THE SNOW MAN

                                  1872

                 FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

                              THE SNOW MAN

                       by Hans Christian Andersen



"IT is so delightfully cold," said the Snow Man, "that it makes my

whole body crackle. This is just the kind of wind to blow life into

one. How that great red thing up there is staring at me!" He meant the

sun, who was just setting. "It shall not make me wink. I shall

manage to keep the pieces."

He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head, instead of eyes;

his mouth was made of an old broken rake, and was, of course,

furnished with teeth. He had been brought into existence amidst the

joyous shouts of boys, the jingling of sleigh-bells, and the

slashing of whips. The sun went down, and the full moon rose, large,

round, and clear, shining in the deep blue.

"There it comes again, from the other side," said the Snow Man,

who supposed the sun was showing himself once more. "Ah, I have

cured him of staring, though; now he may hang up there, and shine,

that I may see myself. If I only knew how to manage to move away

from this place,- I should so like to move. If I could, I would

slide along yonder on the ice, as I have seen the boys do; but I don't

understand how; I don't even know how to run."

"Away, away," barked the old yard-dog. He was quite hoarse, and

could not pronounce "Bow wow" properly. He had once been an indoor

dog, and lay by the fire, and he had been hoarse ever since. "The

sun will make you run some day. I saw him, last winter, make your

predecessor run, and his predecessor before him. Away, away, they

all have to go."

"I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "Is that

thing up yonder to teach me to run? I saw it running itself a little

while ago, and now it has come creeping up from the other side.

"You know nothing at all," replied the yard-dog; "but then, you've

only lately been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and

the one before it was the sun. It will come again to-morrow, and

most likely teach you to run down into the ditch by the well; for I

think the weather is going to change. I can feel such pricks and stabs

in my left leg; I am sure there is going to be a change."

"I don't understand him," said the Snow Man to himself; "but I

have a feeling that he is talking of something very disagreeable.

The one who stared so just now, and whom he calls the sun, is not my

friend; I can feel that too."

"Away, away," barked the yard-dog, and then he turned round

three times, and crept into his kennel to sleep.

There was really a change in the weather. Towards morning, a thick

fog covered the whole country round, and a keen wind arose, so that

the cold seemed to freeze one's bones; but when the sun rose, the

sight was splendid. Trees and bushes were covered with hoar frost, and

looked like a forest of white coral; while on every twig glittered

frozen dew-drops. The many delicate forms concealed in summer by

luxuriant foliage, were now clearly defined, and looked like

glittering lace-work. From every twig glistened a white radiance.

The birch, waving in the wind, looked full of life, like trees in

summer; and its appearance was wondrously beautiful. And where the sun

shone, how everything glittered and sparkled, as if diamond dust had

been strewn about; while the snowy carpet of the earth appeared as

if covered with diamonds, from which countless lights gleamed,

whiter than even the snow itself.

"This is really beautiful," said a young girl, who had come into

the garden with a young man; and they both stood still near the Snow

Man, and contemplated the glittering scene. "Summer cannot show a more

beautiful sight," she exclaimed, while her eyes sparkled.

"And we can't have such a fellow as this in the summer time,"

replied the young man, pointing to the Snow Man; "he is capital."

The girl laughed, and nodded at the Snow Man, and then tripped

away over the snow with her friend. The snow creaked and crackled

beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch.

"Who are these two?" asked the Snow Man of the yard-dog. "You have

been here longer than I have; do you know them?"

"Of course I know them," replied the yard-dog; "she has stroked my

back many times, and he has given me a bone of meat. I never bite

those two."

"But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.

"They are lovers," he replied; "they will go and live in the

same kennel by-and-by, and gnaw at the same bone. Away, away!"

"Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the Snow

Man.

"Well, they belong to the same master," retorted the yard-dog.

"Certainly people who were only born yesterday know very little. I can

see that in you. I have age and experience. I know every one here in

the house, and I know there was once a time when I did not lie out

here in the cold, fastened to a chain. Away, away!"

"The cold is delightful," said the Snow Man; "but do tell me

tell me; only you must not clank your chain so; for it jars all

through me when you do that."

"Away, away!" barked the yard-dog; "I'll tell you; they said I was

a pretty little fellow once; then I used to lie in a velvet-covered

chair, up at the master's house, and sit in the mistress's lap. They

used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an embroidered

handkerchief, and I was called 'Ami, dear Ami, sweet Ami.' But after a

while I grew too big for them, and they sent me away to the

housekeeper's room; so I came to live on the lower story. You can look

into the room from where you stand, and see where I was master once;

for I was indeed master to the housekeeper. It was certainly a smaller

room than those up stairs; but I was more comfortable; for I was not

being continually taken hold of and pulled about by the children as

I had been. I received quite as good food, or even better. I had my

own cushion, and there was a stove- it is the finest thing in the

world at this season of the year. I used to go under the stove, and

lie down quite beneath it. Ah, I still dream of that stove. Away,

away!"

"Does a stove look beautiful?" asked the Snow Man, "is it at all

like me?"

"It is just the reverse of you,' said the dog; "it's as black as a

crow, and has a long neck and a brass knob; it eats firewood, so

that fire spurts out of its mouth. We should keep on one side, or

under it, to be comfortable. You can see it through the window, from

where you stand."

Then the Snow Man looked, and saw a bright polished thing with a

brazen knob, and fire gleaming from the lower part of it. The Snow Man

felt quite a strange sensation come over him; it was very odd, he knew

not what it meant, and he could not account for it. But there are

people who are not men of snow, who understand what it is. "'And why

did you leave her?" asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him that

the stove must be of the female sex. "How could you give up such a

comfortable place?"

"I was obliged," replied the yard-dog. "They turned me out of

doors, and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest of my

master's sons in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I was

gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I thought; but they were so angry, and

from that time I have been fastened with a chain, and lost my bone.

Don't you hear how hoarse I am. Away, away! I can't talk any more like

other dogs. Away, away, that is the end of it all."

But the Snow Man was no longer listening. He was looking into

the housekeeper's room on the lower storey; where the stove stood on

its four iron legs, looking about the same size as the Snow Man

himself. "What a strange crackling I feel within me," he said.

"Shall I ever get in there? It is an innocent wish, and innocent

wishes are sure to be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against

her, even if I have to break the window."

"You must never go in there," said the yard-dog, "for if you

approach the stove, you'll melt away, away."

"I might as well go," said the Snow Man, "for I think I am

breaking up as it is."

During the whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the

window, and in the twilight hour the room became still more

inviting, for from the stove came a gentle glow, not like the sun or

the moon; no, only the bright light which gleams from a stove when

it has been well fed. When the door of the stove was opened, the

flames darted out of its mouth; this is customary with all stoves. The

light of the flames fell directly on the face and breast of the Snow

Man with a ruddy gleam. "I can endure it no longer," said he; "how

beautiful it looks when it stretches out its tongue?"

The night was long, but did not appear so to the Snow Man, who

stood there enjoying his own reflections, and crackling with the cold.

In the morning, the window-panes of the housekeeper's room were

covered with ice. They were the most beautiful ice-flowers any Snow

Man could desire, but they concealed the stove. These window-panes

would not thaw, and he could see nothing of the stove, which he

pictured to himself, as if it had been a lovely human being. The

snow crackled and the wind whistled around him; it was just the kind

of frosty weather a Snow Man might thoroughly enjoy. But he did not

enjoy it; how, indeed, could he enjoy anything when he was "stove

sick?"

"That is terrible disease for a Snow Man," said the yard-dog; "I

have suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away, away," he

barked and then he added, "the weather is going to change." And the

weather did change; it began to thaw. As the warmth increased, the

Snow Man decreased. He said nothing and made no complaint, which is

a sure sign. One morning he broke, and sunk down altogether; and,

behold, where he had stood, something like a broomstick remained

sticking up in the ground. It was the pole round which the boys had

built him up. "Ah, now I understand why he had such a great longing

for the stove," said the yard-dog. "Why, there's the shovel that is

used for cleaning out the stove, fastened to the pole." The Snow Man

had a stove scraper in his body; that was what moved him so. "But it's

all over now. Away, away." And soon the winter passed. "Away, away,"

barked the hoarse yard-dog. But the girls in the house sang,

        "Come from your fragrant home, green thyme;

          Stretch your soft branches, willow-tree;

        The months are bringing the sweet spring-time,

          When the lark in the sky sings joyfully.

        Come gentle sun, while the cuckoo sings,

        And I'll mock his note in my wanderings."



And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.





                        THE END

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