Section 1
Once there lived an aeronaut with whom things didn’t go well. The balloon exploded, threw him out, and split into pieces. It was two minutes after he sent his son down with a parachute. That was fortunate for the boy. He didn’t get hurt and went about with sufficient knowledge to become an aeronaut as well, though he had no balloon and had no money to obtain one.
However, the boy had to live, so he devoted himself to the art of legerdemain and to talking in his stomach. He actually became a ventriloquist, as it is called. He was young, handsome, and when he got whiskers and wore his best attire, he could be mistaken for a nobleman's son. The ladies seem to have a favorable opinion of him; one young lady even had been so fallen under his charms and great wit that she went with him to foreign lands. There he called himself Professor—it was the least he could do.
He couldn’t stop thinking about finding the way to get himself a balloon and ascend into the air with his little wife, but they still didn’t have enough money.
"We’ll have them yet," said he.
"If only we had them," said she.
"We are young," remarked he, "and now I am Professor."
She assisted him loyally, sat by the door selling tickets to the exhibition, which was quite a pleasant activity in winter. Besides, she helped him in the domain of his art. The Professor put his wife in a drawer, a large table-drawer. Then she slided away to the back part of it, and thus disappeared from the front part, creating somewhat an optical illusion to the audience. However, one evening as he pulled out that drawer, his wife could be seen nowhere: she was neither in the front drawer, nor in the back part of it, and not even in the house—completely vanished. That was her entertainment—her legerdemain trick. She never returned; all that made her weary, and the Professor got tired of it, lost his cheerful disposition, was unable to laugh or joke. As a result, people ceased coming, his income decreased, his clothes become unusable; so, in the end, he was only left with a great flea from his wife, and so he had a high opinion of it. So he clothed the flea and taught him how to make performances, to show arms and to fire a gun, though it was a little one.
The Professor felt proud of the flea, and the flea felt proud of himself. He had learned something new, got human blood, and travelled to the largest cities, princes and princesses had watched him and given him their high praise; it appeared on placards and in newspapers. Clearly, it was a pretty well-known flea that could support the Professor and all his family.
The flea was proud and renowned, and despite this, as he and the Professor were on the road, they took fourth-class carriages on the railway; they traveled as swiftly as the first class. They were engaged to each other; it was a private betrothal that would never come to light. They would never get married; the flea would still be a bachelor and the Professor a widower. That brought it into a state of balance.
"Where one gets the best luck," said the Professor, "one should go there once again."
He subtly understood human nature, which is also a science of itself. Finally, he had travelled all over the world except the wild countries, and consequently, he had a desire to go there. The Professor knew for sure that they eat Christian men there, then again he was not a devout Christian, and the flea was not a normal man, so he thought they might dare to visit these places and have a good time.
They traveled by steamboat and sailboat; the flea carried out his tricks, which gave them an express-free passage on the way, and so they reached a wild country. A little Princess reigned in this land. She was barely eight years old, yet she ruled. She had a will, so she seized the power from her father and mother, and afterwards, she was stunningly pretty—and arrogant.
Once the flea had showed arms and fired off the cannon, she was so taken with him that she exclaimed, "Him or nobody!" She was already wild in other ways, and now she became crazy with love.
"Sweet, emotional child!" said her father. "If only he could become a man!”
"Hey, old man, I’ll take care of that" said she, and that was not a good way of talking with her father, but the young Princess was wild. She placed the flea on her pale hand.
"From now on you are a man and reign with me, but you must obey me, otherwise I will kill you and eat the Professor."
The Professor got a magnificent place to live in. The walls were built of sugar-cane, and he could lick them, though he was not a fan of sugar and candies. He slept in a hammock, and it seemed like he was floating in a balloon, as he had always desired for himself— that thought was always in his head.
