e whole herd of swine, great and small--they found the
place so excellent. "Oui! oui!" said they, for they knew no more
French, but that, however, was something. They were so wise, and so
fat, and altogether lords in the forest.

The old ones lay still, for they thought; the young ones, on the
contrary, were so brisk--busy, but apparently uneasy. One little pig
had a curly tail--that curl was the mother's delight. She thought that
they all looked at the curl, and thought only of the curl; but that
they did not. They thought of themselves, and of what was useful, and
of what the forest was for. They had always heard that the acorns they
ate grew on the roots of the trees, and therefore they had always
rooted there; but now there came a little one--for it is always the
young ones that come with news--and he asserted that the acorns fell
down from the branches: he himself had felt one fall right on his
head, and that had given him the idea, so he had made observations,
and now he was quite sure of what he asserted. The old ones laid their
heads together. "Uff," said the swine, "uff! the finery is past! the
twittering of the birds is past! we will have fruit! whatever can be
eaten is good, and we eat everything!"

"Oui! oui!" said they altogether.

But the mother sow looked at her little pig with the curly tail.

"One must not, however, forget the beautiful!" said she.

"Caw! caw!" screamed the crow, and flew down, in order to be appointed
nightingale: one there should be--and so the crow was directly
appointed.

"Past! past!" sighed the Rose King, "all the beautiful is past!"

It was wet; it was gloomy; there was cold and wind, and the rain
pelted down over the fields, and through the forest, like long water
jets. Where are the birds that sang? where are the flowers in the
meadows, and the sweet berries in the wood?--past! past!

A light shone from the forester's house: it twinkled like a star, and
shed its long rays out between the trees. A song was heard from
within; pretty children played around their old grandfather, who sat
with the Bible on his lap and read about God, and eternal life, and
spoke of the spring that would come again: he spoke of the forest that
would renew its green leaves, of the roses that would flower, of the
nightingales that would sing, and of the beautiful that would again be
paramount.

But the Rose King did not hear it; he sat in the raw, cold weather,
and sighed:

"Past! past!"