Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace

by Wilhelm Hauff

"Leave me in peace--I have none. My wife has a small one, but I don't know where she keeps it. But if you are bound to look in a glass, across the street lives Urban, the barber, who has a mirror twice as large as your head; look into that; and in the meantime, good morning!"

With these words, his father pushed him gently out of the door, closed it after him, and sat down once more to his work. Jacob, very much cast-down, went across the street to Urban, whom he had known well in the past.

"Good morning, Urban," said he to the barber. "I have come to beg a small favor of you; be so good as to let me look into your glass a moment."

"With pleasure; there it is," laughed the barber, and his customers, who were waiting for a shave, laughed with him. "You are a pretty fellow, tall and slim, with a neck like a swan, hands like a queen, and a stumpy nose that can not be equalled for beauty. You are a little vain of it, to be sure; but keep on looking; it shall not be said of me that I was so jealous I would not let you look in my glass."

The barber's speech was followed by shouts of laughter that fairly shook the shop. Jacob, in the meantime, had approached the mirror and looked at his reflection in the glass. Tears came into his eyes. "Yes, surely you could not recognize your little Jacob, dear mother," thought he. "He did not look thus in those joyful days when you paraded with him before the people!" His eyes had become small, like those of the pigs; his nose was monstrous, and hung down over his mouth and chin; the neck seemed to have entirely disappeared, as his head sank deeply into his shoulders, and it was only with the greatest effort that he could move it to the right or left. His body was still of the same height as seven years before; but what others gain from the twelfth to the twentieth year in height, he made up in breadth. His back and breast were drawn out rounding, so as to present the appearance of a small but closely-packed sack. This stout, heavy trunk was placed on thin, weak legs that did not seem able to support the weight. But still larger were his arms; they were as large as those of a full-grown man; his hands were rough, and of a yellowish-brown; his fingers long and spindling, and when he stretched them down straight he could touch the ground with their tips without stooping. Such was the appearance of little Jacob, who had grown to be a misshapen dwarf.

He recalled now the morning on which the old woman had come up to his mother's baskets. Every thing that he had criticised about her--the long nose, the ugly fingers, every thing, she had inflicted on him; only the long trembling neck she had left out entirely.

"Well, have you seen enough of yourself, my prince?" said the barber, stepping towards him with a laugh. "Really, if one were to try and dream of any thing like it, it would not be possible. For I will make you a proposal, my little man. My barber shop is certainly well patronized, but not so well as it used to be, which results from the fact that my neighbor, Barber Schaum, has somewhere picked up a giant, who serves to allure customers to his shop. Now, to grow a giant no great art is required; but to produce a little man like you is quite another matter. Enter my service, little man; you shall have food, drink and lodging--every thing; for all which you shall stand outside of my door mornings, and invite the people to come in; you shall make the lather, and hand the customers the towel; and be assured we shall both be benefitted. I shall get more customers than the man with the giant, while each one of them will cheerfully give you a fee."

Jacob's soul recoiled at the thought of serving as a sign for a barber. But was he not forced to suffer this abuse patiently? He therefore quietly told the barber that he had not the time for such services, and went on his way.

Although the wicked old woman had changed his form, she had had no power over his spirit, and of this fact Jacob was well aware, as he no longer felt and thought as he had done seven years before. No; he knew he had grown wiser and more intelligent in this interval; he sorrowed not over his lost beauty, not over his ugly shape, but only over the fact that he had been driven like a dog from his father's door. He now resolved to make one more attempt to convince his mother of his identity.

He went to her in the market, and begged her to listen to him quietly. He reminded her of the day on which he had gone home with the old woman, of all the little details of his childhood, told her of his seven years' service as a squirrel with the old witch, and how she transformed him because he had criticised her appearance. The shoemaker's wife did not know what to think of all this. His stories of his childhood agreed with her own recollections; but when he told her that he had been a squirrel for seven years, she exclaimed: "It is impossible! and there are no witches." And when she looked at him, she shuddered at the sight of the ugly dwarf, and did not believe he could be her son. Finally, she considered it best to lay the matter before her husband. So she collected her baskets and called the dwarf to go with her. On reaching the shoemaker's stall, she said: