came back in fresh spirits, rushed through the air, swept the sky
clear, and snapped off the dry twigs, which is certainly no great
labor to do, yet it must be done. There was another kind of sweeping
taking place at Waldemar Daa's, in the castle of Borreby. His enemy,
Owe Ramel, of Basnas, was there, with the mortgage of the house and
everything it contained, in his pocket. I rattled the broken
windows, beat against the old rotten doors, and whistled through
cracks and crevices, so that Mr. Owe Ramel did not much like to remain
there. Ida and Anna Dorothea wept bitterly, Joanna stood, pale and
proud, biting her lips till the blood came; but what could that avail?
Owe Ramel offered Waldemar Daa permission to remain in the house
till the end of his life. No one thanked him for the offer, and I
saw the ruined old gentleman lift his head, and throw it back more
proudly than ever. Then I rushed against the house and the old
lime-trees with such force, that one of the thickest branches, a
decayed one, was broken off, and the branch fell at the entrance,
and remained there. It might have been used as a broom, if any one had
wanted to sweep the place out, and a grand sweeping-out there really
was; I thought it would be so. It was hard for any one to preserve
composure on such a day; but these people had strong wills, as
unbending as their hard fortune. There was nothing they could call
their own, excepting the clothes they wore. Yes, there was one thing
more, an alchymist's glass, a new one, which had been lately bought,
and filled with what could be gathered from the ground of the treasure
which had promised so much but failed in keeping its promise. Waldemar
Daa hid the glass in his bosom, and, taking his stick in his hand, the
once rich gentleman passed with his daughters out of the house of
Borreby. I blew coldly upon his flustered cheeks, I stroked his gray
beard and his long white hair, and I sang as well as I was able,
'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r. Gone away! Gone away!' Ida walked on one side
of the old man, and Anna Dorothea on the other; Joanna turned round,
as they left the entrance. Why? Fortune would not turn because she
turned. She looked at the stone in the walls which had once formed
part of the castle of Marck Stig, and perhaps she thought of his
daughters and of the old song,-
"The eldest and youngest, hand-in-hand,
Went forth alone to a distant land."
These were only two; here there were three, and their father with them
also. They walked along the high-road, where once they had driven in
their splendid carriage; they went forth with their father as beggars.
They wandered across an open field to a mud hut, which they rented for
a dollar and a half a year, a new home, with bare walls and empty
cupboards. Crows and magpies fluttered about them, and cried, as if in
contempt, 'Caw, caw, turned out of our nest- caw, caw,' as they had
done in the wood at Borreby, when the trees were felled. Daa and his
daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to
drown the noise; what use was it that they should listen? So they went
to live in the mud hut in the open field, and I wandered away, over
moor and meadow, through bare bushes and leafless forests, to the open
sea, to the broad shores in other lands, 'Whir-r-r, whir-r-r! Away,
away!' year after year."
And what became of Waldemar Daa and his daughters? Listen; the
Wind will tell us:
"The last I saw of them was the pale hyacinth, Anna Dorothea. She
was old and bent then; for fifty years had passed and she had outlived
them all. She could relate the history. Yonder, on the heath, near the
town of Wiborg, in Jutland, stood the fine new house of the canon. It
was built of red brick, with projecting gables. It was inhabited, for
the smoke curled up thickly from the chimneys. The canon's gentle lady
and her beautiful daughters sat in the bay-window, and looked over the
hawthorn hedge of the garden towards the brown heath. What were they
looking at? Their glances fell upon a stork's nest, which was built
upon an old tumbledown hut. The roof, as far as one existed at all,
was covered with moss and lichen. The stork's nest covered the greater
part of it, and that alone was in a good condition; for it was kept in
order by the stork himself. That is a house to be looked at, and not
to be touched," said the Wind. "For the sake of the stork's nest it
had been allowed to remain, although it is a blot on the landscape.
They did not like to drive the stork away; therefore the old shed was
left standing, and the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay. She
had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance her
reward for having once interceded for the preservation of the nest of
its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that time she, the
poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in a rich garden. She
remembered that time well; for it was Anna Dorothea.
"'O-h, o-h,' she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of
the wind among the reeds and rushes. 'O-h, o-h,' she would say, 'no
bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa. The poor school-boys did not
even sing a psalm when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the
earth to rest. O-h, everything has an end, even misery. Sister Ida
became the wife of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which
befell our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a
miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on the
wooden horse. I suppose he is under the ground now; and Ida- alas!
alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am! Kind Heaven, grant
me that I may die.'
"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut that was left
standing for the sake of the stork. I took pity on the proudest of the
sisters," said the Wind. "Her courage was like that of a man; and in
man's clothes she served as a sailor on board ship. She was of few
words, and of a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb,
so I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a woman;
and, in my opinion, that was well done," said the Wind.
On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa
imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the tones
of a psalm under the stork's nest, and within the crumbling walls.
It was Anna Dorothea's last song. There was no window in the hut, only
a hole in the wall; and the sun rose like a globe of burnished gold,
and looked through. With what splendor he filled that dismal dwelling!
Her eyes were glazing, and her heart breaking; but so it would have
been, even had the sun not shone that morning on Anna Dorothea. The
stork's nest had secured her a home till her death. I sung over her
grave; I sung at her father's grave. I know where it lies, and where
her grave is too, but nobody else knows it.
"New times now; all is changed. The old high-road is lost amid
cultivated fields; the new one now winds along over covered graves;
and soon the railway will come, with its train of carriages, and
rush over graves where lie those whose very names are forgoten. All
passed away, passed away!
"This is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it
better, any of you, if you know how," said the Wind; and he rushed
away, and was gone.
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE STORY OF THE YEAR
by Hans Christian Andersen
IT was near the end of January, and a terrible fall of snow was
pelting down, and whirling through the streets and lanes; the
windows were plastered with snow on the outside, snow fell in masses
from the roofs. Every one seemed in a great hurry; they ran, they
flew, fell into each other's arms, holding fast for a moment as long
as they could stand safely. Coaches and horses looked as if they had
been frosted with sugar. The footmen stood with their backs against
the carriages, so as to turn their faces from the wind. The foot
passengers kept within the shelter of the carriages, which could
only move slowly on in the deep snow. At last the storm abated, and
a narrow path was swept clean in front of the houses; when two persons
met in this path they stood still, for neither liked to take the first
step on one side into the deep snow to let the other pass him. There
they stood silent and motionless, till at last, as if by tacit
consent, they each sacrificed a leg and buried it in the deep snow.
Towards evening, the weather became calm. The sky, cleared from the
snow, looked more lofty and transparent, while the stars shone with
new brightness and purity. The frozen snow crackled under foot, and
was quite firm enough to bear the sparrows, who hopped upon it in
the morning dawn. They searched for food in the path which had been
swept, but there was very little for them, and they were terribly
cold. "Tweet, tweet," said one to another; they call this a new
year, but I think it is worse than the last. We might just as well
have kept the old year; I'm quite unhappy, and I have a right to be
so."
"Yes, you have; and yet the people ran about and fired off guns,
to usher in the new year," said a little shivering sparrow. "They
threw things against the doors, and were quite beside themselves
with joy, because the old year had disappeared. I was glad too, for
I expected we should have some warm days, but my hopes have come to
nothing. It freezes harder than ever; I think mankind have made a
mistake in reckoning time."
"That they have," said a third, an old sparrow with a white
poll; "they have something they call a calendar; it's an invention
of their own, and everything must be arranged according to it, but
it won't do. When spring comes, then the year begins. It is the
voice of nature, and I reckon by that."
"But when will spring come?" asked the others.
"It will come when the stork returns, but he is very uncertain,
and here in the town no one knows anything about it. In the country
they have more knowledge; shall we fly away there and wait? we shall
be nearer to spring then, certainly."
"That may be all very well," said another sparrow, who had been
hopping about for a long time, chirping, but not saying anything of
consequence, "but I have found a few comforts here in town which,
I'm afraid, I should miss out in the country. Here in this
neighborhood, there lives a family of people who have been so sensible
as to place three or four flower-pots against the wall in the
court-yard, so that the openings are all turned inward, and the bottom
of each points outward. In the latter a hole has been cut large enough
for me to fly in and out. I and my husband have built a nest in one of
these pots, and all our young ones, who have now flown away, were
brought up there. The people who live there of course made the whole
arrangement that they might have the pleasure of seeing us, or they
would not have done it. It pleased them also to strew bread-crumbs for
us, and so we have food, and may consider ourselves provided for. So I
think my husband and I will stay where we are; although we are not
very happy, but we shall stay."
"And we will fly into the country," said the others, "to see if
spring is coming." And away they flew.
In the country it was really winter, a few degrees colder than
in the town. The sharp winds blew over the snow-covered fields. The
farmer, wrapped in warm clothing, sat in his sleigh, and beat his arms
across his chest to keep off the cold. The whip lay on his lap. The
horses ran till they smoked. The snow crackled, the sparrows hopped
about in the wheel-ruts, and shivered, crying, "Tweet, tweet; when
will spring come? It is very long in coming."
"Very long indeed," sounded over the field, from the nearest
snow-covered hill. It might have been the echo which people heard,
or perhaps the words of that wonderful old man, who sat high on a heap
of snow, regardless of wind or weather. He was all in white; he had on
a peasant's coarse white coat of frieze. He had long white hair, a
pale face, and large clear blue eyes. "Who is that old man?" asked the
sparrows.
"I know who he is," said an old raven, who sat on the fence, and
was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all equal in the
sight of Heaven, even as little birds, and therefore he talked with
the sparrows, and gave them the information they wanted. "I know who
the old man is," he said. "It is Winter, the old man of last year;
he is not dead yet, as the calendar says, but acts as guardian to
little Prince Spring who is coming. Winter rules here still. Ugh!
the cold makes you shiver, little ones, does it not?"
"There! Did I not tell you so?" said the smallest of the sparrows.
"The calendar is only an invention of man, and is not arranged
according to nature. They should leave these things to us; we are
created so much more clever than they are."
One week passed, and then another. The forest looked dark, the
hard-frozen lake lay like a sheet of lead. The mountains had
disappeared, for over the land hung damp, icy mists. Large black crows
flew about in silence; it was as if nature slept. At length a
sunbeam glided over the lake, and it shone like burnished silver.
But the snow on the fields and the hills did not glitter as before.
The white form of Winter sat there still, with his un-wandering gaze
fixed on the south. He did not perceive that the snowy carpet seemed
to sink as it were into the earth; that here and there a little
green patch of grass appeared, and that these patches were covered
with sparrows.
