HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES
misery that he was obliged to suffer during the severity of the winter—he was lying on a moor among the reeds, when the sun began to shine warmly again, the larks sang, and beautiful spring had returned.
And once more he shook his wings. They were stronger than formerly, and bore him forwards quickly, and before he was well aware of it, he was in a large garden where the appletrees stood in full bloom,, where the syringas sent forth their fragrance and hung their long green branches down into the winding canal. Oh, everything was so lovely, so full of the freshness of spring! And out of the thicket came three beautiful white swans. They displayed their feathers so proudly, and swam so lightly, so lightly! The duckling knew the glorious creatures, and was seized with a strange melancholy.
'I will fly to them, those kingly birds!' said he. 'They will kill me, because I, ugly as I am, have presumed to approach them; but it matters not, better to be killed by them than to be bitten by the ducks, pecked by the hens, kicked by the girl who feeds the poultry, and to have so much to suffer during the winter!' He flew into the water, and swam towards the beautiful creatures—they saw him and shot forward to meet him. 'Only kill me,' said the poor animal, and he bowed his head low, expecting death,—but what did he see in the water?—he saw beneath him his own form, no longer that of a plump, ugly, grey bird—it was that of a swan.
It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been hatched from a swan's egg.
The good creature felt himself really elevated by all the troubles and adversities he had experienced. He could now rightly estimate his own happiness, and the larger swans swam round him, and stroked him with their beaks.
Some little children were running about in the garden; 282
