THE TALE ABOUT HOW ALL THESE TALES CAME TO LIGHT
In our times, but not in this country, there lived a little girl, with
a pair of brown eyes that shone like two big radiant stars. Every time
that she looked with those eyes on her father or her mother, and a
sweet smile beamed on her countenance, the father's and mother's souls
brightened, and it seemed to them as if music, which nobody heard
except themselves, resounded in their hearts.
Very often on such occasions the father took his beloved girl on his
lap, kissed her tenderly, and asked what she would like.
'I should like you to tell me a fairy tale,' invariably answered the
little girl, pressing her rosy face to her father's breast.
'That is in our hands. We can afford that,' answered her father.
Then he tried to recall what he had ever read or heard from his
grandmother or other old folk, and related some story, while the little
girl listened attentively. Her big eyes became still larger; they
beamed like a pair of evening stars, and she now and then slightly and
slowly nodded, taking to heart everything that happened in the story.
If her father told of some evil, unjust person, she exclaimed: 'I do
not like him!' But if the story ran about some one kind-hearted and
good, she was very glad of it, and said: 'That is good!'
And again it was as if beautiful music resounded in her father's soul.
He saw that his little one was grieved with other people's grievances
and rejoiced in other people's happiness. He saw how she pondered over
what he said, and he thought of the time when they, the father and
mother, will grow old, while their little one will become a grown-up
girl. They will live together, as to-day, in mutual love and thorough
friendship. Yet then it will be she, their sweet daughter, that will
take care of them and feed them, as they now take care of her and feed
her. And the father again pressed his lips on his beloved pet's head.
As for the mother, she was never weary of caressing her child and doing
everything for her. But as she had to take care also of the father
and of our girl's baby-sister, who had a pair of eyes like two little
suns, she very often was quite exhausted towards the close of the day.
Therefore when the little girl with starlike eyes went to bed, and,
clasping her mother by the neck with both her hands, asked her to tell
some fairy tale, her mother could not recall any.... Still the little
girl repeated her request again and again....
Then the father said to the mother she should go and rest, while he sat
down at the child's bedside and tried to narrate something.
At last there came a day when all the stories he ever knew were at an
end, while the little girl still entreated for one. The father looked
in his girl's big, starlike eyes and saw that she could not sleep. He
looked also at the mother, who was worried out of her senses by daily
work; and now sat mending the baby's socks. It was evident some story
ought to be told. But what story? What about?
The father looked around. A china cup was standing on the table. It was
half-broken, and he could not help thinking that it had had a trying
life. It had surely had its story. Well, what kind of a story was it?
And after having pondered a little, the father told to his girl the
story of the cup, as he imagined it, and as you have found it in this
very little book.
When he finished the little girl rose in her bed, with her starlike
eyes shining more than usual, and asked: 'Where did you get that story,
father? Did you read it somewhere?'
'No; I just told it out of my head.'
Then the little girl clasped her little hands around her father's neck,
kissed him most enthusiastically, and seemed to be very happy.
Since that time father heard only too often the little girl ask him:
'Father, do tell me some tale of your own.'
And so he did. But as he repeated his stories again and again he now
and then altered them, as he could not remember everything as he told
it the first time. And if the alterations were happy, the little
girl was pleased, but if he omitted anything, she said: 'You told it
differently the other day,' and would not be happy until he recalled
all the exact words and details of his best narrative.
Then it became clear that the father should write his stories down.
After having written some new story he now read it to the girl with
a pair of stars instead of eyes, and sometimes she most emphatically
objected to some turn of the story.
'You wrote it wrongly,' she said on such occasions; 'you must alter it
thus and thus.'
And indeed the father altered until she said it was all right.
One morning a little boy came to visit our little girl, his great
friend. They ran about and played together all the forenoon; but in
the afternoon, when her father lay down on a couch to take a moment's
rest, he was struck by the general stillness which was reigning in the
house. To tell you the truth, the boy was a real mischievous monkey,
and there was little hope to have any peace in the house as long as he
was in it. Still, the fact was that everything was quiet, and only in
the neighbouring room the star-eyed girl's voice sounded in an even,
moderate tone.
The father got up, and went on tiptoe to the next room to look what all
this meant. He saw his little girl sitting on a footstool; her visitor
was beside her on a box, and was all attention.
... 'A-a-a! yawned the Little Old Man, ...' related the little hostess,
showing to the boy how the old man did yawn....
At this moment she perceived her father on the threshold.
'I am telling him your fairy tale about the little old men, you know,'
she said to her father, and then there was a pause, with a lingering
smile on her face.
'Well, go on,' said the boy, pulling her by the sleeve.
The father returned to his couch, and there was a smile on his face
too. He saw clearly that there was something in his stories which made
little folk breathe with indignation, compassion, or joy, when they
heard them. He well knew what it was. He put a good deal of his soul
into his tales, and this soul, coming into contact with those little
souls of his readers, made them bound with delight, or long for redress
of some injustice. Was it not a joy for him too? And if the little
girl with a pair of stars instead of eyes, and the boy, her friend,
found pleasure in his fairy tales, should not the other children have
an opportunity to try the same pleasure? Why should he not print his
stories?
Thus he decided to print them. He sent them into a printing-office, and
before long a little volume came out of the press in many copies. The
little girl with starlike eyes read and re-read the book. Her little
friends, with blue, black, brown, or gray eyes, read and re-read it.
And when, after all that reading and all the chatter about it, bright
sparks of delight and animation appeared in those eyes, these sparks
found their way into his heart and warmed it up, and he too felt happy.
Now, I did not tell you that all this happened in Russia, a far-away
country, and that when the man who wrote the stories came afterwards
to England, together with his daughter, he was sorry to find that he
had left all those children's sparkling eyes, shining with emotion when
reading his tales, behind.
But then he was struck by the thought that in England there were as
many little souls and hearts as in Russia, nay, he has had already some
friends among these little souls both in England and in America; and
thus, perhaps, if he put his stories into English, he might see as many
smiling faces and radiant eyes after the book was read as he did in his
native country? He decided to try at once, and now here is the volume
before you. We will see whether the man was right. He would like to
hear something about it from you.
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_