第200章
《安徒生童话英文版 全TXT版》章节:第200章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
said themiller.
Poor Babette sat with her hands clasped, and her head boweddown, dumb with grief; she had ceased to weep and cry for help.
"In the deep water!" she said to herself; "far down he lies, as ifbeneath a glacier."
Deep in her heart rested the memory of what Rudy had told her ofthe death of his mother, and of his own recovery, even after he hadbeen taken up as dead from the cleft in the glacier.
"Ah," she thought, "the Ice Maiden has him at last."
Suddenly there came a flash of lightning, as dazzling as therays of the sun on the white snow. The lake rose for a moment like ashining glacier; and before Babette stood the pallid, glittering,majestic form of the Ice Maiden, and at her feet lay Rudy's corpse.
"Mine!" she cried, and again all was darkness around the heavingwater.
"How cruel," murmured Babette; "why should he die just as theday of happiness drew near? Merciful God, enlighten myunderstanding, shed light upon my heart; for I cannot comprehend thearrangements of Thy providence, even while I bow to the decree ofThy almighty wisdom and power." And God did enlighten her heart.
A sudden flash of thought, like a ray of mercy, recalled her dreamof the preceding night; all was vividly represented before her. Sheremembered the words and wishes she had then expressed, that whatwas best for her and for Rudy she might piously submit to.
"Woe is me," she said; "was the germ of sin really in my heart?was my dream a glimpse into the course of my future life, whose threadmust be violently broken to rescue me from sin? Oh, miserable creaturethat I am!"
Thus she sat lamenting in the dark night, while through the deepstillness the last words of Rudy seemed to ring in her ears. "Thisearth has nothing more to bestow." Words, uttered in the fulness ofjoy, were again heard amid the depths of sorrow.
Years have passed since this sad event happened. The shores of thepeaceful lake still smile in beauty. The vines are full of lusciousgrapes. Steamboats, with waving flags, pass swiftly by.Pleasure-boats, with their swelling sails, skim lightly over thewatery mirror, like white butterflies. The railway is opened beyondChillon, and goes far into the deep valley of the Rhone. At everystation strangers alight with red-bound guide-books in their hands, inwhich they read of every place worth seeing. They visit Chillon, andobserve on the lake the little island with the three acacias, and thenread in their guide-book the story of the bridal pair who, in the year1856, rowed over to it. They read that the two were missing till thenext morning, when some people on the shore heard the despairing criesof the bride, and went to her assistance, and by her were told ofthe bridegroom's fate.
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But the guide-book does not speak of Babette's quiet lifeafterwards with her father, not at the mill- strangers dwell therenow- but in a pretty house in a row near the station. On many anevening she sits at her window, and looks out over thechestnut-trees to the snow-capped mountains on which Rudy once roamed.She looks at the Alpine glow in the evening sky, which is caused bythe children of the sun retiring to rest on the mountain-tops; andagain they breathe their song of the traveller whom the whirlwindcould deprive of his cloak but not of his life. There is a rosy tinton the mountain snow, and there are rosy gleams in each heart in whichdwells the thought, "God permits nothing to happen, which is not thebest for us." But this is not often revealed to all, as it wasrevealed to Babette in her wonderful dream.
THE END.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE JEWISH MAIDEN
by Hans Christian Andersen
IN a charity school, among the children, sat a little Jewish girl.She was a good, intelligent child, and very quick at her lessons;but the Scripture-lesson class she was not allowed to join, for thiswas a Christian school. During the hour of this lesson, the Jewishgirl was allowed to learn her geography, or to work her sum for thenext day; and when her geography lesson was perfect, the book remainedopen before her, but she read not another word, for she sat silentlylistening to the words of the Christian teacher. He soon becameaware that the little one was paying more attention to what he saidthan most of the other children. "Read your book, Sarah," he said toher gently.
But again and again he saw her dark, beaming eyes fixed uponhim; and once, when he asked her a question, she could answer him evenbetter than the other children. She had not only heard, but understoodhis words, and pondered them in her heart. Her father, a poor buthonest man, had placed his daughter at the school on the conditionsthat she should not be instructed in the Christian faith. But it mighthave caused confusion, or raised discontent in the minds of theother children if she had been sent out of the room, so sheremained; and now it was evident this could not go on. The teacherwent to her father, and advised him to remove his daughter from theschool, or to allow her to become a Christian. "I cannot any longer bean idle spectator of those beaming eyes, which express such a deep andearnest longing for the words of the gospel," said he.
Then the father burst into tears. "I know very little of the lawof my fathers," said he; "but Sarah's mother was firm in her belief asa daughter of Israel, and I vowed to her on her deathbed that ourchild should never be baptized. I must keep my vow: it is to me evenas a covenant with God Himself." And so the little Jewish girl leftthe Christian school.
Years rolled by. In one of the smallest provincial towns, in ahumble household, lived a poor maiden of the Jewish faith, as aservant. Her hair was black as ebony, her eye dark as night, yetfull of light and brilliancy so peculiar to the daughters of the east.It was Sarah. The expression in the face of the grown-up maiden wasstill the same as when, a child, she sat on the schoolroom formlistening with thoughtful eyes to the words of the Christianteacher. Every Sunday there sounded forth from a church close by thetones of an organ and the singing of the congregation. The Jewish girlheard them in the house where, industrious and faithful in all things,she performed her household duties. "Thou shalt keep the Sabbathholy," said the voice of the law in her heart; but her Sabbath was aworking day among the Christians, which was a great trouble to her.And then as the thought arose in her mind, "Does God reckon by daysand hours?"