Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/520

486 and it would almost be unjust if it were not granted. I must get there, I must lean against her, even if I have to break the window."

"You'll never get there," said the yard-dog; "and if you did get near the stove, you would be gone—gone!"

"I am as good as gone," said the snow man. "I am breaking up, I think."

The snow man stood the whole day looking in through the window. When the twilight had set in the room looked still more inviting; the stove threw out such a pleasant light—more pleasant than the moon, or even the sun, could throw out; such as only a stove can do when there is anything in it. When the door of the room was opened, the flame would dart out through the opening, as was its custom; the snow man's white face blushed crimson, while a red glare shone out from his bosom.

"I cannot stand it!" he said. "How it does suit her to stretch out her tongue!"

The night was long, but it did not appear so to the snow man; he stood buried in his own pleasant thoughts, and they froze till they crackled.

In the morning the window-panes in the basement were frozen over with the most beautiful ice flowers that any snow man could desire, but they shut out the stove from his sight. The ice on the panes would not thaw, and he could not see her. It creaked and it crackled; it was just the kind of frosty weather that would please a snow man, but he was not pleased; he could and ought to have felt happy, but he was not happy—he was stove-sick.

"That's a dangerous complaint for a snow man," said the yard-dog. "I have suffered from it myself, but I have got over it. Go! go! Now we are going to have a change of weather."

And the weather changed; a thaw had set in. The thaw increased, the snow man decreased. He did not say anything, he did not complain, and that is a certain sign. One morning he fell to pieces. Something like a broomstick stuck out of the ground where he had stood. It was the one round which the boys had built him up.

"Now I can understand about his great longing!" said the yard-dog. "The snow man has had a stove-rake inside him; it was that which moved in him; now he has got over it. Go! go!"

And soon the winter was over too.

"Go! go!" barked the yard-dog; but the little girls in the house sang:

Shoot forth, sweet woodruff, so stately and fresh:

Hang out, willow-tree, your long woolen locks;

Come, cuckoo and lark, come hither and sing—

Ere February's close we already have spring;

I, too, will sing, 'Cuckoo! Quivit!'

Shine, dear sun, come often and shine!"

And then nobody thought any more about the snow man.