Andersen's Fairy Tales
with so deep a tone, and with such strange power, that proceed he must.
“Why, then, we can go together,” said the King's Son. But the poor
child that had been confirmed was quite ashamed; he looked at his wooden
shoes, pulled at the short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was
afraid he could not walk so fast; besides, he thought that the bell must
be looked for to the right; for that was the place where all sorts of
beautiful things were to be found.
“But there we shall not meet,” said the King's Son, nodding at the same
time to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the
wood, where thorns tore his humble dress, and scratched his face and
hands and feet till they bled. The King's Son got some scratches too;
but the sun shone on his path, and it is him that we will follow, for he
was an excellent and resolute youth.
“I must and will find the bell,” said he, “even if I am obliged to go to
the end of the world.”
The ugly apes sat upon the trees, and grinned. “Shall we thrash him?”
said they. “Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!”
But on he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the
wood, where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white
lilies with blood-red stamina, skyblue tulips, which shone as they waved
in the winds, and apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like
large soapbubbles: so only think how the trees must have sparkled in the
sunshine! Around the nicest green meads, where the deer were playing in
the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches; and if the bark of one of
the trees was cracked, there grass and long creeping plants grew in
the crevices. And there were large calm lakes there too, in which white
swans were swimming, and beat the air with their wings. The King's Son
often stood still and listened. He thought the bell sounded from the
depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that the tone
proceeded not from there, but farther off, from out the depths of the
forest.
The sun now set: the atmosphere glowed like fire. It was still in the
woods, so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn,
and said: “I cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night
is coming--the dark, dark night. Yet perhaps I may be able once more
to see the round red sun before he entirely disappears. I will climb up
yonder rock.”
And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of
trees--climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing
and the toads were croaking--and he gained the summit before the sun
had quite gone down. How magnificent was the sight from this height! The
sea--the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves against the
coast--was stretched out before him. And yonder, where sea and sky meet,
stood the sun, like a large shining altar, all melted together in the
most glowing colors. And the wood and the sea sang a song of rejoicing,
and his heart sang with the rest: all nature was a vast holy church,
in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the pillars, flowers and
grass the velvet carpeting, and heaven itself the large cupola. The red
colors above faded away as the sun vanished, but a million stars were
lighted, a million lamps shone; and the King's Son spread out his arms
towards heaven, and wood, and sea; when at the same moment, coming by
a path to the right, appeared, in his wooden shoes and jacket, the poor
boy who had been confirmed with him. He had followed his own path, and
had reached the spot just as soon as the son of the king had done. They
ran towards each other, and stood together hand in hand in the vast
church of nature and of poetry, while over them sounded the invisible
holy bell: blessed spirits floated around them, and lifted up their
voices in a rejoicing hallelujah!
THE OLD HOUSE
In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house--it was almost
three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great
beam on which the date of the year was carved: together with tulips and
hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and over
every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam. The one story
stood forward a great way over the other; and directly under the eaves
was a leaden spout with a dragon's head; the rain-water should have run
out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly, for there was a hole in
the spout.
All the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large
window panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would have
nothing to do with the old house: they certainly thought, “How long is
that old decayed thing to stand here as a spectacle in the street? And
then the projecting windows stand so far out, that no one can see from
our windows what happens in that direction! The steps are as broad as
those of a palace, and as high as to a church tower. The iron railings
look just like the door to an old family vault, and then they have brass
tops--that's so stupid!”
On the other side of the street were also new and neat houses, and they
thought just as the others did; but at the window opposite the old house
there sat a little boy with fresh rosy cheeks and bright beaming eyes:
he certainly liked the old house best, and that both in sunshine and
moonshine. And when he looked across at the wall where the mortar
had fallen out, he could sit and find out there the strangest figures
imaginable; exactly as the street had appeared before, with steps,
projecting windows, and pointed gables; he could see soldiers with
halberds, and spouts where the water ran, like dragons and serpents.
That was a house to look at; and there lived an old man, who wore plush
breeches; and he had a coat with large brass buttons, and a wig that one
could see was a real wig. Every morning there came an old fellow to him
who put his rooms in order, and went on errands; otherwise, the old man
in the plush breeches was quite alone in the old house. Now and then he
came to the window and looked out, and the little boy nodded to him,
and the old man nodded again, and so they became acquaintances, and then
they were friends, although they had never spoken to each other--but
that made no difference. The little boy heard his parents say, “The old
man opposite is very well off, but he is so very, very lonely!”
The Sunday following, the little boy took something, and wrapped it up
in a piece of paper, went downstairs, and stood in the doorway; and when
the man who went on errands came past, he said to him--
“I say, master! will you give this to the old man over the way from me?
I have two pewter soldiers--this is one of them, and he shall have it,
for I know he is so very, very lonely.”
And the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded, and took the pewter
soldier over to the old house. Afterwards there came a message; it was
to ask if the little boy himself had not a wish to come over and pay a
visit; and so he got permission of his parents, and then went over to
the old house.
And the brass balls on the iron railings shone much brighter than ever;
one would have thought they were polished on account of the visit; and
it was as if the carved-out trumpeters--for there were trumpeters, who
stood in tulips, carved out on the door--blew with all their
might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than before. Yes, they
blew--“Trateratra! The little boy comes! Trateratra!”--and then the door
opened.
The whole passage was hung with portraits of knights in armor, and
ladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled, and the silken gowns
rustled! And then there was a flight of stairs which went a good way
upwards, and a little way downwards, and then one came on a balcony
which was in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes and
long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of them altogether,
for the whole balcony outside, the yard, and the walls, were overgrown
with so much green stuff, that it looked like a garden; only a balcony.
Here stood old flower-pots with faces and asses' ears, and the flowers
grew just as they liked. One of the pots was quite overrun on all sides
with pinks, that is to say, with the green part; shoot stood by shoot,
and it said quite distinctly, “The air has cherished me, the sun has
kissed me, and promised me a little flower on Sunday! a little flower on
Sunday!”
And then they entered a chamber where the walls were covered with hog's
leather, and printed with gold flowers.
“The gilding decays,
But hog's leather stays!”
said the walls.
And there stood easy-chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out,
and with arms on both sides. “Sit down! sit down!” said they. “Ugh! how
I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old clothespress,
ugh!”
And then the little boy came into the room where the projecting windows
were, and where the old man sat.
“I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!” said the old
man. “And I thank you because you come over to me.”
“Thankee! thankee!” or “cranky! cranky!” sounded from all the furniture;
there was so much of it, that each article stood in the other's way, to
get a look at the little boy.
In the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a beautiful lady,
so young, so glad, but dressed quite as in former times, with clothes
that stood quite stiff, and with powder in her hair; she neither said
“thankee, thankee!” nor “cranky, cranky!” but looked with her mild eyes
at the little boy, who directly asked the old man, “Where did you get
her?”
“Yonder, at the broker's,” said the old man, “where there are so many
pictures hanging. No one knows or cares about them, for they are all of
them buried; but I knew her in by-gone days, and now she has been dead
and gone these fifty years!”
Under the picture, in a glazed frame, there hung a bouquet of withered
flowers; they were almost fifty years old; they looked so very old!
The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned,
and everything in the room became still older; but they did not observe
it.
“They say at home,” said the little boy, “that you are so very, very
lonely!”
“Oh!” said he. “The old thoughts, with what they may bring with them,
come and visit me, and now you also come! I am very well off!”
Then he took a book with pictures in it down from the shelf; there were
whole long processions and pageants, with the strangest characters,
which one never sees now-a-days; soldiers like the knave of clubs,
and citizens with waving flags: the tailors had theirs, with a pair of
shears held by two lions--and the shoemakers theirs, without boots,
but with an eagle that had two heads, for the shoemakers must have
everything so that they can say, it is a pair! Yes, that was a picture
book!
The old man now went into the other room to fetch preserves, apples, and
nuts--yes, it was delightful over there in the old house.
“I cannot bear it any longer!” said the pewter soldier, who sat on the
drawers. “It is so lonely and melancholy here! But when one has been in
a family circle one cannot accustom oneself to this life! I cannot bear
it any longer! The whole day is so long, and the evenings are still
longer! Here it is not at all as it is over the way at your home, where
your father and mother spoke so pleasantly, and where you and all your
sweet children made such a delightful noise. Nay, how lonely the old man
is--do you think that he gets kisses? Do you think he gets mild eyes,
or a Christmas tree? He will get nothing but a grave! I can bear it no
longer!”
“You must not let it grieve you so much,” said the little boy. “I find
it so very delightful here, and then all the old thoughts, with what
they may bring with them, they come and visit here.”