Under the water in a beautiful pond there lived a dear little goldfish who was so small and so timid that no one else scarcely knew she was there. Her whole body was bright gold, and her fins and little tail, which were quite transparent, were just like silk flounced with lace.
Thus far Goldie the Goldfish had never seen. But she thought she heard some one say one day that it was very beautiful there, full of flowers and strange trees that children ran about in, and where lovely birds sang and whistled, and even some animals with fur just like in a lady’s muff. What a strange thing this must be to look at, and how curious Goldie would be to see it.
“Oh, if I could but once all my little fins and tail up to the surface of the water I should then be able to look over the edge of the pond. Perhaps there I could see the wonderful things that there are in this world!”
And she let her eyes turn toward the surface of the water, which sparkled like stars in the blue sky. She stretched out her little fins, swam on tiptoe, and lifted her little head just above the surface. Her wish, large as it was, was half fulfilled. From thence she could see the edge of the world, though an old currant bush closed it pretty closely all round. Still she could see the beautiful green leaves, and a fine large flower, with a white dress and a yellow waist in the middle, which the wind shook till the drops of dew fell down like pearls.
“Oh heavens! here is something beautiful!” said Goldie, and then her eyes sparkled and her fins moved, for she wanted to see more and more.
Then came a big black crow, with a thick, ruffled neck and a tale as large as a feather-bed, who hopped about on the edge of the pond as if it was all for him. He picked and pecked at the beautiful flower, and it fell over the edge of a large green leaf of the current-bush where the dew-drops glittered in the sun like crystals.
“How beautiful!” said Goldie, who could not take her eyes off the bird. Then she forgot everything else, and didn’t think she had a horrible dry lizard to speak to, who lived half his time in the water, and who was later on to be to her both mother and father.
“Is not this beautiful on the bank of the pond, aunt toad?” asked Goldie.
“Beautiful? Yes, quite beautiful, but dangerous too,” replied the old lizard, and then he kept his mouth shut. Of course aunt toad had told him already what he was to say.
“Do you know, aunt toad, why people and animals live on the shore of the pond?”
“To visit me,” said aunt toad.
“No, no,” said Goldie, “but to testify that the Lord of Life has made the earth.”
The old lizard swam quickly up on the surface of the water. “The Lord of Life! Au, Au - - -!”
He shook his head, yawned, and put out a tongue so frightful and so long, that Goldie was really frightened, above all, when she considered that this long tongue could come in the water.
“I tell you, aunt toad, I must see it,” said she, quivering in every fin.
“There is something dreadful in it,” said the old lizard.
So did aunt toad.
“But what? Think but for a moment. Away from water it must soon be dead. When with us it is alive, and it can live even without us, otherwise the Lord of Life would not have that it should be there. And look how freshly, how luckily everything blooms and thrives on the shore! The wood, the plants, the animals would beg to be carried up there!”
“What nonsense do you talk! Now you know my opinion, and you must hop.”
And she swam down to the bottom and slept the whole day, and everything the old lizard said was told again to her that same evening. Everything.”
“I tell you there is something dreadful in it,” said aunt toad.
And so the next day Goldie spoke again about the earth and the Lord of Life.
“Goldie, you have still many years to live, and when you get experience you will say I was right. You live quite nicely and snugly and it is not worth while venturing to try and get out.”
But she knew better, and swam according to the edge of the pond, through boughs and leaves, swimming high, swimming low, till one fine day she found the side of the pond where it was without all that bough and grass, and straight as a wall and an open space stood a wall covered over with red, blue, and violet slips and rich flowering plants with hothouses and greenhouses.
Here she wished so warmly that a fish in a pond could wish there to the end of the world, that hop, and hop by-jing. Goldie sat there after all like a fish out of water, and bounced from out of the pond up and up till she sat on the very edge and was now where there was neither a bough nor a reed but a thick flower-basket which stood there quite handy and proper.”