Prevod

It was bitterly cold; snow was falling, and the evening was growing dark. It was the last evening of the year, New Year’s Eve. In the cold and darkness a poor little girl walked along the street, bareheaded and barefoot. She had, to be sure, been wearing slippers when she left home, but what good had that done her? They were very large slippers—her mother had been the last to wear them, that was how large they were—and the little girl had lost them as she hurried across the street while two carriages rushed past at a dreadful speed. One slipper was nowhere to be found, and a boy ran off with the other; he said he could use it as a cradle when he had children of his own.

So there the little girl walked on her tiny bare feet, red and blue with cold. In an old apron she carried a great many matches, and she held one bundle in her hand. No one had bought any from her all day; no one had given her a single penny. Hungry and frozen, she trudged along, looking so forlorn, the poor little thing! Snowflakes fell into her long fair hair, which curled so prettily about her neck, but she gave no thought to her pretty curls. Lights shone from every window, and the delicious smell of roast goose drifted through the street. It was New Year’s Eve, after all, and that she did think about.

In a corner between two houses, one of which stood a little farther out into the street than the other, she sat down and huddled up. She tucked her little legs beneath her, but she grew colder still. She dared not go home, for she had sold no matches and earned not a single penny; her father would beat her, and it was cold at home too. They had only the roof just above them, and the wind whistled in, though straw and rags had been stuffed into the largest cracks. Her little hands were almost numb with cold. Oh, a little match might help! If only she dared pull one from the bundle, strike it against the wall, and warm her fingers. She drew one out. “Scratch!” How it sputtered, how it burned! It gave a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as she cupped her hand around it. What a strange light it was! The little girl thought she was sitting before a great iron stove with polished brass knobs and a brass drum. The fire burned so cheerfully and gave such lovely warmth! But what was this? The little girl was just stretching out her feet to warm them too when the flame went out, the stove vanished, and she sat with the little stump of the burnt-out match in her hand.

She struck another. It burned and shone, and where its light fell on the wall, the wall became transparent as a veil. She could see straight into a room where the table was laid with a gleaming white cloth and fine china, and a roast goose, stuffed with prunes and apples, was steaming deliciously! More splendid still, the goose jumped off the dish and waddled across the floor with a knife and fork in its back. It came straight towards the poor little girl. Then the match went out, and there was nothing to be seen but the thick, cold wall.

She lit another match. Now she was sitting beneath the loveliest Christmas tree. It was even larger and more richly decorated than the one she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s house that Christmas. A thousand candles burned on its green branches, and brightly coloured pictures, like those that adorned the shop windows, looked down at her. The little girl stretched both hands into the air—then the match went out. The many Christmas candles rose higher and higher, and she saw that they were now the bright stars. One of them fell, leaving a long streak of fire across the sky.

“Someone is dying now!” said the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only person who had ever been kind to her, but who was now dead, had told her: when a star falls, a soul goes up to God.

She struck another match against the wall. It lit up everything around her, and in its glow stood her old grandmother, so radiant, so shining, so gentle and blessed. “Grandmother!” cried the little girl. “Oh, take me with you! I know you’ll be gone when the match goes out—gone like the warm stove, the lovely roast goose, and the great, beautiful Christmas tree!” And she hurriedly struck all the matches left in the bundle, for she wanted so much to keep her grandmother there. The matches shone with such brilliance that it was brighter than broad daylight. Never before had her grandmother been so beautiful, so grand. She lifted the little girl into her arms, and they flew in radiance and joy, so high, so high; and there was no cold, no hunger, no fear—they were with God!

But in the corner beside the house, in the cold morning light, sat the little girl with rosy cheeks and a smile on her lips—dead, frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. New Year’s morning dawned upon the little body sitting there with the matches, one bundle of which had been almost entirely burned. “She was trying to warm herself!” people said. No one knew what beautiful things she had seen, or in what radiance she and her old grandmother had entered into the joy of the new year!