Carl Ewald

“ I haven't even a mouth! I shall just enjoy an hour or two of this delightful life and then lay my eggs. That's my lot; and I don't complain."
"Life is not so delightful as you think," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "If I were a true friend to you, I would save you from seeing all your illusions shattered."
"How can you say that life is not delightful?" said the May-fly. "Look ... and look ... and look...."
"I will be a true friend to you," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "You shall be spared disappointment. I will eat you straight away."
Then she caught her and ate her.
"Good-evening, madam," said the eel. ”

“ Then the reeds grow along the banks in all their elegance; water-lily and spear-wort float side by side upon the surface of the water and nod smilingly to each other with their white flowers. The midges hover in the air and the frogs croak and glad birds sing. Deep in the water swim beautiful fish disporting themselves gaily. The mussels in the mud dream of beautiful pearls, the cray-fish crawl slowly round and round and enjoy life and happiness. Ladies, you simply cannot imagine what a picture of peace and happiness the pond offers. ”

“ Therefore, since I have been married, I change only once a year. Now one always grows a bit stouter, even though one is but a common woman; and so I feel pretty uncomfortable sometimes, I assure you."
Mrs. Reed-Warbler was greatly touched; and her husband began to sing, for he was afraid lest all this sadness should make the eggs melancholy and spoil the children's voices.
But, at that moment, the cray-fish screamed and struck out with her claws and carried on like a mad woman.
"Look!... Ma'am ... do look!... There comes the monster!" ”

“ Then they both sat wearily on the edge of the nest and looked out across the smooth pond:
"It is curious how the life exhausts one," she said. "Sometimes, when I feel thoroughly tired, I can almost understand those animals who let their children look after themselves. Did you notice the eel the other day? How fat and gay he is."
"Are you talking of me, madam?" asked the eel, sticking his head out of the mud.
"Oh, you're always there!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"More or less. One has to wriggle and twist." ”

“ Reed-Warbler.
"I've hidden under a leaf and I'm all right," replied the May-fly grub.
"Here's the roach," said the cray-fish. "Now we only want the gull."
She kept just under the roach and looked out eagerly, in every direction, with her long eyes.
"What do you want, you ugly cray-fish?" said the roach, and struck out with his tail.
"I sha'n't hurt you, Mr. Fish," said she. "The pond is meant for everybody, I should think. Surely a person's entitled to go and take the air outside her own door."
The eel put his head out of the mud:
"That's right, Goody Cray-Fish, stick to it!" he said. ”

“ Reed-Warbler," said the eel. "Every one to his taste. But, as for poetry, I must confess that I have not seen much of it in my life. And yet I have wriggled and twisted about the world a good deal. The great question, everywhere, is eating and eating and eating. And those who have children to care for are the worst robbers of the lot. ”

“ And then you have only five eggs, ma'am, but I have two hundred."
"Dear me!" said the reed-warbler. "Then your poor husband has to slave to provide food for that enormous family."
"He? The monster!" replied the cray-fish. "He knows too much for that. I haven't so much as seen him since the wedding."
"Then you must have a huge, big nest for all those eggs," said the wife.
"It's easy to see that you don't know poor folks' circumstance, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "People of our class can't afford nests. No, I just have to drag the eggs about with me as best I may." ”

“ I am just a mussel. And I lay my eggs and then that's done!"
"Do you look after your children nicely?" asked the reed-warbler.
"What next!" exclaimed the mussel. "My children are very remarkable individuals. They are sailors."
"Sailors?"
"Yes, they are indeed. As soon as they come out of the egg, they hoist a great sail and put out. It's only when they grow older, if they haven't been eaten by that time, that they settle down as decent mussels with shells upon them and philosophy in their constitutions."
"Don't let us talk about children," said the reed-warbler. "It always upsets my wife so. ”

“ Reed-Warbler stretched her neck and peeped down into the water.
"That horrid spider has her nest between his leaves," she said.
"Well, the bladder-wort can't help that," replied her husband. "It's a flower's fate to stand where he stands and take things as they come. He sucks his [Pg 53] food calmly out of the ground, has no stains on his flowers, and no blood on his leaves. That's what makes him so poetic and so refined." ”

“ They suck themselves firmly on to each other, until they grow into one, and then they suck at me with united strength."
"I never heard anything like it!" said the reed-warbler.
"I have one like it on the other side of my head, in my other gill," said the carp. "We can talk about him later. Meanwhile, may I ask you if you would kindly try to remove the brute with your beak? I should be exceedingly grateful to you. I am in such pain that I would rather die than go on living like this." ”

“ But I never contradict, except when any one sticks something between my shells. The carp had had to do with human beings; that's what it was. It always makes animals so ridiculous. You're the same, for that matter."
"I look upon that as a compliment," said the reed-warbler, who was a little offended but did not wish to show it. "However, I have nothing to do with human beings, except that they protect me and have not the heart to do me harm, because of my pretty voice. They stop and listen to me as they pass. Many a poet has written beautiful lines about me."
"Oh, really?" said the mussel. ”

“ I don't exactly know if it was a reed-warbler. I can't see very well outside the water.... Good-day to you, good-day to you, Goody Cray-Fish! I can always see you!... And to me one bird is much like another. However, it must have been a gull. Well, I was sitting at the bottom and yawning, as I usually do. Just above me was a little roach. Then, suddenly, splash came the gull and seized the roach. He swooped down at such a pace that he plumped right to the bottom. One of his little toes stuck between my shells and I pinched. ”

“ Reed-Warbler.
"I think, considering all things, that it's delightful here," said the carp.
The carp swam a little way in among the reeds. He had made a friend there, in the shape of the fresh-water mussel, who waded ever so slowly through the mud, or else settled on the bottom and yawned.
They suited each other, these two, for they were quiet and sedate people, who led the same sort of life.
"I don't care to go hunting wildly for food," said the carp. "I open my mouth where the water is moderately thick and let whatever there is run in. Something always sticks. ”

“ The reed-warbler did not condescend to answer him, but turned to the carp and the mussel, struck up a little trill and said politely:
"My wife and I have the honour to bid you good-morning, gentlemen. We are delighted to observe that you lead your lives in a more mannerly way than most of the other inhabitants of the pond. We have suffered greatly at the sight of the extraordinary cruelty ..." he paused, caught a blue-bottle, and tossed it to his children in the nest ... "of the extraordinary cruelty that prevails in society here. ”

“ Reed-Warbler sat discussing the question again:
"If only we can hold out," said he. "Just now, I was fighting like mad with my old friend, the flycatcher, for a ridiculous little grub. I got it, but he will never forgive me. When poverty comes in at the door, [Pg 93] love flies out at the window, as the human beings say. It will end in screaming and quarrelling all over the pond."
"It cannot be worse than it is," said she. "Do as I do and think of all the beautiful things the poets have sung about us. It always helps to keep one's spirits up." ”

“ I am only a fish and not the slightest relation to the adder, who took that little liberty with your sister, madam. We may have just a superficial resemblance, in figure and movement: one has to wriggle and twist. ”

“ Reed-Warbler.
"Very sorry," said the eel. "Perhaps my conversation is rather too much for a lady who is sitting on her eggs." [Pg 25]
"I think children are the sweetest things in the world," she said. "One can't help being fond of them, whether they're one's own or another's."
"The ladies are always right," said the eel, eating a couple of caddis-grubs and a little worm. "But am I mistaken, or did I see you eat a grub just now, madam, which your husband brought you?" ”

“ And I know well enough what life is worth. My innocent little sister was eaten by an adder and my mother was caught by a hawk, just after she had taught us to fly. I myself had to travel in hot haste to Italy, last autumn, if I didn't want to die of hunger. ”

“ You are a charming woman and you know how to adapt yourself to circumstances. You were incensed at the horrid robbers in the pond; and you yourself ate innocent flies from morning till night. You loved poetry; but you ate the poor May-fly, though you promised her that she should [Pg 121] be allowed to live her poetic life for an hour. You were furious with the spider who ate her mother, and with the cray-fish, who ate her children ”

“ Reed-Warbler. "Where on earth is one to go to find poetry?"
"Where can one find a fly?" said her husband.
"We must take life as it is," said the mussel, "and meddle with it as little as possible. That's what I do; and there's nothing to prevent my remaining here and growing to be a hundred."
A boy stood on the edge of the pond. He had a big stone in his hand. Suddenly, he flung it into the water with all his might. Then he went on and thought no more about it.
But the stone had hit the mussel and smashed him to pieces.
"There!" he said. "That's the end of me. Both shells smashed ... ”

“ But the man spat on his hands and took hold of the scythe. Then he walked out into the water and began to cut down the reeds, close in, at the edge, and right out, as far as they grew. They fell into the water, with a soft sigh; and then, when he had finished, he stood on the bank and contemplated his work.
"That was a fine clearing," he said. "Duck-hunting begins to-morrow." ”

“ Run along one of my stalks and I'll explain the whole thing to you."
The spider crept cautiously for some way down the branch and then stopped and looked at a little bladder there.
"That's tight," said the bladder-wort. "That is one of my traps. I [Pg 55] catch my prey in them. I have a couple of hundred of them."
"So you can eat two hundred water-mites at a time?" said the spider, enviously.
"I can. If they come. But I'm never so jolly lucky as all that. Now just look: beside the bladder you will see a little flap, which is quite loose. ”

“ I carry them on my hind legs, lady. I have ten little hind legs, you see, besides my eight proper legs and my claws, which are very necessary to bite one's way through this wicked world with. And on each of my hind legs there is a heap of twenty eggs. That makes two hundred in all. I'll show them to you, if you like. The eggs are worth looking at. ”

“ Reed-Warbler.
"Yes. And afterwards I have no trouble with them at all. You may believe me or not, as you please, dear lady, but, as soon as they are a week old, they go into the world and look after themselves. It's in their blood. It has never been known in the pond for a twelve-day-old cray-fish to be a burden on his family. And then you're done with them; and that may be rather sad, but, of course, it's a relief as well: two hundred children like that, in a small household! But you shall see them, ma'am, when they come ... ”