* The word mahogany can be understood, in Danish, as having two meanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in jest, it signifies
"excessively fine," which arose from an anecdote of Nyboder, in Copenhagen,
(the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was always proud and fine, in her
way, came to her neighbor, and complained that she had got a splinter in her
finger. "What of?" asked the neighbor's wife. "It is a mahogany splinter,"
said the other. "Mahogany! It cannot be less with you!" exclaimed the
woman --and thence the proverb, "It is so mahogany!"--(that is, so excessively
fine)--is derived.
One night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony open--the
curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought that a strange lustre
came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the flowers shone like flames, in
the most beautiful colors, and in the midst of the flowers stood a slender,
graceful maiden--it was as if she also shone; the light really hurt his eyes.
He now opened them quite wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was
on the floor; he crept gently behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone; the
flowers shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as ever; the
door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft and delightful, one
could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it. Yet it was like a piece of
enchantment. And who lived there? Where was the actual entrance? The whole of
the ground-floor was a row of shops, and there people could not always be running through.
One evening the stranger sat out on the balcony. The light burnt in the room
behind him; and thus it was quite natural that his shadow should fall on his
opposite neighbor's wall. Yes! there it sat, directly opposite, between the
flowers on the balcony; and when the stranger moved, the shadow also moved:
for that it always does.
"I think my shadow is the only living thing one sees over there," said the
learned man. "See, how nicely it sits between the flowers. The door stands
half-open: now the shadow should be cunning, and go into the room, look about,
and then come and tell me what it had seen. Come, now! Be useful, and do me a
service," said he, in jest. "Have the kindness to step in. Now! Art thou going?" and then he nodded to the shadow, and the shadow nodded again. "Well
then, go! But don't stay away."
The stranger rose, and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony rose also; the stranger turned round and the shadow also turned round. Yes! if
anyone had paid particular attention to it, they would have seen, quite distinctly, that the shadow went in through the half-open balcony-door of
their opposite neighbor, just as the stranger went into his own room, and let
the long curtain fall down after him.
Next morning, the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the newspapers.
"What is that?" said he, as he came out into the sunshine. "I have no shadow!
So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again. It is really
tiresome!"
This annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because he knew
there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known to everybody at
home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now came there and told his
story, they would say that he was imitating it, and that he had no need to do.
He would, therefore, not talk about it at all; and that was wisely thought.
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