安徒生童话-THE OLD GRAVE-STONE.doc

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, at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at their old home. A lamp burned on the table, although the weather was mild and warm, and the long curtains hung down before the open windows, and without the moon shone brightly in the dark-blue sky. But they were not talking of the moon, but of a large, old stone that lay below in the courtyard not very far from the kitchen door. The maids often laid the clean copper saucepans and kitchen vessels on this stone, that they might dry in the sun, and the children were fond of playing on it. It was, in fact, an old grave-stone. Yes, said the master of the house, I believe the stone came from the graveyard of the old church of the convent which was pulled down, and the pulpit, the monuments, and the grave-stones sold. My father bought the latter; most of them were cut in two and used for paving-stones, but that one stone was preserved whole, and laid in the courtyard. Any one can see that it is a grave-stone, said the eldest of the children; the representation of an hour-glass and part of the figure of an angel can still be traced, but the inscription beneath is quite worn out, excepting the name Preben, and a large S close by it, and a little farther down the name of Martha can be easily read. But nothing more, and even that cannot be seen unless it has been raining, or when we have washed the stone. Dear me! how singular. Why that must be the grave-stone of Preben Schwane and his wife. The old man who said this looked old enough to be the grandfather of all present in the room. Yes, he continued, these people were among the last who were buried in the churchyard of the old convent. They were a very wor