The Snow Queen in Seven Stories — Second Story — A Boy and a Girl

Around that corner, and someways down the road, there is a large town, so full of houses and people there was not room for most to have a little garden. And so the people who lived there made do with a few flowers in flower pots. But some people were luckier than most who had window boxes that, though not large, were still better than a few flower pots. And this is a story of two of these people, poor by our standards but wealthier than many who were poorer still, and children who, although not sister and brother, loved each other almost as much as if they had been.

They each lived with their parents, in two garrets opposite each other, and where the rooves of each projected out towards each other, and a gutter ran between. Each house had a little window that faced the other, such that anyone could step across the gutter from one to the other. The parents of the two children of this story each had a large window box in which they grew all manner of herbs, and a little rose bush for its joy and colour which grew splendidly. And as time went by, and the rose bushes grew, the window boxes were placed across the gutter, to that they stretched from one window to the other, and looked like two banks of flowers. Sweet peas drooped down while the rose bushes sent forth long branches that were trained around the windows, clustering together to form arches of flowers and greenery.

It should come as no surprise that these boxes were placed high above the street and, once in place, the children knew they could not climb upon them, but they were, weather permitting, allowed to step out together and sit upon little stools under the rose bushes, or to play together under the hanging arches. But such pleasures would come to end in Winter, for the cold drove the children back indoors, and the windows would freeze over. But then the children would warm copper pennies on the stove and, holding them against the icy pane, would make for themselves a hole through which they could peep, and the soft bright eyes of the little boy and girl would beam through the hole at each window as they looked at each other.

And the names of these children? Kai and Gerda.

It was in the depth of one winter, on a snowy day, when Kai’s old grandmother exclaimed, “See, there are white bees swarming!” And she was right to be surprised, for bees are want to huddle together for warmth during the winter months, and not given to swarming, especially when the snow flies, and the wind is harsh.

“Have they a queen bee?” asked Kai, knowing that real bees had a queen, but little about bees beyond this scrap of inaccurate memory.

“To be sure they have,” said the grandmother. “She is flying there where the swarm is thickest. She is the largest of them all, and never remains on the earth, but flies up to the dark clouds. Often at midnight she flies through the streets of the town, and looks in at the windows, then the ice freezes on the panes into wonderful shapes, that look like flowers and castles.”

A curious thing to say and seemingly unlikely, and yet Kai’s grandmother remained sharp as a tack, with all her wits about her, and hadn’t touched a drop since three ‘eves past, and so such odd behaviour by the Queen must have been true.

“Yes, I have seen them,” said both the children, and they also knew it must be true.

“Can the Snow Queen come in here?” asked the little girl.

“Only let her come,” said the boy, “I’ll set her on the stove and then she’ll melt.” A cruel thing to wish upon a queen, but sometimes children can be given to cruelty, especially when frightened.

One evening, when Kai was at home, half undressed and half asleep, he climbed onto a chair by the window and peeped out through the melted hole at the dusk. A few snowflakes were falling, dancing in the air at the whim of the gusting winds, when one of them, somewhat larger than the rest and bolder and more confident in its approach, alighted on the edge of one of the window boxes. And all the snowflakes around her stopped their dance in that moment, hastening to the single snowflake, first swarming around the single flake, and then melting into it, even as more and more snowflakes appeared seemingly from nowhere, in a hurry to join their kin in their strange behaviour.

And as the snow swarmed, the single flake grew larger and larger until, at last, it grew into the figure of a woman, seemingly dressed in diaphanous clothing of white gauze that looked to have upon it a dizzying pattern of tiny, interlinked, snowflakes, but on closer inspection, gave more impression of snowflakes themselves impossibly linked together to form a gown.

And as for the woman? She seemed fair and beautiful, pristine and serene, delicate and hushed but . . . at the same time it seemed that such fairness and beauty was little more than a blanket thrown over something now hidden, and that such serenity was an artifice of ice — shining and glittering ice. Her eyes sparkled like bright stars, but for all the delicacy and seeming peace of her poise, there was neither peace nor rest in her glance.

She nodded toward the window and with an unexpected and startling motion, somewhat like snow falling from a tree branch, startling for its seeming motionless and stillness the moment before, waved her hand.

Frightened, Kai sprang from the chair; and at the same moment it seemed to him as if a large bird flew by the window. And in that moment of seeming, the woman could no longer be seen, and all that was left outside was a few flakes of snow dancing in the air with the wind.

The following day saw a clear frost, and in the days that followed Spring began to arrive. The sun shone; the young green leaves burst forth; the swallows built their nests; windows were opened, and the children were able to sit once more in the garden on the roof, high above the street, and under the roses that began to blossom as Spring turned to Summer. The little girl had learnt a song in which roses were sung about, and as she thought of their own roses, sang the song to the little boy, and he sang to:-

“Roses bloom and cease to be,

But we shall the Somer-child see.”

Then the little ones held each other by the hand, and kissed the roses, and looked at the bright sunshine, and spoke as if the Somer-child were there, nascent in the rays of sun shining through the arches of leaves and flowers. And those were wonderful summer days, beautiful and fresh amongst the roses, which seemed as if they they would never leave off blooming.

On that particular day, as Kai and Gerda sat looking at a book full of pictures of birds and other animals, the church tower clock reached the hour of twelve, the churches bells rang to begin to welcome the hour, and Kai, crying out in shock and pain said, “Oh, something has struck my heart!” and, soon after, even as the echo of the church bells were still to fade, “There is something in my eye.”

The little girl put her arm around his neck and looked into his eye, but she could see nothing.

“I think it is gone,” he said. But it was not gone; it was one of those bits of the looking-glass — that magic mirror, of which we have spoken — the deceitful glass which made everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it appear hidden away, whilst everything that seemed worthless or bad looked increased in size and worse than ever, and every little fault, no matter how erroneously perceived, could be clearly seen.

And that would have been bad enough, but poor little Kai had also received a small shard of the looking-glass in his heart where, corrupted by Spite, his heart turned to ice. He felt no more pain, but the glass remained.

“Why do you cry?”, he asked at last of the the little girl, “it makes you look ugly. There’s nothing the matter with me now, my eye is fine and I can see perfectly well. See, that rose there is worm-eaten, and this one is quite crooked. And, all-in-all, these are quite ugly roses, just like the box in which they grow.” And as the little girl looked on, he kicked the boxes with his foot, and then pulled off the two roses.

“Kai, what are you doing?” cried little girl; and then, when he saw how frightened she was, he tore off another rose, and jumped through his own window, away from Gerda.

And as time continued to pass, as Summer dimmed to Autumn, whenever Gerda brought out the picture book, Kai would say, “It’s only fit for babies”, and when Kai’s grandmother told any stories, he would interrupt her with “but;” or, when he could sneak behind her as she sat on her chair, would put on a pair of spectacles and imitate her to make people laugh.

And as Autumn wound down it’s weary way to Winter, Kai began to mimic the speech and walk of people in the street. All that he found disagreeable or strange about a person he would imitate precisely, and people laughed and said, “That boy will be very clever; he has a good eye, and cleverness in his heart.”

But it was the piece of looking-glass in his eye, and the ice in his heart, that made him act that way. And for all that Gerda loved him with all her heart, he would tease even her, until he drove her away for the day, or he gave up and would abandon her to once more mimic others in the town.

His games too began to change until, one day in Winter’s heart as the snow once more fell, he took out a magnifying glass and, letting the snow fall on the outstretched tail of his blue coat, bade Gerda to look at what he saw.

“Look in this glass, Gerda,” he said; and she saw how every flake was magnified and looked like a flower, or glittering star.

“Is it not clever?” asked Kai, “and much more interesting than looking at real flowers. Each one is pristine, without a single fault, and the snowflakes are quite perfect until they begin to melt.”

As time passed, and more snow continued to fall, there came a day when Kai made his appearance in large thick gloves, and with his sledge, towing it behind him with it’s rope. He called up the stairs in Gerda’s house, “I’ve got to leave to go to the great square, where the other boys play and ride.” And, without waiting for a reply, away he went.

Now, it was a game amongst the boldest of the boys during such days to tie their sledges to the carts of the country people, and be towed by them a good way, with great amusement being had by the boys by doing so. But, as they were doing this, and Kai amongst them, a great sledge, all in white, came by, and in it sat someone wrapped up to obscurity in white, rough fur, and wearing a white cap.

The great sledge drove twice around the square and Kai, driven by the cold pulse of his heart, blinded by the shard in his eye, thought it would be great sport to tie his sledge to the back of the white one, so that when it went away, he followed with it. The white sledge gathered speed in the next street, the breath of the white horses pulling the sledge pluming in the air in every increasing clouds as they increased their speed, even as the person who drove turned around and nodded pleasantly to Kai, as friendly as if they knew each other.

And whenever Kai wished to loosen his little sled the driver would turn around and nod again, so Kai sat still, even as they drove through out through the town gate, and the snow began to fall thicker and thicker, until Kai could not see his hand before him. Kai reached forward to loosen the cord so that the larger sled would go on without him, but it was of little use, for the knot held firm, and away they went like the wind, all the while the snow beating on Kai even as he called out loudly, but with nobody to hear him. Every now and again Kai could feel his sledge jump, as if it was impossibly going over ditches and hedges, and as his fear grew he tried to say a prayer, but could remember nothing as he found his thoughts stolen away by the cold, both from the wind and snow, but also from the cold that was his heart.

The snow grew so thick that it almost appeared a wall that the great sledge was ploughing through until, with a start, the sledge stopped, and the flakes that made up the storm sprang apart from each other, revealing that the person who had driven the sled rising up.

The fur and the cap of the driver fell off and were now revealed to be made entirely of snow, even as Kai saw the driver was a lady, tall and white.

It was the Snow Queen.

“We have travelled well,” she said,” buy why do you tremble so? Is it the cold? Here, creep into my warm fur.” And so saying she seated him beside her in the sledge and, as she wrapped the fur around him, he felt as if her were sinking into a drift of snow.

“Are you still cold?” she asked and then leant down to kiss him on the forehead. And Kai was pierced through and through, for the kiss was colder than ice and went through to his heart, freezing it further than it had already been, turning it to the purest of unyielding ice. For a moment Kai felt as if her were going to die, but only for a moment for he soon felt quite well, and did not notice the cold around him.

“My sledge!” was his first thought, but when he looked behind, he could see that his sledge had been bound fast to the back of the white sled and relieved, he settled once more beneath the Queen’s fur, even as he felt her once more kiss him, the unfelt cold of it undoing his memories of his grandmother, his home, and even Gerda.

“Now you must have no more kisses,” said the Snow Queen, “for more would lead me to kiss you to death.”

Kai looked at her and saw that she was so beautiful that envisaging a more lovely and intelligent face lay beyond his imagination, and now she did not seem to be made of ice, as she had when he had seen her through his window, and she had nodded to him. In his eyes she was perfection and purity, and she did not feel at all frightening. And so Kai talked to her of this and that, and she always smiled so that he spoke of more, even as she looked around the vast expanse as she flew higher and higher with him upon a black cloud, all while the storm blew and howled of rage and the old songs of death and loneliness. They flew over woods and lakes, sea and land, and all whilst the wind roared; the wolves howled; the settled snow groaned beneath; all around them flew black crows cawing of the fall of day and the triumph of night; and above all shone the moon, clear, sharp, bright, and terrifying, — and so Kai passed through the long winter’s night and by day slept at the feet of his Queen.