rth 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
little Duckling felt quite strange as it watched them. It turned round
and round in the water like a wheel, stretched out its neck toward 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 anyone. 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 would do
it an injury, and in its terror fluttered up into the milk-pan, so that
the milk spurted down into the room. The woman clapped 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 catch the Duckling; and they laughed and screamed
finely. Happily the door stood open, and the poor creature was able to
slip out between the shrubs into the newly-fallen snow; and there it
lay quite exhausted.

But it would be too melancholy if I were to tell all the misery and care
which the Duckling had to endure in the hard winter. It lay out on the
moor among the reeds when the sun began to shine again and the larks to
sing; it was a beautiful spring.

Then all at once the Duck