The Dryad Page #2

"The Dryad" is an intricate tale by Danish fairy tale legend, Hans Christian Andersen. The storyline follows a Dryad - a mythological tree spirit - who impatiently longs to explore beyond her solitary existence in a grand ancient tree. Lured by the festive glamour of the Paris exhibition, she abandons her roots only to find the bustling, industrialized city overwhelming and herself feeling lost and homesick. In this narrative, Andersen explores themes of nature, industrialization, alienation, and longing.

• Children

								

cloud, and never comes back!"

The old clergyman, too, did not come back. The green roof of his
school was gone, and his teaching-chair had vanished. The children did
not come; but autumn came, and winter came, and then spring also. In
all this change of seasons the Dryad looked toward the region where,
at night, Paris gleamed with its bright mist far on the horizon.

Forth from the town rushed engine after engine, train after train,
whistling and screaming at all hours in the day. In the evening,
towards midnight, at daybreak, and all the day through, came the
trains. Out of each one, and into each one, streamed people from the
country of every king. A new wonder of the world had summoned them
to Paris.

In what form did this wonder exhibit itself?

"A splendid blossom of art and industry," said one, "has
unfolded itself in the Champ de Mars, a gigantic sunflower, from whose
petals one can learn geography and statistics, and can become as
wise as a lord mayor, and raise one's self to the level of art and
poetry, and study the greatness and power of the various lands."

"A fairy tale flower," said another, "a many-colored
lotus-plant, which spreads out its green leaves like a velvet carpet
over the sand. The opening spring has brought it forth, the summer
will see it in all its splendor, the autumn winds will sweep it
away, so that not a leaf, not a fragment of its root shall remain."


In front of the Military School extends in time of peace the arena
of war--a field without a blade of grass, a piece of sandy steppe,
as if cut out of the Desert of Africa, where Fata Morgana displays her
wondrous airy castles and hanging gardens. In the Champ de Mars,
however, these were to be seen more splendid, more wonderful than in
the East, for human art had converted the airy deceptive scenes into
reality.

"The Aladdin's Palace of the present has been built," it was said.
"Day by day, hour by hour, it unfolds more of its wonderful splendor."

The endless halls shine in marble and many colors. "Master
Bloodless" here moves his limbs of steel and iron in the great
circular hall of machinery. Works of art in metal, in stone, in
Gobelins tapestry, announce the vitality of mind that is stirring in
every land. Halls of paintings, splendor of flowers, everything that
mind and skill can create in the workshop of the artisan, has been
placed here for show. Even the memorials of ancient days, out of old
graves and turf-moors, have appeared at this general meeting.

The overpowering great variegated whole must be divided into small
portions, and pressed together like a plaything, if it is to be
understood and described.

Like a great table on Christmas Eve, the Champ de Mars carried a
wonder-castle of industry and art, and around this knickknacks from
all countries had been ranged, knickknacks on a grand scale, for every
nation found some remembrance of home.

Here stood the royal palace of Egypt, there the caravanserai of
the desert land. The Bedouin had quitted his sunny country, and
hastened by on his camel. Here stood the Russian stables, with the
fiery glorious horses of the steppe. Here stood the simple
straw-thatched dwelling of the Danish peasant, with the Dannebrog
flag, next to Gustavus Vasa's wooden house from Dalarne, with its
wonderful carvings. American huts, English cottages, French pavilions,
kiosks, theatres, churches, all strewn around, and between them the
fresh green turf, the clear springing water, blooming bushes, rare
trees, hothouses, in which one might fancy one's self transported into
the tropical forest; whole gardens brought from Damascus, and blooming
under one roof. What colors, what fragrance!

Artificial grottoes surrounded bodies of fresh or salt water,
and gave a glimpse into the empire of the fishes; the visitor seemed
to wander at the bottom of the sea, among fishes and polypi.

"All this," they said, "the Champ de Mars offers;" and around
the great richly-spread table the crowd of human beings moves like a
busy swarm of ants, on foot or in little carriages, for not all feet
are equal to such a fatiguing journey.

Hither they swarm from morning till late in the evening. Steamer
after steamer, crowded with people, glides down the Seine. The
number of carriages is continually on the increase. The swarm of
people on foot and on horseback grows more and more dense. Carriages
and omnibuses are crowded, stuffed and embroidered with people. All
these tributary streams flow in one direction--towards the Exhibition.
On every entrance the flag of France is displayed; around the
world's bazaar wave the flags of all nations. There is a humming and a
murmuring from the hall of the machines; from the towers the melody of
the chimes is heard; with the tones of the organs in the churches
mingle the hoarse nasal songs from the cafes of the East. It is a
kingdom of Babel, a wonder of the world!

In very truth it was. That's what all the reports said, and who
did not hear them? The Dryad knew everything that is told here of
the new wonder in the city of cities.

"Fly away, ye birds! fly away to see, and then come back and
tell me," said the Dryad.

The wish became an intense desire--became the one thought of a
life. Then, in the quiet silent night, while the full moon was
shining, the Dryad saw a spark fly out of the moon's disc, and fall
like a shooting star. And before the tree, whose leaves waved to and
fro as if they were stirred by a tempest, stood a noble, mighty, and
grand figure. In tones that were at once rich and strong, like the
trumpet of the Last Judgment bidding farewell to life and summoning to
the great account, it said:

"Thou shalt go to the city of magic; thou shalt take root there,
and enjoy the mighty rushing breezes, the air and the sunshine
there. But the time of thy life shall then be shortened; the line of
years that awaited thee here amid the free nature shall shrink to
but a small tale. Poor Dryad! It shall be thy destruction. Thy
yearning and longing will increase, thy desire will grow more
stormy, the tree itself will be as a prison to thee, thou wilt quit
thy cell and give up thy nature to fly out and mingle among men.
Then the years that would have belonged to thee will be contracted
to half the span of the ephemeral fly, that lives but a day: one
night, and thy life-taper shall be blown out--the leaves of the tree
will wither and be blown away, to become green never again!"

Thus the words sounded. And the light vanished away, but not the
longing of the Dryad. She trembled in the wild fever of expectation.

"I shall go there!" she cried, rejoicingly. "Life is beginning and
swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it is hastening."

When the gray dawn arose and the moon turned pale and the clouds
were tinted red, the wished-for hour struck. The words of promise were
fulfilled.

People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the roots of
the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it. A wagon was brought
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes