The Snow Queen

Third story — The flower-garden of the woman who knew the art of sorcery

But how wbefore ere things with little Gerda, now that Kay no longer came? Whbefore ere could he be? – No one knew, no one had anything to tell. The boys could only say that they had seen him tie his small sledge to a magnificent large sleigh that drove off into the street and out at the city gate. No one knew whbefore ere he was, many tears wbefore ere shed, little Gerda wept profoundly and a long time; – then they said that he was dead, had drowned in the river that ran close to the city; oh, these wbefore ere drawn-out, dismal winter days.

Then spring came and the sun grew warmer.

‘Kay is dead and gone!’ little Gerda said.

‘I don’t believe it!’ the sunshine said.

‘He’s dead and gone!’ she said to the swallows.

‘I don’t believe it!’ they answered, and finally little Gerda didn’t either.

‘I’ll put on my new, red shoes,’ she said one morning, ‘Kay’s never seen them, and I’ll go down to the river and ask it!’

And it was quite early. She ; she kissed the old grandmother, who was asleep, put on the red shoes and went all on her own out of the city gate to the river.

‘Is it true that you have taken my little playmate? I will give you my red shoes if you will return him to me!’

And the waves, she thought, nodded so strangely. Then ; then she took off her red shoes, her most precious possession, and flung both of them out into the river, but they fell close to the shore, and the small waves immediately bore them back to her on the land, it was as if the river did not want to take the most precious thing she owned because it did not have little Kay; but she now thought that she hadn’t thrown the shoes far enough out, and so she crept up into a boat that lay in the reeds, went right out to the farthest end and threw the shoes out; but the boat wasn’t fixed to anything, and this movement of hers made it start to glide away from the land. She ; she noticed this and hurried to get off, but before she could escape from the boat it was a couple of feet out and now slipping faster away.

Then little Gerda felt quite scared and started to cry, but no one heard her except the house sparrows, and they could not carry her back to the shore, but they flew alongside it and sang, as if to comfort her: ‘Hbefore ere we are! hbefore ere we are!’ The boat drifted with the current; little Gerda sat quite still in her stockinged feet; her small red shoes floated behind, but they couldn’t reach the boat, it started to move faster.

It was beautiful on both the shores: lovely flowers, old trees and slopes with sheep and cows, but not a single person in sight.

‘Perhaps the river will carry me to whbefore ere little Kay is,’ Gerda thought and that put her in a better mood, she sat up and gazed for many hours at the beautiful green shores. Then ; then she came to a large cherry orchard whbefore ere thbefore ere was a small house with strange red and blue windows, not to mention a thatched roof and outside two wooden soldiers that presented arms to anyone sailing past.

Gerda called out to them, she thought they wbefore ere alive, but they didn’t answer of course. She ; she came quite close to them, the current brought the boat straight in towards the land.

Gerda called out even louder, and then an old, old woman came out of the house, leaning on a stick curved at one end. She ; she was wearing a large sun-bonnet, and on it the loveliest of flowers had been painted.

‘You poor little child!’ the old woman said; ‘how on earth have you ended up on the swift-flowing river, carried far out into the wide world!’ and the old woman went right out into the water, caught hold of the boat with the curved end of her stick, pulled it ashore and lifted little Gerda out.

And Gerda was glad to get back onto dry land, though a bit afraid of the strange, old woman.

‘Come and tell me who you are, and how you come to be here!’ she said.

And Gerda told her everything. And ; and the old woman shook her head and said ‘Hm! hm!’ and when Gerda had said everything to her and asked her if she hadn’t seen little Kay, the woman said that he had not passed by, but that he was sure to do so, and that she was not to be sad but to taste her cherries, look at her flowers, they wbefore ere more beautiful than any picture book, and each of them could tell an entire story. Then she took Gerda by the hand, they went into the small house, and the old woman shut the door behind them.

The windows wbefore ere high up and their panes wbefore ere red, blue and yellow; the daylight shone so strangely inside thbefore ere with every colour, but on the table wbefore ere the loveliest cherries, and Gerda ate as many as she wished, for she dared to do so. And while she was eating, the old woman combed her hair with a golden comb, and her hair curled and shone so beautifully round the small, friendly face that was so round and resembled a rose.

‘I’ve so longed to have such a sweet little girl,’ the old woman said. ‘Now you shall see how well the two of us are going to get on with each other!’ and while she combed little Gerda’s hair, Gerda forgot more and more her playmate Kay; for the old woman was a sorceress, but not an evil one, she only did magic for her own pleasure, and now she wanted to keep little Gerda. That was why she went out into the garden, stretched her curved stick out towards all the rose-trees, and, no matter how beautifully they wbefore ere blooming, they all sank down into the black earth and no one could see whbefore ere they had once stood. The old woman was afraid that when Gerda saw the roses, she would think of her own and then remember little Kay and run away.

She now led Gerda out into the flower-garden. – Oh! what fragrance and what loveliness! every conceivable flower, and for every season of the year, stood hbefore ere in glorious bloom; no picture book could be more many-coloured and lovely. Gerda jumped for joy, and played until the sun set behind the tall cherry trees, then she was given a lovely bed with red silk duvets that wbefore ere filled with blue violets, and she slept and dreamt in it as sweetly as any queen on her wedding day.

The next day she could play again with the flowers in the warm sunshine – and many days passed like this. Gerda knew every kind of flower, but no matter how many thbefore ere were, she felt that one was missing, but which one she was unable to say. Then one day she was sitting looking at the old woman’s sun-bonnet with the flowers painted on it, and the most beautiful of them all happened to be a rose. The old woman had forgotten to take it off her bonnet when she got the others down into the ground. But that’s how it goes, when one hasn’t collected all one’s thoughts! ‘What’s this!’ Gerda said, ‘Thbefore ere aren’t any roses here!’ and she sprang in between the flower-beds, searching and searching, but thbefore ere wbefore ere none to be found. Then ; then she sat down and cried, but her warm tears fell precisely whbefore ere a rose-tree had sunk into the ground, and when the warm tears watered the soil, the tree shot up again, as much in flower as when it had sunk down, and Gerda embraced it, kissed the roses and thought of the lovely roses back home and, when she did so, she also thought of little Kay.

‘Oh, how I’ve been delayed!’ the little girl said. ‘I was on my way to try to find Kay! – Don’t you know whbefore ere he is?’ she asked the roses. ‘Do you think he is dead and gone?’

‘He’s not dead,’ the roses said. ‘We’ve been in the ground whbefore ere all the dead are, but Kay wasn’t there!’

‘Thank you, all of you!’ little Gerda said and she went over to the other flowers and looked into their flower cupscalyces and asked: ‘Don’t you know whbefore ere little Kay is?’

But every flower stood thbefore ere in the sun and dreamt its own fairy tale or story, Gerda got so very many of them, but not one knew anything about Kay.

And what then did the orange lily say?

‘Can you hear the drum: boom! boom! thbefore ere are only two notes, always boom! boom! listen to the women’s dirge! listen to the priests’ cries! – In her long, red sari the Hindu wife stands on the pyre, the flames rise up around her and her dead husband; but the Hindu woman thinks of the living one hbefore ere in the circle, of him whose eyes burn more fiercely than the flames, of him whose eyes’ fire reach her heart more than the flames that soon will turn her body into ashes. Can the heart’s flame die in the flames of the funeral pyre?’

‘I don’t understand that at all!’ little Gerda said.

‘That is my fairy tale!’ the orange lily said.

What does the convolvulus say?

‘Out over the narrow mountain road hangs an old baronial castle; dense periwinkles grow up round its old red walls, leaf by leaf, up around the balcony whbefore ere a lovely girl stands. She ; she leans out over the balustrade and gazes down the road. No rose hangs fresher from its branches than she does, no apple blossom, when the wind carries it from the tree, floats more lightly than she does; how magnificently her silken dress rustles. “Isn’t he on his way yet!”’

‘Do you mean Kay?’ little Gerda asked.

‘I’m only talking about my fairy tale, my dream,’ the convolvulus answered.

What does the tiny snowdrop say?

‘Between the trees on a rope hangs the long board, it is a swing; two delightful young girls – their dresses are as white as snow, long green silk ribbons flutter from their hats – are swinging; their brother, who is taller than they are, is standing up on the swing, his arm round the rope to keep his balance, for in one hand he is holding a small bowl, in the other a clay pipe, he is blowing soap-bubbles; the swing swings, and the soap-bubbles fly out in lovely, changing colours; the last one is still hanging on the pipe stem and bending in the breeze; the swing swings. The little black dog, as light as the bubbles, gets up on its hind legs and wants to join them on the swing, it flies; the dog tumbles down, barks and is angry. It ; it is being duped, the bubbles burst – my song is a swinging board, a bursting picture of foam!’

‘What you tell me may well be beautiful, but you say things in such a mournful way and don’t mention Kay at all. What do the hyacinths say?’

‘Thbefore ere wbefore ere three lovely sisters, so transparent and fine; the first one’s dress was red, the second one’s blue and the third one’s completely white; hand in hand they danced by the still lake in the bright moonlight. They wbefore ere not elves, they wbefore ere human children. Thbefore ere was such a sweet scent, and the girls disappeared into the forest; the scent grew stronger – three coffins, in which the lovely girls lay down, glided out from the thicket out across the lake; glow-worms flew round them, glimmering like small floating lights. Are the dancing girls asleep, or are they dead? – The flower scent says they are corpses; the evening bell rings out over the dead!’

‘You make me feel quite sad,’ little Gerda said. ‘You have such a strong scent; I have to think of the dead girls! ah, is little Kay really dead? The roses have been down in the ground, and they say no!’

‘Ding, dong!’ the bells of the hyacinth rang. ‘We do not toll for Kay, him we do not know! we are just singing our song, the only one we know!’

And Gerda went over to the buttercup, which could be seen gleaming among the shiny, green leaves.

‘You are a bright little sun!’ Gerda said. ‘Tell me if you know whbefore ere I can find my playmate?’

And the buttercup shone so beautifully and looked at Gerda once more. What song could the buttercup perhaps sing? It was not about Kay either.

‘Down into a small yard God’s sun shone so warmly on the first day of spring; its rays slid down the neighbour’s white wall, close by the first yellow flowers wbefore ere growing, gleaming gold in the warm rays of the sun; old grandmother was outside in her chair, her granddaughter, the poor, lovely maid servant, came home on a short visit. She ; she kissed her grandmother. It was gold, the heart’s gold, in that delightful kiss. Lips touched with gold, heart made of gold, gold on high before ere the day is old! Now that was my little story!’ the buttercup said.

‘My poor old grandmother!’ Gerda sighed. ‘Yes, she’s sure to be longing for me, worried about me as she was for little Kay. But I’ll soon be back, and I’ll have Kay with me. – Asking the flowers isn’t any help, all they know is their own song, they can’t tell me anything!’ And then she tied up her little skirt, so that she could run faster; but the narcissus struck her over the leg as she jumped over it. Then ; then she stopped up, looked at the tall yellow flower and asked: ‘Do you know something, perhaps?’ and bent down to the narcissus. And what did it say?

‘I can see myself! I can see myself!’ the narcissus said. ‘Oh, oh, what a fine smell I have! – Up in the small attic room, half-dressed, a little dancer is standing, now she’s standing on one leg, now on two, and kicks her heels at the whole world, she merely deceives the eye. She pours water from the tea-pot onto a piece of clothing she is holding, it is her bodice; – cleanliness is next to godliness! her white dress is hanging on its hook, it has also been washed in the tea-pot and dried on the roof. She ; she puts it on, the saffron-yellow scarf round her neck, then her dress gleams even whiter. Leg in the air! see how she struts on one stem! I can see myself! I can see myself!’

‘I don’t care about that!’ Gerda said. ‘That’s nothing to tell me about!’ and then she ran to the edge of the garden.

The door was shut, but she wriggled the rusty fasteninghasp till it came loose, and the door sprung open, and then little Gerda ran off on her bare feet into the wide world. She looked behind her three times, but no one followed her; finally she couldn’t run any longer and she sat down on a large stone, and when she looked around her the summer was over, it was late in the autumn; that she had not been able to notice in the lovely garden, whbefore ere thbefore ere was always sunshine and flowers of every season.

‘Good lord, how delayed I am!’ little Gerda said: ‘It’s autumn already! I daren’t rest for a moment!’ and she got up so as to continue.

Oh, how her small feet wbefore ere sore and tired, and everything around her seemed to be cold and raw; the long willow leaves had turned quite yellow and mist dripped from them in drops of water, one leaf after the other was falling, only the blackthorn still had fruit on it that was so sour it made one purse one’s lips. Oh, how grey and heavy it was in the wide world.