《安徒生童话英文版》第128章

　　"I am happy! I am happy!" the Dryad cried, rejoicing; "and yet Icannot realize, cannot describe what I feel. Everything is as Ifancied it, and yet as I did not fancy it."

　　The houses stood there, so lofty, so close! The sunlight shoneon only one of the walls, and that one was stuck over with bills andplacards, before which the people stood still; and this made a crowd.

　　Carriages rushed past, carriages rolled past; light ones and heavyones mingled together. Omnibuses, those over-crowded moving houses,came rattling by; horsemen galloped among them; even carts andwagons asserted their rights.

　　The Dryad asked herself if these high-grown houses, which stood soclose around her, would not remove and take other shapes, like theclouds in the sky, and draw aside, so that she might cast a glanceinto Paris, and over it. Notre Dame must show itself, the VendomeColumn, and the wondrous building which had called and was stillcalling so many strangers to the city.

　　But the houses did not stir from their places. It was yet day whenthe lamps were lit. The gas-jets gleamed from the shops, and shoneeven into the branches of the trees, so that it was like sunlight insummer. The stars above made their appearance, the same to which theDryad had looked up in her home. She thought she felt a clear purestream of air which went forth from them. She felt herself lifted upand strengthened, and felt an increased power of seeing throughevery leaf and through every fibre of the root. Amid all the noise andthe turmoil, the colors and the lights, she knew herself watched bymild eyes.

　　From the side streets sounded the merry notes of fiddles andwind instruments. Up! to the dance, to the dance! to jollity andpleasure! that was their invitation. Such music it was, that horses,carriages, trees, and houses would have danced, if they had known how.The charm of intoxicating delight filled the bosom of the Dryad.

　　"How glorious, how splendid it is!" she cried, rejoicingly. "Now Iam in Paris!"

　　The next day that dawned, the next night that fell, offered thesame spectacle, similar bustle, similar life; changing, indeed, yetalways the same; and thus it went on through the sequence of days.

　　"Now I know every tree, every flower on the square here! I knowevery house, every balcony, every shop in this narrow cut-offcorner, where I am denied the sight of this great mighty city. Whereare the arches of triumph, the Boulevards, the wondrous building ofthe world? I see nothing of all this. As if shut up in a cage, I standamong the high houses, which I now know by heart, with theirinscriptions, signs, and placards; all the painted confectionery, thatis no longer to my taste. Where are all the things of which I heard,for which I longed, and for whose sake I wanted to come hither? whathave I seized, found, won? I feel the same longing I felt before; Ifeel that there is a life I should wish to grasp and to experience.I must go out into the ranks of living men, and mingle among them. Imust fly about like a bird. I must see and feel, and become humanaltogether. I must enjoy the one half-day, instead of vegetating foryears in every-day sameness and weariness, in which I become ill,and at last sink and disappear like the dew on the meadows. I willgleam like the cloud, gleam in the sunshine of life, look out over thewhole like the cloud, and pass away like it, no one knoweth whither."

　　Thus sighed the Dryad; and she prayed:

　　"Take from me the years that were destined for me, and give me buthalf of the life of the ephemeral fly!