The Ice Virgin

by Hans Christian Andersen

  ‘Now it’s all over and done with!’ said the Parlour Cat. ‘Rudy is here again, they understand each other, and that’s the greatest happiness of all, they say.’

  ‘Last night,’ said the Kitchen Cat, ‘I heard the rats say the greatest happiness comes from eating tallow-candles and bloating yourself with rotten pork. Now which should you believe, rats or people in love?’

  ‘None of them!’ said the Parlour Cat. ‘That’s always safest!’

  The greatest happiness for Rudy and Babette was in fact growing. Their finest day, as people call it, they now had in sight, their wedding day.

  But the wedding would not be taking place in the church at Bex, nor in the miller’s house. Babette’s godmother wanted the wedding celebrated at her place, and the marriage ceremony to be conducted in the beautiful little church in Montreux. The miller insisted this request was granted. He alone knew what Godmother had arranged for the newlyweds; they were getting a wedding present well worth such a modest compliance. The day was decided on. Already the evening beforehand they would have made their way to Villeneuve before setting off by steamer in the morning for Montreux so Godmother’s daughters could deck the bride.

  ‘There’ll be a two-days-long wedding-feast in this house too!’ said the Parlour Cat, ‘otherwise I think the whole thing won’t be worth so much as a miaow!’

  ‘The feast’s in progress right here,’ said the Kitchen Cat, ‘the ducks have been killed, the pigeons have had their necks wrung, and a whole deer carcase is hanging up on the wall. I’d give my teeth and claws to witness it all. Tomorrow they’re starting on their journey!’

  Yes, the next day. This evening Rudy and Babette sat in the mill-house for the last time as an affianced couple.

  Outside was the alpenglow, the evening bell rang out, and the daughters of the sunbeams sang: ‘May what’s best be what happens!’

  14. Visions in the night

  The sun was down; in the Rhône Valley between the high mountains the clouds were descending. The wind, a wind from Africa, blew from the south across the high Alps, a Föhn which tore the clouds into shreds. And when the wind had raced off, for just a moment it became completely calm. Between the forest-covered mountains across the scurrying River Rhône the fragmented clouds hung in fantastic shapes. They hung in shapes like sea-monsters from the prehistoric world, like eagles hovering in the air, like jumping frogs from the marsh. They descended onto the fast-coursing stream, sailing on it and sailing in the air as well. The stream carried an upturned branch complete with root; the water in front of this resembled revolving whirlpools. That was Her Dizziness, in more than one manifestation, turning the rapid stream round and round. The moon was shining on the snow of the mountain-tops, on the dark forests and the mysterious white clouds, visions of the night, the souls of Nature’s forces. The mountain peasant looked at them through a window-pane; they were sailing downwards in flocks before the Ice Virgin. She arrived from her glacier palace, sitting on that fragile vessel, the upturned branch, water from the glacier bearing her down the stream to the open lake.

  ‘The wedding-guests are coming!’ That’s what was being whispered and sung in the air and the water.

  Visions without, visions within. Babette dreamed an extraordinary dream.

  It seemed to her as if she were married to Rudy, already had been so for many years. Right now he was away on a chamois-hunt, but she was at home, and there sitting by her side was the young Englishman with the gilded sideburns. His eyes were so ardent, his words had the power of an enchantment. He reached out a hand to her, and she simply had to follow him. They went a long way from her home. Constantly downwards! – and against her heart Babette felt a weight that became heavier and heavier. It was a sin against Rudy, a sin against God. And all of a sudden she was standing abandoned, her clothes torn into shreds by the white-thorn. Her hair was grey. She looked up, and on the mountain edge she spied Rudy. She stretched out her arms towards him, but didn’t dare call out or entreat him, and anyway it wouldn’t have done any good, because she soon saw that it wasn’t him but his hunting jacket and hat that hung on an alpenstock such as the hunters put out to fool the chamois. And in immeasurable anguish Babette moaned: ‘If only I’d died on my wedding-day, on my happiest day. My Lord, my God, it would have been a mercy, a whole life’s crowning joy. Then what’s for the best would have happened, the best that could happen for me and Rudy! Nobody knows the future!’ And in the agony of unbelief, she hurled herself down into the mountain chasm. A string as of an instrument snapped, a note of lamentation rang out.

  Babette woke up, the dream was at an end – and was erased, but she knew she had dreamed something appalling, and dreamed about the young Englishman whom she hadn’t seen in several months and not even thought about. Was he, she wondered, in Montreux? Would she get to see him at the wedding? A little shadow flitted across her delicate mouth. Her brows puckered, but soon a smile appeared on her face, and her eyes blinked; the sun was shining outside so beautifully, and tomorrow was her and Rudy’s wedding-day.

  He was in the parlour already when she came downstairs, and presently they made their way to Villeneuve. The two of them were so happy, and the miller as well; he laughed and beamed in the most benevolent humour, a good father, an honest soul.

  ‘Now we have a Master-and-Mistress for our home!’ said the Parlour Cat.

  15. The end

  It was not yet evening when the three happy people reached Villeneuve and had their meal. The miller sat himself in an easy chair with his pipe and took a little nap. The young betrothed went arm-in-arm into the town, along the carriage-road beneath the shrub-covered rocks beside the deep blue-green lake. Grim Chillon had its grey walls and doughty towers reflected in the clear water. The little island with the three acacia trees lay closer still; it resembled a bouquet of flowers tossed onto the lake.

  ‘It must be beautiful over there!’ said Babette. Once again she felt the greatest desire to go across to it, and as it happened that wish could be instantly made good. A boat lay by the bank, the chain that moored it was easy enough to undo. Nobody was in sight to ask permission from, and so they took over the boat without anyone knowing. Rudy was a competent rower.

  The oars moved like a fish’s fins in the compliant water. Water is both so pliable and so strong; it has a back for carrying, it has a mouth for swallowing which sometimes smiles gently, with even a softness about it, and yet is also alarming and powerful enough to smash things to bits. A foaming wake followed the boat, which with the two of them in it took only a few minutes to reach the island where they clambered ashore. Here there was no more room than for just one dance for the two of them.

  Rudy swung Babette round two or three times, and then they went and sat down on the little bench beneath the drooping acacias, gazing into each other’s eyes, holding each other’s hands, while everything in the vicinity shone in the radiance of the setting sun. The spruce forests on the mountains acquired a mauve appearance, very much like heather in bloom, and where the trees left off and the rock protruded, it was glowing as if the mountain were transparent. The clouds in the sky were like red fire, the entire lake suggested a fresh, blushing rose-petal. The shadows, one and all, stole upwards towards the snow-clad mountains of the Savoy; these turned blue-black, but the highest peak of all maintained the shine of red lava. They witnessed anew a moment from the mountains’ very formation, when these glowing masses rose out of earth’s womb and had not yet been extinguished. It was an alpenglow such as Rudy and Babette had never believed they would see the like of. The snow-decked Dents du Midi had a sheen like the face of the full moon when it ascends from the horizon.

  ‘So much beauty, so much joy!’ the couple said. ‘Earth can’t give me anything more!’ said Rudy, ‘One evening hour like this is a lifetime in itself! How often I’ve felt happiness, just like I’m feeling now, and thought that if everything was about to end, then how happy my life has been, how full of blessings this world is! – and then the
day would come to its end, but a new one would begin in its place, and that, it’d seem to me, was even more beautiful. Our Father is infinitely good, Babette!’

  ‘I’m so very happy!’ she said.

  ‘Earth can’t give me anything more!’ Rudy pronounced again.

  And the evening bells rang out from the mountains of the Savoy, from the mountains of Switzerland. Against the golden glory of sunset the blue-black Jura rose against the west.

  ‘May God give you whatever’s most wonderful, whatever’s truly best!’ exclaimed Babette.

  ‘That’s what He is going to do!’ said Rudy. ‘Tomorrow that’s what I’ll be having! Tomorrow you will be completely mine! My own beautiful little wife!’

  ‘The boat!’ Babette cried out at that very moment.

  The boat, which was their means of getting back, had got loose from its moorings and was drifting away from the island.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch it!’ said Rudy, and he took off his coat, pulled off his boots, leaped into the lake, and made off with rapid strokes in the direction of the boat.

  Cold and deep was the clear, blue-green ice-water from the mountain glacier. Rudy looked down into it, only one single glance, and it was as though he saw a gold ring rolling, gleaming, jiggling – the engagement ring he had lost and thought such a lot about, and the ring was getting larger, expanding into a glittering circle, inside which shone the limpid glacier. Countless deep chasms gaped all round, and the water was falling with the chiming sound of a glockenspiel, and shining with blue-white flames. In the twinkling of an eye Rudy saw what we are obliged to use many long words to convey. Young huntsmen and young girls, men and women who had at one time or another vanished into the clefts of the glacier, were standing here with open eyes and smiling mouths, and far below them there pealed the ringing of church bells from submerged towns. The congregation was kneeling under the church vaults, the icicles formed organ-pipes, the mountain stream provided the organ. The Ice Virgin herself sat on the clear transparent floor. She raised herself up to get at Rudy, kissed his feet, and through his limbs passed a deathly shudder, an electric shock! Ice and fire, you can’t make a distinction between them just from brief contact.

  ‘Mine! Mine!’ It resounded all around him, and inside him too. ‘I kissed you when you were little, kissed you on the mouth. Now I kiss you on your toe and your heel, and the whole of you is mine.’

  And he disappeared into the clear blue water.

  Everything was quiet; the church bells left off ringing, the last notes dying down with the radiance of the red clouds.

  ‘You are mine!’ That rang out in the depths. ‘You are mine!’ and that rang out into the heights, a message from eternity.

  Bliss to fly from love to love, from earth into heaven! A string snapped, a note of lamentation resonated. Death’s kiss of ice had overcome the corruptible flesh. The prelude had ended before the drama of life had been able to begin. The discord was dissolved in harmony.

  Would you call that a sorrowful story?

  Poor Babette, for her it was an hour of agony! The boat drifted further and further away. Nobody on the mainland knew that the bridal couple were on the island. Evening came on; the clouds descended; darkness arrived. She remained there, alone, in despair, moaning, wailing. The play of the elements went on overhead. Lightning flashed across the mountains of the Jura, across Switzerland and the Savoy. From all sides, flash after flash, boom upon boom succeeded one another, each several minutes long. The lightning flashes soon acquired the brightness of the sun, every single vine could be seen just as if it were midday, and then black darkness swamped everything again. The lightning streaks formed loops, conductors for other types of light, and in zigzags struck all round the lake. From every side they were brilliant, while the booms grew louder with the rumble of their echo. Back on land they were dragging the boats up onto the beach. Everything that was still alive was seeking shelter – and now the rain came pouring down.

  ‘Wherever can Rudy and Babette be in this fearful storm!’ said the miller. Babette was sitting with hands clasped, with her head in her lap, dumb with anguish, incapable of screaming or wailing.

  ‘In the deep water,’ she said to herself, ‘he’s far down below, way beneath the glacier.’

  Into her thoughts came what Rudy had told her about his mother’s death and his rescue when he had been hauled up out of the glacier’s chasms, thought to be a corpse himself. ‘The Ice Virgin has him again.’

  And a stroke of lightning shone so dazzlingly, like the glare of sun on white snow. Babette ran backwards and forwards in the storm. Simultaneously the lake rose like a shimmering glacier; the Ice Virgin was standing there, regal, pale blue, aglow, and at her feet lay Rudy’s dead body. ‘Mine!’ she said, and again it was pitch darkness and rushing water all around.

  ‘How cruel everything is,’ lamented Babette. ‘Why should he have to die, just as our day of happiness was at hand? God, grant me light for my mind, God, give me light for my heart! I don’t understand your ways. I’m just fumbling about faced with your almighty power and wisdom.’

  And God listened to her heart. Like an inspiration, a ray of mercy, her dream of the previous night sped through her. She recollected the words she had uttered; her wish for the best possible thing to happen to herself and Rudy.

  ‘Help me! It was the seeds of sin in my heart. My dream was a portent of future life, and its string had to be cut for the sake of saving my soul. Wretch that I am!’

  In its profound stillness there rang out, it seemed to her, Rudy’s words: ‘Earth can’t give me any happiness more!’ They had rung out in the fullness of happiness, they were now repeated in the torrent of misery.

  A couple of years have gone by since then. The lake is smiling, its shores are smiling too. The vine is putting forth grapes; the steamers with their fluttering flags chug their way forwards; yachts with their pairs of outstretched sails fly like white butterflies across the mirror-like water. The railway line beyond Chillon is open now; it leads deep into the Rhône Valley. At every station foreigners get out, they arrive with their red-bound guidebook and read what noteworthy sight they should look at. They visit Chillon; out there in the lake they see the tiny island with the three acacias and read in their book about the bride and bridegroom who sailed over there one evening in the year 1856, about the bridegroom’s death and how ‘first thing the next morning the heartbroken cries of the bride were heard on the shore.’

  But the travel-book mentions nothing of Babette’s peaceful daily life with her father, not at the mill where strangers live now, but in a charming house near the railway station, where many an evening she looks across from the window, over the chestnut trees, to the snow-mountains where Rudy used to run about. And at the appropriate evening hour she watches the alpenglow. The children of the sun still make encampment up there and sing again the song of the wanderer whose cap the whirlwind took off and carried away, removing the covering but not the essential man.

  There is roseate radiance on the mountain’s snows, there is roseate radiance in every heart that contains the idea: ‘God lets the best for us happen!’ But that isn’t always made manifest to us in quite the way it was for Babette in her dream.

  AFTERWORD

  ‘LET’S VISIT SWITZERLAND,’ Hans Christian Andersen begins this novella with characteristic and infectious informality. Travel was of immeasurable importance to Andersen (1805–75), both as a private individual and as a creative writer. His first full-length work of prose was a travelogue, Shadow Pictures, subtitled ‘From a Journey to the Harz Mountains, Saxon Switzerland etc etc in the Summer of 1831’. For all the writer’s comparative youth, it shows a remarkable ability to evoke the past and the inherited culture of places alongside their ongoing present life, which he renders both in general terms and through acute observations of people encountered. Andersen even gives us glimpses into the future – he notes the formidable military installations in Prussia. Nor does he leave himself out of his ‘
pictures’. He hints that he has decided to go abroad for the first time because of unrequited love. In truth, he had fallen for a friend’s sister, inevitably of a higher social class than himself. The situation had brought home to him just how much of an outsider he still was in the Danish upper and upper-middle class that had adopted him, paid for his education, and launched him as a writer – a feeling that stayed with him even within the family he cared for most, the Collins. How could it not be so? Back in Odense (away from the Copenhagen where he was now living and finding his literary feet) his mother was an illiterate alcoholic washerwoman, while he had lost his beloved father at the age of eleven, a shoemaker, a broken man who had served in Denmark’s disastrous pro-Napoleon campaign. On his deathbed Andersen’s father said of the elaborate frost patterns on his window-panes that they were signs the Ice Virgin was coming to fetch him. His son never forgot these words any more than he forgot what it felt like to love above one’s station.

  Andersen’s prodigious gifts and his own extraordinary belief in them both impressed almost everybody he came into contact with, from his earliest childhood onwards, and also aroused feelings of irritation, resentment and jealousy. Leaving his native city for Copenhagen at the age of fourteen, with virtually no money, he was almost unbelievably forward for one so young and so undereducated in procuring introductions to leading figures in the world of the arts. The theatre was his great passion, and the Danish Royal Theatre’s Director, Jonas Collin, also a counsellor at court, was sufficiently convinced of Andersen’s talents to have him educated by means of a royal fund set aside to assist those showing promise. Jonas Collin also admitted him into his own family. It was Jonas’s second son Edvard who brought out in Andersen feelings of warm friendship indistinguishable from love. At times this was a source of great embarrassment to Edvard. And while Andersen may have felt that – through the Collins particularly – he had arrived in Copenhagen society, that society itself, including indeed the young Collins, didn’t by any means always concur. This was a situation with often very painful consequences which informed his whole life and was a major reason for travel being so strong a psychological need.