Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/575

 Rh laughing and singing, and wreathing red flowers in her black hair.

'Do not go to Paris!' said the old priest. 'Poor child! if you go there, it will be your ruin!'

And yet she went.

The Dryad often thought about her, for they had both the same desire and longing for the great city. Spring came, summer, autumn, winter; two or three years passed.

The Dryad's tree bore its first chestnut blossoms, the birds twittered about it in the lovely sunshine. Then there came along the road a grand carriage with a stately lady; she, herself, drove the beautiful prancing horses; a smart little groom sat behind her. The Dryad knew her again, the old priest knew her again, shook his head, and said sorrowfully,

'You did go there! it was your ruin! Poor Marie!'

'She poor!' thought the Dryad. 'Why, what a change! she is dressed like a duchess! she became like this in the city of enchantment. Oh, if I were only there in all the splendour and glory! it even throws a light up into the clouds at night, when I look in the direction where I know the city is.'

Yes, thither, towards that quarter, the Dryad looked every evening, every night. She saw the glimmering mist on the horizon; she missed it in the bright, moonlight nights; she missed the floating clouds which showed her pictures of the city and of history.

The child grasps at its picture-book; the Dryad grasped at the cloud world, her book of thoughts.

The warm summer sky, free from clouds, was for her a blank page, and now for several days she had seen such a sky.

It was the warm summer-time, with sultry days without a breath of air. Every leaf, every flower, lay as in a doze, and men were like that too. Then clouds arose, and that in the quarter where at night the glimmering mist announced, 'Here is Paris.'

The clouds arose, forming themselves like a whole mountain range, and scudded through the air, out over the whole landscape as far as the Dryad could see.

The clouds lay like enormous purple rocks, layer on