunpowder smoke and showers of bullets, heard the bullets sing and whistle; he had bitten and kicked and fought when the enemy pressed upon them. With his Emperor on his back, he had leaped over the fallen enemy’s horse and saved his Emperor’s crown of red gold. And that was why the Emperor’s horse was given golden shoes—golden shoes on every foot.

And the dung beetle crawled forward. “First the great, then the small,” he said, “though size is not what matters.” And he stretched out his thin legs.

“What do you want?” asked the blacksmith. “Golden shoes!” answered the dung beetle. “You must be out of your mind!” said the blacksmith. “Do you want golden shoes too?” “Golden shoes!” said the dung beetle. “Am I not just as good as that great beast who has to be waited on, curried, tended, and given food and drink? Don’t I belong to the Emperor’s stable too?”

“But why is the horse being given golden shoes?” asked the blacksmith. “Don’t you understand?” “Understand? I understand that this is a slight to me,” said the dung beetle. “It is an insult—and so now I am going out into the wide world!”

“Off you go!” said the blacksmith. “Ill-mannered fellow!” said the dung beetle, and he went outside, flew a little way, and found himself in a pretty little flower garden, fragrant with roses and lavender.

“Isn’t it lovely here!” said one of the little ladybirds flying about with black spots on their hard red wing cases. “How sweet it smells, and how pretty it is!”

“I am used to better!” said the dung beetle. “You call this pretty? There isn’t even a dung heap!” And he went farther on, into the shade of a tall stock, where a caterpillar was crawling.

“How lovely the world is!” said the caterpillar. “The sun is so warm! Everything is so delightful! And one day, when I fall asleep and die, as they call it, I shall wake up and be a butterfly!”

“What airs you give yourself!” said the dung beetle. “So now we’re to fly about as a butterfly! I come from the Emperor’s stable, but no one there, not even the Emperor’s own charger, who goes about in my cast-off golden shoes, has such notions. Grow wings! Fly! Well, here we go!” And the dung beetle flew off. “I won’t let it annoy me, but it annoys me all the same!”

Then he dropped onto a large patch of grass. He lay there a little while, then fell asleep. Good heavens, what a downpour came rushing down! The dung beetle woke at the splashing and tried at once to burrow into the earth, but he could not. He tumbled over, he swam on his belly and on his back; flying was out of the question. Surely he would never get away from this spot alive. He lay where he was, and there he stayed.

When the rain let up a little and the dung beetle had blinked the water from his eyes, he caught sight of something white: linen laid out to bleach. He made his way over and crawled into a fold of the wet linen. It certainly was not like lying in the warm heap in the stable, but there was nothing better to be had, so he stayed there a whole day and a whole night, and the rainy weather stayed too. In the morning the dung beetle came out, thoroughly vexed with the climate.

Two frogs were sitting on the linen, their bright eyes shining with sheer delight. “What blessed weather!” said one. “How refreshing it is! And the linen holds the water so beautifully! It makes my hind legs tingle as though I were going to swim!”

“I should like to know,” said the other, “whether the swallow, who flies so far afield, has ever found a better climate than ours on all her travels abroad. Such wind and rain, and such damp! It is just like lying in a wet ditch! Anyone who doesn’t enjoy it cannot truly love his native land!”

“Have you never been in the Emperor’s stables?” asked the dung beetle. “There the damp is both warm and pungent! That is what I am used to; that is my climate, but one cannot take it along when travelling. Isn’t there a hotbed somewhere in the garden where persons of distinction, such as myself, can put up and feel at home?”

But the frogs did not understand him, or would not. “I never ask a second time!” said the dung beetle, after he had asked three times without receiving an answer.

Then he went a little farther and found a broken flowerpot. It had no business lying there, but as it lay it provided shelter. Several families of earwigs lived there; they do not require much room, only company. The females are especially gifted with motherly love, and so each one’s child was the prettiest and the cleverest.

“Our son has become engaged!” said one mother. “The sweet innocent! His highest ambition is one day to crawl into a clergyman’s ear. He is so charmingly childlike, and being engaged keeps him from going astray! It is such a joy to a mother!”

“Our son,” said another mother, “had scarcely come out of the egg before he was up to mischief. He is bursting with spirits, sowing his wild oats. It is an immense joy to a mother! Isn’t it, Mr Dung Beetle?” They knew what the stranger was by his appearance.

“You are both quite right!” said the dung beetle, and he was invited into the parlour, as far as he could squeeze beneath the broken pot. “Now you must see my little earwig too!” said a third and a fourth mother. “They are the sweetest children, and so amusing! They are never naughty unless they have a stomach ache, but that comes so easily at their age!”

And each mother talked about her young, and the young joined in and used the little forks on their tails to tug at the dung beetle’s whiskers.

“The little rascals do think of everything!” said the mothers, positively steaming with maternal affection. But the dung beetle was bored, and he asked whether it was far from there to the hotbed.

“It is far out in the world, on the other side of the ditch!” said the earwig. “I hope none of my children ever goes so far, for it would be the death of me!”

“Well, I shall try to get that far!” said the dung beetle, and he left without saying goodbye; that is the most elegant way. At the ditch he met several of his own relations, all dung beetles.

“This is where we live!” they said. “We are quite snug! Won’t you come down into the rich muck? Your journey must have tired you!” “It has indeed!” said the dung beetle. “I have been lying on linen in rainy weather, and cleanliness is particularly wearing to me! I have also caught rheumatism in my wing joint from standing in a draught beneath a broken flowerpot. It is a real comfort to be among one’s own people again!”

“Perhaps you come from the hotbed?” asked the eldest. “Higher than that!” said the dung beetle. “I come from the Emperor’s stable, where I was born with golden shoes. I am travelling on a secret mission about which you must not question me, for I shall tell you nothing!”

And the dung beetle climbed down into the rich mire. Three young female dung beetles were sitting there, giggling because they did not know what to say. “They are not engaged!” said their mother, and they giggled again, but that was from embarrassment.

“I have seen none more beautiful in the Emperor’s stables!” said the travelling dung beetle. “Don’t turn my girls’ heads! And don’t speak to them unless your intentions are honourable—but they are, and I give you my blessing.”

“Hurrah!” said all the others, and the dung beetle was engaged. First the engagement, then the wedding; there was nothing to wait for. The next day went very well, the second passed comfortably enough, but on the third it was time to think about food for a wife and perhaps little ones.

“I have let them take me by surprise!” he said. “So I suppose I must surprise them in return!” And he did. He was gone—gone all day, gone all night—and his wife sat there a widow. The other dung beetles said that it was a regular vagabond they had welcomed into the family; now his wife was left on their hands.

“Then she can be a maiden again!” said her mother. “She can be my child again! Shame on the vile wretch who deserted her!” Meanwhile he was on his way, having sailed across the ditch on a cabbage leaf. Towards morning two people came along, saw the dung beetle, picked him up, and turned him this way and that. Both were very learned, especially the boy. “Allah sees the black dung beetle in the black stone in the black mountain! Isn’t that what it says in the Koran?” he asked, and gave the dung beetle’s name in Latin and explained his family and habits. The older scholar was against taking him home; they had specimens there just as good, he said. The dung beetle thought this was impolite, so he flew out of the man’s hand and went a good way. His wings had dried by now, and he reached the greenhouse, where one of the windows had been pushed open, allowing him to slip inside with the greatest ease and bury himself in the fresh manure.

“This is delicious!” he said. Soon he fell asleep and dreamed that the Emperor’s horse had fallen dead and Mr Dung Beetle had been given his golden shoes, with the promise of two more. It was most agreeable, and when the dung beetle woke, he crawled out and looked up. What splendour there was in the greenhouse! Great fan palms spread their leaves on high, the sunlight shining through them, and beneath them welled a wealth of greenery and gleamed flowers red as fire, yellow as amber, and white as newly fallen snow.

“What a matchless display of plants! How good it will taste when it rots!” said the dung beetle. “This is a fine larder. Some of the family must live here; I shall go exploring and see whether I can find someone to associate with. I am proud, and proud of it!” And off he went, thinking of his dream about the dead horse and the golden shoes he had won.

Suddenly a hand seized the dung beetle; he was squeezed and turned this way and that. The gardener’s little son and a friend were in the greenhouse; they had spotted the dung beetle and meant to have some fun with him. Wrapped in a vine leaf, he was put into a warm trouser pocket. He wriggled and squirmed and was given a squeeze by the boy, who hurried off towards the great lake at the end of the garden. There the dung beetle was put into an old, broken wooden shoe whose upper had come off. A stick was fixed in it for a mast, and the dung beetle was tethered to it with a woollen thread. Now he was a skipper and was to go sailing.

It was a very large lake; the dung beetle thought it was an ocean, and was so astonished that he fell onto his back and kicked his legs.

The wooden shoe sailed along, for there was a current in the water, but whenever the vessel went a little too far out, one of the boys rolled up his trousers at once and waded out to fetch it. Once it was drifting again, however, the boys were called—called very sternly—and they hurried off, leaving the wooden shoe to fend for itself. It drifted farther and farther from land, farther and farther out. It was dreadful for the dung beetle; he could not fly, for he was tied to the mast.

A fly came to visit him. “What lovely weather we are having!” said the fly. “I can rest here! I can bask in the sun here. You have a very pleasant life!”

“You talk as though you knew anything about it! Can’t you see that I am tethered?” “I am not tethered!” said the fly, and flew away. “Now I know the world!” said the dung beetle. “It is a vile world! I am the only honest creature in it! First they refuse me golden shoes, then I have to lie on wet linen and stand in a draught, and finally they foist a wife on me. Then, when I take a bold step out into the world and see how one can live, and how I ought to live, along comes a human brat and tethers me out on the raging sea. And all the while the Emperor’s horse goes about in golden shoes! That is what vexes me most. But one cannot expect sympathy in this world! My life story is most interesting, but what good is that when no one knows it? The world does not deserve to know it, either, or it would have given me golden shoes in the Emperor’s stable when the charger was being shod and I stretched out my legs. If I had been given golden shoes, I should have been a credit to the stable. Now the stable has lost me, and the world has lost me. All is over!”

But all was not over yet. A boat came along with some young girls in it. “There’s a wooden shoe sailing along!” said one. “There’s a little creature tied up in it!” said another.

They were right beside the wooden shoe; they lifted it out, and one of the girls took out a little pair of scissors and cut the woollen thread without harming the dung beetle. When they reached the shore, she put him in the grass.

“Crawl, crawl! Fly, fly, if you can!” she said. “Freedom is a lovely thing!” And the dung beetle flew straight through the open window of a large building, where he sank, exhausted, into the fine, soft, flowing mane of the Emperor’s charger. The horse was standing in the stable where both he and the dung beetle belonged. The beetle clung to the mane and sat for a while collecting his wits. “Here I am on the Emperor’s own charger! Sitting here as his rider! What am I saying? Why, now it is all clear to me! It is a good idea, and quite right. Why was the horse given golden shoes? That was what the blacksmith asked me, too. Now I understand! The horse was given golden shoes for my sake!”

And the dung beetle grew cheerful. “Travel clears the mind!” he said. The sun shone down on him, shone very beautifully. “The world is not so bad after all,” said the dung beetle. “One must simply know how to take it!” The world was lovely, for the Emperor’s charger had been given golden shoes because the dung beetle was to be his rider.

“Now I shall climb down to the other beetles and tell them how much has been done for me. I shall tell them about all the pleasures I have enjoyed on my travels abroad, and I shall say that now I am staying at home until the horse has worn out his golden shoes!”