第401章
《安徒生童话英文版 全TXT版》章节:第401章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
' she said, 'here!' and she approached the throne,from which hung the rich velvet fringed with gold lace. 'There,' sheexclaimed, 'there!' and she knelt and kissed the purple carpet. Ithink she was actually weeping.
"'But it was not this very velvet!' observed the footman, and asmile played about his mouth. 'True, but it was this very place,'replied the woman, 'and it must have looked just like this. 'It lookedso, and yet it did not,' observed the man: 'the windows were beatenin, and the doors were off their hinges, and there was blood uponthe floor.' 'But for all that you can say, my grandson died upon thethrone of France. Died!' mournfully repeated the old woman. I do notthink another word was spoken, and they soon quitted the hall. Theevening twilight faded and my light shone doubly vivid upon the richvelvet that covered the throne of France.
"Now who do you think this poor woman was? Listen, I will tell youa story.
"It happened, in the Revolution of July, on the evening of themost brilliantly victorious day, when every house was a fortress,every window a breastwork. The people stormed the Tuileries. Evenwomen and children were to be found among the combatants. Theypenetrated into the apartments and halls of the palace. A poorhalf-grown boy in a ragged blouse fought among the older insurgents.Mortally wounded with several bayonet thrusts, he sank down. Thishappened in the throne-room. They laid the bleeding youth upon thethrone of France, wrapped the velvet around his wounds, and hisblood streamed forth upon the imperial purple. There was a picture!The splendid hall, the fighting groups! A torn flag upon the ground,the tricolor was waving above the bayonets, and on the throne laythe poor lad with the pale glorified countenance, his eyes turnedtowards the sky, his limbs writhing in the death agony, his breastbare, and his poor tattered clothing half hidden by the rich velvetembroidered with silver lilies. At the boy's cradle a prophecy hadbeen spoken: 'He will die on the throne of France!' The mother's heartdreamt of a second Napoleon.
"My beams have kissed the wreath of immortelles on his grave,and this night they kissed the forehead of the old grandame, whilein a dream the picture floated before her which thou mayest draw-the poor boy on the throne of France."
SIXTH EVENING
"I've been in Upsala," said the Moon: "I looked down upon thegreat plain covered with coarse grass, and upon the barren fields. Imirrored my face in the Tyris river, while the steamboat drove thefish into the rushes. Beneath me floated the waves, throwing longshadows on the so-called graves of Odin, Thor, and Friga. In thescanty turf that covers the hill-side names have been cut. There is nomonument here, no memorial on which the traveller can have his namecarved, no rocky wall on whose surface he can get it painted; sovisitors have the turf cut away for that purpose. The naked earthpeers through in the form of great letters and names; these form anetwork over the whole hill. Here is an immortality, which laststill the fresh turf grows!
"Up on the hill stood a man, a poet. He emptied the mead horn withthe broad silver rim, and murmured a name. He begged the winds notto betray him, but I heard the name. I knew it. A count's coronetsparkles above it, and therefore he did not speak it out. I smiled,for I knew that a poet's crown adorns his own name. The nobility ofEleanora d'Este is attached to the name of Tasso. And I also knowwhere the Rose of Beauty blooms!"