“If only I could comfort him,” thought the daisy; but she couldn’t even move her leaves. But the sweet smell that came from the flower was much stronger than daisies usually have, and the lark noticed it, and though he tore in pain at the grass, he did not touch the flower.
Evening came and still no one brought the poor bird any water. It spread out its wings, its little body trembled; then it turned its head toward the flower and said one last peep before its heart burst from longing and want. The daisy could not fold her petals that night as she had the night before. Sorrowfully, she bent her sick little head toward the earth.
The next morning the boys came. When they saw that the bird was dead they cried bitterly. They dug a little grave and lined it with leaves. They put the lark’s body in a handsome red box. Oh, the poor little bird was royally buried. When it had been alive and could sing, it had been put in a cage, where it suffered from thirst because no one remembered to give it any water; but now neither splendor nor tears were lacking.
The turf of grass with the daisy in it was thrown out on the dusty road. No one gave a thought to the little flower who had felt most deeply for the lark and had tried so hard to console it.
12
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Once there were five and twenty tin soldiers. They were all brothers because they had been made from the same old tin spoon. With their rifles sticking up over their shoulders, they stood at attention, looking straight ahead, in their handsome red and blue uniforms.
“Tin soldiers!” were the first words they heard in this world; and they had been shouted happily by a little boy who was clapping his hands because he had received them as a birthday gift. He took them immediately out of the box they had come in and set them on the table. They were all exactly alike except one, who was different from the others because he was missing a leg. He had been the last one to be cast and there had not been enough tin. But he stood as firm and steadfast on his one leg as the others did on their two. He is the hero of our story.
Of all the many toys on the table, the one you noticed first was a pasteboard castle. It was a little replica of a real castle, and through its windows you could see right into its handsomely painted halls. In front of the castle was a little lake surrounded by trees; in it swans swam and looked at their own reflections because the lake was a glass mirror. It was all very lovely; but the most charming part of the castle was its mistress. She was a little paper doll and she was standing in the entrance dressed like a ballerina. She had a skirt of white muslin and a blue ribbon draped over her shoulder, which was fastened with a spangle that was almost as large as her face. The little lady had her arms stretched out, as if she were going to embrace someone. She stood on one leg, and at that on her toes, for she was a ballet dancer; the other, she held up behind her, in such a way that it disappeared under her skirt; and therefore the soldier thought that she was one-legged like himself.
“She would be a perfect wife for me,” he thought. “But I am afraid she is above me. She has a castle and I have only a box that I must share with twenty-four soldiers; that wouldn’t do for her. Still, I would like to make her acquaintance.” And the soldier lay down full length behind a snuffbox; from there he could look at the young lady, who was able to stand on the toes of only one leg without losing her balance.
Later in the evening, when it was the children’s bedtime, all the other tin soldiers were put back in the box. When the house was quiet and everyone had gone to bed, the toys began to play. They played house, and hide-and-seek, and held a ball. The four and twenty tin soldiers rattled inside their box; they wanted to play too, but they couldn’t get the lid open. The nutcracker turned somersaults, and the slate pencil wrote on the blackboard. They made so much noise that the canary woke up and recited his opinion of them all in verse. The only ones who didn’t move were the ballerina and the soldier. She stood as steadfast on the toes of her one leg as the soldier did on his. His eyes never left her, not even for a moment did he blink or turn away.
The clock struck twelve. Pop! The lid of the snuffbox opened and out jumped a troll. It was a jack-in-the-box.
“Tin soldier,” screamed the little black troll, “keep your eyes to yourself.”
The tin soldier acted as if he hadn’t heard the remark.
“You wait till tomorrow!” threatened the troll, and disappeared back into its box.
The next morning when the children were up and dressed, the little boy put the one-legged soldier on the window sill. It’s hard to tell whether it was the troll or just the wind that caused the window to open suddenly and the soldier to fall out of it. He dropped down three stories to the street and his bayonet stuck in the earth between two cobblestones.
The boy and the maid came down to look for him and, though they almost stepped on him, they didn’t see him. If only the tin soldier had shouted, “Here I am!” they would have found him; but he thought it improper to shout when in uniform.
It began to rain; first one drop fell and then another and soon it was pouring. When the shower was over two urchins came by. “Look,” said one of them, “there is a tin soldier. He will do as a sailor.”
The boys made a boat out of a newspaper, put the tin soldier on board, and let it sail in the gutter. Away it went, for it had rained so hard that the gutter was a raging torrent. The boys ran along on the sidewalk, clapping their hands. The boat dipped and turned in the waves. The tin soldier trembled and quaked inside himself; but outside, he stood as steadfast as ever, shouldering his gun and looking straight ahead.
Now the gutter was covered by a board. It was as dark as it had been inside the box, but there he had had four and twenty comrades. “I wonder how it will all end,” thought the soldier. “I am sure it’s all the troll’s doing. If only the ballerina were here, then I wouldn’t care if it were twice as dark as pitch.”
A big water rat that lived in the gutter came up behind the boat and shouted, “Have you got a passport? Give me your passport!”
The tin soldier didn’t answer but held more firmly onto his rifle. The current became stronger, and the boat gathered speed. The rat swam after him; it was so angry that it gnashed its teeth. “Stop him! Stop him!” the rat shouted to two pieces of straw and a little twig. “Stop him! He hasn’t got a passport and he won’t pay duty!”
The current ran swifter and swifter. The tin soldier could see light ahead; he was coming out of the tunnel. But at the same moment he heard a strange roaring sound. It was frightening enough to make the bravest man cringe. At the end of the tunnel the gutter emptied into one of the canals of the harbor. If you can imagine it, it would be the same as for a human being to be thrown down a great waterfall into the sea.
There was no hope of stopping the boat. The poor tin soldier stood as steady as ever, he did not flinch. The boat spun around four times and became filled to the brim with water. It was doomed, the paper began to fall apart; the tin soldier was standing in water up to his neck. He thought of the ballerina, whom he would never see again, and two lines from a poem ran through his mind.
Fare thee well, my warrior bold,
Death comes so swift and cold.
The paper fell apart and the tin soldier would have sunk down into the mud at the bottom of the canal had not a greedy fish swallowed him just at that moment.
Here it was even darker than it had been in the sewer; the fish’s stomach was terribly narrow, but the soldier lay there as steadfast as he had stood in the boat, without letting go of his rifle.
The fish darted and dashed in the wildest manner; then suddenly it was still. A while later, a ray of light appeared and someone said, “Why, there is a tin soldier.” The fish had been caught, taken to the market, and sold. The kitchen maid had found the soldier when she opened the fish up with a big knife, in order to clean it. With her thumb and her index finger she picked the tin soldier up by the waist and carried him into the living room, so that everyone could admire the strange traveler who had journeyed i
nside the belly of a fish. But the tin soldier was not proud of his adventures.
How strange the world is! He was back in the same room that he had left in the morning; and he had been put down on the table among the toys he knew. There stood the cardboard castle and the little ballerina. She was still standing on one leg, the other she had lifted high into the air. She was as steadfast as he was. It touched the soldier’s heart and he almost cried tin tears—and would have, had it not been so undignified. He looked at her and she at him, but never a word passed between them.
Suddenly one of the little boys grabbed the soldier, opened the stove, and threw him in. The child couldn’t explain why he had done it; there’s no question but that the jack-in-the-box had had something to do with it.
The tin soldier stood illuminated by the flames that leaped around him. He did not know whether the great heat he felt was caused by his love or the fire. The colors of his uniform had disappeared, and he could not tell whether it was from sorrow or his trip through the water. He looked at the ballerina, and she looked at him. He could feel that he was melting; but he held on as steadfastly as ever to his gun and kept his gaze on the little ballerina in front of the castle.
The door of the room was opened, a breeze caught the little dancer and like a sylph she flew right into the stove. She flared up and was gone. The soldier melted. The next day when the maid emptied the stove, she found a little tin heart, which was all that was left of him. Among the ashes lay the metal spangle from the ballerina’s dress; it had been burned as black as coal.
13
The Wild Swans
Far, far away where the swallows are when we have winter, there lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, Elisa. The eleven brothers were all princes; and when they went to school, each wore a star on his chest and a sword at his side. They wrote with diamond pencils on golden tablets, and read aloud so beautifully that everyone knew at once that they were of royal blood. Their sister Elisa sat on a little stool made of mirrors and had a picture book that had cost half the kingdom. How well those children lived; but it did not last.
Their father, who was king of the whole country, married an evil queen, and that boded no good for the poor children. They found this out the first day she came. The whole castle was decorated in honor of the great event, and the children decided to play house. Instead of the cakes and baked apples they usually were given for this game—and which were so easy to provide—the queen handed them a teacup full of sand and said that they should pretend it was something else.
A week later little Elisa was sent to live with some poor peasants; and the evil queen made the king believe such dreadful things about the princes that soon he did not care for them any more.
“Fly away, out into the world with you and fend for yourselves! Fly as voiceless birds!” cursed the queen; but their fate was not as terrible as she would have liked it to be, for her power had its limits. They became eleven beautiful, wild swans. With a strange cry, they flew out of the castle window and over the park and the forest.
It was very early in the morning when they flew over the farm where Elisa lived. She was still asleep in her little bed. They circled low above the roof of the farmhouse, turning and twisting their necks, to catch a glimpse of their sister, while their great wings beat the air. But no one was awake, and no one heard or saw them. At last they had to fly away, high up into the clouds, toward the great dark forest that stretched all the way to the ocean.
Poor little Elisa sat on the floor playing with a leaf. She had no toys, so she had made a hole in the leaf and was looking up at the sun through it. She felt as though she were looking into the bright eyes of her brothers; and when the warm sunbeams touched her cheeks, she thought of all the kisses they had given her.
The days passed, one after another, and they all were alike. The wind blew through the rosebush and whispered, “Who can be more lovely than you are?”
The roses shook their heads and replied: “Elisa!”
On Sundays the old woman at the farm would set her chair outside and sit reading her psalmbook. The wind would turn the leaves and whisper, “Who can be more saintly than you?”
The psalmbook would answer as truthfully as the roses had: “Elisa!”
When Elisa turned fifteen she was brought back to the castle. As soon as the evil queen saw how beautiful the girl was, envy and hate filled her evil heart. She would gladly have transformed Elisa into a swan at first sight; but the king had asked to see his daughter, and the queen did not dare to disobey him.
Early the next morning, before Elisa was awake, the queen went into the marble bathroom, where the floors were covered with costly carpets and the softest pillows lay on the benches that lined the walls. She had three toads with her. She kissed the first and said, “Sit on Elisa’s head that she may become as lazy as you are.” Kissing the second toad, she ordered, “Touch Elisa’s forehead that she may become as ugly as you are, so her father will not recognize her.” Then she kissed the third toad. “Rest next to Elisa’s heart, that her soul may become as evil as yours and give her pain.”
She dropped the toads into the clear water and, instantly, it had a greenish tinge. She sent for Elisa, undressed her, and told her to step into the bath. As she slipped into the water, the first toad leaped onto Elisa’s head, the second touched her forehead, and the third snuggled as close to her heart as it could. But Elisa did not seem to notice them.
When Elisa rose from the bath, there floating on the water were three red poppies. If the toads had not been made poisonous by the kiss of the wicked queen, they would have turned into roses; but they had become flowers when they touched Elisa. She was so good and so innocent that evil magic could not harm her.
When the wicked queen realized this, she took the juice from walnut shells and rubbed Elisa’s body till it was streaked black and brown; then she smeared an awful-smelling salve on the girl’s face and filtered ashes and dust through her hair. Now it was impossible for anyone to recognize the lovely princess.
Her father got frightened when he saw her, and said, “She is not my daughter.” Only the watchdog and the swallows recognized her; but they were only animals and nobody paid any attention to them.
Elisa wept bitterly and thought of her eleven brothers who had disappeared. In despair, she slipped out of the castle. She walked all day across fields and swamps until she came to the great forest. She did not know where she was going; she only knew that she was deeply unhappy and she longed more than ever to see her brothers again. She thought that they had been forced out into the world as she had; and now she would try to find them.
As soon as she entered the forest, night fell. She had come far away from any road or path. She lay down on the soft moss to sleep. She said her prayers and leaned her head against the stump of a tree. The night was silent, warm, and still. Around her shone so many glowworms that, when she touched the branch of a bush, the little insects fell to the ground like shooting stars.
That night she dreamed about her brothers. Again they were children writing on their golden tablets with diamond pens; and once more she looked at the lovely picture book that had cost half the kingdom. But on their tablets her brothers were not only doing their sums, they wrote of all the great deeds they had performed. The pictures in the book became alive: the birds sang, and the men and women walked right out of the book to talk to Elisa. Every time she was about to turn a leaf, they quickly jumped back onto the page, so as not to get in the wrong picture.
When she awoke, the sun was already high in the heavens; but she couldn’t see it, for the forest was so dense that the branches of the tall trees locked out the sky. But the sun rays shone through the leaves and made a shimmering golden haze. The smell of greenness was all around her, and the birds were so tame that they almost seemed willing to perch on her shoulder. She heard the splashing of water; and she found a little brook, and followed it till it led her to a lovely little pool that was so clear, she could see the sa
nd bottom in a glance. It was surrounded by bushes; but at one spot the deer, when they came down to drink, had made a hole. Here Elisa kneeled down.
Had the branches and their leaves not been swayed gently by the wind, she would have believed that they had been painted on the water, so perfectly were they mirrored. Those upon which the sun shone glistened, and those in the shade were a dark green.
Then Elisa saw her own face and was frightened: it was so dirty and ugly. She dipped her hand into the water and rubbed her eyes, her cheeks, and her forehead till she could see her own fresh skin again. She undressed and bathed in the clear pool, and a more beautiful princess than she, could not have been found in the whole world.
When she had dressed, braided her long hair, and drunk from the brook with her cupped hand, she wandered farther and farther into the forest without knowing where she was going. She thought about her brothers and trusted that God would not leave her. There ahead of her was a wild apple tree. Hadn’t God let it grow there so that the hungry could eat? Its branches were bent almost to the ground under the weight of the fruit. Here Elisa rested and had her midday meal; before she walked on, she found sticks and propped up the heavily laden branches of the apple tree.
The forest grew darker and darker. It was so still that she could hear her own footsteps: the sound of every little stick and leaf crumbling under her foot. No birds were to be seen or heard, no sunbeams penetrated the foliage. The trees grew so close together that when she looked ahead she felt as if she were imprisoned in a stockade. Oh, here she was more alone than she had ever thought one could be!