Poor Gerda didn’t dare close her eyes; she didn’t know whether she was going to live or die. The robbers all sat around the fire and sang while they drank. The little girl’s mother was so drunk that she turned a somersault. Oh, it was a pretty sight for a little girl to see!
Suddenly one of the wood pigeons cooed, “We have seen little Kai. A white hen carried his sled. He sat in the Snow Queen’s sled when she flew low over the forest. We had just come out of our eggs and she breathed on us; all the other young ones died. We, alone, survived. Coo! Coo!”
“What is it you are saying?” cried Gerda. “Where was the Snow Queen going? Do you know?”
“I suppose she went to Lapland, where there always are snow and ice, but ask the reindeer that stands tied by your bed.”
“Oh yes, ice and snow are always there; it is a blessed place,” sighed the reindeer. “There one can jump and run about freely in the great, glittering valleys. The Snow Queen keeps a summer tent there, but her castle is far to the north, near the pole, on an island called Spitsbergen.”
“Oh, Kai, little Kai!” mumbled Gerda.
“Lie still,” commanded the robber girl, “or I will slit open your stomach!”
In the morning Gerda told her what she had heard from the wood pigeons. The little robber girl looked quite solemn, then nodded her head and said, “I am sure it is he, I am sure.” Then she turned to the reindeer and asked him if he knew where Lapland was.
“Who should know that better than I?” answered the poor animal. “There I was born, there I have run across the great snow fields.” And his eyes gleamed, recollecting what he had lost.
“Listen,” whispered the little robber girl to Gerda. “All the men are gone. Only Mama is here and she won’t leave; but in a little while she will take a drink from the big bottle and then she will take a nap. And then … I will help you!”
She jumped out of bed, ran over and threw her arms around her mother, pulled her beard, and said, “Oh, my own sweet billy goat, good morning!”
The mother tweaked her daughter’s nose, so that it turned both red and blue, but it was all done out of love.
When the mother had drunk from the big bottle, she lay down for her midmorning nap; then the robber girl spoke to the reindeer: “I would have loved to tickle your throat for many a day yet, for you look so funny when I do it. But never mind, I will let you loose so that you can run back to Lapland; but you are to take the little girl with you and bring her to the Snow Queen’s palace where her playmate is. I know you have heard everything she said, for you are always eaves-dropping.”
The reindeer leaped into the air out of pure joy. The robber’s daughter lifted Gerda up on the animal’s back and tied her on so she wouldn’t fall off; and she even gave her a little pillow to sit on. “I don’t really care about your boots, you need them,” she said. “It is cold where you are going. But the muff I am keeping, for it is so soft and nice. But you shan’t freeze, I will give you my mother’s great big mittens; they will keep you warm all the way up to your elbows. Here, put them on! Now your hands look as ugly as my mother’s.”
Gerda cried from happiness and relief.
“I don’t like all your tears,” scolded the little robber girl. “You should look happy now. Here are two loaves of bread and a ham, so you won’t go hungry,” she said as she tied the bread and the ham on the back of the reindeer; then she opened the door and called all the big dogs in. She cut the rope that tethered the reindeer and said in parting, “Run along, but take good care of the little girl!”
Gerda waved good-by with her great big mittens, and away they went, through the forest and across the great plains, as fast as they could. They heard the wolves howl and the ravens cry; and suddenly the sky was all filled with light.
“There are the old northern lights,” said the reindeer. “Look how they shine!”
Still they went on both day and night: farther and farther north.
The bread was eaten and the ham was eaten; and then they were in Lapland.
THE SIXTH STORY: THE LAPP WOMAN AND THE FINNISH WOMAN
They stopped before a little cottage; it was a wretched little hovel: the roof went all the way down to the ground and the doorway was so low that you had to creep through it on all fours. The only person at home was an old Lapp woman who was busy frying some fish over an oil lamp. The reindeer told her Gerda’s story; but first he had told his own, because he thought that was more interesting. Poor Gerda was so cold that she couldn’t even talk.
“Oh, you poor things!” said the Lapp woman. “You have far to go yet. It is more than a hundred miles from here to the camp of the Snow Queen. She amuses herself by shooting fireworks off every night. I shall give you an introduction to the Finnish woman who lives up there. She knows more about it all than I do and will be able to help you. Paper I have none of, so I will write on a dried codfish.”
When little Gerda had eaten and was warm again, the Lapp woman wrote a few words on a dried codfish and told Gerda not to lose it. Then she tied her on the reindeer’s back again and away they ran.
Whish … Whish … it said up in the sky as the northern lights flickered and flared; they were the Snow Queen’s fireworks. At last they came to the Finnish woman’s house; they had to knock on the chimney, for the door was so small that they couldn’t find it.
Goodness me, it was hot inside! The Finnish woman walked around almost naked. She pulled off both Gerda’s boots and her mittens so that the heat would not be unbearable for her. The reindeer got a piece of ice to put on its head. Then the Finnish woman read what was written on the codfish; she read it three times and then she knew it by heart. The fish she put in the pot that was boiling over the fire. It could be eaten, and she never wasted anything. The reindeer told first of his own adventures and then of Gerda’s. The Finnish woman squinted her intelligent eyes but didn’t utter a word.
“You are so clever,” said the reindeer finally. “I know you can tie all the winds of the world into four knots on a single thread. If the sailor loosens the first knot he gets a fair wind; if he loosens the second a strong breeze; but if he loosens the third and the fourth knots, then there’s such a storm that the trees in the forest are torn up by the roots. Won’t you give this little girl a magic drink so that she gains the strength of twelve men and can conquer the Snow Queen?”
“The strength of twelve men,” laughed the Finnish woman. “Yes, I should think that would be enough.” Then she walked over to a shelf and took down a roll of skin which she spread out on the table. Strange words were written there, and the Finnish woman read and studied till the perspiration ran down her forehead.
The reindeer begged her again to help little Gerda; and Gerda looked up at her with eyes filled with tears. The Finnish woman winked, then drew the reindeer into a corner, where she whispered to him while she gave him another piece of ice for his head.
“Little Kai is in the Snow Queen’s palace and is quite satisfied with being there; he thinks it is the best place in the whole world. This is because he has gotten a sliver of glass in his heart and two grains of the same in his eyes. As long as they are there he will never be human again, and the Snow Queen will keep her power over him.”
“But can’t you give Gerda some kind of power so that she can take out the glass?” asked the reindeer.
“I can’t give her any more power than she already has! Don’t you understand how great it is? Don’t you see how men and animals must serve her; how else could she have come so far, walking on her bare feet? But she must never learn of her power; it is in her heart, for she is a sweet and innocent child. If she herself cannot get into the Snow Queen’s palace and free Kai from the glass splinters in his eyes and his heart, how can we help her? Two miles from here begin the gardens of the Snow Queen. Carry Gerda there and set her down by the bush with the red berries, then come right back here and don’t stand about gossiping.” The Finnish woman lifted Gerda back on the reindeer’s back, and he ran as fast a
s he could.
“I don’t have my boots on, and I forgot the mittens,” cried Gerda when she felt the cold making her naked feet smart. But the reindeer did not dare return. He ran on until he came to the bush with the red berries. There he put Gerda down and kissed her on her mouth; two tears ran down the animal’s cheeks; then he leaped and ran back to the Finnish woman as fast as he could.
There stood poor Gerda, barefooted and without mittens on, in the intense arctic cold. She entered the Snow Queen’s garden and ran as fast as she could in the direction of the palace. A whole regiment of snowflakes advanced against her. They had not fallen from the sky, for that was cloudless and illuminated by northern lights. The snowflakes flew just above the snow-covered earth; and as they came nearer they grew in size. Gerda remembered how they had looked when seen through a magnifying glass, but these were even bigger and horrible to look at. They were the Snow Queen’s guard. And what strange creatures they were! Some of them looked like ugly little porcupines, others like bunches of snakes all twisted together, and some like little bears with bristly fur. All of the snowflakes were brilliantly white and terribly alive.
Little Gerda stopped and said her prayers. It was so cold that she could see her own breath; it came like a fine white smoke from her mouth, then it became more and more solid and formed itself into little angels that grew as soon as they touched the ground; all of them had helmets on their heads and shields and spears in their hands. When Gerda had finished saying her prayers a whole legion of little angels stood around her. They threw their spears at the snow monsters, and they splintered into hundreds of pieces. Little Gerda walked on unafraid, and the angels caressed her little feet and hands so she did not feel the cold.
But now we must hear what happened to little Kai. He was not thinking of Gerda—and even if he had been, he could not have imagined that she could be standing right outside the palace.
THE SEVENTH STORY: WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SNOW QUEEN’S PALACE AND AFTERWARD
The walls of the palace were made of snow, and the windows and doors of the sharp winds; it contained more than a hundred halls, the largest several miles long. All were lighted by the sharp glare of the northern lights; they were huge, empty, and terrifyingly cold. Here no one had ever gathered for a bit of innocent fun; not even a dance for polar bears, where they might have walked on their hind legs in the manner of man and the wind could have produced the music. No one had ever been invited in for a little game of cards, with something good to eat and a bit of not too malicious gossip; nor had there ever been a tea party for young white lady foxes. No, empty, vast, and cold was the Snow Queen’s palace.
The northern lights burned so precisely that you could tell to the very second when they would be at their highest and their lowest points. In the middle of that enormous snow hall was a frozen lake. It had cracked into thousands of pieces and every one of them was shaped exactly like all the others. In the middle of the lake was the throne of the Snow Queen. Here she sat when she was at home. She called the lake the Mirror of Reason, and declared that it was the finest and only mirror in the world.
Little Kai was blue—indeed, almost black—from the cold; but he did not feel it, for the Snow Queen had kissed all feeling of coldness out of him, and his heart had almost turned into a lump of ice. He sat arranging and rearranging pieces of ice into patterns. He called this the Game of Reason; and because of the splinters in his eyes, he thought that what he was doing was of great importance, although it was no different from playing with wooden blocks, which he had done when he could hardly talk.
He wanted to put the pieces of ice together in such a way that they formed a certain word, but he could not remember exactly what that word was. The word that he could not remember was “eternity.” The Snow Queen had told him that if he could place the pieces of ice so that they spelled that word, then he would be his own master and she would give him the whole world and a new pair of skates; but, however much he tried, he couldn’t do it.
“I am going to the warm countries,” the Snow Queen had announced that morning. “I want to look into the boiling black pots.” By “black pots,” she meant the volcanoes, Vesuvius and Etna. “I will chalk their peaks a bit. It will do them good to be refreshed; ice is pleasant as a dessert after oranges and lemons.”
The Snow Queen flew away and Kai was left alone in the endless hall. He sat pondering his patterns of ice, thinking and thinking; he sat so still one might have believed that he was frozen to death.
Little Gerda entered the castle. The winds began to whip her face, and could have cut it, but she said her prayers and they lay down to sleep. She came into the vast, empty, cold hall; then she saw Kai!
She recognized him right away, and ran up to him and threw her arms around him, while she exclaimed jubilantly: “Kai, sweet little Kai. At last I have found you.”
But Kai sat still and stiff and cold; then little Gerda cried and her tears fell on Kai’s breast. The warmth penetrated to his heart and melted both the ice and the glass splinter in it. He looked at her and she sang the psalm they had once sung together:
Our roses bloom and fade away,
Our infant Lord abides alway.
May we be blessed his face to see
And ever little children be.
Kai burst into tears and wept so much that the grains of glass in his eyes were washed away. Now he remembered her and shouted joyfully: “Gerda! Sweet little Gerda, where have you been so long? And where have I been?” Kai looked about him. “How cold it is, how empty, and how huge!” And he held onto Gerda, who was so happy that she was both laughing and crying at the same time. It was so blessed, so happy a moment that even the pieces of ice felt it and started to dance; and when they grew tired they lay down and formed exactly that word for which the Snow Queen had promised Kai the whole world and a new pair of skates.
Gerda kissed him on his cheeks and the color came back to them. She kissed his eyes and they became like hers. She kissed his hands and feet, and the blue color left them and the blood pulsed again through his veins. He was well and strong. Now the Snow Queen could return, it did not matter, for his right to his freedom was written in brilliant pieces of ice.
They took each other by the hand and walked out of the great palace. They talked of Grandmother, and the roses that bloomed on the roof at home. The winds were still; and as they walked, the sun broke through the clouds. When they reached the bush with the red berries the reindeer was waiting there for them. He had brought another young reindeer with him and her udder was bursting with milk. The two children drank from it and the reindeer kissed them. Then they rode on the backs of the reindeer to the home of the Finnish woman, where they got warm, were given a good meal and instructions for the homeward journey.
They visited the Lapp woman. She had sewn warm clothes for them and was getting her sled ready.
The two reindeer accompanied them to the border of Lapland. There the green grass started to break through the snow and they could not use the sled any longer. They said good-by to the reindeer and to the Lapp woman. Soon they heard the twitter of the first birds of spring and in the woods the trees were budding.
They met a young girl wearing a red hat and riding a magnificent horse. Gerda recognized the animal, for it was one of the horses that had drawn her golden carriage. The girl had two pistols stuck in her belt; she was the little robber girl, who had got tired of staying at home and now was on her way out into the wide world. She recognized Gerda immediately and the two of them were so happy to see each other.
“You are a fine one,” she said to Kai, “running about as you did. I wonder if you are worth going to the end of the world for?” Gerda touched her cheek and asked her if she knew what had happened to the prince and the princess. “They have gone traveling in foreign lands,” answered the robber girl.
“And what about the crow?”
“The crow is dead,” said the girl. “His tame fiancée has become a widow, she wears a black wool thread
around her leg. She thinks mourning becomes her, but it is all nonsense. But tell me what happened to you and how you managed to find him!”
And both Gerda and Kai told her everything that had happened to them.
“Well, the end was as good as the beginning,” said the robber girl, and took each of them by the hand and promised that if she ever came through the town where they lived she would come and visit them. Then she rode away out into the world; and Kai and Gerda walked hand in hand homeward.
It was really spring. In the ditches the little wild flowers bloomed. The churchbells were ringing. Now they recognized the towers; they were approaching their own city and the home they had left behind.
Soon they were walking up the worn steps of the staircase to the old Grandmother’s apartment. Nothing inside it had changed. The clock said: “Tick-tack …” and the wheels moved. But as they stepped through the doorway they realized that they had grown: they were no longer children.
The roses were blooming in the wooden boxes and the window was open. There were the little stools they used to sit on. Still holding each other’s hands, they sat down, and all memory of the Snow Queen’s palace and its hollow splendor disappeared. The Grandmother sat in the warm sunshine, reading aloud from her Bible: “Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of Heaven as a little child shall not enter therein.”
Kai and Gerda looked into each other’s eyes and now they understood the words from the psalm.
Our roses bloom and fade away,
Our infant Lord abides alway.
May we be blessed his face to see
And ever little children be.
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 31