第28章
《安徒生童话英文版 全TXT版》章节:第28章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
dig me agrave!" sounded again in her ears, and she would have gladly buriedherself, if in the grave she could have found forgetfulness of heractions.
It was the first hour of her awakening, full of anguish andhorror. Superstition made her alternately shudder with cold or burnwith the heat of fever. Many things, of which she had feared even tospeak, came into her mind. Silently, as the cloud-shadows in themoonshine, a spectral apparition flitted by her; she had heard of itbefore. Close by her galloped four snorting steeds, with fire flashingfrom their eyes and nostrils. They dragged a burning coach, and withinit sat the wicked lord of the manor, who had ruled there a hundredyears before. The legend says that every night, at twelve o'clock,he drove into his castleyard and out again. He was not as pale as deadmen are, but black as a coal. He nodded, and pointed to AnneLisbeth, crying out, "Hold fast! hold fast! and then you may rideagain in a nobleman's carriage, and forget your child."
She gathered herself up, and hastened to the churchyard; but blackcrosses and black ravens danced before her eyes, and she could notdistinguish one from the other. The ravens croaked as the raven haddone which she saw in the daytime, but now she understood what theysaid. "I am the raven-mother; I am the raven-mother," each ravencroaked, and Anne Lisbeth felt that the name also applied to her;and she fancied she should be transformed into a black bird, andhave to cry as they cried, if she did not dig the grave. And she threwherself upon the earth, and with her hands dug a grave in the hardground, so that the blood ran from her fingers. "A grave! dig me agrave!" still sounded in her ears; she was fearful that the cock mightcrow, and the first red streak appear in the east, before she hadfinished her work; and then she would be lost. And the cock crowed,and the day dawned in the east, and the grave was only half dug. Anicy hand passed over her head and face, and down towards her heart."Only half a grave," a voice wailed, and fled away. Yes, it fledaway over the sea; it was the ocean spectre; and, exhausted andoverpowered, Anne Lisbeth sunk to the ground, and her senses left her.
It was a bright day when she came to herself, and two men wereraising her up; but she was not lying in the churchyard, but on thesea-shore, where she had dug a deep hole in the sand, and cut her handwith a piece of broken glass, whose sharp stern was stuck in alittle block of painted wood. Anne Lisbeth was in a fever.Conscience had roused the memories of superstitions, and had soacted upon her mind, that she fancied she had only half a soul, andthat her child had taken the other half down into the sea. Never wouldshe be able to cling to the mercy of Heaven till she had recoveredthis other half which was now held fast in the deep water.
Anne Lisbeth returned to her home, but she was no longer the womanshe had been. Her thoughts were like a confused, tangled skein; onlyone thread, only one thought was clear to her, namely that she mustcarry the spectre of the sea-shore to the churchyard, and dig agrave for him there; that by so doing she might win back her soul.Many a night she was missed from her home, and was always found on thesea-shore waiting for the spectre.
In this way a whole year passed; and then one night she vanishedagain, and was not to be found. The whole of the next day was spent ina useless search after her.
Towards evening, when the clerk entered the church to toll thevesper bell, he saw by the altar Anne Lisbeth, who had spent the wholeday there. Her powers of body were almost exhausted, but her eyesflashed brightly, and on her cheeks was a rosy flush. The last rays ofthe setting sun shone upon her, and gleamed over the altar upon theshining clasps of the Bible, which lay open at the words of theprophet Joel, "Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn untothe Lord."
"That was just a chance," people said; but do things happen bychance?