Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/519

Rh remember the time when I did not stand here in the cold, chained up. Go! go!"

"The cold is delightful," said the snow man. "Go on with your story; go on! But you must not rattle so with your chain, for it makes me feel shaky."

"Go! go!" barked the yard-dog. "They tell me I was once a pretty little puppy. I lay on a velvet cushion, or in the ladies' laps. They kissed me on the nose, and wiped my paws with embroidered handkerchiefs. They called me 'Beauty' and 'Popsy Wopsy,' but then I grew too big for them, and they gave me to the housekeeper. I had to go to the basement. You can see right down there from where you are standing; you can look down into the room where I was the master; for that 's what I was at the housekeeper's. It was not, of course, such a grand place as upstairs, but it was much more comfortable down there; I was not mauled and dragged about by the children as upstairs. I had just as good food as before, and more of it. I had my own cushion, and then there was a stove, the finest thing in the world at this time of the year. I crept right under it and got out of the way. Ah, that stove—I still dream about it! Go! go!"

"Does a stove look so beautiful, then?" asked the snow man. "Is it at all like me?"

"No, it is just the reverse of you. It is black as coal, and has a long neck with a brass drum to it. It eats firewood till the flames reach right out of its mouth. Whether you are beside it, close to it, or under it, it gives no end of comfort. You can see it through the window from where you are standing."

And the snow man looked and saw a black polished object with a brass drum and the light shining out through an opening. The snow man felt a strange emotion within him; it was a feeling he could not account for, but which all people know who are not snow men.

"And why did you leave her?" said the snow man. He felt that the stove must belong to the female sex. "How could you leave such a place?"

"I was obliged," said the yard-dog; "they turned me out of doors and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest boy in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. Bone for bone, thought I; but they took it in bad part, and from that time I have been standing here chained up, and have lost my voice. Just listen—how hoarse I am! Go! go! That was the end of it all."

The snow man did not listen any longer; he was continually looking down into the basement, into the housekeeper's room, where the stove was standing on its four iron legs. It was of the same size as the snow man.

"I feel such a strange crackling within me," he said. "Shall I never be able to get down there? It is an innocent wish, and our innocent wishes ought surely to be fulfilled. It is my highest wish, my only wish,