‘“I don’t think it’s proper,” said the kettle, “that such a foreign bird should be heard.” ‘“Oh, let us have some acting,” said everyone. “Do let us!” ‘Suddenly the door opened and the maid came in. Everyone was quite quiet. There was not a sound. But each pot knew what he might have done, and how grand he was. ‘The maid took the matches and lit the fire with them. How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure! “Now everyone can see,” they thought, “that we are the grandest! How we sparkle! What a light-” ‘But here they were burnt out.’ ‘That was a delightful story!’ said the sultana. ‘I quite feel myself in the kitchen with the matches. Yes, now you shall marry our daughter.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the sultan, ‘you shall marry our daughter on Monday.’ And they treated the young man as one of the family. The wedding was arranged, and the night before the whole town was illuminated. Biscuits and gingerbreads were thrown among the people, the street boys stood on tiptoe crying hurrahs and whistling through their fingers. It was all splendid. ‘Now I must also give them a treat,’ thought the merchant’s son. And so he bought rockets, crackers, and all the kinds of fireworks you can think of, put them in his trunk, and flew up with them into the air. Whirr-r-r, how they fizzed and blazed! All the Turks jumped so high that their slippers flew above their heads; such a splendid glitter they had never seen before. Now they could quite well understand that it was the god of the Turks himself who was to marry the princess. As soon as the young merchant came down again into the wood with his trunk he thought, ‘Now I will just go into the town to see how the show has taken.’ And it was quite natural that he should want to do this. Oh! what stories the people had to tell! Each one whom he asked had seen it differently, but they had all found it beautiful. ‘I saw the Turkish god himself,’ said one. ‘He had eyes like glittering stars, and a beard like foaming water.’ ‘He flew away in a cloak of fire,’ said another. They were splendid things that he heard, and the next day was to be his wedding day. Then he went back into the wood to sit in his trunk; but what had become of it? The trunk had been burnt. A spark of the fireworks had set it alight, and the trunk was in ashes. He could no longer fly, and could never reach his bride. She stood the whole day long on the roof and waited; perhaps she is waiting there still. But he wandered through the world and told stories; though they are not so merry as the one he told about the matches. The Snow-man Translated from the German of Hans Andersen. ‘How astonishingly cold it is! My body is cracking all over!’ said the Snow-man. ‘The wind is really cutting one’s very life out! And how that fiery thing up there glares!’ He meant the sun, which was just setting. ‘It sha’n’t make me blink, though, and I shall keep quite cool and collected.’