self-giving. I should like to bequeath some knowledge of the magic of
self-giving. Now Nichola," I hazarded, to evade the matter, "would no
doubt say: 'And from my soul to your soul this word about the universe:
_Helping is why_.'"
"But you--you, Etarre," Pelleas persisted; "what would the real You
will to others, in this mortuary telegram?"
And as I looked at him I knew.
"O Pelleas," I said, "I think I would telegraph to every one: 'From my
spirit to your spirit, some understanding of the preciousness of love.
And the need to keep it true.'"
I shall always remember with what gladness he turned to me. I wished
that his smile and our bright hearth and our Christmas roses might
bless every one.
"I wanted you to say that," said Pelleas.
ZONA GALE in _The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_
The Fir Tree
Far away in the deep forest there once grew a pretty Fir Tree; the
situation was delightful, the sun shone full upon him, the breeze
played freely around him, and in the neighbourhood grew many companion
fir trees, some older, some younger. But the little Fir Tree was
not happy: he was always longing to be tall; he thought not of the
warm sun and the fresh air; he cared not for the merry, prattling
peasant children who came to the forest to look for strawberries and
raspberries. Except, indeed, sometimes, when after having filled their
pitchers, or threaded the bright berries on a straw, they would sit
down near the little Fir Tree, and say, "What a pretty little tree this
is!" and then the Fir Tree would feel very much vexed.
Year by year he grew, a long green shoot sent he forth every year; for
you may always tell how many years a fir tree has lived by counting the
number of joints in its stem.
"Oh, that I was as tall as the others are," sighed the little Tree,
"then I should spread out my branches so far, and my crown should look
out over the wide world around! the birds would build their nests among
my branches, and when the wind blew I should bend my head so grandly,
just as the others do!"
He had not pleasure in the sunshine, in the song of the birds, or in
the birds, or in the red clouds that sailed over him every morning and
evening.
In the winter time, when the ground was covered with the white,
glistening snow, there was a hare that would come continually
scampering about, and jumping right over the little Tree's head--and
that was most provoking! However, two winters passed away, and by the
third the Tree was so tall that the hare was obliged to run around it.
"Oh! to grow, to grow, to become tall and old, that is the only thing
in the world worth living for;"--so thought the Tree.
The wood cutters came in the autumn and felled some among the largest
of the trees; this happened every year, and our young Fir, who was
by this time a tolerable height, shuddered when he saw those grand,
magnificent trees fall with a tremendous crash, crackling to the earth:
their boughs were then all cut off. Terribly naked, and lanky, and long
did the stem look after this--they could hardly be recognized. They
were laid one upon another in wagons, and horses drew them away, far,
far away, from the forest. Where could they be going? What might be
their fortunes?
So next spring, when the Swallows and the Storks had returned from
abroad, the Tree asked them, saying, "Know you not whither they are
taken? have you not met them?"
The swallows knew nothing about the matter, but the Stork looked
thoughtful for a moment, then nodded his head, and said: "Yes, I
believe I have seen them! As I was flying from Egypt to this place I
met several ships; those ships had splendid masts. I have little doubt
that they were the trees that you speak of; they smelled like fir wood.
I may congratulate you, for they sailed gloriously, quite gloriously!"
"Oh, that I, too, were tall enough to sail upon the sea! Tell me what
it is, this sea, and what it looks like."
"Thank you, it would take too long, a great deal!" said the Stork, and
away he stalked.
"Rejoice in thy youth!" said the Sunbeams; "rejoice in thy luxuriant
youth, in the fresh life that is within thee!"
And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him, but the
Fir Tree understood them not.
When Christmas approached, many quite young trees were felled--trees
which were some of them not so tall or of just the same height as the
young restless Fir Tree who was always longing to be away. These young
trees were chosen from the most beautiful, their branches were not cut
off, they were laid in a wagon, and horses drew them away, far, far
away from the forest.
"Where are they going?" asked the Fir Tree. "They are not larger than
I am; indeed, one of them was much less. Why do they keep all their
branches? where can they be gone?"
"We know! we know!" twittered the Sparrows. "We peeped in through
the windows of the town below! we know where they are gone! Oh, you
cannot think what honour and glory they receive! We looked through
the window-panes and saw them planted in a warm room, and decked out
with such beautiful things--gilded apples, sweetmeats, playthings, and
hundreds of bright candles!"
"And then?" asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough; "and then?
what happened then?"
"Oh, we saw no more. That was beautiful, beautiful beyond compare!"
"Is this glorious lot destined to be mine?" cried the Fir Tree, with
delight. "This is far better than sailing over the sea. How I long for
the time! Oh, that I were even now in the wagon! that I were in the
warm room, honoured and adorned! and then--yes, then, something still
better must happen, else why should they take the trouble to decorate
me? it must be that something still greater, still more splendid, must
happen--but what? Oh, I suffer, I suffer with longing! I know not what
it is that I feel!"
"Rejoice in our love!" said the Air and the Sunshine. "Rejoice in thy
youth and thy freedom!"
But rejoice he never would: he grew and grew, in winter as in summer
he stood there clothed in green, dark green foliage; the people that
saw him said, "That is a beautiful tree!" and, next Christmas, he was
the first that was felled. The axe struck sharply through the wood,
the tree fell to the earth with a heavy groan; he suffered an agony, a
faintness, that he had never expected. He quite forgot to think of his
good fortune, he felt such sorrow at being compelled to leave his home,
the place whence he had sprung; he knew that he should never see again
those dear old comrades, or the little bushes and flowers that had
flourished under his shadow, perhaps not even the birds. Neither did he
find the journey by any means pleasant.
The Tree first came to himself when, in the court-yard to which he
first was taken with the other trees, he heard a man say, "This is a
splendid one, the very thing we want!"
Then came two smartly dressed servants, and carried the Fir Tree into
a large and handsome saloon. Pictures hung on the walls, and on the
mantel-piece stood large Chinese vases with lions on the lids; there
were rocking-chairs, silken sofas, tables covered with picture-books,
and toys that had cost a hundred times a hundred rix-thalers--at least
so said the children. And the Fir Tree was planted in a large cask
filled with sand, but no one could know that it was a cask, for it was
hung with green cloth and placed upon the carpet woven of many gay
colours. Oh, how the Tree trembled! What was to happen next? A young
lady, assisted by the servants, now began to adorn him.
Upon some branches they hung little nets cut out of coloured paper,
every net filled with sugar-plums; from others gilded apples and
walnuts were suspended, looking just as if they had grown there; and
more than a hundred little wax tapers, red, blue, and white, were
placed here and there among the boughs. Dolls, that looked almost like
men and women,--the Tree had never seen such things before,--seemed
dancing to and fro among the leaves, and highest, on the summit, was
fastened a large star of gold tinsel; this was, indeed, splendid,
splendid beyond compare! "This evening," they said, "this evening it
will be lighted up."
"Would that it were evening!" thought the Tree. "Would that the lights
were kindled, for then--what will happen then? Will the trees come out
of the forest to see me? Will the sparrows fly here and look in through
the window-panes? Shall I stand here adorned both winter and summer?"
He thought much of it; he thought till he had bark-ache with longing,
and bark-aches with trees are as bad as head-aches with us. The candles
were lighted,--oh, what a blaze of splendour! the Tree trembled in all
his branches, so that one of them caught fire. "Oh, dear!" cried the
young lady, and it was extinguished in great haste.
So the Tree dared not tremble again; he was so fearful of losing
something of his splendour, he felt almost bewildered in the midst
of all this glory and brightness. And now, all of a sudden, both
folding-doors were flung open, and a troop of children rushed in as
if they had a mind to jump over him. The older people followed more
quietly; the little ones stood quite silent, but only for a moment!
then their jubilee burst forth afresh; they shouted till the walls
re-echoed, they danced round the Tree, one present after another was
torn down.
"What are they doing?" thought the Tree; "what will happen
now!" And the candles burned down to the branches, so they were
extinguished,--and the children were given leave to plunder the Tree.
Oh! they rushed upon him in such riot, that the boughs all crackled;
had not his summit been festooned with the gold star to the ceiling he
would have been overturned.
The children danced and played about with their beautiful playthings;
no one thought any more of the Tree except the old nurse, who came and
peeped among the boughs, but it was only to see whether perchance a fig
or an apple had not been left among them.
"A story, a story!" cried the children, pulling a short, thick man
toward the Tree. He sat down, saying, "It is pleasant to sit under the
shade of green boughs; besides, the Tree may be benefited by hearing
my story. But I shall only tell you one. Would you like to hear about
Ivedy Avedy, or about Humpty Dumpty, who fell downstairs, and yet came
to the throne and won the Princess?"
"Ivedy Avedy!" cried some; "Humpty Dumpty!" cried others; there was
a famous uproar; the Fir Tree alone was silent, thinking to himself,
"Ought I to make a noise as they do? or ought I to do nothing at all?"
for he most certainly was one of the company, and had done all that had
been required of him.
And the short, thick man told the story of Humpty Dumpty, who fell
downstairs, and yet came to the throne and won the Princess. And the
children clapped their hands and called out for another; they wanted
to hear the story of Ivedy Avedy also, but they did not get it. The
Fir Tree stood meanwhile quite silent and thoughtful--the birds in
the forest had never related anything like this. "Humpty Dumpty fell
downstairs, and yet was raised to the throne and won the Princess!
Yes, yes, strange things come to pass in the world!" thought the Fir
Tree, who believed it must all be true, because such a pleasant man
had related it. "Ah, ah! who knows but I may fall downstairs and win a
Princess?" And he rejoiced in the expectation of being next day again
decked out with candles and playthings, gold and fruit.
"To-morrow I will not tremble," thought he. "I will rejoice in my
magnificence. To-morrow I shall again hear the story of Humpty Dumpty,
and perhaps that about Ivedy Avedy likewise," and the Tree mused
thereupon all night.
In the morning the maids came in.
"Now begins my state anew!" thought the Tree. But they dragged him out
of the room, up the stairs, and into an attic-chamber, and there thrust
him into a dark corner, where not a ray of light could penetrate. "What
can be the meaning of this?" thought the Tree. "What am I to do here?
What shall I hear in this place?" And he leant against the wall, and
thought, and thought. And plenty of time he had for thinking it over,
for day after day and night after night passed away, and yet no one
ever came into the room. At last somebody did come in, but it was only
to push into the corner some old trunks; the Tree was now entirely
hidden from sight, and apparently entirely forgotten.
"It is now winter," thought the Tree. "The ground is hard and covered
with snow; they cannot plant me now, so I am to stay here in shelter
till the spring. Men are so clever and prudent! I only wish it were
not so dark and dreadfully lonely! not even a little hare! Oh, how
pleasant it was in the forest, when the snow lay on the ground and the
hare scampered about,--yes, even when he jumped over my head, though I
did not like it then. It is so terribly lonely here."
"Squeak, squeak!" cried a little Mouse, just then gliding forward.
Another followed; they snuffed about the Fir Tree, and then slipped in
and out among the branches.
"It is horribly cold!" said the little Mice. "Otherwise it is very
comfortable here. Don't you think so, you old Fir Tree?"
"I am not old," said the Fir Tree; "there are many who are much older
than I am."
"How came you here?" asked the Mice, "and what do you know?" They were
most uncommonly curious. "Tell us about the most delightful place on
earth. Have you ever been there? Have you been into the store room,
where cheeses lie on the shelves, and bacon hangs from the ceiling;
where one can dance over tallow candles; where one goes in thin and
comes out fat?"
"I know nothing about that," said the Tree, "but I know the forest,
where the sun shines and where the birds sing!" and then he spoke of
his youth and its pleasures. The little Mice had never heard anything
like it before; they listened so attentively and said, "Well, to be
sure! how much you have seen! how happy you have been!"
"Happy!" repeated the Fir Tree, in surprise, and he thought a moment
over all that he had been saying,--"Yes, on the whole, those were
pleasant times!" He then told them about the Christmas eve, when he
had been decked out with cakes and candles.
"Oh!" cried the little Mice, "how happy you have been, you old Fir
Tree!"
"I am not old at all!" returned the Fir; "it is only this winter that I
have left the forest; I am just in the prime of life!"
"How well you can talk!" said the little Mice; and the next night they
came again, and brought with them four other little Mice, who wanted
also to hear the Tree's history; and the more the Tree spoke of his
youth in the forest, the more vividly he remembered it, and said,
"Yes, those were pleasant times! but they may come again, they may
come again! Humpty Dumpty fell downstairs, and for all that he won
the Princess; perhaps I, too, may win a Princess;" and then the Fir
Tree thought of a pretty little delicate Birch Tree that grew in the
forest,--a real Princess, a very lovely Princess, was she to the Fir
Tree.
"Who is this Humpty Dumpty?" asked the little Mice. Whereupon he
related the tale; he could remember every word of it perfectly: and
the little Mice were ready to jump to the top of the Tree for joy. The
night following several more Mice came, and on Sunday came also two
Rats; they, however, declared that the story was not at all amusing,
which much vexed the little Mice, who, after hearing their opinion,
could not like it so well either.
"Do you know only that one story?" asked the Rats.
"Only that one!" answered the Tree; "I heard it on the happiest evening
of my life, though I did not then know how happy I was."
"It is a miserable story! Do you know none about pork and tallow?--no
store-room story?"
"No," said the Tree.
"Well, then, we have heard enough of it!" returned the Rats, and they
went their ways.
The little Mice, too, never came again. The Tree sighed. "It was
pleasant when they sat round me, those busy little Mice, listening to
my words. Now that, too, is all past! however, I shall have pleasure in
remembering it, when I am taken away from this place."
But when would that be? One morning, people came and routed out the
lumber room; the trunks were taken away, the Tree, too, was dragged out
of the corner; they threw him carelessly on the floor, but one of the
servants picked him up and carried him downstairs. Once more he beheld
the light of day.
"Now life begins again!" thought the Tree; he felt the fresh air, the
warm sunbeams--he was out in the court. All happened so quickly that
the Tree quite forgot to look at himself,--there was so much to look
at all around. The court joined a garden, everything was so fresh and
blooming, the roses clustered so bright and so fragrant round the
trellis-work, the lime-trees were in full blossom, and the swallows
flew backwards and forwards, twittering, "Quirri-virri-vit, my beloved
is come!" but it was not the Fir Tree whom they meant.
"I shall live! I shall live!" He was filled with delighted hope; he
tried to spread out his branches, but, alas! they were all dried up
and yellow. He was thrown down upon a heap of weeds and nettles. The
star of gold tinsel that had been left fixed on his crown now sparkled
brightly in the sunshine.
Some merry children were playing in the court, the same who at
Christmas time had danced round the Tree. One of the youngest now
perceived the gold star, and ran to tear it off.
"Look at it, still fastened to the ugly old Christmas Tree!" cried he,
trampling upon the boughs till they broke under his boots.
And the Tree looked on all the flowers of the garden now blooming in
the freshness of their beauty; he looked upon himself, and he wished
from his heart that he had been left to wither alone in the dark corner
of the lumber room; he called to mind his happy forest life, the merry
Christmas eve, and the little Mice who had listened so eagerly when he
related the story of Humpty Dumpty.
"Past, all past!" said the poor Tree. "Had I but been happy, as I might
have been! Past, all past!"
And the servant came and broke the Tree into small pieces, heaped
them up and set fire to them. And the Tree groaned deeply, and every
groan sounded like a little shot; the children all ran up to the place
and jumped about in front of the blaze, looking into it and crying,
"Piff, piff!" But at each of those heavy groans the Fir Tree thought
of a bright summer's day, or a starry winter's night in the forest, of
Christmas eve, or of Humpty Dumpty, the only story that he knew and
could relate. And at last the Tree was burned.
The boys played about the court; on the bosom of the youngest sparkled
the gold star that the Tree had worn on the happiest evening of his
life; but that was past, and the Tree was past, and the story also,
past! past! for all stories must come to an end, some time or other.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Christmas Banquet
In a certain old gentleman's last will and testament there appeared
a bequest, which, as his final thought and deed, was singularly in
keeping with a long life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a
considerable sum for establishing a fund, the interest of which was to
be expended, annually forever, in preparing a Christmas Banquet for ten
of the most miserable persons that could be found. It seemed not to be
the testator's purpose to make these half a score of sad hearts merry,
but to provide that the storm of fierce expression of human discontent
should not be drowned, even for that one holy and joyful day, amid the
acclamations of festal gratitude which all Christendom sends up. And
he desired, likewise, to perpetuate his own remonstrance against the
earthly course of Providence, and his sad and sour dissent from those
systems of religion or philosophy which either find sunshine in the
world or draw it down from heaven.
The task of inviting the guests, or of selecting among such as might
advance their claims to partake of this dismal hospitality, was
confided to the two trustees or stewards of the fund. These gentlemen,
like their deceased friend, were sombre humorists, who made it their
principal occupation to number the sable threads in the web of human
life, and drop all the golden ones out of the reckoning. They performed
their present office with integrity and judgment. The aspect of the
assembled company, on the day of the first festival, might not, it is
true, have satisfied every beholder that these were especially the
individuals, chosen forth from all the world, whose griefs were worthy
to stand as indicators of the mass of human suffering. Yet, after
due consideration, it could not be disputed that here was a variety
of hopeless discomfort, which, if it arose from causes apparently
inadequate, was thereby only the shrewder imputation against the nature
and mechanism of life.
The arrangements and decorations of the banquet were probably intended
to signify that death in life which had been the testator's definition
of existence. The hall, illuminated by torches, was hung round with
curtains of deep and dusky purple, and adorned with branches of
cypress and wreaths of artificial flowers, imitative of such as used
to be strown over the dead. A sprig of parsley was laid by every
plate. The main reservoir of wine was a sepulchral urn of silver,
whence the liquor was distributed around the table in small vases,
accurately copied from those that held the tears of ancient mourners.
Neither had the stewards--if it were their taste that arranged these
details--forgotten the fantasy of the old Egyptians, who seated a
skeleton at every festive board, and mocked their own merriment with
the imperturbable grin of a death's-head. Such a fearful guest,
shrouded in a black mantle, sat now at the head of the table. It was
whispered, I know not with what truth, that the testator himself
had once walked the visible world with the machinery of that same
skeleton, and that it was one of the stipulations of his will, that
he should thus be permitted to sit, from year to year, at the banquet
which he had instituted. If so, it was perhaps covertly implied that
he had cherished no hopes of bliss beyond the grave to compensate
for the evils which he felt or imagined here. And if, in their
bewildered conjectures as to the purpose of earthly existence, the
banqueters should throw aside the veil, and cast an inquiring glance
at this figure of death, as seeking thence the solution otherwise
unattainable, the only reply would be a stare of the vacant eye caverns
and a grin of the skeleton jaws. Such was the response that the dead
man had fancied himself to receive when he asked of Death to solve the
riddle of his life; and it was his desire to repeat it when the guests
of his dismal hospitality should find themselves perplexed with the
same question.
"What means that wreath?" asked several of the company, while viewing
the decorations of the table.
They alluded to a wreath of cypress, which was held on high by a
skeleton arm, protruding from within the black mantle.
"It is a crown," said one of the stewards, "not for the worthiest, but
for the wofulest, when he shall prove his claim to it."
The guest earliest bidden to the festival was a man of soft and
gentle character, who had not energy to struggle against the heavy
despondency to which his temperament rendered him liable; and therefore
with nothing outwardly to excuse him from happiness, he had spent a
life of quiet misery that made his blood torpid, and weighed upon his
breath, and sat like a ponderous night fiend upon every throb of his
unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as his original
nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a second
guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so
wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world,
the blow of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the
faithful and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is
the habit of people thus afflicted, he found his chief employment in
exhibiting these miserable sores to any one who would give themselves
the pain of viewing them. A third guest was a hypochondriac, whose
imagination wrought necromancy in his outward and inward world, and
caused him to see monstrous faces in the household fire, and dragons in
the clouds of sunset, and fiends in the guise of beautiful women, and
something ugly or wicked beneath all the pleasant surfaces of nature.
His neighbor at table was one who, in his early youth, had trusted
mankind too much, and hoped too highly in their behalf, and, in meeting
with disappointments, had become desperately soured....