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_The Old House_ was written by Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875), and was translated from the Danish by
M. R. James (1862-1936) as part of his
_Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ (1930).

Title: Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories -- The Old House
Author: Andersen, Hans Christian (1805-1875)
Translator: James, Montague Rhodes (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Faber and Faber, 1953
Date first posted: 3 February 2010
Date last updated: 3 February 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #472

This ebook was produced by:
David T. Jones, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




The Old House

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ [1930],
translated by M. R. James)


Somewhere in the street there stood an old, old house. Almost three
hundred years old it was, as you could read for yourself on the beam,
where the date was carved out with tulips and hop vines round it.
There stood a whole verse spelt out in the old fashion, and over every
window a face was carved on the lintel, pulling a grimace. Each story
stuck out a long way over the one below, and immediately under the
roof there was a lead gutter with a dragon's head. The rain-water
ought to have run out of its mouth, but it ran out of its stomach
instead, for there was a hole in the gutter.

All the other houses in the street were very new and neat, with large
window-panes and smooth walls. You could see, well enough, that they
didn't want to have anything to do with the old house. You could see
they were thinking: "How long is this old rubbish-heap going to stand
there, making an exhibition of itself, in our street? The bay-window
sticks out so that nobody can see, out of our windows, what's going on
at the corner. The front doorsteps are as broad as if they led up to a
palace, and as steep as if they were in a church-tower. The iron
railings look like the gate on an old family vault, and they've got
copper knobs, too. Vulgar, I call it."

Facing it, in the street, were more new neat houses, and they thought
just the same as the rest. But at the window of one sat a little boy
with fresh rosy cheeks and bright shining eyes, and he liked the old
house far best, whether in sunshine or moonlight. When he stared at
the place on the wall where the plaster had fallen off, he could sit
and keep on finding out the most wonderful pictures. He could see
exactly how the street used to look in old times, with steps and
oriels and pointed gables; he could see soldiers with halberds, and
gutters twisting about like dragons and serpents. It was a splendid
house to look at. And over there lived an old man who went about in
corduroy breeches, and had a coat with big copper buttons, and a wig
that you could see really was a wig. Every morning an old servant used
to come to him, who cleaned up and did errands, but except for that
the old man in the corduroy breeches was quite alone in the old house.
Sometimes he would come to the window and look out, and then the
little boy would nod to him, and the old man would nod back; and so
they became, first acquaintances and then friends, though they had
never spoken to each other--but that didn't matter.

The little boy heard his father and mother say: "The old man, over
there, is very comfortably off, but he is so dreadfully lonely."

Next Sunday the little boy took something and wrapped it up in a bit
of paper, and went down to the front door, and when the man who went
on errands came past he said to him: "I say! Will you take the old man
opposite this from me; I've got two tin soldiers and this is one of
them. I want him to have it, because I know he's so dreadfully
lonely."

And the old servant looked quite pleased, and nodded and took the tin
soldier across to the old house. After that there came a
message--would the little boy like to come over himself, and pay a
visit? And he got leave from his parents and went across to the old
house.

And the copper knobs on the stair railing shone much brighter than
usual--you'd think they had been polished up specially for this visit,
and it seemed as if the carved trumpeters (for there were trumpeters
carved on the door, standing in tulips) were blowing with all their
might, for their cheeks looked much fatter than before. Of course,
they were blowing "Tratteratra! The little boy's come! Tratteratra!"
And the door opened. The whole of the front hall was hung with old
portraits--knights in armour and ladies in silk gowns, and the armour
rattled and the silk dresses rustled. Then there was a staircase which
led a long way up and a little way down, and then you were in a
balcony, which certainly was very rickety, with big holes and long
cracks in it; but grass and plants grew out of them all, for the
balcony, not to mention the court and the walls, was overgrown with
such a lot of greenstuff that it looked like a garden. Still, it was
only a balcony. Here stood old flower-pots that had faces with
donkeys' ears; the flowers in them grew just as they liked. In one of
them a mass of pinks hung over all the edges--that is to say, the
green part did--in a multitude of shoots, and it was saying, quite
plainly: "The air has stroked me, the sun has kissed me, and promised
me a little flower for Sunday! A little flower for Sunday!"

Then they came into a room where the walls were covered with stamped
pigskin and gold flowers printed on it.

"Gilding's soon past; Pigskin will last," said the walls. And there
stood arm-chairs, ever so high-backed, and carved, and with arms on
both sides. "Sit down! Sit down!" they said. "Ugh! How I do creak! I
shall get the gout, I know, like that old cupboard! Gout in the back,
ugh!"

And then the little boy came into the room where the bay-window was,
and where the old man was sitting.

"Thank you for the tin soldier, my little friend," said the old man,
"and thank you for coming over to see me."

"Thanks! Thanks!" or "Crack! Crack!" sounded from all the furniture.
There was such a lot of it the pieces got in each other's way to see
the little boy.

And in the middle of the wall there hung a portrait of a beautiful
lady, young and gay, but dressed all in the old fashion, with powder
in her hair and a dress that would stand up by itself. She didn't say
either thanks or crack, but looked with her kind eyes on the little
boy, who forthwith asked the old man: "Where did you get her from?"

"Round at the dealer's," said the old man. "There are a lot of
pictures hanging up there; nobody knows them or cares about them, for
the people are in their graves, every one of them. But in the old days
I used to know her, and now she's dead and gone these fifty years."

Beneath the portrait was hung up, under glass, a withered bunch of
flowers: they, too, must have been fifty years old, by the look of
them; and the pendulum of the big clock went to and fro and the hands
turned round, and everything in the room went on getting older--but
they didn't notice.

"They say, at home," said the little boy, "that you are so dreadfully
lonely." "Oh," said he; "but old memories and all they can bring with
them come and pay me visits, and now you are come, too. I'm really
very well off." And with that he took from a shelf a book with
pictures, a whole long procession of the most marvellous coaches, such
as you don't see nowadays; soldiers like the knave of clubs and
guild-men with waving banners. The tailors had on theirs a pair of
scissors, held by two horns, and the cordwainers had on theirs, not a
boot, but an eagle that had two heads, because shoemakers must always
have things so arranged that they can say: "There's a pair." Ah, that
was a picture book!

Then the old man went into another room to fetch sweetmeats and apples
and nuts. It really was delightful over in that old house.

"I can't bear it," said the tin soldier, who stood on the chest of
drawers. "It's so lonely and so dismal; no, really, when one's lived
in a family one can't accustom oneself to the life here. I can't bear
it! The whole day is dreary and the evening drearier; it isn't like
being over at your house, where your father and mother talked
cheerfully, and you and all the rest of the nice children made such a
jolly row. Dear, what a lonely time the old man has of it! Do you
suppose he ever gets a kiss? Do you suppose he ever has a kind look
from anybody, or a Christmas tree? Not he; he never will get anything
but a funeral. I can't bear it."

"You mustn't take such a dismal view," said the little boy. "I think
it's perfectly delightful here; and then, all the old memories, and
all that they can bring with them, come and pay him visits."

"Yes, but I don't see them, and I know nothing about them," said the
tin soldier; "I can _not_ bear it."

"You've got to," said the little boy.

And now the old man came back, looking as cheerful as possible, and
brought the most delicious sweetmeats and apples and nuts, and the
little boy thought no more about the tin soldier.

Very happy and gay, the little boy went home, and days passed and
weeks passed, and there was nodding to the old house and nodding from
the old house, and then the little boy went across again; and the
carved trumpeters blew: "Tratteratra! Here's the little boy!
Tratteratra!" And the swords and harness on the knight's pictures
rattled and the silken dresses rustled, the pigskin said its say, and
the old chairs had gout in their backs. Ow! It was exactly like the
first time, for over there one day and hour were just like the next.

"I can't bear it," said the tin soldier. "I have cried tears of tin!
It is really too dismal here. I'd sooner go to the war, and lose my
arms and legs. That would be a change, anyhow. I can _not_ bear it!
Now I know what it is to have visits from your old memories, and all
that they can bring with them. I've had visits from mine, and you may
take it from me there's no pleasure to be got out of them in the long
run. By the end of it I was nearly jumping down off the drawers. I saw
all you at the house over there as plain as if you were really here.
It was that Sunday morning, you remember quite well, all you children
were standing before the table singing your hymn as you do every
morning. You were very serious, with your hands clasped, and your
father and mother were just as solemn; and then the door opened and
your little sister Mary, who isn't yet two years old and who always
dances when she hears music or singing of any kind, was put in--she
oughtn't to have been--and she began to dance, but she couldn't keep
time, the notes were too long. So first she stood on one leg and bent
her head this way, and then on the other leg and bent her head that
way, but even so it wouldn't come right. You all kept grave, every one
of you, though it was hard enough; but I laughed to myself, and so I
fell off the table and got a bump which I still have, for it wasn't
right of me to laugh. But all that, now, goes on in my head, and
everything else that has happened to me, and that, I suppose, is the
old memories and all they can bring with them. Tell me, do you still
sing on Sunday? Tell me, do, something about little Mary, and how my
comrade is, the other tin soldier? Ah, he's the lucky one! I cannot
bear it!"

"You've been given away," said the little boy. "You've got to stay
here, can't you see that?"

The old man came in with a drawer in which there were a lot of things
to look at; pen-cases and scent boxes, and old cards so big and so
begilded as one never sees now. Then there was opening of large
drawers, and the piano was opened; it had a landscape painted inside
the lid; and how husky it was when the old man played on it! Then he
hummed a song: "Ah, she could sing that," said he, and nodded at the
portrait he had bought at the dealer's--and the old man's eyes shone
very bright.

"I'll go to the wars! I will! I will!" shrieked the tin soldier as
loud as he could, and dashed himself down on the floor. Why, what had
become of him? The old man searched and the little boy searched, but
gone he was, and gone he remained. "I shall find him all right," said
the old man, but he never did; the floor was too full of gaps and
holes. The tin soldier had fallen through a crevice, and there he lay,
in an open grave.

    *    *    *    *    *

So that day passed, and the little boy went home; and the weeks went
by, and several more weeks. The windows were quite frozen over. The
little boy had to sit and breathe on them to make a peep-hole to look
across at the old house, and there the snow was drifted into all the
curly-wurlies and lettering, and lay all over the steps, as if there
was nobody at home. The old man was dead.

Late in the evening a carriage drew up outside, and he was carried
down to it, in his coffin, for he was to be driven out into the
country to lie there in his family burial-place. So thither he drove
off, but nobody followed; all his friends were dead. But the little
boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it drove away.

Some days after there was a sale at the old house, and the little boy
saw from his window how the old knights and the old ladies, the
flower-pots with long ears, the old chairs and the old chests, were
carried off, some one way, some another. The portrait of the lady that
had been found at the dealer's went back to the dealer's again, for
nobody knew her any more, and nobody cared about the old picture.

In the spring the house itself was pulled down, for it was an old
rubbish-heap, people said. From the street you could look right into
the room and see the pigskin hanging, which was stripped off and torn
to bits; and the greenstuff from the balcony hung all in disorder
about the fallen beams--and then it was all cleared away.

"That's a good job," said the houses next door.

    *    *    *    *    *

And a beautiful house was built, with large windows and smooth white
walls. But in front of it, in the place where the old house had
actually stood, a small garden was planted, and wild creepers grew up
against the neighbour's walls. In front of the garden a large iron
fence, with an iron gate, was put up, and it looked so imposing that
people stopped and peeped through. The sparrows perched by scores in
the creepers and talked into each others' beaks as hard as they could:
but it wasn't about the old house that they talked; they couldn't
remember that. So many years had gone by that the little boy had grown
into a real man, and a good man, too, who was a great comfort to his
parents, and now he had just married and moved with his little wife
into this house where the garden was. And there he was, standing by
her, while she planted a wild meadow flower which she thought very
pretty. She planted it with her own little hands, and was patting the
earth with her fingers. "Ow!" What was that? She had pricked herself;
something sharp was sticking up out of the earth.

It was--only think! It was the tin soldier; the very one that had been
lost up in the old man's room and had been tumbled hither and thither
among the beams and rubbish, and had ended by lying in the earth this
many a year.

The young wife wiped the soldier clean, first with a green leaf and
then with her pocket handkerchief, which had a delightful smell--and
the tin soldier felt as if he had been waked out of a trance.

"Let me look at him," said the young man; and he laughed and shook his
head. "Why, of course it can't be the same, but he does remind me of
an affair of a tin soldier I had when I was a little boy." And he went
on to tell his wife about the old house and the old man, and the tin
soldier he sent across to him because he was so dreadfully lonely. And
he told it all exactly as it had really happened, and the young wife's
eyes filled with tears at the thought of the old house and the old
man.

"It's quite possible it may be the same tin soldier," said she. "I'll
keep him and remember all that you've told me--but you must show me
the old man's grave."

"Ah, I don't know it," he said; "and nobody knows it. All his friends
were dead; nobody looked after it, and I was only a little boy."

"How dreadfully lonely he must have been!" said she.

"Dreadfully lonely," said the tin soldier; "but it is delightful not
to be forgotten."

"Delightful indeed!" something called out, near by; but no one except
the tin soldier saw that it was a rag of the pigskin hanging. It had
no gilding left and looked like damp earth, but it had an opinion of
its own, and spoke it out.

"Gilding's soon past. Pigskin will last."

However, the tin soldier did not agree.




[End of _The Old House_ by Hans Christian Andersen, from
_Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_, translated by M. R. James]