Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/50

 now begin to understand the happiness to be found in this place. It penetrates into my blood, and I feel the joys of the blessed in this my earthly form! Though it were ever after eternally dark for me, one moment like this is happiness enough!” And he kissed the tears in her eyes, and his mouth pressed her lips.

Then came a thunder-clap, so loud and so tremendous as never was heard before. Down everything fell to ruins—the beautiful fairy, the blooming garden, all sank deeper and deeper still. The prince saw the garden sinking into the dark abyss below, and it soon only shone like a little star in the distance. He turned as cold as death, and closed his eyes, and lay senseless.

The cold rain fell on his face, and the sharp wind blew over his head. He then returned to consciousness. “What have I done?” sighed he. “Alas! I have sinned, and the Island of Happiness has sunk down into the earth!” And he opened his eyes and saw a distant star like that of the sinking garden; but it was the morning star in the sky.

He got up and found himself in the large forest close to the Cavern of the Winds. The mother of the Winds sat by him, and looked angry, and raised her arm aloft.

“The very first evening,” said she. “I thought it would be so! If you were my son, you should be put into the bag presently.”

“Into it he shall go, sure enough!” said Death. He was a stalwart man with a scythe in his hand, and large black wings. “In his coffin shall he be laid, but not yet. I'll only mark him now, and allow him to wander about the world yet awhile, to expiate his sins and to grow better. But I shall come at last. When he least expects it, I shall put him into the black bag, place it on my head, and fly up to the stars. There, too, blooms a lovely garden, and if he be good and pious, he will be allowed to enter it; but should his thoughts be wicked, and his heart still full of sin, then will he sink in his coffin yet lower than he saw the Garden of the World sink down; and it will be only once in every thousand years that I shall go and fetch him, when he will either be condemned to sink still deeper, or be borne aloft to the beaming stars above.”