Then they came into the bridal hall. On the right hand stood all the little lady mice; and they whispered and giggled as if they were making fun of one another; on the left stood all the gentlemen mice, stroking their whiskers with their forepaws; and in the center of the hall you could see the bride and bridegroom, standing in a hollow cheese.
More and more guests arrived, until the mice were nearly treading one another to death. The bridal pair had stationed themselves just in the doorway, so that one could neither come in nor go out. Like the passage, the floor had been greased with bacon fat, and that was the whole of the feast; but for dessert they produced a pea on which a mouse belonging to the family had bitten the name of the bridal pair—that is to say, the first letter of the name. It was something extraordinary.
All the mice said it was a beautiful wedding, and that the entertainment had been very enjoyable.
So Hjalmar drove home again. He had been in very distinguished society; but he had been obliged to shrink together to make himself small, and to put on the tin soldier's uniform.
"Am I to hear any more stories now?" asked little Hjalmar, as soon as Ole Luk-Oie had put him to bed Saturday night.
"We have no time for that this evening," said Ole Luk-Oie; and he spread his finest umbrella over the child. "Now look at these Chinamen."
And the whole umbrella looked like a great china bowl, with blue trees and painted bridges, upon which stood little Chinamen, nodding their heads.
"We must have the whole world nicely cleaned up for to-morrow morning," said Ole Luk-Oie, "for it is a holiday—it is Sunday. I must go to the church steeple to see that the little church goblins are polishing the bells, so that they may sound sweetly. I must go out into the fields, and see that the winds are blowing the dust from the grass and leaves; and—this is the greatest work of all—I must bring down all the stars to polish them. I have to number each one of them before I take them in my apron, and the holes in which they are up there must be numbered as well, so that they may be put back in their right places, or they would not stick firmly, and then we should have too many shooting-stars, for they would be dropping down one after the other!"
"Do you know, Mr. Luk-Oie," said an old portrait, which hung on the wall in the room where Hjalmar slept, "that I am Hjalmar's great-grandfather? I am much obliged to you for telling the boy stories; but you must not confuse ideas. The stars cannot be taken down and polished. They are spheres, just like our earth, and that is just the best thing about them."
"I thank you, old grandfather," said Ole Luk-Oie, "I thank you! You are the head of the family, the ancestral head: but I am older than you! I am an old heathen; the Romans and Greeks called me the Dream God. I have been in the noblest houses, and am admitted there still. I know how to act with great people and with small. Now you can tell your story!"