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The Snow Queen
Hans Christian Andersen
Second Story
A Little Boy and a Little Girl
Previous First Story: Which Treats of a Mirror and of the
Splinters
In a large town, where there are so many houses, and so
many people, that there is no roof left for everybody to have a little garden;
and where, on this account, most. persons are obliged to content themselves with
flowers in pots; there lived two little children, who had a garden somewhat
larger than a flower-pot. They were not brother and sister; but they cared for
each other as much as if they were. Their parents lived exactly opposite. They
inhabited two garrets; and where the roof of the one house joined that of the
other, and the gutter ran along the extreme end of it, there was to each house a
small window: one needed only to step over the gutter to get from one window to
the other.
The children's parents had large wooden boxes there, in
which vegetables for the kitchen were planted, and little rosetrees besides:
there was a rose in each box, and they grew splendidly. They now thought of
placing the boxes across the gutter, so that they nearly reached from one window
to the other, and looked just like two walls of flowers. The tendrils of the
peas hung down over the boxes; and the rose-trees shot up long branches, twined
round the windows, and then bent towards each other: it was almost like a
triumphant arch of foliage and flowers. The boxes were very high, and the
children knew that they must not creep over them; so they often obtained
permission to get out of the windows to each other, and to sit on their little
stools among the roses, where they could play delight fully. In winter there was
an end of this pleasure. The windows were often frozen over; but then they
heated copper farthings on the stove, and laid the hot farthing on the
windowpane, and then they had a capital peep-hole, quite nicely rounded; and out
of each peeped a gentle friendly eye--it was the little boy and the little girl
who were looking out. His name was Kay, hers was Gerda. In summer, with one
jump, they could get to each other; but in winter they were obliged first to go
down the long stairs, and then up the long stairs again: and out-of-doors there
was quite a snow-storm.
"It is the white bees that are swarming," said Kay's old
grandmother.
"Do the white bees choose a queen?" asked the little
boy; for he knew that the honey-bees always have one.
"Yes," said the grandmother, "she flies where the swarm
hangs in the thickest clusters. She is the largest of all; and she can never
remain quietly on the earth, but goes up again into the black clouds. Many a
winter's night she flies through the streets of the town, and peeps in at the
windows; and they then freeze in so wondrous a manner that they look like
flowers."
"Yes, I have seen it," said both the children; and so
they knew that it was true.
"Can the Snow Queen come in?" said the little girl.
"Only let her come in!" said the little boy. "Then I'd
put her on the stove, and she'd melt."
And then his grandmother patted his head and told him
other stories.
In the evening, when little Kay was at home, and half
undressed, he climbed up on the chair by the window, and peeped out of the
little hole. A few snow-flakes were falling, and one, the largest of all,
remained lying on the edge of a flower-pot.
The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it
was like a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million
little flakes like stars. She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of ice,
of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, like two
stars; but there was neither quiet nor repose in them. She nodded towards the
window, and beckoned with her hand. The little boy was frightened, and jumped
down from the chair; it seemed to him as if, at the same moment, a large bird
flew past the window.
The next day it was a sharp frost--and then the spring
came; the sun shone, the green leaves appeared, the swallows built their nests,
the windows were opened, and the little children again sat in their pretty
garden, high up on the leads at the top of the house.
That summer the roses flowered in unwonted beauty. The
little girl had learned a hymn, in which there was something about roses; and
then she thought of her own flowers; and she sang the verse to the little boy,
who then sang it with her:
"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,
And angels descend there the children to greet."
And the children held each other by the hand, kissed the
roses, looked up at the clear sunshine, and spoke as though they really saw
angels there. What lovely summer-days those were! How delightful to be out in
the air, near the fresh rose-bushes, that seem as if they would never finish
blossoming!
Kay and Gerda looked at the picture-book full of beasts
and of birds; and it was then--the clock in the church-tower was just striking
five--that Kay said, "Oh! I feel such a sharp pain in my heart; and now
something has got into my eye!"
The little girl put her arms around his neck. He winked
his eves; now there was nothing to be seen.
"I think it is out now," said he; but it was not. It was
just one of those pieces of glass from the magic mirror that had got into his
eye; and poor Kay had got another piece right in his heart. It will soon become
like ice. It did not hurt any longer, but there it was.
"What are you crying for?" asked he. "You look so ugly!
There's nothing the matter with me. Ah," said he at once, "that rose is
cankered! And look, this one is quite crooked! After all, these roses are very
ugly! They are just like the box they are planted in!" And then he gave the box
a good kick with his foot, and pulled both the roses up.
"What are you doing?" cried the little girl; and as he
perceived her fright, he pulled up another rose, got in at the window, and
hastened off from dear little Gerda.
Afterwards, when she brought her picture-book, he asked,
"What horrid beasts have you there?" And if his grandmother told them stories,
he always interrupted her; besides, if he could manage it, he would get behind
her, put on her spectacles, and imitate her way of speaking; he copied all her
ways, and then everybody laughed at him. He was soon able to imitate the gait
and manner of everyone in the street. Everything that was peculiar and
displeasing in them--that Kay knew how to imitate: and at such times all the
people said, "The boy is certainly very clever!" But it was the glass he had got
in his eye; the glass that was sticking in his heart, which made him tease even
little Gerda, whose whole soul was devoted to him.
His games now were quite different to what they had
formerly been, they were so very knowing. One winter's day, when the flakes of
snow were flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the
snow as it fell.
"Look through this glass, Gerda," said he. And every
flake seemed larger, and appeared like a magnificent flower, or beautiful star;
it was splendid to look at!
"Look, how clever!" said Kay. "That's much more
interesting than real flowers! They are as exact as possible; there i not a
fault in them, if they did not melt!"
It was not long after this, that Kay came one day with
large gloves on, and his little sledge at his back, and bawled right into
Gerda's ears, "I have permission to go out into the square where the others are
playing"; and off he was in a moment.
There, in the market-place, some of the boldest of the
boys used to tie their sledges to the carts as they passed by, and so they were
pulled along, and got a good ride. It was so capital! Just as they were in the
very height of their amusement, a large sledge passed by: it was painted quite
white, and there was someone in it wrapped up in a rough white mantle of fur,
with a rough white fur cap on his head. The sledge drove round the square twice,
and Kay tied on his sledge as quickly as he could, and off he drove with it. On
they went quicker and quicker into the next street; and the person who drove
turned round to Kay, and nodded to him in a friendly manner, just as if they
knew each other. Every time he was going to untie his sledge, the person nodded
to him, and then Kay sat quiet; and so on they went till they came outside the
gates of the town. Then the snow began to fall so thickly that the little boy
could not see an arm's length before him, but still on he went: when suddenly he
let go the string he held in his hand in order to get loose from the sledge, but
it was of no use; still the little vehicle rushed on with the quickness of the
wind. He then cried as loud as he could, but no one beard him; the snow drifted
and the sledge flew on, and sometimes it gave a jerk as though they were driving
over hedges and ditches. He was quite frightened, and he tried to repeat the
Lord's Prayer; but all he could do, he was only able to remember the
multiplication table.
The snow-flakes grew larger and larger, till at last
they looked just like great white fowls. Suddenly they flew on one side; the
large sledge stopped, and the person who drove rose up. It was a lady; her cloak
and cap were of snow. She was tall and of slender figure, and of a dazzling
whiteness. It was the Snow Queen.
"We have travelled fast," said she; "but it is
freezingly cold. Come under my bearskin." And she put him in the sledge beside
her, wrapped the fur round him, and he felt as though he were sinking in a
snow-wreath.
"Are you still cold?" asked she; and then she kissed his
forehead. Ah! it was colder than ice; it penetrated to his very heart, which was
already almost a frozen lump; it seemed to him as if he were about to die--but a
moment more and it was quite congenial to him, and he did not remark the cold
that was around him.
"My sledge! Do not forget my sledge!" It was the first
thing he thought of. It was there tied to one of the white chickens, who flew
along with it on his back behind the large sledge. The Snow Queen kissed Kay
once more, and then he forgot little Gerda, grandmother, and all whom he had
left at his home.
"Now you will have no more kisses," said she, "or else I
should kiss you to death!"
Kay looked at her. She was very beautiful; a more
clever, or a more lovely countenance he could not fancy to himself; and she no
longer appeared of ice as before, when she sat outside the window, and beckoned
to him; in his eyes she was perfect, he did not fear her at all, and told her
that he could calculate in his head and with fractions, even; that he knew the
number of square miles there were in the different countries, and how many
inhabitants they contained; and she smiled while he spoke. It then seemed to him
as if what he knew was not enough, and he looked upwards in the large huge empty
space above him, and on she flew with him; flew high over the black clouds,
while the storm moaned and whistled as though it were singing some old tune. On
they flew over woods and lakes, over seas, and many lands; and beneath them the
chilling storm rushed fast, the wolves howled, the snow crackled; above them
flew large screaming crows, but higher up appeared the moon, quite large and
bright; and it was on it that Kay gazed during the long long winter's night;
while by day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen.
Next Third Story: Of the Flower-Garden At the Old Woman's
Who Understood Witchcraft
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