The Little Match Girl A translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "Den lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne" by Jean Hersholt. from the The Hans Christian Andersen Center It was so terribly cold.Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last eve of the year. In the stale and gloom a miserable little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. Of flow when she had left her house she'd had slippers on, but what right had they been? They were really big slippers, way too big for her, for they belonged to her mother. The small daughter had doomed them running across the road, where two carriages had rattled by terribly fast. One slipper she'd not been capable to happen again, and a boy had run off with the other, saying he could use it very good as a cradle some day when he had children of his own. And so the small girl walked on her bare feet, which were quite red and gentle with the cold. In an old apron she carried several packages of matches, and she held a box of them in her hand. No one had bought any from her all day long, and no one had granted her a cent.Shivering with coldness and hunger, she crept along, a photo of misery, poor little girl! The snowflakes fell on her long fair hair, which hung in pretty curls over her neck. In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a wonderful sense of roast goose, for it was New Year's eve. Yes, she thinking of that!In a recess formed by two houses, one of which projected farther out into the street than the other, she sat down and drew up her small feet below her. She was getting colder and colder, but did not daring to go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned a 1 cent, and her mother would surely get her. Besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled even though the biggest cracks had been stuffed with wheat and rags.Her men were virtually perfectly with cold. Oh, how often one little match might warm her! If she could just have one from the box and rub it against the fence and tender her hands. She drew one out. R-r-ratch! How it sputtered and burned! It made a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as she held her hands over it; but it gave a strange light! It really seemed to the small girl as if she were seated before a large iron stove with shining brass knobs and a brass cover. How wondrous the flame burned! How easy it was! The child stretched out her feet to tender them too; then the small flame went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the corpse of the burnt match in her hand.She struck another match against the wall. It burned brightly, and when the fall fell upon the wall it became transparent like a slender veil, and she could see through it into a room. On the board a snow-white cloth was spread, and on it stood a shining dinner service. The roast goose steamed gloriously, stuffed with apples and prunes. And what was even better, the goose jumped down from the bag and waddled on the deck with a tongue and separate in its breast, right over to the small girl. Then the pair went out, and she could see just the thick, cold wall. She lighted another match. Then she was seated below the most beautiful Christmas tree. It was much bigger and often more beautiful than the one she had seen last Christmas through the glass door at the rich merchant's home. Thousands of candles burned on the common branches, and colorful pictures like those in the printshops looked down at her. The little girl reached both her hands toward them. Then the pair went out. But the Christmas lights mounted higher. She saw them now as bright stars in the sky. One of them drop down, forming a long line of fire."Now someone is dying," thought the small girl, for her old grandmother, the sole somebody who had loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star fell down a person went up to God.She rubbed another match against the wall. It became bright again, and in the glow the old grandmother stood open and shining, kind and lovely."Grandmother!" cried the child. "Oh, take me with you! I love you will melt when the touch is burnt out. You will disappear like the warm stove, the wonderful roast goose and the beautiful big Christmas tree!"And she quickly struck the whole pile of matches, for she wished to restrain her grandmother with her. And the matches burned with such a radiance that it became brighter than daylight. Grandmother had never been so grand and beautiful. She took the small daughter in her arms, and both of them flew in smartness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor fear-they were with God.But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the small miss with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen to end on the last eve of the old year. The New Year's sun rose upon a little pathetic figure. The child sat there, stiff and cold, holding the matches, of which one bundle was nearly burned."She cherished to warm herself," the masses said. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, and how happily she had departed with her old grandmother into the hopeful New Year.
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