The Old Bachelor's Nightcap Page #4

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

								

began the history of this tree, and what is it now? Forsaken and
forgotten, in a garden by a hedge in a field, and close to a public
road. There it stands, unsheltered, plundered, and broken. It
certainly has not yet withered; but in the course of years the
number of blossoms from time to time will grow less, and at last it
was cease altogether to bear fruit; and then its history will be
over."

Such were Anthony's thoughts as he stood under the tree, and
during many a long night as he lay in his lonely chamber in the wooden
house in Hauschen Street, Copenhagen, in the foreign land to which the
rich merchant of Bremen, his employer, had sent him on condition
that he should never marry. "Marry! ha, ha!" and he laughed bitterly
to himself at the thought.

Winter one year set in early, and it was freezing hard. Without, a
snowstorm made every one remain at home who could do so. Thus it
happened that Anthony's neighbors, who lived opposite to him, did
not notice that his house remained unopened for two days, and that
he had not showed himself during that time, for who would go out in
such weather unless he were obliged to do so. They were gray, gloomy
days, and in the house whose windows were not glass, twilight and dark
nights reigned in turns. During these two days old Anthony had not
left his bed, he had not the strength to do so. The bitter weather had
for some time affected his limbs. There lay the old bachelor, forsaken
by all, and unable to help himself. He could scarcely reach the
water jug that he had placed by his bed, and the last drop was gone.
It was not fever, nor sickness, but old age, that had laid him low. In
the little corner, where his bed lay, he was over-shadowed as it
were by perpetual night. A little spider, which he could however not
see, busily and cheerfully spun its web above him, so that there
should be a kind of little banner waving over the old man, when his
eyes closed. The time passed slowly and painfully. He had no tears
to shed, and he felt no pain; no thought of Molly came into his
mind. He felt as if the world was now nothing to him, as if he were
lying beyond it, with no one to think of him. Now and then he felt
slight sensations of hunger and thirst; but no one came to him, no one
tended him. He thought of all those who had once suffered from
starvation, of Saint Elizabeth, who once wandered on the earth, the
saint of his home and his childhood, the noble Duchess of Thuringia,
that highly esteemed lady who visited the poorest villages, bringing
hope and relief to the sick inmates. The recollection of her pious
deeds was as light to the soul of poor Anthony. He thought of her as
she went about speaking words of comfort, binding up the wounds of the
afflicted and feeding the hungry, although often blamed for it by
her stern husband. He remembered a story told of her, that on one
occasion, when she was carrying a basket full of wine and
provisions, her husband, who had watched her footsteps, stepped
forward and asked her angrily what she carried in her basket,
whereupon, with fear and trembling, she answered, "Roses, which I have
plucked from the garden." Then he tore away the cloth which covered
the basket, and what could equal the surprise of the pious woman, to
find that by a miracle, everything in her basket--the wine, the
bread--had all been changed into roses.

In this way the memory of the kind lady dwelt in the calm mind
of Anthony. She was as a living reality in his little dwelling in
the Danish land. He uncovered his face that he might look into her
gentle eyes, while everything around him changed from its look of
poverty and want, to a bright rose tint. The fragrance of roses spread
through the room, mingled with the sweet smell of apples. He saw the
branches of an apple-tree spreading above him. It was the tree which
he and Molly had planted together. The fragrant leaves of the tree
fell upon him and cooled his burning brow; upon his parched lips
they seemed like refreshing bread and wine; and as they rested on
his breast, a peaceful calm stole over him, and he felt inclined to
sleep. "I shall sleep now," he whispered to himself. "Sleep will do me
good. In the morning I shall be upon my feet again, strong and well.
Glorious! wonderful! That apple-tree, planted in love, now appears
before me in heavenly beauty." And he slept.

The following day, the third day during which his house had been
closed, the snow-storm ceased. Then his opposite neighbor stepped over
to the house in which old Anthony lived, for he had not yet showed
himself. There he lay stretched on his bed, dead, with his old
nightcap tightly clasped in his two hands. The nightcap, however,
was not placed on his head in his coffin; he had a clean white one
on then. Where now were the tears he had shed? What had become of
those wonderful pearls? They were in the nightcap still. Such tears as
these cannot be washed out, even when the nightcap is forgotten. The
old thoughts and dreams of a bachelor's nightcap still remain. Never
wish for such a nightcap. It would make your forehead hot, cause
your pulse to beat with agitation, and conjure up dreams which would
appear realities.

The first who wore old Anthony's cap felt the truth of this,
though it was half a century afterwards. That man was the mayor
himself, who had already made a comfortable home for his wife and
eleven children, by his industry. The moment he put the cap on he
dreamed of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and of dark days.
"Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he exclaimed, as he tore it from
his bead. Then a pearl rolled out, and then another, and another,
and they glittered and sounded as they fell. "What can this be? Is
it paralysis, or something dazzling my eyes?" They were the tears
which old Anthony had shed half a century before.

To every one who afterwards put this cap on his head, came visions
and dreams which agitated him not a little. His own history was
changed into that of Anthony till it became quite a story, and many
stories might be made by others, so we will leave them to relate their
own. We have told the first; and our last word is, don't wish for a
"bachelor's nightcap."
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