From the Grimm's fairy tale Cinderella.
From the Grimm's Fairy Tale
Cinderella
Once upon a time, there was a rich man's wife who was seriously ill. Before she died, she called her only daughter to her side and said, "Good
daughter, I will watch over you and bless you from the bottom of the grave when I die." After saying this she closed her eyes and died.
She was buried in the garden, and the little girl, who was a pious and kind girl, went to her mother's grave every day and wept
sobbed. Winter came and the snow covered her mother's grave with a white blanket. In the spring, the sun removed the silver from the grave
and wrapped it in a veil. Winter and spring passed, people moved on, and his father took another wife.
The new wife came to make her home with her two daughters. They were beautiful on the outside, but inside they were very ugly
evil. The time of their arrival was the beginning of the poor little girl's suffering. They said, "What is the use of having such a useless
drum in the hall? Whoever wants to eat bread must earn it himself, and go into the kitchen as a kitchen maid
!" And having said this, he stripped her of her beautiful garments, and gave her an old gray coat, and mocked her mischievously, and drove her into the kitchen
room. She was forced to do grueling work. Every day she rose at dawn to fetch water, build a fire, cook and wash, and had to
suffer the disregard and torment of her sisters. At night, when she was exhausted, she did not even have a bed to sleep on, and had
to sleep in the ashes beside the hearth, which covered her with ashes, and made her dirty and unsightly, and for this reason she
was called Cinderella.
On one occasion, when the father was going to the market, he asked his wife's two daughters what he should bring back for them. The first said:
"I want beautiful clothes." The second called out, "I want pearls and diamonds." And he said to his own daughter, "Child,
what do you want?" Cinderella said, "Dear father, just fold me the first branch that touched your hat on your way home
." When the father returned, he brought back for his first two daughters as many beautiful dresses and pearls and diamonds as they wanted. On the way, as he was going through
a thick undergrowth, a hazel branch touched him and almost swept his hat off, so he
broke it off and took it with him. When he returned home he gave the branch to his daughter, and she took it to her mother's grave
and planted it by it. Three times a day she went to the grave and cried, and each time she cried sadly the tears kept dripping
on the branch and watering it, so that the branch soon grew into a big, beautiful tree. Soon a little bird came to nest in the tree,
and she talked to the bird. Then the bird brought her whatever she wanted.
The king, in order to choose a fiancée for his son, was going to hold a grand banquet for three days, to which a number of young and beautiful girls were invited.
The king was going to choose a fiancée for his son. The prince intends to choose one of these girls to be his bride. Cinderella's two
sisters were also invited. They called her to them and said, "Now come and brush our hair, polish our shoes, and tie our girdles
we are going to the ball that the king is giving." When she had finished dressing them as they asked, she could not help crying
for she herself wanted to go to the ball. She begged her stepmother to let her go, but she said, "Och! Gray
Girl, you want to go too? What are you going to wear! You don't even have a gown, and you don't even know how to dance, so what kind of dance do you want to go to
?" Cinderella kept begging and begging, and to get rid of her, her stepmother finally said, "I'm going to pour this tub full of bowls of beans
into the ash heap, and if you pick them all out in two hours, you can go to the feast." After saying this, she poured the tub of
bowlful of beans into the ashes and sailed away. Cinderella had no choice but to run out the back door into the garden and shout,
"Doves and turtledoves that skim the sky,
Fly here! Fly here!
Happy friends of the finches,
Fly here! Fly on over here quickly!
Come on, gang, and help me out,
Pick out the bowls of beans in the ash!"
First flew the two white pigeons that had come in through the kitchen window, followed by the two turtledoves, and then all the little
birds in the sky twittered and flapped their wings and flew to the ash pile. The little doves lowered their heads and began to pick their way through the pile, one by one
and on and on! The other birds began to pick too, one by one, and on and on! They picked all the good beans
out of the ash and put them on a plate, and finished them in only an hour. She thanked them and the birds flew away through the window
. With excitement, she carried the plate to her stepmother, thinking she could go to the dance feast. But instead she
said, "No, no! You scruffy girl, you don't have a gown, you can't dance, you can't go." Cinderella begged her bitterly again
to let her go. The stepmother said this time, "If you can pick two such plates of bowls of beans out of the ash heap
in an hour, you can go." Full of hope that she would be rid of Cinderella this time, she finished pouring the two dishes of bowl beans into the ash heap
and stirred them for a little while, and then went away in triumph. But the little girl ran out into the garden behind the house again and cried out as she had done before:
"Doves and turtledoves that skim the sky,
Fly here! Fly here!
Happy friends of the finches,
Fly here! Fly on over here quickly!
Come on, gang, and help me out,
Pick out the bowls of beans in the ash!"
First flew the two white pigeons that had come in through the kitchen window, followed by the two turtledoves, and then all the little
birds in the sky twittered and flapped their wings and flew to the ash pile. The little doves lowered their heads and began to pick their way through the pile, one by one
and on and on! The other birds began to pick too, one by one, and on and on! They picked all the good beans
out of the ash and put them on a plate, and this time they finished in only half an hour. After the birds had flown away, Cinderella went to her stepmother with the
platter in her hand, thinking with great excitement that she would be able to go to the ball. But her stepmother said, "Count
it! You're not going to go for nothing. You don't have a gown, you can't dance, and you'll only embarrass us." With that said
the couple set off for the feast with her own two daughters.
Now all the family were gone, and Cinderella was left alone, sitting sadly under the hazel tree, crying:
"Hazel tree! Please help me,
Please shake it,
Shake off the gold and silver gowns for me."
Her friend the bird flew out of the tree and brought her a gown made of gold and silver and a pair of shining silk dancing shoes.
After collecting her dress and putting on her gown, Cinderella arrived at the ballroom after her two sisters. She looked so elegant and beautiful in her luxurious gown that they didn't recognize her. They didn't recognize her, thinking she must be a strange princess, and
didn't think she was Cinderella at all; they thought she was still at home in the ash heap.
The prince saw her and quickly came to her, reaching out his hand to take her and ask her to dance. He never danced with another girl again
and his hand never let go of her. Whenever someone came to ask her to dance, the prince always said, "This lady is dancing with me
." They danced together until late in the evening, when she remembered that she had to go home. The prince wanted to know where this beautiful girl really lived
so he said, "Let me take you home." Cinderella agreed, but when he wasn't looking, she slipped
away and ran for home. With the prince in hot pursuit, she had to jump into the dovecote and slam the door behind her. The prince waited outside
and refused to leave until her father came home, when he went up to him and told him that the girl he had met at the ball, whose name he did not know
had hidden herself in the dovecote. When they broke down the door of the dovecote, it was empty, and he had to go back to the palace
disappointed. When the parents entered the house, Cinderella was already lying on the edge of the ash heap in her scruffy clothes, as if she had always been lying there
and the dim little oil lamp was swinging in a hole in the wall above the chimney-post. In fact, Cinderella had just now come quickly through the dovecote to the hazel
tree and taken off her pretty gowns, put them back in the tree, and let the birds carry them away, while she herself went back into the house and sat down on the ash heap
and put on her gray coat.
The next day, when the ball was about to begin again, her father, her stepmother, and her two sisters went. Cinderella came to the tree and said:
"O Hazel! Please help me,
please shake it,
shake off a whole set of gold and silver gowns for me."
The little bird came, and it brought a more beautiful gown than the one she had worn the day before. When she came to the ballroom
she amazed all the people with her beauty. The prince, who had been waiting for her arrival, immediately went up to her and took her hand and asked her to
dance. Whenever anyone wanted to ask her to dance, he always said, as he had done the day before, "This lady is dancing with me." By
midnight when she was going home to her house, the prince followed her just as he had done the day before, thinking that this would allow him to see which house
she had entered. But she lost him and immediately jumped into the garden behind her father's house. In the garden there was a very beautiful big
pear tree full of ripe pears. Cinderella didn't know where she should hide, so she climbed up the tree. The prince did
not
see her, and he wondered where she had gone, so he had to wait again until her father came back, and then he came up to him and said, "The girl whose name I don't know who I danced withslipped away, and I think she must have jumped up into the pear tree." The father thought darkly, "Could it be the gray
girl?" So he asked someone to go and bring an axe and chopped the tree down to see that there was no one in it at all. When the father and step
mother came to the kitchen to see, Cinderella was lying in the ashes as usual. It turned out that after she had jumped up into the pear tree, she had slipped
down the other side of the tree, taken off her pretty gown and let the bird in the hazel tree take it back, and then put on her own little gray coat.
On the third day, when her father, her stepmother, and her two sisters had gone away, she came into the garden again and said:
"O Hazel Tree! Please help me,
please shake it,
shake off a whole set of gold and silver gowns for me."
Her kind friend brought another set of gowns even more beautiful than the one the next day and a pair of dancing shoes made of pure gold. When she
arrived at the ball, everyone was stunned by her beauty that could not be expressed in words. The prince danced with her alone, and every
when someone else asked her to dance, he always said, "This lady is my partner." When midnight was about to come, and she was going back
to her home, the prince had to send her back again, and said secretly, "I can't let her get away this time." Nevertheless, Cinderella
managed to slip away from him. In her haste to get away, she managed to lose her left golden dancing shoe on the stairs.
The prince picked up the shoe, and the next day he came to his king's father and said, "I will take the girl who happens to be able to wear this golden shoe to be my wife." Cinderella's two sisters were very glad to hear this news, for they both had very beautiful
feet, and they thought there was no doubt that they would fit into that dancing shoe. The elder sister, accompanied by her mother, went first to the house to try on the
dancing shoe, but her big toe would not fit into it, and the shoe was too small for her. So her mother brought her a knife and said,
"It's all right, cut off your big toe! Once you're queen, what do you care about the toe, you won't even need to use your feet to get where you want to go."
"
The oldest daughter heard this and thought it made sense. The eldest daughter heard this and thought it made sense, the silly girl endured the pain and cut off her big toe, and reluctantly
wore it on her foot to the prince's face. When the prince saw that she had put on her shoes, he took her for a bride, rode side by side with her on a horse, and took her
away.
But on their way out to return to the palace, passing the hazel tree in the back garden where Cinderella had planted it, a little
dove resting on a branch sang:
"Go back again! Go back again!
Look at the shoe!
The shoe is too small to be made for her!
Prince! Prince!
Find your bride again,
It is not your bride who sits beside you!"
When the prince heard this, he dismounted from his horse and stared at her feet, and found that blood was coming out of the shoe, and he knew that he had been deceived,
and at once turned his horse, and took the false bride back to her house and said, "This is not the true bride; let the other sister try on the shoe
Son." So the sister tried the shoe on her foot, and the front of her foot went in, but the heel was too big, and she just couldn't get it on. Her
mom told her to chip off the heel and put it on, and then dragged her to the prince. When the prince saw that she had put on her shoes, he helped her on to his horse as a
bride and sat side by side as they departed.
But as they passed the hazel tree, the little dove was still perched on the head of the branch, and it sang:
"Go back again! Go back again!
Look at the shoe!
The shoe is too small to be made for her!
Prince! Prince!
Find your bride again,
It is not your bride who sits beside you!"
The prince looked down and saw that blood was flowing from her dancing shoes, and that even her white stockings were soaked red; and he turned his horse's head, and in the same
manner sent her back to her father, saying, "This is not the true bride; have you any more daughters? "The father replied, "No
more, only a little scruffy daughter called Cinderella by my former wife, who cannot be a bride." However, the prince must
he bring her to try. Cinderella first washed her face and hands, then walked in and curtsied to the prince in a very cultured manner. The prince
The prince held out the dancing shoes to her, and they went on her feet as if they had been made especially for her. He stepped forward to get a good look at her face
and recognized her and immediately said excitedly, "This is my real bride." The stepmother and her two sisters were taken aback
and when the prince helped Cinderella onto the horse, they were so angry that their faces turned white and they watched as the prince took her away. As they
came to the hazel tree, the little white dove sang:
"Go home! Go home!
Look at the shoe!
The Princess! It's a shoe made for you!
Prince! Prince!
Take the bride home now,
The one sitting beside you is the real bride"
After the dove had sung, it flew up and came to rest on Cinderella's right shoulder. Together they walked toward the palace.
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