A Picture Book without Pictures

I saluted her, and she flooded my room with light. Unfortunately she can never stay long. Sometimes, of course, the Moon is hidden by clouds and can tell me nothing. And yet I have collected enough scenes for a new Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps one day I, or an artist more talented than I, will be able to do them justice. Andersen's forgotten masterpiece includes thirty-three vignettes of everyday human drama from around the world. Kindle Edition , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about A Picture Book without Pictures , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about A Picture Book without Pictures. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Yuan Ruan rated it it was amazing Sep 15, Cynthia Friaz rated it it was amazing Jun 28, Mark added it Mar 08, Pat Winter marked it as to-read Jul 24, Lydia marked it as to-read Jan 24, Jessica Reynolds marked it as to-read Jan 24, Nadia marked it as to-read Apr 10, Allison Evans added it May 10, Leslie marked it as to-read Jun 30, Chris Labib added it Oct 13, Tabatha marked it as to-read Aug 15, Carrie marked it as to-read Aug 31, Rebekah Jacobs added it Sep 11, But the ruin stood unchanged, as it will stand for centuries yet to come.

The momentary applause is forgotten, as are the singer's notes and smiles, forgotten, gone. Even to me this hour will be but a fleeting memory. It was a handsomely furnished room, with many books and a chaos of newspapers. There were several young men present. The editor himself stood beside his desk; two little books, both by unknown authors, were to be reviewed. What do you think about its contents? It's true the verses might be improved. The thoughts are sound enough; it's only a pity they're so commonplace. But what can you expect? We can't always get something new. You might praise him a little, though in my opinion it's clear he'll never be anything great as a poet.

Still, he has read a good deal; he's an excellent Oriental scholar, and he has rather sound judgment. It was he who wrote the splendid review of my Reflections on Domestic Life. After all, we must be lenient toward a young man. She's the lady, Mr. Editor, who got together that large list of subscribers for your last volume of translations. Well, I've just given the book a brief notice.

Unquestionable talent - a welcome gift! A flower in the garden of poetry, well put together, and so forth.

H.C. Andersen centret

But now, about this other book - I suppose the author expects me to buy it. I have heard it praised; the author has genius, they say. Don't you think so? The punctuation, however, is indicative of genius!

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It'll do him good to be treated roughly, to be pulled to pieces; otherwise he will have far too good an opinion of himself. Don't let's pick at little faults, but rather find pleasure in what is good; and there is much here worth praising. He writes better than all the rest of them. If he's such a great genius, he can take some sharp criticism! There are enough people to praise him in private; let us not drive him mad with flattery! We recommend that he study the classics,' etc. There sat the praised poet, the tame one, receiving homage from all the guests, and he was happy.

He also was in a large gathering, at one of his patron's. The subject of the conversation was his rival's book. In my opinion you're too wild for me, too fantastic. But I must admit that as a man you are highly respectable! The doors are low and the windows placed irregularly; white thorn bushes and barberry ramble around them. Their mossy roofs are overgrown with yellow flowers and houseleek. Only green cabbage and potatoes grow in the little garden, but by the hedge grows a willow tree; and beneath it sat a little girl, her eyes fixed on the old oak tree between the farmhouses.

Its tall and withered trunk had been sawed off at the top, and upon it a stork had built his nest. He stood above it now, rattling his bill. A little boy came out and stood beside the girl; they were brother and sister. I know perfectly well that what they say about the stork is only a story they tell to children. The children folded their hands and looked at each other.

Surely this was God, who had brought the little baby! Then they clasped each other's hands. The door of the house opened, and the neighbor woman appeared. Around it grew a few withered bushes where a nightingale, which had lost its way, was singing. It would surely die during that cold night; it was its swan's song that I heard. The youngest children were carried on the backs of the women, while the bigger ones skipped along beside them. A wretched horse was dragging a cart that bore the few household effects they possessed. Her thoughts were those of the whole group. Hence the rosy glimmer of the rising dawn seemed to them like a ray of promise, the forerunner of the sun of happiness that would rise again.

They heard the song of the dying nightingale, and to them it seemed no false prophet, but the herald of good fortune. You have paid for the long passage with all your possessions. Poor and helpless shall you set foot on the promised land. You may sell yourselves, your wives, and your children. Yet you shall not suffer long, for behind the broad, fragrant leaf sits the angel of death. Her welcome kiss breathes the deadly fever into your blood! Sail on, sail on over the swelling waves! The peasants were crossing the heath on their way to church. In their black gowns, and with the strip of white linen bound closely around their heads, the women looked as if they had stepped out of the old paintings in the church.

Around them lay a vast, dead scene - the withered, brown heath, dark, scorched plains between white sand dunes. The women were carrying their prayer books as they made their way to the church. Pray for those who go forth to their graves, beyond the swelling waves! Every movement he makes is so comical that it brings roars of laughter in the house, and yet there is nothing remarkable in his work to account for this - it is more his peculiarity.

Even when he was only a boy, playing about with the other boys, he was a punchinello. Nature had shaped him for the character by putting a hump on his back and another on his chest; but the mind and soul hidden under the deformities were, on the contrary, richly endowed.

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No one possessed a deeper feeling, a stronger spiritual feeling, than he. The theater was his ideal world; if he had been tall and handsome, he might have become a great tragedian on any stage. His soul was filled with all that was heroic and great; still, it was his fate to be a punchinello.

His very sadness, his melancholy, heightened the dry wit of his sharply drawn face, and aroused the laughter of a vast audience, which lustily applauded its favorite. It would indeed have been too funny if in reality 'Beauty and the Beast' had married. Whenever Punchinello was dejected, she was the only one who could bring a smile to his lips; yes, she could even make him laugh loudly.

At first she was as melancholy as he, then somewhat calmer, and at last overflowing with gaiety. Punchinello laughed heartily and jumped high into the air, and his melancholy was forgotten. And yet she had spoken the truth; he did love her, loved her deeply, as he loved all that was great and noble in art.

If people had seen his tormented face they would have applauded him more than ever. On the day of her burial Harlequin had permission not to appear on the stage, for he was a grief-stricken widower. The manager had to present something very gay, so that the public would not miss the pretty Columbine and the graceful Harlequin. Therefore the nimble Punchinello had to be doubly merry; with grief in his heart he danced and skipped about, and all applauded and cried, 'Bravo!

Oh, he was priceless! The wreath of flowers on Columbine's grave had already faded. There he sat - and what a study for a painter! If the public had seen their favorite, how they would have applauded and cried, 'Bravo, Punchinello! Listen to what the Moon told me: I have seen a young maiden in her ball gown, and the happiness of a prince's pretty young bride in her wedding dress.

But no joy can be compared to that which I saw last evening in a child, a little girl four years old. She had received a new blue dress and a new rose-colored bonnet. She was already dressed in her finery, and everyone called for candles, as my beams were too faint through the window, and more light was needed. The little girl stood as stiff as a doll, her arms carefully stretched away from the frock, the fingers spread wide apart from one another.

Oh, how her eyes and every feature beamed with joy! The little girl looked up at her bonnet and down at her dress, and smiled happily. I know another, an even stranger one; it is not a corpse, but rather the phantom of a city. Whenever water splashes from fountains into marble basins, I seem to hear the tale of the floating city. Yes, the spouting water can tell about it. The waves of the sea sing about it. Do you know this city? Never was the rattle of carriages or the clatter of horses' hoofs heard in its streets; only fish swim there, while the black gondola glides ghostlike over the green waters.

The grass grows up between the broad flagstones, and in the early dawn thousands of tame pigeons flutter about the tall, isolated tower. There are archways about you on three sides, and beneath one of them sit the motionless Turk, with his long pipe, and the handsome young Greek, leaning against a pillar, gazing up at the trophies aloft, at the tall masts, monuments of a lost power.

The flags hang down like mourning crape. A girl is resting there; she has set down her heavy pails of water, though the yoke by which she carries them is still across her shoulders; she is leaning against the Mast of Victory. The gilded domes and the golden balls around it glitter in my rays.

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Those magnificent bronze horses up there have traveled like the bronze horse in the fairy tale; they have journeyed to distant lands and returned. Can you see the brilliant colors on the walls and window panes? It is as if, at a child's plea, a fairy had decorated this strange temple. Can you see the winged lion upon that column?

He still glitters with gold, but his wings are bound; the lion is dead, for the King of the Ocean is dead. The great halls are empty, and where gorgeous pictures once hung there are now bare walls. Beggars sleep beneath the archways, whereas once only great nobles were permitted to tread the pavement there. A sigh sounds from the deep dungeons, or is from the leaden chambers near the Bridge of Sighs, where once were heard the tambourines in the gay gondolas, just as they were when the wedding ring was cast from the glorious Bucentaur into the Adriatic, the Queen of the Ocean.

Wrap yourself in your mists, O Adriatic! Cover yourself with the widow's veil, and let it enwrap your bridegroom's mausoleum - marble, ghostlike Venice! My rays glided through a small window in the wall, and I saw a painted face with the forehead pressed against the pane - it was the hero of the evening.

The knightly beard curled around his chin, but there were tears in his eyes, for he had been hissed from the stage, and for a good reason. But incompetence cannot be tolerated in the world of art. He had deep feeling, and loved his art with a fervor, but art did not love him. In his part was written, 'Boldly and valiantly the hero advances' - and he had to appear before an audience which ridiculed him. The stagehands whispered to each other. I followed the poor fellow to his room. Hanging oneself is an unsightly death, and poison is not always at hand. I know he was thinking of both. A man may be very unhappy and at the same time very affected.

He thought of death, of suicide, and I believe he pitied himself. He wept bitterly, and when a man has wept until no more tears can come he no longer thinks of suicide. I again saw that familiar face with the curled beard, the painted cheeks. Again he looked up at me and smiled - and yet he had again been hissed from the stage, only a minute before, hissed from a miserable stage, hissed by a miserable audience! It was a suicide - our painted and hissed hero.

The only attendant was the driver of the hearse, and none but the Moon followed it. The suicide lies buried in a corner by the churchyard wall. Nettles will soon grow over his grave, and the gravedigger will fling over it the weeds and thorns he roots from the other graves.

The wild fig tree grows in the breaches of the wall, and covers its bareness with broad, gray-green leaves. The donkey treads on the green laurels and enjoys the barren thistle among heaps of rubbish. To this spot, from which the Roman eagles once flew out over the world, and came, saw, and conquered, an entrance now leads through a humble little house, built of clay, and wedged between two broken marble columns. Vine tendrils hang down like a mourning wreath over the crooked window.

They are now the rulers of the Emperor's palace, and show the place to tourists. A bare wall is all that remains of the magnificent throne hall, and the long shadow of a dark cypress points to the spot where the throne once stood. There is earth a yard high on the broken floor. The little girl, now the daughter of the Emperor's palace, often sits there on her stool while the evening bells ring. Through the keyhole of a near-by door, which she calls her balcony window, she can overlook half of Rome, as far as the mighty dome of St. Carrying an antique earthen pitcher of water on her head, she was barefooted, and her short skirt and little sleeves were torn.

I kissed the child's finely rounded shoulders, her black eyes, and her dark, shining hair. She mounted the steps up to the house, which were steep and formed of broken bits of masonry and a crumbled column. Spotted lizards ran frightened past her feet, but she was not afraid of them. Her hand was raised to ring the doorbell - a rabbit's foot suspended from a string was now the bell handle at the Emperor's palace - but she paused for a moment. What was she thinking of? Perhaps of the beautiful image of the infant Jesus, clad in silver and gold, in the chapel below, where the silver lamps burned, and where her little friends sang the hymn she knew so well.

I do not know. She moved, and stumbled.

The earthern pitcher fell from her head and crashed on the marble step! She burst into tears; the beautiful daughter of the Emperor's palace wept over a cheap, broken clay pitcher. She stood there barefooted and wept, and dared not pull the string, the bell rope at the Emperor's palace. The Moon hadn't shone for more than two weeks, and then at last I saw him again, round and clear above the slowly rising mass of clouds.

The group halted near the sandy desert, on a salt plain, which glittered like an ice field, and was covered to but a small extent with the light drift-sand. The oldest man in the caravan, at whose girdle hung the water flask, and on whose head was a sack of unleavened bread, drew a square figure on the ground with his staff, and wrote inside it a few words from the Koran.

Then the whole caravan passed over the consecrated spot. A young merchant, a son of the East, as I could see from his sparkling eyes and his handsome figure, rode thoughtfully on his white, snorting horse. Was he perhaps thinking of his pretty young wife at home? Only two days before, a camel, covered with costly furs and splendid shawls, had carried her, the lovely bride, around the walls of the city.

Drums and bagpipes had sounded, and the women had sung, while all around the camel there had been rejoicing and gunshots, the greatest number of which the bridegroom had fired. I followed them on their way for many nights, and saw them rest beside the wells, under the palm trees. They plunged a knife into the breast of a camel that had fallen, and roasted the meat at the fire.

My rays cooled the glowing sands, and showed them the black rocks, dead islands in the immense ocean of sand. They met no hostile tribes on their pathless route; no storms arose; no wave of sand whirled destruction over the caravan. This evening they are camped beneath tall palm trees, with the crane flying about them on long wings and the pelican watching them from the branches of mimosa. The luxuriant underbrush is trodden by the heavy feet of elephants. A troop of Negroes are returning from a market in the interior; the women, with indigo-blue skirts and their black hair decked with brass buttons, are driving heavily laden oxen, on which the naked black children are lying asleep.

A Negro is leading, by a rope, a lion cub that he has bought. They approach the caravan. A cloud, and then another cloud, passed across the face of the Moon. I heard nothing more from him that evening. She had received the loveliest doll as a gift. Oh, what a doll that was, so pretty and delicate, and surely it could not have been made to experience hardship! But the little girl's brothers, who were tall boys, had placed the doll in a high tree in the garden, and had then run away. The little girl couldn't reach the doll, and had no way of helping it down, and that was why she was crying.

The doll undoubtedly wept too, for it stretched out its arms through the green branches and looked very sad indeed. Oh, that poor doll! The evening twilight was already coming on, and night would soon be here. Did it have to sit alone in the tree out here all night long?

A Picture Book without Pictures

No, the little girl didn't have the heart to let it do that. She already imagined she could see the little goblins, in their tall pointed caps, peeping out from the bushes, and tall ghosts dancing in the dark walk, coming closer and closer, stretching out their hands toward the tree where the doll sat, and laughingly pointing their fingers at it.

Oh, how frightened the little girl was! I wonder if I have done something wrong! It's so funny when it limps, and that's why I laughed at it! But I know it's wrong to laugh at animals. And it seemed as if the doll shook its head. I looked at the figures of St. Christopher, with the infant Jesus on his shoulder, that are painted on the walls of the houses, enormous figures that extend from the ground to the gables, pictures of St.

Florian pouring water on the burning house, and of Christ on the great roadside crosses. To the present generation they are very old pictures, whereas I saw them being put up, one after the other. Two of the sisters were in the tower above, tolling the bell; they were both young, and therefore they looked out over the mountains into the wide world beyond. A traveling coach rolled by on the highway below, and the postilion's horn sounded. As the poor nuns looked their glances, and a tear gleamed in the eye of the younger one. The horn sounded more and more faintly, until at last the convent bell silenced its dying sound.

The father and mother slept, but their little son was not asleep. I saw the flowered cotton bed curtain move, and the child peep out from behind it. At first I thought he was looking at the great Bornholm clock, which was brightly painted in red and green, with a cuckoo atop it, and heavy lead weights hanging below; the pendulum, with its glittering brass plate, swung to and fro - tick, tock!

But it wasn't the clock that the little fellow looked at.

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No, it was his mother's spinning wheel, which stood just beneath the clock. To him this was the most precious thing in the entire house; yet, he never dared touch it, unless he wished to have his fingers slapped. For hours he would sit beside his mother while she spun, looking at the humming spindle and the circling wheel; and at those moments he always had his own thoughts.

Ah, if he only dared to turn the spinning wheel by himself! Presently a little bare foot stuck out of bed, then another bare foot, and soon two small legs appeared. Once more he turned around to see if his father and mother slept; yes, they did; and then, dressed only in his short little shirt, he stole very, very softly to the spinning wheel, and began to spin. The thread flew off, but the wheel only turned the more quickly. I kissed his yellow hair and his light blue eyes; it was a pretty picture. The bed curtains moved; she peeped out, and instantly thought of goblins or other little sprites.

He opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hand, and looked at the busy little fellow, 'Why,' he said, 'that is Bertel! I pressed my silent kiss on the breasts of the Muses, and they seemed to come to life. But my rays rested longest on the Nile group - on the colossal figure of the god.

There he lay leaning on the Sphinx, dreaming, thoughtful, as if he were thinking of the years gone by. Around him the little cupids played with the crocodiles. A tiny little cupid sat in the horn of plenty, his arms crossed, and gazed at the stern and mighty river god - a true picture of the little boy at the spinning wheel, with the very same features. Here, lifelike and charming, stood the little marble child; and yet the wheel of time has revolved more than a thousand times since it was cut out of the stone. And it would have to revolve again - as many times as the boy turned the spinning wheel in the humble room - before the world would once more produce marble figures like these.

There is an old manor house there, with red walls and swans on the waters of the moat, while near by is a pretty little country town, with its church situated among apple orchards. The torches had not been lighted for catching eel; no, this was a festival. Music sounded, and a song was sung. In one of the boats stood the man who was the object of this homage, a tall, powerful figure, wrapped in a great cloak, a man with blue eyes and long white locks. I knew him, and I thought of the Nile group, and the marble statues of the gods in the Vatican. The wheel of time has turned, and new gods have been carved in marble.

From the boats arose shouts, 'Hurrah! Hurrah for Bertel Thorvaldsen! It was not the birthplace of Goethe, nor was it the old town hall, through whose grated windows one may still see the horned skulls of oxen which were roasted and given to the people at the coronation of the emperors. The building was a burgher's type of house, plain and painted green, and stood at the corner of the narrow Jew's Alley. It was the house of Rothschild. The staircase was brightly lighted; servants in livery, with wax tapers in massive silver candlesticks, bowed low before an aged woman who was being carried down the stairs in a chair.

The master of the house stood by, bareheaded, and pressed a respectful kiss on the old lady's hand. She was his mother; she nodded kindly to him, and to the servants, who then carried her through the dark, narrow street, and into a little house. Here she lived, and here she had borne all her children. From this spot their great fortunes had blossomed forth.

Were she now to leave the miserable street and the little house, perhaps fortune would abandon them; that was her belief. The Moon told no more; his visit to me that evening was all too short. But I thought about the old lady in the narrow, miserable street. A single word from her, and she could have had a magnificent house on the bank of the Thames; one word from her, and she could have had a villa on the Bay of Naples. Suddenly a little head popped up from one of them; then half the body followed, and both arms rested on the edge of the chimney.

Yes, this was indeed very different from creeping about in the narrow flues and little chimneys. The air was so fresh, and he could look out over the whole city, to the green woods. The sun was rising; it shone round and large into his face, which beamed with joy, and was prettily blacked with soot. Tight blinds concealed the windows behind the walls; only from within the temple was there light, which shone faintly through its windows.

I looked in and observed its colorful grandeur. From floor to ceiling the walls are painted with many pictures, in vivid colors and rich gilt, representing the actions of the gods on earth. In every niche is the statue of a deity, almost entirely concealed by colored draperies and hanging banners. Before each of the gods - they are all made of tin - is a little altar, with flowers, holy water, and burning candles. But foremost in the temple was Fu, the principal deity, clad in a silken robe of the sacred color, yellow.

Could he perhaps be dreaming of working in his little bed of flowers, one such as separates every Chinese house from the long street wall? And was that work more agreeable to him than sweeping the temple and snuffing wax tapers?

Hans Christian Andersen : Picturebook Without Pictures

Or did he long to be seated at the richly laden table, wiping his lips with silver paper between courses? Or was his sin so great that, if he dared confess it, the Celestial Empire would punish him with death? Or were his thoughts bold enough to follow the barbarian's ships to their home in distant England?

No, his thoughts did not wander so far, and yet they were as sinful as the hot passions of youth could make them - doubly sinful in the temple here, in the presence of Fu and the other holy gods. I know where his thoughts were. The shoes pained her feet, but in her there was a still greater pain.