my little boy has got a rival, whose name is henrik, a popinjay who not only is six years old, but has an unlimited supply of liquorice at his disposal. and, to fill the measure of my little boy's bitterness, henrik is to go to the dancing-school; and i am, therefore, not surprised when my little boy asks to be taught to dance, so that he may not be left quite behind in the contest.
"i don't advise you to do that," i say. "the dancing which you learn at school is not pretty and does not play so great a part in love as you imagine. i don't know how to dance; and many charming ladies used to prefer me to the most accomplished ornaments of the ball-room. besides, you know, you are knock-kneed."
and, to cheer him up, i sing a little song which we composed when we were small and had a dog and did not think about women:
see, my son, that little basset,
running with his knock-kneed legs!
his own puppy, he can't catch it:
he'll fall down as sure as eggs!
knock-kneed billy!
isn't he silly?
silly billy!
but poetry fails to comfort him. dark is his face and desperate his glance. and, when i see that the case is serious, i resolve to resort to serious measures.
i take him with me to a ball, a real ball, where people who have learnt to dance go to enjoy themselves. it is difficult to keep him in a more or less waking condition, but i succeed.
we sit quietly in a corner and watch the merry throng. i say not a word, but look at his wide-open eyes.
"father, why does that man jump like that, when he is so awfully hot?"
"yes; can you understand it?"
"why does that lady with her head on one side look so tired? . . . why does that fat woman hop about so funnily, father? . . . father, what queer legs that man there has!"
it rains questions and observations. we make jokes and laugh till the tears come to our eyes. we whisper naughty things to each other and go into a side-room and mimic a pair of crooked legs till we can't hold ourselves for laughter. we sit and wait till a steam thrashing-machine on its round comes past us; and we are fit to die when we hear it puff and blow.
we enjoy ourselves beyond measure.
and we make a hit.
the steam thrashing-machine and the crooked legs and the fat woman and the hot gentleman and others crowd round us and admire the dear little boy. we accept their praises, for we have agreed not to say what we think to anybody, except to mother, when we come home, and then, of course, to dirty.
and we wink our eyes and enjoy our delightful fun until we fall asleep and are driven home and put to bed.
and then we have done with the dancing-school.
my little boy paints in strong colours, for his dirty's benefit, what henrik will look like when he dances. it is no use for that young man to deny all that my little boy says and to execute different elegant steps. i was prepared for this; and my little boy tells exultantly that this is only something with which they lure stupid people at the start and that it will certainly end with henrik's getting very hot and hopping round on crooked legs with a fat woman and a face of despair.
in the meantime, of course, i do not forget that, if we pull down without building up we shall end by landing ourselves in an unwholesome scepticism.
we therefore invent various dances, which my little boy executes in the courtyard to dirty's joy and to henrik's most jealous envy. we point emphatically to the fact that the dances are our own, that they are composed only for the woman we love and performed only for her.
there is, for instance, a dance with a stick, which my little boy wields, while henrik draws back. another with a pair of new mittens for dirty. and, lastly, the liquorice dance, which expresses an extraordinary contempt for that foodstuff.
that dirty should suck a stick of liquorice, which she has received from henrik, while enjoying her other admirer's satire, naturally staggers my little boy. but i explain to him that that is because she is a woman and that that is a thing which can't be helped.
what bournonville[2] would say, if he could look down upon us from his place in heaven, i do not know.
but i don't believe that he can.
if he, up there, could see how people dance down here, he really would not stay there.
