it was
very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snow-flakes, and on
the fence stood the raven, crying, "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes,
it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this. The poor little
Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening--the sun was just
setting in his beauty--there came a whole flock of great, handsome birds
out of the bushes. They were dazzlingly white, with long, flexible
necks--they were swans. They uttered a very peculiar cry, spread forth
their glorious great wings, and flew away from that cold region to
warmer lands, to fair open lakes. They mounted so high, so high! and the
ugly Duckling felt quite strangely as it watched them. It turned round
and round in the water like a wheel, stretched out its neck towards
them, and uttered such a strange loud cry as frightened itself. Oh! it
could not forget those beautiful, happy birds; and so soon as it could
see them no longer, it dived down to the very bottom, and when it came
up again it was quite beside itself. It knew not the name of those
birds, and knew not whither they were flying; but it loved them more
than it had ever loved any one. It was not at all envious of them. How
could it think of wishing to possess such loveliness as they had? It
would have been glad if only the ducks would have endured its
company--the poor, ugly creature!

And the winter grew cold, very cold! The Duckling was forced to swim
about in the water, to prevent the surface from freezing entirely; but
every night the hole in which it swam about became smaller and smaller.
It froze so hard that the icy covering crackled again; and the Duckling
was obliged to use its legs continually to prevent the hole from
freezing up. At last it became exhausted, and lay quite still, and thus
froze fast into the ice.

Early in the morning a peasant came by, and when he saw what had
happened, he took his wooden shoe, broke the ice-crust to pieces, and
carried the Duckling home to his wife. Then it came to itself again. The
children wanted to play with it; but the Duckling thought they wanted to
hurt it, and in its terror fluttered up into the milk-pan, so that the
milk spurted down into the room. The woman clasped her hands, at which
the Duckling flew down into the butter-tub, and then into the
meal-barrel and out again. How it looked then! The woman screamed, and
struck at it with the fire-tongs; the children tumbled over one another
in their efforts to