Read on line
Listen on line
Main > Fairy tale > All authors > Andersen Hans Christian > Fairy tale "The Flea and the Professor"

The Flea and the Professor

He trained the flea and taught it to perform - to present arms, and to fire off a cannon. Of course it was a very small cannon.

The Professor was proud of the flea, and the flea was proud of himself. He had learned a thing or two, and had human blood in him. He had been to the largest cities. Princes and Princesses had seen him and given him high praise, which was printed in the newspapers and on the billposters. He knew he was a famous flea who could support a Professor, yes, a whole household.

Proud he was and famous he was. Yet when he and the Professor traveled they went by fourth-class railway carriages, which took them along just as quickly as those of the first-class. They made a secret pledge to each other that they would never separate. Neither of them would marry. The flea would remain a bachelor and the Professor a widower. That made them even.

"Where one has the best luck," said the Professor, "one ought not go back a second time." He was a student of human nature, which is a science in itself. At length he had traveled through all countries except the savage ones, and to those he decided to go. There they eat Christian men. The Professor knew this, but then he was not much of a Christian, and the flea was not much of a man, so he thought they might venture successfully into the wilds, and make a lot of money.

They traveled by steamship and they traveled by sailboat. The flea performed his trick along the way in exchange for free passage, and thus they came to the country of savages. Here a little Princess ruled the land. She was only eight years old, but she ruled just the same. She had taken away the power from her papa and mamma, for she had a will of her own and was uncommonly beautiful, and uncommonly rude.

As soon as the flea presented arms and fired off his cannon, she took such a fancy to him that she cried, "Him or nobody!" She fell madly in love with the flea, and she was already a madcap in all other respects.

"My sweet, level-headed little child - " her papa said, "if only there were some way to make a man of him.

Also read
Read
Hansel And Grethel
Category: Brothers Grimm
Read times: 12
Read
Oh, If I Could But Shiver!
Category: Brothers Grimm
Read times: 65
Read