Part 26 (1/2)
”Well, go,” answered the Hen.
So the Duckling went. He swam on the surface of the water, he plunged beneath, but all animals pa.s.sed him by on account of his ugliness.
And the autumn came, the leaves turned yellow and brown, the wind caught them and danced them about, the air was very cold, the clouds were heavy with hail or snow, and the raven sat on the hedge and croaked, the poor Duckling was certainly not very comfortable!
One evening, just as the sun was setting with unusual brilliancy, a flock of large, beautiful birds rose from out the brushwood; the Duckling had never seen anything so beautiful before; their plumage was of a dazzling white, and they had long slender necks. They were swans; they uttered a singular cry, spread out their long, splendid wings, and flew away from these cold regions to warmer countries, across the open sea. They flew so high, so very high! and the little Ugly Duckling's feelings were so strange; he turned round and round in the water like a mill-wheel, strained his neck to look after them, and sent forth such a loud and strange cry that it almost frightened himself. Ah! he could not forget them, those n.o.ble birds! those happy birds! When he could see them no longer, he plunged to the bottom of the water, and when he rose again was almost beside himself. The Duckling knew not what the birds were called, knew not whither they were flying, yet he loved them as he had never before loved anything; he envied them not, it would never have occurred to him to wish such beauty for himself; he would have been quite contented if the ducks in the duck-yard had but endured his company,--the poor, ugly animal!
And the winter was so cold, so cold! The Duckling was obliged to swim round and round in the water, to keep it from freezing; but every night the opening in which he swam became smaller and smaller; it froze so that the crust of ice crackled; the Duckling was obliged to make good use of his legs to prevent the water from freezing entirely; at last, wearied out, he lay stiff and cold in the ice.
Early in the morning there pa.s.sed by a peasant, who saw him, broke the ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and brought him home to his wife.
He now revived; the children would have played with him, but our Duckling thought they wished to tease him, and in his terror jumped into the milk-pail, so that the milk was spilled about the room; the good woman screamed and clapped her hands; he flew thence into the pan where the b.u.t.ter was kept, and thence into the meal-barrel, and out again, and then how strange he looked!
The woman screamed, and struck at him with the tongs, the children ran races with each other trying to catch him, and laughed and screamed likewise. It was well for him that the door stood open; he jumped out among the bushes into the new-fallen snow,--he lay there as in a dream.
But it would be too melancholy to relate all the trouble and misery that he was obliged to suffer during the severity of the winter. He was lying on a moor among the reeds, when the sun began to s.h.i.+ne warmly again, the larks sang, and beautiful spring had returned.
And once more he shook his wings. They were stronger than formerly, and bore him forwards quickly, and, before he was well aware of it, he was in a large garden where the apple-trees stood in full bloom, where the syringas sent forth their fragrance, and hung their long green branches down into the winding ca.n.a.l. O, everything was so lovely, so full of the freshness of spring! And out of the thicket came three beautiful white Swans. They displayed their feathers so proudly, and swam so lightly, so lightly! The Duckling knew the glorious creatures, and was seized with a strange melancholy.
”I will fly to them, those kingly birds!” said he. ”They will kill me, because I, ugly as I am, have presumed to approach them. But it matters not; better to be killed by them than to be bitten by the ducks, pecked by the hens, kicked by the girl who feeds the poultry, and to have so much to suffer during the winter!” He flew into the water, and swam towards the beautiful creatures; they saw him and shot forward to meet him. ”Only kill me,” said the poor animal, and he bowed his head low, expecting death; but what did he see in the water? He saw beneath him his own form, no longer that of a plump, ugly, gray bird,--it was that of a Swan.
It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been hatched from a Swan's egg.
The good creature felt himself really elevated by all the troubles and adversities he had experienced. He could now rightly estimate his own happiness, and the larger Swans swam around him, and stroked him with their beaks.
Some little children were running about in the garden; they threw grain and bread into the water, and the youngest exclaimed, ”There is a new one!” the others also cried out, ”Yes, there is a new Swan come!” and they clapped their hands, and danced around. They ran to their father and mother, bread and cake were thrown into the water, and every one said, ”The new one is the best, so young and so beautiful!” and the old Swans bowed before him. The young Swan felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wings; he scarcely knew what to do, he was all too happy, but still not proud, for a good heart is never proud.
He remembered how he had been persecuted and derided, and he now heard every one say he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds. The syringas bent down their branches towards him low into the water, and the sun shone so warmly and brightly,--he shook his feathers, stretched his slender neck, and in the joy of his heart said, ”How little did I dream of so much happiness when I was the ugly, despised Duckling!”
_Hans Christian Andersen._
THE POET AND HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER.
It was a June morning. Roses and yellow jasmine covered the old wall in the Poet's garden. The little brown mason bees flew in and out of their holds beneath the pink and white and yellow flowers.
Peac.o.c.k-b.u.t.terflies, with large blue eyes on their crimson velvet wings, fluttered about and settled on the orange-brown wall-flowers.
Aloft, in the broad-leaved sycamore-tree, the blackbird was singing as if he were out of his senses for joy; his song was as loud as any nightingale, and his heart was glad, because his young brood was hatched, and he knew that they now sat with their little yellow beaks poking out of the nest, and thinking what a famous bird their father was. All the robins and tomt.i.ts and linnets and redstarts that sat in the trees of the garden den shouted vivas and bravuras, and encored him delightfully.
The Poet himself sat under the double-flowering hawthorn, which was then all in blossom. He sat on a rustic seat, and his best friend sat beside him. Beneath the lower branches of the tree was hung the canary-bird's cage, which the children had brought out because the day was so fine, and the little canary loved fresh air and the smell of flowers. It never troubled him that other birds flew about from one end of the garden to the other, or sat and sung on the leafy branches, for he loved his cage; and when the old blackbird poured forth his grand melodies, the little canary sat like a prince in a stage-box, and nodded his head, and sang an accompaniment.
One of the Poet's children, his little daughter, sat in her own little garden, which was full of flowers, while bees and b.u.t.terflies flitted about in the suns.h.i.+ne. The child, however, was not noticing them; she was thinking only of one thing, and that was the large daisy-root which was all in flower; it was the largest daisy-root in the whole garden, and two-and-fifty double pink-and-white daisies were crowded upon it. They were, however, no longer daisies to the child's eyes, but two-and-fifty little charity children in green stuff gowns, and white tippets, and white linen caps, that had a holiday given them.
She saw them all, with their pink cheeks and bright eyes, running in a group and talking as they went; the hum of the bees around seeming to be the pleasant sound of their voices. The child was happy to think that two-and-fifty charity children were let loose from school to run about in the suns.h.i.+ne. Her heart went with them, and she was so full of joy that she started up to tell her father, who was sitting with his best friend under the hawthorn-tree.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Sad and bitter thoughts, however, just then oppressed the Poet's heart. He had been disappointed where he had hoped for good; his soul was under a cloud; and as the child ran up to tell him about the little charity children in whose joy she thought he would sympathize, she heard him say to his friend, ”I have no longer any hope of human nature now. It is a poor miserable thing, and is not worth working for. My best endeavors have been spent in its service,--my youth and my manhood's strength, my very life,--and this is my reward! I will no longer strive to do good. I will write for money alone, as others do, and not for the good of mankind!”