Part 5

"It was very ill-mannered that I did not say good-by to thy mother and brothers," said the prince.

"There is no blame when people are asleep!" said the eastwind; and with that flew away faster than ever. One could have heard, as they went over the woods, how the trees shook their leaves and branches; one could have heard, on lakes and seas that they were passing over, for the billows heaved up more loftily, and the great ships bowed down into the water like sailing swans.

Towards evening, when it grew dusk, it was curious to look down to the great cities; the lights burned within them, now here, now there; it was exactly like the piece of paper which children burn to see the multitude of little stars in it, which they call people coming out of church. The prince clapped his hands, but the eastwind told him not to do so, but much better to keep fast hold; or else he might let him fall, and then, perhaps, he would pitch upon a church spire.

The eagle flew lightly through the dark wood, but the eastwind flew still lighter; the Cossack on his little horse sped away over the plain, but the prince sped on more rapidly by another mode.

"Now thou canst see the Himalaya," said the eastwind; "they are the highest mountains in Asia; we shall not be long before we come to the Garden of Paradise!"

With that they turned more southward, and perceived the fragrance of spice and flowers. Figs and pomegranates grew wild, and the wild vine hung with its clusters of blue and red grapes. There they both of them alighted, stretched themselves on the tender grass, where the flowers nodded, as if they would say,--"Welcome back again!"

"Are we now in the Garden of Paradise?" asked the prince.

"No, certainly not," replied the eastwind; "but we shall soon come there. Dost thou see the winding field-path there, and the great cavern where the vine leaves hang like rich green curtains? We shall go through there. Wrap thee in thy cloak; here the sun burns, but one step more and it is icy cold! The birds which fly past the cavern have the one, outer wing, in the warm summer, and the other, inner one, in the cold winter!"

"Really! And that is the way to the Garden of Paradise!" said the prince.

They now went into the cave. Ha! how ice-cold it was; but that did not last long, for the southwind spread out his wings, and they gave the warmth of the brightest fire. Nay, what a cavern it was! The huge masses of stone, from which the water dripped, hung above them in the most extraordinary shapes; before long it grew so narrow that they were obliged to creep upon hands and feet; again, and it expanded itself high and wide, like the free air. It looked like a chapel of the dead, with its silent organ pipes and organ turned to stone!

"Then we go the way of the dead to the Garden of Paradise," said the prince; but the eastwind replied not a word, but pointed onward, and the most lovely blue light beamed towards them. The masses of stone above them became more and more like a chiselled ceiling, and at last were bright, like a white cloud in the moonshine. They now breathed the most deliciously mild atmosphere, as if fresh from the mountains, and as fragrant as the roses of the valley.

A river flowed on as clear as the air itself, and the fishes were of gold and silver; crimson eels, whose every movement seemed to emit blue sparks of fire, played down in the water, and the broad leaf of the waterlily had all the colors of the rainbow; the flower itself was an orange-colored burning flame, to which the water gave nourishment, in the same manner as the oil keeps the lamp continually burning. A firm bridge of marble, as artistically and as exquisitely built as if it had been of pearl and glass, led across the water to the Island of Bliss, where the Garden of Paradise bloomed.

The eastwind took the prince in his arms and carried him over. The flowers and the leaves began the most exquisite song about his youth, so incomparably beautiful as no human voice could sing.

Were they palm trees or gigantic water plants which grew there? Trees so large and succulent the prince had never seen. Long garlands of the most wondrously formed twining plants, such as one only sees painted in rich colors and gold upon the margins of old missals, or which twined themselves through their initial letters, were thrown from tree to tree. It was altogether the most lovely and fantastic assemblage of birds, flowers, and graceful sweeping branches. In the grass just by them was a flock of peacocks, with outspread glittering tails. Yes, it was really so!--No, when the prince touched them he observed that they were not animals, but plants; it was the large plantain, which has the dazzling hues of the peacock's tail! Lions and tigers gambolled about, like playful cats, between the green hedges, which sent forth an odor like the blossom of the olive; and the lions and tigers were tame; the wild wood-dove glittered like the most beautiful pearl, and with its wings playfully struck the lion on the cheek; and the antelope, which usually is so timid, stood and nodded with its head, as if it too should like to join in the sport.

Now came the Fairy of Paradise; her garments shone like the sun, and her countenance was as gentle as that of a glad mother when she rejoices over her child. She was youthful; and the most beautiful girls attended her, each of whom had a beaming star in her hair.

The eastwind gave her a written leaf from the phoenix, and her eyes sparkled with joy; she took the prince by the hand, and led him into her castle, the walls of which were colored like the most splendid leaf of the tulip when held against the sun. The ceiling itself was a large glittering flower, and the longer one gazed into it the deeper seemed its cup. The prince stepped up to the window and looked through one of the panes; there he saw the Tree of Knowledge, with the snake and Adam and Eve standing close beside it.

"Are they not driven out?" asked he; and the Fairy smiled, and explained to him that upon every pane of glass had time burned in its picture, but not as we are accustomed to see it,--no, here all was living; the trees moved their leaves, and people came and went as in reality. He looked through another pane, and there was Jacob's dream, where the ladder reached up to heaven, and the angels with their large wings ascended and descended upon it. Yes, every thing which had been done in this world lived and moved in these panes of glass. Such pictures as these could only be burnt in by time.

The Fairy smiled, and led him into a large and lofty hall, the walls of which seemed transparent, and were covered with pictures, the one more lovely than the other. These were the millions of the blessed, and they smiled and sang so that all flowed together into one melody. The uppermost were so small that they seemed less than the smallest rosebud, when it looks like a pin-prick on paper. In the middle of the hall stood a great tree with drooping luxuriant branches; golden apples, large and small, hung like oranges among the green leaves. It was the Tree of Knowledge; of the fruit of which Adam and Eve had eaten. On every leaf hung a crimson drop of dew; it was as if the tree wept tears of blood.

"Let us now go into the boat," said the Fairy; "it will be refreshing to us out upon the heaving water. The boat rocks, but does not move from the place, and all the regions of the world pass before our eyes."

And it was wonderful to see how the coast moved! There came the lofty, snow-covered Alps, with clouds and dark pine trees; horns resounded with such a deep melancholy, and peasants _jodelled_ sweetly in the valleys. Now the banyan tree bowed its long depending branches over the boat; black swans swam upon the water, and the strangest animals and flowers showed themselves along the shores: this was Australia, the fifth quarter of the world, which glided past, with its horizon bounded by blue mountains. They heard the song of the priests, and saw the savages dancing to the sound of the drum and bone-tubes. The pyramids of Egypt now rose into the clouds; overturned pillars and sphinxes, half buried in sand, sailed past them. The northern lights flamed above the Hecla of the north; they were such magnificent fireworks as no one could imitate. The prince was delighted, and in fact, he saw a hundred times more than what we have related.

"And may I always remain here?" asked he.

"That depends upon thyself," replied the Fairy. "If thou do not, like Adam, take of the forbidden thing, then thou mayest always remain here."

"I shall not touch the apples upon the Tree of Knowledge," said the prince; "here are a thousand fruits more beautiful than that. I should never do as Adam did!"

"Prove thyself, and if thou be not strong enough, then return with the eastwind which brought thee; he is about to go back again, and will not return here for a whole century. That time will pass to thee in this place as if it were only a hundred minutes, but it is time enough for temptation and sin. Every evening when I am about to leave thee, I shall say to thee, 'Follow me!' and beckon to thee. But follow me not, for with every step would the temptation become stronger, and thou wouldst come into the hall where grows the Tree of Knowledge. I sleep beneath its fragrant depending branches; if thou follow me, if thou impress a kiss upon me, then will Paradise sink deep in the earth, and it will be lost to thee. The sharp winds of the desert will howl around thee, cold rain will fall upon thy hair, and sorrow and remorse will be thy punishment!"

"I will remain here!" said the prince; so the eastwind kissed his brow, and said, "Be strong! and then we shall meet again here in a hundred years!"

The eastwind spread out his large wings, which shone like the harvest moon in autumn, or the northern lights in the cold winter.

"Farewell! farewell!" resounded from the flowers and the trees. The storks and the pelicans flew after, in a line like a waving riband, and accompanied him to the boundary of the Garden.

"Now we begin our dance!" said the Fairy; "at the conclusion, when I have danced with thee, thou wilt see that when the sun sets I shall beckon to thee, and thou wilt hear me say, 'Follow me!' But do it not! That is thy temptation--that is sin to thee! During a hundred years I shall every evening repeat it. Every time that thou resistest the temptation wilt thou gain more strength, till at length it will cease to tempt thee. This evening is the first trial! Remember that I have warned thee!"

The Fairy led him into a great hall of white transparent lilies; in each one the yellow stamina was a little golden harp, which rung with clear and flute-like tones. The most beautiful maidens floated in the dance, and sung how glorious was the gift of life; that they who were purified by trial should never die, and that the Garden of Paradise for them should bloom forever!

The sun went down, the whole heaven became of gold, which gave to the lilies the splendor of the most beautiful roses. The prince felt a bliss within his heart such as he had never experienced before. He looked, and the background of the hall opened, and the Tree of Knowledge stood there with a splendor which dazzled his eyes. A song resounded from it, low and delicious as the voice of his mother, and it seemed as if she sung, "My child! my beloved child!"

Then beckoned the Fairy, and said, "Follow, follow me!"

He started towards her--he forgot his promise--forgot it all the first evening! "Follow, follow me!" alone sounded in his heart. He paused not--he hastened after her.

"I will," said he; "there is really no sin in it! Why should I not do so? I will see her! There is nothing lost if I only do not kiss her, and that I will not do--for I have a firm will!"

The Fairy put aside the green, depending branches of the Tree of Knowledge, and the next moment was hidden from sight.

"I have not sinned," said the prince, "and I will not!" He also put aside the green, depending branches of the Tree of Knowledge, and there sat the Fairy with her hands clasped, and the tears on her dark eyelashes!

"Weep not for me!" said he passionately. "There can be no sin in what I have done; weep not!" and he kissed away her tears, and his lips touched hers!

At once a thunder crash was heard--a loud and deep thunder crash, and all seemed hurled together! The beautiful, weeping Fairy, the Garden of Paradise, sunk--sunk so deep--so deep!--and the prince saw it sink in the deep night! Like a little gleaming star he saw it shining a long way off! The coldness of death went through his limbs; he closed his eyes, and lay long as if dead!

The cold rain fell upon his face; the keen wind blew around his head; his thoughts turned to the past.

"What have I done!" sighed he; "I have sinned like Adam! Sinned, and I have forfeited Paradise!"

He opened his eyes; the star so far off, which had shone to him like the sunken Paradise, he now saw was the morning star in heaven.

He raised himself up, and was in the great wood near to the cave of the winds; the old woman sat by his side, she looked angrily at him, and lifted up her arm.

"Already! the first time of trial!" said she: "I expected as much! Yes, if thou wast a lad of mine, I would punish thee!"

"Punishment will come!" said a strong old man, with a scythe in his hand, and with large, black wings!--"I shall lay him in his coffin, but not now. Let him return to the world, atone for his sin, and become good in deed, and not alone in word. I shall come again; if he be then good and pious, I will take him above the stars, where blooms the Garden of Paradise; and he shall enter in at its beautiful pearl gates, and be a dweller in it forever and ever; but if then his thoughts are evil, and his heart full of sin, he will sink deeper than Paradise seemed to sink--sink deeper, and that forever!--Farewell!"

The prince arose--the old woman was gone--the cave of the winds was nothing now but a hollow in the rock; he wondered how it had seemed so large the night before; the morning star had set, and the sun shone with a clear and cheerful light upon the little flowers and blades of grass, which were heavy with the last night's rain; the birds sang, and the bees hummed in the blossoms of the lime tree. The prince walked home to his castle. He told his grandmother how he had been to the Garden of Paradise, and what had happened to him there, and what the old man with the black wings had said.

"This will do thee more good than many book-lessons," said the old grandmother; "never let it go out of thy memory!"--and the prince never did.

A NIGHT IN THE KITCHEN.

Once upon a time, there was a bunch of brimstone matches, which were exceedingly proud, because they were of high descent; their ancestral tree, that is to say, the great fir tree, of which they were little bits of chips, had been a great, old tree in the forest. The brimstone matches now lay beside the kitchen fender, together with the tinder and an old iron pot, and were speaking of their youth.

"Yes, we were then on the green branch," said they; "then we were really and truly on a green branch; every morning and evening we drank diamond tea, that was the dew; every day we had sunshine, if the sun shone, and all the little birds told us tales. We could very well observe also, that we were rich; for the common trees were only dressed in summer, but our family had a good stock of green clothing both winter and summer. But then came the wood-cutters--that was a great revolution, and our family was cut up root and branch; the main head of the family, he took a place as mainmast in a magnificent ship, which sailed round the world wherever it would; the other branches, some took one place, and some took another; and we have now the post of giving light to the common herd; and, therefore, high-born as we are, are we now in the kitchen."

"Yes, it was different with me," said the iron pot, when the matches were silent; "as soon as ever I came into the world I was cleaned and boiled many a time! I care for the solid, and am properly spoken of as first in the house. My only pleasure is, as soon as dinner is over, to lie clean and bright upon the shelf, and head a long row of comrades. If I except the water-bucket, which now and then goes down in the yard, we always live in-doors. Our only newsmonger is the coal-box; but it talks so violently about government and the people!--yes, lately there was an old pot, which, out of horror of it, fell down and broke to pieces!"

"Thou chatterest too much!" interrupted the tinder, and the steel struck the flint until sparks came out. "Should we not have a merry evening?"

"Yes; let us talk about who is the most well-bred among us," said the brimstone matches.

"No, I don't think it right to talk about ourselves," said an earthen jug; "let us have an evening's entertainment. I will begin; I will tell something which everybody has experienced; people can do that so seldom, and it is so pleasant. By the Baltic sea--"

"That is a beautiful beginning!" said all the talkers; "it will certainly be a history which we shall like."

"Yes, then I passed my youth in a quiet family; the furniture was of wood; the floors were scoured; they had clean curtains every fortnight."

"How interestingly you tell it!" said the dusting-brush; "one can immediately tell that the narrator is a lady, such a thread of purity always runs through their relations."

"Yes, that one can feel!" said the water-bucket, and made a little skip of pleasure on the floor.

And the earthen jug continued her story, and the end of it was like the beginning.

All the talkers shook for pleasure; and the dusting-brush took green parsley leaves from the dust-heap, and crowned the jug; for he knew that it would vex the others; and thinks he to himself, "If I crown her to-day, she will crown me to-morrow!"

"Now we will dance," said the fire-tongs; and began dancing. Yes, indeed! and it is wonderful how he set one leg before the other; the old shoehorn, which hung on a hook, jumped up to see it. "Perhaps I, too, may get crowned," said the fire-tongs; and it was crowned.

"They are only the rabble!" thought the brimstone matches.

The tea-urn was then asked to sing; but it said it had got a cold, and it could not sing unless it was boiling; but it was nothing but an excuse, because it did not like to sing, unless it stood upon the table, in grand company.

In the window there sat an old pen, which the servant-girl was accustomed to write with: there was nothing remarkable about it; it was dipped deep into the ink-stand. "If the tea-urn will not sing," said the pen, "then she can let it alone! Outside there hangs a nightingale in a cage, which can sing, and which has not regularly learned any thing; but we will not talk scandal this evening!"

"I think it highly unbecoming," said the tea-kettle, which was the kitchen singer, and half-sister to the tea-urn, "that such a foreign bird should be listened to! Is it patriotic? I will let the coal-box judge."

"It only vexes me," said the coal-box; "it vexes me so much, that no one can think! Is this a proper way to spend an evening? Would it not be much better to put the house to rights? Every one go to his place, and I will rule; that will produce a change!"

"Yes, let us do something out of the common way!" said all the things together.

At that very moment the door opened. It was the servant-girl, and so they all stood stock still; not a sound was heard; but there was not a pot among them that did not know what they might have done, and how genteel they were.

"If I might have had my way," thought they, "then it would have been a regularly merry evening!"

The servant-girl took the brimstone matches, and put fire to them. Bless us! how they sputtered and burst into a flame!

"Now every one can see," thought they, "that we take the first rank! What splendor we have! what brilliancy!"--and with that they were burnt out.

LITTLE IDA'S FLOWERS.

"My poor flowers are quite dead," said little Ida. "They were so beautiful last evening, and now all their leaves hang withered. How can that be?" asked she from the student who sat on the sofa. She was very fond of him, for he knew the most beautiful tales, and could cut out such wonderful pictures; he could cut out hearts with little dancing ladies in them; flowers he could cut out, and castles with doors that would open. He was a very charming student.

"Why do the flowers look so miserably to-day?" again asked she, and showed him a whole bouquet of withered flowers.

"Dost thou not know what ails them?" said the student; "the flowers have been to a ball last night, and therefore they droop so."

"But flowers cannot dance," said little Ida.

"Yes, when it is dark, and we are all asleep, then they dance about merrily; nearly every night they have a ball!" said the student.

"Can no child go to the ball?" inquired Ida.

"Yes," said the student, "little tiny daisies and lilies of the valley."

"Where do the prettiest flowers dance?" asked little Ida.

"Hast thou not," said the student, "gone out of the city gate to the great castle where the king lives in summer, where there is a beautiful garden, with a great many flowers in it? Thou hast certainly seen the swans which come sailing to thee for little bits of bread. There is a regular ball, thou mayst believe!"

"I was in the garden yesterday with my mother," said Ida, "but all the leaves were off the trees, and there were hardly any flowers at all! Where are they? In summer I saw such a many."