The Garden of Paradise
by
Hans Christian Andersen
(1838)
THERE was once a king’s son who had a larger and more beautiful
collection of books than any one else in the world, and full of splendid
copper-plate engravings. He could read and obtain information respecting every
people of every land; but not a word could he find to explain the situation of
the garden of paradise, and this was just what he most wished to know. His
grandmother had told him when he was quite a little boy, just old enough to go
to school, that each flower in the garden of paradise was a sweet cake, that
the pistils were full of rich wine, that on one flower history was written, on
another geography or tables; so those who wished to learn their lessons had
only to eat some of the cakes, and the more they ate, the more history,
geography, or tables they knew. He believed it all then; but as he grew older,
and learnt more and more, he became wise enough to understand that the splendor
of the garden of paradise must be very different to all this. “Oh, why did Eve
pluck the fruit from the tree of knowledge? why did Adam eat the forbidden
fruit?” thought the king’s son: “if I had been there it would never have
happened, and there would have been no sin in the world.” The garden of
paradise occupied all his thoughts till he reached his seventeenth year.
