Chapter Seven: The Rose Maiden
He wandered here and there, back and forth, grew more and more tired, and his back became bent, but he could never find the Philosopher’s Stone. So nine years passed until one evening he stopped at an inn situated at the entrance of a big city. Krahirius took the glasses with his claws and cleaned them with his wings. Then he put it on him again and hopped into the kitchen. As the residents saw him they laughed at his glasses, calling him, “Mr. Professor,” and threw him the choicest morsels.
“If you are the master of that bird,” said the innkeeper to Hinzelmeier, “you’ve been asked about.”
“That certainly is me,” said Hinzelmeier.
“What’s your name, then?”
“I’m called Hinzelmeier.”
“Aye, aye,” said the host, “your dear son, the husband of the beautiful Frau Abel, I know very well.”
“That is my father,” said Hinzelmeier petulantly, “and the beautiful Mrs. Abel is my mother.”
The people laughed and said the gentleman was extremely amusing. Hinzelmeier however looked with anger into a shiny kettle.
Then he stared as one sullen face full of wrinkles and crow’s feet stared back at him and saw clearly that he had become terribly old.
“Yes, yes,” he cried and shook himself, as if to get out of a bad dream. “Where was it? I was so close to it.” He then inquired of the innkeeper who had asked about him.
“It was just a poor lass,” said the farmer. “She wore a white dress and was barefoot.”
“That was the Rose Maiden,” cried Hinzelmeier.
“Yes,” answered the farmer, “a flower girl she may well have been, but she had one rose in her little basket.”
“Where did she go?” cried Hinzelmeier.
“If you want to talk to her,” the farmer said, “you will be able to find her on one of the street corners in the city.”
Once Hinzelmeier heard that, he walked in a hurry out of the house and into the city. Krahirius, the glasses on his beak, flew croaking from behind. He walked from one street to another and at all the curbstones stood flower girls, but they wore crude buckled shoes and shouted out their merchandise for sale. There were no rose maidens. Finally, when the sun had already gone down behind the houses, Hinzelmeier came to an old house from whose open door a soft glow pressed out into the dim alley. Krahirius threw back his head and nervously beat his wings. Hinzelmeier did not pay attention and stepped over the threshold into a large hall that shimmered full of red. Deep in the background, on the bottom step of a spiral staircase, he saw a pale girl sitting. In a basket which she held in her lap lay a red rose from whose calyx a soft light burst forth. The girl seemed exhausted. At that moment she placed her lips to an earthen water jug that a boy held up to her with both his hands. A large dog lay next to her on the stairs and, like the child, seemed to belong to this house, laying its head on her white garment and licked her bare feet. “It’s her!” said Hinzelmeier, and his steps became uncertain from hope and expectation. And when the maiden raised her face to him, it was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes and he recognized at once the girl from the country kitchen. Only she wasn’t wearing the colorful bodice today, and the red in her cheeks was only the reflection of the light of the rose.
“Oh you,” cried Hinzelmeier, “now everything, everything will be all right!”
She stretched out her arms to him. She wanted to smile, but tears sprang from her eyes. “Where have you been so long running around the world?” she said.
And as he now saw her eyes, he was startled out of sheer joy. There stood his own image, but not that image like that which had just previously stared out at him from the copper kettle. No, a face so young and fresh and cheerful, that he shouted out with joy. He would not have given it up for all the world.
From the street a human swarm streamed into the house, shouting and gesticulating. “Here stands the master of the birds!” cried a squat little man, at which everyone surged toward Hinzelmeier.
He took her hand and asked, “What is the matter with the raven?”
“What is it?” said the fat man. “He stole the mayor’s wig!” “Yes, yes!” cried everyone, “and now he is sitting in the gutter, the monster, and has the wig in its claws and stares at its characteristics through its green spectacles!”
Hinzelmeier wanted to talk, but they took him into their midst and pushed him against the door. With horror he felt the hand of the rose maiden sliding out of his own, and then he went out on the street.
Up on the gutter of the house the raven still sat and warily looked down with his black eyes on those coming out of the house. Suddenly he opened his claws, and while the citizens reached around with their sticks and umbrellas for the mayor’s wig, Hinzelmeier heard, “Krahira, Krahira!” buzzing over his head, and at the same moment the green spectacles sat on his nose.
All at once the city vanished from his sight, but through he glasses he saw at his feet a green valley with dairy farms and villages. Sunlit meadows appeared round about, on which barefoot lasses stepped through the grass with shiny milk pails, while further away from the villages young guys swung scythes. But what captivated Hinzelmeier’s eyes was the figure of a man in red and white blouse with a pointed cap on his head, who seemed to be sitting on a stone in the middle of a field with arms supported on his knees in a thoughtful position.
Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm Page 9
