The Old Bachelor's Nightcap Page #2

The Old Bachelor's Nightcap is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about an elderly bachelor living in old Copenhagen who clings to his childhood nightcap as a symbol of his unfulfilled life. The cap, marked by the joys and tragedies of his life, serves as a metaphor for his loneliness and regrets. Andersen uses his poetic style to tell this melancholic tale of love lost, dreams unfulfilled, and the inevitability of death.

• Children

								

he had just to go back again to bed. But often, when he had got half
way back, he would fancy the iron shutters of the door were not
properly fastened, and his thin legs would carry him down again. And
when at last he crept into bed, he would be so cold that his teeth
chattered in his head. He would draw the coverlet closer round him,
pull his nightcap over his eyes, and try to turn his thoughts from
trade, and from the labors of the day, to olden times. But this was
scarcely an agreeable entertainment; for thoughts of olden memories
raise the curtains from the past, and sometimes pierce the heart
with painful recollections till the agony brings tears to the waking
eyes. And so it was with Anthony; often the scalding tears, like
pearly drops, would fall from his eyes to the coverlet and roll on the
floor with a sound as if one of his heartstrings had broken.
Sometimes, with a lurid flame, memory would light up a picture of life
which had never faded from his heart. If he dried his eyes with his
nightcap, then the tear and the picture would be crushed; but the
source of the tears remained and welled up again in his heart. The
pictures did not follow one another in order, as the circumstances
they represented had occurred; very often the most painful would
come together, and when those came which were most full of joy, they
had always the deepest shadow thrown upon them.

The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged by every one to be
very beautiful, but more beautiful still in the eyes of old Anthony
were the beech woods in the neighborhood of Wartburg. More grand and
venerable to him seemed the old oaks around the proud baronial castle,
where the creeping plants hung over the stony summits of the rocks;
sweeter was the perfume there of the apple-blossom than in all the
land of Denmark. How vividly were represented to him, in a
glittering tear that rolled down his cheek, two children at play--a
boy and a girl. The boy had rosy cheeks, golden ringlets, and clear,
blue eyes; he was the son of Anthony, a rich merchant; it was himself.
The little girl had brown eyes and black hair, and was clever and
courageous; she was the mayor's daughter, Molly. The children were
playing with an apple; they shook the apple, and heard the pips
rattling in it. Then they cut it in two, and each of them took half.
They also divided the pips and ate all but one, which the little
girl proposed should be placed in the ground.

"You will see what will come out," she said; "something you
don't expect. A whole apple-tree will come out, but not directly."
Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and were soon both
very busy and eager about it. The boy made a hole in the earth with
his finger, and the little girl placed the pip in the hole, and then
they both covered it over with earth.

"Now you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has taken
root," said Molly; "no one ever should do that. I did so with my
flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were growing. I
didn't know any better then, and the flowers all died."

Little Anthony kept the flower-pot, and every morning during the
whole winter he looked at it, but there was nothing to be seen but
black earth. At last, however, the spring came, and the sun shone warm
again, and then two little green leaves sprouted forth in the pot.

"They are Molly and me," said the boy. "How wonderful they are,
and so beautiful!"

Very soon a third leaf made its appearance.

"Who does that stand for?" thought he, and then came another and
another. Day after day, and week after week, till the plant became
quite a tree. And all this about the two children was mirrored to
old Anthony in a single tear, which could soon be wiped away and
disappear, but might come again from its source in the heart of the
old man.

In the neighborhood of Eisenach stretches a ridge of stony
mountains, one of which has a rounded outline, and shows itself
above the rest without tree, bush, or grass on its barren summits.
It is called the "Venus Mountain," and the story goes that the "Lady
Venus," one of the heathen goddesses, keeps house there. She is also
called "Lady Halle," as every child round Eisenach well knows. She
it was who enticed the noble knight, Tannhauser, the minstrel, from
the circle of singers at Wartburg into her mountain.

Little Molly and Anthony often stood by this mountain, and one day
Molly said, "Do you dare to knock and say, 'Lady Halle, Lady Halle,
open the door: Tannhauser is here!'" But Anthony did not dare.
Molly, however, did, though she only said the words, "Lady Halle, Lady
Halle," loudly and distinctly; the rest she muttered so much under her
breath that Anthony felt certain she had really said nothing; and
yet she looked quite bold and saucy, just as she did sometimes when
she was in the garden with a number of other little girls; they
would all stand round him together, and want to kiss him, because he
did not like to be kissed, and pushed them away. Then Molly was the
only one who dared to resist him. "I may kiss him," she would say
proudly, as she threw her arms round his neck; she was vain of her
power over Anthony, for he would submit quietly and think nothing of
it. Molly was very charming, but rather bold; and how she did tease!

They said Lady Halle was beautiful, but her beauty was that of a
tempting fiend. Saint Elizabeth, the tutelar saint of the land, the
pious princess of Thuringia, whose good deeds have been immortalized
in so many places through stories and legends, had greater beauty
and more real grace. Her picture hung in the chapel, surrounded by
silver lamps; but it did not in the least resemble Molly.

The apple-tree, which the two children had planted, grew year
after year, till it became so large that it had to be transplanted
into the garden, where the dew fell and the sun shone warmly. And
there it increased in strength so much as to be able to withstand
the cold of winter; and after passing through the severe weather, it
seemed to put forth its blossoms in spring for very joy that the
cold season had gone. In autumn it produced two apples, one for
Molly and one for Anthony; it could not well do less. The tree after
this grew very rapidly, and Molly grew with the tree. She was as fresh
as an apple-blossom, but Anthony was not to behold this flower for
long. All things change; Molly's father left his old home, and Molly
went with him far away. In our time, it would be only a journey of a
few hours, but then it took more than a day and a night to travel so
far eastward from Eisenbach to a town still called Weimar, on the
borders of Thuringia. And Molly and Anthony both wept, but these tears
all flowed together into one tear which had the rosy shimmer of joy.
Molly had told him that she loved him--loved him more than all the
splendors of Weimar.

One, two, three years went by, and during the whole time he
received only two letters. One came by the carrier, and the other a
traveller brought. The way was very long and difficult, with many
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