Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/174

 by this means it became still more mischievous than heretofore, for some of the shivers were scarcely so large as a grain of sand, and these flew about the world, and when they lodged in anybody's eye, there they remained, and the person thenceforth saw everything through a distorted medium, or only approved the perverse side of a question; for every minute fragment of the glass possessed the same qualities that formerly belonged to the whole glass. Some human beings had a piece right through their heart—and this was shocking, for it made their hearts as cold as a lump of ice. Some of these fragments were so large that they served for window-panes; but it would not have done to look at one's friends through such panes as those. Other pieces were set as spectacles, and it was hard for those who wore them to see anything in its proper light, or to have the least sense of justice; and the arch-fiend laughed till he shook his sides, so amazingly was he tickled by all the mischief that arose. And many little glass shivers flew besides through the air, as we shall presently hear.

Their parents lived opposite each other, in two garrets, where the roof of a neighbouring house joined theirs, and a gutter ran all along between the two roofs. In each house was a little window, and, by stepping over the gutter, it was easy to go from one window to the other.

The parents on both sides had a large wooden box, in which they reared pot-herbs for their own use, and a little rose-tree. There was one in each box, and they flourished amazingly! The parents now took it into their heads to place these boxes across the gutter, so that they nearly reached from one window to another, and looked like two flowery banks. Blooming peas flung their tendrils over the edge of the boxes, and the rose-trees put forth their long sprigs, that twined about the windows, and leaned towards each other. In short, it was almost like a triumphal arch of leaves and flowers.

As the boxes were very high, and the children knew that they must not climb up to them, they often had leave to get down out of the window to each other, and to sit on their little stools under the roses. And then they played together so prettily.

In winter there was an end to such pleasures. The windows were frequently covered with frost: but then they warmed copper-pieces on the stove, and laid a warm coin on the frozen pane, and that made such a nice round hole to peep through. And then a soft, bright eye beamed from each window—this was the little boy and the little girl looking at each other. His name was Kay, and hers Gerda. In summer they needed but to take a leap to be side by side, but in winter they had many stairs to go down, and then to go up again, before they could meet; and now the snow-flakes were flying about abroad.

"The white bees are swarming," said grandmother.

"Have they, too, a queen bee?" asked the little boy.

"To be sure," said the grandmother;" she is flying in the thickest of the swarm. She is the largest of them all, and never remains upon the ground, but flutters upwards again towards the black clouds. She often flies through the streets of the town at midnight, and peeps in at the windows, and then they freeze into such odd shapes, and look like flowers."

"Yes, I have seen that," said both the children, and now they knew it was true.

"Can the Snow Queen come in here?" asked the little girl.

"Let her come," said the boy, "and I'll put her on the warm stove, and then she must melt"

But grandmother stroked his hair, and told them other stories.

In the evening, when little Kay had returned home and was half undressed, he climbed on a chair up to the window, and peeped through the little hole, when he saw some snow-flakes falling, the largest among which alighted on the edge of one of the flower-boxes, and kept increasing and increasing till it became a full-grown woman, dressed in the most aerial white gauze, that seemed