《安徒生童话英文版》第273章

　　George hurried up stairs to the General's apartments; heopened the door of the nursery. The window curtain was almost entirelyburnt, and the wooden curtain-pole was one mass of flame. Georgesprang upon a chair he brought in haste, and pulled down the burningarticles; he then alarmed the people. But for him, the house wouldhave been burned down.

　　The General and his lady cross-questioned little Emily.

　　"I only took just one lucifer-match," she said, "and it wasburning directly, and the curtain was burning too. I spat at it, toput it out; I spat at it as much as ever I could, but I could notput it out; so I ran away and hid myself, for papa and mamma wouldbe angry."

　　"I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression! Did youever hear your papa and mamma talk about spitting? You must have gotthat from down stairs!"

　　And George had a penny given him. But this penny did not go to thebaker's shop, but into the savings-box; and soon there were so manypennies in the savings-box that he could buy a paint-box and color thedrawings he made, and he had a great number of drawings. They seemedto shoot out of his pencil and out of his fingers' ends. His firstcolored pictures he presented to Emily.

　　"Charming!" said the General, and even the General's ladyacknowledged that it was easy to see what the boy had meant to draw."He has genius." Those were the words that were carried down intothe cellar.

　　The General and his gracious lady were grand people. They hadtwo coats of arms on their carriage, a coat of arms for each ofthem, and the gracious lady had had this coat of arms embroidered onboth sides of every bit of linen she had, and even on her nightcap andher dressing-bag. One of the coats of arms, the one that belonged toher, was a very dear one; it had been bought for hard cash by herfather, for he had not been born with it, nor had she; she had comeinto the world too early, seven years before the coat of arms, andmost people remembered this circumstance, but the family did notremember it. A man might well have a bee in his bonnet, when he hadsuch a coat of arms to carry as that, let alone having to carry two;and the General's wife had a bee in hers when she drove to the courtball, as stiff and as proud as you please.

　　The General was old and gray, but he had a good seat on horseback,and he knew it, and he rode out every day, with a groom behind himat a proper distance. When he came to a party, he looked somehow as ifhe were riding into the room upon his high horse; and he had orders,too, such a number that no one would have believed it; but that wasnot his fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumnreviews which were held in those days. He had an anecdote that he toldabout those days, the only one he knew. A subaltern under his ordershad cut off one of the princes, and taken him prisoner, and the Princehad been obliged to ride through the town with a little band ofcaptured soldiers, himself a prisoner behind the General. This wasan ever-memorable event, and was always told over and over again everyyear by the General, who, moreover, always repeated the remarkablewords he had used when he returned his sword to the Prince; thosewords were, "Only my subaltern could have taken your Highnessprisoner; I could never have done it!" And the Prince had replied,"You are incomparable." In a real war the General had never takenpart. When war came into the country, he had gone on a diplomaticcareer to foreign courts. He spoke the French language so fluentlythat he had almost forgotten his own; he could dance well, he couldride well, and orders grew on his coat in an astounding way. Thesentries presented arms to him, one of the most beautiful girlspresented arms to him, and became the General's lady, and in time theyhad a pretty, charming child, that seemed as if it had dropped fromheaven, it was so pretty; and the porter's son danced before it in thecourtyard, as soon as it could understand it, and gave her all hiscolored pictures, and little Emily looked at them, and was pleased,and tore them to pieces. She was pretty and delicate indeed.

　　"My little Roseleaf!"