Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/268

228 was just rising, and there stood little Helga in all her beauty with bleeding hands and maidenly tears for the first time on her blushing cheeks.

It was in this transformation as if two natures were struggling in her; she trembled and glanced round as if she were just awakening from a troubled dream. She leaned for support against a slender beech, and at last climbed to the topmost branches like a cat and seated herself firmly upon them. She sat there for the whole livelong day like a frightened squirrel in the solitude of the wood where all is still, and dead, as they say.

Dead—well, there flew a couple of butterflies whirling round and round each other, and close by were some ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures swarming to and fro. In the air danced countless midges, and swarm upon swarm of flies, lady-birds, dragon-flies with golden wings, and other little winged creatures. The earthworm crept forth from the moist ground, and the moles—but excepting these all was still and dead around; when people say this they don't quite understand what they mean. None noticed little Helga but a flock of jackdaws which flew chattering round the tree where she sat. They hopped along the branch toward her, boldly inquisitive, but a glance from her eye was enough to drive them away. They could not make her out, though, any more than she could understand herself.

When the evening drew near and the sun began to sink, the approaching transformation roused her to fresh exertion. She slipped down gently from the tree, and when the last sunbeam was extinguished she sat there once more, the shrivelled-up frog with her torn, webbed hands; but her eyes now shone with a new beauty which they had hardly possessed in all the pride of her loveliness. These were the gentlest and tenderest maiden's eyes which now shone out of the face of the frog. They bore witness to the existence of deep feeling and a human heart; and the beauteous eyes overflowed with tears, weeping precious drops that lightened the heart.