The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

The story of the girl who trod on a loaf of bread in order to avoid soiling her shoes, and how she was punished for it, is well known; it is written down—nay, even printed. Ingé was the girl’s name; she was a poor child, but proud and haughty; there was a bad foundation in her, as the saying is. Already, when quite a small child, it amused her greatly to catch flies, pull their wings off, and to transform them into creeping things. Later on she took cockchafers and beetles, stuck them on a needle, and held a green leaf or a little piece of paper close to their feet. Then the poor animal seized it, and turned it over and over in its struggles to get free from the needle. “Now the cockchafer is reading,” said Ingé, “look how it turns the leaf over.” As years passed by she became rather worse than better, but she was beautiful, and that was her misfortune; otherwise something else might have happened to her than what really happened.

“Your bad disposition ought to be thoroughly rooted out,” her own mother said to her. “As a child you have often trampled upon my apron, but I am afraid you will one day trample on my heart.”

And that she really did.

She went into the country, and entered the service of some rich people who treated her like their own child, and dressed her accordingly; she looked very well, but her haughtiness increased.

When she had been there about a year, her mistress said to her: “Ingé, you ought to go for once to see your parents.”

And Ingé went off, but only in order to show herself in her native place; she wished people to see how grand she had become. But when she came to the entrance of the village and saw the young men and girls chatting there, and her own mother near them, resting on a stone, and having a bundle of sticks in front of her which she had picked up in the wood, Ingé turned back; she was ashamed to think that she, who was so well clad, had a poor ragged woman for a mother, who picked up sticks in the wood. And she was not sorry that she returned; she was only angry.

Again six months passed by, and her mistress said: “You ought to go home again and visit your parents, Ingé. I will give you a large loaf of bread for them. I am sure they will be pleased to see you.”

Ingé put her best dress and her new shoes on, raised her skirt, and walked very carefully that she might be clean and neat about the feet and for that no one could find fault with her. But when she came to the point where the path runs over the moor, where it was muddy, and where many puddles had formed, she threw the loaf down and trod on it, in order to keep her shoes clean; but while she was thus standing with one foot on the loaf and the other raised up in order to go on, the loaf sank down with her deeper and deeper, and she entirely disappeared. A large puddle with bubbles on it was all that was left to show where she had sunk. That is the story. But what became of Ingé? She sank down into the ground, and came to the Marsh Woman below, where she was brewing. The Marsh Woman is a sister of the Elfin Girls, who are known well enough, for there are songs and pictures of them; but of the Marsh Woman people only know that when in the summer mists rise in the meadows, she is brewing below. Ingé sank down to the Marsh Woman’s brewery, but there nobody can bear to stay long. The dung hole is a splendid drawing-room compared to the Marsh Woman’s brewery. Every vessel smells so disagreeably that one almost faints, and in addition the barrels are so closely packed that if there were a small opening between them through which one might creep, it would be impossible because of the wet toads and fat serpents which abide there. In this place Ingé arrived; all the horrible creeping things were so icy cold, that she shuddered all over, and then she became more and more rigid. She stuck fast to the loaf, which dragged her down as an amber button attracts a straw.

The Marsh Woman was at home. There were visitors at the brewery, for Old Bogey and his grandmother inspected it. And Old Bogey’s grandmother is a wicked old woman, who is never idle; she never rode out on visits without having her needlework with her, and also here she had not forgotten it. She sewed little bits of leather to be attached to men’s shoes, so that they continually wander about without being able to settle anywhere; she embroidered cobwebs of lies, and made crochet-work of foolish words which had fallen to the ground: all this was for men’s disadvantage and destruction. Yes, indeed! She knew how to sew, to embroider, and to crochet—this old grandmother.

She saw Ingé, put her spectacles on, and looked at her again.

“That’s a girl who possesses talents,” she said; “and I request you to let me have the little one as a memento of my visit here. She will make a suitable statue in my grandson’s ante-room.”

And she was given to her, and thus Ingé came into still lower regions. People do not go there directly, but they can get there by a circuitous road, when they have the necessary talents. That was an endless ante-room; one felt quite dizzy if one looked forward or backward. A crowd of people, exhausted to death, were standing here and waiting for the gate of mercy to be opened to them. They had to wait a long time. Large, fat, waddling spiders spun cobwebs, which lasted thousands of years, over their feet, and cut like iron foot-traps and copper chains; besides this, every soul was filled with everlasting restlessness—a restlessness of misery. The miser was standing there, and had forgotten the key of his money-box; the key was in the keyhole, he knew that. It would lead us too far to enumerate all the tortures and misery which were seen there. Ingé felt inexpressible pain when she had to stand there as a statue; it was as if she had been tied to the loaf.

“That is the consequence of trying to keep one’s feet clean and tidy,” she said to herself. “Look how they stare at me!”

And indeed the eyes of all were fixed upon her; their wicked desires were looking out of their eyes and speaking out of their mouths, without a sound being heard. They were dreadful to look at.

“It must be a pleasure to look at me!” thought Ingé. “I have a pretty face and fine clothes.” And then she turned her eyes, for she could not move her neck—it was too stiff. She had forgotten that she had been much soiled in the Marsh Woman’s brewery. Her dress was covered with slime; a snake had fixed itself in her hair, and hung down her back; out of every fold of her dress a toad looked forth, croaking like a short-winded pug-dog. That was very disagreeable. “But the others down here look just as dreadful,” she thought, and thus consoled herself.

The worst of all, however, was the terrible hunger she felt. Could she not stoop down and break off a piece from the loaf on which she was standing? No, her back was stiff, her arms and hands were rigid, her whole body was like a pillar of stone; she could only turn her eyes in her head, but right round, so she could also see behind her. It was an awful aspect. And then flies came and ran to and fro over her eyes. She blinked, but they did not fly away, for they could not, as their wings were torn off, and they were transformed into creeping things. It was a horrible pain, which was increased by hunger, and at last it seemed to her as if there was nothing left in her body. “If this is to last much longer,” she said, “I shall not be able to bear it.” But she had to bear it. Then a hot tear fell upon her head, and rolled over her face and her breast, down to the loaf upon which she stood; and another tear fell, and many others more. Who do you think was weeping for Ingé? Her mother was still alive! The tears of grief which a mother sheds over her child always reach it, but they do not redeem; they burn and augment the torture—this unbearable hunger, and not to be able to reach the loaf upon which she was standing with her feet! She had a feeling as if her whole interior had consumed itself. She was like a thin hollow reed which takes in every sound; she heard everything distinctly that was spoken about her on earth, but what she heard was hard and evil. Although her mother shed a great many tears over her, and was sad, she could not help saying, “Pride goes before a fall. That was your misfortune, Ingé. You have much grieved your mother.”

Her mother and all on earth knew of the sin which she had committed; they knew that she had trod on the loaf, and that she had sunk and disappeared, for the cowherd had seen it from the slope near the marsh land.

“How you have grieved your mother, Ingé!” said the mother. “I had a sort of presentiment.”

“I wish I had never been born!” thought Ingé; “it would have been much better. Of what use are my mother’s tears now?” She heard how her master and mistress, the good people who had taken care of her like parents, said that she was a sinful child who had despised God’s gifts, and trod upon them with her feet. The gates of mercy would be very slowly opened to her!

“They ought to have chastised me, and driven out the whims, if I had any,” thought Ingé.

She heard that a song was composed about her—the haughty girl who had trod on a loaf to keep her shoes clean—and that it was sung all over the country.

“That one must bear so much evil, and have to suffer so much!” thought Ingé. “Others ought to be punished too for their sins! But, of course, then there would be much to be punished. Alas! how I am tortured!”

Her mind now became harder than her exterior. “In such company,” she said, “it is impossible to become better, and I don’t wish to become better. Look how they stare at me!” Her mind was full of wrath and malice against all men. “At last those up there have something to talk about! Alas! how I am tortured!”

She also heard how her story was told to children, and how the little ones called her wicked Ingé. They said she was so ugly and wicked she ought to be severely punished. Again and again hard words were uttered about her by children Yet, one day, while grief and hunger were gnawing her hollow body, she heard her name pronounced and her story told to an innocent child—a little girl—and she also heard that the little one burst into tears at the story of the haughty, vain Ingé and did not add anything about her faults. A young innocent child cried and asked mercy for her. She felt very strange; she would have much liked to cry herself, but she could not do it: she was unable to cry, and that was another torture.

“But will Ingé never come up again?” asked the little girl.

“No, never,” was the answer.

“But if she says ‘please,’ and asks pardon, and promises never to do it again?”

“Then, yes; but she will not ask to be pardoned,” they told the child.

“I should like her so much to do it,” said the little girl, and was quite inconsolable. “I will give my doll and all my toys if she may only come up. It is too terrible—poor Ingé.”

These words touched Ingé to the depth of her heart; they did her good. It was the first time any one had said, “Poor Ingé,” and did not add anything about her faults. A young innocent child cried and asked mercy for her. She felt very strange; she would have much liked to cry herself, but she could not do it: she was unable to cry, and that was another torture.

While years passed on above, no change took place below. She more rarely heard words from above; she was less spoken of. Then suddenly one day a sigh reached her ear: “Ingé! Ingé! how sad you have made me. I have said it would be so!” It was the last sigh of her dying mother. Sometimes she heard her name mentioned by her former master and mistress, and these were pleasant words when the lady said: “Shall I ever, see you again, Ingé? One does not know where one comes to!”

But Ingé was convinced that her kind mistress would never come to the place where she was.

Again a long while passed—a long bitter time. Then Ingé heard her name pronounced once more, and saw two stars sparkling above her. These were two kind eyes which had closed on earth. So many years had passed since the little girl had been inconsolable and had wept over “poor Ingé,” that the child had become an old woman, whom God was calling back again, and in the hour when thoughts of various periods of her life came back to her mind she remembered how she had once as a little child cried bitterly when she heard the story of Ingé. And the old lady had such a lively recollection, in the hour of death, of the impression the story had made upon her that she exclaimed: “My God and Lord, have I not sometimes, like Ingé, trampled Thy blessings under my feet, without thinking it wrong? Have I not walked about with haughtiness? But in Thy mercy Thou hast not let me sink, but supported me. Oh, do not forsake me in my last hour!” The eyes of the old lady closed, and the eyes of her soul opened to see hidden things. She, whose last thoughts Ingé had so much occupied, saw now how deep she had sunk, and at this sight the pious woman burst into tears; in heaven she was standing like a child and crying for poor Ingé! And these tears and prayers resounded like an echo in the hollow outside shell that enclosed the fettered tortured soul; the never-dreamt-of love from above overwhelmed her; an angel of God was shedding tears over her. Why was this granted her?

The tortured soul collected as it were in thought every action she had done on earth, and Ingeé trembled in tears such as she had never wept. Grief at herself filled her, she felt as if the gates of mercy could never be thrown open to her; and while in contrition she recognized this, a beam of light rushed down to her in the precipice with a force much stronger than that of the sunbeam which melts the snowman that boys have put up, and much quicker than the snowflake melts that falls on the warm lips of a child, and becomes a drop of water; the petrified shape of Ingé dissolved into mist—a little bird flew up with the quickness of lightning into the upper world.

But the bird was timid and shy toward all that surrounded it, it was ashamed of itself, ashamed to face the living creatures, and quickly concealed itself in a dark hole in an old weather-beaten wall. There it sat and cowered, trembling all over and unable to utter a single sound: it had no voice. It sat there a long time before it could see all the splendor around it; indeed it was very beautiful! The air was fresh and mild, the moon threw her silvery light over the earth; trees and bushes breathed forth fragrance, and the place where it sat was pleasant; its feathers were pure and fine. How love and brightness pervaded all creation! The bird wanted to burst into song, and to sing forth all that filled its breast, but was unable to do it; it would gladly have sung like the cuckoo and nightingale in spring. But God, who hears the soundless hymn of praise of the worm, also heard the notes of praise which filled its breast, as the psalms of David were heard before they were expressed in word and tune.

For weeks these soundless songs stirred in the bird’s breast; a good deed had to be performed to make them burst forth!

Holy Christmastime approached. A peasant set up a pole near the wall and tied a bunch of oats to it, that the birds of the air might also have a pleasant Christmas and a good feed in this blissful time. When the sun rose on Christmas morn and shone upon the oats, the twittering birds flew in flocks round the pole. Then also a “tweet, tweet” sounded from a hole in the wall—the swelling thought became a sound, the weak “tweet, tweet,” a whole song of joy, the thought of a good deed was called to life, the bird left its hiding-place; in heaven it was known what sort of bird this was!

The winter was hard, the water frozen over, and the birds and the animals in the wood had little food. Our little bird flew over the highroad, and found a grain of corn here and there in the ruts the sledges made, and a few crumbs at the halting-places; it ate but few, but called all the other starving sparrows that they might have some food. It flew into the towns, looked all round, and where a loving hand had strewn bread-crumbs on a window-sill for the birds, it only ate a single crumb, leaving all to the other birds.

In the course of the winter the bird had gathered so many crumbs and given them to other birds, that altogether they equalled the weight of the whole loaf on which Ingé had trodden to keep her shoes clean. And when the last bread-crumb was found and given away, the gray wings of the bird turned white and expanded.

“There flies a sea-swallow over the water,” said the children who saw the white bird; it dived down into the sea and then rose up again into the bright sunshine; it glittered, and it was impossible to see what became of it—they said it flew into the sun.