Fairy Tales

THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER

ONCE UPON A TIME there were twenty-five tin soldiers. They were all brothers because they were made from the same old tin spoon. They held rifles on their shoulders, and their faces looked straight ahead, above their lovely red and blue uniforms. The very first thing they heard in this world, when the lid was taken off the box, was “Tin Soldiers!” shouted by a lit tle boy, clapping his hands. He had gotten them because it was his birthday, and he lined them up on the table. They all looked exactly alike, just one was a little different; he had only one leg, since he was made last, and there wasn’t enough tin left. But he stood just as steadily on his one leg as the others did on two, and he’s the one who turned out to be remarkable.

On the table where they were lined up, there were lots of other toys, but what really caught the eye was a beautiful paper castle. You could look right into the rooms through the little windows. There were small trees outside, around a little mirror that was supposed to be a lake. There were wax swans swimming there who were reflected in the glass. It was all just lovely, but the loveliest was a little maiden who stood in the middle of the castle door. She was cut out of paper too, but she had a skirt made of the clearest muslin and a narrow little blue ribbon over her shoulder like a scarf. There was a shining sequin right in the middle of it as large as her face. The little maiden had her arms stretched out because she was a dancer, and she had one leg lifted so high in the air that the tin soldier didn’t see it, and so he thought that she had one leg just like he did.

“That’s the wife for me!” he thought. “But she’s quite aristocratic. She lives in a palace, and I only have a box, and twenty-five of us live there. That’s no place for her. But I must meet her!” And he stretched out to his full length behind a snuffbox that was standing on the table. From there he could gaze at the fine little lady, who continued to stand on one leg without losing her balance.

Later in the evening, all the other tin soldiers were put into their box, and the people in the house went to bed. That’s when the toys started to play. They played house, fought wars, and went to balls. The tin soldiers rattled in their box because they wanted to play too, but they couldn’t get the lid off. The nutcracker turned somersaults, and the slate pencil wrote noisy pranks on the blackboard. There was so much noise that the canary woke up and started to sing along—and in rhyme at that. The only two who didn’t move were the tin soldier and the little dancer. She held herself straight on tiptoe with both arms outstretched, and he was just as firm on his one leg. He didn’t take his eyes off her for a second.

Then the clock struck twelve, and plunk! The lid flew off the snuffbox. But there was no tobacco in there. No, it was a little black troll. It was a jack-in-the-box.

“Tin soldier!” the troll said. “Keep your eyes to yourself!”

But the tin soldier pretended not to hear.

“Just wait until tomorrow!” the troll said.

When morning came and the children came in, the tin soldier was set on the windowsill. Now whether it was the troll or a draft, the window flew open right away, and the soldier fell out headfirst from the third floor. He fell terribly fast, his leg turned in the air, and he landed on his hat with his bayonet stuck in the cobblestones.

The maid and the little boy went down right away to look for the tin soldier, but, although they almost stepped on him, they didn’t see him. If the tin soldier had shouted, “Here I am!” they surely would have found him, but he didn’t think it was proper to shout when he was in uniform.

Then it started to rain, heavier and heavier, and it turned into a real downpour. When it was over, two street urchins came along.

“Look!” one said. “There’s a tin soldier! He’s going sailing.”

And they made a boat out of paper, set the tin soldier right in the middle of it, and he went sailing down the gutter while both boys ran along side and clapped their hands. Good grief, what waves there were in that gutter, and what a current! Of course, it had been a downpour. The paper boat seesawed up and down, and in between it spun around so quickly that the soldier trembled, but he remained steadfast, didn’t change his expression, looked straight ahead, and held his rifle on his shoulder.

“Tin soldier!” the troll said. “Keep your eyes to yourself!”

Suddenly the boat sailed into a culvert. It was just as dark as it was in his box.

“I wonder where I’m going?” he thought. “Well, it’s the troll’s fault. If only the little maiden were sitting here in the boat, too, it could be twice as dark!”

Just then a big water rat that lived in the culvert came along.

“Do you have a passport?” asked the rat. “Give me your passport!”

But the tin soldier kept still and held his rifle even tighter. The boat kept moving with the rat following after. Ugh, how he ground his teeth and screamed to sticks and straw: “Stop him! Stop him! He hasn’t paid his toll, and he didn’t show his passport!”

The current became stronger and faster! The tin soldier could already see the light where the culvert ended, but he also heard a roaring sound that was enough to frighten a brave man. Just imagine, right past the culvert, the gutter flowed into a big canal. That would be just as dangerous for him as going over a high waterfall would be for us.

He was too close to it, and it was impossible to stop. The boat rushed out, and the poor tin soldier held himself as erect as possible. No one should be able to say that he so much as blinked. The boat whirled around three or four times and filled with water up to the rim so that it had to sink. The tin soldier was up to his neck in water, and the boat sank deeper and deeper while the paper dissolved more and more. Then the water went over the soldier’s head, and he thought about the beautiful little dancer whom he would never see again, and he heard in his ears:“Onward, Christian soldiers,

Marching as to war... ”

Then the paper fell apart, and the tin soldier fell through, but right away he was swallowed by a big fish.

Oh, how dark it was in there! It was even worse than in the culvert, and it was so cramped. But the tin soldier was steadfast and lay stretched out with his rifle on his shoulder.

The fish swam around and made the most horrendous movements. Finally the fish stopped moving, and then it was as if a bolt of lightning went through it. A light was shining brightly and a voice called out: “Tin soldier!” The fish had been caught, brought to market, and sold, and came into a kitchen, where the kitchen maid cut it open with a big knife. She took the tin soldier around the waist between two fingers and carried it into the living room, where everyone wanted to see the remarkable man who had traveled around in the stomach of a fish, but the tin soldier certainly wasn’t proud of it. They set him up on the table and there—Well, will wonders never cease! The tin soldier was back in the very same living room where he’d been before. He saw the same children, and the toys were standing on the table. There was the lovely castle with the beautiful little dancer who was still standing on one leg and had the other high in the air. She was steadfast too. The tin soldier was so moved that he almost cried tears of tin, but that wouldn’t be proper. He looked at her, and she looked at him, but they didn’t say anything.

Then one of the little boys grabbed the tin soldier and threw it into the stove without any reason, but it was certainly the little troll in the snuffbox who was behind it.

The tin soldier stood there quite illuminated and felt a terrible heat, but whether it was from the actual fire, or from love, he didn’t know. The colors on his uniform had faded completely away, whether from the trip or from sorrow, no one could say. He looked at the little maiden, and she looked at him, and he felt himself melting, but still he stood steadfastly with his rifle on his shoulder. Then a door was opened, the wind caught the little dancer, and she flew like a sylph into the oven to the tin soldier, flared up in flames, and was gone. Then the tin soldier melted into a blob, and the next day when the maid took out the ashes, she found him as a little tin heart, but the only thing left of the dancer was the sequin, and that was burned to a crisp.