The Little Match Man

and admiration for Fiam that even now I n

the end?"

festival grew very sad. The men became old. The army dwindled away. The musicians lost their voices, and each year the songs were slower and feebler. Prince

pt as they burned incense under my boughs. Funato was dead.

5

t the end of another year, that day in May, only one man came. He looked as if he were a hundred y

low, we shall n

ould I tell what men were doing in the valley? B

ence, "I not only love you, but respect you. Yo

t I have come

how it

down the trees. This work lasted for months. Near me there was another Haji living in a beautiful elm half-way up the mountain. One ev

5

well,

he next morning a man passed near me, looked at me and, with a brush soaked in

g to make those horrible words drop off, but I didn't succeed. Some days later

at did

e second time. You know, I told you that Hajis could

did t

n echo. I don't know what sort of a thing an echo is. Once on a time when we heard a voice

5

y cut yo

day. They took me first into the valley; next I felt

tra

into a great house where there was anoth

awmi

5

d and spit out, turned into thousands and thousands of little sticks, all exactly alike. A real army of sticks

tle boxes, and then they were pil

sto

that if y

t became

ee still remains. So I passed from box to box. As the boxes were packed in la

ne by one. I lived in the last, in this one where you found me. All this time I had before me the picture of the frightful end that awaited me. At [58] first when I re