The Little Match-Seller
by
Hans Christian Andersen
(1846)
Audiobook free download: Link mediafire
IT was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the
old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor
little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is
true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of
much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her
mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street
to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the
slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with
it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own.
So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and
blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a
bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day,
nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she
crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The
snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders,
but she regarded them not.
Lights were shining from every window, and there
was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New-year’s eve—yes, she
remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond
the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little
feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home,
for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her
father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as
here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled,
although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little
hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be
some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall,
just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it
burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand
over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she
was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass
ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child
stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match
went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt
match in her hand.
She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst
into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent
as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy
white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming
roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more
wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor,
with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went
out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.
She lighted another match, and then she found
herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more
beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at
the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches,
and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down
upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match
went out.
The Christmas lights rose higher and higher,
till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall,
leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the
little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and
who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to
God.
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the
light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and
shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little
one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you
will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious
Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for
she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light
that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so
large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew
upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold
nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little
one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been
frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year’s sun rose
and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death,
holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to
warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen,
nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.
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