she hadn’t thrown them out far enough so she climbed into a boat that lay in the rushes. She went to the farthest end of the boat and threw the shoes, but the boat was not tied firmly, and the motion she made caused it to glide away from shore. She noticed it and hurried to get out, but before she could, the boat was over a yard away from land and was moving more quickly still.
Little Gerda became very frightened and started to cry, but no one heard her except the little grey sparrows, and they couldn’t carry her to land. But they flew along the bank and sang as if to console her, “Here we are! Here we are!” The boat flowed with the current. Little Gerda sat quite still in her stocking feet. Her little red shoes were floating behind, but they couldn’t reach the boat, which was moving faster.
It was lovely along the banks, with beautiful flowers, old trees and slopes with sheep and cows, but there was not a person to be seen.
“Maybe the river will carry me to little Kai,” and that thought cheered her up. So Gerda stood up and looked for many hours at the lovely green banks. Then she came to a big cherry orchard where there was a little house with strange red and blue windows, a straw roof, and two wooden soldiers who saluted all who passed by.
Gerda called to them because she thought they were real, but of course they didn’t answer. She came quite close to them for the river was pushing the boat towards shore. Gerda shouted even louder and then an old, old woman came out of the house. She was leaning on a crooked cane, and she wore a big sun hat decorated with the most beautiful flowers.
“You poor little child,” said the old woman, “how did you get out there in that strong current, pulled along into the wide world?” and the old woman walked out into the water, hooked the boat with her cane, pulled it ashore, and lifted little Gerda out.
Gerda was glad to be on solid ground again, but a little bit afraid of the strange old woman.
“Come and tell me who you are, and how you got here,” she said.
And Gerda told her everything, and the old one shook her head and said, “Hm, hm.” When Gerda had told her everything, and asked her if she had seen little Kai, the woman said that he had not passed by, but he would surely come. Gerda shouldn’t be sad, but taste her cherries and look at her flowers, they were more beautiful than any picture book; each of them could tell a whole story. Then she took Gerda by the hand, and they went into the little house, and the old woman locked the door.
The windows were very high up, and the glass was red, blue, and yellow. The day light shone in so strangely with all the colors, but on the table stood the most lovely cherries, and Gerda ate as many as she wanted because she wasn’t afraid to do that. While she ate, the old woman combed her hair with a gold comb, and the hair curled and shone beautifully around the friendly little face that was so round and looked like a rose.
“I have really longed for such a sweet little girl,” said the old woman. “You’ll see, we’ll get along nicely together.” And as she was combing her hair, Gerda forgot more and more about her foster-brother Kai because the old woman could do magic, but she wasn’t an evil troll at all. She just did a little magic for her own pleasure, and now she wanted to keep little Gerda. So she went out into the garden, stretched her crooked cane out towards all the rose trees, and with their lovely blooms they sank down into the black earth, and you couldn’t see where they had been. The old woman was afraid that if Gerda saw the roses, she would think of her own roses, remember little Kai, and then run away.
She led Gerda out into the garden.—Oh, what scents and sights! All imaginable flowers, for every season, stood here in magnificent bloom. No picture book could be more colorful or beautiful. Gerda jumped with joy and played until the sun went down behind the big cherry trees. Then she was given a lovely bed with red silk comforters, filled with blue violets, and she slept and dreamed as beautifully as any queen on her wedding day.
The next day she played again with the flowers in the warm sunshine—and so passed many days. Gerda knew each flower, but despite how many there were, she seemed to feel that one was missing, but she didn’t know which one. Then one day she sat and looked at the old woman’s sun hat with the painted flowers, and the most beautiful one was a rose. The old woman had forgotten to remove it from the hat, when she conjured the others into the ground. But that’s what it’s like to be absent-minded ! “What!” said Gerda, “There aren’t any roses here!” and she ran through the flower beds, looked and looked, but there were none to be found. Then she sat down and cried, but her hot tears fell just where a rose tree had sunk, and when the warm tears watered the earth, the tree shot up at once, as full of blooms as when it sank, and Gerda embraced it, kissed the roses, and thought about the beautiful roses at home and with them of little Kai.
“Oh, I’ve been delayed too long!” said the little girl. “I was going to find Kai!—Don’t you know where he is?” she asked the roses. “Do you think he’s dead and gone?”
“Dead he’s not,” said the roses. “We’ve been in the earth where you can find the dead, and Kai wasn’t there.”
“Oh, thank you!” little Gerda said, and she went to the other flowers and looked into their cups and asked, “Don’t you know where little Kai is?”
But every flower stood in the sunlight and dreamed its own adventure or story, and Gerda heard so many of them, but no one knew anything about Kai.
And what did the tiger lily say?“Do you hear the drum: boom boom! There are only two tones, always boom boom! Hear the women’s song of lament! Hear the priests’ shouts!—In her long red coat the Hindu wife stands on the pyre. The flames shoot up around her and her dead husband, but the Hindu wife is thinking of the living within the circle : he, whose eyes burn hotter than flames, the fire in whose eyes touches her heart more than the flames that soon will burn her body to ashes. Can the flame of the heart die in the flames of the bonfire?”
“I don’t understand that at all!” said little Gerda.
“That’s my tale,” said the tiger lily.
What does the morning glory say?“Overhanging the narrow mountain road there’s an old feudal castle. Thick vinca minor grows up the old red walls, leaf upon leaf, up to the balcony. There’s a lovely girl standing there. She leans over the railing and looks down the road. No rose hangs more freshly from its branches than she does. No apple blossom, when the wind carries it from the tree, sways more lightly than she does. How the magnificent silk dress rustles. ‘Isn’t he coming?’”
“Do you mean Kai?” asked little Gerda.
“I am just talking about my own story, my dream,” answered the morning glory.
