The Ice Maiden Page #7

"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

								

now. Children came running to him, as he had once done, and wished
to sell their wares. One of them offered him an Alpine rose. Rudy took
the rose as a good omen, and thought of Babette. He quickly crossed
the bridge where the two rivers flow into each other. Here he found
a walk over-shadowed with large walnut-trees, and their thick
foliage formed a pleasant shade. Very soon he perceived in the
distance, waving flags, on which glittered a white cross on a red
ground--the standard of the Danes as well as of the Swiss--and
before him lay Interlachen.

"It is really a splendid town, like none other that I have ever
seen," said Rudy to himself. It was indeed a Swiss town in its holiday
dress. Not like the many other towns, crowded with heavy stone houses,
stiff and foreign looking. No; here it seemed as if the wooden
houses on the hills had run into the valley, and placed themselves
in rows and ranks by the side of the clear river, which rushes like an
arrow in its course. The streets were rather irregular, it is true,
but still this added to their picturesque appearance. There was one
street which Rudy thought the prettiest of them all; it had been built
since he had visited the town when a little boy. It seemed to him as
if all the neatest and most curiously carved toy houses which his
grandfather once kept in the large cupboard at home, had been
brought out and placed in this spot, and that they had increased in
size since then, as the old chestnut trees had done. The houses were
called hotels; the woodwork on the windows and balconies was curiously
carved. The roofs were gayly painted, and before each house was a
flower garden, which separated it from the macadamized high-road.
These houses all stood on the same side of the road, so that the
fresh, green meadows, in which were cows grazing, with bells on
their necks, were not hidden. The sound of these bells is often
heard amidst Alpine scenery. These meadows were encircled by lofty
hills, which receded a little in the centre, so that the most
beautifully formed of Swiss mountains--the snow-crowned Jungfrau--could
be distinctly seen glittering in the distance. A number of
elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies from foreign lands, and
crowds of country people from the neighboring cantons, were
assembled in the town. Each marksman wore the number of hits he had
made twisted in a garland round his hat. Here were music and singing
of all descriptions: hand-organs, trumpets, shouting, and noise. The
houses and bridges were adorned with verses and inscriptions. Flags
and banners were waving. Shot after shot was fired, which was the best
music to Rudy's ears. And amidst all this excitement he quite forgot
Babette, on whose account only he had come. The shooters were
thronging round the target, and Rudy was soon amongst them. But when
he took his turn to fire, he proved himself the best shot, for he
always struck the bull's-eye.

"Who may that young stranger be?" was the inquiry on all sides.
"He speaks French as it is spoken in the Swiss cantons."

"And makes himself understood very well when he speaks German,"
said some.

"He lived here, when a child, with his grandfather, in a house
on the road to Grindelwald," remarked one of the sportsmen.

And full of life was this young stranger; his eyes sparkled, his
glance was steady, and his arm sure, therefore he always hit the mark.
Good fortune gives courage, and Rudy was always courageous. He soon
had a circle of friends gathered round him. Every one noticed him, and
did him homage. Babette had quite vanished from his thoughts, when
he was struck on the shoulder by a heavy hand, and a deep voice said
to him in French, "You are from the canton Valais."

Rudy turned round, and beheld a man with a ruddy, pleasant face,
and a stout figure. It was the rich miller from Bex. His broad, portly
person, hid the slender, lovely Babette; but she came forward and
glanced at him with her bright, dark eyes. The rich miller was very
much flattered at the thought that the young man, who was acknowledged
to be the best shot, and was so praised by every one, should be from
his own canton. Now was Rudy really fortunate: he had travelled all
this way to this place, and those he had forgotten were now come to
seek him. When country people go far from home, they often meet with
those they know, and improve their acquaintance. Rudy, by his
shooting, had gained the first place in the shooting-match, just as
the miller at home at Bex stood first, because of his money and his
mill. So the two men shook hands, which they had never done before.
Babette, too, held out her hand to Rudy frankly, and he pressed it
in his, and looked at her so earnestly, that she blushed deeply. The
miller talked of the long journey they had travelled, and of the
many towns they had seen. It was his opinion that he had really made
as great a journey as if he had travelled in a steamship, a railway
carriage, or a post-chaise.

"I came by a much shorter way," said Rudy; "I came over the
mountains. There is no road so high that a man may not venture upon
it."

"Ah, yes; and break your neck," said the miller; "and you look
like one who will break his neck some day, you are so daring."

"Oh, nothing ever happens to a man if he has confidence in
himself," replied Rudy.

The miller's relations at Interlachen, with whom the miller and
Babette were staying, invited Rudy to visit them, when they found he
came from the same canton as the miller. It was a most pleasant visit.
Good fortune seemed to follow him, as it does those who think and
act for themselves, and who remember the proverb, "Nuts are given to
us, but they are not cracked for us." And Rudy was treated by the
miller's relations almost like one of the family, and glasses of
wine were poured out to drink to the welfare of the best shooter.
Babette clinked glasses with Rudy, and he returned thanks for the
toast. In the evening they all took a delightful walk under the
walnut-trees, in front of the stately hotels; there were so many
people, and such crowding, that Rudy was obliged to offer his arm to
Babette. Then he told her how happy it made him to meet people from
the canton Vaud,--for Vaud and Valais were neighboring cantons. He
spoke of this pleasure so heartily that Babette could not resist
giving his arm a slight squeeze; and so they walked on together, and
talked and chatted like old acquaintances. Rudy felt inclined to laugh
sometimes at the absurd dress and walk of the foreign ladies; but
Babette did not wish to make fun of them, for she knew there must be
some good, excellent people amongst them; she, herself, had a
godmother, who was a high-born English lady. Eighteen years before,
when Babette was christened, this lady was staying at Bex, and she
stood godmother for her, and gave her the valuable brooch she now wore
in her bosom.

Her godmother had twice written to her, and this year she was
expected to visit Interlachen with her two daughters; "but they are
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