In a large town where there were so many houses that there was not room for every family to have a garden of its own and many people had to be content with keeping a few plants in pots, there lived two poor children named Gerda and Kay who shared a garden that was somewhat larger than a flowerpot. They were not brother and sister, but they loved each other just as much as if they had been. Their families lived in two attics that were exactly opposite each other. The roof of one house nearly joined the other, the gutter ran along between them, and there was a little window in each roof, so that you could stride across the gutter from one window to the other. Each family had a large wooden box in which they grew herbs for the kitchen, and they put these boxes on the gutter, so that they almost touched each other. A beautiful little rose tree grew in each box; scarlet runners entwined their long shoots over the windows and formed a flowery arch across the street. The children often used to sit on little stools under the rose trees, and thus they passed many a happy hour.
When winter came this wasn't possible anymore. The windows were often frozen over, and then the children heated half-pennies on the stove, held the warm coins against the frozen panes, and made little peepholes through which they could see each other.
In summer Gerda and Kay could climb out of their windows and jump over to each other quite easily. But in winter there were stairs to run down and stairs to run up while outside the wind roared and the snow fell.
"Those are the white bees swarming there, " said Gerda's grandmother one winter day.
"Have they a queen bee?" asked Kay, for he knew that real bees have one.
"They have," said the grandmother. "She flies about over there where they swarm so thickly. She is the largest of them all and she never stays on the earth but flies up again into the black cloud. Sometimes on a winter's night she goes through the streets of the town and breathes with her frosty breath on the windows, covering them with strange and beautiful forms like trees and flowers."
"Yes, I have seen them!" said both the children, so they knew that this was true.
"Can the Snow Queen come in here?" asked Gerda.
"If she comes in," said Kay, "I'll put her on the hot stove, and then she'll melt."
And Gerda's grandmother stroked Kay's hair and told the children other stories.
That same evening, after Kay had gone home and was half undressed, he crept onto the chair by the window and peeped through the little round hole. just then a few snowflakes fell outside and one, the largest of them, remained lying on the edge of one of the flowerpots. The snowflake grew larger and larger and at last took the form of a lady dressed in the finest silk, her robes made up of millions of starlike particles.
She was exquisitely fair and delicate but entirely made of ice - glittering, dazzling ice. Her eyes gleamed like two bright stars, but there was no rest in them. She nodded at the window and beckoned with her hand. Kay was frightened and jumped down from the chair to hide, but afterward he thought he saw something like a large bird fly past the window.
There was a clear frost next day, and soon afterward spring came. The trees and flowers budded, the swallows built their nests, the windows were opened, and the children sat once more in their little garden upon the gutter that ran along the roofs of the houses.
That summer the roses blossomed so beautifully that Gerda learned a hymn in which there was something about roses. It reminded her of her own. So she sang it to Kay, and he sang it with her.
And the children held each other by the hand, kissed the roses, and looked up into the blue sky, talking away all the time.
What glorious summer days those were. How wonderful it was to sit under those rose trees, which looked as though they never intended to stop flowering!
One day Kay and Gerda were sitting looking at their picture books full of birds and animals, when suddenly Kay exclaimed, "Oh, dear! What was that shooting pain in my heart, and oh, something has gone into my eye!"
Gerda turned and looked at him. He blinked his eyes; no, there was nothing to be seen.
"I think it has gone," said he, but it had not. It was one of those glass splinters from the magic mirror, the wicked glass that made everything great and good appear little and hateful, and that magnified everything ugly and mean. Poor Kay had a splinter too in his heart and it became hard and cold like a lump of ice. He no longer felt the pain, but the splinter was there.
"Why are you crying?" he asked. "You look ugly when you cry! There is nothing the matter with me. Oh!" he exclaimed again. "This rose has an insect in it. And just look at this! They are ugly roses after all, and it is an ugly box they grow in!" Then he kicked the box and tore off the roses.
"Oh, Kay, what are you doing?" cried Gerda. But when he saw how it upset her, he tore off another rose and jumped down through his own window, away from his once dear friend.
Ever afterward, when she brought out a picture book he called it a baby's book, and when her grandmother told stories, he interrupted with a "but, " and sometimes he would get behind her grandmother, put on her spectacles, and speak just as she did. He did this in a very funny manner, and so people laughed at him. Very soon Kay could mimic everybody in the street and particularly everything that was distinctive and awkward about them, until his neighbors said, "What a remarkable brain that boy has!" But no, it was the glass splinter that had fallen into his eye and the glass splinter that had pierced his heart. It was these that made him not care whose feelings he hurt and even made him tease little Gerda.
He played quite different games now from the ones he had played before. One winter's day when it snowed he came out with a big magnifying glass and held it against his coat where the snowflakes fell on it.
"Now look at the glass, Gerda," he said.
Every flake of snow was magnified and looked like a beautiful flower or ten-pointed star. "See how clever they are!" Kay said. "They're much more interesting than real flowers and their design is absolutely flawless.
Soon after he came in with thick gloves on his hands and his sled slung across his back. He called out to Gerda, "I've got permission to play on the great square where the other boys are," and off he went.
The boldest boys in the square thought it particularly good fun to fasten their sleds onto the wagons of the country people and get pulled behind them. While they were in the middle of the game, a large sleigh painted white passed by; in it sat a person wrapped in a rough white fur, wearing a rough white cap. When the sleigh had driven twice round the square, Kay bound his little sled to it and was carried on with it. On they went, faster and faster, into the next street. The person driving the sleigh turned round and nodded kindly to Kay, just as if they were old friends, and every time Kay was going to loose his little sled, the person turned and nodded again, as if to signify that he must stay. So Kay sat still and they passed through the gates of the town. Then the snow began to fall so thickly that Kay could not see his own hand, but still he was carried on. He tried hastily to undo the cords and free himself from the sleigh, but it was no use; it wouldn't come undone, and he was carried on, swift as the wind. Then he cried out as loudly as he could, but no one heard him. The snow fell and the sleigh dashed on. Every now and then it sprang up as if it were bouncing over the top of the hedges and ditches. He was very frightened. He would have said a prayer, but the only things he could remember were his multiplication tables.
The snowflakes seemed to be getting larger and larger, till at last they looked like great white birds. All at once they parted, the large sleigh stopped, and the person who drove it rose from the seat. Kay saw that the cap and coat were made of snow and that the driver was a lady, tall and slender, and dazzlingly white. It was the Snow Queen!
"We have driven fast," she said, "but no one likes to be frozen. Creep under my bearskin." And she seated him in the sleigh by her side and spread her cloak around him. Kay felt as if he were sinking into a drift of snow.
'Are you still cold?" she asked, and then she kissed his brow. Oh! Her kiss was colder than ice. It went to his heart, although that was half frozen already, and he thought he would die. This feeling, however, only lasted for a moment. Straight afterward he was quite well and no longer felt the intense cold around.
"My sled! Do not forget my sled!" He thought about that straight away. So they fastened it to one of the white birds that flew behind with it on his back. The Snow Queen kissed Kay again, and he entirely forgot little Gerda, her grandmother, and everyone at home.
"Now you must have no more kisses, she said, "or I shall kiss you to death."
Kay looked at her. She was very beautiful; a more intelligent, more lovely countenance he could not imagine. She no longer appeared to him as cold as ice, as she had when she sat outside the window and beckoned to him. In his eyes she was perfect and now he felt no fear. He told her how good he was at arithmetic, even fractions, and how he knew the number of square miles of every country and the number of people who lived in different towns. She smiled, and then it occurred to him that perhaps he did not yet know so very much after all. He looked up into the wide, wide space, and she flew with him high into the black cloud where the storm was raging.
They flew over woods and over lakes, over sea and over land. Beneath them the cold wind whistled, wolves howled, the snow glittered, and a black crow flew cawing over the plain. But above them the moon shone cold and clear.
Thus did Kay spend the long, long winter night, and all day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen.
