第160章
作者:安徒生[丹麦]    更新:2021-11-25 12:18
  She sank into the ground, and went downto the Marsh Woman, who is always brewing there.
  The Marsh Woman is related to the elf maidens, who are well-known,for songs are sung and pictures painted about them. But of the MarshWoman nothing is known, excepting that when a mist arises from themeadows, in summer time, it is because she is brewing beneath them. Tothe Marsh Woman's brewery Inge sunk down to a place which no one canendure for long. A heap of mud is a palace compared with the MarshWoman's brewery; and as Inge fell she shuddered in every limb, andsoon became cold and stiff as marble. Her foot was still fastened tothe loaf, which bowed her down as a golden ear of corn bends the stem.
  An evil spirit soon took possession of Inge, and carried her toa still worse place, in which she saw crowds of unhappy people,waiting in a state of agony for the gates of mercy to be opened tothem, and in every heart was a miserable and eternal feeling ofunrest. It would take too much time to describe the various torturesthese people suffered, but Inge's punishment consisted in standingthere as a statue, with her foot fastened to the loaf. She couldmove her eyes about, and see all the misery around her, but shecould not turn her head; and when she saw the people looking at hershe thought they were admiring her pretty face and fine clothes, forshe was still vain and proud. But she had forgotten how soiled herclothes had become while in the Marsh Woman's brewery, and that theywere covered with mud; a snake had also fastened itself in her hair,and hung down her back, while from each fold in her dress a great toadpeeped out and croaked like an asthmatic poodle. Worse than all wasthe terrible hunger that tormented her, and she could not stoop tobreak off a piece of the loaf on which she stood. No; her back was toostiff, and her whole body like a pillar of stone. And then camecreeping over her face and eyes flies without wings; she winked andblinked, but they could not fly away, for their wings had beenpulled off; this, added to the hunger she felt, was horrible torture.
  "If this lasts much longer," she said, "I shall not be able tobear it." But it did last, and she had to bear it, without beingable to help herself.
  A tear, followed by many scalding tears, fell upon her head, androlled over her face and neck, down to the loaf on which she stood.Who could be weeping for Inge? She had a mother in the world still,and the tears of sorrow which a mother sheds for her child will alwaysfind their way to the child's heart, but they often increase thetorment instead of being a relief. And Inge could hear all that wassaid about her in the world she had left, and every one seemed cruelto her. The sin she had committed in treading on the loaf was known onearth, for she had been seen by the cowherd from the hill, when shewas crossing the marsh and had disappeared.
  When her mother wept and exclaimed, "Ah, Inge! what grief thouhast caused thy mother" she would say, "Oh that I had never been born!My mother's tears are useless now."
  And then the words of the kind people who had adopted her cameto her ears, when they said, "Inge was a sinful girl, who did notvalue the gifts of God, but trampled them under her feet."
  "Ah," thought Inge, "they should have punished me, and drivenall my naughty tempers out of me."
  A song was made about "The girl who trod on a loaf to keep hershoes from being soiled," and this song was sung everywhere. The storyof her sin was also told to the little children, and they called her"wicked Inge," and said she was so naughty that she ought to bepunished. Inge heard all this, and her heart became hardened andfull of bitterness.
  But one day, while hunger and grief were gnawing in her hollowframe, she heard a little, innocent child, while listening to the taleof the vain, haughty Inge, burst into tears and exclaim, "But will shenever come up again?"