Prevod

The largest green leaf in this country is surely a burdock leaf. If you hold it in front of your little belly, it is just like a whole apron, and if you put it on your head, it is almost as good as an umbrella in rainy weather, for it is so enormously big. A burdock never grows alone; no, where one grows, several grow. It is a splendid sight, and all that splendour is snail food. The great white snails that grand people in the old days used to have made into fricassee, and ate, saying, “Mmm! How delicious!”—for they really thought they tasted delicious—lived on burdock leaves, and that was why burdocks were sown.

Now there was an old manor house where snails were no longer eaten; they had quite died out. But the burdocks had not died out. They grew and grew over all the paths and all the flower beds, until there was no keeping them down. It was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple tree or a plum tree; otherwise you would never have guessed that it was a garden. Everything was burdocks, and among them lived the last two snails, both very, very old.

They did not know how old they were themselves, but they could well remember that there had once been many more of them, that they belonged to a family from foreign lands, and that the whole forest had been planted for them and their kind. They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was something else in the world called the manor house, and up there one was boiled, and then one turned black, and then one was laid on a silver platter; but what happened after that, no one knew. What it was like to be boiled and to lie on a silver platter they could not imagine, but it was supposed to be delightful and exceedingly grand. Neither the cockchafer, the toad, nor the earthworm, whom they asked about it, could tell them anything; none of them had ever been boiled or lain on a silver platter.

The old white snails were the grandest creatures in the world, as they well knew. The forest existed for their sake, and the manor house existed so that they could be boiled and laid on a silver platter.

They now lived very happily and quite alone, and since they had no children of their own, they had taken in a little common snail and brought him up as their own. But the little one would not grow, because he was common. Still, the old couple, especially Mother—Mother Snail—thought she could see that he was getting bigger, and she asked Father, if he could not see it, at least to feel the little snail’s shell. So he felt it and found that Mother was right.

One day it rained heavily. “Listen to it drum-a-rum-a-rumming on the burdocks!” said Father Snail. “And here come the drops!” said Mother Snail. “They’re running right down the stalk! You’ll see, it will be wet here! I’m glad we have our good house, and that the little one has his too! There really has been more done for us than for all other creatures. Anyone can see that we are the gentry of the world! We have houses from birth, and the burdock forest was sown for our sake! I should like to know how far it stretches, and what lies beyond it!”

“There is nothing beyond it!” said Father Snail. “Nowhere could be better than it is here, and I have nothing to wish for!” “Well, I have,” said Mother. “I should like to go to the manor house, be boiled and laid on a silver platter. All our ancestors were, and you may be sure there is something special about it!”

“The manor house may have fallen down!” said Father Snail. “Or the burdock forest may have grown over it, so that the people cannot get out. There is no hurry, after all, but you are always rushing about so dreadfully, and the little one is beginning to do the same. Hasn’t he been crawling up that stalk for three days now? It gives me a headache to look up at him!”

“You mustn’t scold,” said Mother Snail. “He crawls along so steadily. He will bring us plenty of joy, and what else have we old folk to live for? But have you thought about this: where are we to find him a wife? Don’t you think there might be some of our own kind far away in the burdock forest?”

“There are black snails, I dare say,” said the old fellow, “black snails without houses, but they are so common, and they have such airs. Still, we could entrust the matter to the ants. They run to and fro as though they had something to do; surely they will know of a wife for our little snail!”

“I know the loveliest one of all!” said one of the ants. “But I’m afraid it won’t do, for she is a queen!” “That doesn’t matter!” said the old snails. “Has she a house?”

“She has a palace!” said the ant. “The loveliest ant palace, with seven hundred passages.” “No, thank you!” said Mother Snail. “Our son is not going to live in an anthill! If you know of nothing better, we shall entrust the matter to the white gnats. They fly far and wide in rain and sunshine; they know the burdock forest inside and out.”

“We have a wife for him!” said the gnats. “A hundred human paces from here, on a gooseberry bush, sits a little snail with a house. She is quite alone and old enough to marry. It is only a hundred human paces!”

“Then let her come to him!” said the old snails. “He has a burdock forest; she has only a bush!” And so they sent for the little snail maiden. It took eight days for her to arrive, but that was precisely what was so pleasing about it: it showed that she was of the right sort.

And then they held the wedding. Six glow-worms shone as brightly as they could; otherwise everything passed off quietly, for the old snail folk could not bear revelry and merrymaking. But Mother Snail made a lovely speech. Father could not, he was so overcome. Then they gave the young couple the whole burdock forest as their inheritance, and said what they had always said: that it was the best place in the world, and that if they lived honestly and respectably and multiplied, they and their children would one day go to the manor house, be boiled black, and be laid on a silver platter.

And when that speech was over, the old snails crawled into their houses and never came out again; they slept. The young snail couple ruled the forest and had a great many children, but they were never boiled, and they never found themselves on a silver platter. From this they concluded that the manor house had fallen down and that all the people in the world had died out; and since no one contradicted them, it must be true. And the rain beat on the burdock leaves to make drum music for their sake, and the sun shone to give the burdock forest colour for their sake, and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy—for happy it was.