It was bitterly cold, snow was falling and it was getting dark; the calendar showed the last day of the year. In the bitter cold, a poor little girl walked the darkening streets, hair drenched and barefoot. When she left home she still had slippers on her feet, but they were of little use.
Because the slippers were big, very big - his mother used to wear them - and as he jumped onto the pavement to avoid two cars speeding past, both slippers fell off his feet at once. One of them was run off by a runaway - he said he would use it as a cradle when he got married, and the other the poor girl couldn't find.
So he walked the streets barefoot, his little feet stinging blue-red in the cruel cold. His tattered apron was bundled up: a pile of sulphur matches rattled in it, and he clutched a box in his hand.
All day long he offered his goods in vain, not a match was bought from him, and no one gave him alms: he trudged on, hungry and shivering with cold; he was a heart-breaking sight, poor fellow. Glittering snowflakes clung to her beautifully curled long blond hair, but she thought nothing of it.
The windows were bright and the smell of roast goose was glorious, as it was New Year's Eve. The poor little creature thought of nothing else.
He ducked into a nook, around the corner of a naked house, and tucked his bare feet under him. There he shivered still more, and then the cold of God took him, but he dared not go home, for he had not earned a penny all day, and his father would surely receive him with a beating. Besides, it was no better at home, their attic room was bitterly cold, and the wind blew in through the cracks in the roof, though they had filled the larger gaps with straw and cloth.
His little fingers were already numb. I wish I had a match, just one match! If he could get one out of the box, rub it against the wall and light it, he could warm his hands by the flame! At last he took the liberty of lighting one. How merrily it gleamed, and how the flame blazed! It was as bright and warm as a candle flame, and the little girl held her hand up to it happily.
It was a wonderful flame! The poor little match-seller girl felt as if she were sitting in front of a beautiful copper-plated iron stove with a copper pipe - it was so nice to watch the fire, it felt so good to be warm next to it! She stretched out her legs to get the warmth, but at that moment the match flame burst, the iron stove disappeared, and the little girl sat in the cold corner of the wall with a matchstick in her hand.
He took out another match and lit it. The light fell on the wall, shedding palm-sized light on it, and in that place the wall became transparent like clear glass: the little match girl could see into the room. A large table covered with a snow-white tablecloth stood inside, with fine porcelain dishes gleaming on it, and in the middle of it a roast goose stuffed with prunes and apples smelt fragrant.
And the most amazing thing was: the roast goose suddenly jumped out of the dish, and with knife and fork in its back, it staggered towards the little girl. But alas, the flame of the match had gone out again, and there was nothing to be seen but the cold, bare wall.
He lit another match: by its light he saw a beautiful Christmas tree, even more beautiful and brilliant than the one he had seen on Christmas Eve in the rich merchant's room, when he had fallen through the glass door. He sat under the tree and looked at the hundreds and hundreds of candles on the tips of the branches, the brightly coloured ornaments he had only seen in shop windows.
He reached out to take one down, but then the flame went out again, and the many Christmas candles slowly rose up into the sky, and there they were, full of shining stars. Suddenly, one of them broke off and fell, a bright streak of light in the dark sky.
- Someone is dead! - said the little girl; she remembered that her grandmother, the only one who had been good to her, and who had died long ago, had once said "Every time a star falls, a soul stands before God."
He rubbed a match against the wall again, and suddenly there was a great light around him. In the clear light stood his long-dead grandmother, looking down gently, invitingly, at her little grandson.
- Grandmother!" cried the little girl. "Grandmother, take me with you! I know you'll leave me here, when the match burns out, you'll disappear like a warm stove and a roast goose and a beautiful Christmas tree! Don't leave me, Grandma!
And quickly he rubbed a whole packet of matches against the wall to bind dear grandmother; the many matches gave off a glow as if the sun were shining. The grandmother had never been so beautiful, so strong. She took the little girl in her arms and lifted her up, high, very high, where there is no cold, no hunger, no fear, where there is only joy and brightness.
In the cold morning, they found the little match girl in the corner of the house: her flushed face smiling, but no life in her, frozen in the night of miracles. There lay the dead child on New Year's morning, surrounded by a pile of matchboxes and many, many burnt matchsticks.
- "The poor thing wanted to get warm!" said the people. No one knew how much beauty he had seen, and how much brightness surrounded him when he left this dark world forever in his grandmother's arms.
Source: tales of Hans Christian Andersen (Hungarian National Electronic Library)
