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　　安徒生童话具有诗意的美，因其童话作品中描写现实中又具有浪漫的情怀。

　　》》》安徒生童话全集英文版

　　THE PRINCESS ON THE PEA

　　THERE was once a Prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she was to be a real princess. So he travelled about , all through the world , to find a real one , but everywhere there was something in the way. There were princesses enough, but whether they were real princesses he could not quite make out : there was always something that did not seem quite right. So he came home again, and was quite sad; for he wished so much to have a real princess.

　　One evening a terrible storm came on. It lightened and thundered, the rain streamed down; it was quite fearful! Then there was a knocking at the town-gate, and the old King went out to open it .

　　It was a Princess who stood outside the gate . But , mercy! How she looked, from the rain and the rough weather! The water ran down her hair and her clothes; it ran in at the points of her shoes, and out at the heels; and yet she declared that she was a real princess .

　　“Yes , we will soon find that out , ” thought the old Queen. But she said nothing, only went into the bedchamber, took all the bedding off, and put a pea on the bottom of the bedstead ; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea, and then twenty eider-down quilts upon the mattresses . On this the Princess had to lie all night . In the morning she was asked how she had slept .

　　“Oh, miserably!” said the Princess. “I scarcely closed my eyes all night long. Goodness knows what was in my bed . I lay upon something hard , so that I am black and blue all over . It is quite dreadful ! ”

　　Now they saw that she was a real princess, for through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down quilts she had felt the pea. No one but a real princess could be so tender-skinned.

　　So the Prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a true princess and the pea was put in the museum, and it is still to be seen there, unless somebody has carried it off .

　　Look you , this is a true story .

　　GREAT CLAUS AND LITTLE CLAUS

　　THERE lived two men in one village, and they had the same name ---- each was called Claus; but one had four horses, and the other only a single horse. To distinguish them from each other, folks called him who had four horses Great Claus, and the one who had only a single horse Little Claus . Now we shall hear what happened to each of them, for this is a true story .

　　The whole week through, Little Claus was obliged to plough for Great Claus, and to lend him his one horse; then Great Claus helped him out with all his four, but only once a week , and that was on Sunday . Hurrah ! How Little Claus smacked his whip over all five horses, for they were as good as his own on that one day. The sun shone gaily , and all the bells in the steeples were ringing; the people were all dressed in their best, and were going to church, with their hymn-books under their arms, to hear the clergyman preach, and they saw Little Claus ploughing with five horses; but he was so merry that he smacked his whip again and again, and cried, “Gee up, all my five!”

　　“You must not talk so,” said Great Claus, “for only one horse is yours . ”

　　But when any one passed Little Claus forgot that he was not to say this, and he cried, “Gee up, all my horses!”

　　“Now, I must beg of you to stop that,” cried Great Claus, “for if you say it again, I shall hit your horse on the head, so that it will fall down dead, and then it will be all over with him.”

　　“I will certainly not say it any more,” said Little Claus.

　　But when people came by soon afterwards , and nodded “ good day ” to him , he became very glad , and thought it looked very well, after all, that he had five horses to plough his field; and so he smacked his whip again, and cried , “Gee up , all my horses ! ”

　　“I'll ‘gee up’ your horses ! ” said Great Claus . And he took a mallet and hit the only horse of Little Claus on the head , so that it fell down , and was dead immediately .

　　“Oh , now I haven't any horse at all !” said Little Claus, and began to cry.

　　Then he flayed the horse , and let the hide dry in the wind, and put it in a sack and hung it over his shoulder, and went to the town to sell his horse's skin.

　　He had a very long way to go, and was obliged to pass through a great dark wood , and the weather became dreadfully bad . He went quite astray , and before he got into the right way again it was evening, and it was too far to get home again or even to the town before nightfall.

　　Close by the road stood a large farm-house . The shutters were closed outside the windows, but the light could still be seen shining out over them.

　　“I may be able to get leave to stop here through the night , ” thought Little Claus ; and he went and knocked . The farmer' s wife opened the door; but when she heard what he wanted she told him to go away, declaring that her husband was not at home, and she would not receive strangers .

　　“Then I shall have to lie outside , ” said Little Claus . And the farmer's wife shut the door in his face.

　　Close by stood a great haystack, and between this and the farm-house was a little outhouse thatched with straw.

　　“Up there I can lie,” said Little Claus, when he looked up at the roof , “that is a capital bed . I suppose the stork won' t fly down and bite me in the legs . ” For a living stork was standing on the roof, where he had his nest .

　　Now Little Claus climbed up to the roof of the shed, where he lay, and turned round to settle himself comfortably . The wooden shutters did not cover the windows at the top, and he could look straight into the room. There was a great table, with the cloth laid, and wine and roast meat and a glorious fish upon it . The farmer' s wife and the parish-clerk were seated at table, and nobody besides. She was filling his glass, and he was digging his fork into the fish, for that was his favourite dish.

　　“If one could only get some too ! ”thought Little Claus, as he stretched out his head towards the window. Heavens! What a glorious cake he saw standing there! Yes , certainly , that was a feast .

　　Now he heard some one riding along the high road. It was the woman's husband, who was coming home. He was a good man enough, but he had the strange peculiarity that he could never bear to see a clerk . If a clerk appeared before his eyes he became quite wild . And that was the reason why the clerk had gone to the wife to wish her good day , because he knew that her husband was not at home ; and the good woman therefore put the best fare she had before him. But when they heard the man coming they were frightened, and the woman begged the clerk to creep into a great empty chest which stood in the comer; and he did so, for he knew the husband could not bear the sight of a clerk . The woman quickly hid all the excellent meat and wine in her baking-oven; for if the man had seen that , he would have been certain to ask what it meant .

　　“Oh, dear!” sighed Little Claus, up in his shed, when he saw all the good fare put away .

　　“Is there any one up there?” asked the farmer; and he looked up at Little Claus. “Why are you lying there? Better come with me into the room.”

　　And Little Claus told him how he had lost his way, and asked leave to stay there for the night.

　　“Yes, certainly,” said the peasant, “but first we must have something to live on .”

　　The woman received them both in a very friendly way , spread the cloth on a long table , and gave them a great dish of porridge . The farmer was hungry , and ate with a good appetite; but Little Claus could not help thinking of the capital roast meat, fish, and cake, which he knew were in the oven. Under the table, at his feet, he had laid the sack with the horse' s hide in it ; for we know that he had come out to sell it in the town. He could not relish the porridge, so he trod upon the sack, and the dry skin inside crackled quite loudly .

　　“Hush,” said Little Claus to his sack; but at the same time he trod on it again, so that it crackled much louder than before .

　　“Why, what have you in your sack?” asked the farmer .

　　“Oh, that's a magician,” answered Little Claus. “He says we are not to eat porridge, for he has conjured the oven full of roast meat , fish , and cake . ”

　　“Wonderful!” cried the farmer; and he opened the oven in a hurry, and found all the dainty provisions which his wife had hidden there, but which, as he thought, the wizard had conjured forth. The woman dared not say anything, but put the things at once on the table; and so they both ate of the meat , the fish , and the cake . Now Little Claus again trod on his sack, and made the hide creak .

　　“What does he say now? ” said the farmer.

　　“He says , ” replied Claus , “ that he has conjured three bottles of wine for us, too, and that they are also standing there in the oven . ”

　　Now the woman was obliged to bring out the wine which she had hidden, and the farmer drank it and became very merry . He would have been very glad to own such a conjuror as Little Claus had there in the sack .

　　“Can he conjure the demon forth?” asked the farmer. “I should like to see him, for now I am merry.”

　　“Oh, yes.” said Little Claus, “my conjuror can do any thing that I ask of him. ---- Can you not?” he added, and trod on the hide , so that it crackled . He says ‘Yes . ’ But the demon is very ugly to look at : we had better not see him.”

　　“Oh , I' m not at all afraid . Pray , what will he look like?”

　　“Why, he'll look the very image of a parish-clerk . ”

　　“Ha!” said the farmer, “ that is ugly! You must know, I can' t bear the sight of a clerk . But it doesn't matter now, for I know that he's a demon, so I shall easily stand it. Now I have courage, but he must not come too near me . ”

　　“Now I will ask my conjuror,” said Little Claus; and he trod on the sack and held his ear down .

　　“What does he say?”

　　“He says you may go and open the chest that stands in the corner, and you will see the demon crouching in it; but you must hold the lid so that he doesn't slip out . ”

　　“Will you help me to hold him?” asked the farmer. And he went to the chest where the wife had hidden the real clerk , who sat in there and was very much afraid . The farmer opened the lid a little way and peeped in underneath it .

　　“Ugh ! ” he cried , and sprang backward . “Yes , now I've seen him, and he looked exactly like our clerk. Oh, that was dreadful ! ”

　　Upon this they must drink . So they sat and drank until late into the night .

　　“You must sell me that conjuror,” said the farmer. “Ask as much as you like for him. I'll give you a whole bushel of money directly . ”

　　“No, that I can't do,” said Little Claus: “only think how much use I can make of this conjuror.”

　　“Oh, I should so much like to have him!” cried the farmer; and he went on begging.

　　“Well , ” said Little Claus , at last , “as you have been so kind as to give me shelter for the night , I will let it be so . You shall have the conjuror for a bushel of money; but I must have the bushel heaped up . ”

　　“That you shall have,” replied the farmer. “But you must take the chest yonder away with you . I will not keep it in my house an hour. One cannot know ---- perhaps he may be there still . ”

　　Little Claus gave the farmer his sack with the dry hide in it, and got in exchange a whole bushel of money, and that heaped up . The farmer also gave him a big truck , on which to carry off his money and chest .

　　“Farewell!” said Little Claus ; and he went off with his money and the big chest , in which the clerk was still sitting.

　　On the other side of the wood was a great deep river. The water rushed along so rapidly that one could scarcely swim against the stream. A fine new bridge had been built over it. Little Claus stopped on the centre of the bridge, and said quite loud , so that the clerk could hear it ,

　　“Ho, what shall I do with this stupid chest? It's as heavy as if stones were in it . I shall only get tired if I drag it any farther, so I'll throw it into the river: if it swims home to me, well and good; and if it does not, it will be no great matter .”

　　And he took the chest with one hand, and lifted it up a little, as if he intended to throw it into the river.

　　“No ! Stop it !” cried the clerk from within the chest; “let me out first !”

　　“Ugh!” exclaimed Little Claus, pretending to be frightened, “he' s in there still ! I must make haste and throw him into the river, that he may be drowned . ”

　　“Oh , no , no !” screamed the clerk . “I'll give you a whole bushel-full of money if you'll let me go . ”

　　“Why, that's another thing!” said Little Claus; and he opened the chest .

　　The clerk crept quickly out, pushed the empty chest into the water, and went to his house, where Little Claus received a whole bushel-full of money . He had already received one from the farmer, and so now he had his truck loaded with money .

　　“See , I've been well paid for the horse , ” he said to himself when he had got home to his own room, and was emptying all the money into a heap in the middle of the floor. “That will vex Great Claus when he hears how rich I have grown through my one horse ; but I won' t tell him about it outright . ”

　　So he sent a boy to Great Claus to ask for a bushel measure .

　　“What can he want with it?” thought Great Claus . And he smeared some tar underneath the measure, so that some part of whatever was measured should stick to it . And thus it happened; for when he received the measure back, there were three new three-penny pieces adhering thereto .

　　“What's this?” cried Great Claus; and he ran off at once to Little Claus. “Where did you get all that money from?”

　　“Oh, that's for my horse's skin. I sold it yesterday evening. ”

　　“That's really being well paid,” said Great Claus. And he ran home in a hurry, took an axe, and killed all his four horses; then he flayed them, and carried off their skins to the town .

　　“Hides ! Hides ! Who'll buy any hides?” he cried through the streets .

　　All the shoemakers and tanners came running, and asked how much he wanted for them.

　　“A bushel of money for each !” said Great Claus .

　　“Are you mad?” said they . “Do you think we have money by the bushel?”

　　“Hides! Hides!” he cried again; and to all who asked him what the hides would cost he replied, “A bushel of money . ”

　　“He wants to make fools of us,” they all exclaimed. And the shoemakers took their straps, and the tanners their aprons , and they began to beat Great Claus .

　　“Hides !Hides !” they called after him, jeeringly . “Yes , we' 11 tan your hide for you till the red broth runs down . Out of the town with him !” And Great Claus made the best haste he could , for he had never yet been thrashed as he was thrashed now .

　　“Well,” said he when he got home, “Little Claus shall pay for this . I'll kill him for it . ” 点击全文阅读