Picturebook Without Pictures

by Jean Hersholt

Hans Christian Andersen

Картинки -невидимки

пер. А. В. Ганзен

Ганс Христиан Андерсен

First Evening

“Last night” – these are the Moon’s own words – “I glided through the clear sky of India and reflected myself in the Ganges. My rays struggled to force their way through the thick roof of old sycamore trees that arched beneath me like the shell of a tortoise. From the thicket, a Hindu maiden stepped out, graceful as a gazelle and beautiful as Eve. There was something truly spiritual, and yet material, about her, and I could even make out her thoughts beneath her delicate skin. The thorny liana plants tore her sandals, but she walked rapidly forward. The wild beasts that came up from the river after quenching their thirst fled away in fright, for the maiden held a lighted lamp in her hand. I could see the blood in the delicate fingers arched into a shield over the flame of the lamp. She walked down to the river, then placed the lamp on the surface, and it drifted away with the current. The flame flickered back and forth, as if it wanted to expire, but still it burned as the maiden’s dark, sparkling eyes followed it, with a soulful gaze from beneath the long, silken lashes of her eyelids. She knew that if the lamp should burn as long as her eyes could follow it, her lover would still be alive; but if it went out, he would be dead. As the lamp burned and trembled, the heart of the maiden burned and trembled. She knelt and prayed. Beside her a deadly snake lurked in the grass, but she thought only of Brahma and of her bridegroom.

‘He lives!’ she shouted joyfully, and the echo answered from the mountains, ‘He lives!’ “

Third Evening

“In the narrow lane close by – it is so narrow that my rays can slide down the walls of the houses for only a moment, and yet in that moment I see enough to understand the little world stirring below – I saw a woman. Sixteen years ago she was a child, and out in the country she used to play in the old parsonage garden. The rosebush hedges were old, and their blossoms had fallen. They had run wild, and grew rankly over the paths, twisting their long branches up the trunks of the apple trees. Here and there a rose still sat on her stem, not so lovely as the queen of the flowers usually appears, but the color was still there, and the fragrance too. The clergyman’s little daughter seemed to me a much lovelier rose, as she sat on her stool under the straggling hedge and kissed her doll with the caved-in pasteboard cheeks.

“Ten years later, I saw her again; I saw her in a splendid ballroom, and she was the beautiful bride of a rich merchant. I was happy over her good fortune, and sought her again in the silent nights – alas, no one then heeded my clear eye, my trusty watch! My rose also grew up in rank wildness, like the roses in the parsonage garden. Life in the everyday world has its tragedies too, and tonight I witnessed the final act.

“In the narrow street, deathly ill, she lay upon her bed, and the wicked, rough, and cruel landlord, now her only acquaintance, tore away her blanket. ‘Stand up!’ he said. ‘Your cheeks are enough to frighten anyone! Dress yourself! Get some money, or I’ll throw you into the street! Get up, and hurry!’

” ‘Death is in my breast!’ she cried. ‘Oh, let me rest!’ But he dragged her up, painted her cheeks, put roses in her hair, set her at the window with a lighted candle beside her, and went away. I stared at her; she sat there motionless, though her hand fell down into her lap. The wind pushed against the window until it broke a pane, but still she did not move. The curtain fluttered about her like a flame – she was dead. There at the open window sat the dead one, as a preachment against sin – my rose from the parsonage garden!”