The Old Street Lamp · page 21 2101The larger pieces were burnt, and the smaller ones the old woman kept for waxing her thread.102So there were now candles enough, but it never occurred to any one to put a little piece in the lamp.103"Here I am now with my rare powers," thought the lamp, "I have faculties within me, but I cannot share them; they do not know that I could cover these white walls with beautiful tapestry, or change them into noble forests, or, indeed, to anything else they might wish for."104The lamp, however, was always kept clean and shining in a corner where it attracted all eyes.105Strangers looked upon it as lumber, but the old people did not care for that; they loved the lamp.106One day--it was the watchman's birthday--the old woman approached the lamp, smiling to herself, and said, "I will have an illumination to-day in honor of my old man."107And the lamp rattled in his metal frame, for he thought, "Now at last I shall have a light within me," but after all no wax light was placed in the lamp, but oil as usual.108The lamp burned through the whole evening, and began to perceive too clearly that the gift of the stars would remain a hidden treasure all his life.109Then he had a dream; for, to one with his faculties, dreaming was no difficulty.110It appeared to him that the old people were dead, and that he had been taken to the iron foundry to be melted down.111It caused him quite as much anxiety as on the day when he had been called upon to appear before the mayor and the council at the town-hall.112But though he had been endowed with the power of falling into decay from rust when he pleased, he did not make use of it.113He was therefore put into the melting-furnace and changed into as elegant an iron candlestick as you could wish to see, one intended to hold a wax taper.114The candlestick was in the form of an angel holding a nosegay, in the centre of which the wax taper was to be placed.115It was to stand on a green writing table, in a very pleasant room; many books were scattered about, and splendid paintings hung on the walls.116The owner of the room was a poet, and a man of intellect; everything he thought or wrote was pictured around him.117Nature showed herself to him sometimes in the dark forests, at others in cheerful meadows where the storks were strutting about, or on the deck of a ship sailing across the foaming sea with the clear, blue sky above, or at night the glittering stars. "118What powers I possess!" said the lamp, awaking from his dream; "I could almost wish to be melted down; but no, that must not be while the old people live.119They love me for myself alone, they keep me bright, and supply me with oil.120I am as well off as the picture of the congress, in which they take so much pleasure."121And from that time he felt at rest in himself, and not more so than such an honorable old lamp really deserved to be.1 2← previousWhat the Old Man Does Is Always Rightnext →Ole-luk-oie, the Dream-god↑ back to Fairy Tales of Hans Christian AndersenThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/133/page/2/