In the forest stood a beautiful, shaggy little pine tree. It was in a good place: the sun was shining on it, the air was caressing it, and its older companions, spruces and yews, were rustling around it.
But the little pine had every desire to grow taller; he did not enjoy the warm sun, the refreshing air, nor did he care for the peasant children who walked and talked around him when they went to the forest for strawberries and raspberries. Sometimes they would pick whole bunches, sometimes they would string strawberries on straw, and then they would sit down to rest at the base of a small pine tree and say:
- What a beautiful little tree! - And this the little pine did not like to hear.
The next year it grew a good sprout taller, and the year after that another sprout; you can always tell how old a pine tree is by its sprouts.
- 'Oh, if I could be as big as my fellows,' sighed the little pine tree, 'I could spread my branches far and wide, and with my crown I could look out into the world! Birds would nest among my branches, and when the wind blew, I could nod my head as majestically as those over there!
And he was not happy about the sunlight, nor the birds, nor even the pretty red clouds that sailed over him at sunrise and sunset. Winter was coming on, a white and shining blanket of snow covered everything around him, and sometimes a rabbit would run past and jump over the little pine tree. Oh, how annoying it was! Two winters went by, until at last, on the third, it grew so big that the rabbits could no longer jump over it, they had to go round it. Oh, to grow, to grow, to grow big and mighty, that's what's worth most in this world after all, the little pine longed.
In autumn, lumberjacks came to the forest and every year they cut down some of the tallest trees. The young pine trees, which had grown up nicely in the meantime, watched with trembling: the majestic giants fell to the ground with a crackling sound. With axes they hacked off their branches, lying bare; thus, stripped of their boughs, gaunt, they were scarcely recognizable, Then they lifted the logs into wagons, hitched them to horses, and drove them from the forest.
Where were they taken? And what can await them?
In spring, when the swallows and storks returned, the pine asked them:
- Do you know where they took my companions? Did you meet them on the road? The swallows did not know about them, but an old stork thought for a long time, then nodded and said:
- I must have seen your companions. When I set sail from Egypt, I saw new ships at sea. They had magnificent masts - they must have been carved from your companions because they smelled of pine. I thanked them, but their heads were very high.
- Oh, I wish I were taller! Now I could walk on the sea. What is the sea like, tell me about it!
- It would have been a long story! - said the stork, and moved on.
- Rejoice in youth! - "Rejoice in your new shoots, the young vigour that fills you!
And the wind blew a kiss on the tree, the dew relieved it, but the little pine tree didn't care for them.
Then, around Christmas, young pines were cut down in the forest, even those that were more tender than the restless pine. The branches of these tender trees - the best ones were selected - were not cut off, but were put on carts, and the horses took them out of the forest.
- Where are they taking them? - our pine tree wondered. - They are not bigger than me, there was one even smaller than me. Why did they leave their branches? Where could the cart have taken them?
- We know! We know! - the sparrows chorused. - Down in the city we looked in the windows of houses here and there. We know where they went in the cart. They're surrounded by splendour and light such as you never dreamed of! We peeped in through the window and saw them: they were standing in a warm room with beautiful decorations, golden apples, honeysuckle, and many toys hung on their branches, and hundreds and hundreds of candles glowing on the tips of the branches.
- "And then?" asked the pine tree, and every branch trembled. Then what happened?
- We have not seen any more. But it was beautiful It was beautiful.
- May my luck be with you, and may I walk this glorious path! - "It's even greater than walking the seas! Oh, how I long, how I long! I wish Christmas were here again! I'm as big as the fellows they took to town last year. If only they'd put me on a cart! If only I could stand in the warm room, amid all the pomp and splendor! I wonder what comes next? Surely it will be even better, even more beautiful, or why should they decorate me so richly? After that, even greater, even more splendid things await me. But what are they? Oh, how I long to go, how I long to be gone! I know not myself what I have found.
- Rejoice with us! - said the air and the sunshine. - Rejoice in the youth here under the free sky of God!
But the pine tree was not happy for them either. It grew and grew as fast as it could, and turned green in winter and summer. People who saw it in all its dark green glory said, "What a beautiful tree!" And around Christmas, he was the first to be cut down. The axe reached up to him and with a deep sigh he fell. He felt an agonizing pain, and lay half fainting on the ground; he could not think now of his fortune, he was sad to be parted from his native land, the place where he had grown up; he knew he would never see his dear old companions again, the little bushes and flowers around, perhaps not even the birds. Certainly, the journey had not been pleasant.
He only regained consciousness when he and his companions were dumped in a yard and he heard a man say:
- This is the most beautiful! We choose this one.
Then two liveried servants carried the pine tree into a beautiful, spacious room. There were portraits hanging all around the walls, tall Chinese vases beside the earthenware stove - a lion adorned the top - rocking chairs, silk-covered couches in the great room, and huge tables full of picture books and toys that cost a hundred times a hundred thalers - or so the children said. The pine tree was placed in a large barrel filled with sand: no one could see the barrel because it was covered with green cloth and placed on a large, variegated carpet. Oh, how the pine tree trembled, waiting to see what would happen next!
Valets and maids entered the room and were seen decorating it. Little nets cut from coloured paper were hung on its branches; the nets were filled with sweets; gilded apples and walnuts were hung on its branches - painted as if they had been grown on it. On the tips of its branches were fixed a hundred or so red, blue, white candles. Among its green needles were swaying dolls, bearded like men, only small - the pine tree had never seen such - and at the top of the tree a great golden star shone. It was beautiful, oh, how beautifully beautiful!
- Tonight, they said around him, tonight we will light all his candles.
"Oh, if only it were night! - "If only they would light my candles! I wonder what will happen next? Will my companions from the forest come and see me? Will the sparrows peep in? Will I put down roots here, and stand thus adorned, winter and summer, for ever?"
The bark has been eaten away by the intense longing, and the bark aches in the trees just as much as the headache in humans.
Then, finally, the candles on the branches were lit. What a glow! What splendour! All the branches of the pine tree shook; one candle even burned off a good chunk of its green needles.
- "Oh, my God!" cried the maids, frightened, and quickly put out the fire.
Now he had to be careful not to get the shakes again. Oh, how afraid he was! He was always trembling at the thought of losing one of his jewels - almost maddened by the dazzling brilliance. But suddenly the wing-door opened, and a crowd of children rushed in, as fierce as if they were going to knock down a tree. The adults followed with calm steps. The little ones stood silent for a moment, and then they burst out again, but in a way that made the great room ring. They danced around the pine tree, and one by one they picked the presents off.
- What do they want? - the tree wondered. - What will happen to me?
The candles burned brightly on the branches, and then they were quickly blown out, and the children were allowed to pick whatever they wanted from the tree. They stormed it, so that its branches crackled; if the top and the gold star had not been fastened to the ceiling, they might have been toppled.
The children were happily jumping about with their wonderful toys; no one paid any attention to the tree, except the old nurse, who glanced between its branches, but she only looked to see if they had forgotten an apple or a fig.
- Now a story! A story! - the children flattered a short, fat man and dragged him under the pine tree. The fat man sat down at the base of the tree.
- 'We are in the forest,' he said, 'and perhaps the tree will benefit from hearing the story. But I'm really only telling a story. Take your choice: do you want to hear about Poppy-eyed Mummy, or about Silly Jack, who played at cards on the graveyard, but won honour and married the Princess?
- "Tell me about Poppy-eye Matyi!" cried some people. - demanded the others. There was a great uproar. Only the pine tree stood silent and wondering, thinking, "They don't care about me any more!" But he had already taken his share of the glory.
And the fat man told the tale of Jack the Fool, who had played at cards on the gridiron, yet won honour and married the Princess. The children clapped their hands and shouted:
- Tell me more! Tell me more!
They also wanted to hear the story of Poppy Eyes, but they had to settle for Silly Jack.
The pine tree stared silently and thoughtfully: it had never heard such a story from the forest birds. "Foolish Janko, who waddled down the trellis, has got the hand of the princess! Yes, it seems to be the way of the world!" - he mused, and believed the tale to the last word, for he seemed a man of such virtue to tell it! "Verily, verily, who knows! Perhaps I, too, shall one day play on the gridiron and marry a princess!" - he dreamed. And he looked forward to the next day; surely he would be adorned again with candles, toys, and sweet fruits.
"But tomorrow I shall not tremble!" he vowed. "I shall rejoice in my splendour. Tomorrow I shall hear the story of Janko the Dunderhead again, and perhaps even Poppy Eyes', and he lay awake all night in silent contemplation.
In the morning, servants and footmen entered the large room.
"They're decorating again!" - thought the pine tree exultantly.
But they caught him and dragged him out of the room, took him up the stairs to the attic, and put him in a dark corner where no sunlight could reach.
"What is this?" the tree asked itself. "What am I doing here? No sound can reach me here!"
He leaned against the wall and thought, thought, thought: days went by, nights passed, but no one went up to the attic. At last someone appeared, but only to put some boxes in the corner. The pine tree stood in the dark corner, and everyone seemed to have forgotten about it.
"It's winter outside," he consoled himself. - The ground is hard and frozen, snow covers everything. They can't plant me now, that's why I have to wait for spring in this corner. Well, they take care of me. How good people are! If only it weren't so dark, and I had some company!"
- "Cin, cin!" squeaked an oncoming mouse. Then another ran up. They sniffed around the tree and crept into the branches.
- "It's terribly cold!" complained the little mice. "Otherwise it's quite nice here, isn't it, you old pine?
- I am not old!" said the pine. - There are people much older than me.
- Where are you from? - the mice asked. - And what did you see? - Tell us about the most beautiful place in the world, if you've ever been there. Have you been in the larder, where cheeses smell of cheese on the shelf and hams hang from the bars? Where the mice dance on tallow candles? We go in there skinny and come out fat. Have you been there?
- "But I will tell you about the forest where the sun shines and the birds sing.
And he told me all about his youth. The little mice had never heard such a story, and they listened eagerly, and said at the end:
- Oh, you've seen a lot! And how happy you were!
- Happy? - asked the pine, then thought again about what he had said. - Indeed, those were good times!
Then he told me what he saw on Christmas Eve, when they were stacking them full of honeysuckle and lighting candles on their branches.
- Oh!" the mice dreamed. - How happy you must have been, old pine!
- "I told you I'm not old!" the pine was annoyed. - They brought me from the forest this winter. I am at my prime. I've only grown very tall.
- You tell such a beautiful story! - the little mice were enthusiastic. And the next night, they brought four more mice with them to hear the stories of the pine tree. And the longer the pine told the stories, the more he remembered his youth and sighed to himself:
"Those were good times! But they can come back, they can come back! Even the foolish Janko was a fool on the gridiron, but he still got the hand of the princess, so I might marry a princess!" - and the most beautiful young poplar tree in the forest came to his mind. To him, that little poplar tree was the most beautiful princess in the world.
- Who's Silly Jack? - asked the mice. And the pine told them the whole story - he had memorised every word of it on Christmas Eve. The mice leapt almost to the top of the tree in delight. The next night a whole host of mice listened to the tree, and on Sunday two rats came to the tree, but they scolded the story and made the mice sad. Now they didn't like the story of the pine tree so much either.
- Is that the only story you know? - the rats asked.
- "Only this," said the pine. - I heard it on the happiest night of my life, but I didn't know how happy I was then.
- It's a sad tale! Can't you think of one about tallow and bacon? Some kind of pantry drama?
- "I don't know that," said the pine.
- Then we recommend you! - And the rats left him high and dry. By and by the little mice fell behind, and the pine-tree sighed bitterly - "How nice it was when the agile little mice sat around me and listened to my stories! They too forgot me. Now I'll only be happy when they take me down from here one day.
But when will that be, when?
One morning men came up to the attic, pushed the boxes aside and dragged the pine tree out of the dark corner. They did not treat it gently, slammed it to the floor, and a servant dragged it up the stairs, where the sun was shining brightly.
- Life begins again! - cheered the pine. He could feel the fresh air, the first rays of sunshine - he was out in the yard. It all happened so fast that he didn't even have time to look at himself. There was enough to see around him. Across the courtyard, a garden was blooming with fragrance; roses leaned fresh and smiling on the low hedge, swallows flitted among the blooming linden trees, chirping happily, "Tweety, tweety, my mate, he's here!" But of course they didn't mean the pine tree.
- Now I'm alive! - the pine tree rejoiced, and stretched out its branches, but alas, all its little needles were yellow and withered.
He lay among nettles and weeds in the corner of the yard. But the golden star still shone on its top, reflecting the sun's rays.
In the courtyard, the children played merrily, dancing around the pine tree on Christmas Eve, and rejoiced so many times. Now the youngest ran up to it and plucked the golden star from its top.
- Look what I found on this ugly old Christmas tree! - he cried, stamping on the dry branches, which crackled under his little boots.
The pine tree looked at the beautiful garden in full bloom, then looked at itself, and longed shyly to return to the dark corner of the attic. He thought of the woods, of his youth, of the merry Christmas Eve and the little mice who listened with such delight to the story of Silly Jack.
- Gone, all gone! - sighed the poor pine tree. - Why was I not happy when I could have been happy? Now it's too late!
A man with an axe came and cut down the pine tree, and it became a large bundle of small trees. He splashed under the great cauldron, and sighed deeply, so loudly that it sounded like the crack of a gun. The children who were playing outside ran in, crouched down in front of the stove, looked inside, and shouted belligerently, "Piff-puff!" And with every crack of the pine-tree - every crack was a sigh - he thought of a summer's day, or a winter's night in the woods, with stars twinkling above him; he thought of Christmas Eve, and of Jack the Clumsy, the only story he had heard and told. In the end, all that was left of him was a handful of ashes.
The children continued to play in the yard; the youngest pinned the gold star on his chest, the most beautiful decoration on the pine tree that happy evening. But that evening was over; the tree was over, the story was over; over, over - that is the end of all stories.
The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (Hungarian National Electronic Library)
