Then he went back into the wood to sit in his trunk; but what had become of it? The trunk had been burnt. A spark of the fireworks had set it alight, and the trunk was in ashes. He could no longer fly, and could never reach his bride.
She stood the whole day long on the roof and waited; perhaps she is waiting there still.
But he wandered through the world and told stories; though they are not so merry as the one he told about the matches.
The Snow-man
Translated from the German of Hans Andersen.
‘How astonishingly cold it is! My body is cracking all over!’ said the Snow-man. ‘The wind is really cutting one’s very life out! And how that fiery thing up there glares!’ He meant the sun, which was just setting. ‘It sha’n’t make me blink, though, and I shall keep quite cool and collected.’
Instead of eyes he had two large three-cornered pieces of slate in his head; his mouth consisted of an old rake, so that he had teeth as well.
He was born amidst the shouts and laughter of the boys, and greeted by the jingling bells and cracking whips of the sledges.
The sun went down, the full moon rose, large, round, clear and beautiful, in the dark blue sky.