The Snow Queen
La Reine des Neiges
Original
Edition: Danish
English translated
from French.
Copyright © 2013 Nik
Marcel
All rights reserved.
This dual-language
(bilingual) edition, including its compartmentalised structure, its formatting,
and its translation, is owned by Nik Marcel.
2Language
Books
(A Bilingual
Dual-Language Project)
First
Story
Which Treats of a
Mirror and its Fragments
Here we are, let us commence. When we get to the
end of our story, we shall know much more than we do now; for we have among our
characters a wicked blackbird; the most wicked of all: the Devil.
One day, when he was in a merry mood, he ended up
making a mirror with a marvellous property:
the good and the beautiful reflected in it
disappeared almost entirely, while everything that was bad or displeasing was,
on the contrary, magnified; it took on excessive proportions.
The most beautiful landscapes, through this means,
resembled boiled spinach.
The most respected and honest people appeared to be
monsters; the most handsome seemed to be phony; or they looked upside down;
they had almost no body, such was their gauntness.
Their faces were contorted, grimacing, and
unrecognisable. The smallest blemish or freckle became enormous, and covered
the nose and cheeks.
“This is indeed amusing!” said the Devil, in
contemplating his work.
When a good or pious thought passed through the
mind of any one, the mirror made it crinkle and shake.
The Devil laughed more and more with delight – such
a nice invention.
The student devils that went to his school — for he
was a professor of sorcery — went everywhere telling of an enormous and
incalculable miracle finally accomplished.
It was only from that day, that one could really
see what the world and human beings were really like.
They travelled across the entire universe with the
famous mirror, and soon there was not a land nor a people who had not been
reflected as some type of caricature.
Then, being more bold, they took to flying towards
the heavens, to mock the angels and our good Lord.
The higher they climbed, and the closer they came
to the celestial abodes, the more the mirror contorted and trembled: due to the
divine objects reflected in it. They could hardly hold it; indeed it was a
great struggle.
They continued to fly still higher; still closer to
the angels, and to God.
Suddenly, the mirror trembled so strongly that it
escaped the hands of the impudent student devils; it fell on the earth, where
it broke into millions, or even billions of pieces.
However, it then caused even more misery than
before.
Some of the debris was not bigger than a grain of
sand. The wind scattered them across the vast world.
Well, some people received this grave dust in their
eyes. Once there, it remained, and so these people saw everything as being bad,
ugly, and upside down.
They could not see other than the worst in each
creature – that the defects were all a thing was; for each of the imperceptible
fragments had the same properties as the mirror when it was whole.
More so, it was that some splinters pierced right
into the hearts of certain people; the result was dreadful. The hearts of these
people became like a block of ice; utterly cold and numb.
Out the countless pieces of debris from the mirror,
there remained some large fragments; several of which were as big as window
panes – it was not good to look at your friends through these.
Still others served as lenses for spectacles.
Sorcerers put these over their eyes to (seemingly) see clearly, and to discern
with a refined sense of justice.
When they had these glasses upon their noses, they
laughed and sniggered like the Devil himself looking in his own mirror.
The ugliness that they discovered everywhere
considerably flattered and tickled their perverse spirits.
It was a gigantic mirror; the wind continued to
spread the debris through the air.
So now, listen well.
Second
Story
A Little Boy and a
Little Girl
In a large town – where there were so many houses,
and so many families and people, not everybody could have a garden – most had
to be content with several flower pots.
Two poor children had found a way of having more
than a pot of flowers – it was almost a real garden.
Their parents lived in a narrow alley; and they
lived in two attics, the one facing the other.
The rooves of the two houses almost touched; such
that one could, without danger, pass from one gutter to the other, and pay a
visit.
In front of their window, each child had a big
wooden box filled with soil, where grew garden herbs for the household; also,
in each box was a single rose.
The parents had the idea of putting the boxes
across the little alley, from one window to the other.
This was a considerable enhancement: the peas
drooped their branches and the roses joined up, with their flowers forming a
veritable arch of triumphant splendour.
The children would come and sit on their little
stools amongst the roses.
What pleasure it was when they were permitted to go
and amuse themselves together in this sky bed!
They were not brother and sister, but they loved
each other as if they were.
In winter, their pleasures were interrupted. The windows
were often frosted: the glass panes covered with a layer of ice.
The children would then warm a copper coin on the
stove; they would apply it on the window pane, and it would form a little round
peep hole. On each side of the hole sparkled a sweet and mischievous little
eye: it was the little children. His name was Kay, and she was called Gerda.
In summer, they could then go from one house to the
other in one leap.
In winter, they had to first descend a number of
stairs, and then go up as many. As it was winter, the snowflakes fluttered by
the thousands.
“Those are the white bees,” said the grandmother.
“Do they also have a queen?” asked the little boy,
for he knew that bees usually have one.
“Certainly,” said the grandmother. “Look, she is
flying there where the swarm is thickest.
She is the largest of them all, and never stays in
one place; she is always buzzing around.
She is on the ground, and then suddenly she sets
off to hide in the dark clouds.
On winter nights, it is she who flies through village
streets, looking through the windows; which then freeze and become covered with
bizarre flowers.”
“Yes, yes, I have seen this!” said the two children
at the same time; and they knew that what the grandmother said must be true.
“Can the Snow Queen come in here?” asked the little
girl.
“So let her come,” said the boy. “I will put her on
the burning stove, and she will melt.”
The grandmother simply stroked his hair, and told
some other stories.
On that evening, little Kay was in his room; he was
half undressed, and ready for bed.
He put his chair against the window and climbed on
it – in order to peep through the little round hole that was made by the warm
penny.
A few flakes of snow were falling gently. The
largest of them landed on the edge of one of the flower boxes.
It grew and grew, and ended up forming a young
woman – even bigger than Gerda. She was dressed in the finest white mesh,
embroidered with starry snowflakes.
She was beautiful and gracious, but made completely
of ice. Yet, she was so alive: her eyes gleamed like stars in a winter sky,
though they were constantly moving.
Her face turned towards the window, and she made a
sign with her hand. The little boy was frightened and jumped down from the
chair.
A noise came from outside, as if a great bird had
passed in front of the window, with its wing brushing the glass.
The following day there was a clear frost, and then
came the spring.
The sun came out; the greenery shot away; the
swallows built their nests; the windows opened; and the two children once again
sat, the one across from the other, in their little garden high up on the roof.
How the flowers flourished superbly that summer!
And how the garden was such a pleasure!
The little girl had learnt by heart a hymn where the
theme was of roses; when she thought of it, she was reminded of those in her
own garden.
She sang it to the little boy, and as he learnt it,
the two of them were soon singing in unison:
The roses arise and fade away; but soon we will
again see Christmas and the baby Jesus.
The two little ones kissed the flowers, as if to
say goodbye.
They looked at the bright sunshine, and almost
hoped the sun would hasten on its course, such that they might see baby Jesus
sooner.
END OF PREVIEW
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