The Ice Maiden Page #6

"The Ice Maiden" is a captivating fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about Rudy, a young Swiss man with a tragic past and an unusual ability to communicate with animals. Rudy grows up and falls in love with beautiful Babette, but their love is threatened by the sinister Ice Maiden, a supernatural being who claims the lives of those who venture into her icy realm. The book explores themes like love, death, and destiny, melded with a chilling supernatural narrative and picturesque depictions of Swiss landscapes.

• Children

								

behind St. Maurice becomes so narrow that there is only space enough
for the bed of the river and a narrow carriage-road. An old tower
stands here, as if it were guardian to the canton Valais, which ends
at this point; and from it we can look across the stone bridge to
the toll-house on the other side, where the canton Vaud commences. Not
far from this spot stands the town of Bex, and at every step can be
seen an increase of fruitfulness and verdure. It is like entering a
grove of chestnut and walnut-trees. Here and there the cypress and
pomegranate blossoms peep forth; and it is almost as warm as an
Italian climate. Rudy arrived at Bex, and soon finished the business
which had brought him there, and then walked about the town; but not
even the miller's boy could be seen, nor any one belonging to the
mill, not to mention Babette. This did not please him at all.
Evening came on. The air was filled with the perfume of the wild thyme
and the blossoms of the lime-trees, and the green woods on the
mountains seemed to be covered with a shining veil, blue as the sky.
Over everything reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but
as if Nature were holding her breath, that her image might be
photographed on the blue vault of heaven. Here and there, amidst the
trees of the silent valley, stood poles which supported the wires of
the electric telegraph. Against one of these poles leaned an object so
motionless that it might have been mistaken for the trunk of a tree;
but it was Rudy, standing there as still as at that moment was
everything around him. He was not asleep, neither was he dead; but
just as the various events in the world--matters of momentous
importance to individuals--were flying through the telegraph wires,
without the quiver of a wire or the slightest tone, so, through the
mind of Rudy, thoughts of overwhelming importance were passing,
without an outward sign of emotion. The happiness of his future life
depended upon the decision of his present reflections. His eyes were
fixed on one spot in the distance--a light that twinkled through the
foliage from the parlor of the miller's house, where Babette dwelt.
Rudy stood so still, that it might have been supposed he was
watching for a chamois; but he was in reality like a chamois, who will
stand for a moment, looking as if it were chiselled out of the rock,
and then, if only a stone rolled by, would suddenly bound forward with
a spring, far away from the hunter. And so with Rudy: a sudden roll of
his thoughts roused him from his stillness, and made him bound forward
with determination to act.

"Never despair!" cried he. "A visit to the mill, to say good
evening to the miller, and good evening to little Babette, can do no
harm. No one ever fails who has confidence in himself. If I am to be
Babette's husband, I must see her some time or other."

Then Rudy laughed joyously, and took courage to go to the mill. He
knew what he wanted; he wanted to marry Babette. The clear water of
the river rolled over its yellow bed, and willows and lime-trees
were reflected in it, as Rudy stepped along the path to the miller's
house. But, as the children sing--

  "There was no one at home in the house,
  Only a kitten at play."


The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried "mew." But
Rudy had no inclination for this sort of conversation; he passed on,
and knocked at the door. No one heard him, no one opened the door.
"Mew," said the cat again; and had Rudy been still a child, he would
have understood this language, and known that the cat wished to tell
him there was no one at home. So he was obliged to go to the mill
and make inquiries, and there he heard that the miller had gone on a
journey to Interlachen, and taken Babette with him, to the great
shooting festival, which began that morning, and would continue for
eight days, and that people from all the German settlements would be
there.

Poor Rudy! we may well say. It was not a fortunate day for his
visit to Bex. He had just to return the way he came, through St.
Maurice and Sion, to his home in the valley. But he did not despair.
When the sun rose the next morning, his good spirits had returned;
indeed he had never really lost them. "Babette is at Interlachen,"
said Rudy to himself, "many days' journey from here. It is certainly a
long way for any one who takes the high-road, but not so far if he
takes a short cut across the mountain, and that just suits a
chamois-hunter. I have been that way before, for it leads to the
home of my childhood, where, as a little boy, I lived with my
grandfather. And there are shooting matches at Interlachen. I will go,
and try to stand first in the match. Babette will be there, and I
shall be able to make her acquaintance."

Carrying his light knapsack, which contained his Sunday clothes,
on his back, and with his musket and his game-bag over his shoulder,
Rudy started to take the shortest way across the mountain. Still it
was a great distance. The shooting matches were to commence on that
day, and to continue for a whole week. He had been told also that
the miller and Babette would remain that time with some relatives at
Interlachen. So over the Gemmi Rudy climbed bravely, and determined to
descend the side of the Grindelwald. Bright and joyous were his
feelings as he stepped lightly onwards, inhaling the invigorating
mountain air. The valley sunk as he ascended, the circle of the
horizon expanded. One snow-capped peak after another rose before
him, till the whole of the glittering Alpine range became visible.
Rudy knew each ice-clad peak, and he continued his course towards
the Schreckhorn, with its white powdered stone finger raised high in
the air. At length he had crossed the highest ridges, and before him
lay the green pasture lands sloping down towards the valley, which was
once his home. The buoyancy of the air made his heart light. Hill
and valley were blooming in luxuriant beauty, and his thoughts were
youthful dreams, in which old age or death were out of the question.
Life, power, and enjoyment were in the future, and he felt free and
light as a bird. And the swallows flew round him, as in the days of
his childhood, singing "We and you--you and we." All was overflowing
with joy. Beneath him lay the meadows, covered with velvety green,
with the murmuring river flowing through them, and dotted here and
there were small wooden houses. He could see the edges of the
glaciers, looking like green glass against the soiled snow, and the
deep chasms beneath the loftiest glacier. The church bells were
ringing, as if to welcome him to his home with their sweet tones.
His heart beat quickly, and for a moment he seemed to have
foregotten Babette, so full were his thoughts of old recollections. He
was, in imagination, once more wandering on the road where, when a
little boy, he, with other children, came to sell their curiously
carved toy houses. Yonder, behind the fir-trees, still stood his
grandfather's house, his mother's father, but strangers dwelt in it
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