The children wished to play with him; but the duckling thought they meant to hurt him, and in his fright he bounced right into a bowl of milk, that was spirted all over the room. The woman clapped her hands which only frightened him still more, and drove him first into the butter-tub, then down into the meal-tub, and out again. What a scene then ensued! The woman screamed and flung the tongs at him; the children tumbled over each other in their endeavors to catch the duckling, and laughed and shrieked. Luckily, the door stood open, and he slipped through, and then over the fagots, into the newly-fallen snow, where he lay quite exhausted.
But it would be too painful to tell of all the privations and misery that the duckling endured during the hard winter. He was lying in a marsh, amongst the reeds, when the sun again began to shine. The larks were singing, and the spring had set in, in all its beauty.
The duckling now felt able to flap his wings: they rustled much louder than before, and bore him away most sturdily; and before he was well aware of it, he found himself in a large garden, where the apple-trees were in full blossom, and the fragrant elder was steeping its long, drooping branches in the waters of a winding canal. Oh, how beautiful everything looked in the first freshness of spring! Three magnificent white swans now emerged from the thicket before him; they flapped their wings, and then swam lightly on the surface of the water. The duckling recognized the beautiful creatures, and was impressed with feelings of melancholy peculiar to himself.
"I will fly towards those royal birds—and they will strike me dead for daring to approach them, so ugly as I am! But it matters not. Better to be killed by them, than to be pecked at by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed about by the girl that feeds the poultry, and to suffer want in the winter." And he flew into the water, and swam towards these splendid swans, who rushed to meet him with rustling wings, the moment they saw him. "Do but kill me!" said the poor animal, as he bent his head down to the surface of the water, and awaited his doom. But what did he see in the clear stream? Why, his own image, which was no longer that of a heavy-looking dark grey bird, ugly and ill-favored, but of a beautiful swan!
It matters not being born in a duck yard, when one is hatched from a swan's egg!
He now rejoiced over all the misery and the straits he had endured, as it made him feel the full depth of the happiness that awaited him. And the large swans swam around him, and stroked him with their beaks.
Some little children now came into the garden, and threw bread-crumbs and corn into the water; and the youngest cried: "There is a new one!" The other children were delighted, too, and repeated: "Yes, there is a new one just come." And they clapped their hands, and capered about, and then flew to their father and mother, and more bread and cake was flung into the water; and all said: "The new one is the prettiest. So young and so lovely!" And the elder swans bowed before him.
He then felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wings. He did not himself know what to do. He was more than happy, yet none the prouder; for a good heart is never proud. He remembered how he had been pursued, and made game of; and now he had heard everybody say he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds. Even the elder-bush bent its boughs down to him in the water, and the sun appeared so warm, and so mild! He then flapped his wings, and raised his slender neck, as he cried, in the fulness of his heart: "I never dreamed of such happiness while I was an ugly duckling."