THE END.
  1872
  FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
  THE OLD GRAVE-STONE
  by Hans Christian Andersen
  IN a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, atthat time of the year in which people say the evenings are growinglonger, a family circle were gathered together at their old home. Alamp burned on the table, although the weather was mild and warm,and the long curtains hung down before the open windows, and withoutthe moon shone brightly in the dark-blue sky.
  But they were not talking of the moon, but of a large, old stonethat lay below in the courtyard not very far from the kitchen door.The maids often laid the clean copper saucepans and kitchen vessels onthis stone, that they might dry in the sun, and the children were fondof playing on it. It was, in fact, an old grave-stone.
  "Yes," said the master of the house, "I believe the stone camefrom the graveyard of the old church of the convent which was pulleddown, and the pulpit, the monuments, and the grave-stones sold. Myfather bought the latter; most of them were cut in two and used forpaving-stones, but that one stone was preserved whole, and laid in thecourtyard."
  "Any one can see that it is a grave-stone," said the eldest of thechildren; "the representation of an hour-glass and part of thefigure of an angel can still be traced, but the inscription beneath isquite worn out, excepting the name 'Preben,' and a large 'S' closeby it, and a little farther down the name of 'Martha' can be easilyread. But nothing more, and even that cannot be seen unless it hasbeen raining, or when we have washed the stone."
  "Dear me! how singular. Why that must be the grave-stone of PrebenSchwane and his wife."
  The old man who said this looked old enough to be thegrandfather of all present in the room.
  "Yes," he continued, "these people were among the last who wereburied in the churchyard of the old convent. They were a very worthyold couple, I can remember them well in the days of my boyhood.Every one knew them, and they were esteemed by all. They were theoldest residents in the town, and people said they possessed a tonof gold, yet they were always very plainly dressed, in the coarseststuff, but with linen of the purest whiteness. Preben and Marthawere a fine old couple, and when they both sat on the bench, at thetop of the steep stone steps, in front of their house, with thebranches of the linden-tree waving above them, and nodded in a gentle,friendly way to passers by, it really made one feel quite happy.They were very good to the poor; they fed them and clothed them, andin their benevolence there was judgment as well as trueChristianity. The old woman died first; that day is still quitevividly before my eyes. I was a little boy, and had accompanied myfather to the old man's house. Martha had fallen into the sleep ofdeath just as we arrived there. The corpse lay in a bedroom, near tothe one in which we sat, and the old man was in great distress andweeping like a child. He spoke to my father, and to a few neighborswho were there, of how lonely he should feel now she was gone, and howgood and true she, his dead wife, had been during the number ofyears that they had passed through life together, and how they hadbecome acquainted, and learnt to love each other. I was, as I havesaid, a boy, and only stood by and listened to what the others said;but it filled me with a strange emotion to listen to the old man,and to watch how the color rose in his cheeks as he spoke of thedays of their courtship, of how beautiful she was, and how many littletricks he had been guilty of, that he might meet her. And then hetalked of his wedding-day; and his eyes brightened, and he seemed tobe carried back, by his words, to that joyful time. And yet thereshe was, lying in the next room, dead- an old woman, and he was an oldman, speaking of the days of hope, long passed away. Ah, well, so itis; then I was but a child, and now I am old, as old as Preben Schwanethen was. Time passes away, and all things changed. I can rememberquite well the day on which she was buried, and how Old Prebenwalked close behind the coffin.
  "A few years before this time the old couple had had theirgrave-stone prepared, with an inscription and their names, but not thedate. In the evening the stone was taken to the churchyard, and laidon the grave. A year later it was taken up, that Old Preben might belaid by the side of his wife. They did not leave behind them wealth,they left behind them far less than people had believed theypossessed; what there was went to families distantly related tothem, of whom, till then, no one had ever heard. The old house, withits balcony of wickerwork, and the bench at the top of the high steps,under the lime-tree, was considered, by the road-inspectors, too oldand rotten to be left standing. Afterwards, when the same fatebefell the convent church, and the graveyard was destroyed, thegrave-stone of Preben and Martha, like everything else, was sold towhoever would buy it. And so it happened that this stone was not cutin two as many others had been, but now lies in the courtyard below, ascouring block for the maids, and a playground for the children. Thepaved street now passes over the resting place of Old Preben and hiswife; no one thinks of them any more now."
  And the old man who had spoken of all this shook his headmournfully, and said, "Forgotten!